The motives by which Luther was actuated in taking this hasty step he thus explains about sixteen years later: "I was never in heart a monk, nor was it to mortify the lust of my fleshly appetites, but, tormented with horror and the fear of death, I took a forced and constrained vow." Immediately after his entry into the convent, he sent back to the university his robe and ring of office; he parted with the clothes he had worn up till then, that nothing might remain that could remind him of the world he had renounced. His father was greatly grieved by all these proceedings, and his friends at Erfurt were utterly astonished. Only the monks rejoiced; they were no doubt flattered by so distinguished a doctor becoming one of their order.
But the lingering desire of Luther's heart for more reading and contemplation was not to be indulged in the monastery. No sooner had he entered than he was subjected, notwithstanding his high reputation in the university, to the most degrading monastic drudgery. He was ordered to sweep out the dormitories, to wind up the clock, to open and shut the gates, to perform the duties of porter, and to be the menial servant of the cloister. But this was not all. He must be publicly mortified; the high-minded student must be humbled. When the poor monk was tired with his manuel labors, and expecting rest and some time for reading and study, he was urged to turn out with his wallet and beg for the convent. He was told that it was not by study that he would benefit the community, but rather by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat, and money. And thus he wandered forth with his sack through the streets of Erfurt, begging from door to door; but not now as a poor singing boy, but as a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy.
This was a severe education for Luther, but it was no doubt permitted and overruled by an all-wise providence, that he might gain through personal experience a more minute acquaintance with monastic life, and a keener sense of its delusions, than he could have learned in any other way. But the enemy, as he often does, went too far. The university was ashamed to see one of its late honorable members laden with the monastery's breadbag, and begging, it might be, at the doors of his old friends. The prior of the convent was spoken to, and Luther was released from those errands of mendicity.