About the
same time Luther sent his letter and “Resolutions to the 95 Theses” to Pope Leo
X in 1518, he also wrote to John Staupitz. Luther once famously declared, “If it had
not been for Dr Staupitz, I should have sunk into hell.” He also wrote, “I was excommunicated three times, first by Staupitz, second by the pope,
and third by the emperor.” Who is John Staupitz? Why should he invite both Luther’s admiration and
slight aversion? Why did Luther think it was important to send him this letter?
Staupitz was
born near Leisnig, Germany. His date of birth remains uncertain. He received
his early education in Leipzig and Cologne. Soon after he earned his master of
arts in 1489, he took monastic orders with the Hermits of St Augustine in
Munich. In 1497, he left to continue his studies at Tubingen, earning his
doctorate by 1500. In 1502, he was called to serve as professor of Bible and
dean of the theology faculty at the newly founded university in Wittenberg. In
1503, he was appointed the vicar-general of the Reformed Congregation of the Hermits
of St Augustine in Germany. Luther joined the University of Wittenberg as a
student in 1508. Being an Augustinian, Luther thus came under the supervision
of Staupitz, his superior.
Their
friendship blossomed sufficiently for Staupitz to entrust Luther as a
representative to the papal bull of 1510. He later suggested that Luther earn
his doctorate in theology with a view that Luther would succeed him as
professor of the Bible. Luther received his doctorate in October 1512 and two
days later replaced Staupitz as professor of Bible at the university.
Throughout those years and subsequently, Staupitz served as Luther’s confessor
and spiritual advisor, thus resulting in Luther calling him his “most beloved
father in Christ.”
It should be
noted that criticism of indulgences begun long before Luther’s 95 Theses.
Staupitz, together with Luther and Wenceslaus Linck, had spoken up publicly
against it. They, in fact, composed a text called Treatise on Indulgences
which Luther “edited”. When Luther was summoned to an interview with Cardinal
Cajetan in October 1518 over the 95 Theses, Staupitz accompanied Luther.
When Luther would not submit to the authority issued by Cajetan, Staupitz absolved
Luther of his monastic vows, thus freeing him from the Augustinian order. The
letter below would have been definitely written either concurrently or soon
after Luther’s letter to Pope Leo X but before his being absolved from the
Augustinian order.
Staupitz
distanced himself somewhat from Luther in subsequent years, due in part to what
he saw was the dangerous direction of the Reformation and its adherents. He
resigned from the Augustinian order in 1521 and joined the Benedictines in
Salzburg. He died on 28 December 1524.
Though he never left the Roman Catholic Church, his writings raised enough
suspicion during the Counter Reformation that they were placed on the Index of
Prohibited Books in 1559.
Despite the
eventual “fall-out” between them before Staupitz’s death, Luther’s indebtedness
to and respect for Staupitz are clear from the letter below. It reminds us that
even though Luther had inadvertently taken on the world without his intention
to do so, he was not alone. He would not have withstood the onslaught of his
enemies if not for comrades like Staupitz. It is revealing how Staupitz had
influenced him and moved him closer to a clearer understanding of the meaning
of true penitence – not by indulgences, but true repentance. As in his letter
to Pope Leo X, he draws attention to the fact that all he wanted was for a
“disputation” on the 95 Theses and disavows his intention to usurp the
authority of the Pope.
______________________________________________________
LETTER TO JOHN STAUPITZ ACCOMPANYING
THE “RESOLUTIONS” TO THE 95 THESES
1518
To his Reverend and Dear Father JOHN STAUPITZ, Professor of Sacred Theology, Vicar
of the Augustinian Order, Brother Martin Luther, his pupil, sendeth greeting.
I remember, dear Father, that once, among those pleasant and
wholesome talks of thine, with which the Lord Jesus ofttimes gives me wondrous consolation,
the word poenitentia was
mentioned, We were moved with pity for many consciences, and for those
tormentors who teach, with rules innumerable and unbearable, what they call a modus
confitendi. Then we heard thee say as with a voice from heaven, that there is no
true penitence which does not begin with love of righteousness and of God, and that
this love, which others think to be the end and the completion of penitence, is
rather its beginning.
This word of thine stuck in me like a sharp arrow of the mighty,
and from that time forth I began to compare it with the texts of Scripture
which teach penitence. Lo, there began a joyous game! The words frollicked with
me everywhere! They laughed and gamboled around this saying. Before that there
was scarcely a word in all the Scriptures more bitter to me than “penitence,” though I was busy making pretences to God and trying
to produce a forced, feigned love; but now there is no word which has for me a
sweeter or more pleasing sound than “penitence.” For God’s commands are sweet,
when we find that they are to be read not in books alone, but: in the wounds of
our sweet Savior.
