History of the Reformation, vol. 1

Chapter 6

Journey to Rome—Convent on the Po—Sickness at Bologna—Recollections of Rome—Julius II—Superstitious Devotion—Profanity of the Clergy—Conversations—Roman Scandals—Biblical Studies—Pilate’s Staircase—Effects on Luther’s Faith and on the Reformation—Gate of Paradise—Luther’s Confession

Luther was teaching both in the academical hall and in the church, when he was interrupted in his labors. In 1510, or according to others in 1511 or 1512, he was sent to Rome. Seven convents of his order were at variance on certain points with the vicar-general. The acuteness of Luther’s mind, his powerful language, and his talents for discussion, were the cause of his selection as agent for these seven monasteries before the pope. This divine dispensation was necessary for Luther. It was requisite that he should know Rome. Full of the prejudices and delusions of the cloister, he had always imagined it to be the abode of sanctity. HRSCV1 67.2

He set out and crossed the Alps. But he had scarcely descended into the plains of the rich and voluptuous Italy, before he found at every step subjects of astonishment and scandal. The poor German monk was entertained in a wealthy convent of the Benedictines on the banks of the Po, in Lombardy. The revenues of this monastery amounted to 36,000 ducats; 12,000 were devoted to the table, 12,000 were set apart for the buildings, and the remainder for the wants of the monks. The splendor of the apartments, the richness of their dress, and the delicacy of their food, confounded Luther. Marble, silk, luxury in all its forms—what a novel sight for the humble brother of the poor convent of Wittenberg! He was astonished and was silent; but when Friday came, what was his surprise at seeing the Benedictine table groaning under a load of meat. Upon this he resolved to speak. “The Church and the pope,” said he, “forbid such things.” The Benedictines were irritated at this reprimand of the unpolished German. But Luther having persisted, and perhaps threatened to make their irregularities known, some thought the simplest course would be to get rid of their importunate guest. The porter of the convent forewarned him of the danger he incurred by a longer stay. He accordingly quitted this epicurean monastery, and reached Bologna, where he fell dangerously ill. Some have attributed this to the effects of poison; but it is more reasonable to suppose that the change of diet affected the frugal monk of Wittenberg, whose usual food was bread and herrings. This sickness was not to be unto death, but to the glory of God. He again relapsed into the sorrow and dejection so natural to him. To die thus, far from Germany, under this burning sky, and in a foreign land—what a sad fate. The distress of mind that he had felt at Erfurth returned with fresh force. The sense of his sinfulness troubled him; the prospect of God’s judgment filled him with dread. But at the very moment that these terrors had reached their highest pitch, the words of St. Paul, that had already struck him at Wittenberg, The just shall live by faith, recurred forcibly to his memory, and enlightened his soul like a ray from heaven. Thus restored and comforted, he soon regained his health, and resumed his journey towards Rome, expecting to find there a very different manner of life from that of the Lombard convents, and impatient of efface, by the sight of Roman holiness, the melancholy impressions left on his mind by his sojourn on the banks of the Po. HRSCV1 67.3

At length, after a toilsome journey under a burning Italian sun, at the beginning of summer, he drew near the seven-hilled city. His heart was moved within him: his eyes sought after the queen of the world and of the Church. As soon as he discovered the eternal city in the distance,—the city of St. Peter and St. Paul,—the metropolis of Catholicism,—he fell on his knees, exclaiming, “Holy Rome, I salute thee!” HRSCV1 67.4

Luther is in Rome: the Wittenberg professor stands in the midst of the eloquent ruins of consular and imperial Rome—of the Rome of so many martyrs and confessors of Jesus Christ. Here had lived that Plautus and that Virgil whose works he had carried with him into the cloister, and all those great men at whose history his heart had so often beat with emotion. He beholds their statues,—the ruins of the monuments that bear witness to their glory. But all that glory—all that power has fled; his feet trample on their dust. At each step he calls to mind the sad presentiments of Scipio shedding tears as he looked upon the ruins—the burning palaces and tottering walls of Carthage, and exclaimed, “Thus will it one day be with Rome!” “And in truth,” said Luther, “the Rome of the Scipios and Caesars has become a corpse. There are such heaps of rubbish that the foundations of the houses are now where once stood the roofs. It is there,” added he, as he threw a melancholy glance over these ruins, “it is there that once the riches and the treasures of the world were gathered together.” All these fragments, against which his feet stumble at every step, proclaim to Luther within the very walls of Rome, that what is strongest in the eyes of man may be easily destroyed by the breath of the Lord. HRSCV1 67.5

