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NIHIL  OBSTAT 

C.  SCHUT,  D.D., 

Censor  Deputatus. 

IMPRIMATUR 

EDM.  CAN.  SURMONT, 

Vic.  Gen. 
Westmonasterii,  die  23  Novembris,  1914- 


LUTHER 


BY 

HARTMANN    GRISAR,    SJ. 

PROFESSOR    AT    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    INNSBRUCK 


AUTHORISED    TRANSLATION    FROM    THE    GERMAN    BY 

E.  M.  LAMOND 

EDITED    BY 

LUIGI    CAPPADELTA 


VOLUME  IV 


LONDON 
KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  CO,  LTD. 

BROADWAY   HOUSE,   68-74   CARTER   LANE,   E.G. 
1915 


A  FEW  PRESS  OPINIONS  OF  VOLUMES  I-III. 

"  His  most  elaborate  and  systematic  biography  ...  is  not  merely  a  book  to  be 
reckoned  with  ;  it  is  one  with  which  we  cannot  dispense,  if  only  for  its  minute 
examination  of  Luther's  theological  writings." — The  Athenaeum  (Vol.  I). 

"The  second  volume  of  Dr.  Grisar's  'Life  of  Luther'  is  fully  as  interesting  as  the 
first.  There  is  the  same  minuteness  of  criticism  and  the  same  width  of  survey." 

The  Athenaium  (Vol.  II). 

"  Its  interest  increases.  As  we  see  the  great  Reformer  in  the  thick  of  his  work, 
and  the  heyday  of  his  life,  the  absorbing  attraction  of  his  personality  takes  hold  ot 
us  more  and  more  strongly.  His  stupendous  force,  his  amazing  vitality,  his  super 
human  interest  in  life,  impress  themselves  upon  us  with  redoubled  effect.  We  find 
him  the  most  multiform,  the  most  paradoxical  of  men.  .  .  .  The  present  volume, 
which  is  admirably  translated,  deals  rather  with  the  moral,  social,  and  personal  side 
of  Luther's  career  than  with  his  theology." — The  Athenceum  (Vol.  III). 

"There  is  no  room  for  any  sort  of  question  as  to  the  welcome  ready  among 
English-speaking  Roman  Catholics  for  this  admirably  made  translation  of  the  first 
volume  of  the  German  monograph  by  Professor  Grisar  on  the  protagonist  of  the 
Reformation  in  Europe.  .  .  .  The  book  is  so  studiously  scientific,  so  careful  to  base  its 
teaching  upon  documents,  and  so  determined  to  eschew  controversies  that  are  only 
theological,  that  it  cannot  but  deeply  interest  Protestant  readers. "—  The  Scotsman. 

"  Father  Grisar  has  gained  a  high  reputation  in  this  country  through  the  translation 
of  his  monumental  work  on  the  History  of  Rome  and  the  Popes  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  this  first  instalment  of  his  '  Life  of  Luther'  bears  fresh  witness  to  his  unwearied 
industry,  wide  learning,  and  scrupulous  anxiety  to  be  impartial  in  his  judgments  as 
well  as  absolutely  accurate  in  matters  of  fact." — Glasgow  Herald. 

"  This  '  Life  of  Luther '  is  bound  to  become  standard  ...  a  model  of  every  literary, 
critical,  and  scholarly  virtue." — The  Month. 

"Like  its  two  predecessors,  Volume  III  excels  in  the  minute  analysis  not  merely  of 
Luther's  actions,  but  also  of  his  writings;  indeed,  this  feature  is  the  outstanding 
merit  of  the  author's  patient  labours." — The  Irish  Times. 

"  This  third  volume  of  Father  Grisar's  monumental  '  Life '  is  full  of  interest  for  the 
theologian.  And  not  less  for  the  psychologist ;  for  here  more  than  ever  the  author 
allows  himself  to  probe  into  the  mind  and  motives  and  understanding  of  Luther,  so 
as  to  get  at  the  significance  of  his  development." — The  Tablet. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XXI.     PRINCELY  MARRIAGES     .  .     pages  3-79 

1.  LUTHER  AND  HENRY  VIII  OF  ENGLAND.     BIGAMY  INSTEAD 

OF  DIVORCE. 

The  case  of  Henry  VIII  ;  Robert  Barnes  is  despatched  to 
Wittenberg  ;  Luther  proposes  bigamy  as  a  safer  expedient 
than  divorce  (1531)  ;  Melanchthon's  advice  :  Tutissimum 
est  regi  to  take  a  second  spouse.  The  conduct  of  Pope 
Clement  VII.  The  Protestant  Princes  of  Germany  endeavour 
to  secure  the  goodwill  of  the  King  of  England  ;  final  collapse 
of  the  negotiations  ;  Luther's  later  allusions  to  Henry  VIII 

pages  3-13 

2.  THE  BIGAMY  OF  PHILIP  OF  HESSE. 

The  question  put  by  Philip  to  Luther  in  1526  ;  Philip  well 
informed  as  to  Luther's  views.  Bucer  deputed  by  the  Land 
grave  to  secure  the  sanction  of  Wittenberg  for  his  projected 
bigamy  ;  Bucer's  mission  crowned  with  success  ;  Philip 
weds  Margaret  von  der  Sale  ;  Luther's  kindly  offices  re 
warded  by  a  cask  of  wine  ;  the  bigamy  becomes  known  at 
the  Court  of  Dresden  ;  the  Landgrave  is  incensed  by  Bucer's 
proposal  that  he  should  deny  having  committed  bigamy. 
Luther  endeavours  to  retire  behind  the  plea  that  his  per 
mission  was  a  "  dispensation,"  a  piece  of  advice  given  "  in 
confession,"  and,  accordingly,  not  to  be  alleged  in  public. 
Some  interesting  letters  of  Luther  to  his  sovereign  and  to 
Hesse  ;  his  private  utterances  on  the  subject  recorded  in  the 
Table-Talk.  "  Si  queam  mutare  !  "  The  Eisenach  Confer 
ence  ;  Luther  counsels  the  Landgrave  to  tell  a  good,  lusty 
lie  ;  the  Landgrave's  annoyance.  Melanchthon's  worries  ;  an 
expurgated  letter  of  his  on  Landgrave  Philip.  Duke  Henry 
of  Brunswick  enters  the  field  against  Luther  and  the  Land 
grave  ;  Luther's  stinging  reply  :  "  Wider  Hans  Worst." 
Johann  Lening's  "  Dialogue  "  ;  how  it  was  regarded  by 
Luther,  Menius  and  the  Swiss  theologians.  The  Hessian 
bigamy  is  hushed  up.  The  Bigamy  judged  by  Protestant 
opinion  ;  Luther's  consent  to  some  extent  extorted  under 
pressure  ........  pages  12-79 

