Martin Luther: Speyer to Marburg

in this lecture we're gonna be looking at Luther in the formation of his church and his Reformation in the second half of the 1520's and we can begin by doing a quick recap of what we've finished in our last lecture Luther comes out of the vort burg having achieved an enormous success with the publication of the German New Testament but he's met by controversy and problems related to just how far he was willing to take his Reformation he struggles and intends against people like this Vic al prophets and thomas müntzer as well as others and he concludes with his attack on the german peasants who were uprising against their lords and he finally comes openly to the conclusion that those who are part of his Reformation at least for now will condone no violence against the political order within concluded by looking at Luther the married man as well as Luther's theological sparring match with Erasmus and we pick up now in the mid 15 20s in 1525 in fact and really this is a pivot point for Luther in terms of the development of his Reformation to in large part to some swirling controversies and problems related to the German princes into Charles v and the Holy Roman Empire by this point in 1525 the Edict of ORMs the declaration by Charles that Luther is an outlaw had grown a little cold despite the fact that Charles had initially called for the arrest and the transfer of Luther to Imperial hands so that he could be then put to death there were a number of problems for Charles that caused him to simply look the other way and move on to other things first and it's a bit of a challenge to understand this from afar but perhaps the simplest way to say this is that Charles v was a staggeringly important person not only in Reformation history but simply in Western history itself you see because Charles after his election to the Holy Roman Empire as well as with the lands and the kingdoms that he had accrued through birth was simply a staggeringly wealthy and powerful man controlling frankly just about half of Europe he was the first king of Spain areas like the Netherlands obviously the whole Roman Empire parts of the Swiss regions and others as well were all within the orbit of Charles the fifth and Charles have been elected at the end of the 19-teens so really his coming to the throne coincides in a way with the rise of Luther's Reformation but in terms of the political powers of Europe not everyone was happy that the Habsburg dynasty already powerful in their own right had claimed the Empire and the most important and the initial person to really repel against Charles and seek his demise was the King of France Francis the first in fact from 1521 to 1526 Francis the first of France and Charles the fifth of the Habsburg dynasty the Holy Roman Emperor himself engaged in what we now call the Italian Wars and these were a series of wars in northern and central Italy to determine who was going to control the principal lands in these regions these were lucrative lands and they both wanted them also since there was only a bit of land really in dispute in Europe both of them were trying to gobble up the last bit of morsels of lands for themselves so by large Francis does everything he can to put Charles v off balance in fact it can be quite humorous at times Francis will attack be captured or lose only to go back regroup and do it again so committed in fact was Francis to keep Charles off balance but at one point Francis does something that is simply staggering by the rules of the day which is he sends a representative to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent the Muslim Ottoman leader who at the time was expanding up the eastern flank of Charles's Empire so Francis takes the tactic of the enemy of my enemy is my friend and he enact a treaty with Suleiman attacked Charles v jointly now this was a scandal to Christian Emperor's that Francis would be so out for the demise of Charles the fifth that he would partner with Muslim armies in an effort to defeat Charles well the Italian war has come to a conclusion in 1525 February 24th there was the Battle of Pavia and in this battle Francis is to simply annihilated he loses a staggering number of troops and he himself is captured and he is forced to sign the Treaty of Madrid which was all in Charles v favor and had very little for Francis other than to stop attacking Charles well it's at this point that if the wars had simply subsided Charles would have turned his attention back to the Holy Roman Empire and given that he was a committed Catholic Charles would have gone after Luther almost certainly but to the surprise of a number of people charles v not least the pope at the time Clement the 7th immediately does a pivot you see because from the very beginning of Charles's reign the Pope who was firstly of the tenth and now Clement the seventh were actually in partnership with Charles they needed that partnership in fact in an effort to enforce the execution of Luther as well as to secure the great power of the Empire on behalf of the Pope well for a number of reasons Clement decides that Charles is now too powerful and so Clement does a pivot immediately after this treaty in which Francis gave up lands and Charles now is the unrivaled authority in all of Europe Clement does something that betrays Charles Clement using his power as Pope releases Francis from the Treaty of Madrid any forms the League of cognac which was simply an anti Habsburg or an anti Charles League England joins us