[In the following Appendix we have ruthlessly excised all that seemed to us merely personal and to have no direct bearing on Luther. Many of the smaller emendations have already been incorporated in their proper place in the body of this translation. Note of the English Editor.]

1-2. Luther’s Visit to Rome

The Scala Santa: According to Paul Luther, when his father “was about to say the usual preces graduales in scala Lateranensi, there suddenly came into his mind the text of Habacuc ‘the just shall live by his faith,’ whereupon he refrained from his prayer.” As we pointed out in vol. i., p. 33, it is most unlikely that Luther should, at this time, have seen this text in such a light. Moreover, as it now turns out, Luther actually did perform the usual devotions at the Scala Santa. It is to G. Buchwald (“Zeitschr. f. Kirchengesch.,” 1911, p. 606 ff.) that we are indebted for a quotation from a yet unpublished sermon of Luther’s own, which shows that he conformed to the common usage and ascended the famous steps on his knees: “I climbed the stairs of Pilate, orabam quolibet gradu pater noster. Erat enim persuasio, qui sic oraret redimeret animam. Sed in fastigium veniens cogitabam: quis scit an sit verum? Non valet ista oratio, etc.”

As for the doubt expressed in the latter portion of the text, it seems at variance with Luther’s general credulity in those early days. On the other hand, it is by no means unlikely that the scepticism of the Renaissance suggested a doubt to Luther’s mind regarding this supposed trophy of Christ’s Passion.

The projected General Confession: In “Colloq.,” ed. Bindseil (3, p. 169, n. 33), Luther says: “Causa profectionis meÆ erat confessio, quam volebam a pueritia usque texere, et pietatem exercere. ErphordiÆ talem confessionem bis habui. Sed homines indoctissimos RomÆ inveni, qui me plus offendebant quam Ædificabant” (cp. Mathesius, “Tischreden,” ed. Kroker, p. 414). In this text it is to be noted that Luther falsely makes out the main object of his journey to Rome to have been his proposed general confession, and his progress in piety. The truth is that he went there first and foremost for the business of his Order. That the general confession was probably never made may be inferred from Luther’s use of the word “sed” in the above text (cp. vol. i., pp. 30-31).

Oldecop’s account of Luther’s petition to be secularised: (Against Kawerau, “Schriften d. Vereins f. Reformationsgesch.,” 1912). Though but little notice has hitherto been taken of Oldecop’s narrative, yet there is no solid ground for distrusting it. As we were careful to point out (vol. i., p. 36, n. 1), he was indeed wrong in saying that Luther had gone to Rome without his superiors’ authorisation, for the journey was at least authorised by the seven priories whose representative Luther was. Luther had, however, no authorisation to seek secularisation, nor was his mission countenanced by the minister-general of the Augustinians. This may have led Oldecop to suppose that his whole undertaking was unauthorised. Regarding Jacob, the Jew mentioned in Oldecop’s account, Kawerau (ib., p. 36) makes out a likely case for distinguishing him from his German homonym with whom (vol. i., p. 37, n. 1) we tentatively identified him.

The outcome for the Order of Luther’s visit to Rome: Under the title “Aus den Actis generalatus Ægidii Viterbiensis,” G. Kawerau has published in the “Zeitschr. f. Kirchengesch.” (1911, p. 603 ff.) a few short extracts from a MS. in the Royal Berlin Library. One of these seems to bear on Luther’s mission from the seven priories opposed to Staupitz: “MDXI. Jan. Appellare ex legibus Germani prohibentur. Ut res germanÆ ad amorem et integram obedientiam redigerentur, Fr. Joh. Germanus ad vicarium missus est.” Hence Luther’s appeal was prohibited, nor had his mission the slightest support from Ægidius of Viterbo the minister-general. That, on the contrary, he was opposed to the movement then afoot against Staupitz, is also clear from the expression he uses on March 18, 1511, viz. that “obedience to the Order and its head” must be reintroduced into the German Congregation. At any earlier date (May 1, 1510) we are told that Staupitz himself had come to Rome “[GermanicÆ] congregationis colla religionis iugo subiecturus.” His visit, however, had nothing to do with the matter of the seven priories, but concerned the general discipline of the Congregation.

