a sense become his own priest.”
“His own priest? Wasn’t that taking it a bit far?”
“What he meant was that priests had no preferential position in relation to God.
The Lutheran congregations employed priests for practical reasons, such as conduct-
ing services and attending to the daily clerical tasks, but Luther did not believe that
anyone received God’s forgiveness and redemption from sin through church rituals.
Man received ‘free’ redemption through faith alone, he said. This was a belief he
arrived at by reading the Bible.”
“So Luther was also a typical Renaissance man?”
“Yes and no. A characteristic Renaissance feature was his emphasis on the
individual and the individual’s personal relationship to God. So he taught himself
Greek at the age of thirty-five and began the laborious job of translating the Bible
from the ancient Greek version into German. Allowing the language of the people to
take precedence over Latin was also a characteristic Renaissance feature. But Luther
was not a humanist like Ficino or Leonardo da Vinci. He was also opposed by human-
ists such as Erasmus of Rotterdam because they thought his view of man was far too
negative; Luther had proclaimed that mankind was totally depraved after the Fall from
Grace. Only through the grace of God could mankind be ‘justified,’ he believed. For
the wages of sin is death.”
“That sounds very gloomy.”
Alberto Knox rose. He picked up the little green and black marble and put it in
his top pocket.
“It’s after four!” Sophie exclaimed in horror.
“And the next great epoch in the history of mankind is the Baroque. But we
shall have to keep that for another day, my dear Hilde.”
“What did you say?” Sophie shot up from the chair she had been sitting in.
“You called me Hilde!”
“That was a serious slip of the tongue.”
“But a slip of the tongue is never wholly accidental.”
“You may be right. You’ll notice that Hilde’s father has begun to put words in
our mouths. I think he is exploiting the fact that we are getting weary and are not
defending ourselves very well.”
“You said once that you are not Hilde’s father. Is that really true?”
Alberto nodded.
“But am I Hilde?”
“I’m tired now, Sophie. You have to understand that. We have been sitting here
for over two hours, and I have been doing most of the talking. Don’t you have to go
home to eat?”
Sophie felt almost as if he was trying to throw her out. As she went into the
little hall, she thought intensely about why he had made that slip. Alberto came out
after her.
Hermes was lying asleep under a small row of pegs on which hung several
strange-looking garments that could have been theatrical costumes. Alberto nodded
toward the dog and said, “He will come and fetch you.”
“Thank you for my lesson,” said Sophie.
She gave Alberto an impulsive hug. “You’re the best and kindest philosophy
teacher I’ve ever had,” she said.
With that she opened the door to the staircase. As the door closed, Alberto said,
“It won’t be long before we meet again, Hilde.”
Sophie was left with those words.