Marius, Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death - II

Marius, Richard. Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999).

Historian Richard Marius treads a careful path in his nearly 500-page biography of the most famous of all religious reformers, Martin Luther. By avoiding the excessive emotionality and melodrama so frequently used when describing Luther’s life and work, Marius presents a picture that is quietly gripping but retains a measured and conservative tone. Towards the end of the preface, Marius writes, “Luther, who hated skepticism, was a skeptic in spite of himself, ad his titanic wrestling with the dilemma of the desire for faith and the omnipresence of doubt and fear became an augury for the development of the religious consciousness of the West in modern times.” In this version of Luther, both the man and his work appear in their relation to larger events spreading over centuries and many nations.

Skepticism, doubt, and fear of the nothingness of death are themes that Marius claims run through the entirety of Luther’s life and work, and the author returns to them as frequently as his subject did. Though a reader might find it frustrating to be told for the dozenth time that Luther was deeply afraid of death, Marius’ repetition serves a purpose. By continually reiterating this point, Marius creates a narrative of Luther’s thought process that rings true. Frustrated though the reader might be, the window into Luther’s mind gives great depth and color to the biographical picture. This style of approach effectively takes the reader through the same thought processes that Luther had five hundred years ago, bringing the man closer than the average biography manages to do. It also helps in the difficult matters of Luther’s more troubling writings and seeming reversals of doctrine.

Marius treats the two areas of Luther’s work most troubling to the modern mind, the treatises regarding the Jews and his responses to the peasant uprisings in the late 1520s, with slightly different approaches. In the matter of the writings against the Jews, in which Luther’s pen spreads vitriolic anti-Semitic language, Marius displays a deeply troubled and vehemently modern reaction. On the one hand, he wants to make it clear to modern readers that Luther is in no way responsible for the 1930s propaganda and actions perpetrated by Adolf Hitler’s regime. Marius tries to explain Luther’s writings without excusing them, bringing up points such as the death of Luther’s daughter Magdalena and the ways in which the grieving father might have lashed out in the aftermath. The whole issue is of such an explosive nature that Marius has to bring in far more modern sensibility and judgment than he does in any other section of the book. It is perhaps a natural reaction for an intellectual to have on such a subject, but it is clearly a chapter in which Marius loses his cool.

The peasant uprisings, which might seem to provoke a similar reaction, get a different treatment. In this section Marius has to wade through piles of Luther’s confusing and at times apparently contradictory writings on the subject of rebellion, not to mention the other eccentric personalities involved in the fracturing reform movement. Moreover, Luther’s growing disillusionment means some reversals of opinion that must have puzzled as much in 1525 as now. Marius tackles the subject in a loosely chronological manner, taking admirably brief tangents to explain the back-histories of Müntzer, Karlstadt, and their movements. Most of the section focuses on the writings – the Twelve Articles released by the Swabian peasants, and Luther’s response to them. It is impressive that Marius manages so complicated a subject in such an organized fashion.

In the conclusion, Richard Marius notes, “It should be clear to anyone who has read this book that my sympathies lie with Erasmus.” Perhaps this explains the calm tone that persists throughout most of the book. By feeling more attached to one of Luther’s intellectual foes, Marius approaches his topic without feeling compelled to idolize the man who changed the course of Christianity forever. Marius instead analyzes, observes, and tries to reserve judgment as much as possible, and manages to present a clear view of Luther’s life and work both in terms of his own time and of ours.