"Luther," says Heine, "was not only the greatest, but also the most thoroughly1 German, hero of our history." Carlyle says that "no more valiant2 man, no mortal heart to be called braver, ever lived in that Teutonic kindred, whose character is valor3." Michelet calls him "the Arminius of modern Germany." Twenty tributes to Luther's greatness might be added, all more or less memorable4; but these, from three very diverse men, will suffice for our present purpose. Martin Luther was a great man. Whoever questions it must appeal to new definitions.
A great difference lay between the cold, saturnine5 Pope of Geneva and the frank, exuberant6 hero of the German Reformation. Their doctrines8 were similar; there was a likeness9 between their mistakes; but what a diversity in their natures! Calvin was the perfect type of the theological pedant—vain, meagre, and arid10; while Luther had in him, as Heine remarks, "something aboriginal"; and the world has, after all, profited by "the God-like brutality11 of Brother Martin."
The nature of this great man was suited to his task. It required no great intellectual power to see through the tricks of Papal priestcraft, which had, indeed, been the jest of the educated and thoughtful for generations. But it required gigantic courage to become the spokesman of discontent, to attack an imposture13 which was supported by universal popular credulity, by a well-nigh omnipotent14 Church, and by the keen-edged, merciless swords of kings and emperors. Still more, it required an indisputable elevation16 of nature to attack the imposture where, as in the sale of indulgences, it threatened the very essence of personal and social morality. Hundreds of persons may be hatching a new truth in unknown concert, but when a battle for humanity has to be fought, someone must begin, and begin decisively. Luther stepped out as protagonist17 in the great struggle of his time; and Freethought is not so barren in great names that it need envy Brother Martin his righteous applause. Indeed, it seems to me that Freethinkers are in a position to esteem18 Luther more justly than Christians19. Seeing what was his task, and how it demanded a stormy, impetuous nature, we can thank Luther for accomplishing it, while recognising his great defects, his faults of temper and the narrowness of his views; defects, I would add, which it were unnecessary to dwell on if Protestants did not magnify them into virtues20, or if they did not illustrate21 the inherent vices22 of Christianity itself.
Strong for his life-task, Luther was weak in other respects. Like Dr. Johnson, there were strange depths in his character, but none in his intellect. He emitted many flashes of genius in writing and talking, but they all came from the heart, and chiefly from the domestic affections. He broke away from the Papacy, but he only abandoned Catholicism so far as it conflicted with the most obvious morality. He retained all its capital superstitions24. Mr. Froude puts the case very mildly when he says that "Erasmus knew many things which it would have been well for Luther to have known." Erasmus would not have called Copernicus "an old fool," or have answered him by appealing to Joshua. Erasmus would not have seen a special providence25 in the most trifling26 accidents. Erasmus would not have allowed devils to worry him. Above all, Erasmus would not have pursued those who were heretics to his doctrine7 with all the animosity of a Papal bigot. Such differences induced Mr. Matthew Arnold to call Luther a Philistine27 of genius; just as they led Goethe to say that Luther threw back the intellectual progress of mankind for centuries. Another poet, Shelley, seems to me to have hit the precise truth in his "Ode to Liberty":
Luther caught thy wakening glance:
Like lightning from his leaden lance
Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay.
Shelley's epithet28 is perfect. Luther's lance was big and potent15. It wrought29 terrible havoc30 among the enemy. But it was leaden. It overthrew31, but it did not transfix.
This is not the place to relate how Luther played the Pope in his own way; how he persecuted32 the Zwinglians because they went farther than himself on the subject of the real presence; how he barked at the Swiss reformers, how he pursued Andreas Bodenstein for a difference on infant baptism; how he treated Münzer and the Anabaptists; how he hounded on the nobles to suppress the peasant revolt and "stab, kill, and strangle them without mercy"; or how he was for handing over to the executioner all who denied a single article which rested on the Scripture33 or the authority of the universal teaching of the Church. My purpose is to show Luther's attitude towards the Devil, witches, apparitions34, and all the rest of that ghostly tribe; and in doing so I have no wish to indulge in "the most small sneer35" which Carlyle reprobates36; although I do think it a great pity that such a man as Luther should have been a slave to superstitions which Erasmus would have met with a wholesome37 jest.
Neither Jews nor witches fared any the better for the Reformation, until it had far outgrown38 the intention of its founders39. Brother Martin hated the Jews, thought many of them sorcerers, and praised the Duke of Saxony for killing40 a Jew in testing a talisman41. As for witches, he said, "I would have no compassion42 on them—I would burn them all." Poor creatures! Yet Luther was naturally compassionate43. It was the fatal superstition23 which steeled his heart. Still there are dainty sceptics who tell us not to attack superstition. I point them to Martin Luther burning witches.
Brother Martin lived in God's presence, but they were generally three, for the Devil was seldom absent. His Satanic Majesty44 plagued the poor Reformer's life till he wished himself safe in heaven. Sometimes the fiend suggested impious doubts, and at ether times suicide. He attributed his chronic45 vertigo46 to the Devil, because the physic he took did him no good. So familiar did the Devil become that Luther, hearing him walk overhead at night, would say "Oh, is it you?" and go to sleep again. Once, when he was marrying-an aristocratic couple, the wedding ring slipped out of his fingers at a critical moment. He was frightened, but, recovering himself, he exclaimed, "Listen, Devil, it is not your business, you are wasting your time." The famous scene in which Luther threw an inkstand at the Devil is legendary47, though Coleridge, Carlyle and others have made it the theme of their eloquence48; and the ink-stain still shown on the wall at Wartburg is like the stain of Rizzio's blood in Holyrood Palace.
