Admiration

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Satyricon (1)

  b--His principal object in writing the work was to amuse but, in amusing, he also intended to pillory the aristocracy and his wit is as keen as the point of a rapier; but, when we bear in mind the fact that he was an ancient, we will find that his cynicism is not cruel, in him there is none of the malignity of Aristophanes; there is rather the attitude of the refined patrician who is always under the necessity of facing those things which he holds most in contempt, the supreme artist who suffers from the multitude of bill-boards, so to speak, who lashes the posters but holds in pitying contempt those who know so little of true art that they mistake those posters for the genuine article. Niebuhr’s estimate of his character is so just and free from prejudice, and proceeds from a mind which, in itself, was so pure and wholesome, that I will quote it: “All great dramatic poets are endowed with the power of creating beings who seem to act and speak with perfect independence, so that the poet is nothing more than the relator of what takes place. When Goethe had conceived Faust and Margarete, Mephistopheles and Wagner, they moved and had their being without any exercise of his will. But in the peculiar power which Petronius exercises, in its application to every scene, to every individual character, in everything, noble or mean, which he undertakes, I know of but one who is fully equal to the Roman, and that is Diderot. Trimalchio and Agamemnon might have spoken for Petronius, and the nephew Rameau and the parson Papin for Diderot, in every condition and on every occasion inexhaustibly, out of their own nature; just so the purest and noblest souls, whose kind was, after all, not entirely extinct in their day. “Diderot and a contemporary, related to him in spirit, Count Gaspar Gozzi, are marked with the same cynicism which disfigures the Roman; their age, like his, had become shameless. But as the two former were in their heart noble, upright, and benevolent men, and as in the writings of Diderot genuine virtue and a tenderness unknown to his contemporaries breathe, so the peculiarity of such a genius can, as it seems, be given to a noble and elevated being only. The deep contempt for prevailing immorality which naturally leads to cynicism, and a heart which beats for everything great and glorious,--virtues which then had no existence, --speak from the pages of the Roman in a language intelligible to every susceptible heart.”

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  But the priests yelled ‘Burn him!’ So they took Luther's writings and put them on a pyre with the image of his face on top of the books. To the left of him they put Hutten’s writings and to the right, Karl- stadt’s. Yet although the fires burnt the books to ashes, the portrait of Luther refused to burn. Entitled The Passion of the Blessed Martin Luther, or his sufferings, the author was the humanist Hermann Busche, who named himself Marcellus after the man who had buried the martyred St Peter.” The equation of Christ and Luther seems blasphemous. Yet the pamphlet, which enjoyed huge success, was in line with much of Luther’s own understanding of Worms: Luther himself saw it as a passion, and believed he was imitating Christ. In his account of events at Augsburg in 1518, he had compared himself to Christ in the house of Caiaphas, and he had been prepared to see his arrival at Erfurt on the way to Rome as his ‘Palm Sunday’. There was a long tradition of profound devotional identification with Christ reaching back through mystics and saints, which encompassed pious laypeople 192 MARTIN LUTHER 36. Hermann von dem Busche’s, Passion D Martins Luthers, oder seyn lydung, printed in Strasbourg in 1521. The work is prefaced with an unusual woodcut of Luther, which found no contemporary imitators, and owes nothing to Cranach. Luther stands full height, a monumental hero clutching a giant Bible, tonsured and in monastic habit, gazing out at the reader.” as well as clerics. Paintings of the Crucifixion or of the Holy Family routinely showed the onlookers, aside from Christ himself, dressed in the sumptuous silks and velvets of the day, with slashed trousers and sleeves with extravagant patterns. This was not because the artists did not know what people wore in biblical times: rather, their devo- tional images imported the present into the biblical past, allowing viewers to overcome historical time as they entered into devotional time and participated in the stories of Christ’s Passion. In 1500, Albrecht Diirer had painted himself, facing the viewer, with long, curling hair and with his hand raised in blessing in the style of Christ — a self-portrait that was anything but a proclamation of the divine THE DIET OF WORMS 193 status of the artist. For Diirer this would have been a devotional act, attempting to model himself as closely on Christ as possible as he reached his twenty-ninth year, about the age it was believed that Christ had begun his ministry.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  At its centre, the Corpus Christi altar, one of the most remarkable sculptures of the sixteenth century, shows the crucified Christ with Mary and John and an angel. The line of their entwined arms gives the statue movement and weightlessness but also ambiguity: the viewer cannot tell whether Mary and the angel carry Christ or whether it is he who carries them. Appealing to the worshipper’s emotions, the sculpture presents Christ’s suffering and resurrection as the sole focus of devotion — it is the kind of Christo- centric piety that Staupitz would have endorsed.* In his Augsburg cell right by the chapel Luther composed his response to Cajetan and formulated more clearly his view that the authority of Scripture overrode both papal decree and the Church Fathers: it was a principle that would from now on determine his thinking. It was also at Augsburg that he first appealed to ‘conscience’, a concept that would become forever associated with him. Gradually, as he debated with his opponents, the elements of his mature theology were coming together. Augsburg marked another turning point in the course of the Refor- mation. Until then, Luther’s cause had been primarily a matter for JOURNEYS AND DISPUTATIONS 115 the Augustinians and for Rome; now it was a matter of secular poli- tics as well. In Augsburg, Luther met a new group of lay supporters, who were some of the leading politicians and intellectuals of the day. Conrad Peutinger, civic secretary of Augsburg and not only an eminent imperial politician but also a noted humanist, dined with him. Christoph Langenmantel belonged to an important patrician family in Augsburg and his support would prove vital in protecting the movement. Luther also met the Benedictine Veit Bild, and Bernhard and Conrad Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden, cathedral canons at Augsburg, who were associated with Peutinger’s humanist circle.» The Imperial Diet held in the town had just finished, and men like these, conversant with power at the heart of the empire, were interested in containing the power of the Pope, reducing German financial contri- butions to the Church, and reforming political relations between the emperor and the estates. Luther’s ideas excited them intellectually, and connected with the political issues that were on their agenda. Yet in planning his encounter with Cajetan, Luther was on his own. There was no Spalatin to help him, for the Elector had left on 22 September. Scheurl, whom the Elector had wanted to assist Luther, had somehow failed to meet him at Nuremberg — perhaps because Spalatin’s request had been too vaguely formulated, perhaps because Luther did not want his assistance, or perhaps because Scheurl himself wanted to avoid too close an involvement. Staupitz, who had promised to attend the discussions, did not arrive until the day after the first meeting with Cajetan.