his [the king's] judgment. If you can induce yourself to pass over to us, you will, I think, be welcomed by many of my countrymen.' But to be bound down to say yes or no was the last thing in the world that Erasmus desired; so he left the matter dangling. He had previously written to the only man who never failed him, Archbishop Warham, and had received at last something towards his journey:

Most Reverend Prelate, the only appreciator and patron of my studies, I hope you are well. The poets divide their plays into five acts. The fifth act of this comedy of mine still remains to be played, which would that I might so play that I may merit the applause of the good, but especially that Christ, our only judge, may approve! I am going either to Venice or Basle, and each road is long and dangerous, particularly the one through Germany, not only on account of the inveterate system of robberies but also because of the plague, which has carried off Lachner, the manager of Froben's printing office, as also many others. Now if I go to Italy, my expenses will be larger by reason of the various happenings which are wont to occur unexpectedly. I have it in mind to augment my library with the best books which are being daily printed in Italy. I am compelled to be present at the work on my New Testament. The task is perplexing, and if I am not there nothing will be done as I wish it. In whatever part of the world I shall be, I shall be your humble client. If I return safely, it is my intention to migrate to England, as to a hidden and remote refuge; and I trust that your kindness will increase my little fortune, since day by day old age is approaching, and daily more and more I understand the last chapter of Ecclesiastes." If I do not return safely, it will cheer me to die in what is, if I mistake not, a pious undertaking..

Oh, if I had such a horse as the one you formerly sent to the Abbot of St. Bertin's by me! Many wonder at my undertaking such a journey at my time of life; but I might wonder at the Bishop of Paris who has taken longer journeys at almost seventy, and for affairs that I deem of less moment. Pray, treat my servant kindly and send him back to me quickly, so that I may not be delayed, and continue to assist your Erasmus. Never shall I deem myself unhappy while you are spared to me. Farewell, your lordship, to whom I devote and consecrate myself."

When Luther felt the pinch of poverty he used to console himself

37 Ibid., 810, 11. 370-5.

38 It is within the bounds of probability that he here referred to the verses of Ecclesiastes which read as follows:

"Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction come, and the years draw nigh of which thou shalt say: They please me not

Before the silver cord be broken, and the golden fillet shrink back, and the pitcher

be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel be broken upon the cistern,

And the dust return unto its earth from whence it was, and the spirit return to God who gave it.

Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, and all things are vanity."

* Eras. Ep. 781.

with a sincere and ardent faith that the Lord would provide. Not so with Erasmus, who had expensive tastes in the matters of food, wines, and attendance, and who reserved for himself the office of providing against every contingency in such things. He had now reached the summit of his fame, and was known in all the learned circles of Europe as the greatest writer of the age. His books were bought up eagerly as soon as issued, for they exhibited in brilliant, witty, and attractive form all the learning of all the centuries. The Pope, with the Cardinals and bishops everywhere, had done him honor; and he counted as his friends kings, princes, and potentates who were eager to support and maintain him with their wealth of patronage. He had a passion for the comforts of life, and even for one or two of its luxuries; and his more or less covert hints that presents of money or jewels were acceptable to him form a disagreeable chapter in his history. His principal ambition was to be considered the acknowledged sovereign of the literary world, and he ill brooked a rival near his throne. His jealousy of others on this point is also unpleasant to contemplate, and was, if he had only realized it, entirely unnecessary. For the world has long ago given him the highest niche in the temple of fame as compared with all his contemporaries; and that estimate of his works, as far as their wonderful literary merit is involved, has never since been called into question.

CHAPTER VI

CONSIDERATION OF MARTIN LUTHER

But a change was at hand, and another was destined to occupy the centre of that stage which Erasmus had so recently and so industriously won the right to possess. That other was Martin Luther, a man as different from him as it is possible to conceive. Both were monks, and we may assume that their preliminary training had been the same. Erasmus was now fifty-one years old, while Luther was but thirtyfour, a fact to which, in their early relations, was accorded the respect due it from the younger man. Erasmus was twenty-two years and Luther twenty-three years old when each took his final vows; and both were intellectually mature beyond the average at that critical moment. But at once we begin to be struck with the evident differences of character which each manifested. Erasmus had a sort of courage which was mostly craftiness; Luther's was impetuous and often ill advised. Erasmus openly confessed that he did not aspire to the honors of martyrdom, and admitted that he would probably play the traitor as St. Peter did if he were put to the test.1 Luther, on the contrary, often declared that he was ready to give up his life for his principles. Erasmus was always in fear that he might suffer want, and placed no confidence in the care of a watchful Providence; Luther cared not much what he ate, or wherewith he was clad, and never dreaded poverty for himself. Erasmus feared a conflict; Luther gloried in a fight. Erasmus launched his arrows always hoping that they would not injure his own interests; Luther hurled his club regardless of the consequences to himself. Erasmus winced at the slightest censure; Luther stood unmoved when all the Christian world, except a few students at Wittemberg, held him in abhorrence. Erasmus' chief aims were the advancement of learning and the gratifying of personal animosities; Luther subordinated learning to the spread of his own peculiar convictions. Both were abnormal in that they harbored obsessions, were superstitious, had a firm credence in a personal devil, and believed in witches, portents, and apparitions. Of Erasmus' weakness in this respect we have already spoken; let us see how Luther stood in this same regard. In the year 1533 there appeared in the sky a strange phenomenon, which Justus Jonas described as follows:

In the month of October, and lasting from ten to twelve at night, full in the presence of the multitude who were observing it, there appeared in the four regions of the sky many thousand fiery torches, the color of flame and really glowing, the like of which 1 Eras. Ep. 1218.

