Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town Into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe--And Started the Protestant Reformation (16 page)

The pope was prepared to accept this advice, but by this time the process against Luther had moved on. A letter from the Emperor Maximilian, which included a forthright denunciation of Luther, spurred a change in the nature of the judicial process against him. A new summary procedure was initiated, in which Luther was to be treated as an obstinate teacher of heresy. This decision had been reached, it should be noted, by August 23, 1518, when it was communicated to Cajetan; this was two years before Luther’s final condemnation in the famous bull
Exsurge Domine
. From this point on, Luther was faced with a bleak alternative: recantation or excommunication.

This established a difficult context for Cardinal Cajetan’s fateful meeting with Luther at Augsburg in October 1518. Although Cajetan was fully capable of an articulate and fruitful debate—indeed, only his subtle diplomacy had brought matters to this point—his hands were tied by the nature of the process already concluded in Rome. It placed him in a situation that would tax the equilibrium of even this normally genial man.

LOW BLOWS AND MISUNDERSTANDING

While these events were played out in Rome, back in Wittenberg Luther was forced to grapple with the consequences of his unexpected celebrity. The year 1518 had gotten off to a good start. Luther had seen off the first substantial criticism of his theses on indulgences and achieved a major publishing success with his first major vernacular writing, the
Sermon on Indulgence and Grace
. But it is clear he did not immediately understand the magnitude of the change in his life. Reading his correspondence presents an eerie illusion of normality; Luther’s concerns seem surprisingly parochial. He continued his work on the reform of the Wittenberg curriculum, alert to the possibility that the rival faculty at Leipzig
might seek to exploit his notoriety and stir up trouble for him.
⁶
During the course of the year what seems to have given him the greatest pleasure was securing the services of Philip Melanchthon as professor of Greek; amidst all his other cares he took enormous pains to ensure that Philip was made comfortable and adequately provided for.
⁷

The challenge to his critics was rather different. They had seen the public reaction to Luther’s criticism of indulgences; they had also witnessed the success of the
Sermon on Indulgence and Grace
. But it was not immediately clear how best to respond. Tetzel had tried and been swatted away. How could one conduct a debate when one party (Luther) had deliberately stepped out of the normal structures of academic discourse? The difficulty in coming to terms with this shifting landscape accounts for much of the frustration, anger, and the charges of bad faith that characterized the increasingly testy exchanges of these years.

The news that Luther was under investigation in Rome cast a considerable cloud in Wittenberg. Since della Volta had been ordered to resolve the matter within the Augustinian family, Luther was summoned to attend the next chapter of the German Observants in Heidelberg, in April 1518. Luther was obliged to request a leave of absence from his university duties; he took the opportunity of writing to the elector to ask also for a safe-conduct, which would protect him as he traveled the nearly three hundred miles to Heidelberg, passing through multiple political and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, many potentially hostile. Frederick was happy to oblige. Not only did he provide the requested letter, he also wrote independently to two of the leading rulers along Luther’s route, the bishop of Würzburg and the Count Palatine, asking them to give him protection in their territories. Though Luther was not to know this, Frederick the Wise had embarked on a course from which he would never subsequently deviate, to the bafflement of the pope and most other diplomatic observers. The effort to turn Frederick would occupy a great deal of time and fruitless ingenuity over the next two years, and probably significantly delayed Luther’s final condemnation: for Frederick could, at a stroke, have effected the discreet removal of the Luther
problem, which the ecclesiastical hierarchy would greatly have preferred. But this stubborn, careful man had decided to stand by his professor and his university, for reasons he never fully revealed, and he remained steadfast to this determination, heedless of all threats and oblivious to all blandishments. Luther was lucky, in this, perhaps above all else.

Frederick was also thorough. To his letters he now added a further instruction to Staupitz, noting that he had released Luther from his professorial duties only very reluctantly, and insisting he be sent straight back after the congregation. So the option of sending him from Heidelberg to Rome was foreclosed. In the event, neither Frederick nor Luther should have worried, as the Heidelberg gathering was a triumph. The Observant Augustinians closed ranks, as had the Dominicans around Tetzel. Luther was given the opportunity to expound his new theology to an appreciative audience. One of those present, Martin Bucer (a Dominican interloper), recorded his first impressions:

[A]lthough our chief men refuted him with all their might, their wiles were not able to make him move an inch from his propositions. His sweetness in answering is remarkable, his patience in listening is incomparable, in his explanations you would recognize the acumen of Paul, not of Scotus; his answers, so brief, so wise, and drawn from the Holy Scriptures, easily made all his hearers his admirers. On the next day I had a familiar and friendly conference with the man alone, and a supper rich with doctrine rather than with dainties. He lucidly explained whatever I might ask. He agrees with Erasmus in all things, but with this difference in his favor, that what Erasmus only insinuates he teaches openly and freely. Would that I had time to write you more of this. He has brought it about that at Wittenberg the ordinary textbooks have all been abolished, while the Greeks and Jerome, Augustine and Paul are publicly taught.
⁸

Bucer had approached the occasion a skeptic: he starts this letter by reporting that Luther was “not one of our number.” He left the congregation a disciple—in due course he would become a leader of the
Reformation in his own right, in the critical Rhineland city of Strasbourg. Print could only do so much; for people to devote their lives to this young movement, Luther’s personal magnetism played a vital part.

