Before Wittenberg: Luther’s Erfurt Years and the Weight of Judgment

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to Thanking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer, and I'm glad you're here. In this special series, we're stepping back into one of the most pivotal times in Christian history, the German Reformation. This was a time when the Gospel was being rediscovered, the Church was being challenged, and the course of Western civilization was being reshaped with ripples that still reach into our lives today. And to guide us through this journey, I'm joined by a true expert, someone who doesn't just know the Reformation from books, but from the cobblestone streets and cathedral halls where it actually happened, Doctor Greg Quiggle. Greg is a Reformation historian and the owner and operator of Kotelis Travel, a company that runs what they call tours for ten, intimate travel experiences designed for people who want something deeper than a typical tour. They offer a three to one guest to guide ratio, and these trips give you consistent access to guides who've been on location multiple times, who know not only the history, but also where to find the best able strudal and other German delicacies along the way. You can learn more about Greg and Kotellus at kotellistravelservice dot com. And if this series piques your interest, Greg actually has a German Reformation trip coming up this May, and last I heard, there are still a few seats available. In this series, Greg is going to help us explore the people, places, and theological stakes of the Reformation as well as helping us understand why it still matters for Christians today. So let's get started. We're continuing the conversation with regard to Luther, and we're going to talk today about his time in a place called Airfoot and Airfort is the I'll Greg could sort of explain it a bit more. But even when we do our German Reformation tours, we stop off in Airfort, we get to see the Augustinian monastery where Luther was staying and stayed for a time and really received a fair amount of his theological training. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about what led him to Airfoot, what was the you know, the transformation that sort of took place to prompt him to join a monastery because he wasn't headed in this direction, and then also how life in that in that Augustinian monastery really shaped his posture toward the world. Maybe, so great, welcome back to the show. Happy to have you. Maybe let's dive in a bit give Let's let's start maybe with a little bit of a rewind and give people just a sense of, you know, where we're at in the Luther's story, and then we'll talk a little about about this transformative vow that that Luther makes that leads him into the Augustinian Monastery.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: And really the fundamental question that Luther is really struggling with is what's going to happen when I die? Or if we stated it theologically, how can I stand before a holy God? And you remember we spent some time talking about God's or or or humans understanding of God during that time that we went through things like plagues and the evasiveness of death, and God is viewed as perpetually angry and God is one who is righteous judge. Even Jesus is seen as a righteous judge. So Luther has this sense of foreboding that God is sort of this angry being that's almost looking for reasons to hit him. And he's got this overwhelming sense of guilt and anxiety, and this has been driven by he has a friend that dies and where is he? Where is he? Where did he go? You know what happened to me? He had an accident where he actually stuck himself in the leg with a dagger, almost bled to death. And so all these things are coming to head. Now he's a student at the University of Airfort. He's completed as BA there and now he is sort of making a trip and sort of the lightning point in this to be as you'll see make the story work traveling, and there's various versions of the story. He's either on horseback or walking, but regardless, he's in the middle of a storm and he's terrified. Lightning apparently strikes close to him. He either falls to the ground or is not to the ground, And at least the story is, he cries out to the patron saint of miners. As you remember we talked about, his father was a miner, Saint Anne's, who was supposedly the mother of Mary's mother. If I'm remembering the story, I'm raised a Baptist, so I'm a little weak on saints, so excuse me. So Saint Anne's helped me and I will become a monk. And there's an old But when the biographers of Martin Luther, Roland Baton wrote a biography in the fifties or sixties called Here I Stand, and I remember seeing a video with Baton and he says he cried out to Saint Anne's. Saint Anne's helped me, and I will become a monk, and he said, and she did and he did so he he he makes this vow to Saint Anne and uh, unlike a lot of people who makes vows to God in fox holes or this or that the other, he actually follows through on this thing. So he goes with a group of his university friends, bangs on the door of the Augustinian Monastery and air for you know, let me in, Let me in. Why I'm going to become a monk, And they're like, don't do this. His father is going to be absolutely utterly lived because Luther is very smart. When we've talked about that before too as well. The guys, this is going to be his golden ticket, right, there is no social security. Your kids are your social security. He's supposed to be a lawyer. Yeah, he's brilliant, and he ends up becoming a monk and he becomes the worst kind of monk. You're supposed to be a Dominican. These are kind of like the you know, the hang out with the royalty and the upsale all this stuff. But he becomes what's an Augustinian And these are called begging monks, which means literally what it says, how do they make their money? They go out and beg So you can imagine this. You know, I sent my kid to university, He's gonna be my meal ticket. And now people don't even like these people because they just walk around begging for money. That's how they do things. So he ends up in this in this monastery. And it's crazy because the plague, if I remember the story right, the plague is going around. He's supposed to be. They put you in a temporary thing for I think it's either two weeks or two months, I can't remember exactly, but the plague is going around, and they almost kind of forget he's in there. I'm in there longer than he's supposed to be. And uh you know that Oh yeah, that that Martin Luther kids up there. Bang, you still want to do this? Yes, yeah, yeah, I still want to do this. So so there he is. He becomes a monk. So so that's that's how this gets there, and what's driving him James, is this, how can I stand before a holy God? How can I get God off my back? How can I get this clarity about what's going to happen to you when I die?

