le Very Rev, M. 
 
 •BS2665 
 .L979LZ 
 

Luther on the 
 His Revolt 
 
 A criticism of Luther's Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans 
 given at Wittenberg in 1515-1516. 
 
 BY , 
 
 The Very Rev. M. J. LAGRANGE, O. P. 
 
 Editor of the Revue Biblique, 
 Director of the Ecole Pratique d'Etudes Bibligues, Jerusalem. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 The Rev. W. S. REILLY, S. S. 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION 
 
 New York 
 1918 
 
NIHIL OBSTAT 
 
 E.R.DYER, D.D. 
 
 Censor Deputatus 
 
 Imprimatur 
 
 J. CARD. GIBBONS 
 
 Archiepiscopus Baltimorensis 
 
 Baltimorae, die 24^^ Novembris, 1917. 
 
LUTHER ON THE EVE OF 
 HIS REVOLT 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The official birthday of the Reformation 
 has been fixed as the 31st of October, 1517, 
 the day Luther posted upon the door of the 
 University Church at Wittenberg the ninety- 
 five theses In which he bade defiance to preach- 
 ers of Indulgences in Germany. It was re- 
 solved, before the war into which Europe has 
 been plunged, to celebrate with great solem- 
 nity the four hundredth anniversary of this 
 event. 
 
 The view that Luther's challenge had great 
 significance was held by Bossuet. That incom- 
 parable controversialist did not see in Luther's 
 action more than a rather irresolute first step, 
 a denunciation of an Isolated abuse : "From 
 abuses he passed to the thing itself." The 
 Lutheran system would have grown only in- 
 sensibly and according to the requirements of 
 controversy : "However, one matter led him 
 to another. As the doctrine of justification 
 and of the efficacy of the Sacraments was 
 closely connected with that of indulgences, 
 Luther turned upon these two articles ; and 
 this controversy soon became the more im- 
 1 
 
2 Introduction 
 
 portant." ^ Working on this assumption, 
 Bossuet undertakes the difficult task of follow- 
 ing Luther in his first movements, which he 
 represents as sometimes bold, sometimes timid. 
 His admirable book, so full of facts, so vig- 
 orous and serene in its reasoning, is, at the 
 beginning, occupied with the discussion of 
 petty quarrels. It is like the first flappings 
 of the wings of the eagle which is starting 
 upon its flight. 
 
 It has been shown recently that Bossuet's 
 view about the beginnings of Lutheranism was 
 entirely wrong. Long before the incident of 
 October 31, 1517, Luther was already in full 
 possession of his theological system. If all 
 the details were not formulated, the princi- 
 ples had been laid down clearly and with 
 assurance. The monk had his doctrine and 
 his plan of reform. It is now clear that the 
 new religion is not the result of circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The first historian to understand and to 
 analyze the state of mind of Luther on the 
 eve of the Reformation was an Austrian Do- 
 minican, Father Denifle, in his study on the 
 beginnings of Lutheranism, as they are seen 
 in the original documents.^ 
 
 1 Eistoire cles Variations des Eglises Protestantes, 
 Book 1. 
 
 2 Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Enticickel- 
 ung quellenmassig dargestellt. 
 
 The first part of this work was revised by the 
 author himself (1904). Tlie second appeared after 
 
Introduction 
 
 The document which proved to be of most 
 value was a manuscript of the Commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Romans which Luther, 
 as professor of exegesis at Wittenberg, had 
 composed in 1515-1516. We have the pre- 
 cise date, because the Vulgate text of the 
 Epistle which he annotated was printed in 
 1515, and we know that the lectures ended in 
 October, 1516, just one^year before the pub- 
 lication of the theses on indulgences. We 
 owe the discovery of this important document 
 to Mr. Johannes Ficker, who, in his search 
 for manuscripts bearing on the beginning of 
 the Reformation, found, first, a copy of the 
 Commentary in the archives of the Vatican 
 Library at Rome, and then the original itself, 
 in the handwriting of Luther, carefully pre- 
 served — unread — in a glass case of the Rojal 
 Library of Berlin. German Protestants, 
 who have raised to the glory of the Re- 
 former a veritable monument of books and 
 pamphlets, had overlooked the only abso- 
 lutely reliable source of information concern- 
 ing the thought of Luther when that thought 
 was ripening into Lutheranism. Was such 
 an oversight due to the fact that intellectual 
 curiosity about the master's activity as a 
 
 his death (June 10, 1905), edited by Father 
 Weiss, 0. P. (1906). Circumstances having pre- 
 vented access to the original, we shall cite from 
 the French translation, enriched by careful notes, 
 of the Rev. J. Paqui>r, LL.D., Luther et le Luther- 
 anisme, Paris, Picard, 4 vols., 1910-1913. 
 
Introduction 
 
 monk had been satisfied by his own stories 
 about his hfe in the cloister? Did they take 
 seriously his claim to be divinely inspired? 
 The details of Ticker's discovery are given, 
 too sparingly, in his edition of the Berlin 
 manuscript,^ from which we shall quote in 
 the present study. 
 
 Father Denifle was not the man to await 
 the publication of the Berlin text. With his 
 incomparable mastery of paleography, he set 
 to work with the Roman copy. He realized 
 at a glance the importance of the discovery 
 of this book and it was not hard for such a 
 keen theologian and historian, so admi- 
 rably informed concerning the intellectual 
 life of the Middle Ages, to realize that there 
 was in this Commentary the essence of all the 
 errors which Luther was afterward to pro- 
 fess. Variations might appear, called forth 
 by polemics, but they would not fundamen- 
 tally alter the system which the Augustinian 
 monk expounded a year before his revolt. 
 The long extracts which Father Denifle gives 
 from the Commentary^ and the rigorous 
 analysis to which he submits them, are the 
 most interesting features of his great work 
 on Luther and Lutheranism. 
 
 This work has shown conclusively, as is 
 
 1 Anfdnge reformatoriscJier Bihelauslegung, he- 
 raiisgehen von Johannes Ficker. 1. Band: Luther^s 
 Vorlesung iiher den Romerbrief, 1515-1516. I Teil: 
 Die Glosse, in 8^ CIV— 161 pp. II Teil: Die ficlwlien, 
 1-346 pp., Leipzig, 1908. 
 
Introduction 
 
 conceded by more than one of the many op- 
 ponents Father Denifle stirred up, that 
 Luther, when he made his attack on Cathohc 
 theology, had no knowledge of the great 
 scholastics, including St. Thomas Aquinas. 
 His theological reading had not extended be- 
 yond the disciples of Occam ; Gabriel Biel had 
 been his most familiar author. 
 
 A second still more important point made 
 by the clear-sighted Thomistic theologian is 
 that Occam exercised an influence over the 
 dominant theory of Luther. 
 
 Protestant theologians were rather dumb- 
 founded by the revelations which Father 
 Denifle had made, thanks to his knowledge of 
 the theology, the mysticism, and the liturgy 
 of the Middle Ages. They had found it con- 
 venient to make real Christianity begin with 
 Luther, as a Jacobin might date the history 
 of France from the Revolution. The facts 
 were too clear to be gainsaid. Luther's men- 
 tal equipment as a reformer was poor ; even 
 as a heretic he was not so original as peo- 
 ple had thought. So much might be granted. 
 But when Father Denifle passed on to dis- 
 cuss the moral condition of Luther at the 
 time that he was elaborating his theological 
 system, he ceased to convince Protestants. 
 He had laid about with a scourge of this- 
 tles among the contradictions of the theo- 
 logian and, having followed the movements 
 of his mind up to the moment when he 
 
6 Introduction 
 
 deviated from Catholic teaching, he ventured 
 to assign as the real cause of this deviation 
 the infidelities of the father of the Reforma- 
 tion ; if Luther believed concupiscence invin- 
 cible, it was because he had himself, and fre- 
 quently, given way to concupiscence. A 
 clamor of Lutheran apologists broke out 
 against the unmerciful treatment wjiich the 
 mendicant friar had meted out to the apos- 
 tate monk. Denifle's verdict was denounced 
 as a calumny. Haraack was as excited as 
 the rest, although he spoke with caution. 
 Father Denifle had called attention to what 
 might seem insufficient concern about truth 
 in some of the statements of this renowned 
 historian in his work on Luther. Whatever 
 may be thought of the correctness of Father 
 Denifle's judgment about the moral disposi- 
 tions of the father of Protestantism, this judg- 
 ment did not bear on a matter which could be 
 made so clear as Luther's state of mind. It 
 has not found support in the more recent work 
 of another Catholic scholar, Father Grisar, 
 S.J., who has dealt with the question in the 
 course of his exhaustive studies on Luther.^ 
 He declares that "neither the Commentary on 
 the Psalms nor that on the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans gives the impression that the author 
 was morally corrupt." ^ Consequently, he 
 1 Luther, by Ilartmann Grisar, S.J., Freiburg im 
 Breisgau, B. Herder, 1911 ff. English translation, 
 by E. M. Lamond, in 5 vols., B. Herder, completed 
 ill 1917. 2 Op. cit., I., p. 91. 
 
Introduction 
 
 has not sought for the origin of Luther's 
 theories in his moral perversity. 
 
 In the following study of the Commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Romans, I shall keep 
 this ps3^chological problem in view. Every- 
 body admits that Luther's personality was a 
 considerable factor in his exegesis. Some of 
 his admirers recognize with naive satisfaction 
 this influence of the dispositions of his mind 
 and heart, without seeming to know that to 
 be guided in interpreting another's mind by 
 one's own prepossessions and feelings, means 
 to depart from truth. But while we endeavor 
 to determine to what extent Luther was thus 
 misled in his understanding of the teaching 
 of St. Paul, we must inquire no less carefully 
 to what extent St. Paul influenced Luther. 
 For Luther really thought that he under- 
 stood the Apostle ; he was convinced, at least 
 in the beginning, that his system was 
 grounded on the Bible. It would be a mis- 
 take to think that he simply read into the 
 Epistle to the Romans a system of thought 
 formed without any dependence on the 
 Apostle. 
 
 Before entering upon this study of the re- 
 lation between the text of Romans and the 
 Lutheran way of understanding it, of the 
 state of soul and the exegetical methods which 
 in part account for Luther's interpretation, 
 it is of interest to note that a cursory read- 
 ing of the Commentary makes it clear that 
 
8 Introduction 
 
 the idea of revolt had not yet entered his 
 thoughts. He still believed himself loyal to 
 the Catholic Church. He purposed only to 
 bring religion back to its purest sources. It 
 did not occur to him that he would ever be 
 reduced to seeking salvation outside the 
 Church. No book, even in the Middle Ages, 
 more frequentlj^ denounces heresy or paints 
 heresy in darker colors than does the Com- 
 mentary. It represents the heretic as a 
 proud man, who sins first through igno- 
 rance. If contempt be mingled with ig- 
 norance, he is in the net. Then he clings to 
 what seems true to his own private judgment ; 
 and at the moment when he thinks himself sure 
 of the truth, freed from snares and pitfalls, 
 he is really a captive. Next, he becomes im- 
 patient of contradiction, and will listen to 
 nothing. Finally, he is seized with indignant 
 zeal for his own inventions ; he pursues and 
 calumniates his enemies, seeking to harm 
 them. His punishment has been already in- 
 flicted! The Commentary tells us, moreover, 
 that, whatever heretics may do, there is al- 
 ways a weak spot which allows one to unmask 
 them. You have only to ask whence they hold 
 their mission. That is a death blow. They 
 can allege neither prophesy nor miracles. 
 Mindful of this need of proper authorization, 
 the Wittenberg professor is careful to shield 
 himself behind his title : if he teaches, it is by 
 apostolic commission. This gives him an 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 apostolic authority and a right to blame all 
 that is evil, even in the most exalted. 
 
 We propose here, firstly, to consider Luth- 
 er's Commentary merely as an exegetical work, 
 restricting ourselves to an examination of his 
 method, and reserving until later any formal 
 discussion of the new doctrines ; secondly, to 
 study the intellectual and moral dispositions 
 of Luther, in so far as they may be gathered 
 from his work on this Epistle to the Romans ; 
 thirdly, to indicate the new doctrine which the 
 Wittenberg professor so dogmatically gave 
 out as the genuine teaching of St. Paul, and 
 to discuss its real relation to that teaching. 
 
 The exegesis of Luther in his lectures at 
 the University of Wittenberg in 1515-1516 
 deserves study for many reasons. Foremost, 
 it was destined to transform the religious lives 
 of millions. Henceforth, the teaching of St. 
 Paul as interpreted by the Augustinian pro- 
 fessor w^as to become the rule of faith and 
 practice of a large portion of the Christian 
 world. And it still holds sway. Many 
 Protestants admit, indeed, that while pro- 
 fessing to interpret St. Paul, Luther simply 
 set forth his own ideas. About the ideas 
 themselves they care little ; they are as inde- 
 pendent in his regard as he would have them 
 to be in regard to the teaching which was tra- 
 ditional in 1516. There are, however, a great 
 many Protestants who still regard Luther as 
 a faithful expositor of the Apostle's doctrine. 
 
10 Introduction 
 
 Some even, like Mr. A. Jundt/ exalt his exc- 
 getical fidelity to the prejudice of his origi- 
 nality : "St. Paul, Augustin, Calvin, have 
 created theological systems, Luther has re- 
 stored Pauline theology ; his mind, attuned 
 to that of the Apostle, acquired dogmatic 
 precision of thought once he understood 
 what St. Paul means in the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans." Luther's system of thought possesses 
 more than an archeological interest for the 
 student of history of Bible interpretation. 
 
 We are fully aware, of course, that a 
 Catholic who criticizes the giant of the 
 Reformation can expect only disdain from 
 Protestants. Father Denifle has recalled that 
 many who feel perfectly free to dissect the 
 words and actions of Jesus m ill not suffer any 
 disparagement of the inviolable Luther. We 
 are incapable, it is claimed, of understanding 
 him. The cavilling of modern dwarfs can no 
 more reach him than the envy of a mole-hill 
 could efface Mount Blanc. We need not, then, 
 be embarrassed, since we do the idol no harm. 
 Besides, we are conscious of only seeking the 
 truth. 
 
 1 Lg developpemefit dc la pensre religieuse do 
 Luther jusqu'en 1517. Paris, 1903. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 LUTHER'S COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE 
 TO THE ROMANS 'AS AN EXEGETICAL 
 WORK 
 
 1. The Structure of the Commentary 
 
 Tlie text of Luther's Commentary, as pub- 
 lished by Johannes Ticker, is, naturally, ac- 
 cording to the original of Berlin, with nota- 
 tion of variants in the Vatican copy, which 
 differs very slightly from the text. The first 
 volume is consecrated to the Glosses, the sec- 
 ond to the Scliolia. The work of Luther com- 
 prises, indeed, two very distinct parts. 
 
 He used, for the first of these parts, a 
 printed text of the Epistle to the Romans 
 according to the Vulgate, with considerable 
 space between the lines. This space is de- 
 voted to a first series of Glosses which were 
 only another way of expressing the idea of 
 the sacred writer. Sometimes a word is sub- 
 stituted for another in an endeavor to get 
 nearer the meaning of the Greek, sometimes 
 several words are paraphrased or explained. 
 These annotations are for the most part brief 
 indications of consequences to be drawn from 
 a text. In the edition of Ficker the text of 
 the Bible is printed in heavy (Egyptian) 
 characters, and the gloss follows in Italic. 
 11 
 
12 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 The following translation will give an idea 
 of the book : 
 
 Romans 1 . 28 : And as they did not ap- 
 prove, make efforts, oa- diligently strive to 
 have God in their knowledge, that their 
 heart might not he darkened, the knowledge 
 of God being lost. This, I say, they did not 
 care about, therefore God delivered them up 
 to a worthy chastisement, by a just judgment, 
 to a reprobate sense, a dishonest mind, etc. 
 
 Other glosses were placed in the margin. 
 They are by way of development of the for- 
 mer, explaining more in detail the meaning 
 of the Greek text, or the thought of the Apos- 
 tle, and at times they contain citations, etc. 
 In Ficker these glosses are assigned a place 
 by themselves, under the others, with indi- 
 cation of the texts to which they refer. 
 
 The text, together with interlinear and 
 marginal glosses, occupies only 28 pages in 
 quarto, whereas the Scholia extend from p. 29 
 to p. 152 of the manuscript. The Scholia 
 form a continuous commentary, if the name 
 can be given to such an original work. Some 
 words of the text are still quoted, but digres- 
 sions are not rare. It is in the Scholia that 
 we find the developments which refer to the 
 new doctrine. The glosses reflect it also, but 
 less clearly, either because Luther was nat- 
 urally led to write these short notes in the 
 terminology of traditional exegesis, or be- 
 cause the text of St. Paul itself served as a 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 18 
 
 barrier. The new ideas are freely set forth 
 only in the Scholia. 
 
 2. Neglect of the Fathers and the 
 Schoolmen 
 
 It is in these Scholia that it would have 
 been well to determine the logical connection 
 of the Apostle's thought. The system of St. 
 Thomas is known : he reproduces the Latin 
 text of a pericope ; then he dismembers it, so 
 to speak, to point out the order of the propo- 
 sitions, the relations of causality, finality, or 
 consequence. After this he goes on to ex- 
 amine the propositions, endeavoring solely to 
 disengage their meaning. He willingly notes 
 the various solutions Mhich may be given, and 
 sets down analogous biblical passages. This 
 commentary of St. Thomas would be a model 
 of an objective explanation, if such could be 
 produced without having recourse to the orig- 
 inal text, and if one might interpret a book 
 without studying its environment, the origin 
 and conflict of doctrines — without applying 
 all that we call historical exegesis. 
 
 St. Thomas has at least the merit of keep- 
 ing his own personality in the background. 
 Father Denifle shows us how impersonal this 
 method was. "If we compare," he writes in a 
 sort of supplement to his work on Luther,^ 
 
 1 Qtiellenhclege. Die ahldndischen Schriftsauslcger 
 his Luther iiher Justitia Dei (Rom. 1.17), und 
 JUSTIFICATIO (1905), p. 136. 
 
14 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 "the Commentary of St. Thomas with those 
 which immediately preceded it,^ we find in 
 these earlier ones, to speak in a, general way, 
 the same questions, often the same solutions, 
 the same scriptural texts, although more 
 numerous ; but in the commentary of St, 
 Thomas, as in his Summa, everything is han- 
 dled with more perspicuity, is better under- 
 stood, is grasped in a surer and more ob- 
 jective way. He did not, however, invent 
 his method ; he only employed logically the 
 traditional way of expounding Scripture." 
 
 All the works of the scholastic exegetes re- 
 mained almost unknown to Luther.^ He has, 
 indeed, a few allusions to Peter Lombard, and 
 Mr. Ficker has expressed the view that he had 
 under his eyes a Latin Vulgate containing the 
 divisions of St. Thomas ; but his contempt for 
 scholasticism, which led him to an open rup- 
 ture with the system, kept him from consult- 
 ing, except perhaps very rarely, the exegetes 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 1 Father Denifle cites in tlie preceding pa.sres the 
 Dominicans Guerric of St. Quentin, Odo Gallus (?), 
 Gaufrid of Bleveio, and the Franciscan John of la 
 Rochelle. 
 
 2 Hugh of St. Victor is cited textiially, but the 
 passage is not found in his works (F. 312). It is 
 the same with a quotation from Seneca (F. 74), 
 and one from Cicero, who even says the contrary 
 of what is in the citation ( F. 35 ) . 
 
 The references indicated by F. with a number are 
 to the pages of the volume containing the Scholia, 
 the more important. F.g. will indicate the volume 
 of Ficker which contains the glosses. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 15 
 
 This neglect was unfortunate, for, although 
 the schoolmen went too far in their concern 
 for logical order, bringing it into St. Paul 
 to such an extent as to reduce his utterances 
 to a series of well-drawn conclusions, they 
 could at least have taught Luther to inform 
 himself about the plan of the Apostle, per- 
 fectly recognizable in its main lines in spite of 
 the almost tumultuous appearance of his style. 
 
 In his scorn for scholasticism did the Au- 
 gustinian monk prefer to go directly to the 
 Fathers? The influence of St. Augustine is 
 evident. Luther has told us what an impres- 
 sion was made upon him by the De spiritw 
 et littera. This might be recognized by 
 simply reading his work. The books against 
 Julian, De nuptiis et concupisceiitia and oth- 
 ers, furnish him with quotations and veritable 
 extracts. We shall have to inquire how far 
 he really reproduced the thought of one whom 
 he regarded as the founder of his order, and 
 to whom he had consecrated so much and 
 such exclusive admiration. St. Ambrose is 
 named ten times, twice without any special 
 reason,^ once following Erasmus,^ four times 
 following St. Augustine;^ and, let us add, a 
 citation which is rather inaccurate ^ and one 
 which Luther probably borrowed from a ci- 
 tation of another.^ In the single passage 
 
 1 F. 108, 278. 4 F. 109. 
 
 2 F.g. 12fi. 5 F. 28. 
 3F. 116; 168; 169; g. 69. 
 
16 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 where Ambrose Is quoted as a commentator, 
 reference is made to the distmguished work 
 which we call, for want of a better name, the 
 Amhrosiaster. Luther knew it, consequently, 
 but he did not make much use of it. St. Cyp- 
 rian is named three times, always following 
 St. Augustine. Chrysostom himself is not 
 otherwise cited. This is fortunate for him, 
 because he would surely have been rudely 
 handled. St. Jerome was better known, but 
 especially as the translator of the Old Tes- 
 tament. 
 
 Luther was not obliged to display in his 
 Commentary wide acquaintance with the 
 opinions of the Fathers, but he should at 
 least have avoided incorrect general state- 
 ments about writings which he had not read. 
 He frequently misrepresents them. For in- 
 stance, on the words of the text: "Let every 
 man abound in his own sense," Luther writes; 
 
 This saying is taken everywhere (passim) 
 by the Holy Fathers and Doctors for a general 
 declaration, by which every man is allowed to 
 abound in his own sense in the understanding 
 of the Scriptures.^ 
 
 Concerning this statement ]Mr. Ficker 
 notes that the exegesis of Romans 14.5 is 
 met with neither in the Fathers nor in the 
 Scholastics. 
 
