Martin Luther as a Professor

you in this lecture we pick up Luther as a professor now he becomes a professor in his education is advanced within the context of the monastic order so the first thing to make sure is that you don't divide Luther the monk from Luther the professor they are one in the same but still we can at least divide them in terms of the thematic issues we want to discuss and so in this lecture we're going to talk about Luther's evolution not only as a professor but as a ranking member you might say of the observant Augustinians and as we said in our last lecture Luther takes a BA in Bible in March of 1508 ban in 1509 he takes another BA in Pierre Lombard sentences and what we said in our last lecture is that essentially Luther has two foci here on the one hand he is engaged deeply with Scripture and to have a bachelors in Scripture is not the equivalent of having a BA now a BA actually means that you are capable of doing some deep exploration of the themes of Scripture and then to have a BA in the sentences means that you are equally is equipped to discuss important theological what we might call systematic theology topics well three years after that after more intense study in 1512 Luther receives the dr. to theology and immediately due to the enormous influence and the prompting of stout puts the governor's the University of Wittenberg except Luther in as professor of Bible there at the University well how should we view with the University of Wittenberg well simply speaking the University of Edinburgh was a new venture it was brand new and the story of the University of Wittenberg does play a role in the shaping of Luther's Reformation the area of Wittenberg was ruled by Prince by the name of Frederick the wise or Frederick of Saxony now you have to understand how the Holy Roman Empire was arranged when we think Empire of course we think of one single ruler someone like Napoleon who ruled over the Empire of France during its expansionist acara or a variety of kings and queens over the English Empire well the Holy Roman Empire was technically elected there were seven electors who on the death of a previous emperor elected the next one well you don't want to see in this the modern race say of the president for the Oval Office there were folks who lobbied for this there were folks who attempted to bribe the seven electors but often those bribes were unsuccessful in fact the man sitting on the throne at this point was Charles the fifth and he was part of the Habsburg dynasty and just to give you a sense of how much the Empire was really the property of one family the Habsburg dynasty extends from before the Reformation and it extends for centuries after so when you hear there's an election you don't really have to hear in that that this is somehow up for grabs still though the Habsburg family had a tight grip on the Empire itself the complexities of government were significant and they play a part in the reason why Luther was not sort of rounded up and killed immediately after having been excommunicated and then declared an outlaw BC cos Germany the Empire though it had an elected Emperor nevertheless had someone the neighborhood 300 Prince's or rulers or jurisdictional leaders who dictated an enforced local rule and in the case of Saxony the area where Luther is where Vidhan burg is the prince was Frederick the wise and Frederick was a bit of an egoist one of the more ironic things is that Frederick in the city castle there in Vinton Bourg had one of the most impressive collections of relics in all of Europe and these things were part and parcel to the indulgences system people who come and visit the relics and as a result perform a good work or something like this and so it's always been a bit of a strange mix that the man who would eventually protect Luther and ensure that Luther isn't quickly killed is himself in the trade of indulgences and relics and all these kinds of things of late medieval piety well this is before Luther comes to vit and Borg and before the Reformation and Frederick the wise decides that he wants to create his own University a university that has sufficient backing of course could become a main player in the Catholic Church Alvin Burke was a small town it was really off in the boonies and the University of Wittenberg was a new creation it didn't have the mystique of age of an Oxford or Cambridge or a Sorbonne in the city of Paris much less of the Italian universities down near Rome but for a number of different reasons Frederick of Saxony decided to found his own University and he does just this in 1502 and as we saw in our last lecture he makes doubt bits the founding dean of the university so the financial and political muscle behind the university is an important figure Frederick was actually one of the seven electors of the Holy Roman Emperor so vinton Borg when Luther comes to it is both a mixture of a plucky little startup and something that carries behind it the might and the importance of Frederick wanted to establish with it but what else can we say about fitting Borg but we can say something about the context and the backdrop and the influence is theological II that Luther would have been exposed to well a professor at fitten Borg one of the enduring myths of the Reformation is that it's only humanism and only a certain kind of humanism that sort of sparks the intellectual backdrop of the Reformation well actually that's not the case in the totality of the Reformation it is the case aside from Luther the vast majority of those who'd become Protestant and Protestant leaders were young humanists who were influenced by Erasmus and others however Luther is not one of them Luther is only touched briefly by humanism he has an instinct to learn some of the languages though he really doesn't devote himself to that until really after the Reformation gets going and he seeks to translate the scriptures into German humanism