11 Luther's Failure as a Monk.

8. Luther’s Failure as a Monk.

Monasticism is a pagan shoot grafted on a Christian tree. At its base lies the heathenish notion that sin can be extirpated by severe onslaughts upon the body and the physical life. It has existed in Buddhism before some Christians adopted it. In the early days of Christianity it was proclaimed as superior wisdom by the Platonic philosophers. Like many a lie it has been decked out with Bible-texts to give it respectability, and to soothe disquieted consciences. The

Scripture-sayings regarding fasting, sexual continence, chastity, crucifying the flesh, etc., are made to stand sponsor for this bastard offspring of the brain of Christian mystics. With excellent discrimination Mosheim has traced the origin of monasticism to the early Christian fathers. The earliest impulses to monasticism are contained in such writings as the Epistle to Zenas, found among the writings of Justinus, the tracts of Clement of Alexandria on Calumny, Patience, Continence, and other virtues, the tracts of Tertullian on practical duties, such as Chastity, Flight from Persecution, Fasting, Theatrical Exhibitions, the Dress of Females,

Prayer, etc. These writings "would be perused with greater profit, were it not for the gloomy and morose spirit which they everywhere breathe. . . . In what estimation they ought to be held, the learned are not agreed. Some hold them to be the very best guides to true piety and a holy life; others, on the contrary, think their precepts were the worst possible, and that the cause of practical religion could not be committed to worse hands. . . . To us it appears that their writings contain many things excellent, well considered, and well calculated to kindle pious emotions; but also many things unduly rigorous, and derived from the Stoic and Academic philosophy; many things vague and indeterminate; and many things positively false, and inconsistent with the precepts of Christ. If one deserves the title of a bad master in morals who has no just ideas of the proper boundaries and limitations of Christian duties, nor clear and distinct conceptions of the different virtues and vices, nor a perception of those general principles to which recurrence should be had in all discussions respecting Christian virtue, and therefore very often talks at random, and blunders in expounding the divine laws; though he may say many excellent things, and excite in us considerable emotion; then I can readily admit that in strict truth this title belongs to many of the Fathers. . . . They admitted, with good intentions no doubt, yet most inconsiderately, a great error in regard to morals, and pernicious to Christianity; an error which, through all succeeding ages to our times, has produced an infinity of mistakes and evils of various kinds. Jesus, our Savior, prescribed one and the same rule of life or duty to all His disciples. But the Christian doctors, either by too great a desire of imitating the nations among whom they lived, or from a natural propensity to austerity and gloom, (a disease that many labor under in Syria, Egypt, and other provinces of the East,) were induced to maintain that Christ had prescribed a twofold rule of holiness and virtue; the one ordinary, the other extraordinary; the one lower, the other higher; the one for men of business, the other for persons of leisure, and such as desired higher glory in the future world. They therefore early divided all that had been taught them either in books or by tradition, respecting a Christian life and morals, into Precepts and Counsels. They gave the name Precepts to those laws which were universally obligatory, or were enacted for all men of all descriptions; but the Counsels pertained solely to those who aspire after superior holiness and a closer union with God. There soon arose, therefore, a class of persons who professed to strive after that extraordinary and more eminent holiness, and who, of course, resolved to obey the Counsels of Christ, that they might have intimate communion with God in this life, and might, on leaving the body, rise without impediment or difficulty to the celestial world. They supposed many things were forbidden to them which were allowed to other Christians, such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and worldly business. They thought they must emaciate their bodies with watching, fasting, toil, and hunger. They considered it a blessed thing to retire to desert places, and by severe meditation to abstract their minds from all external objects, and whatever delights the senses. Both men and women imposed these severe restraints on themselves, with good intentions, I suppose, but setting a bad example, and greatly to the injury of the cause of Christianity. They were, of course, denominated Ascetics, Zealous Ones, Elect, and also Philosophers; and they were distinguished from other Christians, not only by a different appellation, but by peculiarities of dress and demeanor. Those who embraced this austere mode of life lived indeed only for themselves, but they did not withdraw themselves altogether from the society and converse of men. But in process of time, persons of this description at first retired into deserts, and afterwards formed themselves into associations, after the manner of the Essenes and Therapeutae.

