Chapter Two—
First Impressions in the Strasbourg Press
In October 1520, the successors to the Schürer printing house in Strasbourg issued a collection of Luther's works in German.[1] Among the sermons and treatises by Luther there was a short pamphlet with the long title, Defense and Christian Reply of an Honorable Lover of Divine Truth [and] the Holy Scripture To Several Alleged Contradictions, With an Indication Why Doctor Martin Luther's Teaching Should Not Be Rejected as Unchristian But Rather Accepted as Christian . Its author, an unidentified layman, explained that since he had been criticized for his support of Luther and accused of being a disciple of Luther, he wished to explain why he regarded Luther's teachings as in no way improper, and in fact counted Luther among those for whom Christendom in general and the holy Roman church in particular should properly rejoice as "a special, consoling, well-grounded advocate of the holy faith and propagator of holy, evangelical, Christian teaching."[2] This treatise gives us one of the earliest readings we have of the impression Luther was making in the earliest years of the Reformation movement, the topic of this chapter.[3]
When we moderns turn to Luther's early publications, we read them with a perspective that Luther's contemporaries lacked: we know what happened subsequently and are able, therefore, to distinguish the "revolutionary" from the "traditional." Because we are attracted to the drama of Luther's appearance before Cajetan in Augsburg in 1518, when he refused to submit to the pope's representative, and to his fateful debate with Johann Eck at Leipzig in 1519, when he announced that not only the papacy but councils themselves had erred in matters
of doctrine, we tend to read Luther's publications and construct our history of the early Reformation in terms of opposition and division. The coming schism from Rome and the clash of irreconcilable theologies we see adumbrated if not clearly exemplified in these meetings, and this knowledge colors our understanding. We are accordingly inclined to single out the published works that most clearly illustrate and embody this parting of the ways, and we tend to read and evaluate these early works in light of the subsequent history of what we now call the Reformation.
But contemporaries had to understand each event, each publication that came to them, without the benefit of foresight. They placed these events and publications into the world as they understood it at the time they encountered them. They had no way of knowing that their world was shortly to undergo so wrenching a shift that in just a few years their view of religion and its institutions would be radically changed. So changed, in fact, that many would be repulsed by the very attitudes and assumptions that they once took for granted. To recapture that "naïve" reading of Luther's earliest publications, we must bracket away our knowledge of what comes after, and focus our attention on the "first impressions" conveyed by Luther's earliest popular publications.
We shall begin with those publications that appeared in Strasbourg before August 1520, when a new chapter in the history of Luther's publications began. On 26 July 1520 Luther's On the Papacy at Rome, Against the Highly Famous Romanist in Leipzig left the printing press in Wittenberg. A month later, shortly after 18 August 1520, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation also left the Wittenberg presses.[4] In these two vernacular treatises Luther announced to the world his rejection of the papacy. Both treatises were subsequently reprinted in Strasbourg and elicited passionate rebuttals by the Franciscan friar and author Thomas Murner. For the first time the magnitude of the disagreement between Luther and Rome became widely apparent, thanks to the printing press. The vernacular polemical battle was engaged, and we shall examine this stage of the conflict in the next chapter. From this point forward, Luther was more than a reformer of piety; he was a rebel. This change profoundly influenced how laity subsequently read and understood his works. But by examining in this chapter the works available up to this watershed, we limit ourselves to the works that likely formed the first impression that interested readers had of Luther and his message.
An Overview of the Publications Themselves
Before the flood of polemics and controversial works appeared in the Strasbourg press in late 1520, Strasbourg readers would have found almost exclusively pastoral and devotional works by Luther available from the local press.[5] In 1519 one sermon on marriage appeared. Two other sermons, one on Christ's passion, perhaps in two editions, and the other on prayer and processions in Holy Week, appeared either in late 1519 or 1520.[6] In the same year there appeared an edition of Luther's The Seven Penitential Psalms, originally published in Wittenberg in 1517, and the German Theology , a devotional treatise for which Luther had supplied a preface. Only one work, his Explanation of Several Articles Attributed to Him by His Opponents ,[7] dealt in any detail with the controversy in which Luther was entangled, and that in a very restrained fashion.
