History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution: Volume 1 — The Religious Revolution, Part 3

It would be wrong to assume that Luther developed his theological system in its entirety before his separation from the Church.

On the question of Justification and Free-will he had arrived at views distinctly opposed to Catholic doctrine, but his system as such took shape only gradually in response to the attacks of his opponents or the demands of his friends.

On the one hand, imbued with the ideas of German Pantheistic mysticism, Luther started with the fixed principle that man's action is controlled by necessary laws, and that even after justification man is completely devoid of free will at least in religious matters.

According to him, human nature became so essentially maimed and corrupted by the sin of Adam that every work which man can do is and must be sinful, because it proceeds in some way from concupiscence.

Hence it is, he asserted, that good works are useless in acquiring justification, which can be obtained only by faith; and by faith he understood not the mere intellectual assent to revealed doctrines, but a practical confidence, resulting, no doubt, from this assent, that the merits of Christ will be applied to the soul.

Through this faith the sinner seizes upon the righteousness of Christ, and by applying to himself the justice of his Saviour his sins are covered up.

For this reason Luther explained that justification did not mean the actual forgiveness of sin by the infusion of some internal habit called sanctifying grace, but only the non-imputation of the guilt on account of the merits of Christ.

Since faith alone is necessary for justification it followed as a logical consequence that there was no place in Luther's system for the Sacraments, though in deference to old traditions he retained three Sacraments, Baptism, Penance, and the Eucharist.

These, however, as he took care to explain, do not produce grace in the soul.

They are mere outward pledges that the receiver has the faith without which he cannot be justified.

Having in this way rejected the sacramental system and the sacrificial character of the Mass, it was only natural that he should disregard the priesthood, and proclaim that all believers were priests.

In harmony with his theory on justification, and its dependence on faith, he denounced Purgatory, Prayers for the Dead, Indulgences, and Invocation of the Saints as being in themselves derogatory to the merits of Christ.

On the other hand, he laid it down as the leading principle that the Bible was the sole rule of faith, and that individual judgment was its only interpreter.

Consequently he rejected the idea of a visible authority set up by Christ as an infallible guide in religious affairs.

In this way he sought to undermine the authority of the Church, to depreciate the value of the decrees of the Popes and General Councils, and to re-assure his less daring followers by stripping ecclesiastical censures of more than half their terrors.

[22] The results of Luther's literary activity were soon apparent at Wittenberg and other centres in Germany.

The Augustinians in Luther's own convent set aside their vows as worthless, and rejected the Mass.

Carlstadt made common cause with the most radical element in the city, celebrated Mass on Christmas morning in the German language (1521), and administered Holy Communion to every one who came forward to receive, without any inquiry about their spiritual condition.

Putting himself at the head of a body of students and roughs he went round the churches destroying the pictures, statues, confessionals, and altars.

To increase the confusion a party of men at Zwickau led by a shoemaker, Nicholas Storch, and a preacher, Thomas Munzer, following the principle of private judgment advocated by Luther, insisted on faith as a condition for baptism and rejected infant baptism as worthless.

They were called Anabaptists.

They claimed to be special messengers from God, gifted with the power of working miracles, and favoured with visions from on high.

In vain did Luther attack them as heretics, and exhort his lieutenants to suppress them as being more dangerous than the Papists.

Carlstadt, unable to answer their arguments from Scripture, went over to their side, and even Melanchthon felt so shaken in his opposition that he appealed to Wartburg for guidance.

The students at the university became so restless and turbulent that Duke George of Saxony began to take the prompt and decisive action necessary for dealing with such a dangerous situation.

Luther, alarmed for the future of his work, abandoned his retreat at Wartburg (March 1522) and returned to Wittenberg, where he had recourse to stern measures to put an end to the confusion.

He drove Carlstadt from the city, and even followed him to other places where he tried to find refuge, till at last, after a very disedifying scene between them in a public tavern, he forced him to flee from Saxony.

Carlstadt's greatest offence in the eyes of his master was his preaching against the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, though Luther himself admitted that he should have liked to deny the Real Presence if only to annoy the Pope, were it not that the words of Scripture proved too strong.

Carlstadt adopted a different interpretation, but Luther was not the man to tolerate individual judgment in the case of one of his own lieutenants.

Carlstadt was denounced as a heretic and a blasphemer, for whom no punishment could be sufficiently severe.

Munzer, too, was banished, and with the assistance of the Elector, Luther was enabled to overcome all his opponents.

