CHAPTER VI

Journey to Rome—A Convent on the Pô—Sickness at Bologna—Remembrances in Rome—Superstitious Devotion—Profaneness of the Clergy—Conversation—Disorders in Rome—Biblical Studies—Pilate’s Stair—Influence on his Faith and on the Reformation—The Gate of Paradise—Luther’s Confession.

Luther was teaching both in his academic chair and in the church, when his labours were interrupted. In 1510, or, according to some, not till 1511 or 1512, he was sent to Rome. Seven convents of his order having differed on certain points with the vicar-general, the activity of Luther’s mind, the power of his eloquence, and his talent for discussion, made him be selected to plead the cause of these seven monasteries before the pope. This Divine dispensation was necessary to Luther, for it was requisite that he should know Rome. Full of the prejudices and illusions of the cloister, he had always represented it to himself as the seat of holiness.

He accordingly set out and crossed the Alps, but scarcely had he descended into the plains of rich and voluptuous Italy, than he found at every step subjects of astonishment and scandal. The poor German monk was received in a rich convent of Benedictines, situated upon the Pô in Lombardy. This convent had thirty-six thousand ducats of revenue. Of these, twelve thousand were devoted to the table, twelve thousand to the buildings, and twelve thousand to the other wants of the monks. The gorgeousness of the apartments, the beauty of the dresses, and the rarities of the table, all astonished Luther. Marble and silk, and luxury under all its forms! How new the sight to the humble friar of the poor convent of Wittemberg! He was astonished and said nothing, but when Friday came, how surprised was he to see abundance of meat still covering the table of the Benedictines! Then he resolved to speak out. “The Church and the pope,” said he to them, “forbid such things.” The Benedictines were indignant at this reprimand from the rude German, but Luther having insisted, and perhaps threatened to make their disorders known, some of them thought that the simplest plan was to get rid of their troublesome guest. The porter of the convent having warned him that he ran a risk in staying longer, he made his escape from this epicurean monastery, and arrived at Bologna, where he fell dangerously sick.³ Some have seen in this sickness the effects of poison, but it is simpler to suppose that it was the effect which a change of living produced in the frugal monk of Wittemberg, whose principal food was wont to be bread and herrings. This sickness was not to be unto death, but for the glory of God. Luther’s constitutional sadness and depression again overpowered him. To die thus far from Germany, under this burning sky in a foreign land, what a fate! The agonies which he had felt at Erfurt returned with all their force. The conviction of his sins troubled, while the prospect of the judgment-seat of God terrified him. But at the moment when these terrors were at the worst, the passage of St. Paul which had struck him at Wittemberg, “The just shall live by faith,” (Romans 1:17) presented itself to his mind, and illumined his soul as with a ray of light from heaven. Revived and comforted, he soon recovered his health, and resumed his journey to Rome, expecting he should there find quite a different life from that of the Lombard convents, and impatient by the sight of Roman holiness to efface the sad impressions which had been left upon his mind by his residence on the Pô. At length, after a painful journey under the burning sky of Italy in the beginning of summer, he drew near to the city of the seven hills. His heart was moved, and his eyes looked for the queen of the world, and of the Church. As soon as he obtained a distant view of the eternal city, the city of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the metropolis of Catholicism, he threw himself on the ground, exclaiming, “Holy Rome, I salute thee.”

Luther is in Rome; the professor of Wittemberg is in the midst of the eloquent ruins of the Rome of the consuls and emperors—the Rome of the confessors and martyrs. Here lived that Plautus and Virgil, whose works he had taken with him into the cloister, and all those great men whose exploits had always caused his heart to beat. He perceives their statues, and the wrecks of monuments which attest their glory. But all this glory and all this power are past, and his foot treads on their dust. At every step he calls to mind the sad forebodings of Scipio shedding tears at the sight of Carthage in ruins, its burned palaces and broken walls, and exclaiming, “Thus, too, will it be with Rome!” “And in fact,” says Luther, “the Rome of the Scipios and Cæsars has been changed into a corpse. Such is the quantity of ruins, that the foundations of the modern houses rest upon the roofs of the old. “There,” added he, casting a melancholy look on the ruins, “there were the riches and treasures of the world.” All this rubbish, which he strikes with his foot, tells Luther, within the walls of Rome herself, that what is strongest in the eyes of men is easily destroyed by the breath of the Lord. But he remembers that with profane ashes holy ashes are mingled. The burial-place of the martyrs is not far from that of the generals and triumphing heroes of Rome, and Christian Rome, with her sufferings, has more power over the heart of the Saxon monk than Pagan Rome with her glory. It was here the letter arrived in which Paul wrote, “The just is justified by faith,” and not far off is the Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. There was the house of Narcissus—here the palace of Cæsar, where the Lord delivered the apostle from the mouth of the lion. Oh, what fortitude these recollections give to the heart of the monk of Wittemberg!

