that time beginning to make its way had, as we see from the letters, little part in the rise of the Lutheran movement at Wittenberg.
The view that Luther’s new teaching was due to the direct influence of the mode of thought of such men as Hutten, Crotus and Mutian is incorrect. On the contrary, Luther, full as he was of his one-sided supra-naturalism, was bound to disapprove of the Humanist ideal and made no secret of his disapproval. In his letters in 1516 he also found fault with the satirical and frivolous attacks of the Humanists on the state of the Church and the theological learning of the day. He considered the “Epistolæ obscurorum virorum” impudent, and called the author a clown.[204] A similar work by the same group of Humanists against the “Theologasters,” entitled “Tenor supplicationis Pasquillianæ”—as he informs Spalatin, himself a Humanist—he had held up to the ridicule of his colleagues, as it richly deserved on account of the invective and slanders which it contained.[205]
He appealed to Spalatin to draw the attention of Erasmus to his misapprehension of righteousness as it appears in the Epistle to the Romans; he says that Erasmus overrates the virtues of heathen heroes, whereas even the most blameless of men, even Fabricius and Regulus, were miles away from righteousness; outside of faith in Christ there is, according to him, no righteousness whatever; Aristotle, whom everybody follows, likewise knew nothing of this righteousness; but Paul and Augustine teach it; what Paul calls self-righteousness is not merely, as Erasmus says, a righteousness founded on the observances of the Mosaic Law, but any righteousness whatever which springs out of works, or out of the observance of any law; Paul also teaches original sin in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, a fact which Erasmus wrongly denies. With regard to Augustine, he could unfold to him (Erasmus) St. Paul’s meaning better than he thinks, but he should diligently read the writings against the Pelagians, above all the De Spiritu et littera. Augustine there takes a firm stand on the foundation of the earlier Fathers (Luther’s quotations from his authorities show how much the study had fascinated him). But after Augustine’s day, dead literalism became the general rule. Lyra’s Bible Commentary, for instance, is full of it; the right interpretation of Holy Scripture is also wanting in Faber Stapulensis, notwithstanding his many excellencies. Hence, he writes, we must fall back on Augustine, on Augustine rather than on Jerome to whom Erasmus gives the preference in Bible matters, for Jerome keeps too much to the historical side; he recommends Augustine not merely because he is an Augustinian monk, for formerly he himself did not think him worthy of consideration until he “fell in” (incidissem) with his books.[206]
Augustine’s “On the Spirit and the Letter,” a work dedicated to Marcellinus, and dating from the end of 412, with which Luther had become acquainted in 1515, had a lasting influence on him. In this book the great Doctor of the Church strikes at the very root of Pelagianism and shows the necessity, for the accomplishment of supernatural good works (“facere et perficere bonum”), of inward grace which he calls “spiritus” in contradistinction to outward grace which he terms “littera.” Luther, however, referred this necessity more and more to everything good, even to what is purely natural, hence his loud accusations soon after against the theology of the Church as savouring of Pelagianism.
Humanism at that time stood for a Pelagian view of life and therefore could not be altogether sympathetic to Luther. Its influence on him, especially in his youth, cannot, however, be altogether disregarded; he had been brought into too close contact with it in his student days and also during his theological course at Erfurt, and his mind was too lively and too open to the currents of the time for him not to have felt something of its effects. The very extravagance of his criticism of things theological may, in part, be traced back to the example of the Humanists.
From Luther’s lectures on the Psalms, as well as from his sermons and letters till 1516 inclusive, we have adduced various elements which may be considered to forebode the greater and more important change yet to come. They are, indeed, not exactly precursors of what one designates usually as the Reformation, but rather of the new Lutheran theology which was responsible for that upheaval in the ecclesiastical, ethical and social sphere which became known as the Reformation.
6. The Theological Goal
Before continuing in a more systematic form the examination of the origin of Luther’s new theology, of which we have just seen some of the antecedents, we must cast a glance at the erroneous theological result which Luther had already reached in 1515-16, and which must be considered as the goal of his actual development.
Several of the above passages, from sermons and letters of the years 1515-16, have already in part betrayed the result. It appears, however, in full in the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans delivered between the autumn, 1515, and the summer, 1516, already several times referred to.[207] Everyone who has followed the course of Luther research during the last decade will recall the commotion aroused when Denifle announced the discovery in the Vatican Library of a copy hitherto unknown of Luther’s youthful work (Palat. 1826). Much labour has since been expended in connection with the numerous passages quoted from it by this scholar. A popular Protestant history of dogma even attempted to arrange Denifle’s quotations so as to form with them a complete picture.[208] Meanwhile a complete edition of the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans has been brought out by Johann Ficker which will serve as the foundation for a proper treatment of the new material. It may, however, be of interest, and serve to recall the literary movement of the last few years, if we here sum up Luther’s errors of 1516 according to the extracts from the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans adduced by Denifle. The present writer, on the ground of his study of the Vatican copy undertaken previous to the appearance of Ficker’s edition, can assure the reader that the extracts really give the kernel of the lectures. Some additions which he then noted as elucidating Denifle’s excerpts are given in the notes according to the MS. and alongside of the quotations from Denifle; everywhere, however, Ficker’s new edition has also been quoted, reference being made to the scholia, or to the glosses, on the Epistle to the Romans, according as the passages are taken from the one or the other part of Luther’s Commentary.
The Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans really represents the first taking shape of Luther’s heretical views. From the very beginning he expresses some of them without concealment. It is clear that during his preparation for these lectures in the summer and early autumn of 1515 things within him had reached a climax, and, overcoming all scruples, he determined to take the decisive step of laying the result of his new and quite peculiar views before his audience at the University. At the very commencement his confident theses declare that the commentator will deduce everything from Paul, and as we proceed we see more and more clearly how his immersion in his mistaken interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans—that deep well of apostolic teaching—led him to propound the false doctrines born of his earlier antipathy for Scholasticism and liking for pseudo-mysticism.
In the very first pages Luther endeavours to show how imputed righteousness is the principal doctrine advocated by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. Justification by faith alone and the new appreciation of works is expressed quite openly.
“God has willed to save us,” this he represents as the sum total of the Epistle, “not by our own but by extraneous righteousness and wisdom, not by such as is in us or produced by our inner self, but by that which comes to us from elsewhere.” “We must rest altogether on an extraneous and foreign righteousness,” he repeats, “and therefore destroy our own, i.e. our homely righteousness” (“non per domesticam sed per extraneam iustitiam,” etc.).[209] So fascinated is he by the terrifying picture of self-righteousness and holiness