 When the Commentar'if speaks of "the 
 iF. 325. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 17 
 
 Fathers," one cmu be sure that Lutlier has in 
 inind hardly any one but St. Augustine, in 
 whom the Augustinian monk hears the whole 
 school. It is again Mr. Ficker himself who 
 has noticed this.^ It is, then, rather to igno- 
 rance than to bad faith that we may attribute 
 Luther's allegation about the traditional in- 
 terpretation of Romans 1.17, so severely 
 judged by Father Denifle, upon whom it im- 
 posed enormous researches.^ 
 
 Luther had accustomed himself to put 
 down as an "opinion of the Fathers" any view 
 which in his own neighborhood was regarded 
 as traditional. 
 
 However, he had direct knowledge of St. 
 Bernard, whose authority he willingly alleged 
 alongside that of St. Augustine. Once he 
 even attributes to Augustine an idea which 
 was suggested by Bernard.^ And he grafts 
 upon his w^ords a whole theory."* But it is as 
 an ascetic Doctor much more than as an 
 
 1 F. 144, on line 19 : "Luther means here as else- 
 where by the ancient Fathers especially St. Augus- 
 tine." The passage which calls for this note is 
 characteristic : 
 
 Consequently as the ancient Fathers have rightly 
 said: That sin of origin is the fuel (fonies) , the 
 law of the flesh ( leoe carnis ) , the law of the mem- 
 bers {lex membrorum) , the weakness of nature 
 {languorem nature), the tyrant, the sickness of ori- 
 gin (tyranniis, morbus originis) , etc. 
 
 - Tlie whole volume of Quellenbelege. 
 
 3 F. 201. 
 
 4F. 197. 
 
18 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 exegete that Bernard is cited; only one gloss 
 is borrowed from him.^ 
 
 If now we return to more recent commen- 
 tators, we find Luther making use of the Or- 
 dinary and of the Interlineary glossaries cur- 
 rent in his time.^ These he had habitually 
 under his eyes. He also used Nicholas de 
 Lyra, quoted oftener when he parts company 
 with him in his interpretation than when they 
 agree. Paul of Burgos is named several 
 times. 
 
 3. Dependence on the Humanists Lefevre 
 d'Etaples, Erasmus, and Reuchlin 
 
 Luther himself has defined the attitude 
 which he intended to assume in the explana- 
 tion of the word of God, for we may appl}?^ 
 to his whole method what he says of one pas- 
 sage (Romans 1.3—4): 
 
 1 do not know whether this passage has been 
 really and truly expounded by anyone. Tlie 
 ancients were prevented from doing so by the 
 
 iFg. 17; 33. 
 
 2 The Ordinary Glossary {Glossa Ordinaria) was 
 a compilation of explanations of scriptural words 
 and ideas which were current during the Middle Ages 
 and down to Luther's time. It is usually attributed to 
 Walafrid Strabo, Abbot of Reichenau, who died at the 
 court of Charles the Bald, July 17, 849. The Inter- 
 linear Glossary (Glossa Interlinearis) , by Anselm 
 of Laon ( -f- 1117), explained the meaning of words 
 between the lines of the Bible. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 19 
 
 incorrectness of the translation, the more recent 
 commentators, by the absence of the spirit.^ 
 
 A concise formula, but strong and ex- 
 pressive, such as occur frequently under his 
 pen. He believed, then, with the most en- 
 lightened minds of his time, that the moment 
 had come for exegetes to define with more 
 precision the meaning of words. For tins 
 recourse must be had to the original text. 
 Illustrious humanists had opened the way in 
 the case of the Greek New Testament. Luther, 
 so independent in regard to the Scholastics, 
 does not hesitate to accept the moderns as 
 his real authorities. For everything pertain- 
 ing to the sense of the Greek he depends on 
 Lefevre d'Etaples. The first edition of the 
 Epistole Pauli Apostoli had appeared in 
 Paris in the year 1512. Luther never dis- 
 puted d'Etaples' authority as a Hellenist 
 until the day a more luminous star came 
 within the ken of Wittenberg. The Novum 
 Testamentum of Erasmus appeared at Basle 
 only in 1516, but Luther already uses it 
 after his ninth chapter. Henceforth Eras- 
 mus is the master for Greek and references 
 to the Greek text become more and more fre- 
 quent in the glosses, while allusions to the re- 
 ligious and political conditions of the times 
 
 1 F. 9 : Iste locus nescio si ab ullo sit vere et recte 
 expositiis. Antiquis obstitit interpretationis im- 
 proprietas, recentioribus vero absentia spiritus. 
 
20 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 are multiplied in the Scholia. The mendi- 
 cant monk entered at the same time into the 
 current of humanism and into Erasmus' aspi- 
 rations for reform. It is even probable 
 (Ficker infers it from the handwriting ^) that 
 more than one philological note was added in 
 the margin to the first part of the Commen- 
 tary after Erasmus had appeared. 
 
 But Erasmus was already - for Luther 
 what he so loudly declared him to be in their 
 controversy on free will, a profane and super- 
 ficial humanist, little concerned about the 
 things of God. If the new exegesis had "cor- 
 rectness of translation" (proprietas ver- 
 borum), there was lacking to it the spirit of 
 the ancients, by which Luther meant espe- 
 cially the doctrine of Augustine, the faithful 
 interpreter of the Holy Spirit, who had 
 spoken by the mouth of Paul. 
 
 Whence we may conclude that his ideal was 
 to compose a commentary which should be 
 above reproach as regards the explanation of 
 the Greek but nevertheless penetrated by the 
 spirit which had animated the Apostle. So 
 we shall see him consciously depart from the 
 literal sense under the influence of the view 
 that the meaning of Paul can only be attained 
 by those who are "in spirit." 
 
 1 F. 21. 
 
 2 Letter to Spalatin, of Oct. 19, 1516, where he 
 differs from Erasmus regarding the sense of St. 
 Paul; letter to Lang of March 1, 1517. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 21 
 
 The solution is : because the Apostle speaks in 
 spirit, he is not understood except by those vvlio 
 are in spirit.^ 
 
 Luther was well inspired in accepting the 
 authority of the humanists. His competency 
 in Greek was at the time very mediocre. He 
 learned it only later on from JMelanchthon 
 and he always remained far inferior to Eras- 
 mus in regard to the understanding of words. 
 It is true that Erasmus' philological tact was 
 wonderful. 
 
 It would be a loss of time to point out here 
 the cases, more and more numerous, in which 
 Luther translates according to the Greek, fre- 
 quently insisting on its difference from the 
 Vulgate. Mr. Ficker has taken care in such 
 cases to note the translation of Lefevre and 
 that of Erasmus. Luther always respected 
 their authority. Towards the end of his Com- 
 mentary, after having defended at length 
 his view on the meaning of (f>L\ovTiiJiovfx€voq 
 (Rom. 15 . 20), which he translates amhitiosus 
 with Lefevre against Erasmus, he is careful 
 to make a concession to the authority of the 
 great humanist.^ His tone Is here very far 
 from the disdain which he shows for theolo- 
 gians. He doubtless realized his linguistic 
 inferiority. 
 
 IF. 66. 
 
 2 F. 345: But let us not condemn the judcrment 
 of Erasmus and of those like him. 
 
22 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 And, indeed, his personal contribution does 
 not equal even that of Lefevre, not to speak 
 of Erasmus. The former had translated 
 Romans 42 . 4 : de filio suo . . . definito filio 
 Dei ill potestate . . . Jhesu Christo domino 
 nostro. Luther translates bptaOivro^ des- 
 tinato sive definito, declarato, ordinato, etc., 
 without seeming to attach much importance 
 to the varieties of meaning which these words 
 represent.^ He hesitates to replace Jhesu 
 Christi Domini nostri by the ablative on the 
 ground that the Greek text is equivocal.^ 
 However, he is right in retaining ^ secundum 
 spiritum sanctificaiionis, which Lefevre had 
 translated per spiritum sanctitatis. 
 
 One does not see why he replaced in die 
 (Rom. S.5) by in diem; he notes Greci, in 
 diem, et melius,'^ but no authority, Greek or 
 Latin, known to us, can have suggested this. 
 
 The Latin text credit a sunt , . . eloquia 
 Dei (Rom. 3.2), like the Greek cVto-Tev- 
 Ooxrav, signifies that the word of God has 
 been entrusted to the Jews. Perhaps on ac- 
 count of his preoccupation concerning the 
 role of faith, Luther understands the text to 
 mean that the Jews had believed the word of 
 God.^ Nevertheless, he puts aside the read- 
 
 iF. 9. 
 
 2 F. 11. Graecus textiis non potest esse certus. 
 
 3 With Valla, F. 9, note 22. 
 4F. 17. 
 
 5 Mr. Ficker notes that this interpretation and 
 his preference for the neuter comes from the com- 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 23 
 
 ing ah UUsy which would lead to this con- 
 fusion, and retains only credita sunt eloquia 
 Dei. 
 
 Another still stranger confusion. In the 
 famous text on Original Sin (Rom. 5.12) 
 in quo is glossed peccato originali, and this 
 sense is maintained in the Scholia: Sed nul- 
 lum aliud est, in quo omnes peccat^erunt, pro- 
 prium peccatuniy sed unusquisque in suo 
 peccato.^ Is it that Luther has neglected to 
 consult the Greek text of this important pas- 
 sage? He would not have understood e<jt'(3 of 
 sin, which is feminine (a/xaprtaj. But he has 
 expressed himself further on concerning this 
 in quo: 
 
 This is ambiguous in Greek, whether mascu- 
 line or neuter.^ Therefore^ it seems that the 
 Apostle wished it understood in both senses. 
 
 Consequently a double literal sense, com- 
 mented on by St. Augustine. Luther holds 
 decidedly ^to the neuter. The authority of 
 St. Augustine dispenses him from a deeper 
 study of the Greek. 
 
 This same authority prevented him from 
 noticing a remark of Lefevre on the mean- 
 ing of KaT€pyd^€cr6aL (Rom. 7.18), which is 
 
 mentary of Lefevre; iDut may it not be that 
 Lefevre understood e^' ^ to mean eo quod (be- 
 cause) ? where Luther says clearly in quo peccato 
 (in which sin). 
 
 1 F. 6L Credita, i. e., per fidem suscepta. 
 
 2F.g. 48; 142. 
 
24 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 not perficere (to perfect), but simply operari 
 (to do). But it would have been necessary 
 to give up the doctrinal opposition between 
 facere and perficere,^ favorable to his thesis, 
 as we shall see. I cannot blame him for hav- 
 ing confirmed the meaning of perficere in 
 Romans 7.18 by Galatians 5.16, where the 
 Greek has another verb,^ since he is in this 
 place ^ but following St. Augustine. 
 
 Father Denifle '^ also appears to me too 
 severe when he condemns the exegesis of ego 
 ipse (I myself) in -Romans 7.25: 
 
 I^ he says, the whole man, the same person, 
 serve in both services.^ 
 
 Luther should have consulted the Greek 
 text ( atiTos iyo) ) , which authonzes the ex- 
 planation: "If alone, if left to myself." St. 
 Augustine and St. Thomas (unus et idem)^ 
 are guilty of the same neglect. In reality, 
 both explanations are, perhaps, equally prob- 
 able. Needless to say, St. Augustine in no 
 wise authorizes Luther to conclude : Simul Jus- 
 tus est et peccat (While just he sins). 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, III., p. 107, K 1; F. 171. 
 
 2 Non perficietis. 
 
 3 F. 182. 
 
 4 Denifle-Paquier, III., 107 f. 
 
 5 F. 176: ego, inquit, totus homo, persona eadem, 
 servio iitranque servitutem. 
 
 6 This particular point has no influence on the 
 determination of the general theme, whether it be 
 question of the regenerate man or the unregenerate. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 25 
 
 On the otlier huiul, Father Dcniflc is riglit 
 in censuring Luther — as Melanchtlion (hd 
 before him — for treating the statement about 
 faith in Hebrews 11.1 as if "substantia fu- 
 turarum rerum" (the substance of things 
 future) meant the possession of, and power 
 of using, future things : possessio et facultas 
 futurarujn rerum.^ 
 
 We again find in the Commentary on Ro- 
 mans 8.35 St. Augustine opposed to Lefevre 
 in express terms, this time in a case where 
 the latter is on the right side; the love of 
 Christ is indeed that which He has for us, 
 active and not passive. In other cases 
 Lefevre has proved unreliable as a guide. 
 Abba ho pater (Rom. 8.15) is transcribed 
 in Latin and made equivalent to Abba, quod 
 est pater,^ as if the article represented the 
 relative. Of the two readings (Rom. 9.10) : 
 Isaac, patre nostro and Isaac patris nostri, 
 the first is better. Luther prefers the second 
 with Lefevre against Erasmus, whose influ- 
 ence is about to begin. ^ 
 
 Nevertheless, it doubtless would be unjust 
 to judge of his knowledge of Greek by the 
 translation of </)tA.os by amor, which came 
 down to him from the exegesis of the Middle 
 Ages.^ 
 
 Taking it all in all, Luther made a judi- 
 cious use of the humanists. Father Denifle 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, III., 108; F. 235. 
 
 2 F.g. 73. 3 F. 222. 4 F. 284. 
 
26 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 complains, without giving definite cases, that 
 he sounds the trumpet when the Greek text 
 seems to favor him.^ 
 
 These cases are assuredly not very fre- 
 quent. Here are two. In his interlinear gloss 
 Luther has the certainly correct translation : 
 quod enim mortuus est (Rom. 6.4), but in 
 the marginal gloss : 
 
 "In greco habetur: quod enim mortiium est 
 peccato, mortuum est semel" et multo melius. 
 "Quod autem vivit, vivit Deo." Quod, i. e., 
 quodcunquCj pronominaliter^ non conjunctiona- 
 liter. 
 
 And he reproaches the translator with go- 
 ing outside his role to give exegesis : 
 
 There is no greater vice in a translator, be- 
 cause he imparts to others his own idea, which 
 is not in him whom he translates.^ 
 
 He is surely in good faith ; he does not sus- 
 pect, then, that he himself adds to the text, 
 or rather inflicts upon it an interpretation 
 contrary to the mind of the writer in the in- 
 terest of his thesis, namely, that sin truly 
 dies only at the threshold of eternal life: 
 
 Nor can he again die to sin, who has once 
 died to sin, for there has followed upon it eter- 
 nal justice, which nevermore sins.^ 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, III., 107. 
 
 2 F.g. 55. 3 F. 158. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt %1 
 
 Another case where prepossession is not 
 less evident. Tlie Greek yevea-Oo Se 6 ^eos 
 dXrjOris (Rom. 3.4) has been translated in 
 the Vulgate, Est autem Deus verax. It was 
 impossible to translate f,at, because Paul 
 meant in the logical sense : let it then be well 
 understood that God is truthful. This is 
 what Lefevre has well seen in rendering esto. 
 Luther follows him, but treats the verb as a 
 real imperative and connects with it the scrip- 
 tural text which follows : 
 
 That this is to be taken in an imperative 
 sense is proved by the authority which he al- 
 leges.^ ... As it is written^ that is to say that 
 we must believe in him, because to be justified is 
 to believe, as will be said below.^ 
 
 However, this tendency to seek for his doc- 
 trine in the original texts is much more ap- 
 parent in his elucubrations on the Hebrew. 
 
 In dealing w^ith the Bible, Greek was not 
 alone to be considered. It was necessary to 
 go back to the language of the Old Testa- 
 ment. This was not without interest even 
 for the Epistle to the Romans, which cites so 
 many passages of Moses and the Prophets. 
 In this domain, too, a revolution was going 
 on, and the conflict between the Dominicans 
 of Cologne and Reuchlin marks its inception. 
 Luther had all the more sympathy with the 
 Hebrew scholar that he thought he could get 
 IF. 52. 2F. 63 f. 
 
28 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 from him support for some points of his doc- 
 trine. We are obhged to insist on his mis- 
 takes, which go even beyond those of 
 Reuchhn. 
 
 Here is an example connected with justifi- 
 cation. When we recognize God's justice, He 
 is justified for us; it is, on our part, an act 
 of faith, which He reckons unto us for right- 
 eousness. At the same time, then, that He 
 is justified. He justifies. And this double 
 operation is altogether conformable to the 
 double state of the Scripture, passive in 
 Greek and Latin, ut justificeris, active in He- 
 brew. This is said in express terms: 
 
 Thus it is in agreement with the Hebrew,^ 
 which has: "I have sinned against thee, there- 
 fore thou shalt justify/' that is, work justifica- 
 tion, "by thy word and cleanse when thou 
 judgest." Consequently, when justified He 
 justifies, and when He justifies He is justified. 
 Wherefore the same is expressed by the active 
 verb in Hebrew and by the passive in our trans- 
 lation.^ 
 
 This astonishing argument is baseless, since 
 the Hebrew text of Psalm 50 (51) .6 has the 
 passive as well as the Greek: "That thou 
 mayest be recognized just in thy sentence, 
 and clear from reproach in thy judgment." 
 
 1 Picker refers to Reuchlin, Septem psalmi poeni- 
 tentiales hehraice cum,' grammatica tralacione latina, 
 1512. 2r. 65. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 29 
 
 At times Luther has recourse to the Sep- 
 tuagint which Augustine may have led him 
 to regard as an inspired translation. For 
 instance, he notes that no one is exempt from 
 concupiscence, ''not even a child of one day," 
 a reference to Job 14.4 according to the Sep- 
 tuagint.^ 
 
 But the Hebrew serves Luther above all to 
 establish imputative justice. Here again 
 Reuchlin furnishes him with a translation, 
 very literal in appearance, on which he en- 
 grafts a very fantastic interpretation. 
 
 As an example we may cite the following 
 commentary on Psalms 32 . 1-2 : "Blessed are 
 they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose 
 sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom 
 the Lord hath not imputed sin" : 
 
 "Blessed (that is, it is well with him), who 
 becomes unburdened," that is, who by grace is 
 made free from the load of crime, namely, the 
 actual sin which he has committed. But this is 
 not enough; there must be at the same time "a 
 covering for sin," that is, his radical evil must 
 not be imputed as sin. It is then passed by 
 when it exists indeed, but is not seen, not ob- 
 served, not imputed. . . . Blessed the man, the 
 Lord will not impute unto him his iniquity." 
 
 Luther pretends very seriously that the 
 Hebrew constantly maintains this distinc- 
 
 1 F. 107. The reference has escaped Mr. Ficker. 
 2F. 113. 
 
30 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 tlon between actual and original sin. If it 
 is not recognized, it is the fault of the Vul- 
 gate: 
 
 These differences are always kept in the He- 
 brew, but the translation lacks precision and 
 everything is consequently very confused.^ 
 
 He goes on to maintain without blinking 
 that Pescha signifies actual sin, Hattaa 
 original sin, Aon the absence of righteous- 
 ness, Rascha impiety or the vice of pride, 
 the setting up of one's own righteousness.^ 
 
 It may be that Luther was under the spell 
 of the word "to impute" ; but If he was, he 
 did not delay to exert upon the text the in- 
 fluence of his own Ideas. It Is useless to prove 
 that his nice defining of the meaning of He- 
 brew terms is arbitrary and false. 
 
 When not preoccupied with his theories, he 
 occasionally makes a judicious remark. Thus, 
 on Romans 11.27: 
 
 The words, "When I shall take away their 
 sins" are not in Isaias, but either have been 
 added by the Apostle or have been taken from 
 other prophets.^ 
 
 Another observation, which indicates some 
 knowledge of the Hebrew language, is his 
 interlinear gloss on Romans 15.13: 
 
 IF. 119. 2F. 119, 123. 3F. 263; cf. g. 43. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 31 
 
 In virtute spiritus sancti, i.e., per virtutem 
 spiritus sancti ; hebraica locutio quae equivo- 
 cum habet hane prepositionem "in." ^ 
 
 That is, Paul would have allowed to appear 
 in Greek the instrumental meaning of tlie He- 
 brew heth. Tills erudition did not come to 
 maturity, but it is interesting to see Luther 
 entering upon a path which was later to be 
 followed by so many, not without some 
 danger. 
 
 4. Luther on St. Paul's Citations op 
 
 THE Old Testament 
 
 Incidentally we have just met with the 
 delicate question of Paul's citations of the 
 Old Testament. Luther does not seem to 
 have any very definite criterion. At times he 
 expresses himself as a rigid conservative. 
 For instance, to reconcile the divergencies of 
 the text of Paul (who quotes from the Sep- 
 tuagint) with the Hebrew, he maintains that 
 both are right : 
 
 Consequently^ botli texts have the same thing, 
 but the LXX express the cause, the Hebrew 
 tlie effect, as is very often the ease.- 
 
 I do not know where he found this rule or 
 what examples he might have given. Else- 
 
 1 F.g-. 131: "in the power of the Holy Ghost," 
 that is, by the power of the Holy Ghost; the He- 
 brew locution corresponding to "in" is equivocal. 
 
 2 F. 238. 
 
32 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 where he expresses himself like a modem 
 critic : 
 
 (The Apostle) cites the Bible as it was pos- 
 sessed by those to whom he was writing.^ 
 
 In certain cases Paul seems to depart 
 freely from both texts. Then Luther very 
 justly holds that the Apostle has a right to 
 argue from the Scriptures without confining 
 himself to the literal sense. On "Who shall 
 ascend into heaven" (Rom. 10. 6) he remarks : 
 
 Moses does not use the words in this sense 
 in Deuteronomy SO, but the Apostle under the 
 Spirit's influence draws out the meat of them 
 with true insight, teaching us as by a power- 
 ful argument that the whole Bible deals every- 
 where with Christ alone, when its inner mean- 
 ing is perceived, although on the surface it 
 speaks of other matters — figures and shadows.^ 
 
 In this case, then, the Apostle would have 
 argued from the spiritual sense. Father 
 Cornely interprets the passage still more 
 freely, maintaining that St. Paul simply uses 
 the biblical terms without precise argumen- 
 tation. 
 