"The causes of this institution are at hand. First, the Christians did not like to appear inferior to the Greeks, the Romans, and the other people among whom there were many philosophers and sages, who were distinguished from the vulgar by their dress and their whole mode of life, and who were held in high honor. Now among these philosophers (as is well known) none better pleased the Christians than the Platonists and Pythagoreans, who are known to have recommended two modes of living, the one for philosophers who wished to excel others in virtue, and the other for people engaged in the common affairs of life. The Platonists prescribed the following rule for philosophers: The mind of a wise man must be withdrawn, as far as possible, from the contagious influence of the body. And as the oppressive load of the body and social intercourse are most adverse to this design, therefore all sensual gratifications are to be avoided; the body is to be sustained, or rather mortified, with coarse and slender fare; solitude is to be sought for; and the mind is to be self-collected and absorbed in contemplation, so as to be detached as much as possible from the body. Whoever lives in this manner shall in the present life have converse with God, and, when freed from the load of the body, shall ascend without delay to the celestial mansions, and shall not need, like the souls of other men, to undergo a purgation. The grounds of this system lay in the peculiar sentiments entertained by this sect of philosophers and by their friends, respecting the soul, demons, matter, and the universe. And as these sentiments were embraced by the Christian philosophers, the necessary consequences of them were, of course, to be adopted also.

"What is here stated will excite less surprise if it be remembered that Egypt was the land where this mode of life had its origin. For that country, from some law of nature, has always produced a greater number of gloomy and hypochondriac or melancholy persons than any other; and it still does so. Here it was long before the Savior’s birth, not only the Essenes and Therapeutae--those Jewish sects, composed of persons with a morbid melancholy, or rather partially deranged--had their chief residence; but many others also, that they might better please the gods, withdrew themselves as by the instinct of nature from commerce with men and with all pleasures of life. From Egypt this mode of life passed into Syria and the neighboring countries, which in like manner always abounded with unsociable and austere individuals: and from the East it was at last introduced among the nations of Europe. Hence the numerous maladies which still deform the Christian world; hence the celibacy of the clergy; hence the numerous herds of monks; hence the two species of life, the theoretical and mystical." (_Eccles. Hist.,_ I, 128 f.)

One may well feel pity for the original monks. Their zeal was heroic, but it was spent upon an issue that is in its very root and core a haughty presumption and a lie. Exhaust all the Scripture-texts which speak of indwelling sin, of the lust that rages in our members, of the duty to keep the body under by fasting and vigilance, and there will not be found enough Bible to cover the nakedness of the monastic principle. Its fundamental thought of a select type of piety to be attained by spectacular efforts at self-mortification flies in the face of the doctrine that we are rid of sin and sanctified by divine grace alone. Monkish holiness is a slander of the Redeemer’s all-sufficient sacrifice for sin and of the work of the Holy Spirit. It started in paganism, and wants to drag Christianity back into paganism. But monasticism in Luther’s day was no longer of the sort which one may view with a pathetic interest. The old monastic ideals had been largely abandoned. Instead of crucifying the flesh, the monks were nursing and fondling carnal-mindedness. The cloisters had become cesspools of corruption. Because the reputation of monks was utterly bad, and monks were publicly scorned and derided, Luther’s friends tried to dissuade him from entering the cloister. That was the reason, too, why Luther’s father was so deeply shocked when he heard of what his Martin had done, and Luther had to assure his father that he had not gone into the herd of monks to seek what people believed men sought in that profligate company. For that reason, too, he had chosen the Augustinian order, because a strong reform movement had been started in that order, and its reputation was better than that of the other orders. Luther meant to be a monk of the original type.

Since the days of Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas the Roman Church teaches that there is in the Church a treasury of supererogatory works, that is, of good works which Christ and the saints have performed in excess of what is ordinarily demanded of every man in the way of upright living. We shall meet with this idea again in another connection. It flows from the monastic principles. Monks must have not only enough sanctity for their own needs, but to spare. Of this superfluous sanctity they may make an assignment in favor of others. Do not smile incredulously; monks actually make such assignments. Luther may not have thought of this when he entered the cloister, but he rejoiced in this scheme of substitutive sanctity later. He thought he had found in monkery a gold-mine of holiness that would be sufficient not only for himself, but also for his parents. While at Rome some years later, he was in a way sorry that his father and mother were not already in purgatory. He had such a fine chance there to accumulate supererogatory good works which he might have transferred to them to shorten their agonies, or release them entirely. In order to make a successful monk, one must be either a Pharisee or an epicurean. The Pharisee takes an inventory of the works named in the Law of God, and sets out to perform these in an external, mechanical manner. He adds a few works of his own invention for good measure. Every work performed counts; it constitutes merit. On the basis of his two pecks and a half of merit the Pharisee now begins to drive a bargain with God: for so much merit he claims so much distinction and glory. He figures it all out to God, so that God shall not make a mistake at the time of the settlement: I have not been this, nor that, nor the other thing; I have done this, and that, and some more. Consequently . . . ! The epicurean is a jolly fatalist. Whatever is to happen will happen. Why worry? Go along at an even pace; eat, drink, be merry, but for Heaven’s sake do not take a serious or tragical view of anything! Take things as they are; if you can improve them, well and good; if not, let it pass; forget it; eat a good meal and go to sleep.

