WITH GOD AT LAST! Luther's soul was in safety; he was now about to find that holiness which he so much desired. The monks were astonished at the sight of the youthful doctor. They extolled his courage and his contempt of the world. He did not, however, forget his friends. He wrote to them, bidding farewell to them and to the world, and on the next day he sent these letters, with the clothes he had worn till then, and returned to the university his ring of master of arts, that nothing might remind him of the world he had renounced.

His friends at Erfurt were struck with astonishment. Must so eminent a genius go and hide himself in that monastic state, - a partial death? Filled with the liveliest sorrow, they hastily repaired to the convent in the hope of inducing Luther to retrace so afflicting a step: but all was useless. For two whole days they surrounded the convent and almost besieged it, in the hope of seeing Luther come forth. But the gates remained closely shut and barred. A month elapsed without anyone's being able to see or speak to the new monk.

Luther had also hastened to communicate to his parents the great change that had taken place in his life. His father was amazed and trembled for his son, as Luther tells us in the dedication of his work on monastic vows, addressed to his father. His weakness, his youth, the violence of his passions, all led John Luther to fear that when the first moment of enthusiasm was over, the habits of the cloister would make the young man fall either into despair or into some great sin. He knew that this kind of life had already been the destruction of many. Besides, the councilor-miner of Mansfeldt had formed very different plans for his son. He had hoped that he would contract a rich and honorable marriage. Now all his ambitious projects bad been overthrown in one night by this imprudent step.

John wrote a very angry letter to his son, in which he spoke to him in a contemptuous tone, as Luther informs us. He had addressed him always in a friendly manner after he had taken his master-of-arts degree. He withdrew all his favor, and declared him disinherited from his paternal affection. In vain did John Luther's friends, and doubtless his wife, endeavor to soften him; in vain did they say: "If you would offer a sacrifice to God, let it be what you hold best and dearest, - Even your son, your Isaac." The inexorable councilor of Mansfeldt would listen to no one.

Not long after, however (Luther tells us in a sermon preached at Wittenberg, January 20, 1544), the plague appeared. It deprived John Luther of two of his sons. About that time someone came and told the bereaved father that the monk of Erfurt was dead also! . . . His friends seized the opportunity of reconciling the father to the young novice. "If it should be a false alarm," they said to him, "at least sanctify your affliction by cordially consenting to your son's becoming a monk!" "Well! so be it!" replied John Luther, with a heart bruised, yet still half rebellious, "and God grant he may prosper!" Some time after this, when Luther, who had been reconciled to his father, related to him the event that had induced him to enter a monastic order: "God grant," replied the worthy miner, "that you may not have taken for a sign from heaven what was merely a delusion of the devil."

There was not then in Luther that which was afterwards to make him the reformer. Of this his entrance into the convent is a strong proof. It was a proceeding in conformity with the tendencies of the age from which he was soon to contribute his endeavors to liberate the Church. He who was destined to become the great teacher of the world was as yet its slavish imitator. A new stone had been added to the edifice of ritual by the very man who was erelong to destroy it. Luther looked to himself for salvation, to human works and observances. He knew not that salvation comes wholly from God. He sought after his own glory and righteousness and was unmindful of the righteousness and glory of the Lord. But what he was ignorant of as yet, he learned soon after. In the cloister of Erfurt was brought about the mighty transformation which substituted in his heart God and His wisdom for the world and its traditions. It prepared him for the mighty revolution of which he was to be the most illustrious instrument.

When Martin Luther entered the convent, he changed his name, and assumed that of Augustine. The monks had received him with joy. It was no slight gratification to see one of the most esteemed doctors of the age abandon the university for a house belonging to their order. Nevertheless they treated him harshly, and imposed on him the meanest occupations. They wished to humble the doctor of philosophy and to teach him that his learning did not raise him above his brethren. By this means they thought to prevent him from devoting himself so much to his studies, from which the convent could reap no advantage. The former master of arts had to perform the offices of porter, to open and shut the gates, to wind up the clock, to sweep the church, and to clean out the cells. Then, when the poor monk, who was doorkeeper, sexton, and menial servant of the cloister, had finished his work: Cum sacco per civitatem! "Away with your wallet through the town!" cried the friars, and laden with his bread-bag, he wandered through all the streets of Erfurt, begging from house to house, obliged perhaps to present himself at the doors of those who had once been his friends or his inferiors.

On his return, he had either to shut himself up in a low and narrow cell, whence he could see nothing but a small garden a few feet square, or recommence his humble tasks. Naturally disposed to devote himself entirely to whatever be undertook, he had become a monk with all his soul. Besides, how could he have a thought of sparing his body, or have had any regard for what might please the flesh? It was not thus that he could acquire the humility, the sanctity which he had come to seek within the cloister.