 Elsewhere Luther himself offers another so- 
 lution. On Romans 4.17, instead of simply 
 nx)ting that the words "before God whom he 
 believed" are not part of the citation from 
 Genesis (as he reads credidisti and does not 
 consult the Greek, Lefevre having neglected 
 1 F.ff. 30. 2 F. 240. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 33 
 
 to do so), lie supposes that Paul borrows 
 from other Jewish books : 
 
 This is not in the Hebrew, but it is usefully 
 added to confute the Jews, from whose books 
 the Apostle doubtless took it.^ 
 
 This solution is again very conservative if 
 these books of the Jews were regarded as :n- 
 spired, but we have already seen, in citing his 
 remarks on Romans 11.27, that he thought 
 that the Apostle had a right to add his own 
 words. Lefevre had called his attention to 
 the freedom of some of St. Paul's citations 
 (on Rom. 4.17). 
 
 5. The Literal and the Spiritual 
 Senses of Scripture 
 
 We have seen Luther admit in the most 
 sweeping fashion the spiritual sense of Scrip- 
 ture. He was then naturally led on to alle- 
 gorical explanations. In fact, he does use 
 allegory much more than St. Thomas. It 
 was perhaps a matter of tradition and habit ; 
 or perhaps he wished to preserve, in the mod- 
 ern exegesis which he w^as inaugurating, that 
 spirit whose rights he championed. 
 
 His allegories are not very remarkable. 
 
 Paul begins with the Romans, who were the 
 
 head of the world, as John baptized Christ 
 
 beginning with the head ; the Epistle of Paul 
 
 1 F. 42. 
 
34 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 is then like a river of Paradise or the Nile, 
 etc.^ Moses fleeing from the rod changed 
 into a serpent, is a figure of the man to whom 
 the law is promulgated.^ Christ is named 
 Hermon, because he was anathematized by the 
 Jews.^ The Jews coming to Christ at the 
 end of time are prefigured by the brethren of 
 Joseph.'* Those who do not for the sake of 
 higher service consent to abandon their pres- 
 ent occupations, refuse to lend an ass to the 
 Savior, etc.^ 
 
 Luther's inclination to look at everything 
 from the moral point of view prevents him at 
 times from paying sufficient attention to the 
 literal meaning. The expression of Romans 
 2 . 22, sacrilegium facts (thou committest sac- 
 rilege), is explained in the interlinear gloss: 
 
 By polluting and violating, by evil desires, 
 the true temple of God which is the heart.*^ 
 
 It is not that he does not know what the 
 meaning of Upoa-vXets is ; in the Scholia he 
 interprets it: 
 
 Sacrilege is the pillage and robbery from a 
 temple. 
 
 But he immediately launches into two moral 
 
 meanings to which he adds that of his gloss. 
 
 This is not the work of an innovator. Nor 
 
 IF. 17. 
 
 3F. 21G. 
 
 5 F. 2S7. 
 
 2F. 192. 
 
 4F. 202. 
 
 c F.g. 23. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 35 
 
 could one do Liitlicr the honor to consider 
 liini as a pioneer in historical e^cegesis. Schol- 
 ars of the past century have discussed the 
 reason of St. Paul's addressing to Rome a 
 treatise on the relation of the Gospel to the 
 Law. They asked whether the Romans were 
 imbued with judaizing errors, and they stud- 
 ied the relations between Jews and Gentiles. 
 But the questions had long been put. Mar- 
 cion dealt with them ; St. Thomas had given 
 them thought. They never occurred to Luther, 
 until he came to the second of Romans, which 
 speaks of the strong and the weak. Brought 
 thus face to face with them, he simply notes 
 that everything the Apostle says is aimed 
 at the Jewish superstition, which certain false 
 apostles taught concerning foods and days.^ 
 
 Naturally Luther contemplates with sym- 
 pathy the freedom of mind shown by the 
 Apostle ; but the abuses with which Paul had 
 to deal inspired less interest than did those of 
 his own times ; the Rome of Nero could not 
 take his mind away from the Rome of Leo. 
 
 However, he felt very keenly the difficulty 
 presented by the sixteenth chapter of Ro- 
 mans, which has so much interested mod- 
 em scholars. How did Paul, who had never 
 been in Rome, know so many people there .^ 
 All his Asiatic friends would seem to have 
 gone thither before him. Luther did not, as 
 has been claimed, raise this question ; and the 
 IF. 313; cf. g. on Rom. 16.17. 
 
36 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 solution, which he gives as personal, is clearly 
 bad: 
 
 Therefore I meanwhile in my own mind will 
 to think this, that these persons are all Achaians 
 and Corinthians^ whom the Apostle commends 
 to them, that they may know and greet them/ 
 
 So the Romans are invited to salute friends 
 of the Apostles who remain in Greece. The 
 reason would be the Hebrew custom of plac- 
 ing in the Synagogues the names of all Jews 
 in tribal order. Even if this custom had been 
 constant, it would throw no light on the 
 problem. 
 
 IF. 139. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF THE COMMENTATOR 
 
 1. The Influence of the Commentator 
 Upon the Commentary 
 
 What century has not resounded, in coun- 
 tries whose people were capable of self-ex- 
 pression, with the old lamentation over the 
 attacks and the victories of evil within us? 
 Plato made Socrates describe the astonish- 
 ment of reason in presence of the unleashed 
 wild beasts of the lower appetite.^ St. Paul 
 had figured in the anguish of his double self 
 all humanity involved in sin. Manichaeism, 
 a long-lived and vigorous heresy, assigned to 
 evil an almost divine position ; it transported 
 the conflict into the spheres of the deity. 
 
 Luther was one of the sons of Adam who 
 suffered most painfully from the attacks of 
 what he called concupiscence : leanings to 
 pride, anger, the pleasures of sense. He 
 could not, like the platonic Gnostics, attribute 
 this domestic hostility to the fall of the spirit 
 into matter, still less see in it the eternal 
 battle of two divine principles. 
 
 He thought that St. Paul furnished him 
 1 Repiihlic. 
 37 
 
38 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 with the desired explanation ; concvipiscence 
 was the heritage of man from his first sinful 
 father; it was original sin. 
 
 St. Paul taught, indeed, that the disobe- 
 dience of Adam had brought into the world a 
 sin which is transmitted from father to son, 
 and the punishment of which is death. But 
 he thought of this situation only by way of 
 comparison w^ith the state of the first man, a 
 happy state from which the human race had 
 been degraded. He did not teach that we 
 have inherited a nature irremediably vitiated. 
 An important group of theologians (and it 
 may be said that there is no Catholic theolo- 
 gian today who does not belong to it) ex- 
 plained that original sin, transmitted to all, 
 is only the privation of this privilege, called 
 original justice, granted to our first parents. 
 Nature is really lowered and despoiled of the 
 gifts which God had destined for it, but it 
 is not thereby deprived of free-will. And St. 
 Paul had shown admirably that the goodness 
 of God, frustrated at first in its designs, had 
 afterwards realized them in Christ with more 
 richness. Through Christ, through Baptism 
 received in Christ's name — an external act 
 by which the believer subjects himself to 
 Christ and is incorporated into Him, sin loses 
 its hold. The Christian is dead to sin ; he is 
 freed, purified from the original stain. He 
 retains, indeed, his nature, composed of a 
 reasonable soul, and a body the tendencies of 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 39 
 
 uhich arc too often In conflict with the soul's 
 aspirations. In this respect his situation is 
 not changed. What was called concupiscence 
 before Baptism may still be so termed. But 
 henceforth the spirit of Jesus dwells in His 
 faithful disciple and causes him to live with 
 His life ; the struggle is no longer between 
 powerless reason and the flesh, — pride, anger, 
 luxury, — which dragged it into sin ; it is be- 
 tween the spirit which is in him, a principle of 
 action which theologians called grace, and 
 these same evil tendencies. Moreover, an 
 assurance of victory is given. The Christian 
 must have full confidence. If God has granted 
 him such means of salvation, it shows that He 
 wishes to save him. 
 
 This is, briefly stated, the economy of sal- 
 vation to w^hich Luther opposes his precise 
 negation already in 1515. The new idea of 
 his Commentary on the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans, Denifle and Ficker agree, is the iden- 
 tification of concupiscence with sin. This fun- 
 damental idea of the system of theology, 
 which was taking shape, had not been ex- 
 pressed in his earlier writings, but it is as- 
 serted at the beginning of the Commentary 
 and runs all through it. The sinfulness of 
 concupiscence is, he maintains, the principal 
 doctrine of St. Paul; the Apostle's chief aim 
 is to establish the necessity of Christ's right- 
 eousness for the destruction of sin by making 
 all recognize that they are sinners. 
 
40 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 The main point and intention of the Apostle 
 in this Epistle is to destroy self-righteousness 
 and reliance on one's own wisdom, and to con- 
 struct, increase, and magnify sins and folly, 
 which were not (i. e., not thought to be, on 
 account of our good opinion of ourselves) ; his 
 purpose, I say, is to make us realize that sins 
 still exist, that they are great and numerous, 
 and thus to' bring home to us our need of Christ 
 and His righteousness.^ 
 
 In the gloss, he uses the plural sins, but in 
 the Scholia the singular is employed: 
 
 The supreme object of this Epistle is to de- 
 stroy, etc. . . . and to plant and constitute and 
 magnify sin (although this was not or was not 
 thought to be).- 
 
 We shall see more clearly, as we proceed, 
 that this sin is concupiscence. However one 
 scrutinizes Luther's propositions, he will 
 come to this fundamental point of his sys- 
 tem: concupiscence is a sin of our nature' 
 which nothing removes. Neither Baptism nor 
 Penance change anything. We are sinners 
 and must acknowledge it. Therein lies our 
 only hope of salvation. If we are very hum- 
 ble, if we confess our sin, if we have con- 
 fidence in Christ, and if nevertheless we resign 
 ourselves willingly to damnation, in case it 
 should be God's will, we shall be saved. 
 
 1 F.g., p. 1. 2 F. 1. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 41 
 
 There is still some indecision as regards 
 the proposed remedy. Most frequently it is 
 humility, which is always on Luther's lips, 
 and already it is faith, understood as per- 
 sonal assurance of salvation. But what is 
 settled from the start, and what is affirmed 
 with ever-growing confidence, is the irremedi- 
 able corruption of our nature. We are sin- 
 ners, hence we do not possess righteousness, 
 nor anything to make us agreeable to God. 
 By the sin of Adam it was human nature 
 itself that was vitiated. It became incapable 
 of doing good. If it tries, it but adds pre- 
 sumption and insolence to its powerlessness. 
 To endeavor to perform good works is to sin 
 more and more irremissibly. 
 
 This radical pessimism must lead to 
 despair. Luther understands the danger and 
 he offers deliverance. To those who are hum- 
 ble God does not impute sin. Sin remains, 
 the fundamental thesis requires this, but it 
 is not an obstacle to salvation. Every sin is, 
 however, essentially mortal, so contaminated 
 is the source of our actions. But our sin is 
 imputed by God as venial. What is more, to 
 those who believe, faith is imputed as right- 
 eousness. We are then sinners but, at the 
 same time, if we have faith, we are righteous, 
 although, strictly speaking, only in hope. 
 Righteousness will not be conferred on us 
 until the moment of our death. Righteous 
 and sinners — a paradoxical antithesis, which 
 
42 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 delights Luther and which he develops with 
 endless variations. 
 
 He triumphs, for he possesses at last the 
 means to crush pride, to make man withdraw 
 into the mire of liis sin to bring him back 
 into the way of salvation. Yes, he is deeply 
 convinced that all theology was astray, that 
 men were deceiving themselves in seeking sal- 
 vation by good works, that they must restore 
 to God all His rights, abase themselves be- 
 fore Him as the only righteous One, yield 
 themselves to Him as alone able to perform 
 good actions in them, render Him glory by 
 going with docility to the goal to which He 
 leads them, blessedness or damnation. 
 
 Human liberty disappeared — even human 
 activity — in a pessimistic quietism. 
 
 Now it is certain that the source of this 
 false mysticism is not in St. Paul. A few 
 belated orthodox Lutherans still maintain 
 that it is ; but more and more numerous in 
 German universities are the professors of 
 theology, that is to say, of Biblical exegesis, 
 who no longer seek to find Lutheranism in the 
 Epistle to the Romans or any part of the 
 Scriptures. It is true that both Testaments 
 proclaim that man is a sinner. This is a 
 confession which mystics have ever found 
 sweet, but without denying that God gives 
 grace when He pardons. One of the Psalms 
 congratulates the man to whom God "does 
 not impute his sin." But it was understood 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 43 
 
 tliat God's attitude means that the sin is 
 forgiven. And if St. Paul repeats after 
 Genesis that the faith of Abraham "was 
 reputed to him unto justice," it is but an ex- 
 pression cited in passing, such as it stands, 
 which must be understood according to the 
 general spirit of his teaching. Now if the 
 modern rationalistic critics considered them- 
 selves authorized to address reproaches to St. 
 Paul, they would say that he exaggerated the 
 splendor of the gift of God in the Christian 
 soul. For him Christian life, far from being 
 a prolongation of the life of sin, is such an 
 evident transformation that more than one 
 non-Catholic exegete qualifies it as a magical 
 effect. This is assuredly going too far, or 
 rather it is putting it badly ; but the qualifica- 
 tion allows us to measure the distance between 
 an unbiased interpretation and that which 
 Luther imposed upon his followers. 
 
 The question now arises more definitely: 
 How did this doctrine, the novelty of which no 
 one should doubt, take possession of Luther's 
 mind and inspire such absolute conviction.'^ 
 
 There exists Luther's own explanation, 
 given towards the end of his life, in 1545, in 
 the preface of his Latin works. Here he de- 
 scribes with complacency the manner in which 
 God gave him light : 
 
 I was burning with the desire to understand 
 St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Ardor was 
 
44 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 not lacking^ but I was ever coming in collision 
 with this expression of the first chapter of 
 RomanS;, "In the Gospel is revealed the justice 
 of God." 1 
 
 I hated the words "justice of God/' which I 
 had learned from the usage of all doctors to 
 understand in the philosophical sense. I 
 thought it meant what they call formal or 
 active justice, that with which God is just 
 when He punishes sinners and the unright- 
 eous. 
 
 Notwithstanding the irreproachable character 
 of my life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner 
 before God and my conscience was uneasy. 
 Were the satisfactions which I offered God suf- 
 ficient to appease Him.'* I had no certitude 
 that they were. So I did not love this just and 
 avenging God. ... I was troubled in con- 
 science and I ceaselessly applied myself to this 
 passage of Paul in the keen desire to know 
 what it meant. 
 
 I thus meditated day and night, until God 
 had pity on me. I gave attention to the con- 
 nection of these words: "The justice of God is 
 revealed in the Gospel, as it is written: the just 
 man shall live by faith," and I perceived that 
 the justice of God must be understood of the 
 justice which God imparts, that by which the 
 just man lives, that is to say, faith. The mean- 
 ing of the sentence was then: The justice which 
 is revealed in the Gospel is passive justice, by 
 
 1 The Vulgate term justitia is rendered by the 
 word justice in the Douay Bible; and in Catholic 
 theological works justice is used frequently in the 
 broad sense of rtp/iYeowsnes^.— Translator's note. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 45 
 
 which God in His mercy justifies us by means 
 of faith. At once I felt myself born to a new 
 life. It seemed to me that the gate of Paradise 
 opened wide before me. 
 
 Henceforth Scripture took on a new aspect. 
 ... I next read De Spiritu et litera. Contrary 
 to my expectation I found that Augustine 
 understood, like myself, by the justice of God 
 that with which God clothes us when He justi- 
 fies us. 
 
 Would that Luther had made no other dis- 
 covery ! 
 
 We know through the labors of Father 
 Denifle that before the time when Luther 
 wrote, sixty-six Latin commentators, in works 
 printed or in manuscript, had given the 
 words in Romans 1 . 17 this interpretation. 
 And if any one (several modern writers have 
 done so) took the words "justice of God" to 
 mean not the justice communicated but the 
 divine attribute of justice, absolutely no one 
 had ever understood it of the avenging jus- 
 tice. Where then did Luther get the opin- 
 ion of "all the doctors".'^ And if he was mis- 
 taken about this point, he may well have been 
 niistaken in a different way when he at- 
 tributed to himself an interpretation which he 
 would only subsequently have found in Au- 
 gustine. 
 
 The facts are so clear that one might 
 ask if Father Denifle had not taken too much 
 trouble to establish them. But it is doubtful 
 
46 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 whether Luther's admirers would have laid 
 down their arms in presence of a less con- 
 vincing demonstration of the levity with which 
 the Reformer related his personal histoiy. 
 We still read in Mr. Ficker: "It matters ht- 
 tle for our appreciation of Luther that nearly 
 all (?) previous commentators understood 
 Romans 1 . 17 in the same way, as Father 
 Denifle has proved with meritorious exacti- 
 tude and wealth of evidence. The new ( !) 
 interpretation impressed him only when read 
 in Augustine. And that is on the whole 
 what is decisive." ^ It is, then, Paul inter- 
 preted by Augustine who would have made 
 an impression on Luther. But Mr. Ficker 
 knows that the dominant idea of the system 
 came before he learned it from Augustine. 
 What suggested it.^^ 
 
 Victorious concupiscence. Father Denifle 
 has answered. When Luther entered the 
 cloister with the purpose of sanctifying him- 
 self, he was too much inbued with the teach- 
 ings of Occam. He fancied that holiness de- 
 pended exclusively on his own efforts. This 
 notion, which he held in good faith, had to 
 give way. Concupiscence proved too strong 
 for him ; he concluded that it was invincible 
 and consequently that it was impossible to 
 keep the commandments. 
 
 This invincible concupiscence he identified 
 with original sin, and he sought salvation, 
 1 F. 79. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 47 
 
 which he was unwilling to give up, only in 
 the righteousness of Christ. 
 
 This view of Father Denifle attributes 
 nearly everything in the evolution of Luther's 
 system to experience ; he makes no allowance, 
 as far as I can see, for the direct influence of 
 St. Paul upon it. Under the discouragement 
 of a fall, Luther framed a theory which 
 would help him out of his difficulties. Father 
 Denifle notes the time when the identifica- 
 tion of concupiscence and original sin ap- 
 pears ; he exposes Luther's state of soul, 
 and, concurrently, the variations of his doc- 
 trine. He leaves St. Paul out of the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Jundt likewise insists upon Luther's 
 moral experience. He excludes, however, as 
 might have been expected, the notion that 
 Luther had sinned ; he even identifies Luther's 
 experience with that of Paul. His last word is 
 that: "this system rests upon the data of in- 
 dividual experience of the believer, confirmed 
 and completed by the testimony of Holy 
 Writ." ^ This places Scripture in an Im- 
 portant, though secondary place ; and such it 
 certainly had in Luther's mind. 
 
 I believe, for my own part, that Mr. 
 Jundt's formula would be exact if only it 
 added some indication of the fact that it was 
 not Holy Writ itself, but Holy Writ as it was 
 understood by Luther, that confirmed his in- 
 1 L. 1, p. 156. 
 
rom 
 
 48 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 dividual experience. Lutheranism issued fi 
 its author's personal dispositions, and f 
 his misinterpretation of the Epistle to the 
 Romans. 
 
 It is not merely by logical deduction that 
 both Catholic and Protestant theologians 
 have recognized the important part pla^'cd 
 by individual experience in Luther's doctrine. 
 His passionate personality reveals itself fre- 
 quently. Later on he will speak of adopting 
 some point to annoy the Pope. But already 
 in the Commentary he writes : 
 
 God so acts in all the Saints, that He causes 
 them to do with their own will what they desire 
 supremely. Philosophers wonder at the con- 
 trariety, and men do not understand. There- 
 fore, I have said that it will never be known 
 except by practice and experience. 
 
 This is what mystics teach concerning 
 supernatural states ; but he adds : 
 
 If in law, which is the teaching of a shadowy 
 justice, practice is necessary, how much more 
 in theology ! ^ 
 
 Here we see the intention to regulate the- 
 ology according to personal experience, which 
 means according to the disposition of the 
 heart and the mind, in the moral and in the 
 intellectual order. 
 
 IF. 271. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 49 
 
 2. The Moral Dispositions of Luther 
 
 What strikes one most in the moral dispo- 
 sitions of Luther is, as Father Denifle has 
 well seen, the constant and tormenting pre- 
 occupation about concupiscence, the notion 
 he has of its power, of its ceaselessly renewed 
 forces. When he takes up this subject his 
 style becomes passionate, reflecting the vicis- 
 situdes of a tragic conflict. 
 
 Already in 1514, in his Dictation on the 
 Psalter, Luther wrote: 
 
 The passion of anger^ pride^ lust, when ab- 
 sent, is easily presumed to be conquered by 
 those lacking experience; but when it is pres- 
 ent, it is felt to be most powerful^ even in- 
 superable, as experience teaches. And thus 
 humbled and weakened, they have cried unto 
 the Lord, despairing of self, hoping in God/ 
 
 In the Commentary he identifies concu- 
 piscence with original sin and this allows him 
 to paint it in most somber colors, reproduc- 
 ing, as he believes, the thought of St. Paul 
 and the Fathers. He ends his analysis with 
 the most fearful images of mythology : 
 
 This is the many-headed hydra, the exceed- 
 ingly pertinacious monster, with which we fight 
 in the Lernaean marshes of this life until death. 
 It is Cerberus, the unrestrainable barker, and 
 the insuperable Antheus sent down upon earth.' 
 
 1 Cited by Denifle-Paquier, II., 39G. 2 F. 271. 
 
50 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Apparently it did not occur to him that it 
 was more powerful in himself than in others, 
 or that it was humiliating. He defies other 
 theologians to overcome it, applying to them 
 the term "Sautheologen." They are invited 
 to consider themselves and their own con- 
 dition. 
 
 The very silly swine who hold this view 
 should be warned, brought to shame and re- 
 pentance, at least by their own experience. Be- 
 cause, whether they will it or not, they feel in 
 themselves evil desires. Here then I say: Try 
 hard, I beg! Be men! With all your might 
 so act that there may be no such concupiscence 
 in you. Endeavor to put in practice what you 
 say, that God can be loved naturally, without 
 grace. If you are without concupiscence, we 
 believe you. But if you live in and with it, 
 you no longer fulfil the law. For, indeed, the 
 law says : "Thou shalt not covet," but thou 
 shalt love God. Can one who covets and loves 
 other things, really love God.^ But this con- 
 cupiscence is ever in us ; consequently, we never 
 have the love of God^ unless it be begun by 
 grace,^ etc. 
 
