Martin Luther

The 1521 trial of Martin Luther involves considerable drama and two agendas: religious and political. A theological conflict certainly, it was also a trial testing the national spirit of Germany.

Luther’s revolt began with his objection to the fund-raising technique of selling papal indulgences, the subject of his ninety-five Theses in 1517. He was spared extradition to Rome by the protection which Elector Frederick of Saxony extended to this monk and theology professor at Wittenberg University. When the papal legate Cardinal Cajetan at a hearing concerning Luther’s case decided that Frederick must either send Luther to Rome or banish him, Frederick, although in a tight position and troubled by the charge that he might be harboring a heretic, again refused to turn Luther over to Rome until he had been declared a heretic.²⁷

Luther’s revolt swept into history on the incoming tide of nationalism. He was able to ignore the 1520 papal bull condemning his writings to be burned and requiring him to submit within sixty days or be excommunicated and declared anathema. Luther not only withstood this strongest of papal condemnations, but he burned the papal bull. His reply in his Address to the German Nobility was worded in strong language:

If ninety-nine per cent of the papal court were abolished and only one per cent were left, it would still be large enough to deal with questions of Christian faith. At present there is a crawling mass of reptiles, all claiming to pay allegiance to the pope, but Babylon never saw the like of these miscreants. The pope has more than 3,000 secretaries alone, and no one can count the others he employs, as the posts are so numerous.

Now that we have come to close quarters, let us pause a while to consider whether the Germans are quite such simpletons as not to grasp or understand the Romish game. For the moment, I shall say nothing by way of deploring the fact that God’s commandments and Christian justice are despised in Rome. The state of Christendom, especially in Rome, is not so happy that we should risk calling such exalted matters into question at the present time. Nor am I objecting that natural or secular right and reason are of no avail. The root of the trouble goes altogether deeper. My complaint is that the Romanists do not observe the very canon law which they themselves have devised, though this in itself is simply a piece of tyranny, avarice, and worldly pomp rather than law.²⁸

Luther got away with saying this because he was protected by the German princes, especially Frederick of Saxony. Frederick was able to protect Luther because he had among his own people the support of a growing German national resentment against Rome. In spite of his opinions which resembled the heresy of John Hus, Luther was not burned as Hus had been a century earlier. Nor was Luther subject to the Inquisition as were secret Lutherans in Spain, because, unlike Ferdinand and Isabella, Frederick did not make the Inquisition an instrument of national unity. Instead, Luther was the instrument of nationalism in Germany.

The break from Rome was made final with the Diet of Worms in 1521, before the nobles and representatives of cities in the Holy Roman Empire and under the authority of Emperor Charles V, where Luther was called upon by a representative of the archbishop to retract the heresies in his writings: “Your plea to be heard from Scripture is the one always made by heretics. You do nothing but renew the errors of Wyclif and Hus.… Martin, how can you assume that you are the only one to understand the sense of Scripture? Would you put your judgment above that of so many famous men and claim that you know more than they all?” The question, in other words, concerned representation. Augustine would probably not have agreed with Luther’s answer.

Luther’s reply came in German, not Latin: “Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.” He might also have spoken the famous words of the Reformation: “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”²⁷

When Emperor Charles called in the electors he stressed the issue of representation. He told them that he, following in the steps of the long line of emperors and kings from whom he was descended, intended to be faithful to the Church of Rome and defend the Catholic faith: “A single friar who goes counter to all Christianity for a thousand years must be wrong.” Four of the six agreed to declare Luther a “notorious heretic,” but the elector of the palatinate and Frederick of Saxony refused. For Luther’s safety Frederick hid him at Wartburg castle.³⁰

Luther’s trial in the Diet at Worms drove the question of representation in several directions: Was God represented by the pope, by councils, by tradition, or by Scripture and conscience? Was the German nation better represented by Luther’s doctrine and the princes or by Catholicism and the papacy? Did Luther preach German freedom from Roman tyranny and Christian freedom in the priesthood of all believers? Or, was his position, as the Edict of Worms declared, a denial of “the power of the keys” and an encouragement for “the laity to wash their hands in the blood of the clergy” in “rebellion, division, war, murder, robbery, arson, and the collapse of Christendom”?³¹ Was it, in sort, tyranny with Rome and order under German princes? Or was it anarchy with Luther and order with Rome?

Variations of these same questions arise in all nationalist trials.