In 1520 there appeared eleven sermons (or nine, if two are dated to 1519)[8] and one sermon collection that included a few other treatises, some with mild polemical content.[9] This collection, first published in Basel in May 1520 and reprinted in Strasbourg in October 1520, duplicated several of the sermons that were also published individually.[10] There also appeared four devotional treatises (and perhaps several that I have classified under polemics could equally count as devotional treatises): another edition of the German Theology , two different treatises on confession, and a brief exposition of the Lord's Prayer.[11] Finally there were between nine and twelve treatises dealing with the controversy between Luther and the old faith,[12] some of which could also be classified as devotional works with mild polemical content (for example, On the Freedom of a Christian , which appeared in one or two editions,[13] and Doctor Martin Luther's Appeal or Petition to a Free Christian Council ,[14] which appeared in two editions). On the Papacy at Rome, Against the Highly Famous Romanist in Leipzig appeared after 26 June 1520.[15]To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation appeared after 18 August 1520 in two to four editions.[16]On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church appeared in two or three editions, sometime after 6 October 1520.[17] Only one of these polemics, Doctor Martin Luther's Answer to the Notice Issued Under the Seal of the Official at Stolpen ,[18] may have appeared before mid-year.[19] The rest appeared well after mid-year (since the terminus a quo given is the original publication date in Wittenberg), and five or six in the last quarter of the year. So the
vernacular writings published in the Strasbourg press through the first half of 1520 were overwhelmingly devotional and pastoral. This alone is likely to have profoundly shaped Strasbourgeois's first impression of Martin Luther and his ideas.
To whom were these treatises addressed? Clearly, the laity. What was their message? That one should humbly rely on God's promise of forgiveness rather than on one's own allegedly meritorious works. Why may this message have appealed to its lay readers and hearers? Because the message explicitly dignified the spiritual status of the laity at the expense of clerical claims and prerogatives.
The Treatises Addressed Lay Concerns
Even a simple consideration of these vernacular treatises' topics indicates clearly that they were addressed to the laity.[20] There were sermons on each of the sacraments of most concern to the laity—baptism, marriage, the Eucharist, confession, and extreme unction. One treatise instructed the laity on how to pray the Lord's Prayer and another on how properly to confess. A lay ethical concern, usury, was addressed, and lay activities such as processions and brotherhoods were examined from Luther's new religous perspective. Even the more general treatises—one on the seven penitential psalms, two printings of the German Theology , and the two mild polemics—dealt, as we shall see, with lay concerns regarding sacramental and popular piety.[21]
The tone of these pastoral works also indicated that their intended audience was the laity. In these writings Luther was, for the most part, not arguing with or even addressing other theologians. He was laying out his understanding of Christianity for his readers rather than defending it from attack by critics. He explained technical issues in simple terms, undergirded with citations of Scripture, and without benefit of the learned distinctions that graced scholastic sermons and treatises of his age. He largely avoided the vocabulary of theological scholarship or, in the few cases where the technical distinction was important, he patiently defined the term for the laity's benefit. He was, in such cases, "popularizing" the scholastic understanding of various issues as a basis, then, for criticism or outright rejection. Throughout, his writings conveyed a tone of moral earnestness.
