Part 12 (1/2)
He took with him also, according to the rules of the Order, a brother of the Order, John Pezensteiner. The Wittenberg magistracy provided carriages and horses.
The way led past Leipzig, through Thuringia from Naumburg to Eisenach, then southward past Berka, Hersfeld, Grunberg, Friedberg, Frankfort, and Oppenheim. The herald rode on before in his coat of arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate friend and foe were alike anxious. Everywhere people collected to catch a glimpse of him.
On April 6 he was very solemnly received at Erfurt. The large majority of the university there were by this time full of enthusiasm for his cause. His friend Crotus, on his return from Italy, had been chosen Rector. The ban of excommunication had not been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water by the students. Justus Jonas was foremost in zeal; and even Erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain him. Lange and others were active in preaching among the people.
Jonas hastened to Weimar to meet Luther on his approach. Forty members of the university, with the Rector at their head, went on horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him at the boundary of the town. Luther had also a small retinue with him. Crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon Luther answered, that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their love. The poet Eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of Latin songs.
The following day, a Sunday, Luther spent at Erfurt. He preached there, in the church of the Augustine convent, a sermon which has been preserved. Beginning with the words, of the Gospel of the day, 'Peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through Christ the Redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the freedom with which Christians may act in faith and love; and of the duty of every man, who possessed this peace of G.o.d, so to order his work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to his neighbour. This he said in protest against the justification by works taught by most preachers, against the system of Papal commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an Aristotle or a Plato. Of his present personal position and the difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach; 'I will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason I am here, and take no money for it.' During the sermon a crash was suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church, the doors of which were blocked with mult.i.tudes eager to hear him.
The crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when Luther exclaimed, 'I know thy wiles, thou Satan,' and quieted the congregation with the a.s.surance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who was carrying on his wicked sport.
Luther also preached in the Augustine convents at Gotha and Eisenach. At Gotha the people thought it significant that after the sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church.
In the inns Luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often took up the lute.
At Eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and had to be bled. From Frankfort he writes to Spalatin, who was then at Worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness unknown to him before.
On the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the Pope and being contrary to the Christian faith. Charles V. by this edict had given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at Luther being summoned to Worms. Many doubted whether Luther, after this condemnation of his cause by the Emperor, would venture to present himself in person at Worms. He himself was alarmed, but travelled on.
Meanwhile at Worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides.
Hutten from the Castle of Ebernburg sent threatening and angry letters to the Papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow might be struck from that quarter. Aleander complained that Sickingen now was king in Germany, since he could command a following whenever and as large as he pleased. But in truth he was in no case ready for an attack at that moment. He still reckoned on being able, with his Church sympathies, to remain the Emperor's friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military command in his service. Some anxious friends of Luther's were afraid that, according to Papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed in the case of a condemned heretic. Spalatin himself sent from Worms a second warning to Luther after he had left Frankfort, intimating that he would suffer the fate of Huss.
Meanwhile Glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very unexpected manner to influence Luther, or at least to prevent him from going to Worms. He went with the imperial chamberlain, Paul von Armsdorf, to Sickingen and Hutten at the Castle of Ebernburg, spoke of Luther as he had formerly done to Bruck, in an unconstrained and friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with Luther in Sickingen's presence. Armsdorf at the same time earnestly dissuaded Hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates, and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist.
Had Luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the Ebernburg, he could not have reached Worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him would have been no longer valid, and the Emperor would have been free to act against him. Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. Martin Butzer, the theologian from Schlettstadt, happened then to be with Sickingen; he had already met Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, had then learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. He was now commissioned to convey this invitation to him at Oppenheim, which lay on Luther's road.
But Luther continued on his way. He told Butzer that Glapio would be able to speak with him at Worms. To Spalatin he replied, though Huss were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to Worms, though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the roofs of the houses.
On April 16, at ten o'clock in the morning, Luther entered Worms. He sat in an open carriage with his three companions from Wittenberg, clothed in his monk's habit. He was accompanied by a large number of men on horseback, some of whom, like Jonas, had joined him earlier in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the Elector's court, had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The imperial herald rode on before. The watchman blew a horn from the tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate.
Thousands streamed hither to see Luther. The gentlemen of the court escorted him into the house of the Knights of St. John, where he lodged with two counsellors of the Elector. As he stepped from his carriage he said, 'G.o.d will be with me.' Aleander, writing to Rome, said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon.
Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.
On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the Diet, which was a.s.sembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of the Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the crowds a.s.sembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way into the hall where the Diet was a.s.sembled, tradition tells us how the famous warrior, George von Frundsberg, clapped him on the shoulder, and said: 'My poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way to make such a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause, then forward in the name of G.o.d, and be of good courage--G.o.d will not forsake thee.' The Elector had given Luther as his advocate the lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.-LUTHER. (From an engraving by Cranach, in 1521.)]
When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the Diet, Eck, [Footnote: This Eck must not be confused with the other John Eck, the theologian.] the official of the Archbishop of Treves, put to him simply, in the name of the Emperor, two questions, whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their contents or persist in them. Schurf here exclaimed, 'Let the t.i.tles of the books be named.' Eck then read them out. Among them there were some merely edifying writings, such as 'A Commentary on the Lord's Prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint.
Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first sight of the august a.s.sembly made him nervous. He answered in a low voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all things, the Word of G.o.d and the salvation of souls, he must beware of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further time for consideration.
After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to reply that he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next day.
So Luther had again, on April 18, a Thursday, to appear before the Diet. Again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. He stood there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully with the amba.s.sador of the Diet, Peutinger, his patron at Augsburg.
After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of the members of the Diet: 'Wilt thou defend _all_ the books acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' Luther now answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. He divided his works into three cla.s.ses. In some of them he had set forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe.
Those he could on no account retract. In others he had attacked corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy, which no one could deny had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of Christians, and had tyrannically devoured the property of the German nation; if he were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for wickedness and tyranny. In the third cla.s.s of his books he had written against individuals, who endeavoured to s.h.i.+eld that tyranny, and to subvert G.o.dly doctrine. Against these he freely confessed that he had been more violent than was befitting. Yet even these writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a hand to tyranny and G.o.dlessness. But in defence of his books he could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?' If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, and he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the Papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and Empire, lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the Divine Word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the n.o.ble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he could not neglect to discharge it.
Luther, like Eck, spoke in Latin, and then, by desire, repeated his speech with equal firmness in German. Schurf, who was standing by his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how Martin had made this answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to Heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.'