 This is not the place to show that the con- 
 clusion is not legitim.ate. Theologians could 
 answer that to feel concupiscence is not to 
 yield to it, not to entertain desires condemned 
 by the law. Luther knew of this distinction, 
 
 IF. 110. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 51 
 
 and he could not give it up entirely ; he main- 
 tains, however, that concupiscence itself is op- 
 posed to the law. He repeatedly comes back 
 upon the point. And this opposition of con- 
 cupiscence to the law seems to us to show 
 decisively that he regarded concupiscence as 
 invincible. 
 
 Father Denifle has maintained that, as 
 early as 1515, Luther held that the command- 
 ments could not be kept, since concupiscence 
 is invincible. Father Grisar has denied this, 
 because Luther always urged that men should 
 resist concupiscence and keep the command- 
 ments ; he only meant that concupiscence is 
 ineradicable — a perfectly exact statement. 
 
 In favor of his opinion Father Grisar can 
 point to the undeniable fact that in certain 
 places Luther speaks of the impossibility of 
 resisting "without the help of grace." This 
 suggests that with grace one might resist. 
 His immoderate statements elsewhere would 
 be called forth by the fact that the theologians 
 he had in view did not sufficiently acknowl- 
 edge man's dependence on God's supernatural 
 assistance. But Father Denifle has shown 
 that he defends the same doctrine about the 
 irresistible character of concupiscence in a 
 sermon in w^hich he speaks at the same time 
 of his hearers and of himself — persons who 
 were all baptized and of whom at least a cer- 
 tain number might be considered as under the 
 influence of grace. 
 
52 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Here is the text : 
 
 And if God imposes upon us things that are 
 impossible and beyond our strength^ nobody is 
 thereby excused . . . consequently, since we 
 are carnal, it is impossible for us to fulfil the 
 law; but Christ came to fulfil alone this law, 
 which it is impossible for us to fulfil (or accord- 
 ing to the edition of Weimar, not to break). 
 For what the law could not do, says the Apos- 
 tle, in that it was vitiated (St. Paul says "made 
 weak") by the flesh. . . . Behold the law is 
 impossible on account of the flesh. . . . By the 
 law is knowledge of sin. For if it be known 
 that by no device of our own and by no help 
 which we can obtain can concupiscence be taken 
 from us, and if this concupiscence is against the 
 law which says: "Thou shalt not covet," — and 
 indeed we do all know by experience that con- 
 cupiscence is invincible, — what does there re- 
 main for us ? ^ etc. 
 
 It is strange that, after such a statement, 
 it can still be asked whether, according to 
 Luther, concupiscence is really invincible. He 
 does not teach, indeed, that we are always 
 overcome by it ; the grace of Christ may pre- 
 serve us and we must do everything for God, 
 acting under the inspiration of the purest 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, II.. 382. Note 1. This sermon 
 which Koestlin assigned to St. Stephen's day, 1514, 
 has been transferred to the following year by Deni- 
 fle precisely because it reveals the point which is 
 made in the Commentary on Romans. Ficker and 
 Jundt admit Denifle's verdict. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 53 
 
 charity. Nevertheless, according to the new 
 principles taken rigorously, we always sin 
 mortally even when performing good works. 
 Concupiscence, which is in us, is a mortal sin 
 of its very nature : 
 
 As the baptized person or the penitent re- 
 mains in the weakness of concupiscence, which 
 nevertheless is against the law: "Thou shalt 
 not covet/' and indeed mortal, unless the merci- 
 ful God should refrain from imputing it on 
 account of the cure which has begun ^ . . . 
 
 Actual sins being the fruits of this first sin, 
 which is mortal, are themselves mortal, for 
 there is no sin venial in itself: 
 
 Hence it follows that no sin is venial of its 
 nature. . . . Therefore we sin when we are 
 doing good, unless God through Christ cover 
 over the imperfections of our action and impute 
 them not; sin then becomes venial by the mercy 
 of God who does not impute it to us ^ . . . 
 
 These expressions seem to us stronger than 
 those in which Luther declares concupiscence 
 invincible. It is represented as affecting and 
 infesting ever^^thing, giving to all our actions 
 its sinful character, mortally sinful of its na- 
 ture. If Luther preached resistance to con- 
 cupiscence, it is a happy contradiction which 
 does him credit as a man, though, to a lesser 
 
 1 F. 3?,2. 2 F. 123. 
 
54 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 degree, it discredits him as a logician. AVe 
 are not here concerned, however, with his con- 
 tradictions. We are citing his doctrinal pro- 
 nouncements only as giving an idea of the 
 state of his soul. It may be argued that a 
 preacher who declares concupiscence invin- 
 cible, has himself given way tc it. 
 
 We shall not dwell on the other indications 
 of moral delinquency which are alleged by 
 Father Denifle. He may be somewhat severe 
 in dealing with confessions of Luther con- 
 tained in intimate letters. They bear on 
 points concerning which he was perhaps not 
 without excuse. That his too numerous oc- 
 cupations prevented him from regularly say- 
 ing his Office and celebrating Mass ^ would 
 be an indication of lukewarmness ; but priests 
 did not then say Mass every day, and even 
 now it is not a matter of obligation ; the ob- 
 ligation to say the Office was also less strict 
 than it is now. He had pretty strong dis- 
 tractions ; sometimes he had finished a Psalm 
 or even the whole Office without having no- 
 ticed whether he was at the beginning or at 
 the middle of it.^ But many otherwise good 
 men are not exempt from such weaknesses. 
 One would even judge that he possessed an 
 excellent principle of spiritual life when he 
 whites : "I am absolutely certain, knowing it 
 by my own experience, by yours and by that 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, I., 62. 
 
 2 Denifle-Paquier, II., 378. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 55 
 
 of everyone whom I have seen in disquiet, 
 that it is the prudence of our own judgment 
 whicli is the only cause, tlie only root of all 
 our troubles. For our eye is very evil. . . . 
 And to speak of myself, alas ! how many mis- 
 eries and troubles have been caused and are 
 still caused in me by this evil eye." Father 
 Denifle, who cites these words, ^ cannot help 
 concluding: "That is w^ell said." 
 
 The Commentary/ contains so many protes- 
 tations of complete abandonment to the will 
 of God; it so urgently recommends leaving 
 all to Him, breathing only His goodness and 
 His justice; it contains such oft-repeated and 
 enthusiastic praise of humility, that we can 
 well understand the verdict of Father Grisar, 
 already recorded, that it does not convey the 
 impression of moral corruption in its author. 
 We are not easily convinced that sin and 
 righteousness exist in the same man ; we are 
 little inclined to declare sinful a man who 
 loudly proclaims his sin. 
 
 It is nevertheless incontestible, as Mr. 
 Ficker remarks, that preoccupation about hu- 
 mility is less noticeable as one advances in 
 the Commentary? We shall carefully refrain 
 from suspecting Luther of definite falls, for 
 instance, in the matter of chastity. The sus- 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier II., 378. 
 
 2 P. LXXXIII: One can hardly read a page till 
 we come to Ch. 12, without meeting the word hu- 
 mility: ^or lohat else but humility does all Scrip- 
 ture teach? p. 39. 
 
56 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 picioii would be simply rash. But at any rate 
 the least that can be said of his ardent zeal 
 is that it is bitter and passionate. And to 
 come to a point which is capital, whence came 
 his tendency to discouragement? Later on 
 he used to describe with complacency his 
 despair in the religious life, but he did not 
 explain it by his faults ; he claimed that it 
 rose in him notwithstanding heroic efforts to 
 attain sanctity. Father Deniiie had brushed 
 away this legend of superhuman mortifica- 
 tions. But despair figures in the Cojnmen- 
 tary as one of the bases of doctrine : a despair 
 caused by sins. It is true that Luther does 
 not speak in his ow^i name, but let us weigh 
 well his terms : 
 
 Temptations, or blasphemies extorted by 
 the devil, are first dealt with. In his usual 
 extreme manner he pronounces : 
 
 The more horrible and foul the blasphemy, 
 the more agreeable it is to God if the heart 
 feels that it does not will it, because it did not 
 prefer nor choose it.^ Frequently and espe- 
 cially in our own times (God) raises up the 
 devil, to cast His elect into horrible sins and 
 domineer over them a long while, — or at least 
 to impede their good resolutions and lead them 
 to do the contrary of what they intended; this 
 He does to make them realize by experience 
 that it is not they who will and run. And 
 nevertheless by all these means He brings 
 
 1 F. 227. So far what Lutlier says is true. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 51 
 
 tlicm out of captivity in an unexpected way, 
 while they are groaning in despair because they 
 will do and actually do so many evil things, and 
 do not actually do nor will to do many things 
 which they will. This comes about "that He 
 may show forth His power and that His name 
 may be proclaimed in all the earth." ^ 
 
 Where did Luther get this information: 
 that sin, even mortal sin, may be conducive 
 to salvation — very indirectly ! — by the hu- 
 miliation which it causes, had been taught .'^ 
 But the case is totally different here. It is 
 God who so tries His elect, who brings them 
 into the state of despair from which He saves 
 them. Yes, yes, so it is, Luther concludes, 
 as if his own assertion had particular bearing. 
 And why this divine pedagogy by sin, espe- 
 cially "in our own times," if not because it 
 preluded to the great designs which Luther 
 was already fostering.^ 
 
 However, whether or not the Reformer's 
 discouragement was occasioned by his falls 
 is after all God's secret, and it is not what 
 matters most in our inquiry. 
 
 He is not the first who was violently tried 
 by concupiscence. A Saint Vincent Ferrier 
 compares it to a quagmire ; he resigned him- 
 self to living in its neighborhood, distressed 
 by its fetid odor, though he did not resign 
 himself to live in the mud in order the better 
 to do homage to grace. Many sons of Adam, 
 iF. 228. 
 
58 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 even members of religious orders, have given 
 way to evil tendencies. Some have remained 
 vanquished, others have arisen. The former 
 have not claimed to be righteous, the latter 
 have longed to be freed from sin. None have 
 thought it possible for sin and righteousness 
 to coexist in a man. This is what distin- 
 guishes Luther's position. 
 
 The view Luther adopted might be well 
 explained as the solution offered by pride in 
 presence of a fall. The pride of a monk, who 
 has aspired to holiness, revolts at the fact 
 that, instead of being spiritual, he has proved 
 himself no better than a vulgar sinner. In 
 the case of an ordinary proud man it will be 
 sufficient to deny the gravity of the fault. 
 After all, he will say, it was not a mortal sin. 
 But in the case of a man whose nature is ex- 
 tremely rich and resourceful, if pride is strong 
 enough to assert itself, even when there is an 
 evident sin, the conclusion will be that the 
 temptation to which he succumbed was invin- 
 cible. If he fall, anybody would have fallen. 
 Nature is so evil. He despairs of doing oth- 
 erwise ; and instead of seeking to recover jus- 
 tice by the humble avowal that he was wa'ong, 
 that it is his own fault, he gives up righteous- 
 ness. He settles dowm in sin, protesting with 
 false humility that this is where he belongs. 
 There is no shame in being like everybody 
 else. 
 
 But if this explanation is plausible one can 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 50 
 
 likewise adopt the hypothesis that sin was not, 
 or at least not frequently, consiniimated. In 
 certain religious, the very realization that 
 they are subject to an ever-reviving concu- 
 piscence may produce the impression of pain- 
 ful surprise. The grace of the beginnings 
 may have been sensible enough to reduce "the 
 flesh" to silence. It -was thought conquered. 
 Sin had no right to enter the cloister. Then 
 one day it reappears. It redoubles its at- 
 tacks. It is more formidable than ever. Has 
 there been a mistake in embracing a religious 
 life? There is never lacking an experienced 
 spiritual father to teach the novice the dif- 
 ference between the first stings and full con- 
 sent. But the struggle becomes in time 
 fatiguing and humiliating; concupiscence 
 puts itself forward as impudent as it is in- 
 destiTictible. If good w^orks do not dehver 
 us from this domestic enemy, what is the use 
 of good ^vorks? There is grace. But grace, 
 too, is apparently powerless. After confes- 
 sion, which should have restored grace if it 
 had been lost, one is no better than before. 
 One is apt to despair of God's goodness, un- 
 less he is very humble. 
 
 It is possible that Luther exaggerated the 
 effect w^hich his religious profession was to 
 produce in the soul. "And truly," he wrote 
 in 1533, "I rejoiced at having become such 
 an excellent man, at having, by one act, ren- 
 dered myself so beautiful and holy. ... I 
 
60 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 admired myself as a being capable of mira- 
 cles, able to make one mouthful of death and 
 the devil." 1 
 
 This is undoubtedly an exaggeration. 
 Father Denifle has demonstrated that the 
 teaching of the Middle Ages was not respon- 
 sible for it. But how could one who was so 
 extreme in everything fail to exaggerate, in 
 the beginning, the graces of the religious 
 life or the sensible effect of Christian grace .f^ 
 We know, from the evidence of the Commen- 
 tary, how much he exaggerated in those days 
 the grace of the Sacrament of Penance : 
 
 Hence I was so stupid as not to be able to 
 understand that I should esteem myself a sinner 
 like others and prefer myself to no one when^ 
 with contrition, I had made my confession; for 
 then I thought everything removed and done 
 away with, even within.^ 
 
 Again I have no trouble to believe him when 
 he says that he exaggerated the action of 
 temptations in his soul : 
 
 As a monk I thought salvation impossible 
 when I felt the concupiscence of the flesh, that 
 is, an evil movement, whether of lust or of an- 
 ger or of envy, against a brother, etc. I tried 
 many things, I went to confession every day, 
 etc. But nothing gave me relief because the 
 concupiscence of the flesh always came back. 
 Therefore I could not rest, but was ever tor- 
 1 Jundt, p. 45. 2 F. 109. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 61 
 
 mented by these thoughts: "Thou hast commit- 
 ted this or that sin/' or again^ "Thou art under 
 the domination of envy, impatience/' etc. "It is 
 then in vain that thou hast entered into this 
 state of life, and all thy good works are use- 
 less." ^ 
 
 In such a case scruples may lead to despair, 
 just as surely as actual sins, especially when 
 the victim is not humble and has had too 
 much reliance on his own efforts. This is 
 what happened in the case of Luther, if we 
 may accept the testimony of a letter dating 
 from the same time as the Commentary, at a 
 moment when this error had given rise to an 
 extreme reaction : 
 
 In our day there is a great temptation to pre- 
 sumption in many souls, particularly in those 
 who are endeavoring with all their strength to 
 be righteous and good; ignoring the justice of 
 God, which is given us in Christ most abun- 
 dantly and gratuitously, they seek of themselves 
 to act righteously until they may confidently 
 stand before God adorned with virtues and 
 merits, which is impossible. Thou wast while 
 amongst us in this opinion, or rather error; I 
 was myself, and even now I am struggling 
 against such a view, without having yet over- 
 come it. 
 
 A man of Luther's temperament was bound 
 to turn about completely and to grapple with 
 
 1 In the Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians 
 (1535), in Denifle-Paquier, II., 389, note 2. 
 
62 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 those who had, he thought, led him into error. 
 And indeed he does not cease his invectives 
 against those whom he calls justitiarii. His 
 disillusionment must have been deep and 
 painful. Despair caused by scruples explains 
 less clearly than would more positive infideli- 
 ties how he came to adopt as a remedy the 
 declaration that he was a sinner; but the 
 hypothesis of scruples cannot be rejected ab- 
 solutely. 
 
 In a word, in the system, of Father Denifle, 
 everything unfolds logically. Luther, having 
 become a sinner, decides to acknowledge that 
 he is such and to adapt to the situation a 
 religious doctrine, the starting point of which 
 was invincible concupiscence. 
 
 The weak point of this moral evaluation is 
 precisely that it is too logical. Father 
 Denifle, who has followed Luther from con- 
 tradiction to contradiction, might have cred- 
 ited him with a few more contradictions and 
 with some of those exaggerations which recur 
 so naturally under his pen. 
 
 In the hypothesis of scruples, bringing on 
 discouragement, one must explain how Luther, 
 already inclined to confuse concupiscence and 
 sin, came to a definite assertion of their 
 identity. 
 
 Besides, both in the view that Luther's 
 doctrine was occasioned by his sin and in the 
 view that it grew out of scruples, there would 
 remain the question why he identified concu- 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 63 
 
 piscence with original sin, or, rather, since 
 theology recognized that concupiscence is an 
 effect of original sin, why he became so cer- 
 tain, contrary to tlie doctrine of the Church, 
 that this sin is not remitted in Baptism. It 
 is here that he alleges St. Paul. But before 
 weighing his arguments, we must call atten- 
 tion to other dispositions of his mind which 
 inclined him to a new meaning foreign to 
 that of the Apostle — namely, his ability to 
 hold contrary and even contradictory ideas 
 and his lack of moderation. 
 
 3. Ability to Hold Contradictory 
 Opinions 
 
 It is very true, as Mr. Jundt remarks, that 
 Luther had a passion for the absolute. But 
 when he adds that, "like the Apostle, he had 
 a mind which was all of a piece and whose 
 first need was logic," he is confusing the re- 
 quirements of a mind formed by Graeco-Ro- 
 man discipline and that German knack of 
 combining contradictions which Luther in- 
 stalled in the religious order long before it 
 appeared in the philosophy of Hegel and 
 Schelling. His love of reality does not, in- 
 deed, exclude a certain headlong logic which 
 goes as far as it can — a logic which allows 
 him, at the end of his reasoning, resignedly 
 to retain contrary, if not contradictory, no- 
 tions. Theology, which had little by little 
 
64 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 assimilated the philosophy of Aristotle, had 
 become accustomed to the distinction of con- 
 cepts inaugurated by Socrates. This power 
 of clear and definite distinction is the most 
 solid characteristic of the Latin genius, of 
 great value so long as it is exercised on con- 
 cepts which are not empty but which corre- 
 spond to things. It is true that the nomi- 
 nalists, regarding concepts as mere creations 
 of reason, multiplied them in an arbitrary 
 way and indulged complacently in the mental 
 exercise of opposing them one to another and 
 bringing them into collision, of analyzing 
 everything in a most rigorous manner. More- 
 over, they were not satisfied with a consid- 
 eration of what God had done, but must con- 
 cern themselves with equal strenuosity about 
 what He might have done. They had de- 
 parted from the solid ground of realities. 
 Luther energetically brushes aside these 
 spider webs. He means to find man as he is, 
 mind and flesh, instead of a synoptical table 
 of the predicaments, in the order of nature 
 and in the order of grace. 
 
 It was, if you like, his stroke of genius to 
 have understood the aspirations of his time. 
 Simplification, a return to common sense, a 
 language which all could understand, that is 
 what is ahvays sure of success with the masses. 
 The}^ understand only later on that the 
 would-be simplifiers have been doing a work 
 of destruction, and that it is self-delusion to 
 
Lnther on the Eve of Revolt 65 
 
 pretend to do away with mysteries wliile at- 
 tempting to preserve religion. But in the 
 meanwhile the shock of antitheses is not dis- 
 pleasing, and the masses heartily applaud 
 one who attacks distinctions which they can- 
 not grasp. 
 
 If the interlocutors of Socrates, daring and 
 practical, armed with common sense and cur- 
 rent ideas — if a Thrasybulus and a Callicles 
 might count on the votes of the Athenians by 
 preferring solid reasons to concepts founded 
 on distinctions, Luther was sure to please a 
 much coarser public, when he attacked the 
 subtleties of scholasticism. 
 
 In the Commentary, the tendencies of 
 which are ultramystical, one perceives this 
 note, already rationalistic, which would take 
 account only of notions that clearly corre- 
 spond with realities. 
 
 The religious problem, Luther tells us, will 
 not be solved by disputing about the contrary 
 appetites, or about forms which succeed one 
 another In the faculties : man is one, and it is 
 he who is sick. The text is not lacking in 
 savor : 
 
 Hence appears the frivolous and delirious 
 character of the conduct of metaphysical theo- 
 logians, who dispute about contrary appetites, 
 as to whether they can be in the same subject, 
 and deal with the spirit, that is to say, the rea- 
 son, as a thing apart, with an absolute, com- 
 plete and perfect being, and in like manner with 
 
66 Lidher on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 the sensuality or the flesh as another thing com- 
 plete and absolute^ and are made to forget by 
 their absurd fancies that the flesh is the weak- 
 ness itself, inasmuch as it is the wound of the 
 whole man, whom grace has begun to heal in 
 his spirit or reason.^ 
 
 A house which is being restored is a ruined 
 house, not a ruin and a house. 
 
 There is something seductive in the appeal 
 to current notions and to the common sense 
 against the invasion of an artificial dialectics : 
 
 Their imagination was noxiously employed 
 when they followed Aristotle in teaching ^vith 
 metaphorical words that virtues and vices inhere 
 in the soul like whiteness in a wall, writing on 
 a tablet, and form in a subject," 
 
 In denying the distinction between the soul 
 and its faculties, Luther was very near the 
 denial of grace and charity, which God de- 
 posits in them. But let us not anticipate. 
 
 A Latin mind might experience the same 
 tendencies to simplification, but it would re- 
 main fixed in negation ; it would not try, once 
 it bad destroyed the supernatural, to get it 
 back by associating contradictory concepts. 
 Luther, however, was disposed to this latter 
 course. It was useless to show that in bis 
 system God at the same time wills and does 
 not will evil, that man is at the same time 
 righteous and a sinner. He was triumphant. 
 iF. 180. 2F. 182. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 67 
 
 He had n doctrine which is inaccessible to 
 the stupid. He was intoxicated with an- 
 titheses which he pretended to reduce to unity. 
 Here are a few examples, borrowed from his 
 religious doctrines, which testify to the state 
 of his mind. It is not his system which led 
 him into involuntary contradictions ; he will- 
 ingly accepted them: 
 
 They are still unlearned, who remove from 
 God the will of evil, lest they be forced to con- 
 cede that he sins.^ . . . This proposition is 
 true: God wills what is evil and sinful, as well as 
 this : God understands what is evil and sinful. . . . 
 These things are true: God wills what is bad, 
 God wills what is good; God does not will what 
 is bad, God does not will what is good. 
 