3. Luther’s conception of “Observance” and his conflict with his brother friars

What we said of Luther’s early antagonism to the Observantines in his Order has been very diversely appreciated by Protestant experts. Kawerau and Scheel, for instance, are of opinion that no proof is forthcoming of the continuance of the conflict between Observantines and Conventuals. On the other hand, A. Harnack, K. A. Meissinger and W. Braun hold that the persistence of the conflict has been made out and that it really formed one of the starting-points of Luther’s new conception of faith. Modesty, however, dictates a protest on our part against being considered the inventor of this explanation, for it had, even previously, been suggested by Protestant scholars (cp. vol. i., p. 200, n. 3), though they may not have used it to such purpose. Again, a word of warning must be uttered against the supposition that, for instance as late as 1515-1516, there was still in Luther’s Congregation a clear-cut division between those devoted to the “observance” and the others who inclined to “Conventualism.” Of such a schism we hear no more after the Cologne Chapter of 1512. Nevertheless, that the partisan spirit that had once led to the appeal of the seven priories still smouldered, so much at least seems obvious from those addresses and writings of Luther in which he trounces the Pharisaism of certain members of his Congregation and their attachment to their statutes, privileges and exemptions. It must not be lost to sight that the Congregation to which Luther belonged was in name and fact an “observantine” one, having been founded to promote the stricter observance of the Augustinian Rule; for this reason it was exempted from the jurisdiction of the German Provincial of the Order and placed directly under the Roman minister-general, whose representative in Germany was the Vicar.

Regarding the mediÆval cleavage of several of the Orders into Observantines and Conventuals we must be on our guard against flying to the conclusion that all mere Conventuals were necessarily slack in the performance of their duties. This was by no means the case; in many localities the Franciscan Observantines, e.g. were scarcely more zealous than the Franciscan Conventuals, though the latter had at an early date mitigated their rule of poverty; much the same held good among the Dominicans, Servites and Carmelites. In the event, so far as the Augustinians are concerned, the Saxon Observantines, for all their “observance,” were among the first to fall before the storm let loose from Wittenberg, whereas the German Conventuals, under such worthy provincials as TrÄger and Hoffmeister, showed themselves better able to cope with the innovations. The Dominican Conventuals under a Vicar like Johann Faber also furnished several protagonists of the faith.

In view of the doubts raised in certain quarters we shall now submit to a closer scrutiny Luther’s utterances on the question of the “observance.”

On one occasion Luther complains of those who made so small account of obedience, though this virtue was the very soul of good works:

Obedience is something which cannot be dispensed (non eximibilis, “Werke,” Weim. ed., 3, p. 155; O. Scheel, “Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung,” 1911, p. 74 f.; above, vol. i., p. 68 f.). Truth, so Luther argues, hides its face from the unwise and the particularist:

In the former text he was speaking of “all Observantines,” here he speaks of “ours,” presumably, of the more zealous Augustinians. These “observantes” are the same opponents whom he goes on to describe as “superbi in sanctitate et observantia, qui destruunt humilitatem et obedientiam.” The real meaning here of the words “observantia” and “observare” can scarcely escape the reader, particularly when Luther couples this “observance” with disobedience to superiors. Thus he says:

“Observantia” means of course outward practices, but there can be little doubt that the word is here used in the more exclusive sense defined in the text first quoted. Thus he denounces those who defend their own “traditiones et leges,” which “usque hodie statuere conantur”; those who busy themselves about ceremonies and the “vanitas observantiÆ exterioris”; he several times repeats the “usque hodie,” as though to show that the practices he had in view were present ones. (Cp. Weim. ed., 3, p. 61.)

It must be borne in mind that Luther delivered his Lectures on the Psalms (in which most of the texts in question are found) to an audience composed in the main of young Augustinians sent by the various priories to prosecute their studies at Wittenberg. Some of these may well have brought with them some of those stricter ideas which the seven “Observantine” priories had once championed against Staupitz. To one, who, as Luther now was, was against such ideas, it was an easy matter, even though in itself wrong, to make the question one of obedience, by urging either that their exemption from the jurisdiction of the Provincial was irregular, or that Staupitz had now abandoned his one-time projects.

