THE Treatise before us was discovered by Luther, who first brought it into
notice by an Edition of it which he published in 1516. A Second Edition, which
came out two years later, he introduced with the following Preface: --
"We read that St. Paul, though he was of a
weak and contemptible presence, yet wrote weighty and powerful letters, and he
boasts of himself that his 'speech is not with enticing words of man's device,'
but 'full of the riches of all knowledge and wisdom.' And if we consider the
wondrous ways of God, it is clear, that He hath never chosen mighty and
eloquent preachers to speak His word, but as it is written: 'Out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings hast thou perfected praise,' Ps. 8:2. And again, 'For
wisdom opened the mouth of the dumb, and made the tongues of them that cannot
speak eloquent,' Wisdom 10:21. Again, He blameth such as are high-minded and
are offended at these simple ones. Consilium inopis, etc. 'Ye have made
a mock at the counsel of the poor, because he putteth his trust in the Lord,'
Ps. 14:6.
"This I say because I will have every one warned
who readeth this little book, that he should not take offence, to his own hurt,
at its bad German, or its crabbed and uncouth words. For this noble book,
though it be poor and rude in words, is so much the richer and more precious in
knowledge and divine wisdom. And I will say, though it be boasting of myself
and 'I speak as a fool,' that next to the Bible and St. Augustine, no book hath
ever come into my hands, whence I have learnt, or would wish to learn more of
what God, and Christ, and man and all things are; and now I first find the
truth of what certain of the learned have said in scorn of us theologians of
Wittemberg, that we would be thought to put forward new things, as though there
had never been men elsewhere and before our time. Yea, verily, there have been
men, but God's wrath, provoked by our sins, hath not judged us worthy to see
and hear them; for it is well known that for a long time past such things have
not been treated of in our universities; nay, it has gone so far, that the Holy
Word of God is not only laid on the shelf, but is almost mouldered away with
dust and moths. Let as many as will, read this little book, and then say
whether Theology is a new or an old thing among us; for this book is not new.
But if they say as before, that we are but German theologians, we will not deny
it. I thank God, that I have heard and found my God in the German tongue, as
neither I nor they have yet found Him in the Latin, Greek, or Hebrew tongue.
God grant that this book may be spread abroad, then we shall find that the
German theologians are without doubt the best theologians.
(Signed, without date,)
"Dr. MARTIN LUTHER,
AUGUSTINIAN of Wittemberg.
These words of Luther will probably be considered
to form a sufficient justification for an attempt to present the Theologia
Germanica in an English dress. When Luther sent it forth, its effort to
revive the consciousness of spiritual life was received with enthusiasm by his
fellow-countrymen, in whom that life was then breaking with volcanic energy
through the clods of formalism and hypocrisy, with which the Romish Church had
sought to stifle its fires. No fewer than seventeen editions of the work
appeared during the lifetime of Luther. Up to the present day, it has continued
to be a favourite handbook of devotion in Germany, where it has passed through
certainly as many as sixty Editions, and it has also been widely circulated in
France and the Netherlands, by means of Latin, French, and Flemish
translations.
To the question, who was the author of a book
which has exerted so great an influence? no answer can be given, all the
various endeavours to discover him having proved fruitless. Till within the
last few years, Luther was our sole authority for the text of the work, but,
about 1850, a manuscript of it was discovered at Wurtzburg, by Professor Reuss,
the librarian of the University there, which has since been published verbatim
by Professor Pfeiffer of Prague. This Manuscript dates from 1497; consequently
it is somewhat older than Luther's time, and it also contains some passages not
found in his editions. As, upon careful comparison, it seemed to the translator
indisputably superior to the best modern editions based upon Luther's, it has
been selected as the groundwork of the present translation, merely correcting
from the former, one or two passages which appeared to contain errors of the
press, or more likely of the transcriber's pen. The passages not found in
Luther's edition are here enclosed between brackets.