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Ah! But these are not courtesans, they are the dregs of cities. A courtesan worthy of the name is a beautiful woman, gracious and amiable, at whose home gather men of letters and men of the world; the first magistrates, the greatest captains: and who keeps men of all professions in a happy state of mind because she is pleasing to them, she inspires in them a desire for reciprocal pleasure: such an one was Aspasia who, after having charmed the cultured people of Athens was for a long time the good companion of Pericles, and contributed much, perhaps, towards making his century what it was, the age of taste in arts and letters. Such an one also was Phryne, Lais, Glycera, and their names will always be celebrated; such, also, was Ninon d’Enclos, one of the ornaments of the century of Louis XIV, and Clairon, the first who realized all the grandeur of her art; such an one art thou, C-----, French Thalia, who commands attentions, I do not say this by way of apology but to share the opinion of Alceste. A courtesan such as I have in mind may have all the public and private virtues. One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends. Epicharis, the soul of the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan, and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for gallantry, has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted the most seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, without revealing any of the details of the conspiracy or any of the names of the conspirators.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Probably the most realistic description of the cordax, conventional, of course, is to be found in Merejkovski’s “Death of the Gods.” The passage occurs in chapter vi. I have permitted myself the liberty of supplying the omissions and euphemisms in Trench’s otherwise excellent and spirited version of the novel. “At this moment hoarse sounds like the roarings of some subterranean monster came from the market square. They were the notes, now plaintive, now lively, of a hydraulic organ. At the entrance to a showman’s travelling booth, a blind Christian slave, for four obols a day, was pumping up the water which produced this extraordinary harmony. Agamemnon dragged his companions into the booth, a great tent with blue awnings sprinkled with silver stars. A lantern lighted a black-board on which the order of the program was chalked up in Syriac and Greek. It was stifling within, redolent of garlic and lamp oil soot. In addition to the organ, there struck up the wailing of two harsh flutes, and an Ethopian, rolling the whites of his eyes, thrummed upon an Arab drum. A dancer was skipping and throwing somersaults on a tightrope, clapping his hands to the time of the music, and singing a popular song: Hue, huc, convenite nunc Spatalocinaedi! Pedem tendite Cursum addite “This starveling snub-nosed dancer was old, repulsive, and nastily gay. Drops of sweat mixed with paint were trickling from his shaven forehead; his wrinkles, plastered with white lead, looked like the cracks in some wall when rain has washed away the lime. The flutes and organ ceased when he withdrew, and a fifteen-year-old girl ran out upon the stage. She was to perform the celebrated cordax, so passionately adored by the mob. The Fathers of the Church called down anathema upon it, the Roman laws prohibited it, but all in vain. The cordax was danced everywhere, by rich and poor, by senators’ wives and by street dancers, just as it had been before. “‘What a beautiful girl,’ whispered Agamemnon enthusiastically. Thanks to the fists of his companions, he had reached a place in the front rank of spectators. The slender bronze body of the Nubian was draped only about the hips with an almost airy colorless scarf. Her hair was wound on the top of her head, in close fine curls like those of Nubian woven. Her face was of the severest Egyptian type, recalling that of the Sphinx.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  His hand — small, neat, and well-shaped — moves confidently across the page, and Luther almost always knew what size paper he would need, suggesting a remarkable ability to judge in advance how much he was going to write. Over the years his handwriting remained largely INTRODUCTION 15 unchanged except for a tendency to become slightly smaller and more angular, the hand muscles evidently becoming more tense. Extraor- dinarily, in an age when letters were routinely passed from person to person, were forged or intercepted, and when every chancellery filed drafts, Luther kept no copies. This gave his correspondents huge power, because they alone had records of what he had written, but Luther was relaxed about this, joking that he could always deny his own ‘hand’, a remark which reveals his remarkable confidence. This breezy indifference to formalities is one of Luther’s most appealing characteristics. A brilliant, engaging personal correspondent, he had a sure sense of what would make his recipient laugh. He enquired about illness with genuine interest, but he also knew exactly how to cut to the chase, confronting a correspondent’s anguish with directness. More than anything else, the letters give us a sense of the charisma he must have radiated, and the sheer delight his correspond- ents must have experienced in being his friends. It was Luther’s vivid friendships and enmities which convinced me that he had to be under- stood through his relationships, and not as the lone hero of Reforma- tion myth. Luther’s theology was formed in dialogue and debate with others — and it is no accident that the disputation, the form in which he proposed the Ninety-Five Theses, remained an intellectual tool he cherished right up to his death. This book also presents an unfamiliar picture of Luther's theology. We are used to regarding him as the advocate of ‘salvation by grace alone’, the man who insisted on sola scriptura, the principle that the Bible is sole authority on matters of doctrine. But just as important to Luther himself was his insistence on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is probably the issue many modern Protestants, suspicious of ritual and of the idea that the divine can be manifest in objects, find most alien. Yet the question dominated Luther’s later years and mobilised his deepest energies; it also split the Reformation. It was here that Luther was at his most original as a thinker, refusing to make the easy distinction between sign and signified, and insisting that Christ really was present in the Eucharist, which truly was the body and blood of Christ.