Luther owed his success in the opening years of his campaign mainly to his ability in gauging the feelings of the different classes whose support he wished to obtain, as well as to his complete mastery of the German language.

In appealing to the monks and nuns, who were longing to escape from the obligations they had contracted, he offered them complete liberty by denouncing their vows as opposed to the freedom of the Gospel and consequently sinful.

Many of the monks and nuns abandoned their cloisters and fled to Wittenberg to seek the pleasures denied them hitherto, and to put in practice Luther's teaching on the necessity of marriage.

Though he encouraged bishops and priests to marry, and though he forwarded his warmest congratulations to Carlstadt on his betrothal to a fifteen year old maiden (1522), Luther himself hesitated long before taking his final plunge; but at last, against the advice of his best friends, he took as his wife Catherine Bora, one of the escaped nuns who had sought refuge in Wittenberg.

His marriage (1525) was a source of amusement to his opponents as it was of dismay to his supporters.

Melanchthon complained bitterly of the step his master had taken, but he consoled himself with the thought that the marriage might out an end to his former frivolity, and might allay the suspicions that his conduct had aroused.

[23] To the princes, the free cities, and the landless knights he appealed by holding out hopes that they might be enriched by a division of the ecclesiastical estates and of the goods of the monasteries and churches.

With the overthrow of the Pope and of the bishops the princes were led to expect that they might themselves become spiritual dictators in their own dominions.

To the friends of the Humanist movement and the great body of the professors and students he represented himself as the champion of learning and intellectual freedom, anxious to defend them against the obscurantism of the Scholastics and the interference of the Roman congregations.

A large number of the leading Humanists, believing that Luther had undertaken only a campaign against universally recognised abuses, were inclined at first to sympathise with his movement.

The friendly attitude they adopted, and the influence employed by Erasmus and others on his behalf during the early years of his revolt contributed not a little to his final success.

But as it became evident that his object was the overthrow of the Church and of doctrines accepted as dogmas of faith by the whole Christian world, his former allies fell away one by one.

On the question of free-will Erasmus, who had long played a double role, found it necessary to take the field openly against him.

[24] Luther's answer, full of personal abuse and invective, drew a sharp reply from Erasmus, and all friendly intercourse between them was broken off for ever.

But it was on the mass of the people, the peasants and the artisans, that Luther relied mainly for support, and it was to these he addressed his most forcible appeals.

The peasants of Germany, ground down by heavy taxes and reduced to the position of slaves, were ready to listen to the revolutionary ideas put forward by leaders like Sickingen and von Hutten, and to respond to the call of Luther to rise against their princes whether they were secular or ecclesiastical.

In the imagination of the peasants Luther appeared as the friend of human liberty, determined to deliver them from the intolerable yoke that had been laid upon them by their masters.

His attacks were confined at first to the prince-bishops and abbots, but soon realising the strength of the weapon he wielded, he attacked the lay princes in the pamphlets entitled /Christian Liberty/ and /The Secular Magistracy/, and advocated the complete overthrow of all authority.

It is true, undoubtedly, that many of the peasants were already enrolled in the secret societies, and that had there never been a Luther a popular rising might have been anticipated; but his doctrines on evangelical freedom and his frenzied onslaughts on the ecclesiastical and lay rulers, turned the movement into an anti-religious channel, and imparted to the struggle a uniformity and bitterness that otherwise it could never have acquired.

Risings of the peasantry took place in various parts of Germany, notably in Swabia, Thuringia, the Rhine Provinces, and Saxony (1524).

Thomas Munzer, the leader of the Anabaptists, encouraged them in their fight for freedom.

At first the attack was directed principally against the spiritual princes.

Many monasteries and churches were plundered, and several of the nobles were put to death.

Soon the lay princes of Germany, alarmed by the course of the revolutionaries and fearing for the safety of their own territories, assembled their forces and marched against the insurgents.

The war was carried on mercilessly on both sides, close upon 100,000 peasants being killed in the field, while many of their leaders, amongst them Thomas Munzer, were arrested and condemned to death.

In nearly every important engagement the peasants, as might be expected, suffered defeat, so that before the end of 1525 the movement was, practically speaking, at an end.

Luther, who had been consulted by both sides, and who had tried to avoid committing himself to either, frightened by the very violence of the storm he had been instrumental in creating, issued an appeal to the princes calling upon them to show no mercy to the forces of disorder,[25] and even Melanchthon, gentle and moderate as he usually was, did not hesitate to declare that the peasants of Germany had more liberty than should be allowed to such a rude and uncultured people.