Rome then presented a very different aspect. The pontifical chair was occupied by the warlike Julius II, and not by Leo X, as it has been said by some distinguished historians of Germany, no doubt through oversight. Luther often told an anecdote of this pope. When news was brought him of the defeat of his army by the French before Ravenna, he was reading his Hours. He dashed the book upon the ground, and said, with a dreadful oath, “Very well, so you have turned Frenchman. Is this the way in which you protect your Church?” Then turning in the direction of the country to whose aid he meant to have recourse, he exclaimed, “Holy Switzer, pray for us.” Ignorance, levity, and dissoluteness, a profane spirit, a contempt of all that is sacred, and a shameful traffic in divine things; such was the spectacle which that unhappy city presented, and yet the pious monk continued for some time in his illusions.

Having arrived about the feast of St. John, he hears the Romans about him repeating a proverb which was then common among the people: “Happy,” said they, “is the mother whose son says a mass on the eve of St. John.” “Oh! how I could like to make my mother happy!” said Luther. The pious son of Margaret accordingly sought to say a mass on that day, but could not; the press was too great.

Ardent and simple-hearted, he went up and down, visiting all the churches and chapels, believing all the lies that were told him, and devoutly performing the requisite acts of holiness; happy in being able to do so many pious works, which were denied to his countrymen. “Oh! how much I regret,” said the pious German to himself, “that my father and mother are still alive. What delight I should have had in delivering them from the fire of purgatory, by my masses, my prayers, and many other admirable works.” He had found the light, but the darkness was still far from being entirely banished from his understanding. His heart was changed, but his mind was not fully enlightened. He possessed faith and love, but not knowledge. It was work of no small difficulty to escape from the dark night which had for so many ages covered the earth.

Luther repeatedly said mass at Rome, taking care to do it with all the unction and dignity which the service seemed to him to require. But how grieved was the heart of the Saxon monk, at seeing the profane formality of the Roman priests in celebrating the sacrament of the altar. The priests, on their part, laughed at his simplicity. One day when he was officiating, he found that at the altar next to him seven masses bad been read before he got through a single one. “Get on, get on,” cried one of the priests to him; “make haste, and send Our Lady back her Son,” making an impious allusion to the transubstantiation of the bread into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. On another occasion, Luther had only got as far as the Gospel, when the priest beside him had finished the whole mass. “On, on,” said his companion; “make haste, make haste; are ye ever to have done?” His astonishment was still greater when, in the dignitaries of the Church, he discovered the same thing that he had found in common priests. He had hoped better of them.

It was fashionable at the papal court to attack Christianity, and, in order to pass for a complete gentleman, absolutely necessary to hold some erroneous or heretical opinion on the doctrines of the Church. When Erasmus was at Rome, they had attempted to prove to him, by passages from Pliny, that there was no difference between the soul of man and that of the brutes;³ and young courtiers of the pope maintained that the orthodox faith was merely the result of crafty inventions by some saints.

Luther’s employment, as envoy of the Augustins of Germany, caused him to be invited to several meetings of distinguished ecclesiastics. One day, in particular, he happened to be at table with several prelates, who frankly exhibited themselves to him in their mountebank manners and profane conversation, and did not scruple to commit a thousand follies in his presence, no doubt believing him to be of the same spirit as themselves. Among other things they related, in presence of the monk, laughing and making a boast of it, how when they were saying mass, instead of the sacramental words, which should transform the bread and wine into the Saviour’s flesh and blood, they parodied them, and said, “

Panis es, et panis manebis; vinum es, et vinum manebis:” Bread thou art, and bread wilt remain; wine thou art, and wine wilt remain. Then, continued they, we raise the ostensorium, and all the people worship it. Luther could scarcely believe his ears. His spirit, which was lively and even gay in the society of his friends, was all gravity when sacred things were in question. He was scandalised at the profane pleasantries of Rome. “I was,” said he, “a young monk, grave and pious, and these words distressed me greatly. If they speak thus in Rome at table, freely and publicly, thought I to myself, what will it be if their actions correspond to their words, and if all, pope, cardinals, courtiers, say mass in the same style? And I, who have devoutly heard so large a number read, how must I have been deceived!”

