# Thirty-five Years of Luther Research/Factors Which Brought About a New Period in Luther Research

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OF LUTHER RESEARCH
I. FACTORS WHICH BROUGHT ABOUT A NEW PERIOD IN LUTHER RESEARCH
In connection with the preparation for the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Luther's birth there began in the early eighties a period of research into the life of the great reformer which continues even today. In point of thoroughness, unflagging zeal, comprehensive and scientific character, this period has outdistanced every previous effort in the same direction.
This can hardly be explained by the fact that Lutheran theology and learning possesses an inherent instinct to investigate, an instinct that may lie dormant at times, only ever to be revived to greater action. A revival of this nature generally responds either to the intensification of the Christian life or to external conditions. The first can hardly be assumed at that time, and as for the second, it is just these external conditions that we have to consider. Even the anniversary of Luther's birth and the preparation for the coming jubilee of 1917 do not fully explain it. Otherwise the research into the life of Luther would have been marked by a similar intensity during the period from 1783 to 1817. We shall hardly go amiss if we assume that there were primarily two factors, working hand in hand, which made possible this period and gave it its singular character.
​In the first place, entirely new methods and principles of research had been established in the study of history. Historians were no longer content to develop the commonly accepted data into ingenious treaties with special reference to their philosophical aspect, according to the ideas of Hegel and others. Instead, they sought to come nearer to the truth of things. Patiently and minutely they examined all authentic sources that came into consideration, seeking to establish the factors and conditions that brought about the results. And in this way, piece by piece, they resurrected the happenings of the past and their causes, without burdening them with additions of their own. It was the influence of Ranke's school, with its analogue in the Oxford school of England, which originated between 1870 and 1875, and whose leaders, Stubbs and Creighton, were dependent in no small measure on Ranke, that entirely revised the study of history.1 The librarian of the old order jealously and Argus-eyed guarding his treasures that no one might so much as glance at them, gave way to the librarian of the new order. Not only did the governments gradually grant free access to the written treasures of the past, but, at least in Germany, their use was made so easy that today there are no old sources not available for research. In Germany especially, the government decreed that henceforth nothing in the libraries and archives should be destroyed, and these, too, since the Franco-Prussian war, were much more freely supplied with the necessary funds. More than that, in the town halls of the cities, as well as in the parsonages of the rural districts, the government aroused interest and sympathy for everything connected with the past, and qualified to help its understanding. It was inevitable, therefore, that this new mode of research ​should also dominate the study of church and Reformation history, that entirely new methods be created, hitherto hidden sources brought to light, and radically new goals set.
This transplanting of the methods of Ranke's school into the field of church history, although already demanded and applied, especially by Renter in Breslau and Goettingen, and also by Kolde in Marburg and Erlangen,2 gained greater momentum since the beginning of the eighties. It was a stupendous step onward and not only forced the older church historians either to reform their methods or be dropped by the wayside, but also possessed the added advantage, that church history gradually lost its isolated position, and instead of being regarded as an isolated sphere was looked upon as something the understanding of which is only complete when linked with the understanding of contemporaneous events in secular history. And here again it was Kolde who grasped this truth more clearly than any one else and helped it to victory.3 It was also Kolde who proved that church history, even if placed within the range of secular history, does not lose its peculiar purpose and identity, nor that an impairment in any manner follows therefrom.
The second factor was this: In 1877 there appeared the first volume of the voluminous work "Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters," by Johann Janssen, professor in the catholic gymnasium of Frankfurt on the Main, and already in 1886 the fifth volume of this history was finished. In Frankfurt historical interests had always been cultivated. It had been the seat of the "Monumenta Germanise Historica" before these were transplanted to Berlin. In this old imperial city the Rankean school had worked like a leaven among ​the students of history. Through the Protestant city librarian, J. F. Boehmer, a very able man in historical research work, Janssen was drawn into this circle. Janssen then flung himself with the greatest of zeal upon the deeper study of the written and printed sources dealing with the last centuries of the Middle Ages, contained there appeared, as the result of this study, "Frankfurt's Reichscorrespondenz nebst verwandten Aktenstuecken, 1376-1519." Although the efficient co-operation of a catholic historian in the effort to shed more light upon the last centuries of the Middle Ages was highly gratifying even to Protestants, yet the publication of his history of the German people, the first volume of which appeared in 1877, proved a blow aimed at the very heart of Protestantism. In this work Janssen had placed his extensive knowledge of the religious conditions of the end of the Middle Ages into the service or subservience of the proof that the church, art, and science enjoyed a period of flourishing growth in the era just preceding the Reformation, only to be trampled to death under the roughshod feet of Luther and his followers. The volumes following, with their characterization of Luther and the Reformation, follow the same methods and thoughts employed in the first volume.
