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The Unreformed Martin Luther

A Serious (and Not So Serious) Look at the Man Behind the Myths

Kregel Publications

Luther Was a Superstitious Person

Was Martin Luther superstitious? If so, he would be in good company. In March 2014 the Evangelical Church in Germany published their fifth sociological church member study titled Commitment and Indifference. The survey results showed that 14.8 percent of evangelicals believe in amulets, stones, or crystals, and 22 percent have an affinity for astrology. Of those who attend church weekly, 22 percent believe in the power of stones or jewels, while only 12 percent of those who never or rarely (less than once a year) attend services hold a similar view. So according to this study, "worldly" forms of religions are more likely inside the church than outside the church. Churchgoers are more superstitious than nonchurchgoers.

Not to be outdone, more than 25 percent of Americans admit to being very or somewhat superstitious when it comes to knocking on wood, walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror, or having a black cat cross one's path. And when categorized by religious affiliation, 20 to 30 percent of Catholics and Protestants believe in these common superstitions. On the other hand, atheists and agonistics come in significantly lower at 18 percent and below — which must be convenient for them when it comes to cats and ladders.

Here one is tempted to quote Luther, somewhat tongue-i n- cheek, although Luther meant it seriously: "I do not want to prophesy about the future of Germany based on the stars, but I dismiss it to the wrath of God from theology! It is impossible that Germany will get off without a hard punishment." That certainly sounds like Luther had no truck with astrology and assorted superstitions.

So was Martin Luther, the stalwart leader of the Reformation, superstitious or not? As best as can be known, the answer is yes, he was. This is not a fallacy about Luther, but a fact — and he sometimes had a bad conscience about it, ironically.

The worldview of the medieval mind was magical, mystical, and full of menacing puzzles. Nature was populated with angels, devils, witches, fairies, trolls, and undead, as well as half-human, half-animal creatures. Culture was full of oracles, secrets, fates, and taboos. Houses and clothes were decorated with and protected by powerful amulets and symbols. Esoteric mutterings, alleged secret lore, the spirituality of natural powers — all were self-evident and common sense in the spiritual climate of the time.

Martin's mother, Margarete Luther (born Lindemann), was from a small village. Her daughter died suddenly of cot death (now called SIDS). Margarete was firmly convinced that a neighbor was an evil witch who had cursed her little Magdalene. When the suspected woman was beaten to death and laid on the village green, Martin's mother expressed no dismay, but rather relief. According to her, "Satan took back one of his own." Later in Luther's life — some twenty-three years after Wittenberg had become the center of the Reformation — a woman named Prista Fruhbottin was burned to death in the Wittenberg market square on June 29, 1540. The accusation: weather magic and pasture poisoning (two sorts of crimes the modern mind certainly must puzzle over!). Lucas Cranach the Younger, a German Renaissance artist, even painted the scene of her execution as a kind of old-school crime photojournalist, so to speak. So it's safe to say that Luther and Wittenberg were hardly socio-politically enlightened in our modern sense of the term.

The Catholic theologian and Frankfurt capitular (Catholic administrator) Johann Cochlaus claimed in his 1549 biography of Luther that the good-looking Margarete Lindemann amused herself passionately with the devil and thereby conceived the baby Martin (no doubt his opponents thought Luther was a cheeky devil already). Not surprisingly for the times, this slander was not discounted even among the educated class as tasteless nonsense but was discussed as a serious possibility.

Luther himself believed in similar ideas: "Prussia is full of devils, and in Lappland there are many wizards. In Switzerland there is a sea on a high mountain, which they call Pilatus Sea — there is where the devil rampages. Near my home, there is a pond on top of Pichel Mountain. When one throws a stone in the pond, a large storm emerges." Luther not only personally believed these ideas but he stated them publicly.

From May 1521 until March 1522 Luther had to hide himself in the Wartburg, a castle in the town of Eisenach. Luther was on his way home after his legendary defense of his writings at the Diet of Worms. Martin Luther's friends "kidnapped" him so the trip back home would not end with Luther being burned at the stake. He lived in a part of the spacious fortress that was only reachable by a set of folding attic stairs. Twice a day he was provided with something to eat by two servants who only knew that he was a foreigner with the name Sir George.