But with these profane ashes are mingled other and holier ones: he recalls them to mind. The burial-place of the martyrs is not far from that of the generals of Rome and of her conquerors. Christian Rome with its sufferings has more power over the heart of the Saxon monk than pagan Rome with all its glory. Here that letter arrived in which Paul wrote, The just shall live by faith. He is not far from Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. Here is the house of Narcissus—there the palace of Caesar, where the Lord delivered the Apostle from the jaws of the lion. Oh, how these recollections strengthen the heart of the monk of Wittenberg! HRSCV1 68.1

But Rome at this time presented a very different aspect. The warlike Julius II filled the papal chair, and not Leo X, as some distinguished German historians have said, doubtless through inattention. Luther has often related a trait in the character of this pope. When the news reached him that his army had been defeated by the French before Ravenna, he was repeating his daily prayers: he flung away the book, exclaiming with a terrible oath: “And thou too art become a Frenchman… It is thus thou dost protect thy Church?” Then turning in the direction of the country to whose arms he thought to have recourse, he added: “Saint Switzer, pray for us!” Ignorance, levity, and dissolute manners, a profane spirit, a contempt for all that is sacred, a scandalous traffic in divine things—such was the spectacle afforded by this unhappy city. Yet the pious monk remained for some time longer in his delusions. HRSCV1 68.2

Having arrived about the period of the feast of St. John, he heard the Romans repeating around him a proverb current among them: “Happy the mother whose son performs mass on St. John’s eve!”—“Oh, how should I rejoice to render my mother happy!” said Luther to himself. Margaret’s pious son endeavoured to repeat a mass on that day; but he could not, the throng was too great. HRSCV1 68.3

Fervent and meek, he visited all the churches and chapels; he believed in all the falsehoods that were told him; he devoutly performed all the holy practices that were required there, happy in being able to execute so many good works from which his fellow-countrymen were debarred. “Oh! how I regret,” said the pious German to himself, “that my father and mother are still alive! What pleasure I should have in delivering them from the fire of purgatory by my masses, my prayers, and by so many other admirable works!” He had found the light; but the darkness was far from being entirely expelled from his understanding. His heart was converted; his mind was not yet enlightened: he had faith and love, but he wanted knowledge. It was no trifling matter to emerge from that thick night which had covered the earth for so many centuries. HRSCV1 68.4

Luther several times repeated mass at Rome. He officiated with all the unction and dignity that such an action appeared to him to require. But what affliction seized the heart of the Saxon monk at witnessing the sad and profane mechanism of the Roman priests, as they celebrated the sacrament of the altar! These on their part laughed at his simplicity. On day when he was officiating he found that the priests at an adjoining altar had already repeated seven masses before he had finished one. “Quick, quick!” cried one of them, “send our Lady back her Son;” making an impious allusion to the transubstantiation of the bread into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. At another time Luther had only just reached the Gospel, when the priest at his side had already terminated the mass. “Passa, passa!” cried the latter to him, “make haste! have done with it at once.” HRSCV1 68.5

His astonishment was still greater, when he found in the dignitaries of the papacy what he had already observed in the inferior clergy. He had hoped better things of them. HRSCV1 68.6

It was the fashion at the papal court to attack Christianity, and you could not pass for a well-bred man, unless you entertained some erroneous or heretical opinion on the doctrines of the Church. They had endeavoured to convince Erasmus, by means of certain extracts from Pliny, that there was no difference between the souls of men and of beasts; and some of the pope’s youthful courtiers maintained that the orthodox faith was the result of the crafty devices of a few saints. HRSCV1 68.7

Luther’s quality of envoy from the German Augustines procured him invitations to numerous meetings of distinguished ecclesiastics. One day, in particular, he was at table with several prelates, who displayed openly before him their buffoonery and impious conversation, and did not scruple to utter in his presence a thousand mockeries, thinking, no doubt, that he was of the same mind as themselves. Among other things, they related before the monk, laughing and priding themselves upon it, how, when they were repeating mass at the altar, instead of the sacramental words that were to transform the bread and wine into the flesh and blood of our Saviour, they pronounced over the elements this derisive expression: Panis es, et panis manebis; vinum es, et vinum manebis. Then, continued they, we elevate the host, and all the people bow down and worship it. Luther could hardly believe his ears. His disposition, although full of animation and even gaiety in the society of friends, was remarkably serious whenever sacred matters were concerned. The mockeries of Rome were a stumbling block to him. “I was,” said he, “a thoughtful and pious young monk. Such language grieved me bitterly. If ‘tis thus they speak at Rome, freely and publicly at the dinner table, thought I to myself, what would it be if their actions corresponded to their words, and if all—pope, cardinals, and courtiers—thus repeat the mass! And how they must have deceived me, who have heard them read devoutly so great a number!” HRSCV1 69.1

