them who studied at Wittenberg. From her he learned the word: "There is nothing dearer in this
world than the love of woman."^117
The hardships of Luther’s youth and the want of refined breeding show their effects in his
writings and actions. They limited his influence among the higher and cultivated classes, but
increased his power over the middle and lower classes. He was a man of the people and for the
people. He was of the earth earthy, but with his bold face lifted to heaven. He was not a polished
diamond, but a rough block cut out from a granite mountain and well fitted for a solid base of a
mighty structure. He laid the foundation, and others finished the upper stories.
§ 19. Luther in the University of Erfurt.
At the age of eighteen, in the year 1501, he entered, as "Martinus Ludher ex Mansfeld," the
University of Erfurt, which had been founded a hundred years before (1392) and was then one of
the best in Germany.^118 By that time his father was able to assist him so that he was free of care
and could acquire a little library.
He studied chiefly scholastic philosophy, namely: logic, rhetoric, physics and metaphysics.
His favorite teacher was Truttvetter, called "Doctor Erfordiensis."^119 The palmy days of scholasticism
which reared those venerable cathedrals of thought in support of the traditional faith of the church
in the thirteenth century, had passed away, and were succeeded by the times of barren disputes
about Realism and Nominalism or the question whether the general ideas (the universalia) had an
objective reality, or a merely nominal, subjective existence in the mind. Nominalism was then the
prevailing system.
On the other hand the humanistic studies were reviving all over Europe and opened a new
avenue of intellectual culture and free thought. The first Greek book in Greek letters (a grammar)
which was published in Germany, appeared in Erfurt. John Crotus Rubeanus (Jäger) who studied
there since 1498 and became rector of the University in 1520 and 1521, was one of the leaders of
humanism and the principal author of the first part of the famous anti-monkish Epistolae obscurorum
virorum (1515); he was at first an intimate friend of Hutten and Luther, and greeted the latter on
his way to Worms (1521) as the man who "first after so many centuries dared to strangle the Roman
license with the sword of the Scripture," but afterward he fell away from the Reformation (1531)
and assailed it bitterly.^120
Luther did not neglect the study of the ancient classics, especially Cicero, Vergil, Plautus,
and Livy.^121 He acquired sufficient mastery of Latin to write it with clearness and vigor, though
(^117) He says in his Table-Talk: "Darumb sagte meine Wirthin zu Eisenach recht, als ich daselbst in die Schule ging:
’Es ist kein lieber Ding auf Erden
Als Frauenlieb’, wem sie mag werden.’ "
See Works, Erl. Frkf. ed. LXI., 212; Jürgens, I., 281 sqq.; Kolde, I., 36; Janssen, II., 67. The relation of Luther to this excellent lady
has been made the subject of a useful religious novel by Mrs. Eliz. Charles, under the title: Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family.
By two of themselves. London and New York (M. W. Dodd), 1864. The diary is fictitious.
(^118) See the description by Jürgens, I., 351 sqq.; and Kampschulte, Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem Verh. z. Humanismus u. Reformation,
Trier, 1358. Two parts. The university was abolished in 1816.
(^119) See Kampschulte, l.c. I., 43 sqq., and G. Plitt, Jodocus Truttvetter, der Lehrer Luthers, 1876.
(^120) Jürgens, I., 449; Kampschulte, De Johanne Croto Rubiano, 1862.
(^121) O. G. Schmidt, Luther’s Bekanntschaft mit den alten Classikern, 1883.