00:08:11
Speaker 1: So when we talk about this, because I think it's it's kind of difficult when we think about our modern day religious landscape, he don't really religion has been a little bit more pushed to the side. It's nowhere near his central to our imagination. Yes, you know, just generally in society. And so Martin Luther is going to Aerford. He's trying to earn his BA in where he has earned his BA in law, which I don't know whether you're I don't know whether there's an intersection between law and theology back then, or you know how much religious studies they would have taken. But point is, he's not studying theology, he's not studying biblical studies or something like that. He's studying the law. And so like, how did that religious realm function to shape and form him? So that this question was top of I get the the perils of just daily life that in that period that's that's got that's a component of it. But where is he linking in to the church, And how prominent is the church at this point in the lives of just everyday folk in Germany.

00:09:18
Speaker 2: Oh, the your entire existence is defined by the church. So the calendar is driven by the church. Everything is driven by the Church. So all you know, it's it's a function of saints, stay's, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's hard for us as secularists to even begin to process how deeply wound religion is in the culture. Everything is marked by the religious culture. Everything is driven by that. There is no Martin Luther King Day or Independence Day or secular vacation or any of that sort of stuff. It is all a function of religious holiday, religious ritual, and the belief in the life to come. I've said this before, but I'll say it again because it's absolutely central. Medievalists believe more in the life to come than this life, partly because this life was awful for most of them. Yes, we have no idea. We think our life is hard, We have no idea what it was like for the average person, and so they have this overwhelming sense my death is. As we've talked about before, death is everywhere. There's no way around it. It's in your face. So the overwhelming question is not going to be how can I be happy and have a fulfilling job. The overwhelming question is how am I What's going to happen to me when my inevitable death comes? And these are all religious questions. They are we don't think about death. I mean, I was talking to my wife and some friends. I'm sixty eight now. I started to think about death when I was fifty, even sixty. But now I have friends that have died, I have friends that have illnesses that are potentially life threatening. Things don't work the way they used to. And suddenly questions that I never bothered to think about. Yeah, and they're religious questions. Luther is dealing with these as a young person. Now. He has a far more sensitive conscience than most people. We have to acknowledge that. But he is not untypical in the sense that he is religiously minded, and so that they would have it is so it's hard for us to understand how deeply wound this is in their life. The church is the center of everything, it's it's the geographic center of the town. It's the highest building. Everything revolves around it. Things are name, the names are religious, the days are religious. It's it's just it's hard to even explain how deeply wound this is in life.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, any uh, any insight into why he ends up using the Augustinian monastery as opposed to the other monasteries. I mean, is this just sort of Luther kind of deciding to punish himself. I mean, does he see something in the Augustinian poverty that is more aligned the way he's struggling to understand how he can stand before Holy God.

00:13:21
Speaker 2: That's a good question, James, that I should know the answer to, but I don't. But I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to demonstrate why I should not be on this program.

00:13:34
Speaker 1: It's a discussion, so I mean, we can have a little bit of we can have a little speculation.

00:13:40
Speaker 2: My guess is though, if I was to take a guess, and I may have known this at one point in time, but as I noted, I'm sixty eight and I do have a mind like a steel sieve, so that would make sense. Yeah, he is in the mode and that that is perfect in the culture that the way to get right with God is to beat yourself up. Yeah, and deprivation asceticism is deeply wound in religious practice. This is as anti prosperity gospel as you can get in that sense.

00:14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to think through some of the structure of the Catholic Church that you know we've talked through, so you do tend to see almost like a if I can describe it this way, a tearing of society between the upper echelon who have unique insight and almost access to these spiritual matters and can sort of they hold the keys of the kingdom, so to speak, and they're loosing and binding, you know, at their whim versus the rest of the people who are sort of the rank and file, and they're just going along and not even understanding what's red and Latin masses, but they're just following the instructions of their leaders so that they are quote unquote covered and sufficiently forgiven such that they will eventually minimize their time in purgatory and make it then ultimately into heaven. Yes, so yeah, go ahead, no, no, go ahead.