As has been stated, the author of the
Theologia Germanica is unknown; but it is evident from his whole
cast of thought, as well as from a Preface attached to the Wurtzburg
Manuscript, that he belonged to a class of men who sprang up in Southern
Germany at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and who were distinguished
for their earnest piety and their practical belief in the presence of the
Spirit of God with all Christians, laity as well as clergy.
These men had fallen upon evil times. Their age
was not indeed one of those periods in which the vigour of the nobler powers of
the soul is enfeebled by the abundance of material prosperity and physical
enjoyment, nor yet one of those in which they are utterly crushed out under the
hoof of oppression and misery; but it was an age in which conflicting elements
were wildly struggling for the mastery. The highest spiritual and temporal
authorities were at deadly strife with each other and among themselves; and in
their contests, there were few provinces or towns that did not repeatedly
suffer the horrors of war. The desolation caused by its ravages was however
speedily repaired during the intervals of peace, by the extraordinary energy
which the German nation displayed in that bloom of its manhood; so that times
of deep misery and great prosperity rapidly alternated with each other. But on
the whole, during the first half of this century, the sense of the calamities,
which were continually recurring, predominated over the recollection of the
calmer years, which were barely sufficient to allow breathing time between the
successive waves that threatened to overwhelm social order and happiness.
The unquestioning faith and honest enthusiasm
which had prompted the Crusades, no longer burnt with the same fierce ardour,
for the unhappy issue of those sacred enterprises, and the scandalous worldly
ambition of the heads of the Church, had moderated its fervour and saddened the
hearts of true believers. Yet the one Catholic, Christian creed still held an
undivided and very real sovereignty over men's minds, and the supremacy of the
Church in things spiritual was never questioned, though many were beginning to
feel that it was needful for the State to have an independent authority in
things temporal, and the question was warmly agitated how much of the spiritual
authority resided in the Pope and how much in the bishops and doctors of the
Church. But in whichever way the dispute between these rival claims might be
adjusted, the reverence for the office of the clergy remained
unimpaired. The case was very different with the reverence for their
persons, which had fallen to a very low ebb, owing to the worldliness
and immorality of their lives. This again was much encouraged by the conduct of
the Popes, who, in their zeal to establish worldly dominion, made
ecclesiastical appointments rather with a view to gain political adherents, or
to acquire wealth by the sale of benefices, than with a regard to the fitness
of the men selected, or the welfare of the people committed to their charge.
On the whole, it was an age of faith, though by
no means of a blind, unreasoning taking things for granted. On the contrary,
the evidences of extreme activity of mind meet us on every hand, in the
monuments of its literature, architecture, and invention. A few facts
strikingly illustrate the divergent tendencies of thought and public opinion.
Thus we may remember, how it was currently reported that the profligate Pope
Boniface VIII. was privately an unbeliever, even deriding the idea of the
immortality of the soul, at the very time when he was maintaining against
Philip the Fair, the right of the Pope to sit, as Christ's representative, in
judgment on the living and the dead, and to take the sword of temporal power
out of the hands of those who misused it.[3]
Whether this accusation was true or not, it is a remarkable sign of the times
that it should have been widely believed.
Some years later, and when the increased
corruptness of the clergy, after the removal of the Papal Court to Avignon,
provoked still louder complaints, we see the religious and patriotic Emperor,
Louis IV., accusing John XXII. of heresy, in a public assembly held in the
square of St. Peter's at Rome, and setting up another Pope "in order to please
the Roman people." But though the new Pope was every way fitted, by his
unblemished character and ascetic manners, to gain a hold on public esteem, we
see that the Emperor could not maintain him against the legitimately elected
Pope, who, from his seat at Avignon, had power to harass the Emperor so greatly
with his interdicts, that the latter, finding all efforts at conciliation
fruitless, would have bought peace by unconditional submission, had not the
Estates of the Empire refused to yield to such humiliation. Yet we find this
very Pope obliged to yield and retract his opinions on a point of dogmatic
theology. He had in a certain treatise propounded the opinion that the souls of
the pious would not be admitted to the immediate vision of the Deity until
after the day of judgment. The King of France, in 1333, called an assembly of
Prelates and theologians at his palace at Vincennes, where he invited them to
discuss before him the two questions, whether the souls of departed saints
would be admitted to an immediate vision of the Deity before the resurrection;
and whether, if so, their vision would be of the same or of a different kind
after the Judgment Day? The theological faculty having come to conclusions
differing in some respects from those of the Pope, the King threatened the
latter with the stake as a heretic, unless he retracted; and John XXII. issued
a bull, declaring that what he had said or written, ought only to be received
in so far as it agreed with the Catholic Faith, the Church and Holy Scripture.
