"Luther was not only the greatest, but also the most German man of our history; and
in his character all the virtues and vices of the Germans are united in the grandest manner.
He had also attributes which are rarely found together, and are usually regarded as hostile
contradictions. He was at once a dreamy mystic, and a practical man of action. His thoughts
had not only wings, but also hands; he spoke and he acted. He was not only the tongue,
but also the sword of his age. He was both a cold scholastic stickler for words, and an
inspired, divinely intoxicated prophet. After working his mind weary with his dogmatic
distinctions during the day, he took his flute in the evening, looked up to the stars, and
melted into melody and devotion. The same man who would scold like a fishwoman could
also be as soft as a tender virgin. He was at times wild as the storm which uproots the
oaks, and again as gentle as the zephyr which kisses the violets. He was full of the most
awful fear of God, full of consecration to the Holy Spirit; he would be all absorbed in pure
spirituality, and yet he knew very well the glories of the earth, and appreciated them, and
from his mouth blossomed the famous motto: Who does not love wine, wife, and song,
remains a fool his whole life long."^998 He was a complete man,—I might say, an absolute
man,—in whom spirit and matter are not separated ...."Honor to Luther! Eternal honor to the dear man, to whom we owe the recovery of
our dearest rights, and by whose benefit we live to-day! It becomes us little to complain
about the narrowness of his views. The dwarf who stands on the shoulders of the giant
can indeed see farther than the giant himself, especially if he puts on spectacles; but for
that lofty point of intuition we want the lofty feeling, the giant heart, which we cannot
make our own. It becomes us still less to pass a harsh judgment upon his failings: these
failings have been of more use to us than the virtues of a thousand others. The polish of
Erasmus, the gentleness of Melanchthon, would never have brought us so far as the divine
brutality of Brother Martin. From the imperial Diet, where Luther denied the authority of
the Pope, and openly declared ’that his doctrine must be refuted by the authority of the
Bible, or by the arguments of reason,’ new age has begun in Germany. The chain wherewith
the holy Boniface bound the German church to Rome has been hewn asunder .... Through
Luther we attained the greatest freedom of thought; but this Martin Luther gave us not
only liberty to move, but also the means of moving, for to the spirit he gave also a body.
He created the word for the thought,—he created the German language. He did this by his
translation of the Bible. The Divine author of this book himself chose him his translator,
and gave him the marvellous power to translate from a dead language which was already
buried into another language which did not yet live. How Luther came to the language
into which he translated the Bible I cannot conceive to this day .... This old book is a
perennial fountain for the renewal of the German language."—Zur Geschichte der Religion
und Philosophie in Deutschland, 2nd ed. 1852, in Heine’s Sämmtl. Werke, vol. III. 29
sqq.(^998) This is a mistake; see p. 466 sq.