Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/90

Rh 7(5 L U T H E K survives, and shows that he corrected and recorrected with great pains. Some passages were altered at least fifteen times. He often felt at a loss for want of technical knowledge, and laid all his friends under contribution. Thus, when in difficulty about the trans lation of Rev. xxi. he wrote to Spalatin to ask for names and descriptions of all the precious stones men tioned. When engaged in the translation of the descrip tions of the slaughter of beasts for sacrifice, he got a butcher to kill some sheep for him, that he might learn what every part of a sheep was called. His aim was to re produce the tone and spirit of the original as far as he possibly could. No fine courtly words, he said to Spalatin ; this book can only be explained in a simple popular style. It must be understood by the mother in the house, by tlie children in the streets, and by the &quot; common man in the market.&quot; The translation of the New Testament was first published on September 21, 1522, and a second edition ap peared in October. By choosing the Franconian dialect in use in the imperial chancery, Luther made himself intelli gible to those whose vernacular dialect was High German or Low German, and his Bible is still the standard of the German tongue, and has preserved unity of language, literature, and thought to the German nation during its political disintegration. The translation of the Old Testament, begun in the same year, was a much more tedious task, and Luther was assisted in it by what Matthesius calls a private Sanhedrim. The friends met once a week, several hours before supper, in the old Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg, which had become Luther s house. Bugeuhagen, Justus Jonas, Melanchthon, Aurogallus, Roser, and several Jewish rabbis made the &quot; Sanhedrim.&quot; Luther thus describes the work : &quot; We are labouring hard to bring out the prophets in the mother- tongue. Ach Gott ! what a great and difficult work it is to make the Hebrew writers speak German ! They resist it so, and are unwilling to give up their Hebrew existence and become like Germans.&quot; At the Wartburg Luther was ill in health and somewhat troubled in mind. He had been ill before he was summoned to Worms, and his long journey in the waggon with its cloth tent, the excitement at Worms, and the solitude at the Wartburg had enfeebled him ; but his literary activity was untiring. He wrote short commentaries on the G8th Psalm and on other portions of Scripture, and a set of homilies intended to guide evangelical preachers, the Kirchen-postille. He also wrote one or two short treatises on worship, on the mass, on confession, and on monkish vows, intended to guide the reformed churches in the rejection of superstitious usages. Up to this time there had been no change in the church ser vices. The true doctrine of the gospel had been preached in Germany, and Romish rites and ceremonies had been exhibited as abuses, but not -a single word or portion of these ceremonies had been changed, and Luther felt that the time had come to bring the preaching and the usages into harmony with each other. In the midst of these labours news came to him that Germany was threatened with a new sale of indulgences. The cardinal archbishop of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg, unable to pay the 26,000 ducats due to Rome for his pallium, had resolved to raise the money by indulgences. Luther wrote a fierce tractate Against the New Idol at Halle. The archbishop getting word of this, sent to Frederick asking him to restrain Luther from attacking a brother-elector, and Frederick wished Luther to desist. He was indignant, but at the request of Melanchthon he agreed to lay the treatise aside until he had written to the archbishop. &quot; Put down the idol within a fortnight, or I shall attack you publicly,&quot; he wrote ; and the archbishop in reply thanked Luther for his Christian brotherly reproof, and promised, &quot; with the h&lp of God, to live henceforth as a pious bishop and Christian prince.&quot; Luther s absence from his congregation, his students, Back and his friends and books at Wittenberg weighed heavily Witte upon him, and he began to hear disquieting rumours. Carlstadt and other friends at Wittenberg were urging on the Reformation at too rapid a rate. Their idea was that everything in worship not expressly enjoined in the Bible should at once be abolished. The churches were to be stripped of crucifixes, images of saints, and the ritual of the mass ; the festivals of the Christian year were to be neglected, the monastic life put down by force ; and some even wished it ordained that all clergymen should be married. To Luther all this seemed dangerous, and sure to provoke a reaction ; the changes insisted upon were to him matters of indifference, which might be left to the individual to do or leave undone as he pleased. Auricular confession, the reception of the Lord s Supper under both forms, pictures in churches, the observance of festivals and fasts, and the monastic life were adiaphora. He wrote earnestly warning his friends against rashness and violence, and he was anxious and distressed. Still he held out patiently till events occurred which called for his presence. Certain men claiming to be prophets, Nicolaus Storch, a weaver, and his disciple Thomas Miinzer, belonging to the village of Zwickau, near the Erzgebirge on the borders of Bohemia, preached wildly a thorough going reformation in the church and the banishment of priests and Bibles. All believers were priests, they said, and all the faithful had the Holy Spirit within them, and did not need any such external rule as Holy Scripture. They were banished from Zwickau, and came to Wittenberg, where Carlstadt joined them. Fired by their preaching, the people tore down the images in the churches and indulged in various kinds of rioting. Luther felt he could remain no longer in hiding. He wrote to the elector telling him that he must quit the Wartburg, and at the same time declaring that he left at his own peril. &quot; You wish to know what to do in the present troublesome circumstances,&quot; he said. &quot;Do nothing. As for myself, let the command of the emperor be executed in town or country. Do not resist if they come to seize and kill me ; only let the doors remain open for the preaching of the word of God.&quot; He was warned that Duke George of Saxony, a violent enemy of the Reformation, was waiting to execute the sentence of the ban. &quot; If things were at Leipsic as they are at Wittenberg,&quot; he said, &quot; I would go there, if it rained Duke Georges for nine days running, and every one of them nine times as fierce as he.&quot; He left the Wartburg, suddenly appearing in Wittenberg on March 3, 1522, and plunged at once into the midst of struggles very different from those which he had hitherto so victoriously overcome. He found things in a worse state than he had feared ; even Melanchthon had been carried away. Luther preached almost daily for eight consecutive days against Carlstadt and the fanatics from Zwickau, and in the end he prevailed and the danger was averted. His theme was that violence does no good to God s word ; there are in religion matters of indifference. &quot; The Word created heaven and earth and all things ; the same Word must also now create, and not we poor sinners. Summa summarum, I will preach it, I will talk of it, I will write about it, but I will not use force or compulsion with any one.&quot; &quot; In this life every one must not do what he has a right to do, but must forego his rights, and consider what is useful to his brother. Do not make a must be out of a may be, as you have now been doing, that you may not have to answer for those whom you have misled by your uncharitable liberty.&quot; Storch and Miinzer, sincere though misguided men, sought an interview with him. They laid