Luther was never an epicurean. The seriousness of life had confronted him at a very early date. The sense of duty was highly developed in him from early youth. In all that he did he felt himself as a being that is responsible to his Maker and Judge. Easy-going indifference and ready self-pity were not in his character. For this Luther is now faulted by Catholics. It is said he extended the rigors of monasticism beyond the bounds of reasonableness. He was too severe with himself. He outraged human nature. Quite correct; but is not monasticism by itself an outrage upon human nature? Luther had endured the monastery for the very purpose of enduring hardness. He did not flinch when the battle into which he had gone commenced in earnest. Luther is said to have been tardy and neglectful in the observance of the rules of the order. Sometimes he would omit the canonical hours, that is, the stated prayers, or some form of prescribed devotion, and then he would endeavor to make up for the loss by redoubled effort, which overtaxed his physical strength. Quite true. It is not such a rare occurrence that a monk forgets the one or the other of the minutiae of the daily monkish routine. The regulations of his orders extended to such things as the posture which he must assume while standing, while sitting, while kneeling; the movement of his arms, of his hands; how to approach, how to move in front of the altar, how to leave it, etc. When his mind was engrossed with the study of the Bible or some commentary of a Church Father, it was easy for Luther to forget parts of the program which he was to carry out. Whenever this happened, was it not his duty to endeavor to repair the damage? Were not penances imposed on him in the confessional for every default? Luther is said to have been led into still deeper gloom by his study of the doctrine of predestination. True, but even this study did not lead Luther off into fatalism. It terrified him, because he studied that profound doctrine without a true perception of divine grace and the meaning of the Redeemer’s work. However, this study did not at any time permanently affect his vigorous striving after holiness. When Catholics explain Luther’s failure as a monk by such assertions, they involve themselves in self-contradiction. By their own principles monkery is not a natural life; yet, when a monk fails in his monkery, they fault him for not being natural. First, they tell the applicant that he must not be what he is, and afterwards they blame him for wanting to be what they told him to be, and what he finds he cannot be. If this is not adding insult to injury, what is? Francis of Assisi became a great saint by that very inhuman treatment of himself for which Luther is censured. But then Francis of Assisi did not quit his order and did not attack the Pope. The other reason why Luther failed is, because he could not make a Pharisee of himself, which is only another name for hypocrite. The Law of God had such a terrible meaning to him because he applied it as the Lawgiver wants it applied, to his whole inner life, to the heart, the soul, the mind, and all his powers of intellect and will. It is comparatively easy to make the members of the body go through certain external performances, but to make the mind obey is a different proposition. The discovery which disheartened Luther was, that while he was outwardly leading the life of a blameless monk, his inward life was not improved. Sin was ever present with him, as it is with every human being. He felt the terrible smitings of the accusing conscience because he was keenly alive to the real demands of God’s Law. The holy Law of God wrought its will upon him to the fullest extent: it roused him to anger with the God who had given this Law to man; it led him into blasphemous thoughts, so that he recoiled with horror from himself. Does the true Law of God, when properly applied, ever have any other effect upon natural man? Paul says: "It worketh wrath" (Romans 4:1-25;Romans 15:1-33), namely, wrath in man against God. It drives man to despair. That is its legitimate function: No person has touched the essence of the Law who has not passed through these awful experiences. Nor did any man ever flee from the Law and run to Christ for shelter but for these unendurable terrors which the Law begets. That was Luther’s whole trouble, and that is why he failed as a monk: he had started out to become a saint, and he did not even succeed in making a Pharisee of himself. If Rome has produced a monk that succeeded better than Luther, he ought to be exhibited and examined. He will be found either an angel or a brazen fraud. He will not be a true man.