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Martin Luther试读：
THE MINER’S SON
Eisleben to Erfurt
The Turk was slashing his way up the valley of the Danube into the heart of Europe. God sat far off, not as a loving father but as a vengeful law-court judge inflicting all sorts of misery on mankind. In the forest lurked witches and demons seeking to drag the unwary to destruction.
Into such a world threatened by the sword, ruled by fear, and plagued by superstition, Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483, in Eisleben, Germany. Within such a world he became a man disdainful of bodily harm, convinced of God’s love and mercy, endowed with abundant common sense—a Christian worthy of study and emulation. Although his station of birth was lowly, greatness sought him out, and the whole world has felt the impact of his life.
The Luther child was baptized in the Church of St. Peter the morning after his birth and was named Martin for the saint of the day. His parents, Hans and Margarethe Luther, were simple, industrious folk. They had moved recently from the farming community of Möhra, home of the Luther family, to Eisleben where Hans hoped to make his fortune in the copper mines.
When Martin was about six months old the family moved to near-by Mansfeld. The first years there were hard and it was with difficulty that Hans scraped together money to send his son to school. By the time Martin was thirteen, however, his father was able to send him to a school conducted by the Brothers of the Common Life at Magdeburg. As was the custom, he earned his board by singing and begging from door to door with one of the school choirs.
He stayed in Magdeburg for only a year and then was sent to the parish school of St. George in Eisenach. While again earning his keep by singing and begging, he became acquainted with Frau Ursula Cotta, a woman of culture and refinement, who took the promising young scholar into her home.
Hans Luther had been working diligently and by the time his son was seventeen the family budget permitted his entrance to the University of Erfurt. Martin worked diligently too, and at the end of four years had passed not only his bachelor’s but his master’s examinations.
Into the Cloister
Obedient to his father’s wishes, Martin Luther on May 20, 1505, began his post-graduate studies at Erfurt, preparatory to entering the field of law. But after studying for only a few weeks he suddenly rejected the whole idea and applied for admission at the town’s Augustinian monastery.
Hans Luther was terribly angry and Martin’s university friends were astounded. Why had he taken such a step? Many factors contributed, but in the final analysis his decision to become a monk can be summed up in the words “religious experience.”
His parents were God-fearing people whose piety undoubtedly had an early influence on him. He shared fear of the horrors of hell, purgatory, and the last judgment which was common to people at the close of the middle ages. In the university library he had found a complete Bible and was tremendously impressed with his own ignorance of its contents. He attended church and daily chapel devotions regularly all through school. His introspective nature made him starkly aware of his sins and shortcomings. Life as a monk was held to be the best way to forgiveness and heaven.
Several grim incidents increased his anxiety. While on a holiday from the university he accidentally severed an artery in his leg with his student sword. He almost bled to death and in distress prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. The death of a number of students during a plague moved him profoundly. While returning to Erfurt, following a visit to Mansfeld, he was caught in a heavy thunderstorm and a bolt of lightning struck so close that he was knocked to the ground. Overcome by panic he invoked St. Anna for aid and vowed “Help me, and I will become a monk.” Fifteen days later, on July 17, friends accompanied him to the gate of the “Black Cloister,” monastery of the Order of Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt.
That this decision came later in life than usually was the case, and that his impressionable years had been spent not within the confines of a monastery but in the unrestricted atmosphere of a great university, later proved valuable to him and to the Protestant Church.
Monk and Priest
Luther was not received immediately into the monastery but had to remain for several months in the monastic hostelry examining himself and being examined. In September, 1505, all parties being satisfied, his head was shaved and he was invested with the black Augustinian habit and cowl, and formally received as a novice.
He scrubbed the floors, begged in the streets, and engaged in various ascetic and spiritual exercises. When his probationary year was ended Luther took the vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity and was received into the order of the Augustinian monks. His sincere piety and scholarship so impressed his superiors that he was urged to prepare for the priesthood, and, on April 4, 1507, was ordained to that office.
The petty employments of the monastery did not consume all of Luther’s energy and he devoted himself strenuously to studying the scholastic theology available at that time. However, long hours with books did little to ease his mind and give him the peace of conscience he sought within the cloister walls. The books taught him to rely on his own efforts to procure favor with God, and he was too honest to believe that his penitence was deep enough and his fastings worthy enough to compensate for his sins.
