1848.] Effect of the Cloister Life on his Feelings. 529 Connected with such a state of mind and such religious severities, we should naturally expect to see the greatest reverence for the papal hierarchy. It cannot be surprising, therefore, that we should hear him say, "I can with truth affirm, if there was ever one who held the papal laws and the traditions of the fathers in reverence, I was such." "I had an unfeigned veneration for the pope, not seeking after livings, or places and such like, but whatsoever I did, I did with singleness of heart, with upright zeal and for the glory of God." "So great was the pope in my esteem that I accounted departing from him in the least article a sin, deserving damnation; and this ungodly opinion made me to hold Huss as an accursed heretic, so much so that I esteemed it a sin only to think of him; and, to defend the pope's authority, I would have kindled the fire to burn the heretic, and should have believed that I was thereby showing the highest obedience to God." We have learned that Luther was driven to the cloister by a disquieted conscience, and superstitious fears and hopes. It is natural to inquire how far his conscience was quieted, his fears allayed, and his hopes realized. Let him answer for himself. "When I was a monk I was outwardly much holier than now. I kept the vow I had taken with the greatest zeal and diligence by day and by night, and yet I found no rest, for all the consolations which I drew from my own righteousness and works were ineffectual." Doubts all the while cleaved to my conscience, and I thought within myself, Who knoweth whether this is pleasing and acceptable to God, or not." "Even when I was the most devout, I went as a doubter to the altar, and as a doubter I went away again. If I had made my confession, I was still in doubt; if, upon that, I left off prayer, I was again in doubt, for we were wrapt in the conceit, that we could not pray and should not be heard, unless we were wholly pure and without sin, like the saints in heaven." It is difficult for us to conceive of the anguish which a tender and delicate conscience would feel under the doctrines which were taught in respect to confession. Who could be certain that he knew the nature and extent of all the sins he had committed? What infallible rule had he by which he could judge rightly of all the acts and circumstances connected with sin? Of his motives and intentions he might have a tolerably accurate knowledge. But how was it with acts in themselves considered, which were the main things in the ethics of the confessional? Even of those sins which were defined and measured by the rules of the order, since they related to a thousand trifling acts recurring almost every moment, few persons could retain a distinct consciousness or memory so as to be perfectly sure at each confession that nothing was omitted or forgotten. And yet one VOL. V. No. 19. 45 such omission vitiated the whole confession and rendered prayer useless. This was the scorpion sting which Luther so keenly felt. He always doubted the completeness of his confession. If he prayed, it might be of no use; if he neglected prayer, his doubts were increased. "The confession was an intolerable burden laid upon the church. For there was no sorer trouble, as we all know by experience, than that every one should be compelled to make confession, or be guilty of a mortal sin. Besides, confession was beset with so many difficulties, and the conscience tormented with reckoning up such different sorts of sins, that no one could make his confession perfect enough." "If the confession was not perfect, and done with exceeding particularity, the absolution was of none effect, nor were the sins forgiven. Therewith were the people so hard pressed, that there was no one but must despair of confessing so perfectly (it was in very deed impossible), and no conscience could abide the trial, nor have confidence in the absolution." "When I was a monk, I used ofttimes to be very contrite for my sins, and to confess them all as much as was possible, and performed the penance that was enjoined unto me as straitly and as rigorously as I could. Yet for all this, my conscience could never be tranquil and assured, but was always in doubt, and said, This or that hast thou not done rightly; thou wast not sorrowful enough for thy sins; this and that sin thou didst forget in thy confession." Though he "confessed every day, it was all in vain.” "The smart and anguish of conscience," he elsewhere says, "were as great in the cowl, as they were before out of it." These declarations may easily be reconciled with others which represent him as feeling happy when he could say, "To-day I have done no wrong; I have been obedient to my prior, have fasted and prayed, and God is gracious towards me." These occasions were of rare occurrence, and were the results of that superficial feeling which the strongest and profoundest minds are liable to have in those passive moments when they surrender themselves to the influence of popular belief. But the chief current of Luther's feelings, in spite of all the violence he did to himself to prevent it, ran counter to that belief, so that in after life, when reverting to these scenes, he could speak of the predominant state of his mind as though there had been no other. The effect of such a view of religion as he then entertained, and of such an experience as he had of a daily deviation from its precepts, is truthfully described in the following words, undoubtedly the utterance of his own heart. "He who thinketh that a Christian ought to be without any fault, and yet seeth many faults in himself, must needs be consumed at length with melancholy and despair." 1848.] Familiarity with the Scriptures. 531 Not only did Luther suffer from the unexpected discovery of the real sinfulness of his heart, but he was scarcely less tormented with imaginary sins and false scruples of conscience. "The devil," says he, "seizes upon some trifling sin, and by that casts into the shade all the good works which thou hast thy life long done, so that thou dost see nothing but this one sin." "I speak from experience; I know his wiles and subtilties, how of one little mote he maketh many great beams, that is to say, of that which is the least sin, or no sin at all, he maketh a very hell, so that the wide world is too strait for one." The fiery imagination of Luther, which solitude served but to kindle into an intenser flame, the strength and depth of his religious - passions which found no such vent as they needed, and the bewildered state of his mind in respect to the elementary principles of Christianity, all conspired to give him an air of peculiarity which the monks could not comprehend. Too much of original character lay concealed beneath that demure yet singular deportment to be controlled even by the iron forms which the order laid upon all alike. Luther's mind had an individuality which separated him from the mass and heightened his solitude. In the mental processes through