Abstract
Volker Leppin is one of the foremost Luther scholars in Germany today. Behind this fine, short introduction to the life of Luther, effectively an abbreviated version of a biography published in Germany in 2006, lies an extraordinary depth of scholarship, especially in the theological thought of the late Middle Ages. Leppin here makes reference only to primary sources; the details of secondary scholarly debate are to be found in the notes to his German text.
The story of Luther and Lutheranism has largely been told as one of rupture: rupture between the Middle Ages and the Reformation; rupture between law and grace; rupture between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Leppin is keen to point out continuities: continuity between Luther and the world of late medieval life and thought, especially the thought of German mystics such as Tauler; the continuity of the mentoring of Staupitz, who, in the days when Luther was an observant Augustinian monk prone to religious terror, consistently pointed him to Jesus Christ; the continuity of Luther’s delight in the message of the Bible vouchsafed pro me, together with his lifelong commitment to Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist. Leppin questions the received accounts of Luther’s life, which focus on dramatic moments of insight or change: his survival of the storm in which he prayed to St Anna and vowed to become a monk; his life-changing ‘tower’ experience in which ‘The Holy Spirit revealed the Scriptures to me’ (Leppin thinks Luther may have been talking not about a tower but about a privy (cloaca)); the nailing of the 95 theses about the meaning of penitence and against the sale of indulgences on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg (as reported in the 1540s); Luther’s ringing ‘Here I stand’ at the Diet of Worms (‘probably circulated by Luther at a later date’). Leppin debunks the content of none of the well-known Luther stories, but he approaches the way they are told with caution. He stresses the way in which, during his final years, Luther became an active participant in myth-making about his own life.
Leppin is concerned to set Luther in context. Surprisingly, he sees Luther’s star as rising to its zenith as early as 1525, and then declining, partly because once the Edict of Worms in 1521 had declared him an outlaw his safety could not be guaranteed, and partly because others, including Melanchthon and Bucer, were better equipped to build a united front among the divided reformers. Luther is presented as a somewhat isolated, prophetic figure, entirely lacking in diplomatic skills. Leppin does not hold back in showing his mishandling of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 and his later anti-Semitic writings. What he brings out brilliantly is Luther’s preoccupation with freedom as the hallmark of a Christian life – highlighted by Martin’s change of name from Luder to Luther (alluding to the Greek word ‘eleutheros’, meaning ‘free’).
With the publication of this little book, we have in English a non-technical, well-informed, introductory overview of the life of Luther. Teachers and students of the Reformation who don’t read German – as well as those who do – will find it a delight.
Nicholas Sagovsky
King’s College London