Luther often mixed with the monks and citizens of Rome. If some few extolled the pope and his party, the majority gave a free course to their complaints and to their sarcasms. What stories had they not to tell about the reigning pope, or Alexander VI, or about so many others! One day his Roman friends related how Caesar Borgia, having fled from Rome, was taken in Spain. As they were going to try him, he called for arc, and asked for a confessor to visit him in his prison. A monk was sent to him, whom he slew, put on his hood, and escaped. “I heard that at Rome; and it is a positive fact,” says Luther. Another day, passing down a wide street leading to St. Peter’s, he halted in astonishment before a stone statue, representing a pope under the figure of a woman, holding a sceptre, clothed in the papal mantle, and carrying a child in her arms. It is a young woman of Mentz, he was told, whom the cardinals elected pope, and who was delivered of a child opposite this place. No pope, therefore, passes along that street. “I am surprised,” says Luther, that the popes allow such a statue to remain.” HRSCV1 69.2

Luther had thought to find the edifice of the Church encompassed with splendor and strength, but its doors were broken down, and the walls damaged by fire. He witnessed the desolation of the sanctuary, and drew back with horror. All his dreams had been of holiness,—he had discovered nought but profanation. HRSCV1 69.3

The disorders without the churches were not less shocking to him. “The police of Rome is very strict and severe,” said he. “The judge or captain patrols the city every night on horseback with three hundred followers; he arrests every one that is found in the streets: if they meet an armed man, he is hung, or thrown into the Tiber. And yet the city is filled with disorder and murder; whilst in those places where the Word of God is preached uprightly and in purity, peace and order prevail, without calling for the severity of the law.”—“No one can imagine what sins and infamous actions are committed in Rome,” said he at another time; “they must be seen and heard to be believed. Thus, they are in the habit of saying. If there is a hell, Rome is built over it: it is an abyss whence issues every kind of sin.” HRSCV1 69.4

This spectacle made a deep impression even then upon Luther’s mind; it was increased erelong. “The nearer we approach Rome, the greater number of bad Christians we meet with,” said he, many years after. “There is a vulgar proverb, that he who goes to Rome the first time, looks out for a knave; the second time, he finds him; and the third, he brings him away with him. But people are now become so clever, that they make these three journeys in one.” Machiavelli, one of the most profound geniuses of Italy, but also one of unenviable notoriety, who was living at Florence when Luther passed through that city on his way to Rome, has made the same remark: “The strongest symptom,” said he, “of the approaching ruin of Christianity (by which he means Roman-catholicism) is, that the nearer people approach the capital of Christendom, the less Christian spirit is found in them. The scandalous examples and the crimes of the court of Rome are the cause why Italy has lost every principle of piety and all religious feeling. We Italians,” continues this great historian, “are indebted principally to the Church and the priests for having become impious and immoral.” Luther, somewhat later, was sensible of the very great importance of this journey. “If they would give me one hundred thousand florins,” said he, “I would not have missed seeing Rome!” HRSCV1 69.5

This visit was also very advantageous to him in regard to learning. Like Reuchlin, Luther took advantage of his residence in Italy to penetrate deeper into the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. He took lessons in Hebrew from a celebrated rabbi, named Elias Levita. It was at Rome that he partly acquired that knowledge of the Divine Word, under the attacks of which Rome was destined to fall. HRSCV1 70.1

But this journey was most important to Luther in another respect. Not only was the veil withdrawn, and the sardonic sneer, the mocking incredulity which lay concealed behind the Romish superstitions revealed to the future reformer, but the living faith that God had implanted in him was there powerfully strengthened. HRSCV1 70.2

