Lortz on Luther's First Mass: Proof of Psychosis?

I've been reading The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964) by Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Lortz. Lortz's claim to fame was his Luther research. He was a well-respected theologian, known for being one of the first Roman Catholic writers to positively re-evaluate Luther. Previous to Lortz, most Roman Catholic evaluations of Luther were destructive, more or less following in the footsteps of Cochlaeus. Lortz though saw Luther as a fundamentally honest religious man.

While Lortz says many positive things about Luther, he did offers criticisms as well. He still viewed Luther as a heretic, prone to subjectivism, and also sharing guilt (with the Roman Catholic Church) for dividing the church.

That being said, as Jared Wicks says, for Lortz "his criticism was penetrated by amazement over Luther's pulsating spiritual richness, the wide range of his talents, the vastness of his productive labor for the new community, and the concentration of all his thought on God's grace revealed in Christ and transmitted by the Gospel."

To highlight the approach of Lortz, consider this contrast. Recently I took a look at Luther: The Rest of the Story By Ken Hensley. While Hensley post-dates Lortz, Hensley goes backward, returning to destructive criticism of Luther. Hensley evaluates Luther's first mass and determines the fear Luther felt during the mass was fear that was instilled by his own father. After the mass, Luther's father embarrassed his son in front of everyone. At the first mass, Luther claims to have been "without faith" during this period in his life. Luther also mentions that as a devout monk he hated God. These statements question the validity of Luther's call to the monastic life. Luther in essence, needed to learn to cope with his father, he didn't need the monastery. Luther wasn't called by God to be a monk. He was a man with a faulty image of God that wrongly chose the monastic life. Luther's struggle was based on the father he loved, feared, but could please. This transferred to Luther's understanding of God: Luther feared that he could not please God. While Hensley says Luther loved Hans Luther, he hated God and viewed him as angry deity. Thus, Luther's first mass stands as proof of a man with deep psychological issues.

Contrarily, here's how Joseph Lortz describes Luther's first mass (pp. 118-123):

Luther was soon ordained (1506). For every priest, the experience of celebrating his First Mass is of the greatest importance. For a man like Luther, who was so powerfully governed by the emotional level of experience, it was of even greater importance. He has left us a number of accounts of his First Mass. If we take the essential elements of these, we find that according to Luther he was so profoundly moved that he would have been swept from the altar if the assistant priest had not held him back. It may be questioned whether he was really tempted to rush from the altar. Perhaps in later years he was yielding to the tendency to speak in superlatives, but there is no doubt that he was profoundly moved. Luther also tells us why: he was deeply impressed by the nearness of the awesome majesty of God, who is addressed in the Canon as the living and true God.

Luther's experience shows us first of all that he was a religious man, forced to his knees as it were by the tremendous reality of God. We see in his experience something which cannot without some restrictions be called healthy. Does this entitle us to speak of mental illness in his case? We see that he was often profoundly moved, subject to strong depressions, restless at intervals, and, later in life, subject to violent changes of temper. All of this is quite apparent and shows that Luther had a tempestuous character, and that in his soul raged forces that were beyond his power to control. It tells us, too, that we are dealing wits a soul obsessed with anxiety in the face of sin and the divine judgment and caught in the net of scrupulosity. But scrupulosity is a weakness proper to a tender conscience; thus there is no reason to speak of mental illness in the proper sense of the word, at least at the time of his First Mass. This possibility is further excluded when we realize the tremendous amount and the fine quality of the works that Luther produced unceasingly. (Whether one could speak of a psychosis in Luther's case in the more restricted medical sense of the word is a matter for psychiatrists and does not concern us here.) At any rate we should be quite clear about the meaning of "mentally ill." It seems that the rather loosely used schema "manic depressive" (when it is not used in the sense of insanity) can be quite easily verified in the average mentally healthy individual if that individual is unusually sensitive. It is quite easy to say what Luther was not: he was not balanced, moderate or prudent, not restrained; one might say that he was quite uninhibited, that in a typically Germanic way he escapes classification and categorization. His lack of restraint is shown by all sorts of exaggerations; they indicate a violent impulsiveness which extends even to the falsification of objective facts in such impossible forms that the reader is utterly amazed. What Christian conscience will, for example, be able to accept his statement that he preferred Christ to all the devils, because he stood in such deadly terror of Him?