CHAPTER  XXII.     LUTHER  AND  LYING  pages  80-178 

1.  A  BATTERY  OF  ASSERTIONS. 

Luther's  conduct  in  the  matter  of  the  Bigamy  an  excuse 
for  the  present  chapter.  His  dishonest  assurances  in  his 
letters  to  Leo  X,  to  Bishop  Scultetus  his  Ordinary,  and  to 
the  Emperor  Charles  V  (1518-1520)  ;  his  real  feelings  at 
that  time  as  shown  in  a  letter  to  Spalatin  ;  Luther's  later 


vi  CONTENTS 

parody  of  Tetzel's  teaching  ;  his  insinuation  that  it  was 
the  Emperor's  intention  to  violate  the  safe-conduct  granted  ; 
ho  calls  into  question  the  authenticity  of  the  Papal  Bull 
against  him,  whilst  all  the  time  knowing  it  to  be  genuine  ; 
he  advises  ordinandi  to  promise  celibacy  with  a  mental 
reservation  ;  his  distortion  of  St.  Bernard's  "  perdite  vixi  "  ; 
his  allusion  to  the  case  of  Conradin,  "slain  by  Pope  Clement 
IV,"  and  to  the  spurious  letter  of  St.  Ulrich  on  the  babies' 
heads  found  in  a  convent  pond  at  Rome.  His  allegation  that 
his  "  Artickel  "  had  been  subscribed  to  at  Schmalkalden  ; 
his  unfairness  to  Erasmus  and  Duke  George ;  his  statement, 
that,  for  a  monk  to  leave  his  cell  without  his  scapular,  was 
accounted  a  mortal  sin,  and  that,  in  Catholicism,  people 
expected  to  be  saved  simply  by  works ;  his  advocacy  of  the 
"  Gospel-proviso  "  ;  his  advice  to  the  Bishop  of  Samland  to 
make  a  show  of  hesitation  in  forsaking  Catholicism  .  pages  80-99 

2.  OPINIONS  OF  CONTEMPORARIES  IN  EITHER  CAMP. 

Bucer,  Miinzer,  J.  Agricola,  Erasmus,  Duke  George,  etc., 
on  Luther's  disregard  for  truth  ....  pages  99-102 

3.  THE     PSYCHOLOGICAL     PROBLEM.       SELF-SUGGESTION     AND 

SCRIPTURAL  GROUNDS  OF  EXCUSE. 

The  palpable  untruth  of  certain  statements  which  Luther 
never  tires  of  repeating.  How  to  explain  his  putting  forward 
as  true  what  was  so  manifestly  false  :  The  large  place 
occupied  by  the  jocular  element  ;  his  tendency  to  extrava 
gance  of  language  ;  he  comes,  by  dint  of  repetition,  to 
persuade  himself  of  the  truth  of  his  charges.  The  new 
theology  of  mendacity  :  Luther's  earlier  views  consistent 
with  the  Church's ;  study  of  the  Old  Testament  leads  him 
to  the  theory  that  only  such  untruths  as  injure  our  neigh 
bour  are  real  lies  ;  influence  of  his  teaching  on  the  theo 
logians  of  his  circle  :  Melanchthon,  Bucer,  Bugenhagen, 
Capito,  etc.  .......  pages  102-116 

4.  SOME    LEADING    SLANDERS    ON    THE    MEDIEVAL    CHURCH 

HISTORICALLY  CONSIDERED. 

Luther's  distortions  of  the  actual  state  of  things  before  his 
coming ;  admissions  of  modern  scholars.  The  olden 
Catholics'  supposed  "holiness-by-works";  on  the  relations 
between  creature  and  Creator ;  the  Lamb  of  God  ;  the 
Eucharistic  sacrifice  ;  "  personal  religion  "  ;  Luther's  plea 
that  he  revived  respect  for  the  secular  calling  ;  the  olden 
teaching  concerning  perfection  .  .  .  pages  116-131 

5.  WAS     LUTHER     THE     LIBERATOR     OF     WOMANKIND     FROM 

"  MEDIAEVAL  DEGRADATION  "  ? 

Luther's  claim  to  be  the  saviour  of  woman  and  matri 
mony  ;  what  he  says  of  the  Pope's  treatment  of  marriage  ; 
marriage  "  a  state  of  sin  "  ;  witnesses  to  the  contrary  : 
Devotional  and  Liturgical  books ;  Luther's  own  attachment 
in  his  younger  days  to  St.  Anne.  Various  statements  of 
Luther's  to  the  advantage  or  otherwise  of  woman  and  the 
married  life  ;  his  alteration  of  outlook  during  the  contro 
versy  on  the  vow  of  Chastity  ;  the  natural  impulse,  and  the 
honour  of  marriage  ;  expressions  ill-befitting  one  whc 


CONTENTS  vii 

aspired  to  deliver  womankind ;  practical  consequences  of  the 
new  view  of  woman  :  Matrimonial  impsdiments  and  divorce  ; 
Duke  George  on  the  saying  "  If  the  wife  refuse  then  let  the 
maid  come."  Respect  for  the  female  sex  in  Luther's  con 
versations.  The  new  matrimonial  conditions  and  the 
slandered  opponents  ;  the  actual  state  of  things  in  Late 
Mediaeval  times  as  vouched  for  in  the  records.  Two  con 
cluding  pictures  towards  the  history  of  woman  :  A  preacher's 
matrimonial  trials  ;  the  letters  of  Hasenberg  and  von  der 
Heyden  and  the  "  New-Zeittung  "  and  "  Newe  Fabel  " 
which  they  called  forth  .....  pages  131-178 

CHAPTER     XXIII.        FRESH     CONTROVERSIES     WITH 
ERASMUS  (1534,  1536)  AND  DUKE  GEORGE  (t  1539) 

pages  179-193 

1.  LUTHER  AND  ERASMUS  AGAIN. 

Their  relations  since  1525;  the  "  Hyperaspistes  "  ;  Luther's 
attack  in  1534  and  Erasmus's  "  Purgatio  "  ;  Luther  on  the 
end  of  Erasmus  ......  pages  179-186 

2.  LUTHER  ON  GEORGE  OF  SAXONY  AND  GEORGE  ON  LUTHER. 

Luther  exhorts  the  Duke  to  turn  Protestant ;  the  Duke's 
answer  ;  how  George  had  to  suffer  at  Luther's  hands  ;  his 
true  character  utterly  at  variance  with  Luther's  picture  ;  the 
Duke  repays  Luther  in  his  own  coin  .  .  .  pages  187-193 