• From Little Birds (1979)

  Standing beside the bed, Novalis looked at her with his brows contracted, dominated by a desire that he hesitated to express; he wanted to see her, to admire her. He did not fully know her yet despite those nights in the hotel when they could hear strange voices on the other side of the thin walls. What he asked was not the caprice of a lover, but the desire of a painter, of an artist. His eyes were hungry for her beauty. María resisted, blushing, a trifle angry, her deepest prejudices offended. “Don’t be foolish, Novalis, dearest,” she said. “Come to bed.” But he persisted. She must overcome her bourgeois scruples, he said. Art scoffed at such modesty, human beauty was meant to be shown in all its majesty and not to be kept hidden, despised. His hands, restrained by the fear of hurting her, gently pulled her weak arms, which were crossed on her breast. She laughed. “You silly thing. You’re tickling me. You’re hurting me.” But little by little, her feminine pride nattered by this worship of her body, she gave in to him, allowed herself to be treated like a child, with soft remonstrances, as if she were undergoing a pleasant torture. Her body, freed from veils, shone with the whiteness of pearl. María closed her eyes as if she wanted to flee from the shame of her nakedness. On the smooth sheet, her graceful form intoxicated the eyes of the artist. “You are Goya’s fascinating little maja,” he said. In the weeks that followed she would neither pose for him nor allow him to use models. She would appear unexpectedly in his studio and chat with him while he painted. One afternoon when she came suddenly into the studio she saw on the model’s platform a naked woman lying in some furs, showing the curves of her ivory back. Later María made a scene. Novalis begged her to pose for him; she capitulated. Tired out by the heat, she fell asleep. He worked for three hours without a pause. With frank immodesty, she admired herself in the canvas just as she did in the great mirror in the bedroom. Dazzled by the beauty of her own body, she momentarily lost her self-consciousness. Also, Novalis had painted a different face on her body so that no one would recognize her. But afterwards, María fell again into her old habits of thinking, refused to pose. She made a scene each time Novalis engaged a model, watching and listening behind doors and quarreling constantly. She became quite ill with anxiety and morbid fears and developed insomnia. The doctor gave her pills which sent her off into a deep sleep.

• From Satyricon (1)

  A translation worthy of the name is as much the product of a literary epoch as it is of the brain and labor of a scholar; and Melmouth’s version of the letters of Pliny the Younger, made, as it was, at a period when the art of English letter writing had attained its highest excellence, may well be the despair of our twentieth century apostles of specialization. Who, today, could imbue a translation of the Golden Ass with the exquisite flavor of William Adlington’s unscholarly version of that masterpiece? Who could rival Arthur Golding’s rendering of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or Francis Hicke’s masterly rendering of Lucian’s True History? But eternal life means endless change and in nothing is this truth more strikingly manifest than in the growth and decadence of living languages and in the translation of dead tongues into the ever changing tissue of the living. Were it not for this, no translation worthy of the name would ever stand in need of revision, except in instances where the discovery and collation of fresh manuscripts had improved the text. In the case of an author whose characters speak in the argot proper to their surroundings, the necessity for revision is even more imperative; the change in the cultured speech of a language is a process that requires years to become pronounced, the evolution of slang is rapid and its usage ephemeral. For example Stephen Gaselee, in his bibliography of Petronius, calls attention to Harry Thurston Peck’s rendering of “bell um pomum” by “he’s a daisy,” and remarks, appropriately enough, “that this was well enough for 1898; but we would now be more inclined to render it ‘he’s a peach.’” Again, Peck renders “illud erat vivere” by “that was life,” but, in the words of our lyric American jazz, we would be more inclined to render it “that was the life.” “But,” as Professor Gaselee has said, “no rendering of this part of the Satyricon can be final, it must always be in the slang of the hour.” “Some,” writes the immortal translator of Rabelais, in his preface, “have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well, requires often as much genius as to do the latter. I wish, reader, thou mayest be as willing to do the author justice, as I have strove to do him right.” Many scholars have lamented the failure of Justus Lipsius to comment upon Petronius or edit an edition of the Satyricon. Had he done so, he might have gone far toward piercing the veil of darkness which enshrouds the authorship of the work and the very age in which the composer flourished. To me, personally, the fact that Laurence Sterne did not undertake a version, has caused much regret. The master who delineated Tristram Shandy’s father and the intrigue between the Widow Wadman and Uncle Toby would have drawn Trimalchio and his peers to admiration. W. C. F.

