210 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
In Art. 25, Luther urges a sound reformation of the universities, which had pevenip ‘*‘ schools of Greek fashion ” and “heathenish manners” (2 Mace. 4:12, 18), and are “full
of dissolute living.” He is unjustly severe upon Aristotle, whom he calls a “ dead, blind, accursed, proud, knavish heathen teacher.” His logic, rhetoric, and poetic might be , retained; but his physics, metaphysics, ethics, and the book “Of the Soul” (which teaches that the soul dies with the body) ought to be banished, and the study of the languages, mathematics, history, and especially of the Holy Scriptures, cultivated instead. “Nothing is more devilishly mischievous,” he says, “than an unreformed university.” He would also have the canon law banished, of which there is * nothing good but the name,” and which is no better than “waste paper.” | |
He does not spare national vices. He justly rebukes the extravagance in dress, the usury, and especially the intemperance in eating and drinking, for which, he says, “ we Germans have an ill reputation in foreign countries, as our special vice, and which has become so common, and gained so much the upper hand, that sermons avail nothing.” (His frequent protest against the “ Saufteufel” of the Germans, as he calls their love of drink, is still unheeded. In temperance the Southern nations of Europe are far ahead of those of the North.)
In conclusion, he expresses the expectation that he will be condemned upon earth. “My greatest care and fear is, lest my cause be not condemned by men; by which I should know for certain that it does not please God. Therefore let them freely go to work, Pope, bishop, priest, monk, or doctor: they are the true people to persecute the truth, as they have always done. May God grant us all a Christian understanding, and especially to the Christian nobility of the German nation true spiritual courage, to do what is best for our unhappy Church. Amen.”
The book was a firebrand thrown into the headquarters of
ὃ 44, ADDRESS TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY. 21]
the papal church. It anticipated a reply to the papal bull, and prepared the public mind for it. It went right to the heart of the Germans, in their own language wielded with a force as never before, and gave increased weight to the hundred grievances of long standing against Rome. But it alarmed some of his best friends. They condemned or
regretted his biting severity.! Staupitz tried at the eleventh |
hour to prevent the publication, and soon afterwards (Aug. 23, 1520) resigned his position as general vicar of the Augustinians, and retired to Salzburg, feeling himself unequal to the conflict. John Lange called the book a “blast for assault, atrocious and ferocious.” Some feared that it might
ot
lead to a religious war. Melanchthon could not approve the~
violence, but dared not to check the spirit of the new Elijah”
Luther defended himself by referring to the example of Paul and the prophets: it was necessary to be severe in order to get a hearing; he felt sure that he was not moved by desire for glory or money or pleasure, and disclaimed the intention of stirring up sedition and war; he only wished to clear the way for a free general council; he was perhaps the forerunner of Master Philippus in fighting Ahab and the prophets of Baal after the example of Elijah (1 Kings 18).?
NOTES.
The following extracts give a fair idea of Luther’s polemic against the Pope in this remarkable book: —
** The custom of kissing the Pope’s feet must cease. It is an un-Christian, or rather an anti-Christian example, that a poor sinful man should suffer his feet to be kissed by one who is a hundred times better than he. If it is done in honor of his power, why does he not do it to others in honor of their holiness? Compare them together: Christ and the Pope. Christ washed his disciples’ feet, and dried them, and the disciples never washed his. The Pope, pretending to be higher than Christ, inverts this, and considers it a great favor to let us kiss his feet: whereas if any one wished to
1 “Omnes ferme [fere] in me damnant mordacitatem,” he says in letter to Link, Aug. 19, 1520.
2 See his letters to John Lange (Aug. 18, 1520) and to Wenceslaus Link (Aug. 19) in De Wette, I. 477-479.