Whether the violent depressions of the year 1527/8 are correctly described by the Danish psychiatrist Paul Reiter as mental illness in the strict sense, is a matter for doctors to decide. But the entire mental structure and the intellectual and spiritual work Luther turned out (as Reiter himself admits), show that mental illness is by no means a sufficient explanation. At any rate it is impossible to declare simply that Luther was mentally ill. If one were so inclined,a whole book could be filled with individual examples which point in the direction of mental illness, but if we are going to keep a just proportion, we would have to match this with ten or more volumes which would positively prove Luther's mental, spiritual, and religious health.
The one conclusion we can come to now from Luther's experience at his First Mass is that he was entirely preoccupied with the anxiety that he felt as, with all his sins, he stood alone before the sovereign majesty of God. It is true that in the Canon, the living and true God is directly addressed, and that the Canon is preceded by the solemn, threefold Sanctus addressed to the divine majesty, but that is not the whole story.

The Preface has nothing of the awesome and exalted tone of the Sanctus; rather this prayer is a great lifting of the mind and heart, a great surge of adoration and praise which embraces heaven and earth and joins the voices of men to the song of the angels, but Luther was unaware of all this.

Furthermore, the Canon itself begins with the wonderful and consoling words: "Te igitur, clementissime Pater,per Jesum Christum, Filium Tuum, Dominum Nostrum, supplices rogamus." That is: "We humbly call upon Thee, most merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord." God is not addressed as the Judge who threatens to punish all the defects, but as a kind and loving Father. And the sinner approaches the Father not on his own, but through our Saviour, the Mediator, Jesus Christ. This is precisely the formula which Luther will later say contains all of the Christian message, but for some reason Luther did not see it then. He undoubtedly knew these words by heart as he did the rest of the Canon, but did not realize them. He was so deeply involved in those ideas which he had from his early days, the preaching he had heard, the Ockhamist theology he had learned, and above all his own peculiar disposition and correspondingly unique experiences, that he was simply blind to the solution for which he was striving so violently and which was given to him here, word by word.

This was so characteristic of Luther. He could not accept anyone else's solution. He was so individualistic and in a sense so narrow that only solutions of his own appeared valid. Luther was capable of assimilating only those things which were adapted to the peculiarities of his personality. He was an individual in the strictest sense of the word and this influenced his every act; it was the source of both his greatness and his limitations.

Here again we see a fact of primary importance: Luther never really understood the Missal as a compendium of the theology of grace and the sacraments. Some have objected to the emphasis I place on Luther's experience at his First Mass or feel that I make too much depend on this thesis. Luther did finish that Mass and later, at breakfast, he had been able to talk in calm and collected fashion with his father; for years afterwards he continued to celebrate Mass.

The important thing to note, however, is that no one ever asserted that Luther continued in his disturbed state for a long time. (If this had happened, beyond doubt he would have been mentally ill.) But note this: Luther's experience at the time of his First Mass was no isolated or independent event: it is an instance of the disposition which was central to Luther's character and caused him so much trouble. On the one hand he was an introvert, and on the other, he had a one-sided concept of the severity of an avenging God who demanded good works of His creature.

If the experience at the time of the First Mass were unique, the objection would be valid; however, the various observations we have made on Luther's life as a young monk agree in the points mentioned, and reinforce one another. Therefore, there is no question of trying to draw too many conclusions just from the First Mass.

In Luther's experience at the time of his First Mass, the same struggles of conscience appear which beset him in the monastery. Naturally, Luther's later assertions about the unceasing tension he was under are not to be taken too seriously. We know that on occasion he himself described his early life in religion as a calm and peaceful one. But his struggles of conscience were extremely severe. With unending perseverance he tried to get to the bottom of his problems and find a way out. In so doing, he was relentless in the war he waged on himself. We can accuse him of a good deal of imprudence, but we cannot say that he did not take his problems seriously enough. He brought them into the presence of God as he struggled with all his might to reach the complete solution.

Anxiety weighed him down—anxiety at the burden of sin which he saw in himself and which endangered his immortal soul, and made him feel the pains of the damned. (Even if Luther's description of this experience is expressed in terms taken from Tauler and has a rather elaborate literary coloring, still no one can deny that it was part of Luther's objective experience and a burden that weighed terribly on him.)

From the psychological point of view, we have before us a man who was extremely troubled by a serious type of scrupulosity. He had developed a real talent for disputing with himself, bringing forward arguments and counterarguments, and by so doing, tortured himself by running around in circles.

But the religious aspect is more important. Luther experienced his anxiety so terribly, largely because at one and the same time he longed so profoundly for a kind and loving God. To be free from sin and to reach this kind and loving God was Luther's problem and all his powers were directed to this end.