Luther charges the other faction, not only with disobedience, but also with pigheadedness, e.g. in refusing to conform to the usages of the other priories, and in laying such stress on their own customs and institutions.

Though what Luther here says might be applied to other religious Orders, yet it seems more natural to take it as referring chiefly to what was going on in his own.

Luther’s then Conception of Cloistral Life and Religious Mendicancy: Luther spoke very plainly about that part of the Rule which enjoined mendicancy; as Conventuals no less than Observantines were bound to observe this enactment it follows that Luther’s attack was directed, not so much against the Observantines as such, as against any attempt seriously to put in practice the Evangelical Counsels. Thus, in the passage quoted above (vol. i., p. 71) he says: “O mendicantes, mendicantes, mendicantes! At excusat forte quod elemosynas propter Deum recipitis et verbum Dei ac omnia gratis rependitis. Esto sane. Vos videritis.” (Weim. ed., 3, p. 425.) Here, it is true, he is speaking of the abuses to which the system led, yet he is also annoyed that their vow of poverty should be the motive of their preaching: “Horribilis furor et cÆca miseria, quod nunc nonnisi ex necessitate evangelizamus.”

Now, though these hasty words were open to a perfectly sound interpretation, yet their effect must have been to arouse a certain contempt for their calling in the minds of the young men to whom they were spoken. At any rate Luther had then not yet lost his esteem for the religious life, particularly as an incentive to humility and general Godliness. (See vol. i., p. 218 f.)

It is scarcely necessary to say that the fact that, in 1518 (at Augsburg), Staupitz released Luther “from the observance” has nothing whatever to do with the question in hand. Luther says: “me absolvit ab observantia et regula ordinis.” (Weim. ed., of the Table-Talk, 1, p. 96.) All that his superior did was to dispense him from his obligation of carrying out outwardly the rule of the Order, e.g. from dressing as a monk, etc. Even had Luther been a Conventual he could still have spoken thus of his having been absolved from the “observance.” It may be that Staupitz, for his own freedom of action, also absolved Luther from his duty of obedience to him as Vicar. Even so, however, Luther remained an Augustinian, returned to his monastery, wrote on behalf of the vows, and, long after, still continued to wear the Augustinian habit.

One notice brought to light from the Weimar archives and published by Kawerau (loc. cit., p. 68) is of interest. It deals with the practices of the severer Observantine priories (about the year 1489) with which the laxer members were later to find fault. Among their practices was that of “not speaking at meal-time but of listening to a reader, of fasting from All Hallows till Christmas (in addition to the other fasts), of singing Matins every night, of abstaining from food and drink outside of meal-time, and of holding a Chapter every Friday with public admission of shortcomings and imposition of penance.”

4. Attack upon the “Self-righteous”

In 1516 Luther presided at Bernhardi’s Disputation, “De viribus et voluntate hominis sine gratia.” (Above, vol. i., p. 310 f.) In the letter to Lang about it he says that Bernhardi had held the debate “motus oblatratorum lectionum mearum garritu.” Some opinions therein put forward had much scandalised the adherents of Gabriel Biel (“cum et mei [GabrielistÆ] vehementer hucusque mirentur”), but, at any rate, the Disputation had served its purpose (“ad obstruendum ora garrientium vel ad audiendum iudicium aliorum”). He goes on to speak of the offence his denial of the authenticity of the tract “De vera et falsa pÆnitentia”—hitherto ascribed to St. Augustine—had given at Wittenberg (“sane gravius offendi omnes”). Mathesius (above, vol. i., p. 304) also alludes to the opposition he encountered about this time among his brethren. At any rate a few months later Luther could triumphantly tell Lang:

Before this, the young Professor (at Christmas, 1515) had told his hearers, that, just as the Prophets, wise men and scribes had been persecuted, so he was being persecuted now:

The supposed “saints” he goes on to describe in their true character. What they were bent on persecuting was really Grace, viz. what he preaches under the figure of “Christ our mother-hen”:

A few pages further on, the new Lutheran teaching on Grace is clearly seen in its process of growth:

To the “vultures,” i.e. his opponents, he returns again in the same lectures. They build only on their “sapientia carnis” when they set out to gain what they consider to be virtue and the gifts of grace. (Weim. ed., 1, pp. 61, 62, 70.)

