V. The Wartbiirr/ Exile and the Return (May 5, 1521- 1522). — On Luther's return from Worms the imperial herald accompanied him to the border of Hesse. At this point Luther, with no companion but Amsdorf, turned his face towards jMiJhra, to visit his grandmother. At Altenstein, May 4, in the Thuringian Forest, he was seized by masked horsemen, and was taken for protec- tion by his friend the elector to the Wartburg, the Pat- mos of the opening apocalypse of history (see '' Leo and Luther," by Eugene Lawrence, in Harper's Monthl;/, xxxix, 91-106). Here, in the apparel of a knight, lie was knoAvn as Jungker George. Ills enemies accounted for his sudden disappearance by asserting that he had been carried off by the devil, a theory which, from their ponit of view, does not give to that august person the due generally conceded to his sagacity— if Rome was right, there was no one whom the devil had so much reason to wish to keep on earth as Luther. The leisure enjoyed by Luther at the Wartburg was employed by him in preparing the tirst draught of the translation of the New Testament.
After an exile of ten months he was called back ta Wittenberg, March 6, 1522, by the disorders which had broken out. The Augustinian monks had abrogated the mass; in the transactions which took place between them, the university, and the elector, Carlstadt had in- termeddled. Carlstadt had gone on at once to introduce what, in his judgment, were manifest consequences of Luther's principles. The communion was administered in both kinds, with the exclusion of the sacrificial ele- ments and of the mass, and without confession. A great number of the usual ceremonies also were set aside, and the marriage of the priests, and of others under eccle- siastical vows, was introduced. The radical violence of the whole tendency and of its modes gave evidence that Carlstadt was availing himself of Luther's absence to attempt what he would not have dared to do when Luther was present. The passionate violence of Carl- stadt was fanned by the Zwickau Prophets, who at this time made their appearance at Wittenberg. The wild storm of iconoclasm was met by Luther with discussion for the scholar, with sermons for the people. The per- sonal character and force of Luther, the solid truth of his position, and his irresistible popular eloquence gained a complete victory over Carlstadt (q. v.). The two men were in heart sundered from this hour, though they did not come into open controversy until 1525. Previous to the struggle with Carlstadt the life of Lu- ther in every element and trait had made an ineffacea- ble impression of grandeur on the hearts of the whole German nation. Every independent heart, and all the nobler Roman Catholics, acknowledged him in the high- est sense a man of the peo]ile, and, in a sense not less high, a man of God. He had "opened the sanctuary of a pure faith, and in heroic struggle had kept it open" (Dorner, Hist, of Prot. TheoL, trans, bv Robson and So- phia Taylor [Edinb. 1871], i, 97, 98). At this time took place his change from nionasticism and asceticism to evangelical life: the former in 1524, when he dropped the monastic dress; the latter in 1525, when he n : rried. Here also belong the jtart he took in 1529 at the colloquy in Marburg (q. v.), where an effort was made to harmo- nize the peculiar views of Luther and Zwingli on the Lord's Supper ; and his work for the Augsburg Confes- sion (q. v.).
VI. Last Efforts at Conciliation with Borne. — All the later efforts to bridge over the gulf between himself and the papacy Luther regarded as too weak, in their verj-- conception, to justify any great solicitude either of hope or of despair on his part. At Coburg, in 1530, he warn- ed the sanguine among his own adherents of the hope- lessness of the effort to compromise with the pope with- out the sacrifice of the truth. The colloquy in Witten- berg, Nov. 1535, with Vergerius, the papal nuncio sent by Paul III, Luther considered a farce. The embassy filed into Wittenberg " with twenty-one horses and one ass.'' Luther confided to his barber the chief prepara- tion he felt it necessary to make for meeting the nuncio of the holy father, and, with a full sense of the humor of the position, put on the best clothes and the largest jew- els he could command, and in the splendor of an open carriage, which would now be considered a cart, rode forth '■ pope of Germany, with cardinal Bugenliagen" at his side. The legate was treated with courtesy, but not with reverence. Luther declared himself willing to ap- pear before a general council whenever it might be summoned, though he should know that it would end in his being burned. Vergerius : " The pope would not be unwilling to meet you here in Wittenberg." Lu- ther: "Let him come; we shall be glad to see him." Vergerius : " Would you prefer his coming with an arm}', or without oneV" Luther: "Just as he pleases; we are ready for him cither way." When the legate had mounted, he said to Luther, " See to it that you are ready for the comicil." Luther repHed, " I shall come, sir, if it costs me my head." His opinion of the pro- posed council was expressed in his work Of Councils and Churches (1539), and by his advice the evangelica]