League France joins this league Venice and others and obviously the papacy as well and so immediately after the end of the Italian Wars here in 1526 for the next four years all the way until 1530 Charles now has to contend himself against a united Europe with the you see against him and so yet again Charles is unable to really care all that much about Luther instead has to secure his borders and his allies and defend himself against attacking armies it's no wonder then that for the entirety of the 1520's Luther really is left alone all the way out there in Vinton burg well the issue comes to a head in 1527 between Charles and the papacy you could only imagine Charles opinion of this he had support of the papacy he had put Luther on trial he'd done all kinds of things on behalf of the papacy and now just when he had secured his piece and had hoped for a cessation of Wars the Pope himself had enacted an entire league a military league that is now gonna be coming after him well in general this entirely enrages not only Charles though he is a relatively patient man but also his armies in his lieutenants and this comes to a head in 1527 shortly after the formation of the League of cognac when Charles's troops at the time in the northern and central part of Italy had been successful in their campaign and had done everything that was asked of them only to then find out that Charles was out of money and unable to pay them and so in the early half of the year culminating in May 6th the army mutiny and marched on Rome in fact the sack of Rome as it's now known occurred Charles the fifth armies sacked and looted and burned and attacked just about everything in sight in the city of Rome in fact Clement the seventh himself had to flee the Vatican as he was assaulted and he could still actually see the place where he fled to if you go to Rome today there is a wonderful sort of Island castle not too far from the Vatican itself well in this day and age there were a number of access points that all linked up between buildings some of them are going underground and clement fleeing for his life frankly has to make his way quickly where because it is an island and it has these very high walls it is relatively impregnable from the who would attack and he can only imagine what the armies would have done had they gotten their hands on Clemmie the seventh now this is really a turn of events Charles the fifth from 1521 the man who put Luther on trial in the civil government and who had condemned him essentially to death calling him an outlaw his armies now mutant need now attacking the papacy and of course Luther and his friends are howling about this back in Vidhan burg they just simply can't believe it six years on here the man who had condemned him as an outlaw it is himself attacking the papacy violently Luther actually says of this marveling at the Providence of Christ says how strange at the emperor who persecutes Luther for the Pope is forced to destroy the Pope for Luther now what does all this have to do with Luther other than the fact that it keeps him alive well actually quite a lot and it actually has a dramatic effect on the shape not only of the Lutheran Reformation but of the Swiss or Reformed Reformation which we'll look at in greater detail when we get to Calvin because you see Luther and academics and laymen were not the only ones who had converted to Luther's Reformation they were actually now at this point two major princes as well as a number of others but two major princes in the German regions who had cited personally and in terms of their political might with Luther the first is John of Saxony now John is the successor of Frederick the wise and Frederick was a bit halting in his support for Luther has really no evidence that he himself became Protestant though he might have John though his successor is a committed Protestant and so now the area of Saxony the very powerful area is fully in support of Luther the other german prince who is very much in favor of the reformation and very supportive of it is philip of HESA now Philip will have a long life a long engagement with Protestantism over the last years of his life until his death and by and large Phillip is very shrewd and he's the one who actually leverages the political enterprises of the Empire to both protect in advance the Reformation and Philip actually takes the fact that Charles is preoccupied as an opportunity to get some things stalled or passed that could then further the Reformation you see because in the Edict of forms in 1521 it was proclaimed that any who supported Luther or protected him or advance his cause was themselves suspect and liable for prosecution well in 1526 Charles called another diet this time the city of spare and in the summer in 1526 the diet of Speyer meats now Charles had intended to come himself but due to the swirling events of the wars and the League of cognac etc he was unable to attend and he sent an ambassador on his behalf well what's interesting with the diet of Speyer is Charles wanted the Edict of forms at force he wanted Luther brought out he wanted the Reformation ended he needed Charles needed Germany to be united with him and the Reformation was gumming up the works of a united Germany now against the League of cognac well what's interesting about this diet is that it actually doesn't do anything to enforce the Edict of forms rather the Assembly unanimously might add called for a national gathering a national convocation to finally and once and for all decide