which he passed, he was alone and without sympathy. He was driven, at last, almost to phrenzy. Often was his bodily frame overpowered by the intensity of his excited feelings, and there was no skilful physician of the soul at hand to prescribe for his case. Speaking on this point, he observes, "In my huge temptations which consumed my body so that I well nigh lost my breath, and hardly knew whether I had still any brain left or not, there was no one to comfort me." If he opened his heart to any one, the only reply he received was, "I know nothing about such temptations," and he was left to the gloomy conclusion, that he "was to be alone in this disconsolate state." But as the melancholy mood here described only commenced during his novitiate and extended through the second year of his life in the cloister, we must break off the narration for the present, and direct our attention to his other employments during the first year. "When I was received into the cloister," he said once to his friends, according to the Gotha manuscript, "I called for a Bible, and the brethren gave me one. It was bound in red morocco. I made myself so familiar with it that I knew on what page and in what place every passage stood. Had I kept it, I should have been an excellent textual theologian. No other study than that of the Holy Scriptures pleased me. I read therein zealously, and imprinted them on my memory. Many a time a single pregnant passage would abide the whole day long in my mind. On significant words of the prophets, which even now I remember well, I cogitated again and again, although I could not apprehend the meaning thereof; as, for example, we read in Ezekiel, I desire not the death of the sinner." Again, he says, "Not till after I had made myself acquainted with the Bible, did I study the (scholastic) writers." By "the writers," he must mean the scholastic theologians. For he himself says, in a preface to Bugenhagen's edition of Athanasius, that he "read the colloquy between Athanasius and Arius with great interest, in the first year of his monastic life, at Erfurt." No doubt he also read the legends of the saints, the Lives of the Fathers (a favorite book with. him), and other works of a similar tendency. The new rules of the order prescribed, however, the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the probationary year appears to have been designated for biblical study. But we must guard against being misled by the fact that there was such a rule, and by the name that was given to the study. Neither the sentiments nor the practice of the Erfurt monks coincided with the rule. Though they could not refuse to give a Bible to the novice who requested it, they discouraged the study of it. Besides, Luther's time was so much occupied with other useless and menial services that his progress in the study of the Scriptures must have been much impeded. He was, furthermore, destitute of suitable helps for studying them critically. He did not see the Bible in the original, nor had he then any knowledge of the Greek or Hebrew. He had only the Latin Vulgate, with a most miserable commentary, called the Glossa Ordinaria, or Common Gloss. And, what is more than all, he brought to the study of the Bible a mind overborne with monastic and papal prejudices. The method of what was called biblical studies, as then pursued in the monasteries and universities, was entirely different from that to which we, in the present age, are accustomed. The Bible was not studied as a whole, nor any of the sacred writers in a connected manner so as to learn the scope and general design of the book. Of course, the author was not made his own interpreter, nor were any sound rules of interpretation observed. A text was, in the first place, taken out of its connection, and interpreted metaphysically, as if it were a scholastic maxim, and forced at once into an unnatural connection with dialectics, or used as a secondary and subsidiary support of a doctrine which rested mainly on a metaphysical basis. In the next place, the literal sense was deserted at pleasure, and an allegorical one introduced to suit the object of the interpreter. The absurd conceits of Origen, Jerome and other early fathers of the church were handed down by tradition, and the study of such traditionary interpretation, collected in compends, was called 1848.] Second Year in the Cloister. 533 biblical study. The false interpretations to be found in the papal bulls and decretals, and in the approved works of the scholastic writers, would furnish a large chapter in the book of human follies. Luther was not only under these influences but yielded to them. In a letter to Spalatin, June 29, 1518, he says, "I myself followed the doctrines and rules of the scholastic theology, and according to them did I desire to handle the Scriptures." In his commentary on Genesis ix. he says, "I have often told you of what sort theology was when I first began the study thereof. The letter, said they, killeth. For this cause I was especially opposed to Lyra more than to all other teachers, because he cleaved so diligently to the text and abode by it. But now, for this selfsame reason, I prefer him before all other interpreters of Scripture." Again, he says, "When I was young, I loved allegories to such a degree, that I thought everything must be turned into allegories. To this Origen and Jerome gave occasion, whom I esteemed as being the greatest theologians." Well, indeed, might he afterwards say, "I did not learn all my theology at once." The beginning with him was feeble, and, the sincerity of his heart excepted, was of a very unpromising character. Taking the Vow.-Second year in the Cloister, 1506. Such was Luther's year of probation, a year in which he experienced some gratification in the study, however defective, of the Scriptures which he loved; but, on the other hand, was disappointed in respect to what was of the highest concern to him, namely, obtaining peace within himself. If it excite our wonder that he did not, at this time, while it was in his power, and before taking the irrevocable vow, determine to abandon the monastic life, and return to the university or seek some other occupation, there are other considerations which may remove our surprise. Luther's mind was of too determined a character to be turned from its course by any slight considerations. He had been trained in the school of adversity, and could courageously bear the privations and sufferings attendant on his present mode of life. The subject of religion interested him more than all others, and to this he could give his undivided attention here more easily than elsewhere. Here, too, he found a few friends, such as Usingen, his former teacher, Lange whom he assisted in study, and the excellent Susse, who is said to have been his room-mate. If his mind had as yet found no rest, possibly a longer trial, after actually taking the vow, might prove more effectual. Certainly a return to the world would imply a want of firmness, and would, besides, promise |