• From Satyricon (1)

  CONTENTS: PREFACE INTRODUCTION THE SATYRICON NOTES PROSTITUTION PAEDERASTIA CHAPTER NOTES 9 Gladiator obscene 17 Impotence 26 Peepholes in brothels 34 Silver Skeleton 36 Marsyas 40 A pie full of birds 56 Contumelia 116 Life in Rome 116 Legacy hunting 119 Castration 127 Circe’s voice 131 Sputum in charms 131 The “infamous finger” 138 The dildo The Cordax SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA Introduction I Soldiers in love II Courtesans III Greek love IV Pollution V Virginity VI Pandars INTRODUCTION. Of the many masterpieces which classical antiquity has bequeathed to modern times, few have attained, at intervals, to such popularity; few have so gripped the interest of scholars and men of letters, as has this scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to that Petronius who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance and dictator of fashion. The flashing wit, the masterly touches which bring out the characters with all the detail of a fine old copper etching; the marvelous use of realism by this, its first prophet; the sure knowledge of the perspective and background best adapted to each episode; the racy style, so smooth, so elegant, so simple when the educated are speaking, beguile the reader and blind him, at first, to the many discrepancies and incoherences with which the text, as we have it, is marred. The more one concentrates upon this author, the more apparent these faults become and the more one regrets the lacunae in the text. Notwithstanding numerous articles which deal with this work, some from the pens of the most profound scholars, its author is still shrouded in the mists of uncertainty and conjecture. He is as impersonal as Shakespeare, as aloof as Flaubert, in the opinion of Charles Whibley, and, it may be added, as genial as Rabelais; an enigmatic genius whose secret will never be laid bare with the resources at our present command. As I am not writing for scholars, I do not intend going very deeply into the labyrinth of critical controversy which surrounds the author and the work, but I shall deal with a few of the questions which, if properly understood, will enhance the value of the Satyricon, and contribute, in some degree, to a better understanding of the author. For the sake of convenience the questions discussed in this introduction will be arranged in the following order: 1. The Satyricon. 2. The Author. a His Character. b His Purpose in Writing. c Time in which the Action is placed. d Localization of the Principal Episode. 3. Realism. a Influence of the Satyricon upon the Literature of the World. 4. The Forgeries. I THE SATYRICON. Heinsius and Scaliger derive the word from the Greek, whence comes our English word satyr, but Casaubon, Dacier and Spanheim derive it from the Latin ‘satura,’ a plate filled with different kinds of food, and they refer to Porphyrion’s ‘multis et variis rebus hoc carmen refertum est.’

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  This is one aspect of his thinking that is difficult to understand today and where the gulf that separates our world from his seems at its greatest. In this book I have tried to show why it mattered. Luther’s theological legacy was a view of human nature that escaped the split between flesh and spirit that has dogged so much of the history of Christianity, and has given rise to a profound suspicion of sexuality and an unbending moralism. Not so with Luther: Whatever else he was, he was no killjoy. He saw sexuality as sinful but only in the way that all our actions are sinful, and this perspective freed him to be remarkably positive about the body and physical experience. His religiosity had nothing saccharine about it. His relationship with God was not that of a believer cheerfully confident of having been “saved.” It was wrested from his Anfechtungen and it engaged all his intellectual and emotional capacities. He would pray for hours a day, conversing with God, but this never gave him happy assurance: For Luther, doubt always accompanied faith. Melanchthon described how, in one debate, Luther suddenly became unsure that he was right, and he left the room, falling on his bed and praying. 49 This was not how one would expect a university professor to behave: He was utterly engaged in the subject under discussion, and shaken to the core by the thought that he might have been mistaken. Luther’s extraordinary openness, his honest willingness to put everything on the line, and his capacity to accept God’s grace as a gift he did not merit are his most attractive characteristics. Luther is a difficult hero, nonetheless. His writings can be full of hatred, and his predilection for scatological rhetoric and humor is not to modern taste. He could be authoritarian, bullying, overconfident; his domineering ways overshadowed his children’s lives and alienated many of his followers. His intransigent capacity to demonize his opponents was more than a psychological flaw because it meant that Protestantism split very early, weakening it permanently and leading to centuries of war. His anti-Semitism was more visceral than that of many of his contemporaries, and it was also intrinsic to his religiosity and his understanding of the relation between the Old and the New Testament. It cannot just be excused as the prejudice of his day. His greatest intellectual gift was his ability to simplify, to cut to the heart of an issue—but this also made it difficult for him to compromise or see nuance. And yet only someone with an utter inability to see anyone else’s point of view could have had the courage to take on the papacy, to act like a “blinkered horse” looking neither to right nor left, but treading relentlessly onward regardless of the consequences.