Luther's own visions were largely due to dyspepsia and an active imagination. He said that the Devil troubled him less at night when he took a good "nightcap," which made him sleep soundly. He found that the Devil could not stand music, being a sad and sombre personage; just as, long before, music was found a sovereign recipe for the melancholia of King Saul. But the surest specific was railing and derision. When Luther called him names, or laughed at him, the Devil vanished in a huff. Brother Martin was plain-spoken at the best of times, but on these occasions he was too-downright for quotation49. Michelet gives a choice sample; but though the French language allows more licence than ours, he is obliged to give but the first letter of one of Luther's vigorous substantives50. Brother Martin displayed a sly humor in one of his stories about Satan. A possessed51 person was taken into a monastery52, and the devil in him said to the monks53, "O my people, what have I done?"—"Popule meus, quid feci tibi?"
According to Luther, fair and foul54 winds were caused by good and evil spirits. He spoke12 of a terrible lake in Switzerland, haunted by the Devil, and said there was a similar one in his own country. If a stone was thrown into it, a frightful55 storm shook the whole locality. The Devil made people idiots, cripples, blind, deaf and dumb; and Luther declared that the doctors who treated such infirmities as natural had a great deal to learn in demonology. One or two of his stories of possession are extremely gruesome. With his own lusty love of life, Luther could not understand suicide, so he attributed that also to the Devil. Satan made the suicides think they were doing something else; even praying, and thus he killed them. Brother Martin, indeed, sometimes feared the Devil would twist his neck or press his skull56 into his brains. Nor did he shrink from the darkest developments of this superstition. He held that the Devil could assume the form of a man or a woman, cohabit with human beings of the opposite sex, and become a father or a mother. "Eight years ago," said Luther, "I saw and touched myself at Dessau a child who had no parents, and was born of the Devil. He was twelve years old, and shaped like an ordinary child. He did nothing but eat, and ate as much as three peasants or threshers. When he was touched he cried out like one possessed; if any unfortunate accident happened in the house, he rejoiced and laughed; if, on the contrary, all went well, he wept continually. I said to the princes of Anhalt, with whom I then was: If I commanded here I would have that child thrown into the Moldau, at the risk of being its murderer. But the Elector of Saxony and the princes were not of my opinion."
Here is a case in which the Doctor of Divinity, though naturally a kind man, is quite ready to take human life at the behest of a devilish superstition, while the less fanatical laymen57 shrink from such inhumanity. The only devil in this story is the devil of fearful ignorance and misbelief in Brother Martin. He it was who needed the exorcist, although the truth would have greatly surprised him. Carlyle may use his snarling58 muscles at the "apothecary's apprentice59" who is able to give a scientific explanation of Luther's visions; but, after all, the unfortunate persons whom Luther would have murdered by mistake might be pardoned for preferring the apothecary's apprentice to the Protestant Pope. The fact is, the doctrine of devils, of demoniacal possession, of incubi and succubi, and of sorcery and witchcraft60, was not fostered by laymen so much as by the clergy61. Lecky remarks that "almost all the great works written in favor of the executions were written by ecclesiastics," and Tylor asserts that "the guilt62 of thus bringing down Europe intellectually and morally to the level of negro Africa" lies mainly upon the Church, Protestant being as bad as Catholic, for they vied in outraging63 and killing those who were doomed64, by the ghastliest of superstitions, to be "for life and death of all creatures the most wretched." Eternal honor to Luther for the heroism65 which sent him to Worms, and made him exclaim to his dissuaders: "I will go if there are as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the roofs of the houses." But eternal hatred66 and contempt for the Creed67 which degraded heroes into Jack68 the Rippers. I say the Creed; for Christianity cannot be exculpated69. Witchcraft, possession, and sexual intercourse70 between human and superhuman beings, are distinctly taught in the Bible; and if there were no other indictment71 of Christianity, the awful massacre72 and torture of millions of helpless women and children would suffice to damn it everlastingly73.
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1
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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valor
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| n.勇气，英勇 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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saturnine
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| adj.忧郁的，沉默寡言的，阴沉的，感染铅毒的 | |
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exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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protagonist
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| n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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22
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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philistine
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| n.庸俗的人；adj.市侩的，庸俗的 | |
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28
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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29
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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30
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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31
overthrew
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| overthrow的过去式 | |
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32
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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33
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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34
apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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35
sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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36
reprobates
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| n.道德败坏的人，恶棍( reprobate的名词复数 ) | |
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37
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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38
outgrown
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去分词 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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40
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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talisman
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| n.避邪物，护身符 | |
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42
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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43
compassionate
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| adj.有同情心的，表示同情的 | |
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44
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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45
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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46
vertigo
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| n.眩晕 | |
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47
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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48
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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49
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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50
substantives
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| n.作名词用的词或词组（substantive的复数形式） | |
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51
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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52
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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54
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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55
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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laymen
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| 门外汉，外行人( layman的名词复数 )； 普通教徒（有别于神职人员） | |
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snarling
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的现在分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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outraging
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的现在分词 ) | |
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64
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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65
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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69
exculpated
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| v.开脱，使无罪( exculpate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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indictment
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| n.起诉；诉状 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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everlastingly
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| 永久地，持久地 | |
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