This work — its methods and main conclusions defended by the author in his "An meine Kritiker," Freiburg, 1882, and "Ein zweites Wort an meine Kritiker,"Freiburg,
Luther, the Augustinian. Copper engraving by L. Cranach.
​edited by L. Pastor, have appeared in not less than twenty editions, not to speak of the different translations of the work.4 The simple style, the seeming thoroughness and objectiveness, with which Janssen brings a wealth of proof from the sources for every, often even the most absurd statement, its apparently unbiased tendencies, its conclusions, startling for the Lutheran, but welcome to the Catholics, its introduction into a hitherto almost shamefully neglected but important and new field of research, all of this together with the malignant zeal, with which all Catholic circles spread broadcast this production, explain its great success. G. Bossert (in "Wuerttemberg und Janssen," Halle, 1884) wrote concerning it: "Spread broadcast within a few years in many thousand copies, this work has not only found zealous readers among the militant spirits in the younger generation of the Catholic clergy; but even Catholic laymen, temperamentally far cooler, studied it with a devotion, as if they had found in it the long-lost Gospel. Yes, strange to say, this work has found favor, even with Protestants. Many a Protestant, in the belief that Janssen is right, thinks that he must recast his judgment, and that not for the better, of the Reformation and the reformers. In the press and in public gatherings one continually meets with opinions of Protestants concerning the faith of their ancestors, its origin and its influence upon the life of the people, upon morals, art, and economic conditions, opinions all of which are echoes from Janssen.
It can be readily understood, what an ascendency this handy reference book, with its smooth diction, its dazzling knowledge of literature and its proud claim of agreeing with the old sources, must have gained in the minds of the cultured classes of today, as long as they them​selves do not possess the opportunity for closer investigation."5
"The militant spirits among the younger generation," of whom mention is made here, diligently copied their master, although generally their writings were marked by a greater flagrancy and carelessness, so that between 1880 and 1884 Germany was fairly deluged by more or less skillful libelous writings against Luther and the Reformation, until finally, in 1890, P. Majunke, priest
Luther in the year 1521.
Copper engraving by L. Cranach.
​title, "Schriften des Vereins fuer Reformationsgeschichte," which have been exceptionally well introduced by Kolde's writing, "Luther und der Reichstag zu Worms, 1521" (Halle, 1883). All of them deal directly with Luther, or with movements caused by his lifework.
Janssen gave a real and unmistakable impetus to research work on Luther among men of learning. Prepared to work in a scientific manner by accepting Ranke's methods in the field of church history, they were forced by Janssen to begin. Added to this, Janssen's lifework not only was taken up by other Catholic theologians, continued and its scope widened,'7 but a later book by Denifle, "Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwicklung quellenmaessig dargestellt" (Ist vol. Ist ed. 1904; 2nd vol. ed. by A. M. Weiss, 1909), also raised new questions and demanded a more thorough study, especially of the pre-Reformation theology. The latest Catholic work on Luther, by H. Grisar (Martin Luther, first volume: Luther's Werden, second volume: Auf der Hoehe des Lebens, 1911, third volume: Am Ende der Bahn, 1912), had much less influence on Protestant research into the life of Luther.
Subordinated to these two main factors, there are two further circumstances that were of material assistance. In the first place, Protestant theology was given the great book on Luther, by Julius Koestlin: "Martin Luther; Sein Leben und seine Schriften," in 1875, and in 1883 this work appeared in its second edition vastly improved. Koestlin did not belong to the Rankean school. He was not a church historian, but a systematician. He did not study the old sources in the manner of the historians of this school, when he began his work; and even later he rarely co-operated in the search for new material, that ​was being conducted in the archives.8 With his inherent thoroughness, trustworthiness, and soberness he carefully examined all the printed material accessible to him, and in the spirit of true criticism and ripe judgment, painstakingly considering and even presenting the leading thoughts of all the important writings of Luther, he molded the result of his investigations into a book, that in a measure never accomplished before afforded a thoroughly trustworthy insight into the development of the life and thoughts of the reformer. With this a firm foundation was laid, upon which all further research could build. It even incited others to do special research in this or that direction.