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The friendship between the two men began when Karlstadt rushed to Leipzig in the middle of winter, on January 13, 1517, to buy a copy of Augustine so that he could refute Luther’s claims, only to discover that Luther was right to reject scholasticism. It seems originally to have unleashed intellectual energy and creativity on both sides. Karlstadt now attacked scholasticism with vigor in a set of theses in April 1517, setting out a theology based on Augustine and criticizing the use of Aristotle’s metaphysics.9 Luther, for his part, wrote his theses against scholasticism under Karlstadt’s influence, and his first ringing declaration, “To say that Augustine exaggerates in speaking against heretics is to say that Augustine tells lies almost everywhere,” is a clear adaptation of one of Karlstadt’s theses.10 In turn, Karlstadt’s support for his ideas evidently emboldened Luther, especially since his fellow Augustinian friends Linck and Lang were decidedly more cautious about his emerging theology. Indeed, from mid-1517 on Luther began to talk of “our theology,” and soon would speak of “us Wittenberg theologians.”11 Karlstadt did not at first share Luther’s opposition to indulgences—perhaps, as some have suggested, because he could see that their abolition would lead eventually to the collapse of the All Saints foundation and his own income. On the other hand, he took a firm line against the veneration of saints far earlier than Luther did, daring to make his views public despite the important role that the Elector’s collection of relics played in the town, not least in bringing pilgrims whose money was vital to the financial health of the foundation.12 Moreover, study in Rome had left him with a powerful anti-Roman animus. He had, for example, been quick to advise the Elector that new arrangements for benefices at All Saints must build in independence from the papacy or else Friedrich might find that Rome and its “courtesans” would seize control. His extreme anti-Romanism may have rubbed off on Luther, whose own negative experience of Rome had been neither as extensive nor as disillusioning.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “Bravo!” we yelled, and, with hands uplifted to the ceiling, we swore that such fellows as Hipparchus and Aratus were not to be compared with him. At length some slaves came in who spread upon the couches some coverlets upon which were embroidered nets and hunters stalking their game with boar-spears, and all the paraphernalia of the chase. We knew not what to look for next, until a hideous uproar commenced, just outside the dining-room door, and some Spartan hounds commenced to run around the table all of a sudden. A tray followed them, upon which was served a wild boar of immense size, wearing a liberty cap upon its head, and from its tusks hung two little baskets of woven palm fibre, one of which contained Syrian dates, the other, Theban. Around it hung little suckling pigs made from pastry, signifying that this was a brood-sow with her pigs at suck. It turned out that these were souvenirs intended to be taken home. When it came to carving the boar, our old friend Carver, who had carved the capons, did not appear, but in his place a great bearded giant, with bands around his legs, and wearing a short hunting cape in which a design was woven. Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it fiercely into the boar’s side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash. fowlers, ready with their rods, caught them in a moment, as they fluttered around the room and Trimalchio ordered one to each guest, remarking, “Notice what fine acorns this forest-bred boar fed on,” and as he spoke, some slaves removed the little baskets from the tusks and divided the Syrian and Theban dates equally among the diners. CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  BOOK OF THE YEAR Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman, Spectator and History Today RENEGADE AND PROPHET ‘Smart, accessible, authoritative < < > Q@ m “This is a smart, accessible, authoritot-> biography of one of the most dynevris 2 ‘pean history. Lyndal Roper writes with “© “© lernment, so that nothing stands beraeen > 4 her grimly fascinating subject; she earths the rctormer, situating him psychically as well as geographically in a Germany she describes as vividly as if we lived there... She creates a context for a man who arouses both admiration and horror in the modern reader. Here he stands: never more vocal, more controversial, more compelling’ Hilary Mantel ‘A fine achievement, deeply researched and fluently written, and it brings its difficult and cantankerous subject to life as no other biography has... A magnificent study of one of history's most compelling and divisive figures’ Richard J. Evans ‘Lyndal Roper provides a fine scholarly narrative of Luther's extraordinary life... She paints the picture of a “difficult hero”, with full attention to both light and shadow. A compellingly readable and richly documented study’ Rowan Williams ‘Lyndal Roper’s new book is a compelling and provocative attempt to restore some flesh and blood to this static icon...the work of one of the most imaginative and pioneering historians of our generation’ Alexandra Walsham, Guardian ‘Beautifully written... Among the most interesting, provocative and original biographies of Luther to appear in recent years... This unfailingly inventive and compelling account is a welcome gust of fresh air... Anyone seriously interested in one of the most influential figures of the last half-millennium will need to make time to read this one’ Peter Marshall, Literary Review Wd) @ ‘Roper’s immaculate scholarship...gives a complex account of his inner life, without ever straying beyond what the evidence will allow Guardian, Books of the Year ‘An impressive and fascinating read’ Spectator, Books of the Year ‘This is the book about Luther we've missed among all the holy books and the case studies: the whole engrossing story of a soul and a mind and the man who broke the old world and its old ways for ever. Lyndal Roper brings alive the struggle for ideas, adds a subtle sense of how human beings work, and distils a lifetime of scholarship to conjure Luther’s own world with its princes, demons, scandals and sheer brave defiance of a whole old order’ Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World ‘Magnificent and surely definitive — a work of immense schol- arship, acute psychological insight and gloriously fluent prose.