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Readers are asked to im- port all cases of booln marked or mutilated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. Cornell University Library BR333 .W48 Martin Luther in the chanaing light of f 3 1924 029 255 961 olin Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029255961 jFour (Eenturfes of Xutbet REV. ABDEL ROSS WeNTZ, PH. D. Professor ol Church History in the LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL 'SEMINARY Gettysburg, P^niiSylvania. MARTIN LUTHER IN THE CHANGING LIGHT OF FOUR CENTURIES REV. ABDEL ROSS WENTZ, PH. D. Professor of Church History ID the LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. 1917 NOTE. This paper was read at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Church History, held in New York City, December 26, 1916. It is being distributed by the Joint Lutheran Committee on the Celebration of the Quadricentennial, 925 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. This paper can deal only with Luther's career among Pro- testants. It might indeed be an interesting and profitable exer- cise also to trace the history of the Roman Catholic attitude to- wards Luther, from Eck and Cochlaeus to Denifle and Grisar. It is doubtful whether much progress could be noted in the Catholic appreciation of Luther during the past four centuries, because that branch of Christendom has persistently closed itself against Luther's influence, particularly his religious influence. And the rich materials that have been gathered by Hegemann ("Luther im katholischen Urteil," Munich, 1906) indicate no serious effort to comprehend Luther or his movement. At any rate, the limitations of our space will not permit the treatment of that part of our subject here. It is different with the non-Lutheran branches of Protestantism, even with those whose historical beginnings Luther himself op- posed in the sixteenth century. They have for the most part moved with the general line of progress in the appreciation of Luther. But of course our sketch can be most easily accomplished and most clearly illustrated in each case by reference to that branch of Protestantism which bears Luther's own name, more particularly those who have lived in Luther's own land. The information for this sketch is gathered from such secondary sources as : Eckart, "Luther im Urteile bedeutender Manner." Dorner, "Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie." Boehmer, "Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschung.'' Stephan, "Luther in den Wandlungen seiner Kirche." McGiffert, "Protestant Thought before Kant." Moore, "Christian Thought since Kant." Ritschl, "Geschichte des Pietismus." Gass, "Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik." Lichtenberger, "History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century." Seeberg, "Die Kirche Deutschlands im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Troeltsch,"Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neu- zeit." Loofs, "Luthers Stellung zum Mittelalter und zur Neuzeit. Various articles in Hauck's "Realencyclopaedie fiir protes- tantische Theologie und Kirche." MARTIN LUTHER IN THE CHANGING LIGHT OF FOUR CENTURIES Just four hundred years have passed since the German Reformation began and Martin Luther stepped upon the stage of world-history. Throughout this period the in- fluence of the great Reformer has never ceased to be felt and his personality is still a determining factor in the evangelical Christianity of today. But during these four centuries there have been many changes in the point of view from which the world has looked at men and things. There have been many variations in the light that men have flashed upon their heroes of the past. As with other figures of heroic stature, so with Martin Luther, — his life and work have been very unevenly estimated in the cen- turies that have passed since he first attracted the atten- tion of the world. Each age has felt his influence in its own peculiar way. And our own day is not without its distinctive contribution to the estimates that are placed upon the work of the German Reformer. It may not be amiss, therefore, in this quadricenten- nial year to take a turn through the history of Protestant- ism to see with what a variety of color Luther has ap- peared in the changing light of these four centuries. Lu- ther's varied dareer during this quadricentennium is really a longitudinal section of the history of thought for the period. It is interesting to note how each dis- tinctive period in the history of these four centuries of Protestantism has translated Luther into the language of its own special type of thought. Then, too, such a re- view may help us to understand the divergence of opinion that is manifested in various quarters today concerning this man's relation to the modem world. PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. Already in his own day Luther had become the object of love and of hate. In the short perspective of a few years men began to see something of the significance of 5 6 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. his work. In the burning of the Papal Bull in 1520 the issue was squarely joined and men had to take sides either for Luther or against him. From all ranks and inter- ests came his admirers. The changes that he effected were so far-reaching in their consequences and so varied in their character that men of all classes hailed him with acclaim and brought him their tributes of love and esteem. Many were attracted to the man by his genial perso- nality. Thus Mosellan, one of the scholars of Leipsic, who had come to know Luther personally at the time of the disputation there, says of him in a letter to a friend : "In his life he is kindly and courteous. There is nothing stoical or supercilious about him. He knows how to con- duct himself under all circumstances. In society he is gleeful, witty, animated, and always happy. His face is always bright and cheerful, however direful the threats of his enemies. So that it would be hard to believe that this man could undertake such serious things without the favor of God." The same sort of testimony comes from a multitude of other witnesses, people who were person- ally acquainted with the man Luther. The picturesque element of his character, the biting force of his words, and the dauntless courage of his deeds, while they con- demned him severely among his enemies, nevertheless commended him the more heartily to his friends. Throughout his public life Luther manifested a capacity for personal friendship, a talent for binding men to him- self by strong personal ties, that is unique among the great Reformers and with few parallels in history. His personality attracted and impressed people with a sense of his extraordinary character and his extraordinary mission. Some were attracted to the Reformer by his theological views. Among his intellectual admirers, outside the cir- cle of his immediate associates, was no less a person than John Calvin himself, the founder of the other branch of the Reformation. Calvin regarded Luther as his most influential teacher and referred to him as "that distin- guished servant of God." Zwingli, too, was drawn by PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION. 7 Luther's theology and spoke of him as "the ablest cham- pion of God and the best student of Scriptures that has appeared on earth for a thousand years." But the circle of Luther's theological friends and in- tellectual admirers in his own day was small as com- pared with the number of those who were drawn to him on other grounds. The masses of the people, who had no theological training, did not stop to ponder the theologi- cal implications of Luther's words and deeds. This was reserved for a select group of theologians and for those who through their own inner experience, similar to that of Luther, had come to realize the depth of his religious struggle and the wealth of his evangelical faith. But the masses of Luther's own day did realize that in him the Christian world had one of its most forceful per- sonalities. They did understand that the might of his personality lay in the very vigor of his faith so firmly grounded in the Redeemer and through Him in a gra- cious God. They did appreciate the fact that in this ex- traordinary man with his intimate communion with God and his far-reaching principles, Roman Catholic Christi- anity was for once baffled and beaten because it stood be- fore a religious superior. Those whose personal piety was not strong enough