THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION
LUTHERIANISM AND ZWINGLIANISM
(a) In Germany.
Janssen, op. cit. (i., a). Pastor, op. cit. (i. a). Dollinger, /Die Reformation/, 1846-8. Hergenrother-Kirsch, op. cit. (i., b).
Grisar, S.J., /Luther/, 3 Bde, 1911-12 (Eng. Trans. 1913-14).
Denifle-Weiss, O.P., /Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwicklung/, 1906-9. Weiss, /Lutherpsychologie als Schlussel zur Lutherlegende/, 2 auf., 1906. Hausrath, /Luthers Leben/, 2 Bde.
1904. Kostlin-Kawerau, /Martin Luther, Sein Leben und seine schriften/, 1903. Cardauns, /Zur Geschichte der Kirchlichen Unions --und Reformsbestrebungen von 1538-42/, 1910. Laemmer, /Monumenta Vaticana historiam ecclesiasticam saeculi XVI. illustrantia/, 1861. Raynaldus, /Annales Ecclesiastici/, 1735 (tom. xx.-xxi.).
Armstrong, /The Emperor Charles V./, 1902. /Cambridge Modern History/, vol. ii. (The Reformation), 1903. Kidd, /Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation/, 1911. For a fairly complete bibliography on this period of history, cf. Grisar's /Luther/ (Eng. Trans., vol. i., xv.-xxv.; Cambridge Modern History, ii., pp. 728-64; Hergenrother-Kirsch, Bd. iii., pp. 4-8).
The religious revolt that had been foretold by many earnest ecclesiastics began in Germany in 1517. Its leader was Martin Luther, the son of a miner, born at Eisleben in 1483. As a boy he attended school at Eisenach and Magdeburg, supporting himself by singing in the streets until a kind benefactress came to his assistance in the person of Ursula Cotta. His father, having improved his position in the world, determined to send the youth to study law at the University of Erfurt, which was then one of the leading centres of Humanism on the northern side of the Alps. But though Luther was in close touch with some of the principal classical scholars of Germany and was by no means an indifferent classical scholar himself, there is no evidence of his having been influenced largely in his religious views by the Humanist movement. He turned his attention principally to the study of philosophy, and having received his degree in 1505, he began to lecture on the physics and ethics of Aristotle.
Suddenly, to the surprise of his friends, and the no small vexation of his father the young Luther, who had not been particularly remarkable for his religious fervour, abandoned his career at the university and entered the novitiate of the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt (July 1505). The motives which induced him to take this unexpected step are not clear. Some say he was led to do so by the sudden death of a student friend, others that it was in fulfilment of a vow which he had made during a frightful thunderstorm that overtook him on a journey from his father's house to Erfurt, while he himself tells us that he became a monk because he had lost confidence in himself.[1] Of his life as a student very little is known for certain. Probably he was no worse and no better than his companions in a university city, which was described by himself in later life as a "beerhouse" and a "nest of immorality."[2]
The sudden change from the freedom and excitement of the university to the silence and monotony of the cloister had a depressing influence on a man like Luther, who, being of a nervous, highly-strung temperament, was inclined to pass quickly from one extreme to another. He began to be gloomy and scrupulous, and was driven at times almost to despair of his salvation; but Staupitz, the superior of the province, endeavoured to console him by impressing on him the necessity of putting his trust entirely in the merits of Christ. Yet in spite of his scruples Luther's life as a novice was a happy one. He was assiduous in the performance of his duties, attentive to the instruction of his superiors, and especially anxious to acquire a close acquaintance with the Sacred Scriptures, the reading and study of which were strongly recommended to all novices in the Augustinian order at this period.[3]
In 1506 he was allowed to make his vows, and in the following year he was ordained priest. During the celebration of his first Mass he was so overcome by a sense of his own unworthiness to offer up such a pure sacrifice that he would have fled from the altar before beginning the canon had it not been for his assistants, and throughout the ceremony he was troubled lest he should commit a mortal sin by the slightest neglect of the rubrics. At the breakfast that followed, to which Luther's relatives had been invited, father and son met for the first time since Luther entered the monastery. While the young priest waxed eloquent about the happiness of his vocation and about the storm from heaven that helped him to understand himself, his father, who had kept silent throughout the repast, unable to restrain himself any longer interrupted suddenly with the remark that possibly he was deceived, and that what he took to be from God might have been the work of the devil. "I sit here," he continued, "eating and drinking but I would much prefer to be far from this spot." Luther tried to pacify him by reminding him of the godly character of monasticism, but the interruption was never forgotten by Luther himself or by his friends who heard it.