would not have been a major influence one influence though that we need to at least pay some attention to and that is the influence of late medieval mysticism now be careful with that word mysticism here does not mean some sort of new agey Buddhist kind of thing rather mysticism draws from not the Aristotelian side of philosophy from the Middle Ages but rather from more of the Augustinian platonic side and the idea here is that rather than trying to understand natural reason in the categories of thought etc the kind of thing we see in Aquinas rather those who had a penchant for mysticism people like bernard of clairvaux and others tended to speak of the immediate experience of God in their heart now they do so very philosophically and very intellectually but we do know that while Luther as a professor at Vinton Borg one of the more interesting influences on him is this more platonic Augustinian mysticism now it really only touches him lightly it doesn't really sort of infuse itself into his soul Luther later would not be much of a mystic at all but what people have noticed is that one of the things would have swirling in the intellectual climate of this time is some sense in which there is a pessimism about our rational cognitive ability to understand and totalize Dogma and instead people were leaning the other way discussing more of an immediate experience of God the desire for God to touch them personally that they might know him in their being and we often say that the mysticism of the latter middle ages has some sort of an effect on softening Luther you might say as he is driven towards his Reformation breakthrough as for Luther and scholasticism and humanism we're gonna pick that up in the next lecture so we're gonna set that aside for now well back to the University of Wittenberg and Luther now becoming a professor they are at the University taking over for his old mentor Johan wouldst Albert's and famously Luther has to take a professor's vowel now this is very common to become a professor at this point meant that you were an authoritative voice on doctrine it became very common for professors to take a vow and in Luther's case his vow was to defend the evangelical doctrine to its fullest now evangelical here of course this simply means the Gospel message the essence of the faith but Luther takes this valve the University of Wittenberg when he joins the faculty there and at least for his own psyche this vow is important to Luther even after the Reformation gets going and certainly in the midst of the controversy over the 95 theses Luther does not believe he is being all that rebellious you see contextually professors were then as well as now an ornery lot they were feisty they fought all the time they at times fought against the Magisterium if you look over at the university faculty for example at the University of Paris at the Sorbonne they were notoriously difficult to deal with and they thumb their noses at time to certain theological positions and they liked it when the papacy asked them for a consult they believed in most professors in this day and age believed that it was their job to sort of defend doctrine even at times though not always if it meant defending it against those who were running the church so this isn't just a play on words Luther isn't just sort of justifying his Reformation based on this professors vow is actually not uncommon for professors to again challenge certain things but when he takes this valu third does believe that everything that flows out of it the Reformation all these pieces all the controversies is born from Luther's desire to defend what he believes is Orthodox teaching and as we'll see in those lectures on the Reformation breakthrough and the Heidelberg disputation etc Luther is somewhat quaintly shocked that the theology he's defending is not good historic Catholic doctrine in other words it takes him a while even after the 95 theses to realize that what he's saying actually cuts against the grain of the medieval order he thinks he's just simply defending the truth well it took some time before we realized that he was going further back than the Middle Ages and even sometimes further back the patristic Age and we can say a few things about Luther's sort of practice or the life of a professor anyone who's been through college or grad school is used to a certain type of professor usually somebody who frankly wants to be in their office researching writing as much as possible in only pick grudgingly can be dragged to the podium to deliver a lecture and then scurry back to his office well that model of Professor actually is historically conditioned but it's not conditioned by Luther's day the modern professor is shaped more by the Germanic tradition of the professor as sort of a cloistered mind a scholar who wants the fight for teaching as little as possible only so much as will make money for him to exist and will spend the rest of his time in isolation and the glories of research and Luther's day it was different lectures in this day and age were not set according to curriculums he didn't have credit hours he didn't have you know a course like Luther and Calvin that you could take rather if you were a student and you came to University you would attend the lectures of this professor or that professor and what that meant in Luther's case is once it becomes a professor of Bible is he would pick a book and he would spend sometimes years unpacking it theologically and typically when the lecture hall was not so much the rehearsal of set lectures or of specific content that the professor felt sort of comported with the overall theme of the title of a course rather what would happen is is someone like Luther would choose a book let's say Romans and then day in and day out in the course of his study whether simply in the text itself or through commentaries and through just deep thinking in general the professor would in a