CHAPTER    XXIV.      MORAL    CONDITIONS    ACCOMPANY 
ING  THE   REFORMATION.      PRINCELY  PATRONS 

pages  194-227 

1.  REPORTS  FROM  VARIOUS  LUTHERAN  DISTRICTS. 

The  Duchy  of  Saxony  ;  the  Electorate  of  Brandenburg  ; 
the  Duchy  of  Prussia  ;  Wurtemberg  ;  Duke  Ulrich  and 
Luther ;  Blaurer  and  Schnepf  ;  the  sad  state  of  things 
revealed  ;  the  Landgraviate  of  Hesse  ;  results  of  Landgrave 
Philip's  bad  example  .  ....  pages  194-202 

2.  AT  THE  CENTRE  OF  THE  NEW  FAITH. 

The  Electorate  of  Saxony  ;  the  morals  of  Elector  Johann 
Frederick  ;  the  character  of  his  predecessors  ;  Luther's 
relations  with  them  ;  the  records  of  the  Visitations  ;  Luther 
compares  himself  to  Lot  dwelling  in  Sodom  .  pages  202—210 

3.  LUTHER'S  ATTEMPTS  TO  EXPLAIN  THE  DECLINE  IN  MORALS. 

His  candid  admissions  ;  his  varied  explanations  of  the 
state  of  things  :  The  malice  of  Satan  ;  the  apparent  increase 
of  evil  due  to  the  bright  light  of  the  Evangel  ;  his  seeming 
lack  of  success  the  best  proof  of  the  truth  of  his  mission  ; 
Luther  on  Wittenberg  and  its  doings  .  .  pages  210-218 

4.  A  MALADY  OF  THE  AGE  :    DOUBTS  AND  MELANCHOLY. 

The  habitual  depression  in  which  zealous  promoters  of  the 
Evangel  lived  ;  Melanchthon,  Spalatin,  Jonas,  Camerarius, 
etc.,  ;  the  increase  in  the  number  of  suicides  ;  expectation 
of  the  end  of  all  ;  the  sad  case  of  Johann  Schlaginhaufen 

pages  218-227 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XXV.  IN  THE  NARROWER  CIRCLE  OF  THE 
PROFESSION  AND  FAMILY.  LUTHER'S  BETTER 
FEATURES pages  228-283 

1.  THE  UNIVERSITY  PROFESSOR,  THE  PREACHER,  THE  PASTOR. 

Relations  with  the  Wittenberg  students  ;  esteem  in  which 
Luther  was  held  by  them  ;  he  warns  them  against  consorting 
with  evil  women.  The  Preacher  and  Catechist ;  the  force 
and  practical  bearing  of  Luther's  sermons  ;  his  instructions 
to  others  how  best  to  preach  ;  his  discourses  at  home  ;  the 
notes  of  his  sermons  ;  what  he  says  of  Our  Lady  when 
preaching  on  the  Magnificat  ;  his  staunch  fidelity  to  the  great 
doctrines  of  Christianity  and  his  attachment  to  Holy  Scrip 
ture  ;  the  fine  qualities  of  his  German  as  evinced  in  his 
translations  and  elsewhere.  The  spiritual  guide  ;  his 
concern  for  discipline  ;  his  circular  letters  ;  his  strictures  on 
certain  legends  ;  his  efforts  to  re-introduce  a  new  form  of 
confession  and  to  further  the  cause  of  Church-music  pages  228-257 

2.  EMOTIONAL  CHARACTER  AND  INTELLECTUAL  GIFTS. 

The  place  of  feeling  in  Luther's  life  ;  an  interview  with 
Cochlseus  ;  his  powerful  fancy  and  still  more  powerful  will ; 
his  huge  capacity  for  work  ....  pages  257-261 

3.  INTERCOURSE  WITH  FRIENDS.    THE  INTERIOR  OF  THE  FORMER 

AUGUSTINIAN  MONASTERY. 

The  better  side  of  the  Table-Talk  ;  his  friends  and  pupils 
on  his  kindly  ways  ;  his  disinterestedness,  love  of  simplicity, 
his  generosity,  his  courage  when  plague  threatened  ;  his 
occasional  belittling  of  his  own  powers  ;  his  prayer  and  his 
trust  in  God  ;  his  lack  of  any  real  organising  talent.  Luther's 
family  life  ;  his  allusions  to  his  wife  ;  his  care  for  his  children 

pages  261-283 

CHAPTER  XXVI.     LUTHER'S  MODE  OF  CONTROVERSY 

A  COUNTERPART  OF  HIS  SOUL       .          .      pages  284-350 

1.  LUTHER'S  ANGER.     His  ATTITUDE  TOWARDS  THE  JEWS,  THE 

LAWYERS  AND  THE  PRINCES. 

Sir  Thomas  More  on  Luther's  language.  Three  writings 
launched  against  the  Jews  ;  the  place  of  the  pig  and  donkey 
in  Luther's  stable  of  metaphor.  Luther's  animus  against  the 
Lawyers  due  to  their  attachment  to  the  matrimonial  legisla 
tion  as  then  established.  His  attack  on  the  Princes  in  his 
"  Von  welltlicher  Uberkeytt  "  ;  his  ire  against  Albert, 
Elector  of  Mayence  ;  his  list  of  the  archbishop's  relics  ;  how 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick  fared  ....  pages  284-295 

2.  LUTHER'S  EXCUSE  :   "  WE  MUST  CURSE  THE  POPE  AND  HIS 

KINGDOM." 

The  Pope  is  the  "  Beast  "  and  the  "  Dragon  "  ;  Luther's 
language  in  the  Table-Talk,  and  in  the  Disputation  in  1539  : 
on  the  Papal  Bearwolf  (Werewolf)  ;  the  Papal  Antichrist ; 
Luther's  wrath  against  all  who  dared  to  stand  up  for  the  Pope  ; 
how  the  Pope  deserves  to  be  addressed  .  .  pages  295-305 


CONTENTS  ix 

3.  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  LUTHER'S  ABUSIVE  LANGUAGE. 

His  ungovernable  temper  ;  reality  of  certain  misuses 
against  which  he  thundered  ;  his  vexation  with  those  who, 
like  Carlstadt  and  Zwingli,  seemed  to  be  robbing  him  of  the 
credit  which  was  his  due  ;  his  tendency  to  be  carried  away 
by  the  power  of  his  own  tongue  ;  his  need  for  the  stimulus 
and  outlet  provided  by  vituperation  ;  his  ill-humour  at  the 
smallness  of  the  moral  results  obtained  ;  abuse  serves  to 
repress  his  own  troubles  of  conscience.  Connection  of 
Luther's  abusiveness  with  his  mystic  persuasion  of  his  special 
call ;  all  his  anger  really  directed  against  the  devil ;  it  is  no 
insult  "  to  call  a  turnip  a  turnip."  The  unpleasant  seasoning 
of  Luther's  abuse  ;  some  samples  ;  was  language  of  so 
coarse  a  character  at  all  usual  at  that  time  ?  Indignation  of 
the  Swiss  .......  pages  306-326 

