THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY HISTORICAL THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARTIN LUTHER by W. Carlos Martyn Books For The Ages AGES Software • Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1997 2 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARTIN LUTHER. BY W. CARLOS MARTYN, AUTHOR OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN MILTON. 3 PREFACE. The object in the compilation of these pages has been twofold. An effort has been made to combine in some sort a biography of Luther, and a history concise yet clear of that remarkable Reformation which took its rise, under God, through his instrumentality; so that the most unlettered reader might get from this volume at once an accurate personal view of Luther, and a clear idea of the grounds upon which the Reformation was based, together with its salient characteristics and its most famous historical personages. The biography of Luther is in truth a history of his age, so wide-spread were his connections, so universal was his influence. Yet, singularly enough, most of his biographers have traced his life chiefly and intentionally from a personal stand-point. These works are therefore fragmentary, as witness the lives by Michelet and Meurer. In turning to ecclesiastical history, it is found that minute personal biography is not within its sphere. Those interesting incidents, those lifelike personal trifles which are the key to character, and which constitute the essence of biography, are necessarily slighted. The careful and judicious muse of history shows us her chosen children only on gala days, when dressed in the garb of great and exceptional occasions. How does this hero demean himself at his own hearthstone? How does he conduct himself in the ordinary walks of life? To these questions she will not stoop to reply. Thus it happens that the most; graphic historians of the Reformation necessarily merge Luther’s grand individuality in the absorbing sea of general events. In this volume careful attention has been paid to what has been termed distinctively the personal side of Luther’s character, and also to the historical side: he is here presented as the reformer, and as the man. In the execution of this plan, liberal use has been made of all the available material: whatever tended to improve and animate the book has been freely, yet it is hoped discriminatingly levied upon; the aim being not the utmost possible originality, but the utmost possible completeness and interest. 4 The story of Luther’s life, owing to the abundance of material out of which the narrative may be constructed, is mainly a labor of editorial research. The loving pens of his contemporaneous disciples gathered up with reverent care every thing that he said and did, the minutest trifles of his daily life; and succeeding generations have embodied these in a thousand pages of heterogeneous biography. By a judicious arrangement of these records, Luther may be made to relate Luther. Wherever use could be made of his own picturesque narrations of important phases of his career, these have been selected, and care has been exercised not to interrupt the authoritative grandeur of his speech. Usually where the Roman and the Protestant authorities are in essential agreement, the Roman writers have had the preference in the marginal citations, for obvious reasons; and no statement of fact which has ever been questioned, has been unreservedly made in this volume, without a price close scrutiny in the light of impartial history. Not an ideal Luther, but Luther as he was, frank, homely, resolute, vehement, statesmanlike, grand, yet marred by faults, human in his errors, is the Luther of this book. The life he dared to live, surely we should not fear to depict. The first portion of Luther’s life abounds in striking historic pictures, and is replete with singular fascination. It marches on from his entrance into the Erfurth cloister, through the stormy phases of the initiatory days of the Reformation, up to the confession of faith at Augsburg, with the grandeur of an epic poem. His latter years are necessarily more prosaic. Standing on the table-land of the Reformation, he was largely employed in the discussion of mooted points of the new faith, and in settling the discipline of the reformed church — an important work no doubt, but not of general interest; nor is it necessary to follow him minutely into the field of polemics. This portion of Luther’s life has therefore been somewhat abridged, while care has been taken to exclude from the volume every thing of a questionable or denominational character. Like Milton, Martin Luther belongs to Christendom at large, nor can any single sect or country be permitted to appropriate him. 5 The amount of labor necessitated by this work has been great. The authorities, English, German, and French, consulted, compared, and cited, have been unusually numerous and diverse. Attention is called to the marginal portion of the book; at the same time it is hoped that any inaccuracies which may inadvertently have crept into it, may be pardoned in view of the extent of ground covered, and the labor undergone. This has been a labor of love. A profound respect for the life and influence of Martin Luther, certainly one of the most extraordinary men known to history, and a firm belief that no one since apostolic days has been entitled to greater and more general reverence — these are the feelings which have dictated the compilation of this biography; and it is now given to the public in the earnest hope that it may serve to broaden the posthumous fame of its illustrious subject, and to interest hearts now untouched in the grand cause for which he labored, for which he suffered, and for which he was content, if need were, to die. Luther was the restorer of liberty to the ages which followed his era. He signed his name to the great revolution which legalized the right of free examination. “To him,” says Michelet, “it is in great measure owing, that we of the present day exercise in its plenitude the sovereignty of individual reason, that first great right of the human understanding to which all others are annexed, without which all others are naught. We cannot think, speak, write, read for a single moment without gratefully recalling to mind this enormous benefit of intellectual enfranchisement. The very lines I here trace, to whom do I owe it that I am able to send them forth, if not to the liberator of modern thought?” New York, 1866. 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1 The nature of Christianity — The Roman domination — A general view of the Reformation — Luther’s birth — His ancestry — His father — His mother — Their poverty — Their severity — Luther’s precocity — Is sent to school — Early studies — His departure for the Franciscan academy at Magdeburg — Leaves Magdeburg for the free-school of Eisenach — Supports himself by singing in the streets — The Cotta family — Luther’s pleasant residence with them — His rapid progress in his studies — His love for the arts — Music — His tutor Trebonius — He is sent in his eighteenth year to the university at Erfurth CHAPTER 2 Luther at Erfurth — Course of study — Faculty of the University — Devotes himself to the study of the civil law — His dislike of the profession of the law — Preference for the belles-lettres — Youthful compositions — His lyrical taste and talent — Love for the amusements of German student life — Luther in the Erfurth library — Discovery of the Latin Bible — His speedy preference for it above all other books — The story of Hannah and Samuel — His sickness — The old priest — The assassination of one of his college friends — Painful queries — Luther in the thunder-storm — His vow — Determines to enter the cloister — Last evening of his layman life — Enters the Augustine monastery at Erfurth in July, 1505 CHAPTER 3 European ecclesiasticism at the commencement of the sixteenth century — The Roman see — Its origin — Usurpations — Gradually assumes both spiritual and temporal sovereignty — Consequent abuses and corruptions — Scandalous condition of the church at the period of Luther’s entrance into the cloister — The Paganism of Christianity — Testimony of Myconius — The rural 7 districts — Licentiousness of the priesthood — Italy — The infamous dynasty of pontiffs — Alexander Borgia — Pins III. — Julius II. — The college of Cardinals — State of learning — Contempt entertained for sacred literature — Greek and Hebrew placed under the ban — A savant’s opinion of the New Testament — The boasted unity of the Roman faith — Remarks CHAPTER 4 Luther’s first morning in the monastery — Acquaints his father with his assumption of the monkish gown — Letter to his Erfurth friends — His rigid seclusion — Hubbub in the University — The cloister besieged by Luther’s student friends — Refuses to see them — His father’s disappointment and anger — Luther’s motives in becoming a monk — His ignorance of the papal corruptions — His life in the cloister — Gala days — Peculiar hardships and trials of his novitiate — Monastic drudgery — His rescue from it — Dr. Staupitz, vicar-general of the Augustine order — Sketch of his career — Staupitz’s admiration for Luther — His advice to the young recluse — John Luther’s final consent to his son’s adoption of an ecclesiastical career — Luther’s ordination as a priest, in 1507 — The ceremony — Incidents — Luther’s religious state — His depressing perplexities and temptations — Staupitz’s wise counsels — Luther awakes to a knowledge of his sinfulness — His mental struggles — Gives himself up to the full rigors of asceticism — Insufficiency of the Roman formulas prescribed for penitents to yield him relief