We have seen how he at first gave himself up to all the vain observances which the Church enjoined for the expiation of sin. One day, among others, wishing to obtain an indulgence promised by the pope to all who should ascend on their knees what is called Pilate’s Staircase, the poor Saxon monk was humbly creeping up those steps, which he was told had been miraculously transported from Jerusalem to Rome. But while he was performing this meritorious act, he thought he heard a voice of thunder crying from the bottom of his heart, as at Wittenberg and Bologna, The just shall live by faith. These words, that twice before had struck him like the voice of an angel from God, resounded unceasingly and powerfully within him. He rises in amazement from the steps up which he was dragging his body: he shudders at himself; he is ashamed of seeing to what a depth superstition had plunged him. He flies far from the scene of his folly. HRSCV1 70.3

This powerful text has a mysterious influence on the life of Luther. It was a creative sentence both for the reformer and for the Reformation. It was in these words God then said, Let there be light! and there was light. HRSCV1 70.4

It is frequently necessary for a truth to be presented many times to our minds in order that it may produce the due effect. Luther had profoundly studied the Epistle to the Romans, and yet the doctrine of justification by faith there taught had never appeared so clear to him. Now he comprehends that righteousness which alone can stand before God; now he receives for himself from the hand of Christ that obedience which God of his free gift imputes to the sinner, as soon as he raises his eyes with humility to the crucified Son of Man. This was the decisive epoch of Luther’s inner life. That faith which had saved him from the terrors of death, became the very soul of his theology, his stronghold in every danger; the principle which gave energy to his preaching and strength to his charity; the foundation of his peace, the encouragement to his labors, his comfort in the life and in the death. HRSCV1 70.5

But this great doctrine of a salvation proceeding from God and not from man, was not only the power of God to save Luther’s soul; it became in a still greater degree the power of God to reform the Church:—an effectual weapon wielded by the apostles,—a weapon too long neglected, but taken at last, in all its primitive brightness, from the arsenal of the omnipotent God. At the very moment when Luther uprose from his knees on Pilate’s Staircase, in agitation and amazement at those words which Paul had addressed fifteen centuries before to the inhabitants of that metropolis,—Truth, till then a melancholy captive, and fettered in the Church, uprose also to fall no more. HRSCV1 70.6

We should here listen to what Luther himself says on the matter. “Although I was a holy and blameless monk, my conscience was nevertheless full of trouble and anguish. I could not endure those words—the righteousness of God. I had no love for that holy and just God who punishes sinners. I was filled with secret anger against him: I hated him, because, not content with frightening by the law and the miseries of life us wretched sinners, already ruined by original sin, he still further increased our tortures by the Gospel… But when, by the Spirit of God, I understood these words,—when I learnt how the justification of the sinner proceeds from the free mercy of our Lord through faith, then I felt born again like a new man; I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God. Henceforward, also, I saw the beloved and Holy Scriptures with other eyes. I perused the Bible,—I brought together a great number of passages that taught me the nature of God’s work. And as previously I had detested with all my heart these words,—The righteousness of God, I began from that hour to value them and to love them, as the sweetest and most consoling words in the Bible. In very truth, this language of St. Paul was to me the true gate of Paradise.” HRSCV1 70.7

Thus when he was called on solemn occasions to confess this doctrine, Luther always recovered his enthusiasm and rough energy. “I see,” observed he at an important moment, “that the devil is continually attacking this fundamental article by means of his doctors, and that in this respect he can never cease or take any repose. Well then, I, Doctor Martin Luther, unworthy herald of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, confess this article, that faith alone without works justifies before God; and I declare that it shall stand and remain for ever in despite of the emperor of the Tartars, the emperor of the Persians,—in spite of the pope and all the cardinals, with the bishops, priests, monks, and nuns,—in spite of kings, princes, and nobles,—and in spite of all the world and of the devils themselves; and that if they endeavour to fight against this truth, they will draw the fires of hell upon their heads. This is the true and holy Gospel, and the declaration of me, Doctor Luther, according to the teaching of the Holy Ghost There is no one,” continues he, “who has died for our sins, if not Jesus Christ the Son of God. I say it once again, should all the world and all the devils tear each other to pieces and burst with rage, that it is not the less true. And if it is He alone that taketh away our sins, it cannot be ourselves and our own works. But good works follow redemption, as the fruit grows on the tree. That is our doctrine—that is what is taught by the Holy Ghost and by all the communion of saints. We hold fast to it in the name of God. Amen!” HRSCV1 70.8

It was thus Luther found what had been overlooked, at least to a certain degree, by all doctors and reformers, even by the most illustrious of them. It was in Rome that God gave him this clear view of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. He had gone to the city of the pontiffs for the solution of certain difficulties concerning a monastic order: he brought away from it in his heart the salvation of the Church. HRSCV1 71.1