and the book "Of the Soul" (which teaches that the soul dies with the body) ought to be banished,
and the study of the languages, mathematics, history, and especially of the Holy Scriptures, cultivated
instead. "Nothing is more devilishly mischievous," he says, "than an unreformed university." He
would also have the Canon law banished, of which there is "nothing good but the name," and which
is no better than "waste paper."
He does not spare national vices. He justly rebukes the extravagance in dress, the usury,
and especially the intemperance in eating and drinking, for which, he says, "we Germans have an
ill reputation in foreign countries, as our special vice, and which has become so common, and
gained so much the upper hand, that sermons avail nothing." (His frequent protest against the
"Saufteufel" of the Germans, as he calls their love of drink, is still unheeded. In temperance the
Southern nations of Europe are far ahead of those of the North.)
In conclusion, he expresses the expectation that he will be condemned upon earth. "My
greatest care and fear is, lest my cause be not condemned by men; by which I should know for
certain that it does not please God. Therefore let them freely go to work, Pope, bishop, priest, monk,
or doctor: they are the true people to persecute the truth, as they have always done. May God grant
us all a Christian understanding, and especially to the Christian nobility of the German nation true
spiritual courage, to do what is best for our unhappy Church. Amen."
The book was a firebrand thrown into the headquarters of the papal church. It anticipated
a reply to the papal bull, and prepared the public mind for it. It went right to the heart of the Germans,
in their own language wielded with a force as never before, and gave increased weight to the hundred
grievances of long standing against Rome. But it alarmed some of his best friends. They condemned
or regretted his biting severity.^239 Staupitz tried at the eleventh hour to prevent the publication, and
soon afterwards (Aug. 23, 1520) resigned his position as general vicar of the Angustinians, and
retired to Salzburg, feeling himself unequal to the conflict. John Lange called the book a "blast for
assault, atrocious and ferocious." Some feared that it might lead to a religious war. Melanchthon
could not approve the violence, but dared not to check the spirit of the new Elijah. Luther defended
himself by referring to the example of Paul and the prophets: it was necessary to be severe in order
to get a hearing; he felt sure that he was not moved by desire for glory or money or pleasure, and
disclaimed the intention of stirring up sedition and war; he only wished to clear the way for a free
general council; he was perhaps the forerunner of Master Philippus in fighting Ahab and the prophets
of Baal after the example of Elijah (1 Kings 18).^240
NOTES.
The following extracts give a fair idea of Luther’s polemic against the Pope in this remarkable
book: —
"The custom of kissing the Pope’s feet must cease. It is an un-Christian, or rather an
anti-Christian example, that a poor sinful man should suffer his feet to be kissed by one
who is a hundred times better than he. If it is done in honor of his power, why does he not
do it to others in honor of their holiness? Compare them together: Christ and the Pope.
Christ washed his disciples’ feet, and dried them, and the disciples never washed his. The
Pope, pretending to be higher than Christ, inverts this, and considers it a great favor to let(^239) "Omnes ferme [fere] in me damnant mordacitatem," he says in letter to Link, Aug. 19, 1520.
(^240) See his letters to John Lange (Aug. 18, 1520) and to Wenceslaus Link (Aug. 19) in De Wette, I. 477-479.