4.  LUTHER    ON    HIS    OWN    GREATNESS    AND    SUPERIORITY    TO 

CRITICISM.  THE  ART  OF  "  RHETORIC." 
His  occasional  professions  of  humility ;  a  number  of 
typical  sayings  of  Luther  referring  to  his  peculiar  standing 
and  his  achievements  :  The  predictions  fulfilled  in  him  ;  the 
poverty  of  the  exegesis  of  the  Fathers  ;  his  reforms  more  far- 
reaching  than  those  of  any  Councils  ;  his  being  alone  no 
better  argument  against  him  than  against  the  Old-Testa 
ment  Prophets,  who  also  stood  up  against  the  whole  world. 
Harnack's  dilemma  :  Was  Luther  a  megalomaniac,  or  were 
his  achievements  commensurate  with  his  claims  ?  His  habit 
of  giving  free  rein  to  his  "  rhetoric  "  ;  its  tendency  to 
extravagance,  unseemliness,  and,  occasionally,  to  rank 
blasphemy  ;  "  papist  and  donkey  is  one  and  the  same, 
sic  volo,  sic  iubeo  "  ;  his  rhetoric  a  true  mirror  of  his  inward 
state  ;  his  changeableness  ;  his  high  opinion  of  himself  to 
some  extent  fostered  by  the  adulation  of  his  friends  pages  327-350 

CHAPTER  XXVII.     VOICES  FROM  THE   CAMP  OF  THE 

DEFENDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH       .          .     pages  351-386 

1.  LUTHER'S  "DEMONIACAL"  STORMING.    A  MAN  "POSSESSED." 

Hostile  contemporaries  ascribe  Luther's  ravings  to  the 
devil,  others  actually  hold  him  to  be  beset  by  the  devil ; 
references  to  his  eyes  ;  the  idle  tale  of  his  having  been 
begotten  of  the  devil  .....  pages  351-359 

2.  VOICES  OF  CONVERTS. 

Their  opinion  of  Luther  and  Luther's  opinion  of  them  ; 
Egranus,  Zasius,  Wicel  and  Amerbach  .  .  pages  360-365 

3.  LAMENTATIONS   OVER  THE   WOUNDS    OF   THE    CHURCH   AND 

OVER  HER  PERSECUTIONS. 

The  Preface  of  Cochlseus  to  his  "  Commentaria  de  actis, 
etc.,  M.  L.";  the  sermons  of  Wild,  the  Mayence  Franciscan,  and 
the  complaints  laid  before  the  Diet,  at  Ratisbon  (1541)  and 
Worms  (1545)  pages  365-369 

4.  THE  LITERARY  OPPOSITION. 

Was  Luther  really  dragged  into  controversy  by  the  tactics 
of  his  opponents  ?  A  retrospect  :  The  character  of  the 
writings  of  Tetzel  and  Priei  ias ;  Emser ;  Eck  and  his 
"  Obelisks  "  ;  his  "  Enchiridion  "  ;  Cochlseus's  "  Septiceps 
Lutherus  "  ;  other  champions  of  the  Church  .  pages  370-386 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    XXVIII.      THE    NEW   DOGMAS    IN    AN    HIS 
TORICAL  AND  PSYCHOLOGICAL  LIGHT     pages  387-527 

1.  THE  BIBLE  TEXT  AND  THE  SPIRIT  AS  THE  "  TRUE  TESTS  OF 

DOCTRINE." 

Liberty  for  the  examination  of  Scripture  and  Luther's 
autonomy  ;  Luther  gradually  reaches  the  standpoint  that 
the  Bible  is  the  only  judge  in  matters  of  faith  ;  those  only 
must  be  listened  to  who  teach  "  purum  verbum  Dei." 
Experience  given  by  the  Spirit ;  divergent  utterances 
regarding  the  perspicuity  of  Holy  Writ ;  the  Bible  a  "  heresy- 
book."  Luther  not  in  favour  of  verbal  inspiration  ;  mistakes 
of  the  yacred  writers  ;  which  books  are  canonical,  and  why  ? 
The  discord  which  followed  on  Luther's  principle  of  relying 
on  private  judgment  and  the  "  influxus  spirilus "  ;  he 
reverts  to  the  "  outward  Word  "  in  his  controversy  with 
Zwingli  and  corroborates  it  by  tradition.  What  authority, 
apart  from  the  Church's,  can  lay  doubts  to  rest  ?  The 
object  of  faith  :  Many  articles,  or  only  one  ?  Protestants 
on  Luther's  self-contradictions  ;  the  end  of  Luther's 
"  formal  principle  "  .  .  .  .  .  pages  387-420 

2.  LUTHER  AS  A  BIBLE  EXPOSITOR. 

Some  characteristic  of  Luther's  exegesis  ;  his  respect  for 
the  literal  sense  ;  all  his  reading  of  the  Bible  coloured  by  his 
theory  of  Justification  ;  his  exegesis  in  the  light  of  his  early 
development  .......  pages  420-431 

3.  THE  SOLA  FIDES.    JUSTIFICATION  AND  ASSURANCE  OF  SALVA 

TION. 

Connection  between  the  "  material  principle  "  (justifica 
tion)  and  the  "  formal  principle  "  (Scripture  a?  the  only 
rule)  of  Luther's  theology,  and  between  the  "  material 
principle  "  and  the  theory  of  the  worthlessness  of  works  and 
of  God's  being  the  sole  real  agent ;  the  theory  at  variance 
with  the  teaching  of  St.  Augustine.  The  need  of  strugg  ing 
to  feel  entirely  certain  of  our  personal  justification  ;  Luther's 
own  failure  to  come  up  to  his  standard ;  present-day  Protes 
tants  on  Luther's  main  Article  "  on  which  the  Church  stands 
or  falls  "  .......  pages  431-449 

4.  GOOD  WORKS  IN  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 

The  Church's  teaching  ;  origin  of  Luther's  new  ideas  to  be 
sought  in  his  early  dislike  for  the  "  Little  Saints  "  and  their 
doings  ;  the  perils  of  his  theory  ;  on  the  fear  of  God  as  a 
motive  for  action.  Augustine  summoned  as  a  witness  on 
Luther's  behalf ;  the  witness  discarded  by  Melanchthon  and 
the  Pomeranians  ;  Augustine's  real  view  ;  the  new  doctrine 
judged  by  16th-century  Protestants  ;  Luther's  utterances 
in  favour  of  good  works  ;  what  charity  meant  in  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  Luther  on  the  hospitals  of  Florence  .  .  pages  449-481 

5.  OTHER  INNOVATIONS  IN  RELIGIOUS  DOCTRINE. 

Luther  no  systematic  theologian.  The  regula  fidei ; 
Harnack  on  Luther's  inconsequence  ;  Paulsen  on  '  •  Pope 
Luther."  Luther's  teaching  on  the  sacraments;  on  infant- 
baptism  and  the  faith  it  requires ;  liberal  Protestants 