No circumstance, perhaps, offers a more remarkable spectacle to us in its
contrast with the spirit of our own times. At the present moment, when the Pope
could not sit for a day in safety on his temporal throne without the defence of
French or Austrian bayonets, we can scarcely conceive an Emperor of France or
Austria taking upon himself to convene an assembly of Catholic theologians, and
the latter pronouncing a censure on the dogmas propounded by the Head of the
Church! It would be hard to say whether the Sovereigns of the present day would
be more amused by the absurdity of devoting their time to such discussions, or
the consciences of good Catholics more shocked at the presumption of such a
verdict.
Still it must not be forgotten that the
importance of religious affairs in that age must not be ascribed too
exclusively to earnestness about religion itself, for the ecclesiastical
interest predominated over the purely religious. The Pope and the Emperor
represented the two great antagonistic powers, spiritual and temporal, the
rivalry between which absorbed into itself all the political and social
questions that could then be agitated. The question of allegiance to the Pope
or the Emperor was like the contest between royalism and republicanism; the
Ghibelline called himself a patriot, and was called by his adversary, the
Guelf, a worldly man or even an infidel, while he retorted by calling the Guelf
a betrayer of his country, and an enemy of national liberties.
We cannot help seeing, however, that in those
days both princes and people, wicked as their lives often were, did really
believe in the Christian religion, and that while much of the mythological and
much of the formalistic element mingled in their zeal for outward observances,
there was also much thoroughly sincere enthusiasm among them. But both the two
great powers oppressed the people, which looked alternately to the one side or
the other for emancipation from the particular grievances felt to be most
galling at any given moment or place. In the frightful moral and physical
condition of society, it was no wonder that a despair of Providence should have
begun to attack some minds, which led to materialistic scepticism, while others
sought for help on the path of wild speculation. The latter appears to have
been the case with the Beghards or "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit,"
who attempted to institute a reform by withdrawing the people altogether from
the influence of the clergy, but whose followers after a time too often fell
into the vices of the priests from whom they had separated themselves. In 1317,
we find the Bishop of Ochsenstein complaining that Alsace was filled with these
Beghards, who appear to have been a kind of antinomian pantheists, teaching
that the Spirit is bound by no law, and annihilating the distinction between
the Creator and the creature. Both in their excellences and defects they remind
us of the modern "German Catholics," and of some, too, of the recent Protestant
schools in Germany. There seems to have been no party of professed unbelievers,
but that some individuals were such in word as well as deed, appears from what
Ruysbroch of Brussels,[4] (1300-1330) says of
those "who live in mortal sin, not troubling themselves about God or His grace,
but thinking virtue sheer nonsense, and the spiritual life hypocrisy or
delusion; and hearing with disgust all mention of God or virtue, for they are
persuaded that there is no such thing as God, or Heaven, or Hell; for they
acknowledge nothing but what is palpable to the senses."
