LUTHER was continuing his teaching in the University and his preaching in the city church, when he was requested to visit Rome on a mission from seven of the monasteries who had a dispute on some questions connected with their institution.
Now this visit to Rome was doubtless ordered of God, for it was of immense value to Luther. He was attached to the Roman Catholic religion: he must see and know Rome the center of it. He had known this system of religion in its general character in Germany: should he not find it in its perfection and its purity in Italy and Rome?
He crossed the Alps and made his way to a monastery on the Po in Lombardy. This was a very rich convent and Luther was surprised at the great luxury in which the monks lived. They had taken the vow of poverty: what had become of their vow? The place was like a palace, and they fared sumptuously every day—yes, every day, but it should not have been so according to the rules of their church. On Friday the Roman Catholics should eat no meat, but in this rich monastery they had plenty on that day as on others. Luther protested against it. "The church and the pope forbid such things," said Luther. They were offended, and the porter gave him a hint that he had better leave the place.
He left and reached Bologna, where he was taken ill. Some have thought he must have been poisoned at the convent, but it is probable that it was the rich living that disagreed with him. But alas! he was again distressed in soul. He had not yet found settled peace through the blood of the Lamb. Again the passage "The just shall live by faith" came to his memory and brought, relief. He rapidly recovered and proceeded, and at length came in sight of the city of Rome, when he was so overcome that he exclaimed, "Holy Rome, sanctified by holy martyrs and apostles, I salute thee!" When he had known the city better he called it by another name, as we shall see.
Luther was moved to find himself in the city where were enacted many things he had read of in the classics, but especially he thought of the place Rome had in the founding of Christianity and the sublime epistle written to the assembly therein.
He was a pious young monk and he visited many of the churches and monasteries, and every step he took caused him fresh grief and pain. He had expected to find Rome the center of all that was holy and divine, but he found it unholy and corrupt. When he said mass, his fellow priests were impatient, gabbling over three while he said one, and then bade him, "Make haste, make haste; do have done with it.”
His mission brought him into company with the higher clergy as they were called; but to his astonishment he found them as bad as the priests. Some were irreverent and indeed profane. Sitting at table, he was astonished to hear them joking with one another on subjects of the deepest sanctity; thus, in the mass they had said the wrong words to deceive the people: and this they related without a blush, supposing Luther to be one of themselves. But he was not one with them. What was mirth and jollity for them caused him the deepest pain.
“I was a serious and pious young monk," said he; "such language deeply grieved me. If at Rome they speak thus openly at table, thought I, what if their actions should correspond with their words, and popes, cardinals, and courtiers should thus say mass? And I, who have so often heard them recite it so devoutly, how, in that case, must I have been deceived!”
One day the pope had promised an indulgence for all who should go up some steps, called “Pilate’s staircase, on their knees. Luther wished to have this indulgence, and he fell on his knees and began to ascend the stairs (which were said to have been miraculously brought from Jerusalem to Rome). Luther toiled on, when all at once a voice like thunder seemed to say to him, "The just shall live by faith." He was arrested and terrified at his own folly, and at once he sprang to his feet. The stairs were not mounted, and the indulgence was not gained. But what need he of indulgences when God had said, "The just shall live by faith?" He had the faith; and in haste he turned his back on the stairs and the indulgence.
Thus this same passage was pressed home upon him again. By degrees he saw more of God's plan of salvation. As he afterward said, he had been afraid of and disliked the expression "the righteousness of God;" neither could he love God who was so just; but light broke in, and "I learned," he says, "how the justification of the sinner proceeds from God's mere mercy by the way of faith-then I felt myself born again as a new man, and I entered by an open door into the very paradise of God. From that hour I saw the precious and holy scriptures with new eyes.”
Thus was Luther's visit to Rome blessed to his own soul, while it was of immense value to him to have seen what Rome really was as the center of the Catholic religion. "If any one would give me a hundred thousand florins," said he in later life, "I would not have missed seeing Rome." He left the city in great grief and indignation.