CONTENTS  xi 

appeal  to  his  principles  against  the  "  magical  "  theory  of 
Baptism  ;  penance  an  extension  of  baptism.  Luther's 
teaching  on  the  Supper  ;  Communion  merely  a  means  of 
fortifying  faith  ;  Impanation  versus  Transubstaiitiation  ; 
theory  of  the  omnipresence  of  Christ's  body  ;  Luther's  stead 
fastness  in  his  belief  in  the  Real  Presence.  Attitude  towards 
the  invocation  of  the  Saints,  particularly  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin.  His  views  on  Purgatory  .  .  .  pages  482-506 

6.  LUTHER'S  ATTACK  ON  THE  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  MASS. 

The  place  of  this  sacrifice  in  the  Church  previous  to 
Luther's  time  ;  Luther's  first  attacks  ;  the  Mass  suppressed 
at  Wittenberg  ;  his  "  Von  dem  Grewel  der  Stillmesse  "  ; 
Eck's  reply  ;  Luther  undertakes  to  prove  that  the  priests' 
attachment  to  the  Mass  is  based  merely  on  pecuniary 
grounds  ;  connection  between  his  attack  on  the  Mass  and  his 
theory  as  a  whole.  His  work  on  the  "  Winkle-Mass  "  ;  his 
dispute  with  the  devil ;  his  defence  of  his  work  on  the 
"  Winkle-Mass  "  ;  Cochlseus  replies  ;  Luther's  references  to 
the  Mass  in  his  familiar  talks,  and  in  his  Schmalkalden 
"  Artickel  "  ;  a  profession  of  faith  in  the  Real  Presence 

pages  506-527 


VOL.   IV. 
THE   REFORMER   (II) 


IV. — B 


LUTHEE 


CHAPTER    XXI 


1.    Luther  and  Henry  VIII  of  England.     Bigamy  instead 
of  Divorce 

IN  King  Henry  the  Eighth's  celebrated  matrimonial  contro 
versy  the  Roman  See  by  its  final  decision  was  energetically 
to  vindicate  the  cause  of  justice,  in  spite  of  the  fear  that  this 
might  lead  to  the  loss  of  England  to  Catholicism.  The 
considered  judgment  was  clear  and  definite  :  Rather  than 
countenance  the  King's  divorce  from  Queen  Catherine,  or 
admit  bigamy  as  lawful,  the  Roman  Church  was  prepared 
to  see  the  falling  away  of  the  King  and  larger  portion  of 
the  realm.1 

In  the  summer,  1531,  Luther  was  drawn  into  the  con 
troversy  raging  round  the  King's  marriage,  by  an  agent  of 
King  Henry's.  Robert  Barnes,  an  English  Doctor  of 
Divinity  who  had  apostatised  from  the  Church  and  was 
residing  at  Wittenberg,  requested  of  Luther,  probably  at  the 
King's  instigation,  an  opinion  regarding  the  lawfulness  of 
his  sovereign's  divorce. 

To  Luther  it  was  clear  enough  that  there  was  no  possibility 
of  questioning  the  validity  of  Catherine's  marriage.  It 
rightly  appeared  to  him  impossible  that  the  Papal  dispensa 
tion,  by  virtue  of  which  Catherine  of  Aragon  had  married 
the  King  after  having  been  the  spouse  of  his  deceased 
brother,  should  be  represented  as  sufficient  ground  for  a 

1  On  Clement  the  Seventh's  earlier  hesitation  to  come  to  a  decision, 
see  Ehses  in  "  Vereinsschr.  der  GorresgeselL,"  1909,  3,  p.  7  ff.,  and  the 
works  there  referred  to  ;  also  Paulus,  "  Luther  und  die  Polygamie  " 
(on  Enders,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  92,  n.)  in  the  "  Lit.  Beilage 
der  Koln.  Volksztng.,"  1903,  No.  48,  and  "  Hist.-pol.  Blattor,"  135, 
1905,  p.  89  ff.  ;  Pastor,  "  Hist,  of  the  Popes "  (Engl.  trans.),  10, 
pp.  238-287.  See  below,  p.  6  f. 

3 


4  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

divorce.     This  view  he  expressed  with  praiseworthy  frank 
ness  in  the  written  answer  he  gave  Barnes.1 

At  the  same  time,  however,  Luther  pointed  out  to  the 
King  a  loophole  by  which  he  might  be  able  to  succeed  in 
obtaining  the  object  of  his  desire  ;  by  this  concession,  un 
fortunately,  he  branded  his  action  as  a  pandering  to  the 
passions  of  an  adulterous  King.  At  the  conclusion  of  his 
memorandum  to  Barnes  he  has  the  following  :  "  Should 
the  Queen  be  unable  to  prevent  the  divorce,  she  must  accept 
the  great  evil  and  most  insulting  injustice  as  a  cross,  but 
not  in  any  way  acquiesce  in  it  or  consent  to  it.  Better  were 
it  for  her  to  allow  the  King  to  wed  another  Queen,  after  the 
example  of  the  Patriarchs,  who,  in  the  ages  previous  to  the 
law,  had  many  wives  ;  but  she  must  not  consent  to  being 
excluded  from  her  conjugal  rights  or  to  forfeiting  the  title 
of  Queen  of  England."2 

It  has  been  already  pointed  out  that  Luther,  in  conse 
quence  of  his  one-sided  study  of  the  Old  Testament,  had 
accustomed  himself  more  and  more  to  regard  bigamy  as 
something  lawful.3  That,  however,  he  had  so  far  ever  given 
his  formal  consent  to  it  in  any  particular  instance  there  is 
no  proof.  In  the  case  of  Henry  VIII,  Luther  felt  less  restraint 
than  usual.  His  plain  hint  at  bigamy  as  a  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  was  intended  as  a  counsel  ("  suasimus  ").  Hence 
we  can  understand  why  he  was  anxious  that  his  opinion 
should  not  be  made  too  public.4  When,  in  the  same  year 
(1531),  he  forwarded  to  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  what  pur 
ported  to  be  a  copy  of  the  memorandum,  the  incriminating 
passage  was  carefully  omitted.5 

Melanchthon,  too,  had  intervened  in  the  affair,  and  had 
gone  considerably  further  than  Luther  in  recommending 

1  To  Robert  Barnes,  Sep.  3,  1531.  "  Brief wechsel,"  9,  pp.  87-8.    At 
the  commencement  we  read  :    "  Prohibitio  uxoris  demortui  fratris  est 
positivi  iuris,  non  divini."     A  later  revision  of  the  opinion  also  under 
Sep.  3,  ibid.,  pp.  92-8. 

