History of the Catholic Church, vol 1 by J. MacCaffrey (color ebook reader .TXT) 📖

of district vicar (1515), while the Elector Frederick could not conceal his delight at having secured the services of so capable a professor for the new university.

 

At Wittenberg Luther felt himself completely at home. He was proud of the distinctions conferred upon him by his brethren, and of the influence accorded to him by his companions in the university. Great as were his industry and his powers of application, yet they were put to the most severe tests to enable him to complete the programme he had set himself to accomplish. His lectures at the university, his sermons preached in the Augustinian church, his visitations of the houses of his order in the district over which he was vicar, his correspondence, partly routine and partly entailed by his close relations with some of the leading men in Germany, occupied all his time even to the exclusion of the spiritual exercises enjoined by his rule. Very frequently he neglected to celebrate Mass or even to read the divine office, and then alarmed by his negligence and guilt he had recourse to extraordinary forms of penance. Fits of laxity were followed by fits of scrupulousness until at last he was driven at times almost to despair. It was then that he called to mind the consoling advice given to him by his superior that he should put his trust in the merits of Christ, and the teaching of St. Augustine on the frailty of human nature unless it was aided and supported by divine Grace. He began to develop the idea that justification could not be acquired by good works, that concupiscence could not be overcome, and that consequently man could be justified only by the imputation of the merits of Christ. Years before, views such as these had been passing through his mind, as may be seen in his sermons against the Augustinians of the strict observance, but they found adequate expression only in his commentaries on the Epistles of St.

Paul to the Romans and to the Galatians (1515-6). Still, as yet, he held strongly to the principle of authority in matters of religion, and inveighed against heretics who would dare to set aside the authority of the Pope in order to follow their own judgment. In reality, however, his own teaching on merit and justification was no longer in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and only a slight occasion was required to bring him into open and definite conflict with the authorities of the Church.

 

This occasion was provided by the preaching in Germany of an Indulgence proclaimed by Leo X. (1513-21). The building of St. Peter’s had been begun by Julius II. and was continued by his successor Leo X., the son of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the great patron of the Humanist movement. In order to provide funds to enable him to continue this gigantic undertaking Leo X. proclaimed an Indulgence. In addition to Confession and Holy Communion it was ordered that those of the faithful who wished to share in the spiritual favours granted by the Pope should contribute according to their means for the completion of St. Peter’s, or that they should pray for the success of the work in case poverty did not permit them to give alms. The publication of the Indulgence in a great part of Germany was entrusted to Albrecht of Brandenberg, who had been elected Archbishop of Mainz though he was already Archbishop of Magdeburg and Administrator of Halberstadt. The fees to be paid by an archbishop appointed to Mainz were exceptionally high not to speak of the large sum required for the extraordinary favour of being allowed to hold two archbishoprics. As a means of enabling Albrecht to raise the required amount, it was proposed by an official of the Datary that he should be allowed to retain half of the contributions given on the occasion of the publication of the Indulgence in the provinces of Mainz and Magdeburg, and in the lands of the House of Brandenburg.

 

To publish the Indulgence in the above-mentioned territories Albrecht appointed the Dominican John Tetzel,[8] who had acquired already considerable renown as a preacher. Tetzel was a man of solid education and of good moral standing, whose reputation as a successful popular preacher stood high in Germany at this period. Many grave abuses have been alleged against him by his enemies concerning his manner of carrying out the office entrusted to him by the archbishop, and in regard to his own private life serious crimes have been laid to his charge; but as a matter of history it is now admitted that Tetzel was a much maligned man, that his own conduct can bear the fullest scrutiny, and that in his preaching the worst that can be said against him is that he put forward as certainties, especially in regard to gaining indulgences for the souls of the faithful departed, what were merely the opinions of certain schools of theologians. Nor is it true to say that as the result of his activity vast sums of money made their way into the papal treasury. The accounts of the monies received during the greater portion of the time are now available, and it can be seen that when all expenses were paid comparatively little remained for either the Archbishop of Mainz or the building fund of St.

Peter’s.[9]

 

Tetzel preached with considerable success in Halberstadt, Magdeburg and Leipzig, and in May 1517 he found himself in the neighbourhood of Wittenberg, whence many people flocked to see him, and to gain the Indulgence. This was not calculated to please Luther or his patron the Elector, Frederick of Saxony, and provided Luther with an occasion of giving vent to his own views on good works, Grace, and Justification.