In the second place, just at the beginning of the period which we are about to discuss, the Protestant Church was blessed by God with a number of distinguished young investigators who were able to take up the work anew and carry it on to a successful conclusion. Among those who had busied themselves in the past two decades with thorough studies concerning Luther were Karl Knaake and Ludwig Enders, who were still in the height of their intellectual ability. As a candidate for the ministry already, Knaake had entered upon this field of research with his short but pertinent writing, "Luther's Anteil an der Augsburger Confession," against Rueckert and Heppe (1863). Then he began to edit the works of Staupitz (the first volume and only one, because the book found no subscribers, appeared in 1867). Together with Franz von Soden, he published the important letter album of Christ. Scheurl of Nuernberg (1867 and 1872). In his "Jahrbuecher des deutschen Reichs und der deutschen Kirche im Zeitalter der Reformation" (1872), which expired in its first stages, he made accessi​ble Scheurl's "Geschichtbuch der Christenheit vin 1511 bis 1521," also a number of documents pertaining to the Diet of Augsburg of 1518. For his own particular studies he collected one of the greatest and most valuable collections of prints from the sixteenth century. In 1876 there appeared in "Zeitschrift fuer lutherische Theologie und Kirche" a critical review of more than forty pages of Koestlin's "Martin Luther," in which Knaake proved himself the superior of Koestlin in the matter of detail. Enders, of Oberrad, near Frankfurt on the Main, since 1882 was active with the revision of the Luther edition of Erlangen, and since the appearance of the new editions of "Vermischte Predigten" (1877) had revealed a rare knowledge of the literature of this age, and in this edition he also published for the first time a large number of hitherto unknown sermons taken from a valuable manuscript at Wolfenbuettel.
At this time other promising young men also entered the field. Most prominent among them was Theodor Kolde, who had been appointed lecturer in Marburg in 1876, and had then followed a call to Erlangen in 1881. Barely twenty-four years of age, he erected a memorial to a maternal ancestor, the famous Saxon chancellor Brueck, in "Kanzler Brueck und seine Bedeutung fuer die Entwicklung der Reformation," in "Zeitschrift fuer historische Theologie" (1874); in 1876 he discussed Luther's position over against Council and Church until the Diet of Worms in a study bearing this title. Finally, in 1879 he established his reputation as a historian through the excellent writing, "Die deutsche Augustiner Kongregation und Johannes von Staupitz," a rare specimen eruditionis, in which he strictly applied the methods of the Rankean school and in careful detail set forth ​many facts, hitherto entirely unknown. No less an authority than Kawerau as late as 1908 (Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1908, p. 343) made the following comment on this work: "Kolde has been the first one to bring into the light of history the order to which Luther belonged, in view of its inner development as well as of its propaganda in Germany, in view of its theological tendencies as well as of its inner strifes. He taught us to understand a Proles and a Staupitz, he shed light upon the inner conflicts of the German congregation, which resulted in Luther's journey to Rome. With the aid of the old sources he made us understand the monastery life of which Luther was a part, and acquainted us with Luther's activities as vicar of his district. He pointed out to us the history of the disbanding of a great number of German Augustine monasteries, due to the influence of Luther's initiative." In 1881 Kolde followed his former writings with "Friederich der Weisse und die Anfange der Reformation;" at the same time preparing himself for greater things.
Gustav Kawerau, now Probst, member of the higher
Luther as 'Junker Joerg', December, 1521.
Painting by L. Cranach.
​das Regensburger Konkordienwerk des Jahres 1541" (1870), did not touch the research work on Luther, he ranked first among the historians of the Reformation period.
Another pupil of Reuter, afterward at Koenigsberg and then historian at Goettingen, P. Tschackert, was at this time assistant professer at Halle. G. Buchwald, who later made a name for himself as the fortunate discoverer of many manuscipts concerning Luther, had already at this time betrayed his interest in the research work on Luther through his essay, "Luther und die Juden" (1881). Even Wilhelm Walther, of Rostock, at the present time known as one of the best authorities on Luther, at this time already revealed what field of endeavors he was eventually to enter, for the theme "Luther und Rom," which since 1883 was so masterfully treated by him, had already received its first attention through his lengthy essay, "Die Fruechte der Roemischen Beichte" (reprinted in "W. Walther, Zur Wertung der Reformation" 1909, pp. 14-75).
Knaake, Enders, Kolde, Kawerau, Brieger, Tschackert, Buchwald, Walther, the constellation around Koestlin, constituted an able group of excellently trained historical investigators, fully qualified to investigate Luther's life and theology according to the principles of Ranke's school, successfully to cope with Janssen's caricatures, and thus to place before the eyes of the Protestant Church an undistorted, truthful picture of the great reformer.