Since Martin Luther (ML for short) is somewhat in fashion these days, as in a couple of months it will be 500 years since his famous 95 theses, it seems timely to offer for discussion the hypothesis that he might have had Asperger's Syndrome (AS), a hypothesis I first thought about 4 years ago.
I will start by considering the compatibility of AS with ML's well-documented psychological problems. It is well known that ML had very serious scrupulosity problems when he was a monk, and that scrupulosity is just the instantiation in religious practice of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), whose prevalence among aspies is higher than in the general population. Also, ML had episodes of rage and depression. All three problems point to a neurotransmitter imbalance, particularly lack of serotonin, which again is highly prevalent in aspies.
Turning to the facts that IMV hint that ML had AS, for which I quote as reference the article on ML in Catholic Encyclopedia [1], they are:
1. The character of his father, and possibly also of his mother, which points to the probability of either or both of them being aspies, which increases ML's probability of being so. From [1]:
“His father, Hans, was a miner, a rugged, stern, irascible character. … Extreme simplicity and inflexible severity characterized their home life, so that the joys of childhood were virtully unknown to him. His father once beat him so mercilessly that he ran away from home and was so “embittered against him that he had to win me to himself again.” His mother, “on account of an insignificant nut, beat me till the blood flowed, and it was this harshness and severity of the life I led with them that forced me subsequently to run away to a monastery and become a monk.”
To note, not all AS fathers display inflexibility, severity and harshness towards their children, but it is definitely not uncommon. The strikingly similar case that comes to mind is Paul Dirac’s father, another tyrant.
2. His experience at school. From [1]:
“The same cruelty was the experience of his earliest school-days, when in one morning he was punished no less than fifteen times.”
This degree of punishment at school was a quite common experience of aspie students in the old days.
3. His overburdening with work assignments by his superiors. From [1]:
“His further appointment as district vicar in 1515 made him the official representative of the vicar-general in Saxony and Thuringia. His duties were manifold and his life busy. Little time was left for intellectual pursuits, and the increasing irregularity in the performance of his religious duties could only bode ill for his future. He himself tells us that he needed two secretaries or chancellors, wrote letters all day, preached at table, also in the monastery and parochial churches, was superintendent of studies, and as vicar of the order had as much to do as eleven priors; he lectured on the psalms and St. Paul, besides the demand made on his economic resourcefulness in managing a monastery of twenty-two priests, twelve young men, in all forty-one inmates.”
This is the typical case of over-explotation of a capable aspie within an organization, nowadays usually a corporation. Lacking interpersonal skills to negotiate his workload, the aspie just accepts all duties that his manager assigns to him. The manager, for his part, seeing that the aspie is highly capable and does not protest, just tries to extract the maximum possble yield from him. I know this all too well, first hand.
4. His irregularity in reciting the daily Office (prayers prescribed to priests and monks at specific times of day). From [1]:
“The solemn obligation of reciting the daily Office, an obligation binding under the penalty of mortal sin, was neglected to allow more ample time for study, with the result that the Breviary was abandoned for weeks.”
This is fully and remarkably consistent with AS, and was actually what first suggested to me that ML could have had it. From my case and those of the aspies I know, there are two possible approaches of an aspie to routine: either the aspie adheres strictly to routine and routine becomes his life, or he disengages completely from it. There are no nuanced positions in between. And when an aspie becomes interested in a subject matter and engages in it, such as myself writing this now, he detaches completely from the notion of the passage of chronological time, or in other words your psychological time detaches, uncouples from chronological time. Which implies that an aspie with intellectual interests is not suited at all for a way of life which demands a high degree of existential synchronicity with chronological time, such as that of a priest or monk.
5. His tendency to build his own “system”. From [1]:
“The prescribed and regulated ascetical exercises were arbitrarily set aside. Disregarding the monastic regulations and the counsels of his confessor, he devised his own, which naturally gave him the character of singularity in his community.”
6. His extremely high capacity for concentration in work, as attested by his work during his 10-month stay at the Wartburg Castle (May 1521 – March 1522), which included chiefly the translation of the New Testament from Greek to German, as well as several other doctrinal and polemical writings.
7. His extremely low capacity for nuanced diplomacy. For him, the only way to interact with anybody who differed with his views was one of frontal combat.
Reference:
[1] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09438b.htm
11 Aug 2017, 8:53 pm