2  "  Brief  wechsel,"  ibid.,  p.  88.    In  the  revision  the  passage  still  reads 
much  the  same  :    "  Rather  than  sanction  such  a  divorce  I  would  permit 
the  King  to  marry  a  second  Queen  .   .   .  and,  after  the  example  of  the 
olden  Fathers  and  Kings,  to  have  at  the  same  time  two  consorts  or 
Queens  "  (p.  93). 

3  See  vol.  iii.,  p.  259.  4  "  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  87  seq. 

5  Luther's  "  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  91,  n.  15.  Cp.  W.  W.  Rockwell, 
"  Die  Doppelehe  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  von  Hessen,"  Marburg,  1904, 
p.  214,  n.  1,  and  below,  p.  17,  n.  2. 


HENRY   VIII   OF  ENGLAND  5 

recourse  to  bigamy  and  in  answering  possible  objections  to 
polygamy. 

In  a  memorandum  of  Aug.  23,  Melanchthon  declared  that 
the  King  was  entirely  justified  in  seeking  to  obtain  the  male 
heirs  with  whom  Catherine  had  failed  to  present  him  ;  this 
was  demanded  by  the  interests  of  the  State.  He  endeavours 
to  show  that  polygamy  is  not  forbidden  by  Divine  law  ;  in 
order  to  avoid  scandal  it  was,  however,  desirable  that  the 
King  "  should  request  the  Pope  to  sanction  his  bigamy, 
permission  being  granted  readily  enough  at  Rome."  Should 
the  Pope  refuse  to  give  the  dispensation,  then  the  King  was 
simply  and  of  his  own  authority  to  have  recourse  to  bigamy, 
because  in  that  case  the  Pope  was  not  doing  his  duty,  for 
he  was  "  bound  in  charity  to  grant  this  dispensation."1 
"  Although  I  should  be  loath  to  allow  polygamy  generally, 
yet,  in  the  present  case,  on  account  of  the  great  advantage 
to  the  kingdom  and  perhaps  to  the  King's  conscience,  I 
would  say  :  The  King  may,  with  a  good  conscience  ('  tutis- 
simum  est  regi  '),  take  a  second  wife  while  retaining  the 
first,  because  it  is  certain  that  polygamy  is  not  forbidden 
by  the  Divine  law,  nor  is  it  so  very  unusual."  Melanchthon' s 
ruthless  manner  of  proceeding  undoubtedly  had  a  great 
influence  on  the  other  Wittenbergers,  even  though  it  cannot 
be  maintained,  as  has  been  done,  that  he,  and  not  Luther, 
was  the  originator  of  the  whole  theory  ;  there  are  too  many 
clear  and  definite  earlier  statements  of  Luther's  in  favour 
of  polygamy  to  disprove  this.  Still,  it  is  true  that  the  lax 
opinion  broached  by  Melanchthon  in  favour  of  the  King  of 
England  played  a  great  part  later  in  the  matter  of  the 
bigamy  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse.2 

In  the  same  year,  however,  there  appeared  a  work  on 
matrimony  by  the  Lutheran  theologian  Johann  Brenz  in 
which,  speaking  generally  and  without  reference  to  this 

1  Memorandum  of  Aug.  23,  1531,  "  Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  520  seq.;  see 
particularly  p.  526  :  Bigamy  was  allowable  in  the  King's  case,  "  propter 
magnam  utilitatem  regni,  fortassis  etiam  propter  conscientiam  regis.  .  .  . 
Papa  hanc  dispensationem  propter  caritatem  debet  concedere."     Cp.  G. 
Ellinger,  "  Phil.  Melanchthon,"  1902,  p.  325  f.,  and  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p. 
208  ff. 

2  Cp.  Th.  Kolde,   '"'  Zeitschr.  f.  KG.,"   13,   1892,  p.  577,  where  he 
refers  to  the  after-effect  of  Melanchthon's  memorandum,  instanced  in 
Lenz,    "  Briefwechsel   Philipps   von  Hessen,"    1,   p.    352,   and  to  the 
material  on  which  Bucer  relied  to  win  over  the  Wittenbergers  to  the 
Landgrave's  side  ("  Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  851  seq.). 


6  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

particular  case,  he  expressed  himself  very  strongly  against 
the  lawfulness  of  polygamy.  "  The  secular  authorities,"  so 
Brenz  insists,  "  must  not  allow  any  of  their  subjects  to 
have  two  or  more  wives,"  they  must,  on  the  contrary,  put 
into  motion  the  "  penalties  of  the  Imperial  Laws  "  against 
polygamy  ;  no  pastor  may  "  bless  or  ratify  "  such  marriages, 
but  is  bound  to  excommunicate  the  offenders.1  Strange  to 
say,  the  work  appeared  with  a  Preface  by  Luther  in  which, 
however,  he  neither  praises  nor  blames  this  opinion.2 

The  Strasburg  theologians,  Bucer  and  Capito,  as  well  as 
the  Constance  preacher,  Ambrosius  Blaurer,  also  stood  up 
for  the  lawfulness  of  bigamy.  When,  however,  this  reached 
the  ears  of  the  Swiss  theologians,  (Ecolampadius,  in  a  letter 
of  Aug.  20,  exclaimed  :  "  They  wrere  inclined  to  consent  to 
the  King's  bigamy  !  But  far  be  it  from  us  to  hearken  more 
to  Mohammed  in  this  matter  than  to  Christ  !  "3 

In  spite  of  the  alluring  hint  thrown  out  at  Wittenberg,  the 
adulterous  King,  as  everyone  knows,  did  not  resort  to 
bigamy.  It  was  Henry  the  Eighth's  wish  to  be  rid  of  his 
wife,  and,  having  had  her  removed,  he  regarded  himself  as 
divorced.  After  the  King  had  repudiated  Catherine,  Luther 
told  his  friends  :  "  The  Universities  [i.e.  those  which  sided 
with  the  English  King]  have  declared  that  there  must  be  a 
divorce.  We,  however,  and  the  University  of  Louvain, 
decided  differently.  .  .  .  We  [viz.  Luther  and  Melanchthon] 
advised  the  Englishman  that  it  wrould  be  better  for  him  to 
take  a  concubine  than  to  distract  his  country  and  nation  ; 
yet  in  the  end  he  put  her  away."4 

W7hen  Clement  VII  declared  the  first  marriage  to  be  valid 
and  indissoluble,  and  also  refused  to  countenance  any 
bigamy,  Henry  VIII  retorted  by  breaking  with  the  Church 
of  Rome,  carrying  his  country  with  him.  For  a  while 
Clement  had  hesitated  on  the  question  of  bigamy,  since,  in 
view  of  Cardinal  Cajetan's  opinion  to  the  contrary,  he  found 
it  difficult  to  convince  himself  that  a  dispensation  could  not 

1  "Wie  in  Ehesachen  und  den  Fallen,  so  sich  derhalben  zutragen, 
nach  gottlichem  billigem  Rechten  christenlich  zu  handeln  sei,"  1531. 
Fol.  D.  2b  and  D.  3a.    Cp.  Rockwell,  p.  281,  n.  1. 