 Evidently, when dealing with the nature of 
 God, our poor little intellect is very much em- 
 barrassed. If it is wise, it has no illusions 
 about the insufficiency of its affirmations, but 
 it does its best, not to define God, but to avoid 
 destroying itself by contradictions. For 
 Luther this was the supreme exercise. 
 
 This juggling excites the indignation of 
 the honest soul of Father Denifle. He ex- 
 claims, *'It would make one's hair stand on 
 end," on reading Luther's remark. 
 
 Real chastity is in luxury, and the more filthy 
 the luxury, the more beautiful the chastity.- 
 
 IF. 22. 
 
 2 In 1518, Denifle-Paquier, II., 404, n. 2. 
 
68 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 No, it simply makes one smile. The mas- 
 ter is exhibiting his dexterity, as he already 
 does in his Commentary : 
 
 Therefore, for themselves and in reality they 
 are sinners ; for God, however, on account of this 
 confession, they are righteous; they are really 
 sinners, but by the accounting of a merciful 
 God they are righteous ; without knowing it, they 
 are righteous and, according to their knowledge, 
 they are unrighteous; sinners in reality, right- 
 eous in hope.^ 
 
 What is more, he supports his contradic- 
 tions by the authority of Aristotle "well un- 
 derstood." It doubtless amused him to ac- 
 commodate his theory of justification to that 
 of power and act. Only with him it is the 
 same quality which is at the same time in 
 power and in act in the same subject: 
 
 Always a sinner, always a penitent, always 
 righteous." 
 
 We know that Renan, a great admirer of 
 German philosophy, was ever more and more 
 prone to associate the affirmation and the 
 negation in two propositions where both are 
 apparently edifying, but are at the same 
 time of such a nature as "to make one's hair 
 stand on end." But Renan was the first to 
 smile at his doctrines and at himself ; at least, 
 
 1 F. 105. 2 F. 266 f. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt G9 
 
 lie affected tliis attitude throiifrli deference for 
 the Gallic mind. Luther was terribly serious. 
 
 4. Lack of Moderation 
 
 Foreign, and even brutally hostile, to the 
 distinction of concepts, Luther's intelligence 
 was absolutely devoid of moderation. Mod- 
 eration and tact would seem to be other gifts 
 come to us from the Greeks, were they not at 
 the same time natural endowments of the 
 French genius. Luther develops all his pas- 
 sion for the absolute in practical judgments. 
 There is no half way, no compromise, no in- 
 dulgence. Here again we proceed by ex- 
 amples. 
 
 Luther, the author of a movement the most 
 definite result of which is liberty of inquiry, 
 notably exaggerated the domain and the char- 
 acter of obedience. This is one of the most in- 
 teresting surprises caused by the publication 
 of the Commentary. Extreme in everything, 
 Luther began by demanding obedience to- 
 wards all prelates, towards everybody, and 
 by giving to this obedience the character of 
 theological faith. One has to read his state- 
 ments to believe this. Theology, he tells us, 
 says that heretics have not the faith because 
 they choose what they believe. The same is 
 true of the disobedient : 
 
 In like manner, the proud man sets himself 
 in opposition in his mind to the commandment 
 
70 Luiher on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 or the counsel of one wlio rightly warns him 
 for his salvation. Not believing him, he be- 
 lieves nothing and all his faith perishes on ac- 
 count of the stubbornness of his judgment.^ 
 
 Here faith is lost by a refusal to comply 
 with a mere counsel. And Luther was about 
 to erect the whole edifice of the Reformation 
 upon faith alone ! It is not a passing exag- 
 geration ; he insists and this, precisel}^, to 
 show that we can be saved only by faith. 
 Heretics claim to believe in Christ, but they 
 do not believe in what is His. 
 
 What are they (the objects of faith)? The 
 Church, and every word that proceeds from the 
 mouth of one of the Church's prelates or of a 
 good and holy man, is the word of Christ, who 
 says: "He who hears you hears me." Those 
 consequently who withstanding the Church's 
 prelates, will not hear their word, but follow 
 their own lights^ how, I ask, can they believe 
 in Christ.? 2 
 
 In a word: 
 
 "What is the mouth of God? That of the 
 priest and of the superior ! ^ 
 
 Faith, moreover, extends to interior illumi- 
 nations. Such being the nature of faith, who 
 can be sure that he really believes.'' The only 
 resource left is to cast oneself blindly upon 
 humility : 
 
 1 F. 86 2 F. 88. 3 F. 89. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 71 
 
 Since tlic matter stands thus, we must liumble 
 ourselves profoundly. Because, since we cannot 
 know whether we live on every word of God and 
 deny none (God saying many things to us by 
 the superior, many by the brethren, many in 
 the Gospel and the Apostles, many interiorly), 
 we can never know whether we are justified, 
 whether we believe.^ 
 
 So begins the joyous message of Luther, 
 that second Gospel which has given to Chris- 
 tian souls "living faith in a God, who, 
 through Christ, cries out to the unhappy soul, 
 'I am thy salvation,' and firm confidence that 
 we may rest in God !" ^ 
 
 Luther does not stop at a confident doubt ; 
 the excess of this obdience must, under pen- 
 alty of loss of faith, lead to despair ; and this 
 is, as a matter of fact, what he demands as an 
 indispensable condition of salvation. To be 
 saved one must renounce all that is good, 
 even salvation. It is not question of that 
 self-abandonment to the will of God which 
 accepts even the sufferings of hell, if God has 
 so decreed. Beyond this point, already near 
 the brink of an abyss where vertigo threat- 
 ens, the Church does not allow one to go. 
 Luther is not stopped. True love of God re- 
 quires, he holds, that we resign ourselves to 
 His loss not in a hypothetical, but in a very 
 real way, and with all our heart : 
 
 1 F. 89. 
 
 2 Harnack cited by Denifie-Paquier, II., 3G9. 
 
72 Luther on the Ere of Rerolt 
 
 Therefore we must fly from good and aece})t 
 evil, and this, not only in word 'and without 
 meaning it at heart; but we must in a whole- 
 hearted way profess to be and wish to be, lost 
 and damned.^ . . . 
 
 This is but to imitate Christ ! Luther 
 utters tliis blasphemy at a time when he still 
 thinks himself a submissive son of the Church. 
 He affirms of Christ 
 
 that He really and truly offered Himself for 
 eternal damnation to the Father for us." 
 
 That settled it. He had ventured upon the 
 leap into the abyss. But he reserved an es- 
 cape for himself, and on his return he brings 
 confidence with him. The sincere desire of 
 damnation is the means to avoid it : 
 
 They are rather damned who flee from dam- 
 nation." 
 
 How, then, was the desire sincere? We do 
 not understand him, we protest ; we accuse 
 him of bad faith and of juggling with words. 
 No, it is the philosophy of the absolute. We 
 are evil, there is only one thing to do, and 
 that is to sink into our evil ; there we find 
 the goodness of God. 
 
 Such disinterested love of God cannot well 
 be satisfied with half-measures. Luther has 
 
 1 F. 220. 2F. 218. 3 F. 218. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 73 
 
 confessed, we have seen, distractions in the 
 recitation of the Divine Office. Is one to be 
 damned for such an offence? Canonists had 
 reassured the conscience by requiring only 
 virtual attention. 
 
 A fine pretext for laziness and wickedness ! ^ 
 
 In a really amusing way he puts before us 
 canons and monks Mho, tranquilized by Canon 
 Law which commands them to "say" or 
 "lead" the Office but not to "pray" it, snore 
 on in peace ! ^ 
 
 Such sayings are jests only. But coming 
 from Luther they leave a bitter taste. 
 
 Carried away by the idea of pure love he 
 will not suffer anybody to speak of his rights 
 and of justice. It is the duty of princes to 
 see that justice is respected by their subjects ; 
 but all, even princes, should be ready to sur- 
 render their rights : 
 
 The very word "justice" so nauseates me, 
 that I would suffer less to be desjDoiled of my 
 goods than to hear it. It is, nevertheless, al- 
 ways in the mouth of the jurists. 
 
 IF. 288. 
 
 2 F. 288 : Sed liabent nunc juriste pulcram glo- 
 sam, quia orationes horarias orare non est precep- 
 tum, sed "legere" sen "dicere." Sic enim ponderant 
 canonem in verbis ac sic securi stertunt. Some 
 jokes are very long-lived. This one recalls the words 
 of the dean during a storm: "This is no time to 
 say our Office, but to pray to God." 
 
74 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Naturally, that is their function! But 
 what a race they are ! 
 
 There are no people in the world so simple- 
 minded as the jurists and those who rely on 
 good intentions, or iheir proud reason . . . All 
 j ustice is then humility ^ . . . 
 
 Since everyone is in the wrong before God, 
 no wrong can be done anyone; nobody is 
 wrong and nobody is right. Let men realize 
 this and then we shall have peace : 
 
 Thereby is the cause of contention taken 
 away from all men, etc.^ , . . 
 
 Such excess could not be stayed by texts, 
 even those of Scripture. One should not love 
 oneself at all. Nevertheless, Scripture says 
 we must love our neighbor as ourselves. It 
 would seem, then, obvious that the love of self, 
 proposed as a standard, is legitimate. What 
 can the text mean.? That one must cease to 
 love oneself to love one's neighbor! This is 
 said in so many words : 
 
 Consequently I believe that, by this precept 
 "as thyself," man is not commanded to love him- 
 self, but that by it that love is shown to be 
 vicious by which one in fact loves himself . . . 
 It is a self-concentrated love, from which thou 
 shalt be freed only if thou cease altogether to 
 love thyself, and, forgetful of self, love only 
 thy neighbor.^ 
 
 1 F. 273. 2 F. 273. s F. 337. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 75 
 
 Exaggeration, subtlety, misinterpretation. 
 . . . Wliat could be expected of an unbridled 
 mind, which amused itself in paradox as in its 
 proper element? 
 
 Luther had only contempt for the simple- 
 minded, rndiores; a nickname for those of 
 good intsntion, boneintentionarii; jests for 
 canons who snored so peacefully. His most 
 violent attacks were against philosophers and 
 the justitiarii, who are, I think, the represen- 
 tatives of speculative and moral theology. He 
 is resolved to set up, instead of a teaching 
 which is founded upon human reason and aims 
 at establishing human justice, a wholly divine 
 doctrine based on the word of God. He has 
 a mission, although, being still in the Church, 
 he claims that this mission is regular. 
 
 We have already spoken of his hostility 
 toward philosophers, especially Aristotle. 
 The condemnation is without appeal, based 
 upon a deep knowledge of the subject-matter: 
 
 I indeed believe that I owe to the Lord this 
 service of barking against philosophy and urg- 
 ing to the study of Sacred Scripture. For, if 
 anyone without my experience did it, he might 
 be timid or might not be believed. But I, hav- 
 ing noM^ studied it for many years, having ob- 
 served and listened to many, see that it is a 
 study of vanity and of perdition. 
 
 The extent of these studies was not very 
 great, as readers of Father Denifle know. But 
 
76 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 let us take note of the motive of his condem- 
 nation. If he rejects Aristotle, it is not that 
 he prefers Plato to him, as did certain hu- 
 manists ; and he does not think at all of over- 
 turning the edifice of Christian theology in 
 order to gain an advantage for experimental 
 study. Nothing is more foreign to his mind 
 than scientific preoccupations. Science, too, 
 nauseates him. He appeals to things them- 
 selves in a passage of apocalyptic beauty: 
 
 Behold we value highly the science of the 
 essences, operations and passions of things; and 
 the things themselves are ashamed of, and groan 
 over, their own essences, operations and pas- 
 
 Things in St. Paul groan in expectation 
 of the liberty of the children of God. Luther 
 makes of this voice a condemnation of science. 
 The prosopopea is bold and splendid but dis- 
 quieting for reason ; it must sound strange 
 to that part of the modern world which is 
 most insistent on its connection with Luther. 
 And it is not merely things which protest 
 against the study to which men subject them ; 
 what is decisive is that the Apostle has con- 
 demned philosophy in an absolute way. Al- 
 ways in the absolute ! 
 
 If, indeed, the Apostle had wished it to be 
 understood that some philosophy was useful and 
 
 IF. 199. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 11 
 
 good, he would not have condemned it abso- 
 lutely.i 
 
 Lutlicr (lid not, however, expect to trans- 
 form the schools in a day. The advice he 
 gives his pupils is not of irreproachable 
 straightforwardness. Let them study philoso- 
 phy, but as an error which must be refuted, 
 and in order not to be ignorant of the lan- 
 guage of the age : 
 
 Wherefore, I urge you all as strongly as I 
 can to go through these studies quickly, not 
 seeking to establish and defend them, but rather 
 as we study the evil arts, that we may destroy 
 them, and errors, that we may refute them. In 
 like manner, take up this study ihat we may 
 reject what we learn thereby, or at least that 
 we may understand those with whom it is neces- 
 sary to converse. For it is time to emancipate 
 ourselves from other pursuits, that we may learn 
 Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 
 
 It is then Paul's doctrine which shall re- 
 place the theology of the schools, which is 
 too much imbued with philosophy. It must, 
 above all, give a mortal blow to the pernicious 
 teaching of the justitiarii. 
 
 These latter are not religious whose exces- 
 sively zealous observances would have dis- 
 gusted Luther with good works. 1 meet only 
 once with the word observantes. Luther ad- 
 dresses to them the reproach which they have 
 
 1 F. 200, On Col. II., 8. 2 F. 199. 
 
78 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 always drawn upon themselves (and some- 
 times deserved) from those who are more or 
 less lukewarm and relaxed: 
 
 The observant fight among themselves for the 
 love of God^ but pay no heed to the precept of 
 charity.^ 
 
 He appears to have been wholly uncon- 
 cerned about attempts at reformation in his 
 order, whose numbers, indeed, were not con- 
 siderable enough to draw upon themselves 
 such sweeping and violent attacks. No, the 
 matter is not a quarrel between monks ; the 
 whole Church is nearly destroyed. She is the 
 victim of a latent Pelagianism which is held 
 by doctors Vho themselves are unconscious 
 of the danger. Even the evils of ecclesias- 
 tical administration come from it. 
 
 Of this error the essence is Pelagianism. For, 
 although there are at present no professed Pela- 
 gians, many are really such in their views, 
 albeit ignorantly.^ 
 
 And again : 
 
 Therefore most absurd and quite favorable to 
 the error of the Pelagians is the common say- 
 ing: "To one who does his best God infallibly 
 gives grace," which is based on the idea that 
 the "one who does his best" is able to do some- 
 thing. Hence the whole Church is nearly sub- 
 verted, namely, by confidence in this saying.^ 
 iF. 305. 2F. 322. 3 F. 323. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 79 
 
 Concerning the famous axiom: "To one 
 who does his best God infalHbly gives grace," 
 Father Denifle has said all that is necessary. 
 He recalls that, rightly understood, it sup- 
 poses the action of what is called actual grace, 
 that is to say, a special divine concursus lead- 
 ing the soul to sanctifying grace. Luther 
 admitted the principle in 1514, consequently 
 just before the composition of his Commen- 
 tary.^ But what is of more interest, it was 
 in a nominalistic sense that he held it. Now 
 the nominalists too frequently confounded the 
 general concursus of God with the special 
 concursus called actual grace,^ to such an 
 extent that they did not leave in sufficient re- 
 lief the doctrine concerning God's salutary 
 action in salvation. Luther who, as we have 
 seen, counted too much at first on his own 
 strength, perceived this fact more or less 
 suddenly in the light of Pauline theology in- 
 terpreted by St. Augustine. The reaction 
 was violent ; he saw everywhere only latent 
 Pelagianism. And it is precisely according 
 to another nominalist principle that he sought 
 a remedy. This seems very strange in truth, 
 but is it not one of the conditions of our mind 
 to use the resources it has at its command.^ ^ 
 
 1 Denifle-Paqiiier, IL, 397, citing the edition of 
 Weimar, lY., 262, 4. 
 
 2 Denifle-Paquier. III., pp. 166, 170, 171, 183 and 184. 
 
 3 Ficker, p. LXI.: "In terminology and argnmenta- 
 tion lie is the disciple of Occamian nominalism; 
 
80 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 And perhaps a more topical explanation may 
 be suggested. 
 
 Luther, trained in nominalist theology, ex- 
 perienced the need of disengaging himself 
 from it only when he felt that it gave too 
 much to nature. That one may love God 
 above all things, with only the powers of na- 
 ture, is a blasphemy for the Augustinian 
 neophyte, who has measured (and exagger- 
 ated) the nature of concupiscence. But there 
 was in the theology of Occam a principle 
 which seemed to give everything to God, the 
 principle, namely, which makes truth depend- 
 ent upon the good, pleasure of God ; which 
 allows for the simultaneous existence of con- 
 traries, good and evil, and which recognizes 
 in good, in charity itself, no other meritorious 
 value than the free acceptance of God. Did 
 not Occam say explicitly that one can be 
 agreeable to God, accepted by Him and loved, 
 without any supernatural form inherent in 
 the soul? Doubtless, these questions were 
 treated, as usual with Scholasticism, in an ab- 
 stract way, as pertaining to a possible order, 
 which Almighty God had not established, and 
 with deference to the actual order, in which 
 God reall}'^ gives grace. But, nevertheless, 
 Occam remarked very characteristically that 
 his opinion is farthest removed from the error 
 
 there were there many things which corresponded 
 to his penetrating- way of conceiving, to his taste 
 for dash, antithesis, paradoxes." 
 
Luther on the Ere of Rerolt 81 
 
 of Pcla^Ius.^ And, indeed, is not God tluis 
 made freer and salvation more gratuitous? 
 Eve*i if you are clotlied witli grace, He can 
 refuse to accept your dispositions ! And if 
 it pleases Him, He will accept them, even if 
 you are devoid of every supernatural gift! 
 Thus all depends on His free will. For a 
 mind like Luther's, in love with the absolute, 
 would not what was absolutely possible be- 
 come a fact? Since infused grace was un- 
 necessary, why retain it? 
 
 Let us stop before we enter upon a dis- 
 cussion of his system. We are only look- 
 ing for the dispositions which were to lead 
 to it. Suffice it to say, in conclusion, that a 
 man is badly equipped to react against a doc- 
 trine when he knows that doctrine alone, es- 
 pecially if its fundamental concepts are false. 
 How indeed can one get rid of the principles ? 
 And it Avas another disadvantage, especially 
 for a mind so inclined to extreme views, to 
 attach one's self to only one doctor, even 
 though he were the greatest of all. 
 
 We here touch upon a very delicate point. 
 St. Augustine is the Doctor of grace. His 
 system is assuredly the system of the Catho- 
 lic Church. But it is undeniable that at times 
 his expressions are too strong, that he even 
 
 1 Occam, on I Sent. dist. 17, qu. 1 M. cited by 
 Denitle-Paquier, III., 198: Et ita ista opinio max- 
 ime recedit ab errore Pelagii, que ponit Deum sic 
 non posse necessitari et non magis gratuitam et 
 liberani Dei acceptionem esse necessriam cuicumque. 
 
8^ Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 struck too hard, and that in his very laudable 
 desire to crush a dangerous heresy he gave a 
 rather unnatural explanation to some texts of 
 the Epistle to the Romans. Gaston Boissier 
 has somewhere raised the question, whether 
 the African writers had not a special tem- 
 perament of their own. Tertullian, St. Cyp- 
 rian, and St. Augustine would seem to have 
 upheld what they considered the truth with 
 a certain spirited sort of logic which led the 
 two first into excesses, and Tertullian even 
 into heresy. Once more, a sense of ecclesias- 
 tical tradition, a very thorough study of 
 Scripture, all the gifts of nature and of grace, 
 made of Augustine an incomparable Doctor; 
 but precisely on account of his unique genius, 
 he exerts over those who read him alone a 
 sort of fascination, and if they are naturally 
 inclined to exaggerate, they will be apt to 
 set up all his formulas as dogmas, his whole 
 exegesis as truth of faith. Very frequently, 
 with marvelous tact, Augustine himself 
 softens, by a shading or a distinction, what 
 is too strong in an expression. Trouble lost 
 for absolute minds who profess, like Luther, 
 to despise distinctions. After Luther, Jansen- 
 ius, Baius, and so many Jansenists, wrongly 
 understood Augustine's thoughts, because 
 the}'' failed to interpret certain striking ex- 
 pressions by his doctrine considered as a 
 whole. Father Denifle recognizes very dis- 
 tinctly that Luther supported his system by 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 83 
 
 an inexact exegesis of St. Augustine, and that 
 he clung to it "as if St. Augustine were the 
 Church, and each of his explanations were 
 infallible." ^ 
 
 After all, an Augustinian reaction against 
 the naturalistic tendencies of the Occamists 
 had alread}? achieved results. St. Thomas had 
 adopted, and we may say co-ordinated, the 
 Augustinian doctrine, while he took from its 
 expressions what might be misleading, by the 
 very fact of employing them in his theologi- 
 cal construction. In modern times, many 
 have complained that St. Thomas was a too 
 faithful disciple of the Doctor of grace. 
 
 But Luther regarded the Thomists, as well 
 as the Scotists, as mere sectaries bent on 
 defending the master through passion,^ with 
 excessive veneration, heeding words more than 
 the spirit. But was not his own preference 
 for St. Augustine more exclusive from the 
 fact that he was a Hermit of St. Augustine.'' 
 The glory of the saint, who was claimed as 
 founder, merged with that of his order. When 
 Wimpfeling asserted (in 1509) that St. 
 Augustine had not worn the habit of the 
 Hermits, and cast doubt upon the authen- 
 
 1 Denifle-Paquier, III., p. 106. 
 
 2 F. 165: Simili temeritate aguntur Thomiste, Sco- 
 tiste etalie secte, qui scripta et verba siiorum auctorum 
 ita defendunt, lit spiritum non solum contemnant 
 querere, sed etiam nimio venerationis zelo extin- 
 guant, satis arbitrati, si verba tantum teneant 
 etiam sine spiritu. 
 
