§ δά. LUTHER’S JOURNEY TO WORMS. 297
Luther’s sermon stirred the people on the shores of the Gera.}
During the sermon a crash in the balconies of the crowded church scared the hearers, who rushed to the door; but Luther allayed the panic by raising his hand, and assuring them that it was only a wicked sport of the Devil.?
In Gotha and Eisenach he preached likewise to crowded houses. At Eisenach he fell sick, and was bled; but a cordial and good sleep restored him sufficiently to proceed on the next day. He ascribed the sickness to the Devil, the recovery to God. In the inns, he used to take up his lute, and to refresh himself with music.
He arrived at Frankfurt, completely exhausted, on Sunday, April 14. On Monday he visited the high school of William Nesse, blessed the children and exhorted them “to be diligent in reading the Scriptures and investigating the truth.” He also became acquainted with a noble patrician family, von Holzhausen, who took an active part in the subsequent introduction of the Reformation in that city.
As he proceeded, the danger increased, and with it his courage. Before he left Wittenberg, the Emperor had issued
1 A full description of the reception at Erfurt, with extracts from the speech of Crotus and the poems of Eoban, is given by Professor Kampschulte (a liberal Catholic historian), in his valuable monograph, Die Universitat Erfurt, vol. II. 95-100. ‘‘It seems,’’ he says, ‘‘that the nation at this moment wished to make every effort to assure Luther of his vocation. The glorifications which he received from the 2d to the 16th of April no doubt contributed much to fill him with that self-confidence which he manifested in the decisive hour. Nowhere was he received more splendidly than at Erfurt.’’
2 “ Seid still,’’ he said, “‘ liebes Volk, es ist der Teufel, der richtet so eine Spiegelfechterei an; seid still, es hat keine Noth.’? Some of his indiscreet admirers called this victory over the imaginary Devil the first miracle of Luther. The second miracle, they thought, he performed at Gotha, where the Devil played a similar trick in the church, and met with the same defeat.
8 His brief sojourn at Frankfurt, and his contact with the Holzhausen family, is made the subject of an interesting historical novel: Haman von Holzhausen. Eine Frankfurter Patriziergeschichte nach Familienpapieren erzahit von M. K. [Maria Krummacher]. Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1885. See especially chap, XX., pp. 253, sqq.
298 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1530.
an edict ordering all his books to be seized, and forbidding their sale.1 The herald informed him of it already at Weimar, and asked him, “ Herr Doctor, will ye proceed?” He replied, “ Yes.” The edict was placarded in all the cities. Spalatin, who knew the critical situation, warned him by special messenger, in the name of the Elector his patron, not to come to Worms, lest he might suffer the fate of Hus.?
Luther comforted his timid friends with the words: Though Hus was burned, the truth was not burned, and Christ still lives. He wrote to Spalatin from Frankfurt, that he had been unwell ever since he left Eisenach, and had heard of the Emperor’s edict, but that he would go to Worms in spite of all the gates of hell and the evil spirits in the air. The day after, he sent him from Oppenheim (between Mainz and Worms) the famous words :— j
“T shall go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as tiles on the roofs.” 4
A few days before his death at Eisleben, he thus described
1 The edict is dated March 10. See Burkhardt, Luther’s Briefwechsel (1866), p. 38, who refers to Spalatin’s MS. Seidemann dates the letter from March 2. Ranke, in the sixth ed. (1881), I. 333, says that it was published March 27, on the doors of the churches at Worms. Luther speaks of it in his Hisleben report, and says that the edict was a device of the Archbishop of Mainz to keep him away from Worms, and tempt him to despise the order of the Emperor. Works, Erl. Frankf. ed., LXIV. 367.
2 Notwithstanding this danger, Janssen thinks (II. 158) that it required no ‘‘ special courage’’ for Luther to go to Worms.
8 April 14 (De Wette, I. 587): “‘ Christus vivit, et intrabimus Wormatiam invitis omnibus portis inferni et potentatibus weris’’ (Eph. 2:2).
4 Spalatin reports the saying thus: “‘ Dass er mir Spalatino aus Oppenheim gen Worms schrieb: ‘ Er wollte gen Worms wenn gleich so viel Teufel darinnen waren als immer Ziegel da wdren’’’ (Walch, XV. 2174). A year afterwards, in a letter to the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522 (De Wette, 11. 139), Luther gives the phrase with this modification: ‘‘ Hr [the Devil] sah mein Herz wohl, da ich zu Worms einkam, dass, wenn ich hatte gewusst, dass so viel Teufel auf mich gehalten hdtten, als Ziegel auf den Ddachern sind, ware ich dennoch mitten unter sie gesprungen mit Freuden.”? In the verbal report he gave to his friends at EHisleben in 1546 (Erl. Frankf. ed., vol. LXIV. p. 368): ‘‘Ich entbot ihm [Spalatin] wieder: ‘ Wenn so viel Teufel zu Worms wéren als Ziegel auf den Diachern, noch [doch] wollt ich hinein.’”’