to lead them to rejoice in the reli- gious worth of this man rejoiced at least in their libera- tion from Papal tyranny, from the dictates of foreign- ers, and from the tutelage of the priests. In his work Luther gathered together into one strand the scattered threads of the national and religious long- ings of his day. Many and varied were the motives that drew men to his cause. Some admired him for religious reasons, some for patriotic reasons, some for scientific and cultural reasons, and some for economic reasons. Sometimes men's admiration for the hero rested simply on an indefinite and unreasoned instinct. So that Lu- ther's name and Luther's personality were more promi- nent on the banner of the Reformation than any particu- lar article of faith. Says DoUinger, the Roman Catholic historian of a generation ago, speaking of Luther's stand- ing among his own people : "There never was a German 8 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. who understood his nation so intuitively, and in turn was so thoroughly apprehended by his own people, so com- pletely absorbed by them, we might say, as was the case with the Augustinian monk of Wittenberg. The spirit and temper of the Germans were as completely under his control as a lyre in the hands of a master musician." Abundant evidence of Luther's personal popularity in his own generation is to be found in both the popular and the learned literature of his day. Albrecht Diirer, the cele- brated artist of that time, in his diary refers to Luther as "the God-inspired man who has helped me out of great tribulations." Hans Sachs, the poet, sings of "the Wit- tenberg nightingale, whose song is heard in every vale." Michael Stiefel, the mathematician, lauds him as the angel of the book of Revelation (14:6) who flies through the heavens proclaiming an everlasting gospel. And some were so extravagant in their enthusiasm for him as to ascribe to him qualities that transcend humanity and practically make him an object of worship. Of course Luther had his personal enemies in his own day just as he has had his defamers and detracters ever since that day. The frightful slanders of the Roman Catholics, by which they sought to blacken his name and disparage his cause, began already in Luther's life-time. This was involved in the very nature of the case and does not occasion surprise. Then, too, the fanatical reform- ers and the anabaptists took offense at Luther's methods and at his attitude towards them. They poured out vio- lent invective against his person and accused him of soft living, of papal pretensions, and of having betrayed a holy cause into the hands of princes and their worldly government. Some of the humanists also, notably Eras- mus, who had hoped to regenerate the world by polish- ing the intellects of men, found no satisfaction in Lu- ther's methods and principles, and gradually developed personal animosity towards him. But all such speedily lost their influence upon the course of events in that age. For during the active days of the Wittenberg monk, almost the entire spiritual life of his nation gathered about his personality. Those who PERIOD OF ORTHODOXY. 9 had their faces set towards the future flocked for the most part to his banner. Failing to do that, they for- feited their leadership or else became the heads of de- spised "sects" that were destined to remain in compara- tive insignificance for almost two centuries. But the heyday of the German Reformation passed and with it Luther's personal popularity declined. The high tide of his popularity occurred in the early twenties, say from the Leipsic Disputation in 1519 to the middle of the third decade. With the outbreak of the Peasants' War in 1525 his favor among the lower classes began to ebb somewhat. For in that social outbreak Luther express- ed his lack of confidence in the common man. He stormed against the violence of the peasants and cordially espous- ed the cause of the princes. This in the end was not without its advantages for Luther's movement, but cer- tainly so far as Luther's personal standing is concerned his attitude in the Peasants' War made him forfeit much of the love with which up to that time he had been re- garded by the masses. With this incident, therefore, the Lutheran Reformation entered upon a new phase of its development and the year 1525 draws a sharp line of division between the "earlier" and the "later" Luther as he has been known to subsequent ages. PERIOD OF ORTHODOXY. Immediately after Luther's death, efforts were made to form conclusive estimates of his personality and of his work. But of course these efforts did not succeed. The funeral addresses of Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, and Colius, the vita Lutheri with which Melanch- thon prefaced the second volume of the Wittenberg edi- tion of Luther's works, and the historia Lutheri of Lu- ther's physician Ratzeberger, only reflect the personal impressions of these admiring friends ; they do not indi- cate any thorough-going appreciation of his historical significance. And the earliest historians of the Refor- mation, Myconius, Spalatin, and Sleidan did not sound the depths of Luther's spirit or discern the epochal char- acter of the Reformation as a movement. The events 10 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. themselves were still too near for their proper estimation. A slight degree of progress in the objective characteri- zation of the German Reformer is marked by the famous series of seventeen seraions preached by John Mathesius in 1562-1564. Mathesius, too, was a personal acquaint- ance of Luther's. It cannot be said that he understood the real heart of his hero or the true import of his work. But he gives a chronological narrative of the events in Luther's life which has served as an important source of information for all subsequent biographers. His account abounds in terms of endearment and of extravagant ad- miration. He dwells upon Luther's humility of spirit, his keen sense of sinfulness, and the joyfulness of his im- plicit faith. He regards the Reformer as a great Prophet and places him in a class with men like Moses and Elijah and Paul. At the same time he is not blind to the very human qualities and the faults of his hero, but he seri- ously attempts a psychological explanation of the man's character with its many sides. The most important achievement of Luther Mathesius finds in his recovery of the pure doctrine, and herein Mathesius is typical of the second half of the sixteenth century. He marks the tran- sition from the age of personal acquaintanceship with Luther to the age of the Protestant schoolmen. For the next century brought a period of sharp theo- logical controversy and consequent doctrinal crystalliza- tion. It was the age of neo-scholasticism, often called the age of orthodoxy. Precise theological formulation was the order of the day. The Church was now regarded as a school for the teaching of sound doctrine. The most important result of the sixteenth century Reformation was found in the rediscovery of the primitive Gospel and the purification of Christian doctrine. The chief merit of Martin Luther was seen in his restoration of the true Catholic faith and his heroic struggle against theological error. Thus under the epigonous spirit of the seven- teenth century the popular conception of Luther is changed from that of a vigorous prophet of the living faith to that of a huge Professor of Dogmatics. The title of prophet continues indeed to be applied to him but the PERIOD OF ORTHODOXY. 