what side of the Reformation Germany was going to be on in other words the first I despair does not come to a conclusion about the enforcement of forms rather than muddy up the waters and call for a convention to put the right all the questions and famously and importantly they put a stop temporarily now you must realize temporarily they put a stop to the Edict of forms saying that in the meantime until this National convocation can occur quote every state shall so live rule and believe as it may hope now what's intended by this is not a simple laissez-faire believe what you want to believe kind of model rather it's simply saying we're not going to enforce anything until we have this convocation so for right now two simple let's calm down and wait until then well Philip of Hesse and John of Saxony leverage this to the hilt they go full-bore in fact they read in this document that they have the ability not only to protect Luthor but to use this document the Edict of Speyer as an opportunity to advance the Reformation in full because they're gonna live however they choose and so Philip in particular moves to sort of bring sympathetic Protestant rulers together in an effort to join a internal German League that might withstand the Catholic influence of charles v now by and large this might very much have worked there were enough people now who either for spiritual reasons had become Protestant or now frankly for political reasons were so hacked off at Clement the 7th that they very much could have tolerated becoming Protestant just simply to spite him and it very much might have worked if it were not for something could happen in 1528 just shortly thereafter in 1528 there was a man by the name of Otto von pack and Otto was a bit of a charlatan in fact he's gone down as one of the great bozos of history he was a sort of high-ranking lieutenant you might say or a right-hand man for one of these sympathetic Protestant rulers in 1528 Otto von pact creates a forgery in which he claims that the sympathetic Catholic rulers in Germany were ganging up and about to form a league against the Protestant armies and he goes to John of Saxony first who then convinces Philip of Hesse that these Catholics were about to join a league and come and attack them now again this is an entire forgery Otto is just simply fomenting a war he dupes in particular Philip into believing that he has the smoking gun showing that the rulers of mites and other Catholic areas were now forming up a league against them and Otto is pressing them to form a Protestant League into a pre-emptive attack on the Catholics I mean III Otto is really playing with fire here and it very nearly led to the full downfall of Philip and John because Philip is inclined to gather a Protestant League because he believes that this forgery is real but shrewdly wisely Philip sends this off to Luther and melanchthon and those in Vinton Berg who immediately say no this was like a forgery and they questioned the document and they tell them to hold off and not to form a league and to go to war and then not surprisingly it comes out that the document is a forgery and this is enormous ly embarrassing to the Protestant cause in other words there was sympathy within parts of Germany again spiritually some had committed to Protestantism politically somewhere now opposed to the papacy because he had churned on the Empire now however thanks to auto and thanks to Philip and John coming very nearly to believing them now it's Protestantism that looks like the rebellious full mentors of treason a civil war within the Empire and a year later in 1529 we have the second diet of Speyer at which very little of the protestant voice was allowed to have the ascendancy and so the diet of Speyer doubles down on the Edict of forms and again reinforces the condemnation of Luther and the Protestant Reformation in Germany this really is one of those great what-if moments what if Otto von pact had not done this what if Philip and John had not believed him at all from the very beginning and we really don't know but it is certainly intriguing to think had it not been for Otto of unpack the tide could could is the only word we can sag as we do won't know but a quart have swung fully in the Protestant direction and Charles might very well in the end have been convinced to join the overwhelming support of the princes against the papacy for the Reformation well again we have to ask what does this have to do with Luther what does this have to do with the theology of the Reformation well the short answer is it forces Philip of HESA to seek other allies now that he has thoroughly embarrassed himself and put on weaker ground the Protestant Reformation and Philip reaches down into Switzerland in an effort to bring up a very influential group of people who he thinks might galvanize and strengthen the Protestant voice against Charles and that is Philip tries to enlist the help and the support and the partnership with Zurich and Zwingli now assumingly had been an early Protestant to join the Lutheran Reformation down in the German Swiss regions severely of course is the originator of what we will call the reformed tradition he doesn't live long enough to really be given the title as the founder or the full developer of reformed theology because he dies in 1531 but swingley was at least a potential strong ally he was a strong voice on behalf of the Reformation as were a number of his allies people like Bhoots er Ocalan Pontius and others well swingley and Luther were