LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann

even great and talented minds on to these rocks. That he should, as already shown, have welcomed without any sign of scruple the actual destruction of all free will for good must, in part, be explained by his lack of a thorough theological and philosophical training. How different might have been his development, given his mental character, had he, instead of devoting his attention in his unripe years to the teachings of mysticism, steeped himself, for instance, in the “Summa Theologica” of Thomas of Aquin, that brightest and greatest mind of the Middle Ages! After making himself thoroughly at home in such a theology he would then have been qualified to summon to his assistance the better sort of mysticism, in which he would have found much agreeing with his stamp of mind and which would have allowed him to rise to a still higher enjoyment of the true and good. If then he was not content to stop short at Tauler and the “German Theology,” there was the Dominican Henry Suso also at his service, the godly author of writings such as “The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom,” which has been called the “finest fruit of German mysticism” (Denifle). He shows in how inspiring a union pious immersion in God can be combined with theological clearness of thought. Many others who flourished after the time of Suso, in Germany and elsewhere, and who distinguished themselves as practical and at the same time theoretical mystics by the depth of their feeling and their theological culture would have served as his examples. Such were Johann Ruysbroek, of Groenendael near Brussels, Gerard Groot of Deventer, the founder of the Brothers of the Common Life, Henry of Louvain, Ludolf the Carthusian, Gerson of Paris—with his excellent Introduction to Mysticism, on the lines of the so-called Areopagite—Thomas à Kempis, the pious guide, and, among enlightened women, Lidwina of Schiedam in Holland, Catherine of Bologna and Catherine of Genoa. The names mentioned, so far as they belong to the domain of German mysticism, point to a fertile religious and literary field in Luther’s own country, as attractive by profundity of thought and beauty of representation as by depth of feeling and heartiness of expression. It was a cruel misunderstanding—which, however, is now breaking down more and more, even in the case of Protestant writers—to represent the ideas of German mysticism as precursors of Luther’s later doctrine.

This vein of true mysticism remained sealed to Luther. By attempting to create a theology of his own with the fantastic notions which he read into Tauler, he fell into the mistake against which Thomas of Aquin had already sounded a warning note in his “Summa Theologica.” Without a safe guiding star many minds are led astray by the attraction of the extraordinary, by the delusions of an excited fancy or the influence of disordered inclinations, and consider that to be the work of Divine grace which is merely deception, as experience shows.[427]

As an expression of the spiritual turmoil going on in Luther, we may quote a passage from a sermon of January, 1517. Speaking of the gifts of the three kings he says: “the pure and choice myrrh is the abnegation with which we must be ready to return to absolute nothingness, to the state before creation; every longing for God is there relinquished (!), and likewise the desire for things outside of God; one thing only is desired: to be led according to His good pleasure back to the starting-point, i.e. to nothingness. Ah, yes, just as before God called us into existence we were nothing, desired nothing, and existed only in the mind of God, so we must return to that point, to know nothing, to desire nothing, to be nothing. That is a short way, the way of the cross, by which we may most speedily arrive at life.”[428] Whether a sermon was the right place for such, at best purely incomprehensible, an outburst, is doubtful. Luther, the idealist, was then disposed to pay but little attention to such practical considerations. In the eyes of many of his pupils and friends, however, mystical discourses of this sort may have lent him the appearance of a pious, spiritually minded man.

With regard to the “way of the cross” and the “theology of the cross,” which he began to teach as soon as he had lost himself in the maze of mysticism, he explains himself more clearly in the Disputations which he organised at Wittenberg, and which will be dealt with below.[429]

2. Effect of Mysticism on Luther

       Table of Contents

      The study of mysticism was not altogether disadvantageous to Luther, for it proved of use to him in various ways.

      First, as regards his grasp of spiritual subjects and their expression in words, Tauler’s simple and heartfelt manner taught him how to clothe his thoughts in popular and attractive dress. The proof of this is to be found in his writings for the people and in several of his more carefully prepared sermons, particularly in the works and sermons of the first period when the mystical influence was still predominant. Also with regard to the common body of Christian belief, so far as he still held fast to the same, several excellent elements of Catholic mysticism stood him in good stead, notwithstanding his inward alienation. The intimate attachment of the mystics to Christ and their longing expectation of salvation through the Lord alone, sentiments which made an immense impression on his soul, notwithstanding the fact that he understood them in a one-sided and mistaken fashion, probably had their share in preserving in him to the very end his faith in the Divinity of Christ and in the salvation He wrought. They also led him to esteem the whole Bible as the Word of God, and to hold fast to various other mysteries which some of the Reformers opposed, for instance, the mysterious presence of Christ in the Sacrament, even though they did not prevent him from modifying these doctrines according to his whim. While Luther retained many of the views rooted in the faith and sentiment of earlier ages, the Rationalism of Zwingli was much more ready to throw overboard what did not appear to be sanctioned by reason; this came out especially in the controversy on the Lord’s Supper. The reason of this was that Zwingli had been trained in the school of a narrow and critical Humanism; of mysticism in any shape or form he knew nothing at all.

      Among the advantages which Luther derived from mysticism we cannot, however, reckon, as some have done, his later success against the fanatics; this success was not a result of his having overcome their false mysticism by the true one. By that time he had almost completely given up his mysticism, whether true or false. He certainly met the attacks of the fanatics and Anabaptists by appealing to his own mystical experiences, but that was really a mere tactical, though none the less effective, manœuvre on his part, which, with his ready tongue and pen, he was able to put to excellent account. “Who spoke of spirits?” he says; “I also know the spirit and have had experience of the spirit; I am able, yea, am called, to reveal their delusions.” And in the eyes of many he may certainly have been considered, on account of the “mystical” terrors he had suffered, and to which he frequently referred in public, to be specially fitted to unmask the false spiritualism of his opponents. As a matter of fact, his fears and his mysticism had nothing to do with the real discerning of spirits; they never brought him light, but only darkness. The truth is that, at the time of his contest with the fanatics, he had become more sober, had a clear, practical eye for the mischief of the movement, and regarded it as the highest duty of self-preservation to stamp out the flame of revolt against his patrons and his own teaching. We shall see, however, that the fanatics were, in a certain sense, the children of Luther’s own spirit.

      The real good which Luther may have derived from the study of mysticism was far more than counterbalanced by the regrettable results of his notions concerning the “pure myrrh” of passivity, and the desire for nothingness, which at one and the same time involved him in a real labyrinth, and raised his estimation of his own mission to an enormous and dangerous height. He came to fancy himself far superior not only to the Occamists, but to the whole of the secular and regular clergy, the “swarm of religious and priests,” even to all the theologians, and particularly to the Scholastics, those “sow theologians,” who knew nothing of what he was conversant with.

      His mysticism had already paved the way for his later belief with regard to his own Divine call to establish the new teaching; it was supported by his views of God’s guidance of the unconscious soul; what he would formerly have regarded as a mistaken road and due to diabolical inspiration was now labelled