LUTHER was now a monk of St. Augustine’s Monastery, Erfurt. Let us look at the manner of life he led there. The brethren of the monastery considered that they were greatly honored by this latest addition to their number, but they treated the young man with great harshness. He had to perform all kinds of drudgery. This Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy had to act as porter, to open and shut the gates, wind up the clock, sweep out the church, and clean the rooms. He did all this without grumbling, devoting all his spare minutes to study. But the monks would soon find him out, and grumble at him. “Come, come, it is not by study that people make themselves useful in a monastery, but by begging for bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat, and money.” Luther would submit, lay aside his books, and take his bag. “Through the town with the bag,” cried the friars: and he had to go through the streets of Erfurt with his sack, begging from house to house. But he did not repent of the step he had taken and the yoke he had brought on himself: it was all done that he might learn to be humble and holy, and, in fact, it was part of that discipline by which God was preparing him for his great work.
This rough usage, however, did not last so long as he might have feared. At the intercession of the University, of which he was still a member, the prior of the monastery relieved him of the servile offices which had been assigned to him, and he devoted himself to study with fresh zeal. He studied the works of the fathers of the Church, especially those of Augustine, and, notably, his exposition of the Psalms, and his work on “The Letter and the Spirit.” He was greatly struck with his views on the corruption of man’s will, and on free grace. He felt in his own experience the reality of that corruption, and the necessity for that grace. But his chief book was the Bible, a copy of which he found chained in the monastery, and to which he was constantly returning for enlightenment. This led to his learning Hebrew and Greek, in both which he attained proficiency. Such was the young monk’s devotion to study that he sometimes omitted his “hours,” when he would be greatly alarmed at having transgressed the rules of his order, when he would shut himself up to repeat the omitted hours without thinking of either eating or drinking. Once he lost his sleep for seven weeks.
Luther had come to the monastery in search of holiness, and he gave himself over to the most rigid practices of the ascetic life. He sought to crucify the flesh by fasting, maceration, and watching. He shut himself up in his cell, as in a prison, struggling unremittingly against bad thoughts and the evil propensities of his heart. A little bread and a lean herring were sometimes his only food. But he failed to obtain what he sought for—peace of mind and assurance of his salvation. He was seized with dread on failing to discover either in his heart or life that image of holiness which he saw so clearly in the Word of God.
The monks and theologians of the time urged him to satisfy the Divine justice by the practice of good works. “But what good works,” thought he, “can proceed from a heart like mine? How can I, with works defiled in their every principle, stand before my Judge? I found myself a great sinner before God,” said he, “and I did not think it possible to appease Him with my works.”
The tenderness of his conscience made him regard the smallest fault as a fresh sin, and he would labor to expiate it by the severest mortifications— a course which gradually opened his eyes to the uselessness of all such merely human remedies. “I tormented myself to death,” said he, “in order that I might procure the peace of God for my troubled, hurt, and agitated conscience: but being surrounded with horrible darkness, I groped for peace in vain.”
But Luther was so entangled with the errors and prejudices of his time, than which he had heard of no better way, that he knew not what to think or do. He had put on another dress, but his heart was unchanged. His high hopes of holiness in a cloister were blasted. Where was he to stop? Might not all these rules and observances be mere human inventions? Such a supposition appeared to him, at times, as a temptation of the devil, and at others an irresistible truth. Meagre as a shadow, the young monk would pace the long passages of the monastery, making them answer in horrid echoes to his groans. His body was wearing itself out: vital energy seemed to have left it altogether, and he sometimes lay as if actually dead.
One day, in the depth of his grief, he shut himself up in his cell, and for several days and nights would suffer no one to come near him. On this, one of his friends was so much disquieted that he went to the cell, taking with him some choirboys. He knocked, but no one opened or answered. He burst open the door, and there lay Luther on some planks, quite insensible, and to all appearance lifeless. In vain he endeavored to arouse him: he lay motionless. The boys then began to sing a hymn to a low, sweet air. This roused him, and little by little he recovered strength, self-recollection, and vitality. But he needed stronger restoratives, even the strong, sweet notes of the Gospel. This relief and comfort were near at hand, as we shall see.