Luther often mingled with the monks and the citizens of Rome. If some extolled the pope and his court, the great majority gave free utterance to their complaints and their sarcasms. What tales they told of the reigning pope, of Alexander VI, and of many others! One day his Roman friends told him how Cæsar Borgia, after having fled from Rome, was apprehended in Spain. When they were going to try him he pleaded guilty in prison, and requested a confessor. A monk having been sent, he slew him, and, wrapping himself up in his cloak, made his escape. “I heard that at Rome, and it is quite certain,” said Luther. One day passing through a public street which led to St. Peter’s, be stopped in amazement before a statue, representing a pope under the form of a woman holding a sceptre, clad in the papal mantle, and carrying an infant in her arms. It is a girl of Mentz, said they to him, whom the cardinals chose for pope, and who had a child at this spot. Hence no pope ever passes through this street. “I am astonished,” said Luther, “how the popes allow the statue to remain.”³

Luther had expected to find the edifice of the church in strength and splendour, but its gates were forced, and its walls consumed with fire. He saw the desolations of the sanctuary, and started back in dismay. He had dreamed of nothing but holiness, and he discovered nothing but profanation.

He was not less struck with the disorders outside the churches. “The Roman police,” says he, “is strict and severe. The judge or captain every night makes a round of the town on horseback, with three hundred attendants, and arrests every person he finds in the streets. If he meets any one armed he hangs him up, or throws him into the Tiber; and yet the city is full of disorder and murder, whereas, when the word of God is purely and rightly taught, peace and order are seen to reign, and there is no need of law and its severities.” “It is almost incredible what sins and infamous actions are committed at Rome,” says he, on another occasion; “one would require to see it and hear it in order to believe it. Hence, it is an ordinary saying, that if there is a hell, Rome is built upon it. It is an abyss from whence all sins proceed.”² This sight made a strong impression on Luther’s mind at the time, and the impression was deepened at a later period. “The nearer we approach Rome the more bad Christians we find,” said he several years after. “There is a common saying, that he who goes to Rome, the first time seeks a rogue, the second time finds him, and the third time brings him away with him in his own person; but now people are become so skilful, that they make all the three journeys in one.” A genius, one of the most unhappily celebrated, but also one of the most profound of Italy, Machiavelli, who was living at Florence when Luther passed through it on his way to Rome, has made the same remark: “The strongest symptom,” says he, “of the approaching ruin of Christianity, (he means Roman Catholicism,) is, that the nearer you come to the capital of Christendom the less you find of the Christian spirit. The scandalous examples and crimes of the court of Rome are the cause why Italy has lost every principle of piety and all religious sentiment. We Italians,” continues the great historian, “are chiefly indebted to the Church and the priests for our having become a set of profane scoundrels.” At a later period Luther was fully aware how much he had gained by his journey “I would not take a hundred thousand florins,” said he, “not to have seen Rome.”⁴ The journey was also of the greatest advantage to him in a literary view. Like Reuchlin, Luther availed himself of his residence in Italy to penetrate farther into the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. He took lessons in Hebrew from a celebrated rabbi named Elias Levita; and thus, at Rome, partly acquired the knowledge of that Divine word under whose blows Rome was destined to fall. But there was another respect in which the journey was of great importance to Luther. Not only was the veil torn away and the sardonic smile, and mountebank infidelity which lurked behind the Roman superstitions, revealed to the future Reformer, but, moreover, the living faith which God had implanted in him was powerfully strengthened.