84 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 ticity of two sermons, Lutlicr, feeling the 
 outraije offered his order as a personal 
 
 persons 
 
 affront, assailed Wimpfeling with bitterest 
 invectives : "I would that Wimpfeling, the 
 prattler, the carping impugner of the glory 
 of the Augustinians, had read these two ser- 
 mons (but it were first necessary that he 
 should have called back his reason, which has 
 gone far away as a result of his stubbornness 
 'and jealousy), and that he had put a pair of 
 spectacles before his mole-eyes.^ . . . Why, 
 then, dost thou, an old man, a raving maggot, 
 accuse Hugh? Why dost thou undertake to 
 correct the Church of God ?" ^ 
 
 Here we see the Church of God engaged in 
 the little quarrel ! 
 
 Luther will write later in the Commentary :^ 
 
 With such follv do members of religious com- 
 munities contend about their patriarchs. 
 
 We may then believe that Augustine was 
 particularly dear to Luther as the "founder" 
 of his order. As for St. Thomas' doctrine, 
 that concerned the Thomists. 
 
 Had Luther known the Thomistic doctrine, 
 he would probably have judged it too ration- 
 alistic, for it was preoccupied with reconciling 
 reason with faith, while he w^as setting up 
 faith against reason. Although the circum- 
 stances, which developed this passion for 
 
 1 Jundt, 1. 1. p. 65. 3 F.g. 80. 
 
 2 Denifle-Paquier, II., 425. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 85 
 
 mysticism tliat uont to the point of contempt 
 for scliohistic tlieology, arc still obscure, one 
 must certainly assign a considerable place to 
 the influence of Tauler. Father Deniflc, who 
 is so well acquainted with German mystics, 
 has not been prevented by any fraternal spirit 
 from showing how inconsistent with himself 
 was this great Dominican mystic.^ Tauler 
 pleased Luther very much as a German ; he 
 thought him the author of the German The- 
 ology which he (Luther) was to publish.- 
 
 In the golden period of the Middle Ages 
 men were conscious of receiving light by 
 speculative theology and by mysticism ; but 
 mysticism reflected theology "as the moon re- 
 flects the sun." This comparison did not per- 
 haps do full justice to the very real and 
 precious light which came from mysticism 
 itself. Be this as it may, the partial divorce 
 of the fifteenth century was a great misfor- 
 tune. With Luther, it is mysticism alone, 
 and a false mysticism, that of quietism, which 
 sets itself up against theology. We shall cite 
 but one text taken from the Commentary : 
 
 Then are w^e capable of His w^orks and coun- 
 sels, when our counsels cease and our works 
 take rest and we become purely passive in re- 
 gard to God, both in the matter of our interior 
 and our exterior actions.^ 
 
 1 Deniile-Paquier, HI., 128 ff. 
 
 -' In loKi, cf. Denifle-Paquier, III.. 128 and note 2. 
 
 ^- V. 203. 
 
86 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Almost immediately afterwards, Luther 
 cites Tauler: 
 
 Of tills passivity in regard to God see Tauler, 
 who above all others has lucidly and ably dealt 
 with this matter in the German language.^ 
 
 IF. 205. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE NEW DOCTRINE AND THE EPISTLE TO 
 THE ROMANS 
 
 1. The Teaching That the Justified Man 
 Lives in Sin the Antithesis of St. 
 Paul's Doctrine Concerning Grace 
 
 Luther was not the first monk to vindi- 
 cate the rights of grace against the encroach- 
 ments of nature, to attack philosophy in the 
 name of simplicity of faith, to express sus- 
 picions about man's judgment, to denounce 
 the peril of trust in self. Had he limited 
 himself to these topics he doubtless would, 
 on account of his tendency to go to excess 
 and of the confusion of his mind, have over- 
 stepped the limits of orthodoxy and sought 
 to lead souls in the ways of quietism. Would 
 the Church have intervened? Would he have 
 yielded .f^ Idle questions. What is certain is 
 that his doctrine would have remained in a 
 haze of German mysticism ; he would have 
 lacked a clearly affirmed theological doctrine 
 and at the same time a basis for defense. 
 But he came forth from the cloister, proclaim- 
 ing a doctrine founded upon the Scriptures 
 and destined to replace the traditional sys- 
 87 
 
88 Luther on ike Eve of Revolt 
 
 tcm, which liad grown up under tlie Influoncc 
 of the disciples of Aristotle. Tims he be- 
 came at the same time the champion of grace 
 and the herald of truth and of God. The 
 particular portion of Scripture which he pre- 
 sented as his warrant for denounchig the 
 errors of his contemporaries, was the Epistle 
 to the Romans. The Commentary, which he 
 gave of it in his Wittenberg lectures of 1515- 
 1516, formulated a well-defined theological 
 doctrine and made clear a plan for self- 
 defense. 
 
 In this work the vague feeling of being un- 
 der the dominion of an invincible concupis- 
 cence, becomes the affirmation that Baptism 
 does not efface original sin. Grace ceases to 
 be a reality and Luther is saved from despair 
 by satisfying himself that St. Paul taught 
 that the righteousness of Christ is imputed 
 to us. As a mystic, he had , desperately 
 preached humility, which suffices for every- 
 thing and is the best guarantee of salvation. 
 He now substitutes for this too negative no- 
 tion that of faith, a principle of life. This 
 is certainly in St. Paul, though Luther did 
 not yet know what meaning he should attach 
 to the Apostle's term. The last point of his 
 development will be certitude of justification 
 and even of salvation. But in this Commen- 
 tary his notion of faith is still too vague to 
 serve as a basis for certitude. He remains 
 undecided, leaning more towards that incerti- 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 89 
 
 tudc, which the mystic was particularly prone 
 to inculcate. 
 
 How did Luther see all this in St. Paul.'' 
 It is unfortunately hard to say, since he is 
 during a good part of his course feeling his 
 way, and arrives only gradually at clear and 
 definite expressions. This shows that he did 
 not start out with a settled system, which he 
 was ready to force upon St. Paul's words. His 
 hesitation, however, is not the same on all 
 points. Although he insists more and more, 
 even in the course of his Commentary, upon 
 the incapacity of human nature and its evil 
 tendencies, it is on this point that we find 
 least contradictions. It is impossible to at- 
 tain righteousness : one must admit that he 
 is powerless, confess that he lives in sin, 
 and by this avowal solicit mercy. How con- 
 nect this dreary doctrine with that of the 
 Apostle ^ 
 
 It is the very antithesis of what St. Paul 
 teaches. 
 
 The subject of the Epistle to the Romans 
 is, as St. Augustine understood, what we call 
 grace. Its propositio is contained in Romans 
 I. 16-17: "For I am not ashamed of the 
 Gospel ; for it is the power of God unto the 
 salvation of every one who believes, the Jew 
 first, and the Gentile. For therein is re- 
 vealed the righteousness of God, going from 
 faith to faith, as it is written : But the right- 
 eous by faith shall live." The Gospel is a 
 
90 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 divine power, acting for the salvation of men, 
 and of all men, provided they believe, that is 
 to say, embrace the doctrine. By that act 
 they ask and receive the gift which is offered 
 them; and it is thus that the righteousness 
 of God is revealed, — revealed in them, since, 
 as a consequence of their faith, it is a prin- 
 ciple of life. 
 
 There are two parts in the development of 
 this theme: (1) Those who believe are jus- 
 tified in the blood of Jesus and sins are con- 
 sequently forgiven them; this is justification, 
 (Rom. 3.21-30) which, in itself, assures sal- 
 vation (Rom. 5.1-11), and is "a power of 
 God unto salvation" according to the theme 
 of Rom. 1.16; (2) Those who are justified 
 live according to the Spirit, who is a cer- 
 tain pledge of salvation (Rom. 6 and 8), 
 and this is Christian life, which is also "a 
 power of Godk unto salvation." 
 
 The passages just cited are, so to speak, 
 the center of the teaching: they are par- 
 allel and end with the perspective of salva- 
 tion. According to the first, sin is remit- 
 ted ; and, nevertheless, according to the 
 others, men still fight against sin or the 
 flesh, which has retained the impress of sin. 
 But the synthesis is found in the idea of the 
 power of God which is exerted in both cases. 
 This power, principle of spiritual life, is at 
 the same time a principle of death for the 
 flesh. One lives in Jesus Christ because he 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 91 
 
 lias received it, and it is what has done away 
 with sin. Now this power of God is pre- 
 cisely, as it is already said in the theme 
 (Rom. 1.17), the righteousness of God, a 
 righteousness which is consequently commu- 
 nicated and which constitutes the state of 
 righteousness. Whatever quibbles there may 
 be, then, about this or that text, on the mean- 
 ing of "to justify" and of "justification" in 
 a particular passage, it results from the most 
 intimate structure of the Epistle that the 
 righteousness of God given to men is the 
 principle which makes them die to sin, to hve 
 unto God in Christ. 
 
 Around these fundamental points the 
 other parts of the Epistle group themselves 
 naturally. 
 
 If, while keeping exceptions in mind, St. 
 Paul condemns Judaism and heathenism, it is 
 to throw into more striking opposition former 
 times and the Gospel era, the patient toler- 
 ance of God and His granted righteousness. 
 The sin of Adam had spread over all man- 
 kind ; even the situation of the most highly 
 favored was extremely sad. Far from being a 
 remedy, the old law, by multiplying command- 
 ments, only increased the number of trans- 
 gressions. The will found in it no resource ; 
 it rather revolted against the precept, aban- 
 doning itself to evil. But with Christ all is 
 changed. Because of His blood God par- 
 dons all who believe in Him. By faith and 
 
 /^ 
 
92 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 by Baptism/ man is transformed, he becomes 
 one with Christ. If by the misdeed of Adam 
 all have been made sinners, by the grace of 
 Christ they are now rendered righteous. The 
 change wrought in the soul is so great that it 
 is compared to death followed b}^ life. There 
 is then in Christians a real principle of life, 
 which is the charity that God has for us, and 
 that is poured forth into our hearts. Paul 
 does not, indeed, use the terms of Aristotle; 
 he does not distinguish the soul from its pow- 
 ers, nor charity, which is a virtue infused into 
 the will, from sanctifying grace, which is 
 grafted in the soul. But he affirms that the 
 Christian is henceforth dead to sin, and, con- 
 sequently, freed from the law of Moses. And 
 
 1 St. Paul speaks at times as if faith, understood 
 in the broad sense, which implies cliarity, was the 
 one condition for the granting by God of that divine 
 justice, called grace in modern tlieological language. 
 This is chiefly when he is combating the pharisaic 
 doctrine of justice acquired by man's own efforts. 
 He speaks in other places as if Baptism were the 
 sole means by which this grace is acquired. Luther, 
 attending only to the former set of utterances, made 
 of Baptism a mere symbol, denying that it had 
 any power to impart grace. The Church reconciles 
 both sets of assertions by maintaining the necessity 
 both of faith and of the Sacrament of Baptism. 
 The justice of God is given to every believer; but 
 every believer must receive Baptism, an exterior 
 rite, conferring the grace, which it signifies, and ad- 
 mitting into the membership of the Church. So 
 essential is this rite that no matter how perfect 
 the inner dispositions of a person may be, he cannot 
 be justified without receiving it, at least by desire, 
 as our Catechism teaches. [Translator's note.] 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 93 
 
 by law Paul does not mean only the cere- 
 monial part of the old legislation biit the 
 whole law, even in its moral enactments, inas- 
 much as it constituted a distinct dispensation. 
 Bossuct had very well understood this : "It 
 is then that law given to Moses, that holy 
 law of the decalogue, that the Apostle calls a 
 ministry of death, and consequently the letter 
 which kills." 1 
 
 But the Apostle, in declaring that the Mo- 
 saic law was abrogated, did not renounce the 
 eternal prescriptions of ethics. He looked 
 upon them as imposed by a new law, the law 
 of the new alliance, the law of charity. Its 
 requirements surpass, indeed, those of the 
 earlier regime, but the Christian is enabled 
 to meet them by obeying the Spirit which 
 animates him. Sin had not given up the 
 struggle. It seems, even as we read St. Paul, 
 that it had some base of operation in the 
 flesh, which fights against the spirit ; but sin 
 w^as no longer the master, it no longer domi- 
 nated. Man was, all in all, delivered from 
 its power and enabled to enter the service of 
 righteousness (Rom. 6.18). 
 
 How did Luther, using St. Paul, arrive at 
 a result so diametrically opposed to this 
 teaching? 
 
 The radical vice of his argumentation is a 
 lack of historical sense. He took no account 
 
 1 First Sermon for the feast of Pentecost, accord- 
 ing to 2 Cor. 3.7. 
 
94 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 of the concrete situation with which the Apos- 
 tle dealt. All the words of the Epistle were 
 considered to be addressed to himself, an 
 Augustinlan monk deeply Impressed with the 
 danger and the power of the flesh. He felt 
 intimately all that Paul said of the powerless- 
 ness of works ; he was only too well con- 
 vinced of that by his personal experience. 
 How often had he not witnessed that tragic 
 conflict between the will on the one side, and 
 on the other sin, which dwells in the flesh? It 
 is, then, really s'ln that dwells in us. The 
 identification of sin and concupiscence Luther 
 claimed to find in the seventh chapter of 
 Romans, particularly in verses 14-17 : "I 
 am carnal, sold under sin. For what I do I 
 know not ; for I do not that good which I 
 will, but the evil which I hate that I do. If 
 I do that which I will not, I recognize that 
 the law is good. So now it is no more I 
 that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." 
 
 Though St. Paul speaks in the first person 
 singular, he is really not dealing with his 
 own experience nor with that of baptized 
 Christians ; he speaks of man before his re- 
 generation. This was St. Augustine's first 
 interpretation ; during the Pelagian contro- 
 versy he adopted, as more probable, the view 
 that the Apostle has in mind the regenerated 
 man who is still conscious of his powerless- 
 ness to keep God's law without the help of 
 grace. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 95 
 
 Luther adopted and distorted this second 
 interpretation of St. Augustine, maintaining 
 that St. Paul represents himself, and spiritual 
 men in general, as still in the state of original 
 sin and powerless. 
 
 He accumulates twelve arguments to prove 
 his thesis and they all presuppose the same 
 principle. They would be conclusive only if 
 one had to choose between two classes of men, 
 men completely spiritual and men so com- 
 pletely enslaved by sin that they do not even 
 struggle against it. 
 
 Here is the first argument: 
 
 The whole text expressly indicates a groan- 
 ing under, and a hatred for, the flesh and a love 
 for the good and for law. Now this can in no 
 wise be said of the carnal man, who rather hates 
 the law and scoffs at it and follows the flesh 
 unresistingly.^ 
 
 With much boldness, and not without psy- 
 chological clearness of vision, Luther asserts 
 that it is a spiritual man who cries out : "But 
 I am carnal" (Rom. 7.14) ; for this is not 
 the language of one who gives himself up 
 to sin. 
 
 A first objection to understanding St. 
 Paul's words as spoken of a Christian under 
 the influence of the Holy Ghost was that 
 such a one could not make the confession of 
 Romans 7.15: "I do not that good which I 
 IF. 169. 
 
90 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 will; but the evil which I hatcy that I do." 
 The text is formal, and Luther allows that the 
 literal meaning is opposed to his exegesis. 
 Thus to the human understanding do his 
 words sound. But this fact could not prove 
 an obstacle to one who could claim the spirit ! 
 The text, then, means nothing more than that 
 the spiritual man does not act with as much 
 ease as he would like, and especially, that he 
 does not practice virtue so well as he would 
 wish. Augustine's distinction between facere 
 and perficere comes in conveniently to solve 
 the difficulty/ 
 
 If it be objected that the spiritual man is 
 declared to be at the same time wicked and 
 righteous, Luther simply admits the anti- 
 mony. He finds support for it in this same 
 text, in which St. Paul speaks of a sinner and 
 which the Commentator understands to refer 
 to the spiritual man : 
 
 Thus there is a "commimicatio idiomatum" 
 in virtue of which the same man is spiritual and 
 carnal^ righteous and sinful, good and bad. 
 Just as the one person of Christ is at the same 
 time alive and dead.^ . . . 
 
 In fact, Luther has finally his proof that 
 concupiscence is indeed a sin, which remains 
 as sin in the Christian. "Now then it is no 
 
 1 We have already seen that it is opposed to the 
 Greek text. 
 2F. 172. 
 
Lut/icr oti the Eve of Revolt 97 
 
 longer I \hiit du it, but sin that dwolleth in 
 ine" (Uoiii. 7.17). Nothing could be clearer ; 
 theologians would not have failed to grasp 
 the point if they had not been so carried 
 away by Aristotle as to miss Paul's teaching: 
 
 Have not then the fallacious metaphysics and 
 philosophy of Aristotle deceived our theologians 
 according to human tradition.^ They have been 
 misled into thinking that, because sin is abol- 
 ished by Baptism or Penance, it were absurd 
 for the Apostle to say: but sin that dwelleth 
 in me . . . Consequently sin is in the spiritual 
 man, left there to exercise grace, to humble 
 pride, to repress presumption; and if one does 
 not sedulously try to fight this sin, without 
 doubt he has already within him something that 
 will bring about his damnation, even though he 
 be guilty of no other sin.^ 
 
 The opposition to St. Paul is flagrant: 
 the baptized Christian is still, according to 
 Luther, exposed to damnation. Now the 
 eighth chapter of Romans begins with the 
 words : "There is now therefore no condem- 
 nation to them that are in Christ Jesus." In 
 the ScJiolia, so abundant in regard to Romans 
 7.7 jf., there is not a word concerning this 
 text. In the marginal gloss there is nothing, 
 while in the interlinear gloss the new doctrine 
 is clothed in words which avoid a too pro- 
 nounced opposition : 
 
 IF. 178. 
 
 n 
 
98 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 There is now then no condemnation, although 
 not no sin, as has been said, because "by the 
 fiesh they serve the law of sin." 
 
 We have thought it important to place in 
 its setting the text which made such an im- 
 pression on Luther. Perhaps, according to 
 his experience, he was only inclined to con- 
 jecture that sin remains and was fixed in his 
 opinion by the text ; it may be, however, that 
 he was already convinced of the survival of 
 sin and that to this text he owed only its 
 identification with original sin. However that 
 may be, it is to these words that he refers us 
 at the moment he defines his theory, after 
 having explained the seven first verses of 
 the fourth chapter of Romans : 
 
 It is not question here of sins in deed, word 
 and thought, but of that fuel (fomes) of sin, 
 of which chapter 7 below speaks: "Not I, but 
 sin that dwelleth in me." And in the same 
 place he calls it the "passions of sins," i. e., 
 desires, affections and inclinations to sins, 
 which, he says, produce fruit unto death. There 
 actual sin (to use the term of theologians) is 
 more truly a sin, i. e., the work and fruit of 
 sin, but sin is that very passion, fuel (fomes), 
 and concupiscence or proneness to evil and dif- 
 ficulty in doing good, as below: "I knew not 
 that concupiscence was sin." 
 
 It requires coolness or levity to sum up 
 Romans 7 . 7 J^. in the words : 
 
 I knew not that concupiscence was sin. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 99 
 
 But It must be confessed that this text, 
 which had so impressed Luther, was embar- 
 rassing for those wlio interpreted it of re- 
 generated man. According to the traditional 
 principle of Catholic exegetes, who never sac- 
 rifice a recognized truth to what one might 
 personally take to be the meaning of a text, 
 Augustine had maintained energetically that 
 sin is remitted in Baptism. As for this text, 
 he had solved the difficulty by taking the 
 words loosely, conceding that Paul had called 
 concupiscence sin, although not in the proper 
 sense of the term : "The Apostle commands 
 us to check concupiscence, and he does not 
 permit it to reign, and he calls it by the name 
 of sin, because it has its origin in the first 
 sin and because any one consenting to its 
 promptings sins." ^ Elsewhere Augustine 
 had endeavored to give a more precise ex- 
 planation : "If it be asked, how does this con- 
 cupiscence of the flesh remain in the regen- 
 erate man, in whom there has been remission 
 of all sins ... to this It is answered, that 
 the concupiscence of the flesh is remitted in 
 Baptism, not that It be not, but that it be not 
 imputed unto sin." ^ This Is the pronounce- 
 ment of a comprehensive mind, which does not 
 lose sight of essential points, and which re- 
 
 '^ Opus imperf. contra Julianum (429-430), II. 
 C. 226, cited in Denifle-Paquier, III., 30. 
 
 -De niipt. et concupisG. I. C. 25 n. 28, Denifle- 
 Paquier, III., 11 ft-. 
 
100 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 fuses to be drawn too far by the personal 
 view that St. Paul speaks of concupiscence 
 as sin and as in some way remitted in Bap- 
 tism. Luther, on the contrary, falls in the 
 way in which he leans : he sees nothing but 
 the identification of sin and concupiscence, 
 and since concupiscence remains, he declares 
 that sin remains also. By a bold falsifica- 
 tion, he attributes this opinion to St. Augus- 
 tine: 
 
 But St, Augustine has very well said that 
 "sin (concupiscence) is remitted in Baptism, 
 not that it be not, but that it be not imputed." ^ 
 
 1 F. 109. We see the great importance of this 
 fact. Father Denifle (D.-P. III.. 11 ff.) has con- 
 chisively shown: 1. that Luther has set forth, under 
 analogous terms, the reverse of Augustine's 
 thought: 2. that he knew perfectly well the true 
 text, which he commented upon in the same way as 
 everybody else in his glosses on Peter Lombard 
 (1510-1511); 3. that he obstinately persisted 
 henceforth i" always citing falsely; 4. that Me- 
 lanchthon completed the falsification. Father Den- 
 ifle, quoting from the Vatican MS., has not written 
 "concupiscence," the copyist having omitted to add 
 this marginal word. Ficker (o. 1, p. 41) has dared 
 to say that this little word reduces to nothingness 
 the passionate attack of Father Denifle. M. Paquier 
 has very well answered that it changes nothing 
 (III., p. 16). I think that Luther's correction 
 proves that he had reread Augustine. He cannot 
 then be excused on the ground of only having fallen 
 into a mistake of memory. The falsification re- 
 mains and thus appears more voluntary. If he 
 leaves the two words, it is because sin = concu- 
 piscence. Would he then have cited Augustine 
 against his own system? 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 101 
 
 Docs the fact tliat slii remains after Bap- 
 tism mean tliat notliing has been changed? 
 Luther does not dare to go so far as that, 
 when commenting on the Pauline texts ; but 
 he has found a most ingenious way out of 
 the difficulty, and at the same time he lays 
 the foundation of his whole moral system : 
 sin has not been taken away ; and the change 
 that takes place in the soul is not brought 
 about, as scholastics would have it, by a mys- 
 terious transformation, but by a more ener- 
 getic resolution to combat concupiscence. 
 Thus, w'thout appearing to notice it, while 
 seeming to oppose the too human doctrines 
 of philosophers, Luther does away with the 
 supernatural effect, the divine reality pro- 
 duced in the soul baptized in Christ to be 
 born again with Him. All this is given as 
 exegesis of the beginning of this important 
 seventh chapter of Romans, where Paul ex- 
 plains how the Christian is dead to the law. 
 Note well, says Luther with insistence, that 
 it is not sin which is remitted, but that it is 
 man who is dead. And, better to bring home 
 his meaning, he tries every subtlety. This 
 passage is decisive in conveying an idea of 
 his exegesis : 
 
 Corollary: The manner of speech of the 
 Apostle and the metaphysical and moral manner 
 are contrary. For the Apostle seeks to convey 
 that man is rather taken away, sin remain- 
 ing (left over as it were), and that man is re- 
 
102 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 moved from sin rather than that siii is removed 
 from man. But man's judgment on the con- 
 trary speaks of sin being taken away, the man 
 remaining, and of the removal of stains from 
 man. But the judgment of the Apostle is emi- 
 nently right and perfectly divine. For thus 
 also does the Scrij^ture (Psalm 80) say: "He 
 removed his back from the burden." It does 
 not say: "He removed the burden from his 
 back." ^ 
 
 Let us pass by this childish literalism. 
 Luther considered himself armed, by such 
 means, with a powerful weapon against the 
 justiciarii. And he was right. 
 