Years before, both in his sermons attacking the Augustinians of the strict observance for their over confidence in the merits of good works and penance, and in his commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans and to the Galatians, he had indicated already that his views on man’s power to do anything good, and on the means and nature of justification differed widely from those put forward by Catholic theologians. At last, after careful consideration, following the bent of his own inclination and the advice of his friends, he determined to take the field openly by publishing, on the eve of the festival of All Saints, 1517, his celebrated seventy theses against Indulgences.[10]

This document was drawn up with great skill and foresight. Some of the theses were perfectly orthodox and professed great reverence for the teaching of the Church and the authority of the Pope; others of them were open to an orthodox as well as to an unorthodox interpretation; others, still, were opposed clearly and definitely to Catholic doctrine, and all of them were put forward in a way that was likely to arrest public attention and to win the support of the masses.[11] They were affixed to the doors of the university church in Wittenberg, and copies of them were spread broadcast through Germany. Before a week had elapsed they were discussed with eagerness in all parts of the country, and the state of feeling became so intense that Tetzel was obliged to discontinue his mission, and to retire to Frankfurt, where under the direction of Wimpina, he set himself to draw up a number of counter theses which he offered to defend.

 

The circumstances of the time were very favourable to a campaign such as Luther had initiated. The princes of Germany and even some of the bishops made no secret of their opinion that indulgences had been abused, and many of them were anything but displeased at the step that had been taken by the Wittenberg professor. The old opposition between the Teuton and the Latin was growing daily more marked owing to the violent and abusive language of men like Ulrich von Hutten, who posed as German patriots; while the Humanist party, roused by the attacks made upon Reuchlin by the Dominicans of Cologne, backed by the Scholastic Theologians, were not sorry to see their opponents challenged in their own special department, and obliged to act on the defensive. The knights or lower nobles, too, who had been deprived of many of their privileges by the princes, were ready for any scheme of violence in the hope that it might conduce to their advantage; and the lower classes ground down for centuries were beginning to realise their own strength, partly owing to the spread of secret societies, and were willing to lend a ready ear to a leader who had given expression to views that were coursing already through their minds.

 

From all parts of Germany letters of congratulation poured in upon Luther. Many of these came from men who had no desire for a religious change, but who thought that Luther’s campaign was directed only against abuses in the Church. From the Humanists, from several of the professors and students of Wittenberg, and even from the superiors of his order he received unstinted praise and encouragement. At least one of the bishops, Lorenz von Bibra of Wurzburg, hastened to intercede for him with Frederick the Elector of Saxony, while none of the others took up an attitude of unflinching opposition. Tetzel, who had been forced to abandon his work of preaching, defended publicly at Frankfurt on the Maine a number of counter theses formulated by Conrad Wimpina. To this attack Luther replied in a sermon on indulgences in which he aimed at expressing in a popular style the kernel of the doctrine contained in his theses. Sylvester Prierias, the master of the Sacred Palace in Rome, to whom Luther’s theses had been forwarded for examination, published a sharp attack upon them,[12] and was answered in Luther’s most abusive style. The most distinguished, however, of the men who took the field against him was John Eck,[13]

Professor of Theology and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt. He was a man well versed in the Scriptures and in the writings of the Fathers, a ready speaker and an incisive writer, in every way qualified to meet such a versatile opponent. While on a visit with the Bishop of Eichstatt he was consulted about Luther’s theses, and gave his opinion in the Obelisks on the dangerous character of the teaching they contained. The Obelisks was prepared hastily and was not intended for publication, but it was regarded as so important that copies of it were circulated freely even before it was given to the world. Luther replied in the Asterisks, a work full of personal invective and abuse. A Dominican of Cologne, Hochstraten, also entered the lists against Luther, but his intervention did more harm than good to the cause of the Church by alienating the Humanist party whom he assailed fiercely as allies and abettors of Luther.

These attacks, however, served only to give notoriety to Luther’s views and to win for him the sympathy of his friends. His opponents made one great mistake. Their works were intended in great part only for the learned, while Luther aimed principally at appealing to the masses of the people. The Augustinians represented him as the victim of a Dominican conspiracy, and to show their high appreciation of his services they selected him to conduct the theological disputation at a chapter meeting held at Leipzig six months after the publication of his theses (1518). At this same meeting Luther defended the view that free will in man and all power of doing good were destroyed by original sin, and that everything meritorious accomplished by man is really done by God. His old opponent at the university, Bodenstein (surnamed Carlstadt from his place of birth), declared himself openly in favour of Luther’s teaching on free will, and published a reply to Eck.

 

As a result of this controversy between Eck and Carlstadt it