2  The  Preface  reprinted  in  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  305. 

3  Enders,  "  Luther's  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  92. 

4  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  199  :    "  Suasimus  Anglo,  tolerabiliorem 
ei  esse  concubinatum  quam  "  to  distract  his  \vhole  country  and  nation, 
"  sed  tandem  earn  repudiavit." 


HENRY  VIII   OF  ENGLAND  7 

be  given,  and  because  he  was  personally  inclined  to  be 
indulgent  and  friendly  ;  finally,  however,  he  gave  Bennet, 
the  English  envoy,  clearly  to  understand  that  the  dispensa 
tion  was  not  in  his  power  to  grant.1  That  he  himself  was 
not  sufficiently  versed  in  Canon  Law,  the  Pope  repeatedly 
admitted.  "  It  will  never  be  possible  to  allege  the  attitude 
of  Clement  VII  as  any  excuse  for  the  Hessian  affair  "  (Ehses). 
It  is  equally  impossible  to  trace  the  suggestion  of  bigamy 
back  to  the  opinions  prevailing  in  mediaeval  Catholicism.2 
No  mediaeval  pope  or  confessor  can  be  instanced  who 
sanctioned  bigamy,  while  there  are  numbers  of  theologians 
who  deny  the  Pope's  power  to  grant  such  dispensations  ; 
many  even  describe  this  negative  opinion  as  the  "  sententia 
communist3 

Of  Cardinal  Cajetan,  the  only  theologian  of  note  on  the 
opposite  side  (see  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  261),  W.  Kohler  remarks, 
alluding  particularly  to  the  recent  researches  of  N.  Paulus  : 
"  It  never  entered  Cardinal  Cajetan's  head  to  deny  that  the 
ecclesiastical  law  categorically  forbids  polygamy."4  Further  : 
"  Like  Paulus,  we  may  unhesitatingly  admit  that,  in  this 
case,  it  would  have  been  better  for  Luther  had  he  had 
behind  him  the  guiding  authority  of  the  Church."5 

Henry  VIII,  as  was  only  natural,  sought  to  make  the 
best  use  of  the  friendship  of  the  Wittenberg  professors  and 
Princes  of  the  Schmalkalden  League,  against  Rome  and 
the  Emperor.  He  despatched  an  embassy,  though  his 
overtures  were  not  as  successful  as  he  might  have  wished. 

We  may  describe  briefly  the  facts  of  the  case. 

1  Cp.  Paulus  in  the  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  135,  1905,  p.  90. 

2  [Though,    of   course,   the    hesitation    evinced   previously  by   St. 
Augustine  ("  De  bono  conjugate,"   "  P.L.,"  xl.,  col.  385)  must  not  be 
lost  sight  of.     Note  to  English  Edition.'] 

3  Cp.  Paulus,  ibid.,  147,  1911,  p.  505,  where  he  adds  :    "And  yet 
mediaeval  casuistry  is  alleged  to  have  been  the  '  determining  influence  ' 
in  Luther's  sanction  of  bigamy  !     Had  Luther  allowed  himself  to  be 
guided  by  the  mediaeval  theory  and  practice,  he  would  never  have  given 
his  consent  to  the  Hessian  bigamy." 

4  "  Hist.  Zeitschr.,"  94,  1905,  p.  409.    Of  Clement  VII,  Kohler  writes 
(ibid.)  :    "  Pope  Clement  VII,  who  had  to  make  a  stand  against  Henry 
VIII  of  England  in  the  question  of  bigamy,  never  suggested  a  dispensa 
tion  for  a  second  wife,  though,  to  all  appearance,  he  was  not  convinced 
that  such  a  dispensation  was  impossible." 

5  "  Theol.  JB.  fur  1905,"  Bd.  25,  p.  657,  with  reference  to  "  Hist.- 
pol.  Bl.,"  135,  p.  85. 


8  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

The  Schmalkalden  Leaguers,  from  the  very  inception  of  the 
League,  had  been  seeking  the  support  both  of  England  and  of 
France.  In  1535  they  made  a  determined  effort  to  bring  about 
closer  relations  with  Henry  VIII,  and,  at  the  Schmalkalden 
meeting,  the  latter  made  it  known  that  he  was  not  unwilling  to 
"  join  the  Christian  League  of  the  Electors  and  Princes."  Here 
upon  he  was  offered  the  "  title  and  standing  of  patron  and  pro 
tector  of  the  League."  The  political  negotiations  nevertheless 
miscarried,  owing  to  the  King's  excessive  demands  for  the  event 
of  an  attack  on  his  Kingdom.1  The  project  of  an  alliance  with 
the  King  of  Denmark,  the  Duke  of  Prussia,  and  with  Saxony  and 
Hesse,  for  the  purpose  of  a  war  against  the  Emperor,  also  came 
to  nothing. 

In  these  negotiations  the  Leaguers  wanted  first  of  all  to  reach 
an  agreement  with  Henry  in  the  matter  of  religion,  whereas  the 
latter  insisted  that  political  considerations  should  have  the 
first  place. 

In  the  summer,  1535,  Robert  Barnes,  the  English  plenipo 
tentiary,  was  raising  great  and  exaggerated  hopes  in  Luther's 
breast  of  Henry's  making  common  cause  with  the  Wittenberg 
reformers. 

Into  his  plans  Luther  entered  with  great  zest,  and  consented 
to  Melanchthon's  being  sent  to  England  as  his  representative, 
for  the  purpose  of  further  negotiations.  As  we  now  know  from 
a  letter  of  recommendation  of  Sep.  12,  1535,  first  printed  in  1894, 
he  recommended  Barnes  to  the  Chancellor  Briick  for  an  inter 
view  with  the  Elector,  and  requested  permission  for  Melanchthon 
to  undertake  the  journey  to  England.  Joyfully  he  points  out 
that  "  now  the  King  offers  to  accept  the  Evangel,  to  join  the 
League  of  our  Princes  and  to  allow  our  'Apologia '  entry  into  his 
Kingdom."  Such  an  opportunity  must  not  be  allowed  to  slip, 
for  "  the  Papists  will  be  in  high  dudgeon."  Quite  possibly  God 
may  have  something  in  view. 2 

In  England  hopes  were  entertained  that  these  favourable  offers 
would  induce  a  more  friendly  attitude  towards  the  question  of 
Henry's  divorce.  Concerning  this  Luther  merely  says  in  the 
letter  cited  :  "In  the  matter  of  the  royal  marriage,  the  '  sus- 
pensio'  has  already  been  decided,"  without  going  into  any 
further  particulars  ;  he,  however,  reserves  the  case  to  be  dealt 
with  by  the  theologians  exclusively. 