Before proceeding to the message of these pamphlets, I should say a few words to possible skeptics. These considerations of topic and tone
indicate the audience Luther intended to reach, but in no way guarantee in themselves that he was successful in reaching and engaging laity. Many of the purchasers of these pamphlets were no doubt clergy, some of whom, to be sure, we know by their own testamony turned around and shared the message with their lay parishioners.[22] But the number of printings and reprintings, not only in Strasbourg but elsewhere, indicates that laity as well as clergy had to be buying these works. Since Luther's popularity as an author continued to grow for several years beyond this initial period, the natural inference is that readers were at the very least intrigued by what they read. The subsequent Reformation movements in Strasbourg and other cities, involving as they did at least in the initial years significant numbers of burghers outside the narrow ruling circle, suggest that some of this lay readership was more than just intrigued; they were convinced to act on the messages conveyed by these early works. As we shall see in chapter 4, the lay (and clerical) readership did not necessarily appropriate Luther's message exactly as he intended, but they were engaged by his message and in many cases galvanized into taking action on their understanding of its import.
The Central Theological Message of the Treatises
Two interconnected themes run through most of the early works published in Strasbourg: first, that we must acknowledge our own sinfulness and surrender all reliance on our own works, and, second, that we should trust God and God's promise in Christ as our only source of salvation. A few examples, taken from Luther's earliest Strasbourg treatises, should illustrate this well-known theme. Luther's exposition of the seven penitential psalms, which appeared in Strasbourg in 1519, returned repeatedly to our own sinfulness and wretchedness and our total dependence on God for help, strength, and salvation. Punishment came from God to remind us of our true nature, to make us rightly humble, and to prepare us for God's gracious gift of unmerited forgiveness. A good life, Luther explained, consisted not in outward works and appearance but in a sighing and troubled spirit.[23] Yet while his stress on wretchedness, humility, sinfulness, and submission to deserved punishment understandably dominated this work on penitential psalms, Luther still brought in his second theme, as can be seen in a striking commentary on the seventh penitential psalm.
Not in my righteousness for that is sin and unrighteousness. As he says. Graciously make me true and righteous for I see some who wish to be true and righteous through their own truth and righteousness. Protect me from that! They wish to be something when they in fact are nothing, empty, liars, fools, sinners. It should be noticed here that the little word "your truth" and "your righteousness" does not refer to that by which God is true and righteous, as many think, but refers to the grace by which God makes us true and righteous through Christ, as the Apostle Paul, Romans 1 and 2 and 3, calls the righteousness of God and the truth of God, which is given to us through faith in Christ. In addition, God's truth refers not only to the word but more to the work and fulfillment of his word, which is due to this same grace and mercy. And just as a token or a painted gulden is not a true gulden but only represents one, and is indeed an empty thing and a deception if it is given or considered to be a true gulden. But a proper gulden is the truth and without deception. In such fashion all haughty and holy lives and works and righteousness is in relation to the righteousness and work of the grace of God a mere appearance and a deadly, harmful falseness if they are considered true goods where there is no truth. Rather it is God's [truth] which gives the true, substantial righteousness which is the faith of Christ. For this reason the little word "truth" may also be translated from Hebrew in fide tue , that is, in your faith.[24]
To a modern ear sensitive to Luther's 1545 autobiographical account of his breakthrough to a new understanding of God's righteousness, this is a paragraph pregnant with significance, closely paralleling his later description of his Reformation discovery.
In his sermon on prayer and procession during Holy Week, Luther stressed from the outset that one had to trust in God's promise. For a prayer to be truly good and heard, one had to have a promise from God. "From this it follows," Luther advised his readers, "that no one obtains something on account of the worthiness of his or her prayer but only on account of the depths of divine goodness which anticipates all requests and desires through His gracious promise."[25] It was crucial not to doubt God's promise.[26] Above all our prayer to God should not rely on any sense of our worthiness. In fact it was our own sense of unworthiness that, paradoxically, made us worthy to be heard "because we believe that we are unworthy and we confidently venture everything on God's trustworthiness."[27] In his sermon on contemplating Christ's passion, Luther located the promise in baptismal faith. Faith, Luther explained, firmly believed that baptism had established a covenant between us and God. For our part in the covenant, we had to fight against sin. For God's part, God had promised to be merciful to us and not count our sins against us.[28] In his treatise on How One
Should Confess , published in Strasbourg in 1520, Luther began with the advice that a Christian should ground his confession "on the greatest and fullest trust in the most merciful promise and pledge of God and should firmly believe that almighty God will mercifully forgive him his sins."[29] These examples could be multiplied many times over.