After this it came about that, by the grace of the learned men who
dutifully teach us Greek and Hebrew, I learned that this word is in Greek metanoia
and is derived from meta and noun, i.e., post and mentem, so
that poenitentia or metanoia is a “coming to one’s senses,” and
is a knowledge of one’s own evil, gained after punishment has been accepted and
error acknowledged; and this cannot possibly happen without a change in our heart
and our love. All this answers so aptly to the theology of Paul, that nothing,
at least in my judgment, can so aptly illustrate St. Paul.
Then I went on and saw that metanoia can be derived, though
not without violence, not only from post and mentem, but also
from trans and mentem, so that metanoia signifies a
changing of the mind and heart, because it seemed to indicate not only a change
of the heart, but also a manner of changing it, i.e., the grace of God. For
that “passing over of the mind, which is true repentance, is of very frequent
mention in the Scriptures. Christ has displayed the true significance of that
old word “Passover”; and long before the Passover, Abraham was a type of it,
when he was called a “pilgrim,” i.e., a “Hebrew,” that is to say, one, who
“passed over” into Mesopotamia, as the Doctor of Bourgos learnedly explains.
With this accords, too, the title of the Psalm in which Jeduthun, i.e., “the
pilgrim,” is introduced as the singer.
Depending on these things, I ventured to think those men false
teachers who ascribed so much to works of penitence that they left us scarcely anything
of penitence itself except trivial satisfactions and laborious confession,
because, forsooth, they had derived their idea from the Latin words poenitentiam
agere, which indicate an action, rather than a change of heart, and are in
no way an equivalent for the Greek metanoia. While this thought was
boiling in my mind, suddenly new trumpets of indulgences and bugles of
remissions began to peal and to bray all about us; but they were not intended
to arouse us to keen eagerness for battle. In a word, the doctrine of true
penitence was passed by, and they presumed to praise not even that poorest part
of penitence which is called “satisfaction,” but the remission of that poorest
part of penitence; and they praised it so highly that such praise was never
heard before. Then, too, they taught impious and false and heretical doctrines
with such authority (I wished to say “with such assurance”) that he who even
muttered anything to the contrary under his breath, would straightway be
consigned to the flames as a heretic, and condemned to eternal malediction.
Unable to meet their rage half-way, I determined to enter a modest
dissent, and to call their teaching into question, relying on the opinion of
all the doctors and of the whole Church, that to render satisfaction is better
than to secure the remission of satisfaction, i.e., to buy indulgences. Nor is
there anybody who ever taught otherwise. Therefore, I published my Disputation;
in other words, I brought upon my head all the curses, high, middle and low,
which these lovers of money (I should say “of souls”) are able to send or to
have sent upon me. For these most courteous men, armed, as they are, with very
dense acumen, since they cannot deny what I have said, now pretend that in my
Disputation I have spoken against the power of the Supreme Pontiff.
That is the reason, Reverend Father, why I now regretfully come
out in public. For I have ever been a lover of my corner, and prefer to look
upon the beauteous passing show of the great minds of our age, rather than to
be looked upon and laughed at. But I see that the bean must appear among the
cabbages, and the black must be put with the white, for the sake of seemliness
and loveliness.
I ask, therefore, that thou wilt take this foolish work of mine
and forward it, if possible, to the most Excellent Pontiff, Leo X, where it may
plead my cause against the designs of those who hate me. Not that I wish thee
to share my danger! Nay, I wish this to be done at my peril only. Christ will see
whether what I have said is His or my own; and without His permission there is
not a word in the Supreme Pontiff’s tongue, nor is the heart of the king in his
own hand. He is the Judge whose verdict I await from the Roman See.
As for those threatening friends of mine, I have no answer for
them but that word of Reuchlin’s — “He who is poor fears nothing; he has
nothing to lose.” Fortune I neither have nor desire; if I have had reputation
and honor, he who destroys them is always at work; there remains only one poor
body, weak and wearied with constant hardships, and if by force or wile they do
away with that (as a service to God), they will but make me poorer by perhaps
an hour or two of life. Enough for me is the most sweet Savior and Redeemer, my
Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom I shall always sing my song; if any one is unwilling
to sing with me, what is that to me? Let him howl, if he likes, by himself.
The Lord Jesus keep thee eternally, my gracious Father!
Wittenberg, Day of the Holy Trinity, MDXVIII.