The early part of the fourteenth century saw
Germany divided for nine years between the rival claims of two Emperors,
Frederick of Austria, supported by Pope John XXII. and a faction in Germany,
and Louis of Bavaria, whose cause was espoused by a majority of the princes of
the Empire, as that of the defender of the dignity and independence of the
State, and the champion of reform within the Church. The death of Frederick, in
1322, left Louis the undisputed Emperor, as far as nearly all his subjects were
concerned, and he would fain have purchased peace with the Pope on any
reasonable terms, that he might apply himself to the internal improvement of
his dominions; but John XXII. was implacable, and continued to wage against him
and his adherents a deadly warfare, not closed until his successor Charles IV.
submitted to all the papal demands, and to every indignity imposed upon him.
One of the most fearful consequences of the
enmity between John XXII. and Louis of Bavaria, to the unfortunate subjects of
the latter, was the Interdict under which his dominions were laid in 1324, and
from which some places, distinguished for their loyalty to the Emperor, were
not relieved for six-and-twenty years. Louis, indeed, desired his subjects to
pay no regard to the bull of excommunication, and most of the laity, especially
of the larger towns, would gladly have obeyed him in spite of the Pope; but the
greater part of the bishops and clergy held with their spiritual head, and thus
the inhabitants of Strasburg, Nuremberg, and other cities, where the civil
authorities sided with the Emperor, and the clergy with the Pope, were left
year after year without any religious privileges; for public worship ceased,
and all the business of life went on without the benedictions of the Church, no
rite being allowed but baptism and extreme unction.
After this had lasted sixteen years, the Emperor,
wishing to relieve the anguished consciences of his people, issued, in
conjunction with the Princes of the Empire, a great manifesto to all
Christendom, refuting the Pope's accusations against him, maintaining that he
who had been legally chosen by the Electors was, in virtue thereof, the
rightful Emperor, and had received his dignity from God, and proclaiming that
all who denied this were guilty of high treason; that therefore none should be
allowed any longer to observe the Interdict, and all who should continue to do
so, whether communities or individuals, should be deprived of every civil and
ecclesiastical right and privilege. This courageous edict found a response in
the heart of the nation, and public opinion continually declared itself more
strongly on the side of the Emperor. Yet on the whole it rather increased the
general anarchy; for in many places the priests and monks were steadfast in
their allegiance to the Pope, and, refusing to administer public service, were
altogether banished from the towns, and the churches and convents closed. In
Strasburg, for instance, where the regular clergy had long since ceased to
perform religious rites, the Dominicans and Franciscans had continued to preach
and perform mass; but now they too, frightened by the Edict, which placed them
in direct opposition to the Pope, dared no longer to disregard the renewed
sentence of excommunication hanging over them, and refusing to read mass, were
expelled by the Town Council. Many of these banished clergy wandered about in
great distress, with difficulty finding refuge among the scattered rural
population, and the sufferings they endured proved the sincerity of their
conscientious scruples. Some few, either from worldly motives, or out of pity
for the people, remained at their posts. The former indeed throve by the
miseries of their fellow-creatures, driving a usurious trade in the famine of
spiritual consolation; for it is upon record, that in time of pestilence, the
price of shrift has been as much as sixty florins!
The spectacle of such discord between the clergy
and the laity was something unspeakably shocking to the Christian world in that
age, and the energetic proceedings of the magistracy must have utterly
staggered the faith of many. Of all the events that were stirring up men's
passions and energies, none was more calculated to move their souls to the very
centre, than to find themselves compelled to stand up in arms against those
whom they had been wont to bow down before, and to reverence as the source of
those spiritual blessings, for the sake of which they were now driven in
desperation to take this awful step.