manner of speaking bring day in and day out the fruit of the research that he had done either the day or several days before often it was day in and day out the least throughout the middle part of the week and again in a manner of speaking the professor is bringing fresh things that he has just been thinking about the day before it was a recitation in other words of the life of learning sort of a years-long thinking out loud about a subject or a book and we actually have Luther's list of the subjects that he covered and in some cases we actually have the lectures or the notes from the lectures themselves from this period which of course is rich ground for professors and scholars today trying to understand Luther's mind as he's evolving towards the Reformation but we know that from 15 14 to 15 15 he was lecturing on the Psalms which again means that day by day over the course of those years he's coming in and he's ready to talk about either another Psalm itself or a piece of a psalm maybe astray verse that he's been thinking deeply about or maybe a couple of Psalms together from 15 15 to 15 16 he lectured on Romans then from 15 16 to 15 17 on Galatians and then from 15 17 till frankly into the heart of the first year of the Reformation 1518 Luther is lecturing through the book of Hebrews now there are scholars who debate did he go back and forth how many texts did he look at we don't have an exact specific sort of calendar of the books that he was lecturing through and we don't know if he ever Brooke forum and switched around there are some gray areas here as to the discovery of what Luther is sort of delving into here but it is sort of a tantalizing list the Psalms of course the emotional life of all believers the heart of it Romans of course will feature so heavily in Luther's theology Galatians again one of Luther's favorite books in Hebrews with its calls of the supremacy of Christ and the image of Christ as the high priest who has done the sacrifice on our behalf etc all again provide rich ground for some of the ideas that Luther will cherish and whenever he has his breakthrough still we want to stress that it's not simply the text of Scripture itself that sparks the Reformation again medieval Catholics read the Bible and as we'll see in our lecture on the Reformation breakthrough what Catholics have when they engage with say the texts and Romans on justification is a hermeneutical grid to read it by in other words they weren't shocked to read the just shall live by faith but in their reading of those texts it fit within the medieval penitential system so when I say that Luther is lecturing through these books don't see this as some abnormal focus on certain key biblical texts rather it's through this process though that Luther would eventually develop alternative positions the issues of justification and works even Luther himself in fact describes his breakthrough as something like a conversion it's a falling of the scales from the eyes he might say it's not some slow oh my goodness the Bible says this I never knew that he had read these texts before what he develops is a different reading of them so Luther was lecturing day in and day out training students he was also engaged in two other activities which we must make note of at this point in 1514 Luther actually takes on the role as priests of the Vinton burg City Church now this is additional work he didn't have to do this but most cities at this point had sort of a central main Church sometimes quickly in German language speaking areas called the city church or the main church Luther in a manner of speaking in 1514 moves from training not just those who are studying at the University for their BA or ma but now he is preaching to lady look at her actually has a bit of a shock at first he refers to those who are in his congregations is sort of scruffy Saxons it shows that Luther was a bit removed but as the preacher of course he would deliver sermons he had to develop a sort of penchant for practical application again this is not abnormal there are city preachers and public preachers for the lady that would preach in the vernacular all the time this is one of the sort of tunnel vision problems of certain movie or television depictions of Luther is they act as if Luther preaching suddenly for the first time realizes that the Bible matters for everybody now he knew that before what he had never done before was actually apply it as a pastor also it is a bit of a myth that specific incidences of pastoral ministry are the formation of the problem with the Catholic Church now in a matter speaking with the issue indulgences Luther is trying to defend innocent people who are giving their money or bad indulgences as he would say but again it's not as if Luther comes up against some practice of the Catholic Church that he was unaware of and suddenly goes my goodness I as a preacher he must throw this off no he was a relatively faithful preacher he's preached day in and day out he revs shoulders with lady and they would go back and be an elite professor at a relatively small university or middle level University out in the boonies of Germany so he does take on past all responsibilities he's not simply in academic the other thing Luther takes on his administrative duties related to the Augustinian order by 1515 Luther in fact is the second ranking member of the order in terms of administrative burden now that fact is usually forgotten again Luther the rebel the underling who cast off the authority is too often the story that's told but Luther rises up to the point of being again second-in-command you might say he's not the vicar general but he is right up there at the top level he's one of a VP you might say and he has oversight over a number of monasteries and universities in terms of the order's presence and activity in those areas and that move in 1515 was the culmination of a bit of a process for Luther where stout