Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/617

* liTITHER. 549 LUTHEB. the Imperial Government was. On tliis point he held that the Council of Constance (1415) had erred, whereupon Eck refused to debate further with a 'Hussite,' and so they parted. In Luther's published account he struck the kej'note of Protestantism, saying that the true Church is the communion of true believers, real thouj.'li in visible, and that every laj- member who holds tc Holy Scripture is more to be believed than popes and councils who do not hold to it. His doctrines had already spread far and wide. In the year following more than a hundred editions of his books were printed and reprinted. The Leipzig disputation opened all eyes to the gravity of the crisis. At Rome it was" felt that Luther must now be crushed. Luther also saw the hopelessness of his case, and the necessity of an appeal from pope to princes. And so in June, 1520, he published his classic address. To the Christian yobility of the German Nation, in which he outlined his thought of a general reform of national culture and life. In this address Lu- ther declared against the superiority claimed by ecclesiastical over civil government. Alarming rumors came from Rome, where the Papal anathe- ma had been already issued; friends counseled silence. "The die is east." he replied: '"the time' to speak has come;" and forthwith issued a trea- tise on The Babi/lonian C'aptivitti of the Church, published in October. The country was flooded with prints and caricatures on both sides; there was extreme excitement; Luther thought the end of the world drew near. Yet he wrought as close- ly as ever at his ordinary work in the pulpit and in the university, where the number of students had trebled since the publication of his theses. In the same year of stress and strain he published his treatise on The Freedom of a Christian Man. setting forth his view of the social as well as spiritual character of vital religion, and laying "the foundation of a new ethics." The bull delivering Luther to death was pub- lished by Eck at Leipzig, in October, 1520. Luther answered by a deed that fixed the eyes of Europe upon him. On December 10th he uttered his per- sonal defiance by committing the bull to the flames. Into the same fire also were cast a num- ber of Roman law-books, his defiance of tyranny. A week later he jnit forth in legal form his appeal to a general Church council. Luther was fortunate in the friendship of the Elector. Freder- ick the Wise. On the death of the Emperor ilaxi- niilian in 1510, this Prince declined the crown, and procured the election of Charles of Spain (Charles V.) to the Imperial throne. His influ- ence in behalf of temporizing measvires when the Pope demanded sunmiary procedure was seconded by other princes, who had a list of a hundred grievances against Rome. It would be inicpiitous, they said, to condemn Luther unheard. .V hear- ing" before the digjiitaries of the Empire was what Luther most desired. And so. under the Imperial safe-conduct, he appeared at the Diet of Worms in 1521. Surprised at his first hearing by a more peremptory demand for recantation than he had expected, he asked for a day to consider it. The day following, April ISth, he made answer that his writinsrs were of three kinds — such as even his opponents would agree to; such as con- demned the errors of the Church and could not be retracted, except on proof from Holy Scrip- ture that he had erred: some others in which he had attacked certain persons perhaps too vio- lently. Pressed again by the question whether lie would recant, he refused in memorable words: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise; God help me; Amen." Further negotiations the next day failed to move him, and he was permitted to depart. A month later, after the expiration of liLs safe-conduct, the ban of the Empire was pro- nounced against him. His friend the Elector now judiciously inter- vened. Having prearranged with Luther"that he should suffer himself to be kidnapped on the road home, Frederick secreted him in the Wart- burg castle at Eisenach .so effective!}' that for months his friends knew not where he was. Residing here under an assumed name for the rest of the year, he turned his confinement to good account. He began his great translation of the Bible, finishing the New Testament from Erasmus's Greek text in four months. Here also he began his first series of sermons, de- signed for the new preachers of the Gospel as well as for the laity. But his confinement told upon his health, and out of low spirits the spell of the current demonologv' bred visions of demons besetting him. Much more serious trouble came from his dear Wittenberg. Xot content with Luther's opposition to monachism, a celi- bate priesthood, relic-worship, and the mass, such men as Carl.stadt had rushed into an icono- clastic puritanism. Fanati<fal projihets came forward proclaiming that all priests were to be slain, all sinners destroyed, and the saints to assume the Kingdom. A flying visit in secret having failed to check the disorder, Luther re- appeared openly at Wittenberg in Januan' (or, according to some authorities, March), 1522, at his personal risk, as he was legally an out- law, replying to the Elector's dissuasion that God would protect him. Eight days in succession he was in his pulpit ; his voice quelled the popular disorders. He not only resumed his full round of work in church and uiiversit.v, but boldly made a preaching tour through neighboring towns, and at Zwickau, the seat of the prophets, is said tc have had an audience of twenty-five thousand. Meanwhile, with Jlelanchthon's help, he brovight out a revised edition of his Xew Testament, and continued his work on the Old. Another impor- tant work at this time was necessitated by the antagonism to civil authority in which he and his followers had been placed by the Edict of Worms. And so he wrote Of Secular Govern- ment : Hoie Far It Must Be Obri/ed, a statement of the general Protestant doctrine since current While adhering to his cautious policy of slow change in the forms of worship, his introduction of choral hymns was a forward step of far- reaching effect. Luther's hymns, said a Jesuit, slew more souls than all his hooks and sermons. A tiny collection of eight hymns, half of them bv Luther, appeared early in 1524. Twenty others he added that year. His famous lyric. "A mighty fortress in our God," well called the battlc-hviim of the Reformation, appeared in 1527. In 1524 he addressed a letter to the coun- cilors of all cities on the .school system, and en- gaged personally in establishing a school at his native Eisleben. .s in Wiclif's England, so in Germany a social ferment accompanied the religious revolution, and had risen to a pitch beyond his control. The futile and fatal insurrection of the peasants was a grievous blow to Luther as well as to his cause.