Martin 1483-1546 Luther

The Wartburg.

Luther remained at the Wartburg under the pseudonym of "Knight George" till the spring of 1522. He continued and extended the attack on Rome in a series of con troversial writings, including those on auricular confession, on the abrogation of private Mass, and on monastic vows, and kept in touch with his colleagues and friends by a voluminous correspondence. He began and completed the translation of the Greek New Testament which, after revision with the co-operation of Melanchthon, was published in Sept. 1522. It is a monument of his linguistic ability in moulding the vernacular into a fitting medium of the language and thought of the Greek original. He challenged the resumption of the indulgence traffic under the aus pices of the archbishop of Mainz at Halle, and so potent had his influence become that the archbishop was fain humbly to apolo gize and put a stop to the business. He wrote a series of ser mons (Postille) for the instruction of the people in the new evangelism, which afford an insight into his distinctive power and style as a preacher. Early in Dec. 1521 he paid an incognito visit to Wittenberg and enjoyed for a few days the renewed personal intercourse with his colleagues. He expressed his satis faction with all that he had seen and heard in spite of the popu lar demonstrations against the old religion which had resulted in student riots, but which he did not take very seriously. On the other hand, the spirit of religious and social unrest among the people, which he had observed by the way, impelled him to issue a Warning Against Tumult and Revolt, in which he inculcated his characteristic doctrine of submission to constituted secular authority in the matter of religious innovations, the necessity of leaving the Word of God to work gradually the transformation of traditional beliefs and institutions, and the inadmissibility of irresponsible violence in the work of reformation.

This passive attitude did not commend itself to the more mili tant reformers at Wittenberg like Carlstadt and Zwilling, who in the winter of 1521-22 introduced communion in both kinds, de manded the removal of images from the churches and championed the marriage of the clergy. In this forward policy they had the support of the university theological faculty and the town council, and the town council embodied it in an ordinance regulating on evangelical lines the religious and social life of the community. But it encountered the opposition of the elector on political grounds, and the impasse which supervened led Luther to leave the Wartburg at the beginning of March 1522 and resume his public activity at Wittenberg.

The Reformed Worship.

Though he approved on principle of communion in both kinds and the marriage of the clergy, he was a striking combination of the conservative and the revolu tionary, and was disposed to consider the expediency of actual changes before making them, and of avoiding precipitate meas ures which the weaker brethren were not prepared to approve. In a series of eight consecutive sermons during the first week after his arrival, he won over his hearers to his own policy of the gradual institution of an evangelical order in place of the old usages, and modified the ordinance in this direction. It was

not till the following year that he deemed the time ripe for a more incisive reform of worship and usages and the reorganization of the church at Wittenberg and elsewhere in accordance there with, though these changes were to be made without constraint of conscience. Hence the Formula Missae, or reformed communion service, which he drew up for Wittenberg, and the order of worship for the church at Leisnig which served as a model for other reformed churches.

At the same time he carried on a brisk campaign against his Romanist opponents, whose antagonism these innovations tended to intensify. These controversial writings included an onslaught on the hierarchy, Against the Falsely called Ecclesiastical Estate of the Pope and the Bishops, and a reply to King Henry VIII., who had written an anti-Lutheran Defence of the Seven Sacra ments (Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lu therum). He added a Vindication of Married Life as a divine and natural institution on behalf of the marriage of the clergy. In 1525 he himself followed the example of the increasing number of married ex-priests, monks, and nuns by contracting a union with Catherine von Bora, who had renounced the conventual life, and bore him a family of three sons and two daughters, and proved a worthy helpmate throughout the remaining 20 years of his wedded life.

As the result of this propagandist activity and the co-operation of a growing band of preachers, drawn largely from the ranks of the secular and regular clergy, the evangelical movement ere long attained such formidable dimensions that it was practically impossible to enforce the edict of Worms throughout a large part of the empire. The diet which met at Nuremberg during the winter of 1522-23 refused to support the demand of pope Adrian VI., the successor of Leo X., for its execution, declined to suppress the evangelical preachers, and, whilst authorizing the punishment of married priests and apostate monks, insisted on the convocation within a year in some German city of a free Christian council in which the laity should have a voice. "Luther's doctrine," reported the archduke Ferdinand to his brother, Charles V., "has taken such deep root that among a thousand persons there is not one who is not to some extent touched by it." A second diet, which assembled in the same city during the winter of 1524, proved less recalcitrant under the manipulation of Campeggio, the legate of Adrian's successor, Clement VII. But it would only undertake to enforce the edict against Luther "as far as possible," and renewed the demand for the convocation of a free council in Germany. In reply Luther launched a strongly worded philippic (Two Contradictory Mandates concerning Luther) in which he unsparingly aspersed the emperor as well as the majority of the diet.