puts in particular is pushing Luther to the front back in 1511 in fact four years before he becomes this ranking member within the order toutput sends Luther and another monk down to Rome to parlay with a pope on issues related to the restructuring of the order and the authority ties within the order as it relates to other non-observant Augustinians there's a bit of the fractious problem of having the observance on the one hand and the non-observance on the other is well you're technically in the same order in a manner of speaking just because you're observant doesn't mean you're in a different order well who you gonna answer to the observant of the not observant and there was some controversies which we're not gonna get into but in 1511 as sort of a first moved out but sends Luther to be the voice to the papacy or at least to the constituency that were answerable to the papacy on this issue and a lot of people have made a big deal about the 1511 trip to realm it is sometimes said that Luther arrives in Rome and is shocked by how disgusting the city is that it's full of prostitutes in its stank because there was poor sewage etc now a lot of this is true Luther was somewhat shocked but actually as we discussed in the lectures in the latter Middle Ages most people knew their problems in the Catholic Church if Luther a shock it's more shocked at actually seeing it rather than to simply knowing the stories that were alleged to be going on at realm most people knew that Rome wasn't the best place I mean Rome for the Catholic Church at this day and age in the Middle Ages is discussed and described in many of the same ways maybe in the modern American describes Washington I mean usually when someone says Washington they almost spit the word politics and backroom deals and backstabbings and all this kind of stuff that you see in television as well as probably exists in real life in Washington politics with the insiders in Washington I mean those were sort of strange ways to describe the seat of power for the government well see that analogy here Catholics knew there were problems in Rome I didn't actually shake their faith in the ultimate sense it's not as if there was some alternative out there so they may not have liked it but it wasn't the erosion of their faith one of the things Luther does do when he arrives in Rome is he goes to the steps that are there on the outskirts of Rome next to st. John Lateran and you can still go and see these steps today they're still there these are a relic you might say those are quite a big relic so two marble steps these were the steps that Christ climbed before his trial before Pontius Pilate so these are holy steps these were part of the fabric at least so it was believed at the time of the heritage of the Gospels and it was customary then and it's still customary today you could still go and see this happening for Catholics to kneel and then say a prayer been to take the next step on their knees say a prayer and so on and so forth all the way up now Luther does this when he's the I mean this is Disneyworld for medieval monks you got the steps that Christ walked on you're gonna pray your way up those things you'll wait in line doesn't matter you want to do this so Luther's not cynical about this he wants to do it what's usually misunderstood though is Luther's response to this process his Luther praise his way up now the myth the urban legend that's out there is that Luther realizes that it's all bogus and he stops halfway up and he turns around and says forget this and then that's the sort of crack in the armor that begins to develop him towards Protestantism well if that's the case and he is about as cowardly as possible because it took him six years to finally figure out how to write something about it this is 1511 Luther is not a Protestant yet rather the actual story is that Luther praised his way up and then he admits later he doubted if it made any difference now that's not a doubt in terms of the overall structure of the Catholic Church yet rather that is the epitome of Luther's crisis the crisis that we'll see in a little bit because remember the penitential system the order of salvation the process of confession and penance meant had at its core that the Christian had to be heartfelt in the activity of the penance what mother is saying when he gets the top of those steps after doing this good work this unique opportunity to pray on a relic that is so ancient at least so it was believed at the time what Luther is samma gets to the top is I'm not sure if my heart was fully in that and if my heart was not fully in it then it may not have made any difference whatsoever in terms of penance or the state of my soul in other words what he says when he gets to the top of the stairs is a very medieval thing did I do that with enough conviction to count or if not do I need to do it again and as we get into Luther's Reformation breakthrough in another lecture you're gonna see that this is the sticking point for Luther he never gets to the point where he believes that his heart was in it enough so now Luther in 1511 is not having a Reformation breakthrough he's not having ultimate doubts about the Catholic Church he's just trying to be a good monk and he's there on behalf of Talbot's and he returns the year after to vet and work in 1512 to become a professor it's there in the context of vet and Borg or Luther lectures to the Psalms and lectures to Romans and Galatians and Hebrews and it's also there in the context of his life as a monk and a professor where Luther will begin to have not only doubts about the nature of scholasticism which is our next lecture but also and the lecture after that we'll talk about Luther's context of the crisis of his faith and the Reformation breakthrough that provoked in him unintentionally at first but certainly intentionally by the end of it the desire to have a Reformation break from the medieval past