We have seen how he at first entered devotedly into all the vain observances, to which, as a price, the Church has annexed the expiation of sins. One day, among others, wishing to gain an indulgence which the pope had promised to every one who should on his knees climb up what is called Pilate’s Stair, the Saxon monk was humbly crawling up the steps, which he was told had been miraculously transported to Rome from Jerusalem. But while he was engaged in this meritorious act, he thought he heard a voice of thunder which cried at the bottom of his heart, as at Wittemberg and Bologna, “The just shall live by faith.” These words, which had already on two different occasions struck him like the voice of an angel of God, resounded loudly and incessantly within him. He rises up in amazement from the steps along which he was dragging his body. Horrified at himself, and ashamed to see how far superstition has abased him, he flies far from the scene of his folly. In regard to this mighty word there is something mysterious in the life of Luther. It proved a creating word both for the Reformer and for the Reformation. It was by it that God then said, “Let light be, and light was.”

It is often necessary that a truth, in order to produce its due effect on the mind, must be repeatedly presented to it. Luther had carefully studied the Epistle to the Romans, and yet, though justification by faith is there taught, he had never seen it so clearly. Now he comprehends the righteousness which alone can stand in the presence of God; now he receives from God himself, by the hand of Christ, that obedience which he freely imputes to the sinner as soon as he humbly turns his eye to the God-Man who was crucified. This is the decisive period in the internal life of Luther. The faith which has saved him from the terrors of death becomes the soul of his theology, his fortress in all dangers, the stamina of his discourse, the stimulant of his love, the foundation of his peace, the spur of his labours, his consolation in life and in death. But this great doctrine of a salvation which emanates from God and not from man, was not only the power of God to save the soul of Luther, it also became the power of God to reform the Church; a powerful weapon which the apostles wielded, a weapon too long neglected, but at length brought forth in its primitive lustre from the arsenal of the mighty God. At the moment when Luther stood up in Rome, all moved and thrilling with the words which Paul had addressed fifteen centuries before to the inhabitants of this metropolis, truth, till then a fettered captive within the Church, rose up also, never again to fall.

Here we must let Luther speak for himself. “Although I was a holy and irreproachable monk, my conscience was full of trouble and anguish. I could not bear the words, ‘Justice of God.’ I loved not the just and holy God who punishes sinners. I was filled with secret rage against him and hated him, because, not satisfied with terrifying us, his miserable creatures, already lost by original sin, with his law and the miseries of life, he still further increased our torment by the gospel.… But when, by the Spirit of God, I comprehended these words; when I learned how the sinner’s justification proceeds from the pure mercy of the Lord by means of faith, then I felt myself revive like a new man, and entered at open doors into the very paradise of God.² From that time, also, I beheld the precious sacred volume with new eyes. I went over all the Bible, and collected a great number of passages which taught me what the work of God was. And as I had previously, with all my heart, hated the words, ‘Justice of God,’ so from that time I began to esteem and love them, as words most sweet and most consoling. In truth, these words were to me the true gate of paradise.”

Accordingly, when called on solemn occasions to confess this doctrine, Luther always manifested his enthusiasm and rude energy. “I see,” said he on a critical occasion, “that the devil is incessantly attacking this fundamental article by the instrumentality of his doctors, and that, in this respect, he cannot rest or take any repose. Very well, I, Doctor Martin Luther, unworthy evangelist of our Lord Jesus Christ, hold this article—that faith alone, without works, justifies in the sight of God; and I declare that the emperor of the Romans, the emperor of the Turks, the emperor of the Tartars, the emperor of the Persians, the pope, all the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, princes, and nobles, all men and all devils, must let it stand, and allow it to remain for ever. If they will undertake to combat this truth, they will bring down the flames of hell upon their heads. This is the true and holy gospel, and the declaration of me, Doctor Luther, according to the light of the Holy Spirit.… Nobody,” continues he, “has died for our sins but Jesus Christ the Son of God. I repeat it once more; should the world and all the devils tear each other, and burst with fury, this is, nevertheless, true. And if it be He alone who takes away sin, it cannot be ourselves with our works; but good works follow redemption, as the fruit appears on the tree. This is our doctrine; and it is the doctrine which the Holy Spirit teaches with all true Christians. We maintain it in the name of God. Amen.”

It was thus Luther found what all doctors and reformers, even the most distinguished, had, to a certain degree at least, failed to discover. It was in Rome that God gave him this clear view of the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. He had come to the city of the pontiffs seeking the solution of some difficulties relative to a monastic order, and he carried away in his heart the safety of the Church.