To these political and religious dissensions were
added, in process of time, other miseries. After it had been preceded by
earthquakes, hurricanes and famine, the Black Death broke out, spreading terror
and desolation through Southern Europe. Men saw in these frightful calamities
the judgments of God, but looked in vain for any to show them a way of
deliverance and escape. Some believed that the last day was approaching; some,
remembering an old prophecy, looked with hope for the return of the Great
Emperor Frederick II. to restore justice and peace in the world, to punish the
wicked clergy, and help the poor and oppressed flock to their rights. Others
traversed the country in processions, scourging themselves and praying with a
loud voice, in order to atone for their sins and appease God's anger, and
inveighing against man's unbelief, which had called down God's wrath upon the
earth; while some thought to do God service, by wreaking vengeance on the
people which had slain the Lord, and thousands of wretched Jews perished in the
flames kindled by frantic terror. "All things worked together to deepen the
sense of the corruptness of the Church, to lead men's thoughts onwards from
their physical to their spiritual wants, to awaken reflection on the judgments
of God, and to fix their eyes on the indications of the future,''[5] so that John of Winterthur was probably not alone in
applying to his own times what St. Paul says of the perils of the latter
days.
In these chaotic times, and in the countries
where the storms raged most fiercely, there were some who sought that peace
which could not be found on earth, in intercourse with a higher world.
Destitute of help and comfort and guidance from man, they took refuge in God,
and finding that to them He had proved "a present help ill time of trouble,"
"as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," they tried to bring their
fellow-men to believe and partake in a life raised above the troubles of this
world. They desired to show them that that Eternal life and enduring peace
which Christ had promised to His disciples, was, of a truth, to be found by the
Way which He had pointed out, -- by a living union with Him and the Father who
had sent Him.
With this aim, like-minded men and women joined
themselves together, that by communion of heart and mutual counsel they might
strengthen each other in their common efforts to revive the spiritual life of
those around them. The Association they founded was kept secret, lest through
misconception of their principles, they might fall under suspicion of heresy,
and the Inquisition should put a stop to their labours; but they desired to
keep themselves aloof from every thing that savoured of heresy or disorder. On
the contrary, they carefully observed all the precepts of the Church, and
carried their obedience so far that many of their number were among the priests
who were banished for obeying the Pope, when the Emperor ordered them to
disregard the Interdict. They assumed the appellation of "Friends of God"
(Gottesfreunde), and, in the course of a few years, their associations
extended along the Rhine provinces from Basle to Cologne, and eastwards through
Swabia, Bavaria, and Franconia. Strasburg, Constance, Nuremberg and Nordlingen
were among their chief seats. Their distinguishing doctrines were
self-renunciation, -- the complete giving-up of self-will to the will of God;
-- the continuous activity of the Spirit of God in all believers, and the
intimate union possible between God and man; -- the worthlessness of all
religion based upon fear or the hope of reward; -- and the essential equality
of the laity and clergy, though, for the sake of order and discipline, the
organization of the Church was necessary. They often appealed to the
declaration of Christ (John 15:15), "Henceforth I call you not servants; for
the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for
all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you;" and from
this they probably derived their name of "Friends of God." Their mode of action
was simply personal, for they made no attempt to gain political and
hierarchical power, but exerted all their influence by means of preaching,
writing and social intercourse. The Association counted among its members
priests, monks, and laity, without distinction of rank or sex. Its leaders
stood likewise in close connection with several convents, especially those of
Engenthal, and Maria-Medingen near Nuremberg, presided over by the sisters
Christina and Margaret Ebner, much of whose correspondence is still extant.
Agnes, the widow of King Andrew of Hungary, and various knights and burghers,
are also named as belonging to it.
Foremost among the leaders of this party should
be mentioned the celebrated Tauler, a Dominican monk of Strasburg, who spent
his life in preaching and teaching up and down the country from Strasburg to
Cologne, and whose influence is to this day active among his countrymen by
means of his admirable sermons, which are still widely read. At the time of the
Interdict he wrote a noble appeal to the clergy not to forsake their flocks,
maintaining that if the Emperor had sinned, the blame lay with him only, not
with his wretched subjects, so that it was a crying shame to visit his guilt
upon the innocent people, but that their unjust oppression would be recompensed
to them by God hereafter. He acted up to his own principles, and when the Black
Death was raging in Strasburg, where it carried off 16,000 victims, he was
unwearied in his efforts to administer aid and consolation to the sick and
dying.