The poor monk, oppressed with toil, hastened to employ in study all the moments that he could spare from these mean occupations. He voluntarily withdrew from the society of the brethren to give himself up to his beloved pursuits; but they soon found it out. Surrounding him with murmurs, they tore him from his books, exclaiming, "Come, come! It is not by studying, but by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat, and money that a monk renders himself useful to the cloister." Luther submitted; he laid aside his books, and took up his bag again. Far from repenting at having taken upon himself such a yoke, he was willing to go through with his task. It was then that the inflexible perseverance with which he always carried out the resolutions he had once formed, began to be developed in his mind.

The resistance he made to these assaults gave a stronger temper to his will. God tried him in small things, that he might learn to remain unshaken in great ones. Besides, to be able to deliver his age from the superstitions under which it groaned, it was necessary for him first to feel their weight.

This severe apprenticeship did not, however, last so long as Luther may have feared. The prior of the convent, at the intercession of the university to which Luther belonged, freed him from the humiliating duties that had been laid upon him. The youthful monk then returned to his studies with new zeal. The works of the fathers of the Church, especially of St. Augustine, attracted his attention. The exposition of the Psalms by this illustrious doctor, and his book On the Letter and the Spirit, were his favorite study. Nothing struck him more than the sentiments of this father on the corruption of man's will and on divine grace. He felt by his own experience the reality of that corruption and the necessity for that grace. The words of St. Augustine corresponded with the sentiments of his own heart. If he could have belonged to any other school than that of Jesus Christ, it undoubtedly would have been to that of the doctor of Hippo. He knew almost by rote the works of Peter d'Ailly and of Gabriel Biel. He was much taken with a saying of the former, that, if the Church had not decided to the contrary, it would have been preferable to concede that the bread and wine were really taken in the Lord's Supper, and not mere accidents.

He also carefully studied the theologians Occam and Gerson, who both expressed themselves so freely on the authority of the popes. To this course of reading he added other exercises. He was heard in the public discussions unraveling the most complicated trains of reasoning, and extricating himself from a labyrinth whence none but he could have found an outlet. His hearers were filled with astonishment.

But he had not entered the cloister to acquire the reputation of a great genius; it was to seek food for his piety. He therefore regarded these labors as mere digressions. He loved above all things to draw wisdom from the pure source of the Word of God. He found in the convent a Bible fastened by a chain, and to this chained Bible he was continually returning. He had but little understanding of the Word, yet it was his most pleasing study. It sometimes happened that he passed a whole day meditating upon a single passage. At other times he learned fragments of the Prophets by heart. He especially desired to acquire from the writings of the prophets and of the apostles a perfect knowledge of God's will, to grow up in greater fear of His name, and to nourish his faith by the sure testimony of the Word.

It would appear that about this time he began to study the Scriptures in their original languages, and to lay the foundation of the most perfect and most useful of his labors - the translation of the Bible. He made use of Reuchlin's Hebrew Lexicon, which had just appeared. John Lange, one of the friars of the convent, a man skilled in Greek and Hebrew, and one with whom he always remained closely connected, probably was his first instructor. He also made much use of the learned commentaries of Nicholas Lyra, who died in 1340. It was from this circumstance that Pflug, afterwards bishop of Naumburg, said: Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset. (If Lyra Had not touched his lyre, Luther had never danced)

The young monk studied with such industry and zeal that frequently he did not repeat the daily prayers for three or four weeks together. But he soon grew alarmed at the thought that he had transgressed the rules of his order. He then shut himself up to repair his negligence. He began to repeat conscientiously all the prayers he had omitted, without a thought of either eating or drinking. Once, for seven weeks together, he scarcely closed his eyes in sleep.

Burning with desire to attain that holiness in quest of which he had entered the cloister, Luther gave way to all the rigor of an ascetic life. He endeavored to crucify the flesh by fastings, mortifications, and watchings. Shut up in his cell, as in a prison, he struggled unceasingly against the deceitful thoughts and the evil inclinations of his heart. A little bread and a small herring were often his only food. Besides, he was naturally of very abstemious habits. Thus he was frequently seen by his friends, long after he had ceased to think of purchasing heaven by his abstinence, to content himself with the poorest food, and remain even four days in succession without eating or drinking. This we have on the testimony of Melancthon, a witness, in every respect, worthy of credit. We may judge from this circumstance of the small value to be attached to the stories that ignorance and prejudice have circulated as to Luther's intemperance. At this period in his life, nothing was too great a sacrifice that might enable him to become a saint - to acquire heaven. Never did the Romish church possess a more pious monk. Never did cloister witness more severe or indefatigable exertions to purchase eternal happiness. When Luther became a reformer, and declared that heaven was not to be obtained by means such as these, he knew whereof he spoke. "I was indeed a pious monk," wrote he to Duke George of Saxony, "and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever a monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. Of this all the friars who have known me can testify. If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortifications even to death, by means of my watchings, prayers, reading, and other labors."