The Appeal of the Message: The Dignifying of the Spiritual Status of the Laity
What was it about these treatises that may have appealed to their lay readers and hearers? To this question I must side with the historian Steven Ozment in his argument with Bernd Moeller. There was very little in these treatises that, at least on the face of it, would naturally resonate with late medieval communal ideas in the manner Moeller proposes.[30] On the other hand, there was a great deal that, if put into effect, would "liberate" lay people from a clerical form of piety, as Ozment has argued. Or to put it another way, the major themes of humility and promise provided an explicit rationale for dignifying the spiritual status of the laity at the expense of clerical privilege and authority.[31] Luther repeatedly drew these consequences for his readers and listeners.
Luther particularly stressed the value of ordinary lay activities over clerically prescribed "good works." For example, in his 1519 sermon on marriage Luther insisted that married people could do no better work either for themselves or for Christendom than raise their children well. "There is nothing in pilgrimages to Rome, to Jerusalem, or to Saint James [Compostella], nothing in building churches, endowing masses, or whatever works might be named compared to this one work, [namely] that those who are married bring up their children [well]. That is their straightest road to heaven. Indeed, heaven could not be nearer or better achieved than with this work."[32] This was, moreover, the laity's proper and appointed work. In another early sermon, on meditating on Christ's passion, Luther continued this practice of unfavorably contrasting clerically sponsored works with what he saw as true piety. A person who rightly contemplated Christ's sufferings for a day, an hour, or even a quarter hour did better than to fast a year, pray a psalm daily, or even hear a hundred masses.[33]
Luther also insisted on the essential spiritual equality of laity and clergy. For example, in his sermon on baptism he denied that the vows
of chastity, of the priesthood, or of the clergy were more significant or higher than baptism. "For in baptism we all vow the same thing: to slay sin and to become holy through the work and grace of God, to whom we give and sacrifice ourselves, as clay to the potter, and in this no one is better than another. But to live according to this baptism, so that sin can be slain, there can be no one way or estate. . . . Thus it is true that there is no higher, better, or greater vow than the vow of baptism."[34]
Luther also undercut the sacramental authority exercised by the priesthood. Consider, for example, Luther's sermon on the sacrament of penance.[35] In this treatise he contrasted the forgiveness of punishment and the forgiveness of guilt. The former, under the control of the church and addressed in part by indulgences, was relatively insignificant in comparison to the latter, which was solely God's gift and reconciled the human with God.[36] To those who thought they might obtain forgiveness of guilt and the quieting of their hearts through indulgences and pilgrimages, Luther wrote,
All that is for nought and an error. It makes things much worse because God must himself forgive sin and give the heart peace. Some trouble themselves with many good works, even too much fasting and drudgery, so that some have thereby broken their bodies and ruined their minds, believing that by virtue of their works they could do away with their sins and quiet their hearts.
But both approaches—those who sought indulgences and went on pilgrimages and those who disciplined their bodies with fasting and labor—made the mistake of wanting to do good works before their sins were forgiven, while in fact the contrary was necessary, that "sins must be forgiven before good works can occur."[37] The efficacy of the sacrament depended not on the sacrament itself or any human office or authority but on faith in the promise of God.[38] On this basis Luther concluded that the forgiveness of guilt depended on no human office or earthly power, not even the office and power of pope, bishop, or priest, but solely on the word of Christ and one's own faith in that word.
