11. Luther’s moral character

Exception has been taken to our interpretation (vol. ii., p. 161, n. 1) of a certain utterance of Luther’s. In the “Comment. on Galat.,” 1, p. 107 sq., he says:

“zelavi pro papisticis legibus … conatus sum eas præstare plus inedia, vigiliis, etc., … Bono zelo et ad gloriam Dei feci … [Yet] in monachatu Christum quotidie crucifixi et falsa mea fiducia, quæ tum perpetuo adhærebat mihi, blasphemavi. Externe non eram sicut ceteri homines, raptores, iniusti, adulteri, sed servabam castitatem, obedientiam et paupertatem, denique totus eram deditus ieiuniis, vigiliis, etc. Interim tamen sub ista sanctitate et fiducia iustitiæ propriæ alebam … odium et blasphemiam Dei.”

But, in these words written in his old age, he is not witnessing to his virtuous life in former days, but, on the contrary, he is striving to show that, for all its outward propriety, it was the merest blasphemy. Moreover, the words “servabam … obedientiam,” etc., cannot be taken too literally, as Luther himself elsewhere admits that he was careless about the Office, though this was a matter on which the Rule was very severe. A more appropriate self-justification would be the utterance recorded in Veit Dietrich’s MS. of the Table-Talk (Bl. 83) which begins: “Monachus ego non sensi multam libidinem.”

A man’s speech is in some sense an index to his character. Our volumes teem with samples of the filthy expressions to which Luther was addicted. No theologian or preacher had hitherto dared to speak as he did; the Franciscans Johann Pauli and Thomas Murner—albeit by no means too particular—certainly cannot compare with Luther on this score. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that Luther uses such language chiefly as a weapon against his Catholic foes without, and the Protestant “sectarians” within. In his polemics, insults and foul speaking go hand in hand, and the greater his wrath the fouler his speech.

In connection with one instance of his use of unseemly comparisons when (above, vol. ii., p. 144) we spoke of his allusion to the “Bride of Orlamünde” we were not aware that—as Kawerau now points out—Staupitz, his old superior, had described in very free language the nature of the union between the soul and her divine Bridegroom. (“Von der endlichen Vollziehung ewiger Fürsehung,” 1516.) Such mystical effusions were very apt to be misinterpreted by the unlearned fanatics, whom Luther ridicules.