So, will Hensley or Catholic Answers, or any of the other recent Roman Catholic apologists be going out to purchase books by Lortz? My guess is no. My question is this: why are the works of men like Lortz, Wicks, and many other Catholic theologians typically ignored by the modern day Romanist-apologist? There are enough nuggets of negativity in Lortz's book to satisfy a hungry polemicist. One of my guesses is that saying anything even remotely positive about Luther is an admission of Roman Catholic guilt over the Reformation.

R.C. Sproul and the Neurosis of Luther

Recently I came across the following from R.C. Sproul:

Luther's chronic stomach troubles have also been linked to a psychosomatic problem. His neurotic phobias all seemed to go directly to his stomach, destroying his digestion [R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2000), p. 78].

I'm quite fond of Sproul's Holiness of God book. If I recall, it was this lecture from Sproul in which I first encountered a deeper presentation of the life of Luther. The lecture is basically the same Luther content presented in Sproul's later book. I remember listening to the lecture while driving to a friend's house. I was so riveted by Sproul's presentation, I didn't want to exit the car before hearing it to the end. Now here I am years later, still involved with basically the same material on a regular basis.

The entire chapter from which this quote is taken is available here. It is indeed a worthy read.

If one were to simply isolate this quote from the context, one misses the thrust of Sproul's argumentation. From the quote above, one sees only Sproul describing the image of Luther as a man with neurotic phobias. If one though reads the entire chapter, quite a different image takes shape.

The neurotic phobias which precede this quote are described by Sproul as "the fear of violent death as an expression of divine judgment and punishment" (p.77). Along these lines, Sproul recounts Luther's thunderstorm experience (via Bainton's rendition) which drove him to the monastery (p. 76-77).

After the quote in question, Sproul goes on to describe Luther's deep belief in the reality of Satan. For the modern mind, Luther appears quite unstable. Sproul states though,

The Satan stories are ripe with fodder for practicing psychologists. They see in these accounts two indications of mental imbalance. On the one hand Luther is thought to have suffered from hallucinations and on the other from delusions of grandeur that the Prince of Darkness would single him out as his favorite target.Yet from the vantage point of church history it should not surprise us to think that in the sixteenth century satanic energy might most strongly be focused on Martin Luther (p.78).

Sproul then describes another frequent episode from Luther's life which is supposed to prove his neurotic instability: Luther's celebration of his first mass. Sproul uses Luther's own explanation of his apparent neurotic behavior as to why he was paralyzed by the words, "We offer unto thee, the living, the true, the eternal God":

At these words I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, “With what tongue shall I address such majesty, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up mine eyes or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround him. At his nod the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little pygmy, say ‘I want this, I ask for that’? For I am dust and ashes and full of sin and I am speaking to the living, eternal and the true God (p.80).

A key episode of Luther's alleged insanity and neurosis for Sproul is the trial at Worms. Sproul recounts Luther's famous "Here I Stand" speech and the says:

The words of a crazy man? Perhaps. The question is raised how one man dare stand against pope and emperor, councils and creeds, against the entire organized authority of Christendom. What arrogance there must be to contradict the finest scholars and the highest officials of the church, to set his own powers of mind and biblical interpretation against that of the whole world. Is this egomania? Is it megalomania? Are these the musings of a biblical genius, a courageous saint, or the ravings of a maniac? Whatever the verdict, this lonely stand, for good or for evil, divided Christendom asunder.

As important as this event was to the church and to the personal history of Martin Luther, it was not the chief reason future scholars would judge Luther insane. There was something even more extraordinary, more morbid, indeed macabre, about the man. It had to do with Luther’s behavioral patterns while he was a monk in the monastery (p.84).

Then Sproul examines Luther's behavior in the monastery. He explores Luther's drive to be "the perfect monk" by his indulgence in severe forms of self-flagellation and obsession with confessing sin. Sproul states:

Here it is! Here is the aspect of Luther that has most brought the verdict of insanity. The man was radically abnormal. His guilt complex was unlike anyone’s before him. He was so morbid in his guilt, so disturbed in his emotions that he could no longer function as a normal human being. He could not even function as a normal monk. He was still running from the lightning bolt (p.79-80).