For he [Christ] did not want our comfort, our salvation, [or] our trust to be based on a human word or deed but rather solely on himself and his word and deed. The priest, bishop, [and] pope are only servants who hold out to your Christ's word on which you should rely with a solid faith as if on a solid rock. In such fashion the word will sustain you and your sins will thereby necessarily be forgiven. For this reason, too, the word is not to be
honored on account of the priest, bishop, [or] pope but rather the priest, bishop, [or] pope [is to be honored] on account of the word, as those who bring you the word and tidings of your God that you are freed from sins.[39]
Luther argued further that in the sacrament of penance and the forgiveness of guilt, a pope or bishop did no more than the lowliest priest, and that when there was no priest, an individual Christian, even a woman or child, could do as much.[40] Luther qualified his pronouncement with the advice that his readers should not despise the established spiritual orders. Nevertheless, the overall thrust of his argument could not but have had the effect of undercutting clerical authority exercised in the sacrament. Subsequent comments reinforced this impression.[41] That priests reserved absolution for some sins did not make the clerical sacrament any greater or better.[42] The keys were not a power but a service.[43] A priest had sufficient grounds for granting absolution when he saw that the penitent desired it. The priest needed to know no more than that. "I say this," Luther explained,
so that people love and cherish the most gracious virtue of the keys and not despise [them] on account of misuses by those who with banning, threatening, and harassing do little more than make a virtual tyranny out of such a lovely and comforting authority, as if Christ had established the keys only for their wishes and lordship [and] had no idea of how one should use them.[44]
Luther explicitly questioned the need for the priest to inquire into the extent of the penitent's contrition,[45] insisted that because there was no dependable rule for distinguishing between venial and mortal sins, penitents should not attempt to confess all sins but only clearly mortal sins that were oppressing the penitent's conscience at the time,[46] and that the best satisfaction was not assigned prayers but simply to sin no more.[47] Both the treatise and the sermon obviously simplified confession for the laity and undercut some of the conventional claims of the priesthood regarding their own authority exercised in the sacrament of penance. His treatise How One Should Confess made similar points.[48]
The sermon on the ban also undercut many clerical claims and thereby elevated the status and power of the laity over their own spiritual destiny.[49] Luther distinguished between inward, spiritual fellowship on the one hand and external communion on the other. No human being, not even a bishop or pope, could give or take away spiritual fellowship. Rather, God through the Holy Spirit poured this spiritual fellowship into the heart of the human being who believed in
the Sacrament.[50] Bishops and popes could, however, cut one off from participation in what Luther termed the "external, bodily, and visible fellowship" of participation in the Sacrament.[51]
For lay people, however, the crucial significance of this distinction rested in Luther's assertion that one could be under the ban and still belong to the spiritual fellowship or communion, and vice versa. In an age when lay people often found themselves under the ban for debt or other reasons that struck them as irrelevant to Christian faith, this assertion was undoubtedly consoling. "It may often happen," Luther remarked,
that a banned individual will be deprived of the holy Sacrament and also of burial [in consecrated ground], and yet still be inwardly certain and holy in the fellowship of Christ and all the saints, as the Sacrament indicates. On the other hand, there are many who freely enjoy the Sacrament without external ban and yet inwardly are completely estranged and banned from the fellowship of Christ even though they might be buried with gold clothes under the high altar with all show, bells, and singing.[52]
At some length through the rest of the treatise, and with occasional heat, Luther criticized clergy who misused the ban.[53]
Several other treatises of a largely devotional or moral character also dealt, at least in passing, with a few issues of clerical authority. Luther's "Sermon on the Sacrament of the Body of Christ," for example, advocated that a general council should mandate that all Christians receive both the bread and the wine in the Sacrament as the priests currently did.[54] In his morally earnest small sermon on usury, Luther attacked the clerical use of "Zinskauf ," a form of purchase of an annuity, "in the service of God." "To serve God," Luther explained with some evident exasperation, "means to keep his commands and not steal, take, charge interest, and the like, but rather to live and lend to the needy. Would you tear down such true service of God in order that you might build churches, endow altars, and have [masses] read and sung, none of which God has commanded you [to do]?"[55]
In sum, these early Strasbourg treatises urged readers to rely neither on their own efforts nor on the mediating power of clerics or clerically sponsored works but to trust solely in God and God's promise. They questioned clerical claims to jurisdiction and to power, and specifically to mediation between the laity and God. The clergy were to preach the word of God, and only to that extent could they be considered intermediaries. The overarching message in these writings was that the religious destiny of lay Christians was in God's hands rather than their
own. It certainly was not in clerical hands. The laity were freed from the standards of clerical piety, freed from such a thoroughgoing reliance on clerical mediation in their relations with God, freed, above all, from concern about their own worthiness and spiritual efforts.