11 spirit of the prophet is completely gone from the picture. The picture of Luther which the student would draw from the literature of the Protestant scholasticism of the seventeenth century is a peculiarly distorted one. The wrong features are in the foreground. The wrong ele- ments are emphasized. Incidents and qualities which in reality were only accidents in Luther's character or limi- tations in his personality, tenacious heritages of the past or necessary products of his struggle with the Catholics and the radicals, are here painted as the distinctive char- acteristics of the man and of his work. There was no genuine effort to comprehend the real mission of the man, no attempt to analyze his real power. The theory was preconceived and the facts were forced to fit. There was zeal enough on behalf of the Reformer, but it was zeal without knowledge, a zeal that spent itself in cataloguing his superficial merits and in stringing out his individual achievements. There was not the slightest intimation anywhere that Luther stood in the forefront of a move- ment by which the Christian religion entered upon a new stage of its development. To judge from the frequent mention of Luther's name and the many references to his work in the age of Pro- testant scholasticism one might think that his spirit ruled the age. But as a matter of fact the age laid all its em- phasis upon Luther's individual words and deeds, upon externalities of all kinds, and received very little impress of his personality. His message was not apprehended. His views were not seriously studied. His writings were not read. It is a significant fact that after the Witten- berg and Jena editions of Luther's works had been issued and reprinted several times during the second half of the sixteenth century, with the year 1600 the demand for the works of the Reformer suddenly ceased and did not ap- pear again until far into the eighteenth century. It is true a new edition of ten volumes was issued at Alten- burg in 1661-1664. But this was a very incomplete edi- tion, was published by order of the Altenburg Count Frederick William, was edited by his court preacher, Sagittarius, and found very little sale. Its publication. 12 FOUR CENTUEIES OF LUTHER. therefore, did not indicate any real demand for the writ- ings of Luther. Luther was praised and glorified in the literature of the day. His honor was stamped on coins and carved on houses. He was magnified to heroic stature and saintli- ness, and was classed among the prophets and apostles of Bible times. But he was always translated into the spirit of scholasticism and orthodoxy. Had he not recovered and proclaimed and spread abroad the precious system of pure doctrine ? Had he not triumphed over the Pope and forced the strangle-hold of the priests who had held the pure doctrine in bondage? That there were contradic- tions among Luther's own theological views does not seem to have occurred to the Protestant schoolmen. Were there not in his works proof-passages a-plenty for any proposition of sound doctrine that needed to be main- tained? That Luther's theological positions did not in all cases coincide with the dogmas of Lutheran Orthodoxy was not discovered until the following century. Suffi- cient unto the day was to dogmatize and to systematize, to collect and to collate. The greatest dogmaticians of the day claimed to be the direct successors of Luther, and this claim was generally conceded by their contemporaries. Leonhard Hutter re- ceived the honorary title "redonatus Lutherus." His book entitled "A Grammar of the German Language Col- lected from Luther's German Bible and from His Other Books" held sway in both the Protestant and the Catholic schools through most of the seventeenth century. He was a staunch controversialist for Luther and against Me- lanchthon and the Reformed, but like all the other theo- logians of this scholastic age, he employed the method of loci, of which Melanchthon himself had set the example. So there was no demand for an organic comprehension of Luther's theological system. Thus Luther has become the heroic champion of sound doctrine. His own beautiful emblem, expressing the very heart of the Gospel, has fallen into forgetfulness, and in the Luther coins of the day he is represented as holding a burning light over an open Bible. Probably no PERIOD OF PIETISM. 13 single verse was a greater favorite in the seventeenth century than this : "Gottes Wort und Luthers Lehr Wird vergehen nimmermehr." On a house that was built just three years before the century began, the verse occurs in this form : "Gottes Wort und Luthers Lehr Vergehet nun und nimmermehr Und ob's gleich bisse noch so sehr Die Calvinisten an ihr Ehr." And one of the coins epitomizes the sentiment of the agj in these words : "Gross was er im Leben, grosser im Re- den, der Grosste aber im Lehren." One of the stragglers of this age of Protestant Ortho- doxy was John Albert Fabricius, Professor in Helmstedt. His last work was his Centifolium Lutheranum, Ham- burg, 1728 and 1730. This is a systematic bibliography of all Luther literature and of all incidental references to Luther in the writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is topically arranged and uniformly dis- posed. Its two hundred chapters cover more than nine hundred pages of disconnected quotations concerning Lu- ther's life, his personal qualities, his achievements, his exemplary positions, and so forth. This work is a faith- ful reflection of the spirit of the seventeenth century which, so far as Luther is concerned, was an age of the Epigoni, an age that fairly apotheosized the hero of the preceding century, an age of zeal without knowledge, an age of blind devotion that brought forth lifeless cata- logues and excerpt quotations cut to order but did not penetrate to the living heart and the glowing spirit of the man. PERIOD OF PIETISM. In the next century, the century immediately preced- ing Kant, two distinctive types of thought run side by side. Pietism and Rationalism. In England, the ration- alistic movement was somewhat older than the pietistie; 14 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. in Germany the order was the reverse. The pietistic movement originated in Germany and spread to England where it received its most striking expression in the great evangelical revival of the eighteenth century. The ra- tionalistic movement originated in England and spread to the continent, in Germany taking the name of illu- minism (die Aufklarung). Both the pietists of Gennany and the evangelicals of England claimed to be in accord with the true spirit and teaching of Martin Luther. Luther no longer received that abject obeisance as a doctrinal authority which he had received in the preceding period, but there was a dis- tinct consciousness of spiritual relationship with the great Reformer. And while there was a one-sided em- phasis upon certain aspects of his life and work, never- theless it is clear that the pietists approached the real heart of Martin Luther much more nearly than the schoolmen had done. The pietists based their religious life upon their inner experience. Herein they could take Luther as an exam- ple, for the very force of his protest grew out of the in- ner necessity of his spiritual life. By the practical na- ture of their religion the pietists led men back from dogma to the Bible and laid new emphasis on the per- sonal elements in Christianity. Instead of faith in the doctrine of Christ's Person and Work, they insisted upon faith in the living form of our Lord. Now these are the very features which would lead men to an understanding not only of Luther's Christianity, his work and his teach- ings, but also of his personality and his inmost spirit. We are not surprised, therefore, to find men during this period zealously reading Luther's works, and not merely reading about him and cataloguing quotations concerning him and gathering disconnected excerpts from his writings. There was a real demand now for his works themselves. As over against the single poor edition of Luther's works which appeared in the seven- teenth century, the eighteenth century witnessed the pub- lication of two worthy editions of his complete works, the Leipsic edition (1729-1740) and the Walch edition (1750- PERIOD OF PIETISM. 15 1753). The Latin works of the Reformer were now for the first time all translated into German. It is clear that Luther's works were being read, and that, too, with ap- preciation. Some few of his writings were finding their way into other languages than the German. On both sides of the Channel men began to call upon Luther in support of their positions. The personal influence of the Reformer was coming to life again after its sleep under the cold formalism of the seventeenth century. John Wesley, the leader among English pietists, re- lates in his journal that his conversion took place one evening at a meeting of one of those societies which in England corresponded to the German collegia pietatis of Spener and Francke. Weslej'^'s conversion, that epochal event which made him the leader of English evangelism, occurred, he himself tells us, "about a quarter before nine" while "one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans." Quite directly, therefore, Lu- ther's religious influence, resurrected from scholasti- cism and refurnished in the spirit of pietism, led to the great evangelical revival of the eighteenth century in England. In Luther's spiritual struggle men found the mirror of their own inner experience, and that fact, in a day of one-sided subjectivity, served as a