4. Luther’s Followers. Two Types of His Cultured Partisans: Willibald Pirkheimer and Albert Dürer
Owing to the huge and rapid circulation of the three “Reformation works,” the number of Luther’s followers among all classes increased with prodigious speed.
The spirit of the nation was roused by his bold words, the like of which had never before been heard.
Too many of those whose Catholicism was largely a matter of form were seduced by the new spirit that was abroad, and by the “liberty of the Gospel,” before they rightly saw their danger. The fascination of the promised freedom was even increased by Luther’s earnest exhortations to commence a general reformation, to cultivate the inner man, and to assert the independence of the German against immoral Italians, the extortioners of the Curia and the spiritual tyranny of the Pope. Even better minds, men who despised the masses and their vulgar agitation, were powerfully attracted. At no other time, save possibly at the French Revolution, was mankind more profoundly stirred by the force of untried ideas, which with suggestive power suddenly invaded every rank of society. Scholars, writers, artists, countless men who had heard nothing of Luther that was not to his advantage, and who, from lack of theological knowledge, were unable fully to appreciate the spirit of his writings, were carried away by the man who so courageously attacked the crying abuses which they themselves had long bewailed.
In explaining this universal commotion we cannot lay too great stress upon a factor which also played a part in it, viz. the comparative ignorance of most people regarding Luther, his antecedents and his aims. Eminent men, and his own contemporaries, who allowed themselves to be borne away by the current, were incredibly ignorant of Luther as he is now known to history. They knew practically nothing of the whole arsenal of letters, tracts and reports which to-day lie open before us and are being read, compared and annotated by industrious scholars. It is difficult for us at the present day to imagine the condition of ignorance in which even cultured men were, in the sixteenth century, regarding the Lutheran movement, especially at its inception.