00:15:42
Speaker 2: Well, so, I mean, you know, we've talked about these in earlier broadcasts. But the idea here is the conformity, and this is Plato's republic, this is the philosopher king. It is their job to be the brains, that is the elite, and it's the people's job to just sort of do what they're told and let them think for them kind of thing. This is pervasive. Now. It's interesting. I happen to be teaching the Sunday school class yesterday and we were doing the New Testament survey. But a question from the Old Testament came up, and a fellow, you know fairly well, Dan Block, happens to be in my Sunday school class. So anytime an Old Testament question comes up, or as he calls it, a purchase, yes, I always, I always defer to doctor Block. You're you're you know, our listeners can look up doctor Block and see these profiled old Testaments.

00:16:46
Speaker 1: It's not a bad move at all.

00:16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, so. But he made a comment in passing that I thought, Aha. He said, in the ancient world, the king is responsible for the religious He used the word cult. What he meant by that is the religious ritual, liturgy, et cetera, et cetera. The king is responsible that's still the case in the Middle Ages. The government is responsible to protect, not to be the church, but to protect the church and to ensure the church has everything that it needs to do its job, because, as we've mentioned before, the society's viability is dependent on its relationship to God. To the extent that God is pleased with the society, the society will continue to function. And God is pleased with the society when they behave according to His rules. Whose job is that, That's the church's job. So it's the job of the state to make sure the church has free reign to keep God happy. Maybe that'll help us understand how deeply wound religion is in the society. This is not a secular state. This is Christian Europe, this is Christendom. This is the Holy Roman Empire that Luther is functioning in. So you know, we've gone over this before, but as modern secular people, it's very hard for us to understand it. So it's worth us repeating this again. This is all in the water, and it's all part of a world that Luther is functioning in. It's very hard for us to understand.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: It is really interesting though, I think that Luther you know, to your point, a lot of times when people make a vow, they don't actually follow through with it, right. The vow in Foxhoule is really just well I didn't really mean that, God, but thanks for getting me out of there. Now I'll take my life back. But Luther, I think him keeping his vow moving toward the Augustinian Monastery, spending that time of you know, quote unquote testing so that they are sure that he's ready to make this commitment, which was not trivial. You know, they're they're sort of for the folks. I'll explain it in the way that I think about it. It's almost like you're in a holding tank, man, You're you're sort of, you know, an anti chamber waiting to get into the real party. And Luther stuck in this ante chamber for longer than most. And they come back and they decide and they ask him, are you still ready to come in? And he's like, yeah, I really like to come in. And so he's got this sort of interesting disposition about him that you called it, I think, a sensitive, more sensitive conscience than many. Yes, but he's got this real disposition about him that lends itself to I would say not even to the religious life of the time, but almost to recognizing the faults of the religious system at the time.

00:20:40
Speaker 2: Yes, Luther, this is going to sound strange, but Luther, even in that context, in that context, takes God more seriously than most. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's going to be one of the issues. They're going to tell him, you're taking this too seriously. And he's fair, you out of your mind? Who you know what person in the right mind says you take You're you're serious about eternal damnation?

00:21:12
Speaker 1: Right?

00:21:13
Speaker 2: This is not a This is not a lie. A you know, are the Bears going to win the playoffs? Yeah, we're talking about eternal damnation here. And they're saying, well, you know, relax, What do you mean relax? You're working, You're obsessed with this? Yeah, why wouldn't I be? So it is fair to note that he is even beyond what normal people are in that in that context. But but as a culture as a whole, they are way more oriented that way than we are.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: Right, the air they breathe is far more religious than the air we breathe. It's I like the way Charles Taylor talks about this. He says, you know, secular society is really just a society that makes it more difficult for us to have faith in the divine. It's a paraphrase, but the general idea is that in secular societies, it's not like we've abandoned any notion of the sacred. It's just that believing those things becomes more and more difficult within a secular society, whereas in the medieval period that we're talking about, these things aren't questioned. The assumption is that they're there. It's not one option among many, it's this is the way the world works, and so they're just sort of, you know, they're in the water and it's wet, you know, kind of thing. So the vowel he makes this valley joins the Augustinian monastery at Air for this is around what fifteen oh five is somewhere in that range, and then ultimately he's going to be at that monastery for how many years? Do you have any idea?

00:23:02
Speaker 2: I have? Ten? Fifteen? I mean, I'd have to look.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: He goes to Wittenbergen fifteen seventeen, I think, and.