strong magnet to draw men to him. Another appreciative English reader of Luther in this period, kindred in spirit to the pietists especially in the supremely practical aim of his religion, was John Bun- yan. He writes thus of Luther's commentary on Gala- tians: "The God in whose hands are all our days and ways did cast into my hand one day a book of Martin Luther's. It was his comment on Galatians When I had but a little way perused, I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians (except the Holy Bible) before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience." But of course the pietists of Germany were the ones who felt most keenly their spiritual relationship with 16 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. Luther. Spener, Francke, Arnold, Bengel, Zinzendorf, — all are loud in their praise of the Reformer and keen in their appreciation of his religious experiences. They are fond of picturing his terrible spiritual struggle and the severe temptations he endured. They never tire of emphasizing the religious worth of the man. They da- light to picture his inner development though of course not in any genetic historical sense. All the insight and power of his Reformation they derive from his personal experience of religion. And herein they hit upon an im- portant truth. Spener heartily recommended the study of Luther's writings and placed them next to the Bible as means of devotion. Luther's chief merit he found in the redis- covery of the pure Gospel. He tried to characterize Lu- ther with a list of "seven genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit" which were "imparted to the dear man in full measure." These are great learning, fine eloquence, un- tiring diligence, fervent love for God and man, an ex- emplary life, and patience that was always rejoicing. Similar sentiments are expressed by Francke Avith spe- cial emphasis upon the restoration of the primitive Gos- pel. Gottfried Arnold, in one of the chapters of his "Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie," presents a description of Luther's character and an evaluation of his work that may be regarded as unexcelled until the days of Herder. From their first-hand knowledge of the man through his writings the pietists were able to call him to their service in various ways. In their condemnation of phi- losophy and worldly wisdom they introduced Luther as their chief witness. In justification of their conventicles they pointed to the passage in the German missal where Luther refers to the intimate circle of "those who are seriously concerned about their Christian life" (die mit Ernst Christen sein wollen). In their depreciation of the stated church services they could quote words from Luther that seem to support their position. At many points they came into conflict with the belated represen- tatives of the age of orthodoxy, and here the pietists al- ways sought to exorcise the weakening spirit of scholasti- cism by calling upon the true spirit of Martin Luther. PERIOD OP PIETISM. 17 In the sharp controversy between the pietists of Halle and the orthodox of Wittenberg, both sides claimed to be the true followers of Luther, and on this point the contro- versy was waged. Pastor Seidel came to Spener's aid with his "Lutherus redivivus" in which Luther is set forth in his own words as a vigorous antagonist of con- gealed orthodoxy. Schwentzel wrote a book to prove that Luther was Spener's predecessor and that Spener was Luther's true successor. While a treatise from the pen of a pastor Jung proceeds to show that Count Zin- zendorf is the living and victorious embodiment of Mar- tin Luther. Thus intimately did the pietists as a class feel them- selves related to the spirit and temper of Luther. But there was far less uniformity of conception, far more in- dependence of thought, among the pietists than there had been among their orthodox fathers. The frigid objec- tivity of neo-scholasticism had melted away before the glowing passion of subjective religion. This perfervid subjectivism it was impossible to retain in uniform moulds. The inner religious experience of the indi- vidual had rendered him largely independent of any ex- ternal human authorities in matters of religion. Con- sequently Luther was no longer accepted as the supreme and sole authority. In fact the leading representatives of the pietistic movement did not regard it as a sacrilege to point out Luther's limitations, his weaknesses, and even his actual faults. Criticisms of his character and of his work are not wanting among the pietists. These criticisms are important because they indicate the first efforts at a psychological-historical understanding of the Reformer's personality and of his mission. They strongly opposed the vi cual apotheosis which many in the age of orthodoxy had applied to Luther. They emphasized the fact that the Reformer, great as were his merits, nevertheless was only a man and very human at that. They did not try to cover over his weaknesses but frankly admitted and deplored them. They protested against the practice of placing him in a class vsath the apostles and other Bible heroes. The puritanic and as- cetic strain in the pietistic movement manifested itself 18 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. in criticism of Luther's cheerful disposition and his en- joyment of the pleasures of life. Professor Herm- schmidt of Halle expresses a longing for a Luther "cleansed of all impurities," and the impurities are found on close inspection to be his sharp temper and his tendency to jest. Sometimes the criticisms went deeper and laid hold on Luther's work itself. The pietists frequently complained that Luther laid too much emphasis upon doctrine and was too dogmatic and severe in the theological discus- sions of his day. They also found fault with his transla- tion of the Bible. New work in the languages and a new method of exegesis had brought to light many a weakness in Luther's translation. Some of the pietistic leaders set themselves to work, each in his own way, to improve the translation but nothing noteworthy resulted from their efforts. The free spirit of historical criticism which Lu- ther had exercised with reference to the books of the Bible had completely escaped the notice of the orthodox in the seventeenth century. Its memory was revived by the pietists but in general it was disapproved. Luther was held to be in error in his judgment concerning the book of Revelation and the Epistle of James. One of the pietists, Konrad Dippel, in his criticism of Luther and his work, went so far as to draw up a com- plete "register of Luther's sins," and prominent among the shadows of the great man's image he placed his pas- sionate temperament, his coarseness, his dogmatic atti- tude in matters of doctrine, and his dependence on the worldly government. But all these criticisms are to be understood as indications of the subjective individualism and the religious inde;, indence of the age, and taken to- gether with the high words of appreciation that came from this same class of men, they indicate merely an honest effort at a historical understanding of the man and a sincere desire to enter into personal relationship with him. But how were the pietists to combine in their own thought both their praise and their criticism of Luther? This was long before the historical science had taught PERIOD OF RATIONALISM. 