 Father Denifle remarks that in reality the 
 soul does not die in justification, and that it 
 is precisely in the system of Luther that it 
 is not really changed.^ What did that mat- 
 ter to Luther.'^ He was not disconcerted by 
 contradictions ; he even saw in them a divine 
 seal upon his doctrine.^ And, as to the point 
 which occupies us, he surely was conscious 
 of having found a new principle, that which 
 Protestants still oppose to Catholics, the 
 moral reform of the will, substituted to what 
 they call the magical effect of grace. Luther 
 did not foresee, however, what an intense 
 Pelagianism was to issue from this doctrine; 
 he thought he was fighting the human judg- 
 ment and metaphysical quibbles : 
 
 1 F. 164. 3 Denifle-Paquier, III., 225, 305. 
 
 2 Denifle-Paquier, III., 319 ff. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 103 
 
 Whence it is clear that the Apostle under- 
 stands sin to be si)iritiially removed, that is, the 
 will to sin to be mortified, whereas they claim 
 that the works of sin and evil desires are meta- 
 physically removed, as whiteness from a wall, 
 heat from water.^ 
 
 What theologian pretended that concu- 
 piscence was removed by sanctifying grace? 
 But when Luther is in presence of a meta- 
 physical term he gets angry instead of trying 
 to understand it. He imagines that the in- 
 fusion of charity is a detriment to moral 
 change, ^vhich he is of course right in demand- 
 ing, but which is easier and more complete 
 in one under the influence of grace; and he 
 cries out : 
 
 That cursed word "informed" (formatum), 
 which forces men to understand that the soul is, 
 as it were, the same before and after charity, 
 and that it is, as it were, by the accession of 
 a form brought into action, whereas it is neces- 
 sary that it should be totally mortified and 
 made other, before it puts on charity and 
 works ! ^ 
 
 The last words are deceptive ; they should 
 be understood in the light of the new doc- 
 trine, that mortification will be complete only 
 at death. It was hard to veil the opposition 
 of this view to Paul's doctrine. Romans 6, 
 which incontestably described the new state, 
 offered more than one hard problem to the 
 IF. 164. 2F. 104. 
 
104 Lnther on the Ere of Revolt 
 
 new exegesis. When Paul sa^^s that Chris- 
 tians are baptized "into the death" (in mor- 
 tem), united in Baptism to the death of 
 Christ, Luther explains it to mean "for 
 death" (ad mortem), their own death: 
 
 That is, they begin to act that they may at- 
 tain to that death and that goal.^ 
 
 In reality, riddance of sin is deferred till 
 the moment of death. How then understand 
 that one is dead to sin and lives unto God.'^ 
 It is necessary to attenuate the Pauline ex- 
 pressions : 
 
 (1) To be dead to sin; (2) but to live for 
 God; (3) to serve by the mind the law of God 
 and by the flesh the law of sin (Rom. 7.25), 
 mean nothing but that we must not consent to 
 concupiscence and to sin, although sin remain. 
 It is the same (4) about sin not dominating, 
 not reigning, but (5) justice reigning, etc. 
 
 As regards these last two cases, Luther 
 seems to have a more solid foundation in the 
 text of the Apostle. If sin must no longer 
 have dominion, reign (Rom. 6.12-14), if we 
 are no longer to serve it (Rom. Q.Q), it must 
 be that it still exists. It is not the master, 
 but it is there. 
 
 To express here my whole thought on the 
 matter, I consider it would be more in con- 
 formity with the concept of St. Paul not to 
 1 r. 155. 
 
Lnihcr on the Eve of Revolt 105 
 
 see here a designation of original sin. I 
 know that theologians will be careful not to 
 speak of original sin after Baptism ; they 
 will say that it exists only as concupiscence. 
 But if Paul employs the word sin, why not 
 understand it in the proper sense? Luther 
 obstinately refused to make any distinction. 
 He would not have even the semblance of a 
 reason, if it were not said that sin still dwells 
 in man by some sort of function. And there 
 will be no reason for tliis statement if we un- 
 derstand Romans 7.7 ff., as written concern- 
 ing unregenerate man. It would be very im- 
 portant, for an altogether exact exegesis, 
 not to define too closely what the Apostle left 
 somewhat vague. 
 
 Sin is, according to him, at times original 
 sin, at others it is actual sin ; but when it is 
 question, as here, of dominating, reigning, 
 commanding, it is personified, like a being 
 V, ith a separate existence ; it is almost a prin- 
 ciple of evil, a demon which would seek to es- 
 tablish his empire, by using what is carnal, 
 but not sinful, in us. Sin is ever present and 
 threatening, but from without. 
 
 Luther, on the other hand, thinks of it as 
 original sin which remains and he is conscious 
 of departing on this point from the opinion of 
 theologians : 
 
 Things being thus^ either I have never under- 
 stood^ or scholastic theologians have not spoken 
 
106 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 well enough about sin and grace, who dream of 
 all original sin being taken away as well as 
 actual sin, as if the}^ were things that could be 
 removed in the twinkling of an eye, as darkness 
 by light. Whereas, the ancient Holy Fathers, 
 Augustine, Ambrose, spoke very differently in 
 conformity with Scripture; they (the theolo- 
 gians) speak like Aristotle in his Ethics, who 
 placed sins and righteousness in works, as like- 
 wise, their conferring and taking away.^ 
 
 It would be hard to push confusion farther. 
 What had Aristotle to do with the question, 
 and where did he say that sins disappear in 
 a moment.'^ But Luther held to his contrast: 
 on the one side the Scriptures and the Fathers, 
 on the other Aristotle and the theologians. 
 
 It is to Scripture that Luther has recourse 
 to prove that we must look upon the existence 
 of original sin as continuing in baptized 
 Christians. He was, indeed, penetrated per- 
 sonally with the sentiment of sin and he ap- 
 peals to experience ; but it was a truth of 
 faith, which the Scriptures taught and which, 
 we would have to accept even against the tes- 
 timony of conscience. This is said from the 
 beginning : 
 
 Even if we recognize no sin in us, we must 
 nevertheless believe that we are sinners. . . . 
 By faith alone must we believe that we are sin- 
 ners, because it is not manifest to us, nay, we 
 even more often seem to ourselves not guilty.^ 
 1 F. 108. 2 F. 69. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 107 
 
 He gives as proof some scriptural texts. 
 The point is so important that he comes back 
 to it in connection with original sin. 
 
 Therefore we are all born, all die in iniquity, 
 i. e., in unrighteousness. . . . 
 
 And he accumulates passages of Holy Writ 
 to show that all are in sin. It is useless to 
 indicate each of his twelve arguments. Not 
 one refers to original sin. And that every one 
 should confess himself sinful, no one denied. 
 
 Luther, at any rate, was fully persuaded 
 that his principal thesis rested on Scripture, 
 and on the Fathers, represented by St. Augus- 
 tine, whose principal text he had misquoted. 
 
 S. Imputed Righteousness Not Found in 
 St. Paul 
 
 Sin is a correlative of righteousness. If 
 man is a sinner, if original sin remains in him, 
 he is not really righteous. Conciliation of 
 contradictories cannot go so far as that. 
 Luther acknowledges that this point gave him 
 much preoccupation. How could he call him- 
 self a sinner, when confession had taken away 
 his ?,m.? If sin remained, how was he justified? 
 The solution w^ould arouse envy in the most 
 subtle scholastic: sin was "remitted" without 
 being "taken away," except in hope, and, to 
 use other terms, it was not regarded as sin, 
 it was not imputed: 
 
108 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Thus, I contended within myself, not know- 
 ing that there is indeed a real remission, though 
 there is no taking away of sin, except in hope, 
 i. e., it is to be taken away, and grace is given, 
 which begins to remove sin^ so that it be not 
 now imputed for sin. 
 
 Sin is not imputed! An important for- 
 mula, for it is biblical: "Blessed is the man 
 to whom the Lord hath not imputed sin" 
 (Psalms 32.2). He is now in possession of 
 a text and of a principle that distinguishes 
 him from his opponents, the justitiarii: 
 
 Their watchword and doctrine is: he is right- 
 eous who does this and that; but that of the 
 others (it is question of himself) is: Blessed is 
 the man to whom the Lord does not impute 
 
 The consequence was of a nature to cause 
 the boldest to pause : God then was to regard 
 as righteous those who are not.^^ Luther did 
 not recoil from the paradox : 
 
 The saints are always intrinsically sinners, 
 therefore they are always extrinsically justi- 
 fied. Hypocrites, on the other hand, are always 
 intrinsically righteous, therefore they are al- 
 ways extrinsically sinners." 
 
 To see in this the view of a man of genius, 
 one must admit that genius is not bound by 
 
 IF. 104. 2F. 104. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 109 
 
 the rules of common sense. Nothing could be 
 more painful than to see Luther entangled in 
 these notions of intrinsic and extrinsic. In- 
 trinsic should signify the reality which is 
 within man ; Luther takes it in this meaning, 
 but he attaches a second to it. It is used in 
 a double sense in the text just quoted. There 
 it signifies (1) In reality, (2) In our own 
 eyes: 
 
 Intrinsically, I say, i. e., as we are in our- 
 selves, in our own eyes, in our own estimation. 
 
 And he, the enemy of scholasticism, appeals 
 for the substantiation of his thesis to the 
 "nature of relatives," to the "power and ne- 
 cessity of relation." For those who are jus- 
 tified, the terms are applicable ; the}^ are 
 sinners intrinsically, justified before God and 
 in His reckoning. But why not say that all 
 are sinners intrinsically? Because the hypo- 
 crites (Luther's adversaries, the justitiarii) 
 are righteous in their own eyes, consequently 
 intrinsically (!) righteous and then 
 
 by the power and necessity of relation they are 
 extrinsically unrighteous (i. e., in the reckoning 
 of God).i 
 
 If we set aside this logic, we have the state- 
 ment that sinners are justified when they ac- 
 knowledge their sin, that is to say, that hu- 
 iF. 104 and 105. 
 
110 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 mility is the cause of justification. Now as 
 Luther does not speak of actual grace, he, 
 the defender of grace, ends in a Pelagian doc- 
 trine of justification. It is true that his jus- 
 tification lacks reality. 
 
 The contradiction with St. Paul is com- 
 plete. The Apostle teaches that the Gospel 
 is the manifestation of the justice of God, 
 and (as Luther claimed to be the first to have 
 recognized) not of the divine attribute of jus- 
 tice, but of a justice given to men to justify 
 them. On this point the agreement of tradi- 
 tion was absolute. The exegesis of St. 
 Augustine did not furnish even the appear- 
 ance of a pretext to depart from it. So 
 Luther long remained faithful to the Catholic 
 formulas. No one would have reproached 
 him with opposing the righteousness of Paul 
 to that of Aristotle. The righteousness of 
 God is gratuitous, it comes from on high, it 
 is not acquired by works. 
 
 Nothing, evidently, could be more opposed 
 to the doctrine of Aristotle, who admits that 
 righteousness is acquired by acts. The scho- 
 lastic theologians had recognized the contra- 
 diction. The righteousness we have from God 
 is supernatural; it opens for us the gates of 
 heaven. Without this righteousness one can- 
 not always practice human righteousness, 
 especially in difficult circumstances ; but, nev- 
 ertheless, by performing acts of virtue man 
 acquires a certain habit of righteousness 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 111 
 
 which helps him to practice it. When the two 
 kinds of righteousness arc united (tlie noniial 
 case of a baptized Christian), the supernat- 
 ural virtue is exercised more easily, thanks to 
 acquired habit, or the habit is more easily 
 acquired. There is in this nothing contrary 
 to St. Paul, who regards Baptism as placing 
 man in the service of righteousness in view 
 of sanctification (Rom. 6.18 j^.). But 
 Luther affects to place theologians in the 
 camp of Aristotle, as if they had no notion of 
 a righteousness which comes from God. It 
 is his first great discovery. The opposition 
 between the righteousness of God and that of 
 Aristotle is set forth in connection with 
 Romans 1 .17: 
 
 It is different from the righteousness of men, 
 which comes from works. Thus does Aristotle 
 (3, Ethics) clearly determine, teaching that 
 righteousness follows and comes from works. 
 But the righteousness of God precedes works 
 and works come from it.^ 
 
 Theologians did not speak otherwise. 
 
 When writing the words just quoted, Luther 
 still appeared to say that God's righteousness 
 was given to man, since he performs works 
 which proceed from it (ex ipsa). It was the 
 Catholic doctrine, which was then, as it is 
 now, so clear that it is not opportune to in- 
 sist ; so clear that Luther long preserved its 
 IF. 14. 
 
112 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 terms. It is, consequently, difficult to deter- 
 mine at just what point of his Covimentnry 
 he passed from real righteousness to right- 
 eousness merely imputed. This latter variety 
 is clearly in view, when on the second page of 
 his Scholia, he invites the really humble man 
 
 to await the bare mercy of God, who reckons 
 him as just and wise. 
 
 On the other hand, even after the commen- 
 tary on chapter 4 of Romans, he still uses 
 Catholic terminology, for instance : 
 
 For though we be justified by God and re- 
 ceive grace, we do not receive this grace by our 
 merit, but it is a gift.^ 
 
 It is, however, at the end of his commen- 
 tary on chapter 3 and in the course of that 
 on chapter 4 that he establishes his doctrine 
 of imputed justice. If the term appears be- 
 fore, it is because his conviction had been ar- 
 rived at from a first study. When, conse- 
 quently, he continues to speak like a Catholic 
 theologian, we must often understand him in 
 a particular manner. I do not think that he is 
 rendering witness to the truth by a contradic- 
 tion when he says at the end of his commen- 
 tary on chapter 4 : 
 
 The death of Christ is at the same time the 
 death of sin and His resurrection is the life 
 1 F. 1-19. 
 
Luther on ihc Eve of Revolt 113 
 
 of justice, because by His death He satisfies 
 for sin and by His resurrection He confers 
 righteousness upon us. And so His death does 
 not merely signify, but it effects, the remission 
 of sin as a most sufficient satisfaction. And His 
 resurrection is not merely a sacrament of our 
 righteousness, but it also effects it in us, if we 
 believe it, and it is a cause. About this we 
 shall speak more at length below. All this the 
 scholastic theologians call one change: the ex- 
 pulsion of sin and the infusion of grace.^ 
 
 We see that he has not lost sight of his 
 opponents ; and we cannot suppose that he 
 intended, so to speak, to set before them a 
 flagrant contradiction in his own new doc- 
 trine. Either he wished simply to take note 
 of the thought of scholastics opposed to his 
 own, or, as I think more likely, we must pre- 
 suppose his system, which does not deny the 
 remission of sins nor the true gift of right- 
 eousness, but puts them off to the moment of 
 death. In the passage we have cited Luther 
 does not refer us to a quotation of Augus- 
 tine, as Ficker thinks,- but to an elaborate 
 theory,^ which is to the effect that we die to 
 sin only once, because we thus die only on the 
 threshold of eternal life.'* Luther prudently 
 kept this explanation in reserve ; otherwise 
 
 IF. 129 f. on Rom. 4.25. 
 
 2 F. 130, note 2, referrinTf to p. 152, line 28. 
 
 3 Rased on a wrong reading which he prefers to 
 that of tlie Vulgate; see above. 
 
 4F. 157 f. 
 
114 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 one would have to suppose that he was not 
 conscious of the novelty of his doctrine. 
 
 If we cannot know at precisely what mo- 
 ment he came to the notion of imputed jus- 
 tice, we can, at least, appreciate the scrip- 
 tural arguments which decided him. 
 
 These arguments are not devoid of clever- 
 ness, and his way of interpreting St. Paul is 
 still law for a great many Protestant exegetes. 
 
 Instead of understanding "to justif}^" in 
 the sense of "to make just," he takes it as 
 meaning "to declare just." This was only a 
 first step, because one would think that God 
 would declare just only him who is really 
 such. But already he had determined an in- 
 termediate state in which God does not im- 
 pute sin. Why, in like manner, should He 
 not impute justice.^ The first time that the 
 term jjistificari presents itself (Rom. 2.18), 
 he understands it: "To be recognized just"; 
 and this is right. Likewise the second time 
 (Rom. 3.4), where it is question of God. But 
 already he gets away from the sense to a 
 notable degree when he takes the justice of 
 God of Romans 3.5 for the justice. 
 
 by which He is just and justifies us. 
 
 Here it is incontestably a question of the 
 retributive justice of God. And this misun- 
 derstanding is not without consequences, be- 
 cause the act, by which we recognize the 
 justice of God, becomes the act by which He 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 115 
 
 justifies us in the same sense, that is, by ac- 
 counting us just: 
 
 That (justice of God) our injustice (that is 
 acknowledged and confessed) commends, for it 
 Immbles us and casts us down before God and 
 implores His justice, which, being received, we 
 glorify God who bestows it.^ 
 
 These last words sound well enough. One 
 sees how much Luther is embarrassed, — dif- 
 ferently from when he spoke of the peinrja- 
 nence of sin, — when he tries to get away from 
 the Catholic doctrine concerning grace re- 
 ceived. But he does not delay to speak more 
 clearly on the identity of the two justifica- 
 tions, the one active, the other passive: 
 
 By this justifying of God we are justified 
 ourselves, and this passive justification of God, 
 by which He is justified by us, is by God's ac- 
 tion our own justification. Because the faith, 
 which justifies His words. He reputes justice, 
 as chapter 4 says.^ 
 
 This time we are enlightened. Luther 
 would have spared himself this disquisition on 
 active and passive justification, if he had not 
 had already in view imputed justice, such as 
 he will establish it in his commentary on 
 Romans 4. 
 
 In the meanwhile, he draws back at times 
 under the pressure of the texts. When he 
 
 1 F. 55. 2 F. 65. 
 
116 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 puts himself the objection which arises from 
 the Epistle of St. James, from Galatians, 
 chapter 6, from Romans 2.13, he gives the 
 right explanation of Paul's texts. In con- 
 demning works, which are incapable of pro- 
 curing justice, the Apostle distinguished be- 
 tween the dispensation of the law and that of 
 grace. The faithful and infidels may be 
 likened to priests and laymen. The latter may 
 use the formulas of the former and nothing 
 valid is accomplished. On the contrary, 
 priests use them effectively ; and so of the man 
 who has the faith, 
 
 by which he is justified and, as it were, or- 
 dained, that he may be just for the perform- 
 ance of works of justice. 1 
 
 In the same w^ay, if a monkey became a 
 man, the transformation would be evident. 
 The comparison is surely strong enough! 
 There is, then, still a real righteousness and 
 works of righteousness. The moment had not 
 yet come when the Epistle of St. James would 
 be pronounced an Epistle of straw ; and cer- 
 tain texts of St. Paul were still correctly 
 understood. 
 
 But in the commentary on chapter 4 of 
 Romans the new doctrine is affirmed already in 
 the interlinear gloss : 
 
 2 F. 85. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 117 
 
 It was reputed to him by God unto justice 
 that thereby he might be just with God. And 
 thus it is not of him who works, but of God who 
 accepts his faith unto justice. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Who justifies by grace. The wicked, i. e., he, 
 who of himself is but wicked, is reputed before 
 God, — ^that is to say, by God his faith is gratui- 
 tously reputed, unto justice, that he may be just 
 before God.^ 
 
 In this fourth chapter, St. Paul speaks of 
 Abraham, the father of believers, the most 
 obvious instance of one who, before the ad- 
 vent of Christ, had attained to the righteous- 
 ness which Christ was to merit. He does not 
 speak directly of the manner in which Abra- 
 ham obtained righteousness, nor of the change 
 which must have taken place in his soul at 
 tliat moment of his justification. The essen- 
 tial point is that Abraham, whose righteous- 
 ness all admitted, was recognized as righteous 
 by the Scriptures on account of his faith. He 
 did not, consequently, arrive at the right- 
 eousness of works (Rom. 4 . 1-3). Then Paul, 
 comparing the formula used by Genesis in 
 reference to Abraham and that used by David 
 in the Psalms in reference to the pardoned 
 sinner, shows that they exclude works and 
 suppose that justice comes from God. 
 
 iF.g. 37. 
 
118 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 In Romans 4 . 3 St. Paul quotes Genesis 
 15.6: "Abraham believed God and it was 
 reckoned unto him as righteousness." In 
 Genesis the exact words are : "And he believed 
 Jahweh, and He reckoned it unto him as 
 righteousness." It is almost the same ex- 
 pression of satisfaction that Jahweh has for 
 those who observe the law (Deut. 6.25, 
 24.13) ; it is applied to Phineas for an act 
 of zeal (Psalms 105.31). It is in no wise 
 question of the first justification of Abraham, 
 but of the merit of his act of faith, merit 
 such that it is equivalent to a perfect work 
 and is recognized as such by Scripture. 
 Luther and Lutherans, in basing upon this 
 text their system of imputed justice, are go- 
 ing manifestly against its meaning as it stood 
 in Genesis. 
 