E
IN
F
REIHEIT DES
S
ERMONS
P
ÄPSTLICHEN
A
BLAß

Luther’s second reply to Tetzel, here in an Augsburg reprint by Jörg Nadler (USTC 643353). At this stage of the controversy it was in Luther’s interest that his works were circulated as widely as possible by reprints of this sort.

On his return to Wittenberg Luther published a brief summary of this meeting. This, intended for a clerical audience, was in Latin; the second reply to Tetzel,
Ein Freiheit des
Sermons Päpstlichen Ablaß
, he published in German. At the same time Luther was working on what he regarded as his most critical task, the promised full explanation of his views on indulgences for his ecclesiastical superiors; it would be published, in the summer, with a respectful dedication to Pope Leo.
⁹
This was the most considerable text that Luther had yet consigned to Rhau-Grunenberg’s press, and the backlog of work that developed as the printer gave it his painstaking attention would cause Luther considerable difficulties. On
May 16 Luther had preached in the town church at Wittenberg a provocative sermon on the validity of excommunication. Possibly anticipating the future course of his own case, Luther argued that the church’s ban could not impact on a Christian’s inner relationship with God. This was incendiary stuff, but became more so when churchmen in the congregation circulated in manuscript a series of theses drawn from it, which naturally threw into sharp relief the more provocative statements. Since Wittenberg’s only press was fully occupied, Luther had no opportunity to place into the public domain the full text of the sermon; the hostile summary thus became, for some critical months, the only known version. It was this document, when placed in the hands of the Emperor Maximilian, that induced him to write to Rome demanding that immediate action be taken against Luther. Even Spalatin was misled when he read this text, and urged Luther to moderate his language. The sermon was subsequently published, but too late to undo the damage.
¹⁰

Luther had other trials to face in these months; some, again, caused by the failure on both sides to control the distribution of texts not originally intended for immediate publication. After Tetzel, the first to attempt a full response to Luther’s ninety-five theses was Johann Eck, chancellor of the University of Ingolstadt.
¹¹
As this lofty office would imply, Eck was a gifted theologian, and his manuscript offered a root-and-branch dissection of Luther’s propositions. Eck’s treatise had been compiled at the request of the bishop of Eichstätt and was clearly not intended for publication. Eck called his text “Obelisks,” or daggers, after the signs used in the critical study of ancient literature to denote spurious portions of a text marked for removal. This set the tone for an excoriating dissection, in which Eck dismissed Luther as simpleminded and unlearned. Like Tetzel he also made the connection between Luther’s rash denunciation of papal power and the Hussite heresy.

The text began to circulate widely among scholars, ultimately reaching the hands of one of Eck’s academic foes. Sensing mischief, he solicitously passed it to Johann Lang, who forwarded it to Luther. Here Eck’s daggers hit their mark. Luther was sorely wounded, not least because Eck
had previously been seen as a likely friend of reform. He was sufficiently one of the Nuremberg circle to have been on the list of those to whom Christoph Scheurl had circulated Luther’s theses in November 1517.
¹²

Luther poured out his sense of grievance in a letter to a friend, dated March 24: “What cuts me most is that we had recently formed a great friendship”; in May he replied to Eck directly.
¹³
To Eck’s daggers he opposed his asterisks (stars): these were the critical signs that marked the most valuable texts. This, however, was the only playful part of the exchange. Luther now had little time for his former friend: “as far as I can see, you know nothing in theology but the husks of scholasticism.” Any hope this exchange would remain private was dashed when Karlstadt, as so often rushing in with more enthusiasm than judgment, published his 380 theses against Eck’s “Obelisks” (later extended to 406).
¹⁴
Eck was obliged to reply; the battle lines were drawn.

One more of Luther’s writings during this period must be mentioned, his short exposition on the Ten Commandments. This was a different sort of Luther from the cantankerous, unforgiving disputant of the exchange with Eck. This was Luther as the healing pastor, the father of his Wittenberg congregation, and, through the wonders of print, the citizens of Germany. This was the first time in these years that Luther stepped out of the controversial arena to address the concerns of the lay Christian, and at a length they could engage with: a mere eight pages in quarto. It was also very successful, with at least eight editions before 1520.
¹⁵
This was a Luther who struck a chord with many lay Christians disinclined to follow the twists and turns of academic controversy but eager for spiritual comfort in troubled times. It was a strand of Luther’s writing that would play an important role in the years to come in building his public following.

AUGSBURG AND LEIPZIG

During the spring and summer of 1518 Luther was obliged to summon up new reserves of energy and courage. Penning the various
defenses of his ninety-five theses was only a small part of the multiple obligations that now competed for his time. Correspondence occupied a huge amount of time, keeping in touch with friends, pleading his cause, and soliciting information on the play of events on the larger stage, as news was sometimes frustratingly difficult to come by in Wittenberg. All this, of course, was in addition to his normal duties as pastor and professor.
¹⁶
On August 7, Luther received his formal summons to Rome; there then ensued several long weeks of anxious waiting until he was informed that the hearing had been transferred to Augsburg. Even this journey was not without peril: Luther was well aware that condemnation and death might be the ultimate price. His friends in Nuremberg, where he rested briefly on the route, made strenuous efforts to persuade him to turn back to Wittenberg. Luther remained stoical, even fatalistic, but this second long journey in six months had taken its toll. He arrived in Augsburg on October 7, exhausted and suffering from stomach troubles.