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Updated: June 25, 2025
Obedience to the Pope was not required at Wittenberg, as it was at other universities. Others, besides Staupitz, expected from the beginning something original and remarkable from the new professor.
Cocardasse waved a space for Peyrolles at the table. "Be so good," he said, with a quiet insistence, "as to write a formal promise to pay Papa Staupitz two thousand seven hundred pistoles to-morrow. Date it carefully, and sign it with your excellent and honorable name, my dear Monsieur Peyrolles."
Moved, as he said, by the persuasions of his dear father Staupitz and his brother Link, he offered to let the whole question of indulgences rest, if only that which drove him to this tragedy were put a stop to; he confessed also to having been too violent and disrespectful in dispute.
He saw in the office of bishop, from the difficulties and temptations it involved, an office fraught with danger, and one therefore that he did not wish for his Staupitz. But the Divine origin and Divine right of the hierarchical offices of pope, bishop, and priest, and the infallibility of the Church, thus governed, he held inviolably sacred.
It happened that one of the exceptionally enlightened and spiritual-minded monks of his time, John Staupitz, was then the vicar-general of the Augustinians in Saxony. On his tour of inspection he came to Erfurt, and there found Luther, a walking skeleton, more dead than alive. He was specially drawn to the haggard young brother.
There were but few to uphold and defend him the satirical Erasmus, who was called a second Lucian, the feeble Staupitz, the fanatical Carlstadt, and the inexperienced Melancthon. The worldly-minded, the learned, the powerful, and the conservative classes were his natural enemies. But he had reason and Scripture on his side, and he appealed to their great and final verdict.
In Him the Lord has said, You will find what I am and what I require; nowhere else, neither in heaven nor in earth, will you discover it. Again Staupitz advised him to make the study of the Scriptures his favourite occupation, and represented to him that it was not in vain that God exercised him in so many conflicts, for that He would employ him as His servant for great purposes.
He found, too, a true friend in Staupitz, the Vicar-general of the Augustines for all Germany, a man eminent for his learning, his liberality, and true piety. The elector, Frederick the Wise, founded, under his direction, the University of Wittemburg, to which, by his advice, the young doctor was shortly appointed professor.
In his view, nothing of all the external matters to which the Reformation was directed, seemed so important as to warrant the endangerment of religious concord and unity in the Church. Luther expressed to him the sorrow he felt at his estrangement, while renewing, at the same time, his assurance of unalterable affection and gratitude. Staupitz himself felt unhappy in his attitude and position.
When Eck spoke slightingly of him as a mere paltry grammarian, Luther exclaimed, 'I, the doctor of philosophy and theology, am not ashamed to yield the point, if this grammarian's mind thinks differently to myself; I have done so often already, and do the same daily, because of the gifts with which God has so richly filled this fragile vessel; I honour the work of my God in him. 'Philip, he said at another time, 'is a wonder to us all; if the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest enemy to the devil and Scholasticism; and again, 'This little Greek is even my master in theology. Such were Luther's words, not uttered to particular friends of Melancthon, in order to please them, nor in public speeches or poetry, in which at that time friends showered fulsome flattery on friends, but in confidential letters to his own most intimate friends, to Spalatin, Staupitz, and others.
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