An Invitation to Pope Leo X

Toward the close of the prefatory letter that accompanies the treatise The Freedom of a Christian (1520), Martin Luther (1483-1546) admonishes Pope Leo X (1475-1521): "In summary, do not believe those who exalt you; rather you should believe those who humble you" (Luther, The Freedom of a Christian [FC] 44). Luther's statement teases the imagination and prompts closer consideration. Given that the letter and treatise are situated in the tumultuous years between 1517, with the posting of the "95 Theses," and 1521, the year of Luther's final excommunication, how is humility constructed and interpreted in this prefatory letter?1The noted Reformation scholar, Bemdt Hamm, demonstrates that Luther decided to link the letter to the treatise after he received a papal Bull of excommunication on October 10, 1520.2 In this charged environment the treatise "would make clear from Holy Scripture the basis of his [i.e. Luther's] total freedom and religious independence which put him in a position above even the papacy."3 Emphasizing a "compositional unity" (Hamm, 249) between the works, Hamm shows both "freedom from the pope and pastoral care for the pope"4 as defining features and thus provides a framework for exploring and explaining Luther's conception of humility in the prefatory letter.The Advice of Bernard of ClairvauxFollowing the publication of the "Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" (1517), more commonly referred to as the "95 Theses," Luther issued a letter in 1518 dedicating his Explanations of the Disputations on the Power of Indulgences to Pope Leo X. As biographer Derek Wilson observes, in this letter Luther tactfully sought "to keep the debate theoretical and to make no personal attacks. Accordingly, Luther exonerated Leo X, while pointing out that some of his predecessors had erred and others had led scandalous lives. When he turned his attention to the contemporary situation it was to lash the Roman hierarchy with his pen" (Wilson, 105). Two years later, in his prefatory letter to the treatise On the Freedom of a Christian dated September 6,1520, Luther assumes a similar stance and strategy vis-a-vis Pope Leo X. Luther maintains consistently throughout the letter that his concerns are not with Pope Leo X as an individual person but, rather, with the unchecked, abusive power of the papal office in which Pope Leo X resides. Yet, despite this similarity, Luther employs two noteworthy rhetorical differences in this prefatory letter not found in the dedicatory letter of 1518: he appeals to the precedent of Bernard of Clairvaux and he calls explicitly for humility as a proposed course of action.Luther refers directly to Bernard of Clairvaux twice in the prefatory letter; the references act as a framing device in the letter, as the first reference is located near the opening of the letter and is used to specify Luther's context for writing, whereas the second reference is located near the close of the letter and is used to chart a proposed course of action. Both references center on a single relationship and on a single text, namely, Bernard's plea to Pope Eugenius III in his work On Consideration (c. 1150 CE). Eugenius, who had been a monk under Bernard's direction and later an abbot over the Cistercian monastery of SS. Vincent and Anastasius, served as pope from 1145 CE until his death in 1153 CE.5 In a tone recalling that of a "mother's affection,"6 On Consideration beseeches Eugenius "to set apart some portion of your heart and of your time for consideration,"7 a practice which "purifies the very fountain, that is the mind, from which it springs... governs the affections, directs our actions, corrects excesses, softens the manners, adorns and regulates life, and, lastly, bestows the knowledge of things divine and human alike" (ibid.). Put simply by the philosopher George Boswell Burch, Bernard intends consideration as "intention on the true", it is a means of reflection and contemplation that should inform and complement the active life of Pope Eugenius III in a necessary and compelling way. …