Although his heart was not at rest, Luther continued to perform his priestly duties and undertake any new tasks assigned to him. In the fall of 1508 he was appointed to the chair of moral philosophy which had been entrusted to the Augustinians by the faculty at the newly established University of Wittenberg. Desiring to teach theology rather than logic and ethics, he availed himself of this opportunity to study for a bachelor’s degree which would permit him to lecture on certain books of the Bible. He had virtually completed his studies when he was called back to Erfurt in October, 1509. There he lectured in the monastery for about a year, and in November, 1510, was sent in company with another monk on a mission to Rome.
In the Holy City he visited as many shrines and churches as possible. His high opinion of the papal court was lowered by his observations of its reckless luxury and scandal, but his confidence in the church remained unshaken.
THE PROFESSOR
Dr. Luther
Luther returned to Erfurt from Rome, and in the summer of 1511 was sent as one of three new professors to Wittenberg. Here he came under the influence of John von Staupitz, vicar of the Augustinian order, who showed warm sympathy and understanding toward the earnest young priest.
As yet Luther had been unable to convince himself of God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness. His quest carried him along the path of good works, but he never could feel that he had done enough to save himself. He tried the path of confession but concluded there was more wrong with men than could be cleansed by enumerating a list of particular offenses.
Luther’s problems of faith did not mount up through clearly defined stages to a sudden soul-free climax. Rather he passed through a series of crises. Staupitz did much to comfort him in some of these grave periods. He encouraged the zealous monk to trust in the God who loved and sent his Son to redeem man, rather than try to appease God through his own works.
Staupitz’ theology was quite different from Luther’s. It admitted man’s weakness and called him to completely submerge himself in God. There was no striving, no assertion of self. Eventually the individual found peace in a blissful atmosphere surrounded entirely by God. Luther’s efforts were virtually the opposite. His every act was replete with self-assertion directed toward winning merit. He tried the mystical way of Staupitz but could never completely lose himself in the essence of a God whom he conceived to be an angry judge.
Luther’s troubled spirit did not lower him in the vicar’s estimation and, perhaps to get his mind off it, Staupitz advised him to study for a doctor’s degree and assume the chair of Bible at the university. It was good medicine, for thus the distressed monk came to closer grips with the source book of his faith. So far, writings about the Bible, rather than the book itself, had been his main diet. He studied for the degree and preached in the monastery’s rickety chapel until October 18-19, 1512, when he became Martin Luther, doctor of sacred scripture, professor of Bible at Wittenberg University.
The Awakening
Since May, 1512, Luther had been subprior and regent in the school connected with the Black Cloister at Wittenberg. In May, 1515, he became district vicar for Thuringia and Meissen, having eleven monasteries under his care. Meanwhile he was discharging his duties as professor in the university.
Frequently the solution to great problems comes quite undramatically as one goes about the daily tasks. Luther’s awakening to a God who makes man righteous in order to save him came in such a way. He knew the teaching that the righteous shall be saved by faith. But who, he asked himself, is righteous?
As he studied and taught, and looked after his wards in the monasteries, he gradually discovered he had been misled by the medieval concept that grace could be earned. This, he found, was contrary to the New Testament. Grace can’t be earned. God gives it. Man, therefore, does not make himself righteous. It is God who makes man righteous. He makes man righteous as a free gift (grace) so that he can be saved. Out of this came the doctrine of “justification by faith.”
At this point Luther still felt that he was in total agreement with the teachings of the Roman Church. In a humble way he believed that he had discovered for himself what always had been—that he had just been slow in catching on. Deeper study, however, made it clear to him that there was a great difference between his own and the theology of the middle ages. He became convinced that man can contribute nothing toward his salvation, but that God, recognizing man’s unrighteousness, had redeemed him and restored him through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ. This indeed was not the work of an implacable judge, but of a loving Father.
Luther now found himself rejecting most of the medieval writers and teachers. He went back to the Bible, to Christ, and the apostles. Convinced of the truth, he no longer was restrained by contradictory views. His beliefs were contrary to many of the teachings of the church, and while he didn’t plan it that way they brought him into open revolt. The matter of indulgences opened the battle.
COLLISION WITH ROME
The Question of Indulgences
The Roman Church taught that forgiveness of sins could be secured only through the sacrament of penance. This required contrition of heart, confession to a priest, and satisfaction by good works. Release from the penalty of eternal punishment was guaranteed by the absolution pronounced by the priest. If not enough works of penance were done before death, however, the remainder had to be atoned for in the torments of purgatory for an indefinite period.
Gradually a custom developed which permitted one to purchase indulgences to offset purgatorial punishment. It was at this point that Luther’s theology conflicted with the church’s practice. Grace was God’s gift, but indulgences implied that man can earn grace.