A trace of the antagonism within the Order is also found in the notes of the sermons preached in the summer of 1516. On July 6, Luther speaks of the greatest plague now rampant in the Church:

As we know, his theology was professedly the “theology of the cross.” As for his foes, lay, clerical or monastic, their outward works were but the lamb-skins concealing the wolves beneath:

On July 27 he speaks of the “darts” which the foes let fly from their ambush at those who are right of heart.

In another sermon preached on the same day, speaking of the Pharisee and the Publican, he says:

In this sentence, and elsewhere, stress should not be laid on the use of the first person plural, as it is merely a rhetorical embellishment. The Pharisee is the self-righteous man; he bears “idolum iustitiÆ suÆ in corde statutum”; he refuses to be accounted a sinner, hence:

This indeed, in itself, is all capable of a perfectly orthodox interpretation, not, however, if we take it in conjunction with all the circumstances. On Aug. 3, the preacher again inveighs against the “sensuales iustitiarii,” who hang on their works and observances: This is to remain

True piety on the other hand consisted in allowing oneself to be ridden by God. The man of God

The “holy-by-works” soil themselves with the seven deadly sins of the spirit. Hence, let us not befoul ourselves by making a rock of the “opera iustitiÆ.” Let us leave that sort of thing to beginners to whom indeed we may teach

These words must have been addressed to men with some theological training, for, in this discourse, Luther dilates at some length on a text of Alexander of Hales; doubtless those present were members of his Order; but what then must we think of the teacher who thus proclaims a freedom from all the observances and traditional rules by which his fellow-monks were bound? Luther’s point of view was one, which, if adopted, spelt the end not only of the Observantines but even of Conventualism. Hence it is no wonder that it caused murmuring.

5. The collapse of the Augustinian Congregation

The fifth Council of the Lateran took measures against many abuses which had crept in among the mendicant Orders, particularly among the Hermits of St. Augustine. As we know, the German Congregation under Staupitz and with Luther as Rural Vicar was no better off than the other branches. It is from June 30, 1516, i.e. during the period of Luther’s “vicariate” that we find a curious note in the “Acta Generalatus Ægidii Viterbiensis.” (Above, p. 497.)

In thus doing the Minister-General’s intention, to judge by the few scraps his Acts contain, was to bring back his people “ad communem vitam.” No doubt too many dispensations had been given for the sake of making study easier, or for other reasons. The reader may remember the incident (above, vol. i., p. 297, n. 1) of Gabriel Zwilling’s being sent to Erfurt and the words used by Luther in his letter to Lang. Zwilling, who, after leaving the Augustinians, became one of the Zwickau “Prophets” but afterwards accepted an appointment as Lutheran minister at Torgau, had joined the Augustinians in 1502 and matriculated at Wittenberg University in 1512; hence he had already been sixteen years an Augustinian at the time when Luther wrote that he had “not yet seen or learnt the rites and usages of the Order.” Does not this seem to prove that the Rule must have been greatly relaxed and that too many exceptions were allowed in the common way of life? Luther himself, as we know, had been dispensed in his student-days from attending Matins and had been assigned a serving-brother; this is proved by the manuscript notes of the Table-Talk made by RÖrer. “(Staupitzius) absolvit eum a matutinis et addidit fratrem famulum.” (Kroker, “Archiv fÜr Reformationsgesch.,” 1908, p. 370.) It has indeed been urged that Zwilling’s ignorance of the “rites” was due to the smallness of the Wittenberg monastery. But, as Luther wrote to Lang on Oct. 26, 1516, the house contained “twenty-two priests, twelve students, and, in all, forty-one persons.” (“Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 67). This was surely enough to allow of the carrying out of the “rites and usages of the Order.” Zwilling, moreover, was sent to Erfurt, not only to get a better insight into the ways of the Order, but, mainly, to learn Greek: “Ut et ipse et alii quam optime, i.e. christianiter, grÆcisent.”