19 men to distinguish between the permanent content of a movement and its transient form. The most convenient ■Way, therefore, to account for the combination of virtues and faults in Luther's reformatory activity was to dis- tinguish between a younger and an older Luther. This distinction the pietists wrought out with great care. The sharp break between the two Luthers was generally agreed to have taken place during Luther's controversy with Carlstadt. The younger Luther the pietists claimed for themselves while the other Luther they left to the orthodox. They enthused over the young Samson who had triumphed over parsons and Philistines, the young man of invincible courage and of deep spiritual power. But they freely criticised and rejected the middle-aged and the older Luther, the man of dogma, allied with the nobles and princes, the jovial man of song and drink. Not infrequently in the controversy between the pietists and the orthodox, when one of the debaters would cite Luther, it would be demanded: "Which Luther do you mean?" This was characteristic. It is not too much, therefore, to say that with the pie- tists the spirit of criticism was awakening in refreshing contrast to the blind enthusiasm and the unreasoning hate of previous generations. A more scholarly interest in the life and deeds of Luther began to be manifested. And the age of pietism first drew the distinction between Lutherism and Lutheranism. PERIOD OF RATIONALISM. Close upon the heels of pietism came the age of en- lightenment with its rationalists and deists. In England pietism followed rationalism and largely robbed it of its influence upon the future. But in Luther's own land pietism came first and rationalism afterwards, with the consequence that rationalism remained to influence the thought and the theology of Germany far more pro- foundly and permanently than it influenced that of Eng- land. The impulse to German rationalism came from across the Channel and was promoted in Germany par- ticularly by the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolff. It was the spirit of the Renaissance resurrected and now pru- 20 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. dentially allied with the spirit of Protestantism. But the German rationalists were not unrelated to the pietists. The two groups fought side by side against the cold form- alism of orthodoxy. They both found a congenial home in Halle. They both united in a demand for the publica- tion and distribution of Luther's works and they both preferred the younger Luther. But in their interpreta- tion of Luther's personality and work they sometimes agreed, sometimes greatly diverged. Strange as it may seem, the rationalists found many things in Luther to approve. They overlooked the fact that he had persistently condemned human reason and had pronounced it the devil's bride. They overlooked his insistence upon a personal experience of sin and of divine grace and they overlooked some of the outstanding characteristics of his forceful personality, in order that they might draw near to him in admiration and esteem. In contrast with the pietists the illuminists loudly ap- plauded Luther's alliance with the princes and the gov- ernment. They only deplored the fact that he sometimes launched such severe attacks against certain individuals among the princes. And one of the writers of this period regards it as the one indelible stain on Luther's life that he used such sharp tones in his controversy with Henry VHL But Luther's generally friendly attitude towards the princes and later his dependence upon them, a fact which has been a ground of offense to so many during these four centuries, the rationalists cordially com- mended. These men laid great stress upon the privi- leges of citizenship and the practical duties to the state, and in the religious coloring of Luther's political ideas they found a welcome confirmation of their own emphasis upon political virtues. Another point in which the rationalists deviated from the judgment of the pietists was concerning the joys and pleasures of life. The rationalists were utter strangers to the ascetic ideals of the pietists and they heartily ap- proved of Luther's joviality and his love of pleasure. They gloried in the refreshing figure of one who had extri- cated himself from formalism and legalism of every kind. PERIOD OF RATIONALISM. 21 moral as well as religious. They took delight in quoting his witticisms, in describing his engagement and mar- riage and family life, and in picturing his recreation hours. The rationalists were thoroughly at home in the work- a-day world. Theirs was a sort of religious pragma- tism. The test of religion they saw in its usefulness. And from Luther's practical piety, which imparted a halo to every common task, they took encouragement in their own efforts at a practical religion. This feature in the rationalistic appraisement of Lu- ther is very evident from the character of the quotations from his writings that occur most frequently among the rationalists. His letters were preferred, doubtless be- cause of their occasionalistic character. The special se- lections that were gathered from his works for separate publication indicate the practical turn of the times. Bretschneider published his "Luther's Message to Our Times" and Lindner his "Useful Material from Luther's Writings." And in these collections Luther is made to speak not as a theologian nor as a Reformer, but as a "good teacher, a faithful friend, an affectionate father, a public educator, and a useful citizen." His words were so selected and arranged as to present practical instruc- tion on such varied subjects as the art of studying, the science of Biblical interpretation, directions for preach- ing, for catechising, for raising children, for good citi- zenship, thoughts on plagiarism, on the value of domestic industries, on gymnastics, and so forth. Surely there was no lack of regard for Luther's practical turn of mind. But this awkward appreciation of Luther as a practical man of affairs almost completely ignored the heart of Luther's piety which had its origin in the assurance of God's grace and was so thoroughly religious in its orien- tation that the non-religious factors in civilization were quite secondary and entirely peripheral in his thought. But the rationalists glorified Luther most of all as the hero of freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom from the thralldom of the papacy, freedom from the strangling dogmas, the priestly ceremonies, and the ecclesiastical 22 FOUR CENTURIES OP LUTHER. power of Catholicism. The Roman Catholic view of the world was diametrically opposed to the fundamental prin- ciples of rationalism. The increasing influence of the Jesuits was oflfensive to these champions of human rea- son, these enemies of all external authority. They were loud, therefore, in their praise of the sixteenth century hero who had burst the fetters of ecclesiastical bondage and had broken the shackles which bound the consciences of men. This was the strongest strain in their references to Luther, his achievement on behalf of the freedom of conscience. This may be seen most clearly from the last volume of Walch's edition of Luther's works. Walch himself was a peculiar mixture of orthodox, pietist, and rationalist. In his twenty-fourth volume he presents in great detail a biography and a characterization of Luther, together with a register of his achievements. The climax of Lu- ther's achievements he calls his liberation of the human conscience. And so from the middle of the centuiy Lu- ther is the veritable herald of illuminism. Even Fred- erick the Great who had regarded the "mad monk" as a "barbarous writer" is ready to style him the Liberator of his country. This thought found a hearty welcome in every rationalist mind. It occupied a prominent place in the tercentennial of 1817, and today it still resounds in various quarters. But with all their admiration of Luther as a champion of free thought the rationalists asserted their own inde- pendence of thought by freely criticising him. They deprecated his severe dealings with those who did not agree vdth him. In his attitude towards the Swiss theo- logians they found him guilty of narrow-mindedness and dogmatism. They severely criticized his literary style or lack of style, and regarded his influence upon the Ger- man language as deplorable. But many of these things they sought to excuse by pointing to Luther's historical background. Some of the rationalists expressed a greater admira- tion for Erasmus than for Luther. And Semler even went so far as to say that neither Luther nor Zwingli nor PEBIOD OP RATIONALISM. 