Grisar Hartmann

LUTHER (Vol. 1-6)


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revelation should exalt me’ (2 Cor. xii. 7), wherefore I receive it as the word and voice of the Holy Spirit.” Such reflections as these, to which Luther gave himself up, certainly did not tend to help him to rid himself completely of the temptations, and to vanquish his melancholy thoughts of predestination. As a result of following “his own way” and cultivating his morbid fears, he never succeeded in shaking himself free from the thought of predestination. This will appear quite clearly in his recently published Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, written in 1515-16. In fact, the whole of the theology which he set up against that of the Catholic Church was in some sense dominated by his ideas on predestination.

      We must, however, pay him this tribute, that during the whole of his stay in the Erfurt monastery he strove to live as a true monk and to keep the Rule. Such was the testimony borne by an old brother monk, as Flacius Illyricus relates, who had lived with him at Erfurt and who always remained true to the Church.

      Relying upon his ability and his achievements, Staupitz, the Vicar, summoned him in the autumn of 1508, to Wittenberg, in order that he might there continue his studies and at the same time commence his work as a teacher on a humble scale.

      As Master of Philosophy Luther gave lectures on the Ethics of Aristotle and probably also on Dialectics, though, as he himself says, he would have preferred to mount the chair of Theology, for which he already esteemed himself fitted, and which, with its higher tasks, attracted him much more than philosophy. In March, 1509, he was already the recipient of a theological degree and entered the Faculty as a “Baccalaureus Biblicus.” This authorised him to deliver lectures on the Holy Scriptures at the University.

      In the same year, however, probably in the late autumn, Luther’s career at Wittenberg was interrupted for a time by his being sent back to Erfurt. With regard to the reasons for this nothing is known with certainty, but a movement which was going forward in the Congregation may have been the cause. In the question of the stricter observance which had recently been raised among the Augustinians, and which will be treated of below, Luther had not sided with the Wittenberg monastery but with his older friends at Erfurt. He was opposed to certain administrative regulations promoted by Staupitz, which, in the opinion of many, threatened the future discipline of the Order. At any rate, he had to return to Erfurt just as he was about to become “Sententiarius,” i.e. to be promoted to the office of lecturing on the “Magister Sententiarium.” For these lectures, too, he had already qualified himself. His second stay at Erfurt and the part—so important for the understanding of his later life—which he played in the disputes of the Order, are new data in his history which have as yet received little attention.

      He was made very welcome by his brothers at Erfurt, at once took up his work as “Sententiarius” and, for about a year and a half, held forth on that celebrated textbook of theology, the Book of Sentences.

      It is worthy of note in connection with his mental growth that, on the very cover of the book, he, most independently, declares war on the “Sophists,” though we do not mean to imply that such a war was not justifiable from many points of view. As a torch, however, for the illuminating of theological truth he is not unwilling to use philosophy. Very strong, nay emphatic, is his appeal to the Word of God on a trivial and purely speculative question relating to the inner life of the Trinity. He says: “Though many highly esteemed teachers assert this, yet the fact remains that on their side they have not Holy Scripture, but merely human reasons: but I say that on my side I have the Written Word that the soul is the image of God, and therefore I say with the Apostle ‘Though an angel from Heaven, i.e. a Doctor of the Church, preach to you otherwise, let him be anathema.’”

      In these glosses we may, however, seek in vain for any trace, even the faintest, of Luther’s future teaching. The young theologian still maintains the Church’s standpoint, particularly with regard to the doctrines which he was afterwards to call into question.

      He still speaks correctly of “faith which works through charity and by which we are justified.” Equally blameless are his statements regarding concupiscence in fallen man and the exercise of free will in the choice of good under the influence of Divine Grace. Once, it is true, he casually speaks of Christ as “our righteousness and sanctification,” but, in spite of the weight which has been laid on this expression, it is in no wise remarkable, and merely voices the Catholic view of St. Augustine, or better still, of St. Paul. To Romans i. 16 f., to which he was later to attach so much importance in his new system, he refers once, interpreting it correctly and agreeably with the Glossa ordinaria; clearly enough it had not yet begun to interest him and his harmless words afford no proof of the statement which has been made, that already at the time he wrote “the birth-hour of the reformation had rung.”

      That Luther also studied at that time some of the writings of St. Augustine we see from three old volumes of the works of this Father in the Zwickau Library, which contain notes made in Luther’s handwriting on the De Trinitate, on the De Civitate Dei, and other similar writings. These notes, made about the same time, are correct in their doctrine. According to Melanchthon, already at Erfurt he had begun a “very thorough study” of the African Father of the Church.