The Question of Reception
This was what was presented and why it might have appealed to the laity (and sympathetic clergy). Was it, however, the message received? One measure of reception is the degree to which this message was picked up and repeated by other publicists. Unfortunately in this regard, it is difficult to measure the influence of these early treatises apart from the effect of the great vernacular polemics of late 1520 since most of the few treatises published in Strasbourg in 1520 or early 1521 that either characterized Luther or his teachings came after, and even in response to, the great polemics of the last quarter of the year. Still, a brief survey is not out of place.
Ulrich von Hutten published a number of treatises in Strasbourg in the early years of the Reformation.[56] Three of them appeared in late 1520.[57] In these three treatises, Hutten ferociously attacked the Roman papacy, the clergy, and various abuses within the church, and in two of the three Hutten made brief mention of Luther. In the Complaint and Warning Against the Excessive Unchristian Power of the Pope at Rome and the Unspiritual Clergy , Hutten mentioned Luther only once explicitly, in a marginal note that likened the treatment afforded both himself and Luther with that meted out to Jan Hus.[58] The treatise itself was an anticlerical, antipapal poem or song that accused clergy of everything from gluttony to sexual misconduct, attacked ecclesiastical practices such as indulgences and dispensations, and advocated a nationalistic attack on the papacy. In his short treatise Indication of How the Roman Bishop or Pope Has Acted Against the German Emperor , Hutten excerpted various accounts of papal betrayal of the German emperor and warned the emperor to take heed of how his predecessors had been treated and not to expect any better from the current pope. Luther was mentioned only once, on the last page, when Hutten claimed that his and Luther's writings had to be acknowledged to benefit and honor the emperor and the whole German nation.[59]
As these brief summaries indicate, Hutten's writings do not help us much with understanding how Luther's writings may have been
understood by his Strasbourg readers. At the very least, we can reasonably infer that Hutten himself understood Luther to be an ally in his fight against Rome and against clerical abuses. But since Luther was mentioned only twice in these treatises, once in a marginal note in Complaint and Warning and again in the concluding remarks of Indication , it is difficult to demonstrate that other readers would have made the same identification
On the other end of the spectrum from Hutten, the Franciscan and satirist Thomas Murner of Strasbourg published five polemical works against Luther in the waning months of 1520 and early 1521.[60] But since all of these treatises by Murner responded to polemical works published by Luther after midyear, they cannot really be used to determine how Luther may have been understood in Strasbourg through mid-1520. Still, it is worth mentioning that Murner did single out for extensive criticism many of the reforms that we have characterized as dignifying the spiritual status of the laity at the expense of the clergy.[61] I shall have considerably more to say about Murner in the next chapter.