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Lyndal Roper has got under the skin of her subject and the result is thrilling’ Jessie Childs, author of Henry VIII’s Last Victim and God’s Traitors ‘Roper writes with the virtuosity of an unsurpassed archival researcher, the grace of an elegant stylist, and the compassion of a seasoned student of human nature. Her nuanced and insightful portrait brilliantly evokes the inner and outer worlds of the man Luther. The book is a complete triumph’ Joel FE. Harrington, author of The Faithful Executioner ‘It deploys its considerable learning with the lightest of touches: a seductive, shimmering and significant retelling’ Thomas Penn, author of Winter King LYNDAL ROPER Lyndal Roper is Regius Professor of History at Oxford and one of the most respected historians at work in Britain today. An expert on early modern Germany, her previous books include a study of witchcraft, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. In 2016 she received the presti- gious Gerda Henkel Foundation Prize, which recognises outstanding scholarly achievement. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/martinlutherreneOOOOrope LYNDAL ROPER Martin Luther Renegade and Prophet VINTAGE 13579108642 Vintage 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SWrV 2SA Vintage is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Penguin Sane House Copyright © Lyndal Roper 2016 Lyndal Roper has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published by Vintage in 2017 First published by The Bodley Head in 2016 penguin.co.uk/ vintage A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 9781784703448 Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper. responsible sources eS FSC* C018179 For my father Stan Roper 21 June 1926 to 22 May 2016 i=. = > ¢ any : ew os oe er oa of a ~ ren a ¢ = ws 7 : 7 a ” _ fs Ct eee os" See i SRG ier od an See w , nl alll ae oy i t & hs a _ Tro é * v - . a. mt oe ‘ a ety ohne ee | oS q id <A a © ON AW FW DN Contents List of Illustrations Introduction Mansfeld and Mining The Scholar The Monastery Wittenberg Journeys and Disputations The Leipzig Debate The Freedom of a Christian The Diet of Worms In the Wartburg Karlstadt and the Christian City of Wittenberg The Black Bear Inn The Peasants’ War Marriage and the Flesh Breakdown Augsburg Consolidation Friends and Enemies Hatreds The Charioteer of Israel Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index List of Illustrations 1. Eisleben, from Daniel Meissner, Thesaurus Philo-Politicus. Das ist politischer Schatzkdstlein gutter Herzen und bestendiger Freund, Augs- burg 1625 (akg-images). 2. Altarpiece at Mansfeld Castle (photograph by Nadja Pentzlin).

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Although Nuremberg had no university itself, it was a centre of trade, learning and political power, located on the trade routes from Italy to northern Germany. When Johannes Cochlaeus penned his Brief Description of Germany in 1512, he put Nuremberg literally at the centre, connecting all the different regions of the country. Luther's Nuremberg connec- tions — humanists, patricians and politicians - now made his cause their own. There was even a coterie of ‘Augustinian diners’, including some of most powerful men in town: ‘Almost the whole talk over the table was about the one Martin: they celebrate him, adore him, defend him, are prepared to endure everything for him; they recite his work . . . they kiss his pamphlets . . . eagerly they read every word of them.’* Originally these men had been devoted to pursuing the spirituality of Luther’s mentor and confessor Staupitz; now they gave his brilliant protégé shrewd advice and support, and created an audi- ence for him in southern Germany. Scheurl acted as the conduit, and he and others translated the theses into German. When Luther had begun corresponding with the lawyer in January 1517, his slightly florid and obsequious tone revealed how important the relationship was to him: ‘I do not want you to become my friend, because this friendship will not redound to your fame, but to your harm, if the proverb be true: “Friends have everything in common.” If then through this friendship everything of mine becomes yours, then you will become richer in nothing but sins, folly and disgrace.’ People were not just reading the theses, but acting on them. By March 1518, Luther was already writing pre-emptively to Lang in Erfurt in case rumours reached him that Tetzel’s Positiones (his defence of indulgences) had been publicly burned by students in Wittenberg’s market square. He himself, Luther claimed, had nothing to do with this, and he deeply regretted the offence caused to the poor salesman, whose works had in part been bought, in part simply seized and then thrown on the flames. All of which would have been more persuasive had not Luther enclosed with the letter a copy of Tetzel’s work, ‘seized from the flames’, so that Lang could see how the papists were raging against him.® The first book burnings, which were to become such a feature of the Reformation, were thus instigated not by the Roman WITTENBERG 99 Church but by Luther's supporters, and it was clear where they might lead. Tetzel was already threatening that Luther himself would be burned and that he ‘would go to heaven in his bath shirt’ within two weeks.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The body was left in the church overnight, guarded by ‘ten citizens’, a reformed version of the customary Catholic vigil where the body would be watched over by ‘soul women’, lay sisters paid to pray for the dead.