6. The Tower Incident (vol. I, pp. 388-400)

To avoid giving unnecessary offence we did not unduly insist on the locality in which Luther professed to have received his chief revelation. To have suppressed all mention of the locality would, however, have been wrong seeing that the circumstance of place is here so closely bound up with the historicity of the event. We, however, confined ourselves to a bald statement and explanation of what is found in the sources, and chose the most discreet heading possible for the section in question. In spite of this, Adolf Harnack (“Theol. Literaturztng.,” 1911, p. 302), dealing with our first volume, informed his readers that, on this point, we had made our own “the olden fashion of vulgar Catholic polemics” and had made of the “locality a capital question,” no doubt in the hope that Catholic readers would take the matter very much as the olden Christians took Arius’s death in the closet. Needless to say, what Harnack wrote was repeated and aggravated by the lesser lights of German Protestantism. The truest remark, however, made by Harnack in this connection, is that, the actual “locality in which Luther first glimpsed this thought is of small importance,” and that, even had I made out my case, “what would it really matter?”

As to our authorities the chief one is Johann Schlaginhaufen’s notes of Luther’s Table-Talk in which the words are related as having been spoken some time between July and Sept., 1532.

The forms in which Luther’s utterance has been handed down: The friends who, in 1532, either habitually or occasionally, attended at Luther’s parties and noted down his sayings were three in number, viz. Schlaginhaufen, Cordatus and Veit Dietrich. The (yet unpublished) notes of the last as given in the Nuremberg MS. contain nothing about this utterance. From Cordatus we have the version given below as No. III. But, according to Preger, the editor of Schlaginhaufen, Cordatus “at this time was no longer at Wittenberg”; if this be true, then what he says on the subject must have come to him at second hand, though, otherwise, his notes contain much valuable first-hand information. Nevertheless both Preger and Kroker, two experts on the Table-Talk, are at one in arguing that an attentive comparison of Cordatus’s notes with those of the other guests, proves that Cordatus not seldom fails to keep closely enough to Luther’s actual words and sometimes misses his real meaning, which is less so the case with Schlaginhaufen. As for Lauterbach, as Kawerau points out, he was not at that time a regular visitor at Luther’s house, though we several times hear of his being present at the Table-Talk. It is more than doubtful whether his version of the utterance in question (given below as IV) was taken down from Luther’s lips. Moreover his notes, as printed by Bindseil, often show traces of subsequent correction.

In Schlaginhaufen, on the other hand, we find throughout first-hand matter, the freshness, disorder, and even faulty grammar, showing how little it has been touched up by the collector’s hand. He was a personal friend of Luther’s, and, whilst awaiting a call to the ministry, stayed at the latter’s house from November, 1531, where he was always present at the evening repast. Luther was aware that he was taking notes of the conversations, and, on one occasion (Preger, p. 82) particularly requested him to put down something. He was comforted in his anxieties by Luther (above, vol. v., p. 327), nor, when he left Wittenberg at the end of 1532 to become minister at Zahna, did he break his friendly relations with Luther. He quitted Zahna in Dec., 1533, and took over the charge of KÖthen.

The notes of Schlaginhaufen made public by Preger in 1888 are not in his own handwriting. The Munich codex (Clm. 943) used by Preger is rather the copy made by some unknown person about 1551, written with a hasty hand, and (as we were able to convince ourselves by personal inspection) by one, who, in places, could not quite decipher the original (now lost). There are, however, three other versions of Schlaginhaufen’s notes of the utterance under consideration: That of Khummer (mentioned above, vol. i., p. 396), that made in 1550 by George Steinhart, minister in the Chemnitz superintendency, and that of RÖrer, which, thanks to E. Kroker the Leipzig city-librarian, we are now able to give. That of Steinhart is found bound up in a Munich codex entitled “Dicta et facta Lutheri et aliorum.” (Clm. 939, f., 10.) Steinhart evidently made diligent use of the papers left by Schlaginhaufen, Lauterbach and others. Generally speaking, his work is well done. Steinhart’s rendering of the utterance in question agrees word for word with that of Khummer, though they both differ from the Munich copy published by Preger and show it to be lacking in some respects. RÖrer’s text V, in many ways, stands by itself.