00:23:09
Speaker 2: So then he's there before fifteen seventeen, isn't he Hold on, let.

00:23:15
Speaker 1: Me double check Okay, to get our dates right. Yeah, we got our places right, but the dates are always hard for me.

00:23:25
Speaker 2: It's the same with me. I don't have it on this sheet. You want to pause this for a second.

00:23:31
Speaker 1: No, it's all right. Well, we can always clarify it later. But the point is he's he's there long enough to provide to develop a sufficient degree of training because he doesn't have his degree in this. And I'm assuming maybe I'm assuming too much, but when they go to these monasteries, I mean they are learning theology. They're not just practicing the faith, they're learning theology h in order to do something.

00:24:04
Speaker 2: Uh there, Okay. Their daily life is defined by the responsibilities of prayer, taking care of the the house, you know. Okay, somebody's got to grow potatoes, somebody's got to the roof, somebody's gotta But they have regulated prayer and and depending on the order, they have other responsibilities which may involve, uh, taking care of some of them. For example, this one isn't, but there were hospital orders, other kinds of things. This order is primarily prayer. Scripture. Uh, there would have been reading of scripture, reading of Augustine. There would have been copying manuscripts, studying that sort of stuff, so and begging.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: When he's making that transition though, from the Augustinian Monastery to Wittenberg, because he does go from Airfort to Wittenberg.

00:25:15
Speaker 2: That is correct. And there he goes. In Wittenberg, he goes to do what we would call a doctoral work. He goes to study sacred scripture, and he does his doctorate at the at a new university, the University of Wittenberg. And there he is working through the scriptures and I'm trying to get I'm still working to find this date here for Luther, but we'll find it at some point. But it's there that he is. It's there that he is. Well, let me back it up. Why does he go to vitten He goes to Wittenberg because he has a confessor, or what we would use as a mentor. His name is Jova von Stalpitz, and von Stalpez is deeply concerned about this young fellow because he is just literally beating himself to death. He is constantly praying for hours. He is he goes to confession for all kinds of Okay, well, it looks like he goes. I found this, So let me interrupt this year around fifteen twelve, he goes to Wittenberg. That looks like twelve, ok. And what's happening James is he is. He goes in hoping to find peace with God. It doesn't get better, It gets worse. It gets worse because all the things that are supposed to make it better aren't working. So, for example, just a couple illustrations, he finds that he is increasingly driven by this sense of what he calls the curve of the self into the selfishness. He wants to love God purely and simply because of who God is. What he finds out is he only can love God in terms of what God will do for him. So it's not a disinterested love. It's a self interested lofe. I eat what's in it for me? Yeah? Yeah, And he's trying to break this. So what does he do. Well, he starts to beat himself. He literally goes into you know, he'll beat him. They find him. He's beating himself to a pulp. He starves himself, he destroys his gi track. He just he's starving himself and they're living on a starvation diet anyway. Yeah, and he's going to confession, and he's going to confession, and at one point he's in confession for eight hours and he's driving vun stop. It's nuts because here, here's how Luther's processing this. Here's the law, Love the Lord your God with all your heart's soul, mind and strength. And the second is under the first, love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, if you really believe that, if that's the minimum, how long are you going to be in confession?

00:29:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's you know, what he's trying to do is confess all this stuff and then he leaves and he, oh, I forgot one thing, and so this thing is It's like, the best way I can illustrate it is when you get stuck in the mud or stuck in snow.

00:29:27
Speaker 2: And you just keep on pushing harder on the gas pedal, and all it does is make the car sink deeper. And you just keep pushing harder and harder, and the smoke is flying off the tires and the car is sinking and sinking and sinking and sinking, and you just keep pushing harder and harder on the gas pedal. That's what's happening. James and von Stoppus finally says, I got to find some way to break this. So first he sends him to Row. We can talk about that at some other point, but then he eventually sends him to Wittenberg.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: Let's pause there because I think in the next episode of the next segment, what we want to really talk about is how I'm interested to find out is there a mismatch between the practices that were happening in the Augustinian monastery and some of the teachings that we'd find in Augustine. So you know, I've read some Augustine you don't really see. Yes, you see some asceticism that was somewhat common in the day anyway, you still see it today in some theological work, But it wasn't this sort of amped up sort of asceticism that Luther is practicing, and it seems to even be practiced within the monastery, And so I kind of want to talk a little bit about that, And then I do want to talk about this sort of contrast between what he finds in Rome and what he finds in Wittenburg. And so why don't we come back and talk about that next segment? Great, all right, everybody, Well, Catchen just a minute on the next segment of Thinking Christian. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.