23 Melanchthon had ever discovered or introduced a single new idea, while Erasmus had accomplished more for re- ligion and theology than all the rest of them together. Other criticisms were directed against his catechisms and his translation of the Bible. Like the pietists, only more systematically, the rationalists undertook a new transla- tion. But this also failed. Nevertheless, new catechisms were published, and Luther's hymns were "corrected"" and "improved." Thus the criticisms, like the indorse- ments, for the most part touched only the surface and did not reach the real heart and purpose of the man. The religious value of Luther the rationalists found in his "search for truth" in his "zeal for knowledge." There is not the least effort to comprehend the deep inner strug- gle which Luther passed through and which alone fur- nishes a key to the understanding of Luther's develop- ment and of his life. His personal struggles in the clois- ter the rationalists grouped with his sickness. Nowhere among these devotees of reason was there the slightest appreciation of the strategic importance of Luther's doc- trine of justification by faith alone. His service to reli- gion, they said, consisted in his courageous opposition to the Papists, his liberal criticism of the Bible, and his re- demption of human conscience from bondage to external authority. Thus the age of rationalism repeats the process of translating Luther into the terms of its own ideals. Nevertheless the work of the rationalists in their esti- mates of Luther marks an advance in the progressive understanding of the Reformer's personality and work. They came nearer to a psychological analysis of the man and a historical appreciation of his work than any pre- vious age had done. And the advance that is seen most distinctly in their appreciation of the man grows out of the fact that in their effort to claim him for their cause it was necessary for them to go back of his doctrinal system and his individual words and deeds and his separate achievements and merits, back to the real spirit of the man and his fundamental impelling motives. Whether 24 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. this was done successfully or not, the eflfort itself marks progress. PERIOD OF ROMANTICISM. Now with the turn from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth we enter upon an entirely new stage in the history of thought. This most recent age is an age of romanticism in literature, of idealism in philosophy, of liberalism in theology, and of historical inquiry in every- thing. Under the influence of this new age, every aspect of religion has been reconsidered. Christianity has come under a new interpretation. Our understanding of the sixteenth century Reformation has been taken under critical review. And our picture of Luther has been drafted anew. The new picture is not yet completed: the process of reinterpretation is still going on. The nineteenth century is remarkable for the variety of spiritual streams that run side by side through the century. And yet this very complication of movements, this very diversity of intellectual and cultural environ- ment, has brought us to a completer understanding of the German Reformer than could otherwise have been at- tained. Hitherto each age with its comparative uniform- ity of strain and sentiment, as we have seen, has empha- sized some one aspect of Luther's personality or some single feature of his work. The Reformer has stood suc- cessively in the various colors of the spectrum. It has been the mission of the past century and a quarter to com- l)ine the colors and to shed on Luther the full light of day, to overcome the limited vision and one-sidedness of view- point and to give us the full Luther standing out in stereoscopic relief. The full history of this interesting but complex process would require a stately volume. We can attempt here only the barest suggestion of a sketch. The various estimates of Luther that have come to the front since the birth of Kant's critical philosophy may be gathered into three general groups. The first group is characterized by the prevalence of romanticism and ceased to predominate after the overthrow of Napoleon. PERIOD OF ROMANTICISM. 25 The second group is characterized by the prevalence of liberalism or neo-rationalism, and predominated during the middle portion of the last century. The third and most recent period begins roughly with the quadricen- tennial year of 1883. In this period we are still involved. The high tide of romanticism claimed many of the con- temporaries of Kant, such as Lessing and Klopstock, Herder and Hamann. Lessing was still under the in- fluence of rationalism. But he never idealized Luther as did most of the rationalists. He was frankly conscious of a wide divergence between his own religious views and those of Luther. Nevertheless, Lessing loved Luther for his personality, and he exclaimed: "The evidences of humanity that I find in him are as precious and instruc- tive to me as all his shining perfections." This is char- acteristic and at the same time significant. The ration- alists as a group looked upon life from the point of view of the aesthetic ideal. They set up an entirely new con- ception of personality. They held that the measure of individual genius is to be found not in a man's moral per- fections, nor in his practical usefulness, nor even in his intellectual attainments, but in the originality, symmetry and force of his nature. Such a standard of judgment found excellent material in Martin Luther. The romanticists, therefore, protested against the ra- tionalistic criticism of Luther's language and literature. Klopstock, in particular, placed the sixteenth century Re- former on a level with Shakespeare as a literary genius and poetically asserted that Luther had "made the lan- guage of the Fatherland a language of men and of angels." Hamann, on the other hand, without discerning any great intrinsic worth in Luther's compositions and translations, nevertheless discovered that great and powerful personalities are always inclined to paradoxes and so he delighted in Luther's exaggerations, his con- tradictions, and his harshnesses. The height of German poetry was reached in Goethe and Schiller, the poets of classic idealism. But neither of them made any real progress in the interpretation of Luther's historical significance. Goethe, it is true, had 26 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. a lively admiration for Luther's work in his victorious struggle with the papal hierarchy, in his translation of the Bible, and in his return to the original teachings of Christ. But in his evaluation of Luther's personality Goethe comes entirely under the spell of romanticism. After defining genius as "creative force" capable of bringing forth deeds that endure, he says of Luther: "He was a genius of a very remarkable kind ; he has made his influence felt this many a day and it is impossible to reckon the days or the centuries when his creative force will cease to be felt." Beyond these superficial generali- ties the great poet had no penetrative insight into Lu- ther's historical function. And Schiller, too, despite his general historical interest, makes no advance upon Goethe in his appreciation of the German Reformer. These poets saw Luther's sole significance in the fact that he was the father of German Protestantism. The philosophers of the period, Kant and Fichte, made no important advance upon the views of the other writers, so far as the appraisement of Luther is concerned. But there was one writer in this period who sounded a note that has continued to ring to our own day. Gott- fried Herder it was who pointed out that it is not suffici- ent merely to indulge in general terms of praise for Lu- ther, not suflicient merely to refer to the splendid truths that he uttered or to the mighty deeds that he wrought. If we are to gather anything worth while from Luther's life it is of supreme importance, says Herder, that we understand his position in the connected course of his- tory. We can measure his significance only if we ex- amine his words and deeds in the light of their historical conditions. Luther had actually felt the Word of God not only in the great events of universal history, but also in his own individual experience. No one can really know Luther, therefore, unless he penetrates to the very depths of his soul and approaches his life from within. The important thing in history is not the mere knowledge of the truth, but the inner appropriation of it and the outward application of it. This is the key to the under- standing of Luther's character and conduct, and the ap- PERIOD OF LIBERALISM AND CRITICISM. 