 Nor is there anything in the doctrine of 
 St. Paul, taken as a whole, which would au- 
 thorize one to hold that he thought Abra- 
 ham's faith was regarded as sufficient without 
 righteousness, and that it obtained that God 
 should declare him righteous though he was 
 a sinner. We have sufficiently pointed out 
 that the Epistle to the Romans regards man's 
 death to sin as very real and announces a 
 power of God which really transforms the 
 members of Christ's mystical body, even while 
 they are still on earth. St. Paul has no 
 thought of "Imputed" righteousness. And 
 of course, it Is a canon of modern criticism 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 119 
 
 that a phrase, particularly a quoted phrase, 
 be interpreted in the light of the writer's 
 doctrine taken as a whole. 
 
 It is in connection with this text of St. 
 Paul that we find the disquisition already 
 spoken of concerning extrinsic justice. 
 Again, nothing could be more contrary to 
 his teaching. It is conceded that the mean- 
 ing of the words "to justify," "to be justi- 
 fied," is not always the same in the texts, but 
 it is not doubtful that he regards Baptism as 
 the beginning of a life of real holiness. Holi- 
 ness is nothing but justice (righteousness) ; 
 the}'' come into existence and they disappear 
 together. 
 
 But Luther's stroke of genius must be 
 placed at this point. Into this void of extrin- 
 sic justice he has thrown Christ. He is out- 
 side of us ; but He is our good ; much more 
 He dwells in us, and lo ! our justice is re- 
 placed : 
 
 Therefore I have rightly said that all our 
 good is extrinsic, for it is Christ. As the Apos- 
 tle says: Who of God is made unto us wisdom, 
 and justice, and sanctification, and redemption," 
 all of which are in us only by faith and hope in 
 Him.i 
 
 Luther may really and in good faith have 
 thought at this period that he was replacing 
 a predicament of Aristotle by the living and 
 
 IF. 114. 
 
120 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 active presence of Christ.^ What emotion in 
 the following exprc jsion : 
 
 Therefore let us say to God: O how glad we 
 are to be empty, that Thou mayest be full in 
 us ! I am glad to be weak, that Thy power 
 may dwell in me ; a sinner, that Thou mayest 
 be justified in me; foolish, that Thou mayest 
 be my wisdom; unrighteous, that Thou mayest 
 be my righteousness ! " 
 
 Many a religious soul in the bosom of 
 Protestantism has thus poured itself out be- 
 fore God. And the words are but an echo 
 of ancient Christian mysticism. One must be 
 emptied of self to draw God into his heart ; 
 humility is in its way the cause of grace. 
 
 In adding the exaggeration, which makes 
 Christ dwell in a sinful soul, Luther intro- 
 duces an innovation, which is far from hon- 
 oring Christ as he claims. Leaving aside 
 reasons or fitness, the Spirit of Christ is 
 truly active in the faithful soul, His grace is 
 a gift which constitutes one righteous : "As 
 by the disobedience of one man, many were 
 made sinners ; so also by the obedience of 
 one, many shall be made just" (Rom. 5.19). 
 Luther transcribes this text without paying 
 it the courtesy of a word of comment. His 
 
 1 Denifle blames him rather severely for makin<? 
 of Christ a q unlit y, a monstrous thinsf in scholastic 
 tlieoloo^v. But Luther had no regard for this. 
 
 2 F. 59. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 121 
 
 position is taken. He is in possession of a 
 doctrine: sin not imputed, imputed justice. 
 
 3. Misinterpretation of St. Paul's 
 Teaching About Faith 
 
 But why are some reputed just? To an- 
 swer the question in the hght of the views 
 which Luther has up to this time set forth, we 
 must recur to the mystical teaching that God 
 reputes just those who acknowledge their sin- 
 fulness. This solution is often stated, and 
 we have just seen a clear expression of it. 
 Likewise God saves those who yield them- 
 selves up to Him M'ith purest love. 
 
 But Avas there not a danger that this love 
 should resemble charity, of which Luther still 
 speaks with praise in his Commentary but 
 which might easily become suspect, as emi- 
 nently a work? ^ 
 
 As regards humility, if it dug very deep 
 the abyss into which false security sinks, did 
 it not threaten to weaken the soul by dis- 
 couragement? Now Luther claimed to have 
 found a middle way between false security 
 and despair. He had to indicate in man, out- 
 side of humility and of charity, a disposition 
 which inclined God to justification. He finds 
 it in faith. The principal service which the 
 
 1 F. 138: Hence only the "charity of God," which is 
 a most pure affection for God, which alone makes up- 
 right of heart, takes away iniquity, extinguishes the 
 enjoyment of our own righteousness. 
 
122 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Epistle to the Romans has rendered Protest- 
 antism (very much against its will) was to 
 give faith as the human disposition to which 
 God gratuitously accords justification. This 
 faith may be defined in various ways. Catho- 
 lic exegesis, and also independent exegesis, 
 sees in it a sincere adhesion to Christianity. 
 It was, in its way, a historical notion ; an in- 
 terior act which must exist at all times, but 
 which in St. Paul is applied to that manifes- 
 tation of the divine which had been the pas- 
 sion and resurrection of Jesus. It comprised 
 an intellectual act, the adhesion of the mind 
 to the truth proposed, and an act of the will, 
 adhesion to the new life in Jesus. 
 
 It is true that theologians, with a view to 
 more precision, had distinguished these two 
 aspects, following the example of Paul him- 
 self in the Epistle to the Corinthians where 
 he distinguishes so clearly faith and charity 
 (1 Cor. 13). But to understand faith as St. 
 Paul did, it had to be taken with charity ; and 
 Luther would not do so. To understand it 
 with theological precision was to make it a 
 disposition which could not distinguish Chris- 
 tians who are justified from those who are not. 
 
 There is always a possibility of employing 
 an ill-defined and vague notion in the most 
 unexpected way. We have seen that Luther 
 confounded faith and obedience, extending the 
 domain of faith even to the counsels of a su- 
 perior. And if one was to hold as a matter 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 123 
 
 of faith that lie is a sinner, why might he 
 not hold in like manner that he is righteous? 
 This step, which is so important in the his- 
 tory of Protestantism, is taken in the Com- 
 mentary. We find in it a first sketch of 
 faith — confidence. 
 
 It is St. Bernard mIio must serve as inter- 
 mediary hetwcen Luther and his text. After 
 the interlinear gloss (Rom. 8.16): 
 
 The Holy Spirit himself given us giveth tes- 
 timony strengthening confidence in God. . . . 
 
 Luther notes in the margin : 
 
 For he who confides with strong faith and 
 hope that he is a son of God^ is indeed a son of 
 God^ since it cannot be done without the Spirit. 
 Hence the blessed Bernard in ser. 1 concerning 
 the annunciation of the Lord.-*^ 
 
 The text of St. Bernard is reproduced at 
 length in the Scholia, to show how the tes- 
 timony of the spirit is indeed confidence of 
 heart. Nevertheless, St. Bernard speaks of a 
 triple testimony of the faith: "Thou must be- 
 lieve that thou canst obtain remission of sins 
 onl}^ by the indulgence of God ; that thou 
 canst have as thy own absolutely no good 
 work, if God does not give it ; that thou canst 
 merit eternal Hfe by no work, if he does not 
 
 iF.g. 73. 
 
124 Luther 07i the Eve of Revolt 
 
 give this eternal life freely." ^ These expres- 
 sions are certainly a strong affirmation of 
 the need of grace. But while formulated for 
 one person only, they assign to faith a gen- 
 eral object. And for this reason Luther 
 judges them insufficient. 
 
 That is only a certain beginning, and as a 
 foundation of faith, 
 
 of that faith which shall be his, w'hich is com- 
 plete only when it is at the same time per- 
 sonal confidence wdiich partakes of the nature 
 of faith : 
 
 It is necessary that the Spirit make thee be- 
 lieve this, that by Him sins are forgiven 
 thee. . . . 
 
 And this is welded on to the doctrine of the 
 Apostle : 
 
 Thus does the Apostle deem that man is 
 justified by faith (by the positive belief con- 
 cerning thyself also, not merely concerning the 
 elect, that Christ has died for thy sins and 
 atoned for them). 
 
 The second point of St. Bernard is devel- 
 oped in the same way : 
 
 1 Necesse est enim primo omnium credere, quod re- 
 missionem peccatorum habere non possis nisi per in- 
 dulgentiam Dei, Deinde. quod nihil prorsus habere 
 queas boni operis, nisi et hoc dederit ipse. Pos- 
 tremo, quod alternam vitam nullis potes operibus 
 promereri, nisi gratis detur et ilia. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 125 
 
 It suffices not^ until the spirit of trutli gives 
 testimony, that thou liast these (merits) by 
 him. 
 
 And, finally, it is not enough to believe that 
 God gives eternal life gratuitously : 
 
 But it is necessary that thou have the testi- 
 mony of the Spirit, that thou art to come to it. 
 
 One must believe that be is predestined. 
 
 Where is the proof that authorizes Luther 
 to transfer Bernard's words from the scale 
 of objective faith to that of personal assur- 
 ance, preserving the firmness of faith, firm- 
 ness due to the word of God.'^ In St. Paul. 
 
 These three points are clearly manifest in 
 the Apostle. For he says: "Who shall accuse 
 against the elect of God.^*", which means that 
 we are certain that no sins will accuse us. So 
 of merits : "We know that to them that love God 
 all things work together unto good." So of 
 eternal glory: "I am sure that neither things 
 present nor things to come, etc., shall be able 
 to separate us from the love of God, which is 
 in Christ." ^ 
 
 All this, it is true, is still intimately min- 
 gled with the idea that it is humility which 
 renders us pleasing to God ; this humility is 
 then, taking it all in all, the ultimate foun- 
 dation of faith — confidence. 
 1 F. 197 f. 
 
126 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 But a new notion was set forth, which was 
 constantly to expand its dominion. Luther 
 claimed to lean upon St. Paul. St. Paul 
 had had in view the community of Christians, 
 whose salvation God had prepared and 
 whose organ he was. On the part of God 
 salvation was assured, but the Apostle did 
 not ignore the fact that one might lose the 
 spirit of Christ (Rom. 8.9). Luther apphes 
 to himself words spoken of the faithful, he 
 lays claim to the assurance given them, and 
 adds to the legitimate confidence of the Chris- 
 tian the firmness of faith. It was, again, 
 through lack of historical sense. 
 
 To this confidence he has given a strange 
 expression, perhaps characteristic of his race : 
 men must hurl themselves upon the truth of 
 God, Who has promised salvation.^ 
 
 Luther could not, however, forget that his 
 main purpose was to attack the false security 
 of the jurists. It is for this that he maintained 
 sin. He stopped, then, before having rounded 
 off his system. We must fear, he tells us, 
 but only to find assurance in this fear itself. 
 It is at the very end of the Commentary that 
 he utters a last denunciation against those 
 who are in security and confidence, 
 
 which all aspire to with wonderful fury. For 
 thus by fear grace is found; and by grace man 
 
 1 Ergo in veritatem promittentis Dei audacter 
 ruat (se transferal de prescientiua terrentis Dei) et 
 salvus et electus erit. F. 214. 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 127 
 
 is made willing to perform good works, while 
 without he is unwilling/ 
 
 Such is, let us repeat, the joyful message 
 which Luther had in store for the world. It 
 was only when his doctrine was attacked that 
 he boldly hurled himself upon confidence. 
 Certitude of one's own justification would be- 
 come the best proof of true Lutheranism. 
 Then the word faith, which was that of Paul, 
 regained all its advantages ; faith, and faith 
 only, became the fundamental disposition of 
 man in view of salvation. 
 
 The Commentary offers other interesting 
 features. In its moral part, especially from 
 chapter 12 on, the words of the Apostle are 
 scarcely more than a pretext for declamation 
 against abuses. One feels that Luther was 
 ready to attack them and to reform them in 
 his own way. He was in conscious possession 
 of a new religious doctrine which he claimed 
 was based on Scripture, in parti<fular upon 
 the authority of St. Paul. We have endeav- 
 ored to shoAV how he had come to thi^ convic- 
 tion, and that it was not without having mis- 
 interpreted the thought of the Apostle. 
 
 IF. 324. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 Consequences of the New System 
 
 Luther rightly denounced heresy as the 
 blindest and most audacious manifestation 
 of pride. Did he not understand, then, that 
 the system of doctrine which was already co- 
 ordinated in his mind was incompatible with 
 the Church's organization and disturbed the 
 harmony of Christian dogma ? 
 
 In 1515, Bohemia was still agitated by the 
 convulsions of the Hussites, the most radical 
 of whom were called Picards. Referring to 
 them, he asks : "Are we to support the heresy 
 of the Picards? . . . Must we decide to sup- 
 press everything — the churches and their 
 decorations, all fast-days, all feast-days, dis- 
 tinctions of priests, bishops, and religious, 
 their rank, their costumes, their ceremonies 
 observed for so many centuries, do away with 
 all monasteries, foundations, benefices, pre- 
 bends? This is what they do and what ac- 
 cording to them the liberty of the new law 
 calls for." 1 
 
 Luther's reply is "God forbid!" Such a 
 
 revolution was far from his mind. He asks 
 
 for changes ; he would wish that prelates 
 
 IF. 11, p. 315. 
 
 128 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 129 
 
 miglit take the initiative in diminishing the 
 nuinher of fasts and festivals, shorten the 
 ceremonies, give to tlie poor rather than lay 
 np treasures'for the construction of churches ; 
 instead of maintaining, even by war, temporal 
 interests, churchmen should devote themselves 
 to improving morals ; they should attach 
 more importance to inner religion than to the 
 pomp of exterior worship. The exemptions 
 of clerics are not bad in themselves ; but when 
 asked whereby they deserve them these clerics 
 can only refer to the prayers they mutter, 
 and they get exemptions even from them. 
 "We priests," he says, "claim freedom from 
 the service of men because we are bound to 
 the service of God. We serve neither God nor 
 man. Let us beware ; laymen are beginning 
 to open their eyes." ^ But the reform of 
 abuses is all that is necessary. 
 
 Luther does not as yet, in the project of 
 reform which he opposes to that of the 
 Picards, seem to suppose that the priesthood 
 is endangered by his plans to secure Chris- 
 tian liberty. The priest is for us, as he was 
 for the ancients, a man who offers sacrifice. 
 So long as he had not made up his mind to 
 suppress the sacrifice of the ^lass, Luther 
 allowed what was essential in the priesthood 
 to subsist. But the priest is also the dis- 
 penser of the sacraments, especially, after the 
 Eucharist, of the sacrament of Penance. If 
 IF. 11, 299 f. 
 
130 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 Penance does not confer grace, what becomes 
 of the power to bind and to loose? Since sins 
 are not loosed in Heaven, the jurisdiction 
 conferred on Peter and the Apostles was with- 
 out an object, and the ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion was seriously affected. 
 
 Dogma was not less affected. The history 
 of the Reformation affords, perhaps, the most 
 striking example of the assistance of the 
 Holy Ghost in the Church, on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, the shortsightedness of the 
 human spirit. 
 
 Luther was shocked by the rationalism of 
 theology. Did it not seek to bnng divine 
 realities into Aristotle's categories, place 
 grace and charity among the predicaments, 
 speak of them as if they appeared and disap- 
 peared in the soul as whiteness on a wall or 
 heat in water? He thought he was abolish- 
 ing an intermediary between the soul and 
 Christ ; or rather he fancied he was doing 
 away by a stroke of his pen with an artificial 
 philosophical entity to unite liimself more 
 closely with the Savior. The soul, always 
 sick, is henceforth in the hands of its Healer. 
 
 This seductive simplification was, there can 
 be no doubt, the cause of the success of Luth- 
 eranism, at least in the case of those whom 
 it drew by its religious character. But while 
 attempting to remove an obstacle to the soul's 
 union with God, Luther was, as a matter of 
 fact, destroying the possibility of such a 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 131 
 
 union. Scholastics had boldly attempted to 
 understand divine realities as well as they 
 could, and, if it appeared rash to classify 
 thoni, was it not the noblest task of the hu- 
 man mind to construct a harmonious system, 
 in which the supernatural was conceived as 
 adapted to our weakness in order to raise us 
 up higher? For the rest, whether grace was 
 to be regarded as a second nature, communi- 
 cated to the soul itself, and charity as a qual- 
 ity of the will, was not altogether a closed 
 question ; what was essential was to suppress 
 neither grace nor the love of God, which is 
 according to Jesus Christ everything in re- 
 ligion. Genuine theology had not a whit less 
 horror for Pelagianism than had Luther. It 
 taught that man cannot merit eternal life, or 
 even grace, by the efforts of nature alone; 
 that grace comes only from God ; that the dis- 
 positions of the soul to receive it must them- 
 selves be aroused by help from above. But it 
 believed with St. Paul in the liberality of 
 God, rich in His gifts to those who have re- 
 course to Him. Jesus Christ could not abide 
 in a soul soiled with sin ; He came to her with 
 complete pardon, and made her able to re- 
 spond to His love by clothing her with char- 
 ity, — the love of friendship, the theologians 
 called it, — which established between Jesus 
 and the soul an intercourse which was alto- 
 gether favorable to humility, so gratuitous 
 was such an elevation. In making of confi- 
 
132 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 dence the sum of all that man experiences in 
 regard to God, Luther did indeed keep re- 
 ligious sentiment at a high level, but he was 
 obliged to despoil man of charity — of which 
 he still speaks enthusiastically in his first 
 writings — and, consequently, to disrupt the 
 divine union. Modern Protestants are fond 
 of applying the term "magical" to Catho- 
 licism. And, indeed, the charm was broken, — 
 the charm of the outpourings of the heart, 
 responding to the supreme gift, of the 
 prodigalities for worship which, to go to the 
 root of the matter, created beauty. Luther 
 did not wish to attack mysteries. He even 
 boasted that he was digging deeper into the 
 mystery of evil. But in doing so, he was 
 inflicting cruel wounds upon the mystery of 
 goodness. 
 
 Now if reason, which is so frequently re- 
 bellious in presence of the mysterious, hesi- 
 tates, even when it is in revolt, before reject- 
 ing a mystery of goodness, because there it 
 catches a glimpse of the proper nature of 
 God, it is absolutely averse to admitting a 
 mystery of evil which would involve wicked- 
 ness in God. Predestination to damnation as 
 well as to happiness ; settled designs of God 
 to leave man in sin, and even to draw him 
 into it in order to damn him more surely, — 
 such dogmas can hardly be reconciled with 
 that personal confidence which each must have 
 in regard to his own salvation. Those who 
 
Luther on the Eve of Revolt 133 
 
 came under Luther's influence were bound 
 eventually to reject such Lutheran mysteries; 
 that influence was destined to lead men not 
 only to deny the gift of God but everything 
 supernatural. 
 
 It must be said, however, that Luther and 
 his followers appealed to moral energy to fight 
 against evil. This appeal supposes, indeed, 
 that we can do something. Human nature, 
 corrupt, deprived of free will, would have 
 had only to let God act. Protestantism and 
 Lutheranism itself have rejected this too 
 logical conclusion. They have often given 
 the spectacle of fine moral virtues. And the 
 more attraction for the supernatural de- 
 creased in their communities, the more they 
 gave themselves up to this noble aim. But 
 who does not see that in so doing they were 
 not acting in accordance with the pessimistic 
 mysticism of Luther, his pretended champion- 
 ing of the rights of God? 
 
 How unfathomable are the designs of God ! 
 or, to speak in a more modem way, what a 
 strange reversal of values ! 
 
 In 1515, after half a century of official 
 renaissance of the literature and art of the 
 ancients, more than one group of Christians 
 in Catholic countries were slowly drifting 
 into naturalism. Luther, in his cell, was above 
 all struck by the extravagances of luxury, the 
 relaxation of manners, the torpor of the 
 clergy. High standards of clerical life were 
 
134 Luther on the Eve of Revolt 
 
 not, it would seem, so much endangered as 
 in the JNIiddle Ages, from the tenth to the 
 twelfth centur}^ But the peril run by the 
 intelligence of Christians was greater. It is 
 not the place to speak of that matter here. It 
 is well known that even the heads of the 
 Church themselves showed too much favor 
 towards the culture of antiquity, too much in- 
 dulgence towards those w^ho combined Chris- 
 tian practice with scepticism of thought. 
 Christian religion risked being deprived of its 
 supernatural force. Luther arose, protested, 
 undertook to restore to religion its inner soul. 
 
 His moral preaching was only a means of 
 making Jesus to rule — Jesus crucified, once 
 more a conqueror of heathen sensualism. He 
 appealed to faith and w ould have nothing but 
 faith. 
 
 According to human prevision. Christian 
 dogma was to be saved by the Reformation, 
 while Catholic countries would insensibly fall 
 away towards the logical conclusion of the 
 naturalism latent in the Renaissance. And it 
 was precisely the opposite that happened. 
 
 In Protestant countries men strove to at- 
 tain those moral virtues towards which God 
 ever excites us in order to prevent us from 
 perishing, and this effort was directed by the 
 Bible ; but from variation to variation they 
 abandoned, especially in intellectual environ- 
 ments, the most important points of the old 
 belief. Jesus, too often, is no longer an ob- 
 
Luther on the Eve of Rwolt 135 
 
 ject of faith among those wlio venerate the 
 memory of Lutlier. The Catholic Church, 
 on the other liand, successfully set to work 
 to reform manners according to the evan- 
 gelical ideal of supernatural morals, and she 
 kept intact the teaching of the Apostles.^ 
 
 1 The study on the genesis of Lutheranism here 
 transhited was published by Father Lagrange in the 
 Revue BihVique, 1914-16, in the Revue Pratique 
 d'Apolocfctigue, Jan. 1, 1915, and in his commentary 
 on the Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul, EpUre aiix 
 Romains, Paris, Gabalda, 191G. [Translator's note.] 
 
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