*° The Saxon Elector insisted that Luther’s body be brought back to Wittenberg, and so a long funeral procession began. In death, Luther was treated like an emperor, the rituals mirroring the honours paid a major prince. Another sermon was preached, and the coffin was carried out through the town gate and on to Halle, with bells tolling in every village through which they passed. As they neared Halle, they were welcomed by the pastors and the town council, and the crowd of citizens thronging the streets was so big that it took some hours for the procession to reach the church. The next day the coffin continued to Bitterfeld and on to Kemberg until it finally reached Wittenberg on 22 February. Here a procession formed to take the coffin from one end of the town to the other, past the university and the old monas- tery to the Castle Church. It was led by officials of the Elector, accompanied by two of the Mansfeld counts and forty-five horsemen. The coffin was followed by Katharina von Bora and a group of women in another cart; then came Luther’s three sons, his brother, nephews and other relations. They were followed by the rector of the univer- ‘sity, the young princes studying there, the most senior professors, the doctors and the town councillors. Finally there came the students and citizens, including women and girls. It was a procession ‘such as had never been seen at Wittenberg’. THE CHARIOTEER OF ISRAEL 405 69. This portrait of Luther appears on the reverse title page of the full account of his death, published by Justus Jonas in 1546. It shows him with his doctor’s cap, famous curl, and the academic gown and collar which was now his distinctive clothing. The sermons in Wittenberg provided the final celebration of Luther’s life. Bugenhagen preached and Melanchthon delivered a Latin oration which was immediately printed, followed by a brief Life.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Committed to the communal Reformation, he rejected everything that smacked of priestly tyranny—the elevation of the Host, Communion in one kind, confession before Communion, the priest placing the wafer in the communicant’s mouth—while his admiration of mysticism, prophecy, and the power of the spirit enabled him to be more open to women’s role in the Church. 59 Aiming to escape his intellectual formation, and to reach for a purer emotional mysticism, he found his outlook difficult to express within the constraints of a traditionally written and argued pamphlet, the form at which Luther excelled. He tried several other genres, including dialogues, in which he put words into the mouths of his opponents so that he could refute them, but as he rejected images, and was neither a poet nor musician, he had no other practical outlet. While Luther’s rhetorical style was becoming ever clearer and more rebarbative, Karlstadt pushed the pamphlet format to its limit, eschewing intellectual, linear thinking. The result was a manner of writing that seems unfinished and obscure. So, for example, he could write in The Meaning of the Term “Gelassen”: “However, we must be on guard constantly that this same yielded egoism or self-absorption is seriously judged and surrendered, for the Devil sits in wait of unsurrendered yieldedness as a fox looks out for chickens which he plans to devour.” 60 He is clearly striving for emotional honesty as well as memorable imagery, but achieves this at the cost of clarity. The suffering and rejection Karlstadt experienced—Luther had made him feel “anxiety, envy, hatred, and disgrace”—enabled him to reach Gelassenheit . 61 As he wrote in a dialogue that dealt line by line with Luther’s Against the Heavenly Prophets: “Through such suffering we must subdue, break, and subordinate to the spirit our untamed flesh in order to assist hope, strengthen faith, and firm up the word. For tribulation brings about patience and patience leads to a certain knowledge and experience.” This, he insisted, had nothing to do with the “works of love,” the self-mortification and asceticism practiced by the monks, with which Luther identified his ideas. 62 What both men had in common, however, is that they invoked experience. For Luther, the story of his heroic stance at Worms was proof that he alone was the touchstone of truth, while Karlstadt regarded his own persecution and suffering as unique. It was something that Luther, living in his secure professorship in Wittenberg, could never understand. Thus the dispute between Luther and Karlstadt was personal as well as intellectual, reflecting both men’s understanding of their individual history and destiny. 63 Luther’s sacramental theology did not determine his moral theology, but the two were of a piece.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The university was to be part of the new learning, but although several famous humanists and scholars visited and gave lectures, in the first few years none stayed long. In fact, the university was scho- lastic in orientation and its first rector, Martin Pollich von Mellerstadt, was an old conservative who adhered to the via antiqua and resisted any departure from the teachings of Aristotle and Duns Scotus. Against Mellerstadt’s influence, Staupitz and others strove to introduce the via moderna, but the humanist ideas that were exciting so many in Europe at this time were not on their agenda. Theology held pride of place in the university, and many of its professors — including Mellerstadt himself — had moved from other disciplines into what was regarded as the queen of the sciences to make it the university’s intel- lectual powerhouse. Within the theological faculty, Andreas Karlstadt was a follower of Thomas Aquinas. Johannes Lang lectured on moral philosophy. Lang had mixed in humanist circles at Erfurt and learned Greek and Hebrew so he could read the Bible in the original languages; Luther had studied Hebrew with him. An immensely productive friend- ship, Luther may well have picked up humanist ideas through Lang, and together they brought the new biblical humanism, critical of scholasticism and determined to return to the original texts, to univer- sity teaching.” Yet this was not a friendship of equals. Although Luther was probably only four years older, the younger man’s admiration for 90 MARTIN LUTHER 18., 19. and 20. Three woodcuts from 1578 illustrate the rituals involved at Wittenberg, showing the blackened faces and horned fools’ caps of the initiates. The ceremonial tools — gilded saw, pliers, axe, brush, bell and the like — have survived from the University of Leipzig. The rituals, which also involved a mock confession, are clearly parodies of religious ceremonies, yet Luther supported their retention. Just as Staupitz joked that Luther needed the Devil, so Luther never frowned upon a ritual which captured something of the state of utter sinful- ness of the Christian — and in this case, the university initiate. him was evident from the beginning, and Luther did not mince his words when, in 1517, sending him the Ninety-Five Theses, he felt Lang did not understand his new theological direction.” Luther’s position at the university, which he had inherited from Staupitz and would hold until his death, was professor of the Bible, and it required him to lecture on Scripture, hold disputations and preach to students and members of the university.” He undertook the task with gusto, lecturing first on the Psalms.