Luther was lonely — but evidently not alone. He thought that there was a poltergeist in his room:

Now they had brought me a sack of hazelnuts, which I ate and locked in a chest. When I went to bed at night, the poltergeist came to me for the hazelnuts — with one hand after the other he pounded on the wood very hard, troubling me in the bed. And when I finally got a little sleep, the thing made such a rumble on the stairs, it was as if someone had thrown a dozen barrels down the stairs. I knew, of course, that the stairs were locked and protected with chains and iron so that no one could throw barrels up and down the stairs. I woke up and wanted to see what was there, but the stairs were locked. Then I said, 'If you're there, so be it then!' I commend me to the Lord Christ, of whom it is written, 'omnia subiecisti pedibus eius' ['you have everything under your feet'], as it reads in Psalm 8, verse 6. And then I went back to bed.

Luther's courageous stand against the poltergeist alone at night in a castle attic may well amaze us today. For some, it brings out a sense of pious wonder — "There you can just see how secure he was in Jesus, just how steadfast this man of faith was!"

Then again, one can also interpret this from a religious and psychological point of view and say, "There you can see how naturally and self-confidently he dealt with manifestations of the supernatural."

Another person could just as well explain this with a dry sobriety and say, "A sack full of hazelnuts can attract mice or may have already contained some. They were rustling around and obviously creating a startling commotion."

Or one can be amazed that anyone would take this story at face value at all. They might say, "Of course, Luther told this story years later during his famous 'table talks,' and perhaps, to add a little more interest, he exaggerated in the retelling a little bit." If so, he would not be the first preacher of the gospel who believed a little exaggeration never hurt a good story!

If Luther had ever been challenged about this story, he could have mentioned another person who was awakened by the poltergeist in the same room in the castle: the wife of the captain of the castle, Madame von Berlepsch, who occasionally lived separated from her husband in 1521. Luther says, "Then came Hans von Berlepsch's wife toward Eisenach and sensed that I was in the castle, and would have really liked to have seen me. However, it couldn't be. They brought me into another chamber and put up the same woman from Berlepsch in my chamber. There, she heard such a rumble in the night that she thought there were a thousand devils inside."

However, with this "chief witness" of the Wartburg poltergeist, Luther's account becomes somewhat suspicious. How likely is it that one would accommodate a noble lady, of all people, in a secluded and haunted room? Why did she not stay the night in the luxurious chamber of her husband? That points to a seemingly ended marriage. How did Luther know about the lady of Berlepsch's experience when it officially "couldn't be" that they could encounter one another? From what we know, those questions have no satisfactory answer.

However, there may be another explanation for all this turmoil in the tower. We know from Luther's letters during this period that he suffered terribly from loneliness and from sexual desires, a troubling experience, no doubt, for a celibate monk. "I'm burning in the great fire of my untamed flesh. I should be rutting in spirit as I am in the flesh." As Luther struggled against the seductive torments of sexual thoughts, did his own inner psychological struggles intensify his perception of the havoc among the hazelnuts? Perhaps, but we don't know.

As early as the late 1520s, however, a distinction between a more critical and rationally minded Luther and the medieval, magically minded, and superstitious Luther was becoming apparent, typically with the Bible as the instrument of this demystification. "The devil cannot frighten me so much that I break out in sweat during sleep. I don't worry about the dreams or omens. I have the Word of God. That is enough for me. I also don't want an angel to come to me. I would not believe him now." Also with respect to faith in horoscopes and the anxious following of constellations, Luther developed a critical distance, but not due to scientific reasons: "Signs and stars were not therefore created to master me, but for my benefit and service. Night and day they shall rule, but over my soul they shall have neither rule nor power. The sky was made to give light and time. The earth to support and feed us." Casually expressed: stars are created, not creating. So with age, Luther gained a somewhat critical distance from superstition. He would later write, "There is nothing more powerful in the world as superstition, but before God it's an abomination."

Interestingly, a close friend of Luther's — a very intelligent, accomplished linguist, and almost always a very rational person — cared a lot about astrology: Philip Melanchthon. "He interprets a lot from astrology," Luther observed. Melanchthon was so influenced by the recommendations and warnings of his personal horoscope that he refused to cross the wooden bridge over the Elbe River in the city of Wittenberg with Luther one day because his horoscope forbade it. The more practical Luther suggested they stop by a pub on the near side of the Elbe instead. Luther, quite unsuperstitiously, later said, "Philip Melanchthon stays here because he looks at the stars; I stay here because I look at the bottom of my beer jar. The result is the same. He doesn't want to go home because he's afraid of the water — and I because I still want to have my drink."