Stopping here in The Holiness of God would lead one to think the earlier quote which began this blog entry is vindicated: Sproul indeed thought Luther suffered from neurosis. Sproul though states:

Some theorists argue that a person may have a more accurate view of reality when they are insane than when they are sane. We think of the anxiety-stricken man who goes to the psychiatrist and complains that he is so paralyzed by fear that he cannot attend a church picnic. When the psychiatrist probes, the man explains that he could be involved in a car crash on the way to the picnic, be struck by a poisonous snake while at the picnic, be hit by lightning if a storm comes up, or choke to death on a hot dog.

All of these fears represent sober possibilities. Life is dangerous business. Nowhere are we safe from a multitude of life-threatening dangers. Howard Hughes, with all his millions, could not find an environment where he was totally safe from the attack of hostile germs. The psychiatrist cannot prove that all picnics are safe. The man’s perception of all the things that could go wrong is accurate, but he is still abnormal, because he has lost the defenses we normally carry with us that enable us to ignore the clear and present dangers that surround us every day.

One aspect of Luther’s background and personality is often overlooked by the psychological analysts. They miss the point that before Luther went to the monastery he had already distinguished himself as one of the brightest young minds in Europe in the field of jurisprudence. Luther was brilliant. There was nothing wrong with his brain. His grasp of subtle and difficult points of the law made him a standout. Some heralded him as a legal genius.

It has been said many times that there is a fine line between genius and insanity and that some people move back and forth across it. Perhaps that was the problem Luther had.

He was not crazy. He was a genius. He had a superior understanding of law. Once he applied his astute legal mind to the law of God, he saw things that most mortals miss.

Luther examined the Great Commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” Then he asked himself, “What is the Great Transgression?” Some answer this question by saying that the great sin is murder, adultery, blasphemy, or unbelief. Luther disagreed. He concluded that if the Great Commandment was to love God with all the heart, then the Great Transgression was to fail to love God with all the heart. He saw a balance between great obligations and great sins.

Most people do not think that way. None of us keeps the Great Commandment for five minutes. We may think that we do in a surface way, but upon a moment’s reflection it is clear that none of us loves God with our whole heart or our whole mind or our whole strength. No one loves his neighbor as he loves himself. We may do everything in our power to avoid thinking about this at a deep level, but there is always that nagging sense in the back of our minds to accuse us of the certain knowledge that in fact we violate the Great Commandment every day. Like Isaiah, we also know that no one else keeps the Great Commandment either. Herein is our comfort: Nobody is perfect. We all fall short of perfect love for God, so why worry about it? It doesn’t drive sane fellows to the confessional for six hours a day. If God punished everyone who failed to keep the Great Commandment, He would have to punish everyone in the world. The test is too great, too demanding; it is not fair. God will have to judge us all on a curve.

Luther didn’t see it that way. He realized that if God graded on a curve, He would have to compromise His own holiness. To count on God doing so is supreme arrogance and supreme foolishness as well. God does not lower His own standards to accommodate us. He remains altogether Holy, altogether righteous, and altogether just. But we are unjust and therein lies our dilemma. Luther’s legal mind was haunted by the question: How can an unjust man survive in the presence of a just God? Where everyone else was at ease in the matter, Luther was in agony:

Do you not know that God dwells in light inaccessible? We weak and ignorant creatures want to probe and understand the incomprehensible majesty of the unfathomable light of the wonder of God. We approach; we prepare ourselves to approach. What wonder then that his majesty overpowers us and shatters! [Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (NAL, 1978).] (p.87-88).

Summing up the chapter, Sproul recounts Luther's discovery of "The just shall live by faith" as the solution to Luther's encounter with the holiness of God. Sproul concludes:

“The just shall live by faith.” This was the battlecry of the Protestant Reformation. The idea that justification is by faith alone, by the merits of Christ alone, was so central to the gospel that Luther called it “the article upon which the church stands or falls.” Luther knew that it was the article by which he would stand or fall. Once Luther grasped the teaching of Paul in Romans, he was reborn. The burden of his guilt was lifted. The crazed torment was ended. This meant so much to the man that he was able to stand against pope and council, prince and emperor, and, if necessary, the whole world. He had walked through the gates of paradise and no one was going to drag him back. Luther was a Protestant who knew what he was protesting. Was Luther crazy? Perhaps. But if he was, our prayer is that God would send to this earth an epidemic of such insanity that we too may taste of the righteousness that is by faith alone (p.94-95).

Once again, the lesson is to be careful with context. The "chronic stomach troubles" which began this entry were, according to Sproul, symptoms of a neurosis which ultimately was the neurosis of Luther's acute understanding and encounter with the Holiness of God.