Luther declared he had never seen. On another occasion, and at almost the same time of night, there was heard in the air a noise as of armies rushing together.

Thereupon Jonas relates that Luther, "a despiser of the Devil, and aware of all his attacks, considering these things as tricks of the Evil One who was trying to frighten men by false terrors, if he could not by real ones, etc.'

But it is in his Table-Talk that Luther's obsessions are most striking and manifest. He felt that there was to be constant warfare between himself and the devil, and that his satanic enemy did not scruple to use weapons and methods which were purely material. He complained that his stay in the castle of Wartburg was made very disagreeable for him by the evil one, who insisted on tumbling various objects around his chamber. He began to imagine things, especially strange noises and apparitions. He had put some hazel-nuts in a chest, and at night he would hear them rolling around. At other times he heard objects falling on the stairs, and more than once saw a black dog on his bed. There is of course the tradition that he once became so exasperated at the devil, whom he held responsible for these annoyances, that he threw an inkbottle at him, the missile passing through his infernal tormentor and leaving on the wall a great black splotch which was pointed out to the curious and gullible of following generations. He believed that Satan had innumerable lesser devils to assist him:

Not all of them little devils [he would say], but there are landdevils and devil-princes, who are experienced and have practiced for a very long time, over five thousand years, and have become most shrewd and cunning. We have the big devils who are Doctors of Divinity; the Turks and Papists have bad and petty devils who are not theological but juridical devils. . . . Wherever a fire blazes up, there every time sits a little devil and blows into the flame. and if God had not given us the dear holy angels for guardians and arquebusiers, who are drawn up about us like a bulwark of wagons, it would be soon all over with us.3

He was careful not to use contempt, for he believed the devil to be very proud and haughty. Ridicule, however, was permissible. He was sure the devil hated cheerful music, being a mournful and melancholy spirit. During his long nights of insomnia he would behold the devil at the head of the bed sneering at him and trying to terrify him, and the result of all this was so to excite his mind that he was rendered incapable of mental effort and lived in dread of the coming night. It finally drove him from the Wartburg, for he dreaded the wiles of his enemies much less than these vain imaginings of his tortured mind.

As our study of Erasmus has led us to decide definitely that he was a neurasthenic, so our study of Luther has convinced us that he was a psychopath, if not always, then most assuredly at intervals. We are 2 See Seckendorf, Comm. de Lutheranismo, lib. iii, 66. Luther, Table-Talk, passim.

well aware that this statement of ours will be received with surprise by some, with dismay by others, with due consideration by the thinking few, and with undue resentment by the unthinking many. Hence we are bound in all justice to corroborate it with all the proof that such an assertion demands.

His mother Margaret Ziegler was a woman of deep religious convictions, and Melancthon says that she was especially remarkable for her "fear of God, and her constant communion with the Lord in prayer." The father, who was a miner, was a man of great force of character, stern and unyielding in his convictions, and with very little reverence in his make-up. Evidently he was a man of hot temper, for he was said, even in Luther's day, to have killed a man in some altercation. A few of Luther's more recent biographers are inclined to deny this fact, but Luther himself never seems to have done so, even when taunted by some of his opponents on account of it. It was a stern household. He tells us that he was once so severely flogged by his father that he fled from him, and bore him a temporary grudge. He also relates that his mother scourged him, on an occasion when he had stolen a nut, so that the blood came; and that the combined severity of his parents made him shy and timid, according to his own testimony. Köstlin, from whose work we take these details, tells us further that,

Their strictness, well intended, and proceeding from a genuine earnestness of purpose, furthered in him [Luther] a strictness and tenderness of conscience, which then and in after years made him deeply and keenly sensitive of every fault committed in the eyes of God, a sensitiveness, indeed, which, so far from relieving him of fear, made him apprehensive on account of sins that existed only in his imagination. It was a later consequence of this discipline, as Luther himself informs us, that he took refuge in a convent.*

Now it is important to remember in this connection that the killing of the peasant by the elder Luther happened just before the coming of himself and his young wife to Eisleben and, consequently, during the early months of the latter's pregnancy which ended in the birth of Martin. If that is so, then we have to take into account its bearing on the mother and the prenatal effect it may have had on her unborn child. With her deeply religious trend, and her idea of God as a stern and inexorable judge, the killing of a fellow-man by her husband, even though accidental, must have produced a shock to her nervous system the effects of which, coming at a time when most women's nerve inhibition is most unstable, may have been severely felt.

While there he does not He called them tyrants prisons and hells. He

In due time the boy Luther went to school. seem to have managed well with his teachers. and executioners, and the schools themselves relates that one morning he was whipped fifteen times for being unable to repeat what he had never been taught. To us of the generation that lived previous to the era of "moral suasion" and that can remember how the rod was feared and hated, all his complaints about teachers are • Köstlin, Life of Luther, pp. 11-12. New York and London, 1883.