Luther Was Upset About the Selling of Indulgences

Contrary to popular understanding, there is no such thing as an "indulgence for sin," a "get-out-of-purgatory-free card" or, more crassly, a go-and-sin-free card. Indulgences were and are granted to remit the temporal (earthly) punishment required for sin. In Catholic theology there are two consequences of sin: one, eternal punishment in hell, and two, earthly punishments for which one must make reparation. The eternal consequences of sin can be forgiven when sins committed after one's baptism are acknowledged in the sacrament of penance and reconciliation (confession) and one is restored to a state of grace.

But what about the temporal punishments due to sin? These must be expiated prior to death through pious acts of faith or after death through an indefinite time of purification (purgatory) so one is fit to enter God's presence. How can the penitent Christian know he or she has done enough good deeds to expiate one's temporal punishment for sin? By gaining an indulgence.

There is one more method of expiation, and that is the gaining of indulgences. An indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven. The merits gained by Christ were enough to expiate all sins, and these merits, combined with the merits of Mary and the saints that were in excess of what they needed, form the Spiritual Treasury of the Church. It is from this treasury that the Church grants indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment, when a certain prayer or work is performed.

As a Roman Catholic in good standing, Luther believed firmly that the church could grant indulgences. In other words, a priest was allowed to promise a reduction and shortening of the penance required for one's confessed sins or of time spent in purgatory to atone for one's sins not yet dealt with prior to death. As a priest, Luther issued indulgences in the confessional without hesitation and even collected financial donations for the building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. In fact, Luther was furious about the indulgence trade. His later anger about it set off an avalanche, which changed the world as we now know it in hindsight. But the simple view that Luther began the Reformation because he was against indulgences is, well, too simple, as we shall see.

What does the Bible say about indulgences?

With all the utmost esteem for my Catholic brothers and sisters: sorry — there's nothing there. Some of the first Christians in the Greek harbor city of Corinth were convinced of their blameless lifestyle, their exemplary conduct, and their good works. The apostle Paul knew, however, of the dark side of this church and wrote to them in 1 Corinthians 3:12 — 15:

If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved — even though only as one escaping through the flames.

We do not know what exactly Paul meant by "fire"— was it an after-death-in-hell kind of fire or an apocalyptic catastrophe such as the end of the world? Or did he just — quite pragmatically — mean the next expected persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire? Historians and theologians are still arguing about it today. What we do know is that from these four verses by the apostle Paul, the church father Origen of Alexandria, in the third century, developed the idea of purgatory in the afterlife — an in-between stop on the way to paradise. In reality, this idea of a purification of the soul through fire is not found in either the Old or the New Testament.

Regarding the conquest and deportation of the Jews during the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC, God said in Isaiah 48:10, "See, I have refined you ... in the furnace of affliction." The apostle Peter wrote about the persecution of Christians by the mad Roman emperors in the first century: "These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:7). But a postmortem soul-purging by fire after death? Not a chance you'll find it in the Bible.

It didn't matter to Origen. He just estimated "one year in purgatory per day of sin on earth." Considering that in a lifetime, there are 365 days of sin times seventy-five years or so, it adds up. That's why the wish for a shortened time in purgatory was born — a very understandable wish, all things considered.

And what about forgiveness in the confessional process?

When I hurt or harm someone, when I disobey God's commands, when I sin and then repent, I must ask those I have wronged for forgiveness. Then, I hope, they will forgive me. Does the victim of my wrongdoing not want to forgive me or can they not forgive me? If the wrong cannot be righted on the human level, then I would at least like for God to forgive the sin. I confess it to him and ask for forgiveness. But how do I know that God really does that?

The Catholic answer is through someone who can, very officially "in the name of God," promise me a liberating absolution. Ego te absolvo, says the priest in the confessional — "I absolve you of your sins." Why can the priest grant this "absolution"? Because the Catholic Church understands itself as the administrator of the heavenly "treasury of grace." God's mercy and grace, the death of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross, the living sacrifice of the martyrs and saints — everything together is a type of divine treasure. So far, so good.

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Excerpted from The Unreformed Martin Luther by Andreas Malessa. Copyright © 2017 Andreas Malessa. Excerpted by permission of Kregel Publications.
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