Much of Tauler's religious fervour and light he
himself attributed to the instructions of a layman, his friend. It is now known
from contemporary records that this was Nicholas of Basle, a citizen of that
Free town and a secret Waldensian. Little is known of his life beyond the fact
that he was intimately connected with many of the heads of this party, and was
resorted to by them for guidance and help; for, being under suspicion of
heresy, he had to conceal all his movements from the Inquisition. He succeeded,
however, in carrying on his labours and eluding his enemies, until he reached
an advanced age; but at length, venturing alone and unprotected into France, he
was taken, and burnt at Vienne in 1382. Another friend of Tauler's, and like
him an eloquent and powerful preacher, whose sermons are still read with
delight, was Henry Suso, a Dominican monk, belonging to a knightly family in
Swabia.
One of the leaders of the "Friends of God,"
Nicholas of Strasburg, was in 1326 appointed by John XXII. nuncio, with the
oversight of the Dominican order throughout Germany, and dedicated to that Pope
an Essay of great learning and ability, refuting the prevalent interpretations
of Scripture, which referred the coming of Antichrist and the Judgment day to
the immediate future. Thus we see that the "Friends of God" were not confined
to one political party, and this likewise appears from the history of another
celebrated member of this sect, Henry of Nordlingen, a priest of Constance,
who, like Suso, was banished for his adherence to the Pope. One of the most
remarkable men of this sect was a layman and married, Rulman Merswin, belonging
to a high family at Strasburg. He appears to have been led to a religious life
by the influence of Tauler, who was his confessor. He is the author of several
mystical works which, he says, he wrote "to do good to his fellow creatures,"
but he contributed perhaps still more largely to their benefit by his activity
in charitable works, for he established one hospital and seems to have had the
oversight of others also. He likewise gave largely to churches and convents,
but is best known by having founded a house for the Knights of St. John in
Strasburg. The characteristic doctrines of the "Friends of God" have already
been indicated. That they should not have fallen into some exaggerations was
scarcely possible, but where they have done so, it may generally be traced to
the influence of the monastic life to which most of them were dedicated, and to
the perplexities of their age.
The book before us was probably written somewhere
about I350, since it refers to Tauler as already well known. It was the
practice of the "Friends of God" to conceal their names as much as possible
when they wrote, lest a desire for fame should mingle with their endeavours to
be useful. This is probably the reason why we have no indication of its
authorship beyond a preface, which the Wurtzburg Manuscript possesses in common
with that which was in Luther's hands, and from which it appears that the
writer "was of the Teutonic order, a priest and a warden in the house of the
Teutonic order in Frankfort." A translation of this Preface is prefixed to the
present volume. Till the discovery of the Wurtzburg Manuscript, it was supposed
that this Preface was from Luther's hand, who merely embodied in it the
tradition which he had received from some source unknown to us; and hence,
some, disregarding its authority, have ascribed the Theologia Germanica
to Tauler, whose style it resembles so much that it might be taken for his
work, but for the reference to him already mentioned. Since, however, the
antiquity of the Preface is now proved, we must be content with the information
which it affords us, unless any further discoveries among old manuscripts
should throw fresh light upon the subject.
Should this attempt to introduce the writings of
the "Friends of God" in England awaken an interest in them and their works, the
Translator proposes to follow up the present volume with an account of Tauler
and selections from his writings; believing that the study of these German
theologians, who were already called old in Luther's age, would furnish the
best antidote to what of mischief English readers may have derived from German
theology, falsely so called.
Manchester, February 1854.
[3] Neander's "Kirchengeschichte," Band 6, S. 15, 20. This work and Schmitz's "Johannes Tauler von Strasburg," are the authorities for most of the facts here mentioned.
[4] As quoted by Neander. Kirchengeschichte, B. 6, S. 769.
[5] Neander, Kircshengeschichte, B. 6, S. 728.