In 1515 the sale of indulgences was being pressed in the archbishopric of Mainz which had been purchased recently by Albert of Brandenburg. Because of the vast revenues the office controlled, it was a profitable investment to become a bishop in those days. Although not old enough to be a bishop, Albert already had procured two other sees before negotiating for the purchase of Mainz. Pope Leo X was willing to overlook these irregularities in exchange for ten thousand ducats which he needed to complete the Church of St. Peter in Rome.
Albert borrowed the money from the Fuggers banking concern in Augsburg. Then the pope granted him the privilege of selling indulgences so that he could settle his account at the bank and at the same time raise additional sums for St. Peter’s.
John Tetzel, a Dominican prior who had displayed shrewd aptitude in selling indulgences, conducted the campaign. He didn’t enter Luther’s parish because Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, had an indulgence traffic of his own in the form of a large collection of relics gathered for veneration in the Castle Church, Wittenberg. However, some of Luther’s people crossed the border and bought indulgences from Tetzel. Luther saw the fundamental danger of the traffic when these folk countered his preaching on repentance of heart and life by showing him indulgences remitting their sins. On October 31 Luther tacked a placard on the door of the Castle Church. The sound of his hammer reached to Rome.
The Ninety-five Theses
The theses which Luther posted on the church door were not a declaration of revolt. They were, after the custom of the day, an invitation to theologians of Wittenberg and vicinity to debate on the indulgence situation. So that all participants could be prepared, he posted the ninety-five propositions he intended to defend in the debate.
The points for argument did not call for abandonment of indulgences but merely advocated the elimination of evils in the system. Luther maintained, in his theses, that repentance should be a lifelong experience and should manifest itself in a continuing effort to overcome sinful desires. Indulgences, he said, are simply remissions of penalties which the church has imposed. They have no effect on the souls of the departed and they don’t remit sin; only God can do that.
Luther believed he was being a loyal defender of the Roman Church by attempting to correct these abuses, and correspondence revealed that he thought the pope was unaware of what was going on. To his surprise the theses released a great flood of favorable public opinion and were applauded as a courageous and unrelenting attack. Within two weeks they were distributed in German as well as Latin throughout Germany.
There had been a growing dislike of the indulgence system and of the pope’s interference in what, to the Germans, were strictly their own national affairs. The theses now became a rallying point not only for those who opposed Rome’s continuous exploitation of German finances but also for those who resented the dominating attitude of a foreign power. Even though they attacked one of his own pet institutions, the Elector Frederick stood by his daring young monk.
As the Augustinians rallied around Luther, the Dominicans upheld the cause of Brother Tetzel. He was granted a doctor’s degree largely to enable him to publish some theses of his own.
When the Tetzel writings came off press and were distributed, students at Wittenberg collected a large quantity and held a public bonfire. Luther, still a loyal son of the monastic system, was greatly displeased by their sophomoric act.
Rome Moves to Attack
Luther sent a copy of his theses to Albert of Brandenburg who forwarded them to Rome where Pope Leo X reportedly brushed the incident off as a row between rival monastic orders. Later the Dominicans charged Luther with heresy and formal proceedings were begun. On August 7, 1518, Luther received notice to appear in Rome for trial within sixty days.
By no means a coward, Luther was nonetheless unwilling to be the victim of a mock-trial in the territory of the enemy. He asked Elector Frederick to have the trial transferred to German soil where he might at least have the benefit of impartial judges.
On second thought the pope decided not to wait sixty days and ordered the elector to arrest Luther at once and turn him over to Cardinal Cajetan for delivery in Rome. Although Frederick was not sympathetic to heresy he was determined that the man who had brought so much attention to his university at Wittenberg should have fair play. He prevailed upon the pope to have Cardinal Cajetan give Luther a personal hearing in Augsburg where he would be attending a diet or parliament.
In a benign manner the cardinal offered to help Luther out of all his difficulty if he would simply submit to the pope’s authority and retract his errors. Luther of course refused and tried to defend his positions. A fruitless and oft-times heated controversy ensued and at the end of three days Cajetan told Luther to leave his presence and not return until he was ready to recant.
The cardinal was quite upset by the Augsburg incident and wrote Elector Frederick a letter calling upon him to turn the heretical monk over to the Roman authorities. Frederick’s reply indicated his increasing resistance to papal dictatorship. He asked for a free trial and a statement of Luther’s errors in writing.
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