The Peasants' War, disastrous as it was, did some good by opening men's eyes to the dangerous consequences of Luther's extravagant harangues, and by giving some slight indications as to the real character and methods of the man, who was posing as a heaven-sent reformer and at the same time as a champion of popular liberty.

But though Luther lost ground in many quarters owing to the part he played before and during the Peasants' War, he had no intention of abandoning the struggle in despair.

During the early years of his campaign his mind was so engrossed with the overthrow of existing religious institutions, that he had little time to consider how he should rebuild what he had pulled down.

At first he thought that no visible organisation was necessary, as the Church, according to his view, consisted of all those who had true faith and charity.

But soon he abandoned this idea in favour of district or local churches that should be left completely independent.

The disturbances in Germany during the Peasants' War taught him the hopelessness of such a scheme, and showed him that his only chance of permanent success lay in the organisation of state churches to be placed under the protection and authority of the civil rulers.

By this bribe he hoped to conciliate the princes, whom he had antagonised by his attacks on their own body as well as by his attitude during the early stages of the disturbance.

The Elector John of Saxony, who had succeeded his brother Frederick, hesitated at first to assist him in the momentous work of setting up a rival Christian organisation.

But, at last, mindful of the advantages that would accrue to him from being recognised as supreme head of the Church in his own dominions, he gave a reluctant consent to the plans formulated by Luther.

A body of visitors consisting of clerics and lawyers was appointed to draw up a new ecclesiastical constitution, the most noteworthy feature of which was the complete dependence of the new church on the secular authority of each state.

Episcopal jurisdiction was rejected, and in place of the bishops, superintendents were appointed.

The ordinary administration was to be carried out by a synod of clerics and laymen elected by the various parishes, but, in reality, the right of appointment, of taxation, of apportioning the temporal goods, and of deciding legal difficulties passed under the control of the sovereign.

Strange to say, though Luther insisted on individual judgment during his campaign against the Catholic Church, he had no difficulty in urging the civil rulers to force all their subjects to join the new religious body.

The goods of the Catholic Church were to be appropriated, some of them being set aside for the support of the new religious organisation, while the greater portion of them found their way into the royal treasury.

The Mass, shorn of the Elevation and of everything that would imply the idea of sacrifice, was translated into the German language, so that in all solemn religious services the place of the Sacrifice was taken by the hymns, Scriptural lessons, the sermon, and the Lord's Supper.

Melanchthon wrote a Visitation Book (1527) for the guidance of Lutheran ministers, and Luther himself published two catechisms for the instruction of the children.

The Lutheran church was organised on a similar plan in Hesse and Brandenburg and in many of the free cities such as Nurnberg, Magdeburg, Bremen, Frankfurt, Ulm, etc. By these measures the separation was completed definitely, and a certain amount of unity was ensured for the new religion.

Meanwhile, how fared it with the Emperor and the Pope?

Shortly after the Diet of Nurnberg (1522) Charles V. left Germany for the Netherlands.

Owing to the troubles in Spain and the long drawn out war with France he was unable to give any attention to the progress of affairs in Germany.

The administration of the Empire was committed to three representatives, the ablest of whom was the Elector Frederick of Saxony, the friend and patron of Luther.

The result was that Luther had a free hand to spread his views notwithstanding the decree of Worms.

Leo X. died in 1521 and was succeeded by Adrian VI.

(1522-3), a former tutor of the Emperor.

As a Hollander it might be anticipated that his representations to the German princes would prove more effective than those of his Italian predecessor, particularly as not even his worst enemies could discover anything worthy of reproach either in his principles or personal conduct.

Convinced that Luther's only chance of winning support lay in his exaggerated denunciations of real or imaginary abuses, he determined to bring about a complete reform, first in Rome itself and then throughout the entire Christian world.

Owing to his ill-disguised contempt for all that was dear to the heart of the Humanist Leo X. , and to the severe measures taken by him to reduce expenses at the Roman Court, he encountered great opposition in Rome, and incurred the dislike both of officials and people.

When he learned that a Diet was to be held at Nurnberg (1522) to consider plans for the defence of the Empire against the Turks who had conquered Belgrade, he despatched Chieregati as his nuncio to invite the princes to enforce the decree of Worms, and to restore peace to the Church by putting down the Lutheran movement.

In his letters to individual members of the Diet and in his instructions to the nuncio, which were read publicly to the assembled representatives, Adrian VI.

admitted the existence of grave abuses both in Rome itself and in nearly every part of the church.

