§ 25. LUTHER IN ROME. 129
unquestioning faith in the legendary traditions about the relics and miracles of martyrs.' He wished that his parents were dead that he might help them out of purgatory by reading mass in the most holy place, according to the saying: “ Blessed is the mother whose son celebrates mass on Saturday in St. John of the Lateran.” He ascended on bended knees the twenty-eight steps of the famous Scala Santa (said to have been transported from the Judgment Hall of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem), that he might secure the indulgence attached to this ascetic performance since the days of Pope Leo LV. in 850, but at every step the word of the Scripture sounded as a significant protest in his ear: “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1: 17).?
Thus at the very height of his medieval devotion he doubted its efficacy in giving peace to the troubled conscience. This doubt was strengthened by what he saw around him. He was favorably struck, indeed, with the business administration and police regulations of the papal court, but shocked by the unbelief, levity and immorality of the clergy. Money and luxurious living seemed to have replaced apostolic poverty and self-denial. He saw nothing but worldly splendor at the court of Pope Julius 11., who had just returned from the sanguinary siege of a town conducted by him in person. He afterward thundered against him as a man of blood. He heard of the fearful crimes of Pope Alexander VI. and his family, which were hardly known and believed in Germany, but freely spoken of as undoubted facts in the fresh remembrance of all Romans. While he was reading one mass, ἃ Roman priest would finish seven. He was urged to hurry up (passa, passa !), and to “send her Son home to our Lady.” He heard priests, when consecrating the elements, repeat in Latin the words: “ Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt
1“ Auch ich war ein so toller Heiliger,’ he said, “lief durch alle Kirchen und Kluften, glaubdte alles, was daselbst erlogen und erstunken ist.”
_?This interesting incident rests on the authority of his son Paul, who heard it from the lips of his father in 1544. Modern Popes, Pius VII. and Pius ΙΧ. » have granted additional indulgences to those who climb up the Scala Santa.
130 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
remain ; wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.” The term “a good Christian” (buon Christiano) meant “a fool.” He was told that “1 there was a hell, Rome was built on it,” and that this state of things must soon end in a collapse.
He received the impression that “‘ Rome, once the holiest city, was now the worst.” He compared it to Jerusalem as described by the prophets." All these sad experiences did not shake his faith in the Roman church and hierarchy, so unworthily represented, as the Jewish hierarchy was at the time of Christ; but they returned to his mind afterward with double force and gave ease and comfort to his conscience when he attacked and abused popery as “an institution of the devil.” ?
Hence he often declared that he would not have missed “seeing Rome for a hundred thousand florins; for I might have felt some apprehension that I had done injustice to the Pope; but as we see, so we speak.”
Six years after his visit the building of St. Peter’s Dome by means of the proceeds from papal indulgences furnished the occasion for the outbreak of that war which ended with an irrevocable separation from Rome.
In the Pitti Gallery of Florence there is a famous picture of Giorgione which represents an unknown monk with strongly Teutonic features and brilliant eyes, seated between two Italians, playing on a small organ and looking dreamily to one side. This central figure has recently been identified by some connoisseurs as a portrait of Luther taken at Florence a few months before the death of Giorgione in 1511. The identity is open to doubt, but the resemblance is striking.’
1“ Bs gehet uns wie den Propheten, die klagen auch iiber Jerusalem, und sagen: Die feine glaubige Stadt is zur Hure geworden. Denn aus dem Besten kommt allezeit das Aergste, wie die Exempel zeigen zu allen Zeiten.” Walch, XXII., 2378.
2 This was the topic of one of his last and most abusive works: “ Wider das Papstthum zu Rom vom Teufel gestiftet.” March, 1545.
8 Comp. “ Revista Christiana,” Firenze, 1883, p. 422. The picture on the opposite page is from a photograph made in Florence.