Luther did not find in the tranquillity of the cloister and in monkish perfection that peace of mind which he had looked for there. He wished to have the assurance of his salvation; this was the great desire of his soul. Without it, there was no repose for him. But the fears that had agitated him in the world pursued him to his cell. Nay, they were increased. The faintest cry of his heart re-echoed loud beneath the silent arches of the cloister. God had led him there that he might learn to know himself and to despair of his own strength and virtue. His conscience, enlightened by the divine Word, told him what it was to be holy, but he was filled with terror at finding, neither in his heart nor in his life, that image of holiness which he had thoughtfully considered with admiration in the Word of God. A sad discovery, and one that is made by every sincere man! No righteousness within, no righteousness without! all was omission, sin, impurity! The more ardent the character of Luther, the stronger was that secret and constant resistance which man's nature opposes to good; and it plunged him into despair.

The monks and divines of the day encouraged him to satisfy the divine righteousness by meritorious works. "But what works," thought he, "can come from a heart like mine? How can I stand before the holiness of my Judge with works polluted in their very source?" "I saw that I was a great sinner in the eyes of God," he wrote later, "and I did not think it possible for me to propitiate Him by my own merits."

He was agitated and yet dejected, avoiding the trifling and often stupid conversation of other monks. The latter, unable to comprehend the storms that tossed his soul, looked upon him with surprise, and reproached him for his silence and his gloomy air. One day, Cochlocus tells us, as they were saying mass in the chapel, Luther had carried thither all his anxiety, and was in the choir in the midst of the brethren, sad and heart-stricken. Already the priest had prostrated himself, the incense had been burnt before the altar, the Gloria sung, and they were reading the Gospel, when Luther, poor monk, unable any longer to repress his anguish, cried out in a mournful tone, as he fell on his knees, "It is not I - it is not I." All were thunderstruck and the ceremony was interrupted for a moment. Perhaps Luther thought he heard some reproach of which he knew himself innocent; perhaps he declared his unworthiness of being one of those to whom Christ's death had brought the gift of eternal life. Cochloeus says that they were reading the story of the dumb man from whom Christ expelled a devil. It is possible that this cry of Luther, if the account be true, had reference to this circumstance, and that, although speechless like the dumb man, be protested by such an exclamation that his silence came from other causes than demoniacal possession. Indeed, Cochlocus says that the monks sometimes attributed the sufferings of their brother to a secret intercourse with the devil, and this writer himself entertained that opinion.

A tender conscience inclined Luther to regard the slightest fault as a great sin. He had hardly discovered it before he endeavored to expiate it by the severest mortifications, which only served to point out to him the uselessness of all human remedies. "I tortured myself almost to death," said he, "in order to procure peace with God for my troubled heart and agitated conscience, but surrounded with thick darkness, I found peace nowhere."

The practices of monastic holiness, which lulled so many consciences to sleep, and to which Luther himself had had recourse in his distress, soon appeared to him the unavailing remedies of a deceptive religion. "While I was yet a monk, I no sooner felt assailed by any temptation than I cried out - I am lost! Immediately I had recourse to a thousand methods to stifle the cries of my conscience. I went every day to confession, but that was of no use to me. Then, bowed down by sorrow, I tortured myself by the multitude of my thoughts. - Look, exclaimed I, thou art still envious, impatient, passionate!… It profiteth thee nothing, O wretched man, to have entered this sacred order."

And yet Luther, imbued with the prejudices of his time, had from early youth considered the observances, whose worthlessness he had just discovered, as a certain remedy for diseased souls. What could he think of the strange discovery he had just made in the solitude of the cloister? It is possible, then, to dwell within the sanctuary, and yet bear in one's bosom a man of sin! He had received another garment, but not another heart. His expectations were disappointed; where could he stop? Were all these rules and observances mere human inventions? Such a supposition appeared to him, at one time a temptation of the devil, and at another an irresistible truth. By turns contending with the holy voice that spoke to his heart, and with the venerable institutions that time had sanctioned, Luther passed his life in a continual struggle. The young monk crept like a shadow through the long galleries of the cloister that re-echoed with his sorrowful moanings. His body wasted away; his strength began to fail him; sometimes he remained like one dead.

On one occasion, overwhelmed with sorrow, he shut himself up in his cell, and for several days and nights allowed no one to approach him. One of his friends, Lucas Edemberger, feeling anxious about the unhappy monk, and having a presentiment of the condition in which he was, took with him some boys who were in the habit of singing in the choirs, and knocked at the door of the cell. No one opened - no one answered. The good Edemberger, still more alarmed, broke open the door. Luther lay insensible upon the floor, giving no signs of life. His friend strove in vain to recall him to his senses; but he remained motionless. Then the choristers began to sing a sweet hymn. Their clear voices acted like a charm on this one, to whom music was ever one of his greatest pleasures; gradually he recovered his strength, his consciousness, and life. If music could restore his serenity for a few moments, he required another and a stronger remedy to heal him thoroughly: he needed that mild and subtle sound of the gospel, which is the voice of God Himself. He knew it well, therefore his troubles and his terrors led him to study with fresh zeal the writings of the prophets and of the apostles.

The Life and Times of Martin Luther by J.H. Merle D'Aubigne - Index Page
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