[26] He promised, however, to do everything that in him lay to bring about a complete and thorough reform.

These admissions served only to strengthen the hands of Luther and his supporters, who pointed to them as a justification for the whole movement, and to provide the princes with a plausible explanation of their inactivity in giving effect to the decree of Worms.

The princes refused to carry out the decree of Worms, alleging as an excuse the danger of popular commotion.

They brought forward once more the grievances of the German nation against Rome (/Centum Gravamina/), insisted on a General Council being called to restore peace to the Church, and held out a vague hope that an effort would be made to prevent the spread of the new doctrine till the Council should be convoked.

The papal nuncio, dissatisfied with the attitude of the representatives, withdrew from the Diet before the formal reply was delivered to him.

Adrian VI.

, cognisant of the failure of his efforts and wearied by the opposition of the Romans to whom his reforms were displeasing, made a last fruitless effort to win over Frederick of Saxony to his side.

The news that the island of Rhodes, for the defence of which he had laboured and prayed so strenuously, had fallen into the hands of the Turks, served to complete his affliction and to bring him to a premature grave.

He died in September 1523 to the great delight of the Romans, who could barely conceal their rejoicing even when he lay on his bed of death.

He was an excellent Pope, though perhaps not sufficiently circumspect for the critical times in which he lived.

Had he been elected a century earlier, and had he been given an opportunity of carrying out reforms, as had been given to some of his predecessors, the Lutheran movement would have been an impossibility.

He was succeeded by Clement VII.

(1523-34).

The new Pope was a relative of Leo X. , and, like him, a patron of literature and art.

He was a man of blameless life and liberal views, and endowed with great prudence and tact, but his excessive caution and want of firmness led to the ruin of his best-conceived plans and to the failure of his general policy.

He despatched Cardinal Campeggio as his legate to the Diet of Nurnberg (1524).

Once again the princes of Germany closed their ears to the appeal of the Pope, refused to take energetic measures to enforce the decree of Worms, and talked of establishing a commission to consider the grievances of their nation against Rome, and to inquire into the religious issues that had been raised.

Campeggio, feeling that it was hopeless to expect assistance from the Diet, turned to the individual princes.

He succeeded in bringing about an alliance at Ratisbon (1524) between the rulers of Austria, Bavaria, and several of the ecclesiastical princes of Southern Germany for the purpose of opposing the new teaching and safeguarding the interests of the Catholic Church.

A similar alliance of the Catholic princes of Northern Germany was concluded at Dessau in 1526. At the same time the princes who were favourable to Lutheran views, notably Philip of Hesse, John, Elector of Saxony, the rulers of Brandenburg, Prussia, Mecklenburg and Mansfeld, together with the representatives of the cities of Brunswick and Mecklenburg, met and pledged themselves to make common cause, were any attempt made by the Emperor or the Catholic princes to suppress Luther's doctrine by force.

In this way Germany was being divided gradually into two hostile camps.

Unfortunately Charles V. , whose presence in Germany might have exercised a restraining influence, was so engrossed in the life and death struggle with France that he had no time to follow the progress of the religious revolt.

To complicate the issue still more, Clement VII.

, who had been friendly to the Emperor for some time after his election, alarmed lest the freedom of the Papal States and of the Holy See might be endangered were the French driven completely from the peninsula, took sides openly against Charles V. and formed an alliance with his opponent.

The good fortune that had smiled on the French arms suddenly deserted them.

In 1525 Francis I. was defeated at Pavia and taken as prisoner to Spain, where he was forced to accept the terms dictated to him by his victorious rival.

On his release in 1526 he refused to abide by the terms of the Treaty, and a new alliance, consisting of the Pope, France, England, Venice, Florence, Milan, and Switzerland was formed against Charles V. Disturbances, fomented by the Italian supporters of the Emperor, broke out in the Papal States, and a German army led by the Prince of Bourbon marched on Rome without the knowledge of Charles, captured the city, plundered its treasures, and for several days wreaked a terrible vengeance on the citizens.

Charles, who was in Spain at the time, was deeply grieved when the news was brought to him of the havoc that had been wrought by his subordinates.

A temporary peace was concluded immediately between the Emperor and the Pope, and the peace of Barcelona in 1529 put an end to this unholy strife.

About the same time the hostilities between Charles and Francis I. were brought to a conclusion by the Peace of Cambrai, and the Emperor, having been crowned by the Pope at Bologna (1530), was free at last to turn his attention to the religious revolution in Germany.

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