Slightly more useful for our purposes is Laux Gemigger's To the Praise of Luther and to the Honor of All Christendom .[62] Published in two editions towards the end of 1520 or early in 1521,[63] this verse treatise praised Luther as "a light of Christendom" chosen by God "to tell us your divine word." Unfortunately for our purposes, it was never very specific about what Luther had accomplished except to speak the "divine truth,"[64] reveal the papal and clerical rascality, teach "good morals," and question indulgences.[65] At one point, however, Gemigger suggested that Luther had taught "Christ's teaching," namely, "how we have turned from good to evil," and had laid out the "teaching of the evangelists . . . without additions." Luther had also explained "God's word and increased faith in Christ." Luther had driven out the "evil spirit" (the origin of vices, which taught human laws rather than God's Word), established different clerical "sects," and attributed unwarranted power to indulgences in order to deceive people out of their money. "For this reason Luther was sent by God to teach us God's word and good morals and to drive out the Antichrist here on earth, also to see to it that God's word not be fully spoiled and that the Roman tyranny be recognized, that they should have no kingdom here on earth.[66]
Readers might have inferred from Gemigger's attacks that Luther had also criticized noble families for making monks and nuns of their
children and had raised questions about the accumulation of property in noble hands through this action,[67] had attacked the ban, and had challenged clerical greed. "It is the penny's shine," Gemigger explained at one point, "that accounts for the treatment of the pious Luther, who is unjustly and improperly treated because he reveals to us the Roman rascality as well as their great heresy."[68] They even sought Luther's life. "He who now dares to tell the truth must turn himself over to death," Gemigger claimed, explaining, "If speaking kindly makes good friends, then saying the truth makes great enemies. It is because Luther has proclaimed to us the divine truth that people are so hostile towards him."[69] On several occasions Gemigger labeled the papacy the Antichrist and suggested that the clergy needed to be reformed with "cold steel."[70] Gemigger also identified Hutten and Sickingen as supporters both of Luther and of the truth.[71]
The strongest evidence in the early Strasbourg press that at least one lay person received Luther's message much as I have summarized it comes from an anonymous work by the Nuremberg city secretary, Lazarus Spengler.[72] He was the anonymous author of Why Dr. Martin Luther's Teaching Should Not Be Rejected As Unchristian But Rather Be Regarded As Christian , with which this chapter began. First published in late 1519 in Augsburg,[73] this defense was reprinted in Strasbourg in October, 1520, in a collection of Luther's works in German.[74] In the work Spengler enumerated six basic reasons for this conclusion that Luther was "a special, consoling, well-grounded advocate of the holy faith and propagator of holy, evangelical, Christian teaching."[75]
First, Luther's teaching and sermons were Christian and wholesome as well as consistent with Christian order and reason because they were based on the Holy Gospel, the prophets, and St. Paul.[76] Second, Spengler would let each reasonable, pious person determine whether Luther's teaching was consistent with Christian order and reason. For himself, Spengler remarked, "No teaching or preaching has seemed more straightforwardly reasonable, and I also cannot conceive of anything that would more closely match my understanding of Christian order as Luther's and his followers' teaching and instruction."[77] Spengler claimed not to be alone in this opinion. "Up to this point," he remarked, "I have also often heard from many excellent highly learned people of the spiritual and worldly estates that they were thankful to God that they lived to see the day when they could hear Doctor Luther and his teaching."[78] Third, Luther's doctrine, teaching, and instruction
promoted Christ and salvation rather than Luther's own advantage. The indulgence preachers did just the opposite.[79] Fourth, any reasonable and truthful person who had heard Luther or his followers had to acknowledge that his troubled conscience had been relieved of many scruples and doubtful errors.[80] Fifth, since Luther was a monk, preacher, and doctor and required by his office not to keep silent about Christian teachings but rather to venture even his life on their advocacy, it was proper, appropriate, and necessary for Luther to speak out against indulgences and other errors and scandals of Christendom once he became aware of them.[81] Sixth, and finally, Luther had to the best of his ability and in accordance with his conscience, based his teaching on the gospel set forth in Holy Scripture. He was willing, however, to be better instructed by German or French universities on the basis of the truth, or by papal judgment, or by the church.[82]
