owing to his frequent fits of moodiness.
In the monastery, where the reader left him, he no doubt remained subject to such fits of depression, especially at the beginning when dwelling on his change of life. It is difficult to say how far the feeling of self-despair, which he mentions, had mastered him before his entry into conventual life. In later years, apart from the vow and the mysterious “heavenly terror,” he also says that in leaving the world he was seeking to escape the severity of his parents. His statements, however, do not always agree. As for the precipitate vow to enter a monastery, he must have been well aware that, even if valid when originally made, it was no longer binding on him from the day when, after conscientious self-examination, he became aware that, owing to his natural disposition, he had no vocation for a religious life. Not every character is fitted for carrying out the evangelical counsels, and to force oneself into a mould, however good, for which one is manifestly unsuited is certainly not in accordance with the will of a wise and beneficent Providence.
Luther, agreeably with the statutes of the Order, during the whole period of his novitiate and until the hour of his profession had arrived, was perfectly free to return to his fellow-students, the religious tie never having been intended to bring him misery in place of the happiness which it promises. Immediately after coming to the monastery, i.e. before his clothing, he was, according to the Rule, given considerable time in which to weigh earnestly, under the direction of an experienced brother of the Order, whether, as stated in the statutes of the Augustinians, “the spirit which was leading him was of God.” Only after this did he receive the habit of the Order, apparently, however, in the same year, 1505. The habit consisted of a white woollen tunic, a scapular, also white, falling over the breast and back, and a black mantle with a hood and wide sleeves to be worn over all.
After the clothing began the novitiate, which lasted a whole year. During this period the candidate had not only to undertake a series of exercises consisting in prayer, manual labour and penitential works, but had also to discharge certain humiliating offices, which might help him to acquire the virtue of humility as practised in the Order. Out of consideration for the University and his academic dignity Luther was, however, speedily exempted from some of the latter duties. It appears that during his noviceship he was attentive to the rules, and that the superiors treated him with fatherly kindness. Although some members of the community may have observed the Rule from routine, while others, as is often the case in large communities, may not have been conspicuous for their charity—Luther refers to something of this kind in his Table-Talk—yet the spirit of the Erfurt monastery was, like that of most of the other houses of the Congregation, on the whole quite blameless. The novice himself, as yet full of goodwill, was not only satisfied with his calling, but even looked on the state he had chosen as a “heavenly life.”[18]
From the very first, however, as he himself complains later, he was constantly “worried and depressed”[19] by thoughts connected with religion. He was sorely troubled by the fear of God’s judgment, by gloomy thoughts on predestination, and by the recollection of his own sins. Although he made a general confession in the monastery and renewed it again later, his confessions never gave him any satisfaction, so that his director laid on him the obligation not to hark back to things which caused him sadness of spirit nor to dwell on the details of his sins. “You are a fool,” he once said to him; “God is not angry with you, but it is you who are angry with Him.”
Those versed in the ways of the spiritual life are well aware that many a one aiming at perfection is exposed to the purifying fire of trials such as these. Traditional Catholic teaching and the experience of those skilled in the direction of conventual inmates had laid down the remedies most effectual for such a condition. What Luther himself relates later with regard to the encouragement he received from his superiors and brothers in the monastery, shows clearly that suitable direction, enlightenment and encouragement were not wanting to him either then or in the following years. He himself praises his “Præceptor” and “monastic pædagogue,” i.e. the Novice-Master, as “a dear old man,”[20] who “under the damned frock was without doubt a true Christian.”[21] It was probably he who said to him in an hour of trial that he should always recall the article of the Creed “I believe in the forgiveness of sins.”[22] “What are you doing, my son?” he said to him on another occasion; “do you not know that the Lord has Himself commanded us to hope?”[23] words which made a great and unforgettable impression on him. Later, in the year 1516, he pointed out another brother, Master Bartholomew (Usingen), as the “best paraclete and comforter”[24] in the Erfurt monastery, as he could testify from his own experience. The monks knew well and impressed it upon his troubled mind that, through the merits of the Redeemer, and after earnest preparation of the soul, true forgiveness may be obtained, and that through the cross of Christ, and through it alone, we can do all things necessary, even in the midst of the bitterest assaults.
Luther, however, too often responded to such admonitions only by cherishing his own views the more. He continued morbidly to torment himself. This self-torture, at any rate during the first enthusiastic days of his religious life, may have assumed the form of pious scruples, but later it gradually took on another character under the influence of bodily affections. He did not, like other scrupulous persons, regain his peace of mind, because, led away by his distorted and excited fancy, he liked, as he himself admits, to dwell on the doubts as to whether the counsels he received were not illusion and deception. Sad experience taught him into what devious paths and to “what a state of inward unrest, self-will and self-sufficiency are capable of leading a man.”[25]
The Superior or Vicar-General of the Saxon or German Augustinian Congregation to which Luther belonged was at that time Johann Staupitz, a man highly esteemed in the world of learning and culture.
He frequently visited Erfurt and had thus the opportunity of talking to the new brother whom the University had given him, and who may well have attracted his attention by his careworn look, his restless manner and his peculiar, bright, deep-set eyes. Staupitz soon began to have a great esteem for him. He had great influence over Luther, though unable to free him from the strange spirit, already too deeply rooted. To the sad doubts concerning his own salvation which Brother Martin laid before him, Staupitz replied by exhorting him as follows in the spirit of the Catholic Church: “Why torment yourself with such thoughts and broodings? Look at the wounds of Christ and His Blood shed for you. There you will see your predestination to heaven shining forth to your comfort.”[26] Quite rightly he impressed upon him, in the matter of confession and penance, that the principal thing was to arouse in himself the will to love God and righteousness, and that he must not pause before unhealthy imaginations of sin. The lines of thought, however, which the imaginative and emotional young man laid bare to him, were probably at times somewhat strange, and it is Luther himself who relates that Staupitz once said to him: “Master Martin, I fail to understand that.”
In spite of his inward fears Luther persevered, which goes to prove the strength of will which was always one of his characteristics. As the Order was satisfied with him, he was admitted at the end of the year of novitiate to profession by the taking of the three Vows of the Order. He received on this occasion the name of Augustine, but always preferred to it his baptismal name of Martin. The text of the Vows which he read aloud solemnly before the altar, according to custom, in the presence of the Prior Winand of Diedenhofen and all the brothers, was as follows: “I, Brother Augustine Luder, make profession and vow obedience to Almighty God, Blessed Mary ever Virgin and to thee Father Prior, in the name of, and as representing the Superior-General of the Hermits of St. Augustine, and his successors, likewise to live without property and in chastity until