27 plication of this standard to Luther's life and work marks him as a genuine genius, a true hero of history, a decided agent of progress. These ideas of Herder's, hidden for a while even in his own later thought, were destined to exert a powerful influence upon the Luther literature of a later period. The period of romanticism, we may say, therefore, by its emphasis upon aesthetic personality and by its new conception of genius blazed the way to a deeper under- standing of Luther's peculiarities. By preparing the ground for a better development of the entire science of history, by cultivating among the intellectual classes a genuine historical sense and a high regard for the super- sensible and the personal in history, it pointed out the road and invited men to travel to a fuller evaluation of Luther's mission in the history of civilization. PERIOD OP LIBERALISM AND CRITICISM. After the overthrow of Napoleon the theologians oc- cupy the foreground of our interest in the appraisement of Luther. And here it is not the students of Church History who contributed most to our understanding of Luther, but the representatives of Systematic Theology. Only gradually did the theologians find their way to Luther. Their orientation was for a long time philo- sophical rather than historical. But slowly the sugges- tions of the younger Herder were taken up again and wrought into practice, and then the period of the histori- cal perspective had set in. Then at every turn the prob- lems multiplied, step by step the investigation progressed, and our understanding of the Reformer deepened. The theology of the nineteenth century is largely per- vaded by the spirit of Schleiermacher. But so far as Luther is concerned Schleiermacher is not typical of the views of the theologians. He had no consistent or sus- tained interest in Luther. It is evident that he studied Luther's works but concerning Luther himself his utter- ances are entirely occasionalistic. For example, when Glaus Harms published his ninety-five theses, Schleier- 28 FOUE CENTURIES OF LUTHER. macher took occasion to contrast them with Luther's and to point out that Luther's theses were without passion or vanity and had sprung from pure zeal and earnest prayer. Otherwise the tercentennial called forth no distinctive utterance from the great theologian. Again, when Frederick William III was trying to force his new Agende on the Church and cited Luther in support of the idea, Schleiermacher felt impelled to point out that the genu- ine spirit of Luther would revolt against such a proced- ure. Beyond this there is very little from Schleiermacher about Luther. No, the father of nineteenth century theology did not seek a historical foundation for his type of piety or his theological system. After Schleiermacher came a group of speculative theologians. They took their cue primarily from Hegel. This when applied to history brought them to ideas simi- lar to those of Herder. They took up the rich heritage that was left by Herder and the romanticists and greatly enriched it before they passed it on. Typical of this class is Ferdinand Christian Baur. Theologically Baur was not at all related to Luther. But he realized that in every great movement there must be an individual factor as well as general factors, a forceful personal spirit as well as favorable general conditions. And in Luther's soul he saw the source of the new religious life that was be- gotten by the Reformation. Then, too, Baur had a new ap- preciation of Luther's own inner development. He realiz- ed that Luther had become a Reformer in the course of his long struggle for the inner assurance of the forgive- ness of his sins. Baur, therefore, distinguishes carefully between the earlier and the later Luther, and he accounts for that difference by pointing to his inner development under the influence of the times and of his individuality. This was a decided step forward. Influences from both Schleiermacher and Baur united to produce a class of theologians known as the liberalists par excellence. Their views were strongly tinged with rationalism, only under the growing influence of histori- cal criticism they were robbed of the spirit of assurance and dogmatism with which the older rationalists had as- PERIOD OF LIBERALISM AND CRITICISM. 29 serted their attitude. The neo-rationalists laid empha- sis upon the practical virtues of Luther and made special application of them to their own advanced political views. At the same time, however, they asserted their independ- ence of Luther in matters of religion and contrasted their own pure Protestantism with the mediaeval elements that remained in Luther's system. A good illustration of the views of the liberalists may be found in Heinrich Lang. In his characterization of Luther he applied the most intensive criticism that the subject had ever received. He sought out the Roman Catholic sources of Luther's Christianity and tried to show in each case their historical or psychological deri- vation. Luther's emphasis upon the Bible and his ex- perience of justification by faith Lang regards as due to the essential limitations of his nature imposed by his historical antecedents. It was the tragedy of Luther's life that he sought to overthrow mediaeval Catholicism and yet himself remained embedded in it. For his entire religious disposition and his fundamental ideas belong to Catholicism, and the only Protestant element about him is his struggle with the hierarchy on behalf of religious liberty and freedom of theological inquiry. The essence of the Protestant is to be found rather in Zwingli, Carl- stadt, the leaders of the Anabaptists, and the rebellious peasants. All these ideas of Lang's became very import- ant a little later. Parallel with these liberalists ran a very different group. This was a group of new Lutherans who looked up to Luther again as a Church Father. They were the confessionally orthodox. The group includes such men as Stahl, Vilmar, Philippi, Lohe, Kliefoth, and Kahnis. Their advance upon the old orthodoxy of the seventeenth century lay in the fact that they broke with the old view that Luther's greatest merit was the restoration of pure doctrine. They had some appreciation of the forward look in Luther's movement. In that connection Vilmar says: "Luther's experience of sin and divine grace in- troduced into the history of Christian piety an entirely new experience and one that had never been knovra be- 30 FOUE CENTURIES OF LUTHER. fore." This serves to indicate how the older movements, when repristinated from time to time, show the effects of the general progress that has taken place since their last appearance. Between these two groups, the liberalists and the neo- orthodox, was the so-called mediating school. The theo- logians of this school laid emphasis on the simplicity of Luther's biblical faith and the purity of his religion. This group included several merited biographers of Lu- ther, such as Koestlin and Kawerau. Mention at least must be made of the Erlangen school, fathered by Conrad von Hofmann, and numbering such men as Franz Delitzsch, Theodosius Harnack, and Theo- dore Kolde. Here the chief effort is to interpret the in- ner religious consciousness of the Reformer rather than his theological system. From this school came the "modern positive" theology under the leadership of See- berg. The modern positive theologians have been zealous apologists for Luther against Roman Catholic attacks but they have worked along the same general lines as the Erlangen school and have made no distinctive contribu- tion to our understanding of Luther. Quite new and significant for our study is the attitude of the founder of Ritschlianism. With Albrecht Ritschl for the first time in the nineteenth century the figure of Martin Luther occupies a really prominent position in the intensive thought of the theologians. In Ritschlian- ism the apathy of Schleiermacher is overcome. Ritschl's theology was orientated in Luther and based on the con- sciousness that in Christ we experience a gracious God. Ritschl himself was consciously Lutheran, not in a con- fessional sense but in a religious sense, and he strove to deepen the Lutheran consciousness of the Church. His students testify that his lectures breathed the very spirit of the Reformation and actually impelled them to a study of Luther and the Lutheran confessions. The results are seen in the Ritschlian school. The systematic theo- logian of the school, William Herrmann, indicates his at- titude by the very title of his chief work : "Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott im Anschluss an Luther darges- THE PRESENT. 