It is under points two and four that Spengler asked a number of rhetorical questions that should be of interest to us. Under point two he asked with some heat whether it was not the case that "fairy tale preachers" had disquieted the consciences of "many simply unlearned people," directing them "to rely more on their works than on the grace and love of God." Hadn't these preachers urged people to rely more on external ceremonies such as rosaries, the praying of psalms, pilgrimages, fasting, the lighting of candles, reliance on holy water, and other external works than on faith, more on law than on grace, more on the flesh than on the spirit? "Hadn't these same teachers," Spengler asked, "caused us countless scruples in our hearts simply with the wide-ranging, clumsy institution of confession?"[83]
This led into a sharp criticism of indulgences. Hadn't these teachers, Spengler asked, elevated the indulgence and its utility above grace and the treasure of faith and the blood of Christ? Hadn't they turned indulgences and all the sacraments into a business? In addition, Spengler was ashamed to report, these teachers had sold for money souls in heaven and misled "poor ignorant people" into believing unquestionably that, thanks to the sole power of indulgences, they were freed from their sins and thereby delivered unto salvation.[84]
Hadn't these same preachers put forward so many ecclesiastical laws that they had thereby completely tossed out the commands of Christ? Spengler continued with his rhetorical questions. Wasn't a person who ate meat on Friday considered more reprehensible than an adulterer or blasphemer of God? Spengler added to this indictment the misuse of the ecclesiastical ban.[85] "In my opinion," he concluded,
"Luther has cleaned up these scruples and errors by means of well-grounded Christian references to holy divine scripture so that every reasonable person can easily understand. For this reason, we should more properly commend, thank, and praise him for [what he has done] than to denounce him as a heretic and enemy of the church. And yet except for some shadow boxing nothing solid, based in Holy Scripture, has been offered against [Luther's arguments]." But Luther's opponents tried to use force rather than reasoned arguments to combat him.[86]
Under point four Spengler asked whether "our preachers" had not sought to ensnare consciences by multiplying sins and by offering a false reassurance through indulgences. "In this manner the human being is made more anxious than comforted, more led into doubt than refreshed, more led into excessive fear than into love and trust of God, despite the fact that according to the holy gospel the yoke and way to salvation is completely sweet and wholesome and is to be achieved more through an orderly well-founded trust in God than in these deceptive sermons."[87]
This treatise presented Luther as an opponent of those who advocated external works over an inward trust and reliance on God's grace revealed in Christ. Luther came off, above all, as a critic of indulgences. His criticism was based, Spengler claimed, solely on Scripture. Luther's concern was to reassure consciences troubled by those who advocated external works, a burdensome form of confession, and indulgences for both the living and dead. Luther's opponents responded to Luther with force, Spengler claimed, rather than with reasoned arguments grounded in Scripture.
Conclusion
In this age when the hermeneutics of suspicion are almost axiomatic, it may seem hopelessly naive to argue that it was the correspondence between the content of Luther's message and the concerns and interests of laity that best accounts for its appeal. I am persuaded of this, however, by several straightforward considerations. First, as we saw in the last chapter, the publication statistics for Luther's works show large and geographically widespread demand for these early works, and especially for those works that were more pastoral than polemical in nature.[88] Second, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, the issues advocated or attacked in these publications are just those issues Oz-
ment has identified, especially the issue of Christian freedom and the spiritual dignity of lay status. The works by Hutten, Gemigger, Murner, and Spengler illustrate this reception at a very early period in the reform movement. Third, and perhaps most to the point, if one assumes that behavior is a good indirect measure of which ideas people found appealing, then one needs to look at what really changed in the sixteenth century. When life before and after the initial decades of the Reformation is compared, what actually changed corresponded closely (although not, of course, exactly) to those changes that Luther and other reformers had advocated on the basis of their new, learned understanding of Christian theology.[89]
We need to be much more careful than we have in the past to determine what actually was read, how many people read or heard it read, the message contained in these treatises, and—often not the same thing—the message that different readers actually appropriated from their reading or listening. It is perhaps the fourth point—the message actually acquired by different readers or listeners—that is the most important. For the early period of the Reformation movement the evidence for these first impressions is slight. The remarks by other early Strasbourg publicists, although each complicated by a publication after mid-1520, suggest that Luther's message of reliance on God's promise rather than human effort, a reliance that dignified the spiritual status of the laity often at the expense of clerical privilege and authority, got through at least to other publicists. Subsequent chapters will explore the further development of this attractive, and ultimately ambiguous, message.