Khummer had fled from Austria on account of his Lutheran leanings and gone to Wittenberg, where he matriculated on May 11, 1529. He was then a fellow-student of Lauterbach. He is supposed to have been given by Luther (between 1541 and 1545) charge of the parish of Ortrand, where he still was in 1555 when the Visitors gave a good account of him. His collection, now in the Royal Dresden Library, contains a copy (not all in his own handwriting) made in 1554 from Lauterbach’s Diary (1538), and, further, in the second part, this time all in his own handwriting, copies of many things said by Luther at table. “We shall not be far wrong,” says Seidemann (p. x.), “if we surmise that Khummer obtained his version from Pirna [where Lauterbach had been superintendent since 1539].” Below we give his version as printed in Seidemann (p. 81, n.):

Luther’s words as they were heard by Schlaginhaufen:

Here the identical text of Khummer and Steinhart (I) supplies certain missing parts in text II, and, as it is the more understandable of the two, is more likely to represent the earlier form of Schlaginhaufen’s rendering. Thus in text II, line 1-2, the word “Dei” after “iustitia” is wrongly omitted; so also, the words “Sed cum semel in hac turri speculabar de istis vocabulis,” or others to that effect, are required to introduce the “mox cogitabam” a few lines below. Read alone the “Iustus ex fide,” as in II, is not intelligible. In both I and II there is, on the other hand, an omission, viz. after the words “omni credenti” which III, IV and V seek to supply each in their own way. Here we shall not be far wrong in assuming the omission to have been the fault of the lost original of Schlaginhaufen of which they made use. The fact that No. I here refrains from completing the passage is in itself a testimony to its copyist’s integrity. Again, in the Steinhart-Khummer version, the final allusion in the German words at the end to the “Thorm” (tower) brings us back to the “turris” mentioned earlier. Now, what is noteworthy, is that, at the conclusion of this version which seems the better of the pair, the word “cloaca” is spelt out in full (as it also is below, in RÖrer’s copy).

In II, however, we find only the abbreviation “Cl.” Now, in the MS. followed by the editor of text II, though we find a large number of abbreviations, they are merely the ones in use in those times. “Cl.,” however, is a most singular one, and, were it not explained by other texts, would be very difficult to understand. Why then is it used? It can hardly be merely from the desire to avoid using any word in the least offensive to innocent ears, for, elsewhere, in the same pages (e.g. in Preger’s edition, Nos. 364, 366, 375) the coarsest words are written out in full without the slightest scruple. Hence in this connection the copyist must have had a special reason to avoid spelling out so comparatively harmless a word.

The remaining texts are those of Cordatus, Lauterbach and RÖrer.

Cordatus was assigned too high a place by his modern editor, Wrampelmeyer (1885). He had, indeed, his merits, but, as Preger points out, an inspection of the many items he took from Schlaginhaufen shows him to have been careless and often mistaken. Moreover, he has wantonly altered the order of the utterances instead of retaining Schlaginhaufen’s chronological one. Those utterances which he had not heard himself (such as the one in question) have naturally suffered most at his hands. As for Lauterbach’s so-called “Colloquia” preserved at Gotha (ed. H. E. Bindseil), it also betrays signs of being a revision and rearrangement of matter collected together or heard personally by this most industrious of all the compilers of Luther’s sayings. Whether Lauterbach was actually present on the occasion in question cannot be told, but it seems scarcely likely that he was if we compare his account carefully with that of Schlaginhaufen. On RÖrer’s connection with Schlaginhaufen, see Kroker, “Archiv fÜr Reformationsgesch.,” 7, 1910, p. 56 ff.