31 tellt." It is this school also that has given us such ap- preciative students of Luther as Brieger, Loofs, Karl Miiller, and Adolf Hamack. Under the influence of Ritschl and his foUow^ers, there- fore, the long theological movement which began with Schleiermacher was turned away from occasionalistic partiality and epigonous externality to an intensive and determining scholarly interest in the whole Luther, kernel and husk. Never before since the days of the Reforma- tion itself have the dogmaticians interested themselves so keenly in historical studies. Never before in the history of Protestantism have the problems concerning Luther and the Reformation engaged so many scholarly hands or received so much scholarly energy and insight as in this generation of Ritschlians. Never before has there been attained such a diversity of view on details and such a uniformity of conception on the main points as that which our own day possesses in its heritage from the nineteenth century. But that brings us to the present situation. THE PRESENT. In 1883, at the four hundredth anniversary of Luther's birth, the inspiration and the utensils were at hand for unusual achievements in Luther research. The utensils were prepared by Ranke's school in Germany and its off- spring, the Oxford school in England, whose leaders were Stubbs and Creighton. These critical methods were now being applied also in the field of Church History. The inspiration to this new era in Luther research came from several sources. It came partly from the gen- eral historical interest of all theologians at that time, partly from the quadricentennial itself, and partly from the publication in 1877 of the first volume of the Catho- lic Janssen's work, "Die Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters," which in 1883 ap- peared in its eighth edition. The result was that in a very short time there arose a numerous group of vigor- ous scholars who began with critical hand to lay hold on the problem that had been raised, to satisfy the interests 32 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. that had been aroused, and to arrive at an undistorted and truthful picture of the Reformer and the Reforma- tion. This group includes such men as Knaake, Enders, Kolde, Kawerau, Brieger, Tschackert, Buchwald, and Walther. If any additional inspiration had been needed so far as the Catholic polemic is concerned it would have been furnished by the more recent works of Denifle and Grisar. The material results of the investigations in this latest period have been much larger than that of all other periods combined. The Weimar edition of Luther's works, numbering now sixty-five large volumes, stands upon the very pinnacle of achievement in intensive Lu- ther research and embodies the results of scholarly in- vestigations that extend far beyond the boundaries of Germany. There is not a phase of Luther's life, nor an aspect of his theology, nor a department of his literary activity, that has not been made the object of special re- search and the subject of a separate monograph in the Luther literature of the past thirty-five years. Luther's relation to his contemporaries and the relation of his movement to other movements in the sixteenth century has occupied a special body of literature and has called ■ forth fruitful controversy. In general it may be said that this last period of re- search is bringing us nearer and nearer to a definite, con- crete and complete picture of Martin Luther, his per- sonality and his work. And through it all nothing is clearer than the many-sidedness of the Reformer and the complicated character of his Reformation in its signifi- cance for the modern world. This is why there are so many different views today concerning Luther and the Reformation, even among those who are acquainted with the facts. Each man according to his point of view, each group according to its particular persuasion, selects for emphasis some one characteristic or group of character- istics in the man, some one stage or period in his de- velopment, some one feature or group of features in his movement. Even most of the differences among those who bear his name today in this country and in Europe THE PRESENT. 33 can be understood on this ground. There is a real need today for a composite photograph of all true views so that we may see the whole Luther. A Lutheran minister, the Rev. W. N. Harley, of Co- lumbus, Ohio, has recently published a very readable book called "Little Journeys vdth Martin Luther," in which by means of a fascinating story he shows from the very words of Luther himself that Luther could not be admit- ted today to any of the large general bodies of Lutherans in America. With equal ease and grace it could be shown from Luther's words that he could be admitted to every one of those bodies, such was the versatility of the man, so many were the phases and stages of his work. The varying judgments upon Luther that are to be found in the Protestant literature of our own day are to be explained in part, therefore, by the varying emphasis that is placed upon the different stages of his develop- ment. And no other aspect of the general subject has received so much attention in recent years as the history of Luther's inner development. Some idea of the signi- ficance of this fact may be gathered from the latest Ger- man biography of Luther. This is by Otto Scheel of Tiibingen. The first volume of Scheel's Luther appeared this year. The whole work bears the sub-title, "From Catholicism to the Reformation," and the first volume traces Luther's development to July 17, 1505, his entrance into the cloister at Erfurt. In Koestlin's life of Luther, which has had the widest sale and study of all biographies since 1883, these first twenty-two years in Luther's life cover only forty-five pages; in Scheel's work they cover three hundred and one pages. Scheel's purpose in his thorough-going scientific work is to describe only Luther's development from a Roman Catholic to a full-fiedged Re- former. It is not evident as yet at what point Scheel re- gards that development as completed. But it is very evident that the interest and the emphasis centers upon the younger Luther and particularly his inner evolution. This suggests another question, one that is in the very forefront of scholarly interest just now. Which was the real Luther? The distinction between the two Luthers 34 FOUR CENTURIES OF LUTHER. is an old one, as we have seen. Different ages have varied in their choices betwen the two. In general the liberal theologians and philosophers of the last period have preferred the younger Luther as the real Luther. Much attention has been attracted, therefore, by the re- markable position of the brilliant Ernst Troeltsch on this question. In his striking essay, itself a volume, on "Protestantisches Christentum und Kirche in der Neu- zeit," which appears in "Die Kultur der Gegenwart" (Teil I, Abteilung IV, I. Halfte, Ss. 253-458), as well as in other of his works, he sets forth with sharp acumen the view that the older Luther is the real Luther and that both Luther and his Reformation are thorough-going products of Catholicism and mediaevalism with scarcely any real significance for the modern world. Troeltsch places Erasmus and even Melanchthon above Luther, and the really significant elements of the sixteenth century he sees in the Anabaptists and the radical movements. The modem period of history, according to Troeltsch, begins in the eighteenth century. This view is really a scholarly scientific version of Lang's view of half a century earlier. It has caused quite a stir among scholars. Some English and American scholars have already accepted the view as settled and assured. But in Germany many critical voices have been raised, first of all that of Loofs in his "Luthers Stellung zum Mittelalter und zur Neuzeit," and now the historical research has taken a new turn. The result will doubtless be a much clearer picture of the Hu- manists, the Counter-Reformation, and the radical move- ments of the sixteenth centurJ^ Our sketch of Luther's career through these four cen- turies has indicated a line of movement that despite oc- casional retrogressions and reactions has been generally forward in its direction. First unreflective personal popularity, then an uninformed admiration for his indi- vidual words and deeds, then a pietistic or else a ration- alistic conception of his fundamental motive coupled with mild criticism of certain features of his life and thought, then an effort to understand his personality by means of psychology, and finally in the nineteenth century an THE PRESENT. 35 application of all the improved instruments of science to every aspect of the man's personally and activity and in- fluence. In the various nuances of Protestant Christi- anity today we still have some representatives of every one of the periods that have passed before our review of the four centuries. This is good, for it will help us to find and to keep the whole Luther. The newest problem concerns itself with Luther's relation and that of his Reformation to the origin of the modern world. It will be interesting to note just what turn the Quadricenten- nial Celebration of this year will give to the appraisement of Luther. PRICE 15 CENTS EACH. $1.50 PER DOZEN. $10.00 PER HUNDRED. Gettysburg Compiler Print. Gettysburg, Pa. i^0x' mni -ftM^-» r^;^>*: ip^.^ ^i. ^^ .^ «t.. -v-^^^ i3^?^ U-^V^ ^'^