aware of each other because if you remember from my last lecture luther against the prophetic hordes that seemed to be scaling the battlements and coming after him and his Protestant Reformation Lutheran developed a real serious allergy to anyone who talked relatively excessively or extensively about the spirits action in the Christian life or in ministry itself and we talked about this word Schwimmer fanatic but Luther had sort of tarred and feathered anyone who disagreed with him with well all the way back in 1526 Luther had become really concerned about a group that we today call the sacrament Aryans that is people who are unconvinced that in the Lord's Supper that we are physically eating Christ's body and blood and this certainly was Bingley Bingley did not believe in a physical eating of the Eucharist well in 1526 Lutheran acts of strange tactic in which he writes a book called against the fanatics and in this text he goes after in particular anyone who believes that the eating the Eucharist is anything but physical and again Luther has a bit Raving in this book but essentially Luther's comments supporting physical eating of the Eucharist now basically mean that Bingley and Zurich or in his mind heretics despisers of God's Word and to be put down now a year later Zwingli actually writes a response to this that she has a funny title it's called the friendly rejoinder to the eminent dr. Martin Luther against the fanatics this vainly takes a sort of interesting tactic here for the remainder of his life he actually sort of Pat's Luther on the head and says there they're not all of us are for Maddox big boy you may get mad about things but I'm really on your side Miss Bingley actually says that Luther needs prayer in order for him to get over this sort of righteous indignation at anyone who doesn't believe everything he believes well this is hardly good footing for a partnership at least politically but certainly not theologically however because of the actions of Phillip and John and they're being duped by Otto von PAC hasit now applies a serious amount of pressure to try to bring Luther to the table as ving lee in an effort to attempt to create a united protestant front and he does just this from October 1st to the 4th 15:29 they're met the Marburg colloquy and this really is sort of a spectacular moment in the early part of the Reformation it's a who's who of everybody who's Protestant at this point the people that were at this colloquy included not only Phillip and eminent Protestant Prince's and voices from the political side but also Luther Bingley boot sir Agricola justice Jonas Melanchthon a clump arias and Ossie and ER in other words virtually everyone from the Swiss and German Reformation z-- now the Marburg colloquy was an attempt again by Philip to see if he can get them to come to enough of an agreement to create a political alliance however Luther and Zwingli were simply unable to do this Luther famously either took chalk and wrote on the table during this debate or had already written on the table and ripped the tablecloth off to point at it quote this is my body for Luther that text was ironclad this is my body it is a physical eating now we're gonna get later in this course to talk about Luther's doctrine of the sacraments and really go through the theology of it but this is his beliefs worked out this is my body he said and anyone who tries to apply logic or spins of phrases or strange hermeneutics in an effort to deny what Christ says here this is my body is a fanatic and a heretic now assuming Lee had a good response to this he said yes he says this is my body but he also said that he was a vine he also said that he was a door and I don't see you pounding the table saying that he is a door because the word is means is well in the end the Marburg colloquy failed all the Protestants agreed on 14 out of 15 points and on the 15th point the last point they agreed on two out of the three points where Marburg failed though was on this point of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist was it physical or was he spiritually there somehow by his spirit and so the failure of the reformed and the Lutheran's that come together despite Phillip of has his intentions actually creates a permanent rift frankly between the Lutheran side and the new what we now call reformed movement that is just getting off the ground was Bingley in fact just a year later fifteen thirty at the diet of Alex Berg a very famous diet it was Charles v asked for a confession from the Lutheran's to hear what they have to say on the theology a move that actually gives the first great Lutheran confession to the world the Augsburg confession in that confession very clearly is language about physical eating of Christ's body and blood that for the foreseeable future the only political partnership that could be had were those who agreed with Luther on the Eucharist excluded were the Swiss and the Reformed folks and as a result when a Catholic army came to Zurich and attacked it in 1531 Zhu Bing Lee out there attempting with his comrades and his friends and his colleagues in the city of Zurich out defending the city he is killed in battle his body is desecrated and is then buried in an unmarked grave and so died swingley the early reformer in the Swiss regions and the Lutheran Reformation when it's own way okay that's it next we're gonna be looking at Luther and Agricola one of Luther's earliest fights on the issue of antinomianism that occurred almost about the same time