DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0175
IX.]
DURER A LUTHERAN.
155
Preacher Wenzel Link, to send a special greeting to Luther1.
The artist’s most intimate friends were Luther’s confederates,
and could not but be passionately interested in every stage
of the contest in which he was involved. The religious ques-
tion employed the attention of some men chiefly because of
its political import. Novel doctrines were powerful weapons in
political and diplomatic warfare; their discussion thus became
interesting even to statesmen. Deeper questions of faith were
matters of absorbing contemplation to the few, the actual
leaders of thought, who moulded in the study the opinions
afterwards to be glibly bandied about by others in the market-
place. Diirer was associated with these earnest thinkers. He
read what they wrote, and discussed with them opinions in pro-
cess of formation. The method and way of Salvation was the
question that exercised his mind. No longer satisfied with the
old scheme of faith, he could not rest till he had found and
formulated a new scheme to take its place. One day he wrote
down on a piece of paper the following statement of the new
doctrine2.
“ Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into ever-
lasting Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarna-
tion of the Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering
might abundantly pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of
God might be satisfied. For He has repented of and made atonement
for the sins of the whole world, and has obtained of the Father
Everlasting Life. Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the
highest power, who can do all things, and He is the Eternal Life. Into
whomsoever Christ comes he lives, and himself lives in Christ. There-
fore all things are in Christ good things. There is nothing good in us
except it becomes good in Christ. Whosoever therefore will altogether
justify himself is unjust. If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us.
No human repentance is enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.”
Perhaps this rather mystical passage was written about the
year 1520. At all events by that year Diirer’s mind seems to have
become settled, and the long conversations he had in the Nether-
lands with like-minded thinkers, such as Niklas Kratzer, Cornelius
Grapheus, and others, served to confirm and define his new
opinions. Early in this year 1520 Diirer wrote the letter to
Spalatin, Elector Friedrich’s chaplain, which has already been
1 De Wette, Luther, 1. 95. Scheurl, Briefbuch, Potsdam, 1867, pp. 66 and 78.
2 Brit. Mus. MS. II. 85. See below, p. 161.
DURER A LUTHERAN.
155
Preacher Wenzel Link, to send a special greeting to Luther1.
The artist’s most intimate friends were Luther’s confederates,
and could not but be passionately interested in every stage
of the contest in which he was involved. The religious ques-
tion employed the attention of some men chiefly because of
its political import. Novel doctrines were powerful weapons in
political and diplomatic warfare; their discussion thus became
interesting even to statesmen. Deeper questions of faith were
matters of absorbing contemplation to the few, the actual
leaders of thought, who moulded in the study the opinions
afterwards to be glibly bandied about by others in the market-
place. Diirer was associated with these earnest thinkers. He
read what they wrote, and discussed with them opinions in pro-
cess of formation. The method and way of Salvation was the
question that exercised his mind. No longer satisfied with the
old scheme of faith, he could not rest till he had found and
formulated a new scheme to take its place. One day he wrote
down on a piece of paper the following statement of the new
doctrine2.
“ Seeing that through disobedience of sin we have fallen into ever-
lasting Death, no help could have reached us save through the incarna-
tion of the Son of God, whereby He through His innocent suffering
might abundantly pay the Father all our guilt, so that the Justice of
God might be satisfied. For He has repented of and made atonement
for the sins of the whole world, and has obtained of the Father
Everlasting Life. Therefore Christ Jesus is the Son of God, the
highest power, who can do all things, and He is the Eternal Life. Into
whomsoever Christ comes he lives, and himself lives in Christ. There-
fore all things are in Christ good things. There is nothing good in us
except it becomes good in Christ. Whosoever therefore will altogether
justify himself is unjust. If we will what is good, Christ wills it in us.
No human repentance is enough to equalise deadly sin and be fruitful.”
Perhaps this rather mystical passage was written about the
year 1520. At all events by that year Diirer’s mind seems to have
become settled, and the long conversations he had in the Nether-
lands with like-minded thinkers, such as Niklas Kratzer, Cornelius
Grapheus, and others, served to confirm and define his new
opinions. Early in this year 1520 Diirer wrote the letter to
Spalatin, Elector Friedrich’s chaplain, which has already been
1 De Wette, Luther, 1. 95. Scheurl, Briefbuch, Potsdam, 1867, pp. 66 and 78.
2 Brit. Mus. MS. II. 85. See below, p. 161.