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The theses did not contain a full theological program; rather, Luther was radicalized by the opposition he encountered, and the arguments and attacks of others made him develop his theology and pursue his ideas further. The Reformation emerged through a series of disputations and arguments with his antagonists at Heidelberg, Augsburg, and Leipzig. Luther knew that the penalty for heresy would be burning at the stake, and that if he was imprisoned and tried by the Church he was likely to lose his life. This meant that his theology was formed under the double pressure of increasingly aggressive argument from his opponents and the threat of martyrdom. In 1521 Luther, now known throughout Germany, was called upon to answer to the emperor at the Diet of Worms in front of the assembled estates of the entire empire. Many thought he would not take the risk of attending, but as he said, nothing would stop him, even if he had known that there were “as many devils as…tiles on the roofs.” The courage he showed at Worms was breathtaking. For a commoner to stand up to the emperor and the most powerful princes in the empire, and to resist the might of the Church, was as extraordinary as it was unforgettable. A defining event, it probably did more to win people over to the Reformation, and shape their hopes and expectations, than did his theology. As in any revolutionary movement, Luther’s ideas were magnified and refracted through what people heard in the street or in sermons, or through news of what he did. The Diet concluded with the emperor’s emphatic condemnation. On the way back from Worms, Luther, now in mortal danger, was kidnapped on the instructions of his ruler and protector Friedrich the Wise, and taken for his safety to the Wartburg Castle, where he spent the next ten months in isolation, writing furiously and translating the New Testament. In the meantime, the Reformation at Wittenberg proceeded apace without him and, under the guidance of Andreas Karlstadt, became increasingly radical, addressing issues of poor relief and morality. When Luther returned to Wittenberg in March 1522, he immediately called for the reforms to be reversed because they had happened too fast. He also broke decisively with Karlstadt, who had begun to take a different line on the Lord’s Supper, arguing that Christ was not actually present in the bread and wine, a view Luther passionately rejected. This split presaged the future, for people applied his theology, as they perceived it, to their own experience—a process Luther might oppose, but which was beyond his control.

• From Satyricon (1)

  In their Mercury, the ancients realized their beau ideal or archetype of go-between which they called; in vulgar language “pimp”. That God, as go-between for Jupiter, was often involved in the most hazardous enterprises, such as abducting Io, who was guarded by Argus of the hundred eyes; Mercury I say, was the God of concord, or eloquence, and of mystery. Except to inspire them with friendly feeling and kind affections, Mercury never went among mortals. Touched by his wand, venomous serpents closely embraced him. Listening to him, Achilles forgot his pride, extended hospitality to Priam and permitted him to take away the body of Hector. The ferocious Carthaginians were softened through the influence of this God of peace, and received the Trojans in friendship. Mercury it was who gathered men into society and substituted social customs for barbarism. He invented the lyre and was the master of Amphion, who opened the walls of Thebes by the charm of his singing. Mercury or Hermes gave the first man knowledge; but it was enveloped in a mysterious veil which it was never permitted the profane to penetrate, which signifies that all that he learned from God, concerning amorous adventures, should be wrapped in profound silence. How beautiful all these allegories are! And how true! How insipid life would be without these mysterious liaisons, by which Nature carries out her designs, eluding the social ties, without breaking them! Disciples of Mercury, I salute you, whatever be your sex; to your discretion, to your persuasive arts are confided our dearest interests, the peace of mind of husbands, the happiness of lovers, the reputation of women, the legitimacy of children. Without you, this desolated earth would prove to be, in reality, a vale of tears; the young and beautiful wife united to decrepit husband, would languish and grow weak, like the lonely flower which the sun’s rays never touch. Thus did Mexence bind in thine indissoluble bands the living and the dead. Fate, however, has often avenged the go-betweens on account of the misunderstandings from which they suffer at the hands of the vulgar. Otho opened the way to the empire of the world by his services as a go-between for Nero. And the go-betweens of princes, and even of princesses, are always found in the finest situations. Even Otho did not lose all his rights; Nero exiled him with a commission of honor, “because he was caught in adultery with his own wife, Poppaea.” “Uxoris moechus coeperate esse suae” (Suet. Otho, chap. 111), said malicious gossip at Rome. BIBLIOGRAPHY To the scholar contemplating an exhaustive study of Petronius, the masterly bibliography compiled by Gaselee is indispensable, and those of my readers who desire to pursue the subject are referred to it. The following is a list of editions, translations, criticisms and miscellaneous publications and authors from which I have derived benefit in the long and pleasant hours devoted to Petronius. EDITIONS, Opera Omnia.