This, the typical Luther of to-day, appears perhaps for the first time in the so-called “_Epitaphium Lutheri_,” a woodcut which was made after Luther’s death by the elder Cranach’s son, Lucas Cranach the younger. The type in question became very generally known owing to the picture of Luther painted nine years after his death by the younger Cranach for an altar-piece in the parish church at Weimar, although in this likeness, which has been so frequently copied, there may still be found some traces of the bold, warrior features of the real Luther. Böhmer, the Protestant historian, remarks: “In the most popular of these modern ‘ideal pictures,’ viz. the oleograph of Luther in the fur cappa which ‘adorns’ so many churches, even the Doctor’s own Catherine would be unable to recognise her Martin.”
The pictured Luther has become almost a fable among Protestants. This may well make us suspicious of the pen-picture of him now spread abroad by so many of his followers and admirers. Is it in the least trustworthy? Here again it is the Protestant authority cited above who complains: “The literary Luther-portraits, though strikingly similar, are all more or less unlike the original. In the strict sense they are not portraits at all, but presentments of a type.”
The strain of such strenuous literary work, in the case of one whose public life was so full of commotion as Luther’s, could not fail to tax the most healthy nervous system. We can only wonder how he contrived to cope with the excitement and incessant labour of the years from 1520 to 1525 and to continue tirelessly at the task till his life’s end.
Amongst his works in those years were various controversial writings printed in 1523, for instance, that against Cochlæus; also tracts such as those “On the Secular Power” and “On the Adoration of the Sacrament”; also the Instructions on the Supper, on Baptism and on the Liturgy, etc., and, besides these, voluminous circular-letters, translations from, and extensive commentaries on, the Bible. There was also a vast multitude of sermons and private letters. Among the writings on widely differing subjects dealt with by Luther in 1524-25 the following may be specified: “On Christian Schools,” “Two Unequal Commands of the Emperor,” “On Trade and Usury,” “On the Abomination of silent Mass,” “Against the Heavenly Prophets,” “Against the Murderous Peasants,” “On the Unfreedom of the Will.” His publications in the three years 1523-25 number no less than seventy-nine. His attacks on the vow of chastity, and on celibacy, constitute a striking feature of many of his then writings. Obstinacy in the pursuit of one idea, which characterises the German, degenerates in Luther’s case into a sort of monomania, which would have made his writings unreadable, or at least tedious, had not the author’s literary gifts and unfortunately the prurient character of the subject-matter appealed to many. The haste in which all this was produced has left its mark everywhere.[416]