In  August,  1535,  Melanchthon  had  dedicated  one  of  his 
writings  to  the  King  of  England,  and  had,  on  this  occasion, 
lavished  high  praise  on  him.  It  was  probably  about  this  time 
that  the  King  sent  the  presents  to  Wittenberg,  to  which 
Catherine  Bora  casually  alludes  in  the  Table-Talk.  "  Philip 
received  several  gifts  from  the  Englishman,  in  all  five  hundred 
pieces  of  gold  ;  for  our  own  part  we  got  at  least  fifty."3 

1  Cp.  Janssen,  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People,"  Eng.  Trans.,  6,  pp.  1  ff. 

2  Letter  published  by  Th.  Kolde  in  the  "  Zeitschr.  fur  KG.,"  14, 
1894,  p.  605. 

3  Mathesius,  "Tischreden,"  p.  106,  in  1540.  Cp.  "Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  995. 


HENRY  VIII  OF   ENGLAND  9 

Melanchthon  took  no  offence  at  the  cruel  execution  of  Sir 
Thomas  More  or  at  the  other  acts  of  violence  already  perpetrated 
by  Henry  VIII ;  on  the  contrary,  he  gave  his  approval  to  the  deeds 
of  the  royal  tyrant,  and  described  it  as  a  commandment  of  God 
"to  use  strong  measures  against  fanatical  and  godless  men."1 
The  sanguinary  action  of  the  English  tyrant  led  Luther  to 
express  the  wish,  that  a  similar  fate  might  befall  the  heads  of  the 
Catholic  Church  at  Rome.  In  the  very  year  of  Bishop  Fisher's 
execution  he  wrote  to  Melanchthon  :  "  It  is  easy  to  lose  our 
tempers  when  we  see  what  traitors,  thieves,  robbers,  nay  devils 
incarnate  the  Cardinals,  the  Popes  and  their  Legates  are.  Alas 
that  there  are  not  more  Kings  of  England  to  put  them  to  death  !  "  2 
He  also  refers  to  the  alleged  horrors  practised  by  the  Pope's  tools 
in  plundering  the  Church,  and  asks  :  "  How  can  the  Princes  and 
Lords  put  up  with  it  ?  " 

In  Dec.,  1535,  a  convention  of  the  Schmalkalden  Leaguers,  at 
Melanchthon's  instance,  begged  the  envoys  despatched  by  Henry, 
who  were  on  their  way  to  Wittenberg,  to  induce  their  master  to 
promote  the  Confession  of  Augsburg — unless,  indeed,  as  they 
added  with  unusual  consideration,  "  they  and  the  King  should  be 
unanimous  in  thinking  that  something  in  the  Confession  might 
be  improved  upon  or  made  more  in  accordance  with  the  Word 
of  God."3 

Just  as  in  the  advances  made  by  the  King  to  Wittenberg  "  the 
main  point  had  been  to  obtain  a  favourable  pronouncement  from 
the  German  theologians  in  the  matter  of  his  divorce,"  so  too  in 
consenting  to  discuss  the  Confession  of  Augsburg  he  was  actu 
ated  by  the  thought  that  this  would  lead  to  a  discussion  on  the 
Papal  power  and  the  question  of  the  divorce,  i.e.  to  those  points 
which  the  King  had  so  much  at  heart. 4 

On  the  arrival  immediately  after  of  the  envoys  at  Witten 
berg  they  had  the  satisfaction  of  learning  from  Luther  and  his 
circle,  that  the  theologians  had  already  changed  their  minds  in 
the  King's  favour  concerning  the  lawfulness  of  marriage  with  a 
brother's  widow.  Owing  to  the  influence  of  Osiander,  whom 
Henry  VIII  had  wron  over  to  his  side,  they  now  had  come  to 
regard  such  marriages  as  contrary  to  the  natural  moral  law. 
Hence  Henry's  new  marriage  might  be  considered  valid.  They 
were  not,  however,  as  yet  ready  to  draw  this  last  inference  from 

1  "  Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  928.     Melanchthon's  language,  and  Luther's 
too,  changed  when,  later,  Henry  VIII  caused  those  holding  Lutheran 
opinions  to  be  executed.    See  below,  p.  12  f. 

2  Beginning  of  Dec.,  1535.     "  Briefwechsel,"  10,  p.  275  :    "  Utinam 
haberent  plures  reges  Anglice,  qui  illos  occiderent  !  " 

3  "Corp.    ref.,"    2,   p.    1032,   n.    1383.      Cp.    Kostlin-Kawerau,    2, 
p.  369. 

4  Thus  G.  Mentz,  the  editor  of  the  "  Wittenberger  Artickel,"  drawn 
up  for  the  envoys  from  England  ("  Quellenschriften  zur  Gesch.  des 
Prot.,"  Hft.  2,  1905),  pp.  3  and  4.    He  points  out,  p.  7,  that  King  Henry, 
in  a  reply  to  Wittenberg  (March   12,   1536,   "  Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  48), 
requested  "  support  in  the  question  of  the  divorce  "  and  desired  certain 
things  to  be  modified  in  the  "  Confessio  "  and  the  "  Apologia." 


10  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

the  invalidity  of  the  previous  marriage  between  the  King  and 
Catherine. l 

Luther,  however,  became  more  and  more  convinced  that 
marriage  with  a  brother's  widow  was  invalid  ;  in  1542,  for 
instance,  on  the  assumption  of  the  invalidity  of  such  a  union,  he 
unhesitatingly  annulled  the  marriage  of  a  certain  George  Schud, 
as  a  devilish  abomination  "  ("  abominatio  diaboli  ").2 

The  spokesman  of  the  English  mission,  Bishop  Edward  Fox, 
demanded  from  Luther  the  admission  that  the  King  had  separ 
ated  from  his  first  wife  "  on  very  just  grounds."  Luther,  how 
ever,  would  only  agree  that  he  had  done  so  "on  very  many 
grounds."  He  said  later,  in  conversation,  that  his  insistence  on 
this  verbal  nicety  had  cost  him  three  hundred  Gulden,  which  he 
would  have  received  from  England  in  the  event  of  his  com 
pliance.3  He  cannot  indeed  be  accused  of  having  been,  from 
ecclesiastico-political  motives,  too  hasty  in  gratifying  the  King's 
demands  in  the  matter  of  the  divorce.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  desire  to  pave  the  way  for  a  practical 
understanding  was  one  of  the  motives  for  his  mode  of  action. 
His  previous  outspoken  declarations  against  any  dissolution  of 
the  Royal  marriage  compelled  him  to  assume  an  attitude  not  too 
strongly  at  variance  with  his  earlier  opinion. 

After  the  new  marriage  had  taken  place  negotiations  with 
England  continued,  principally  with  the  object  of  securing  such 
acceptance  of  the  new  doctrine  as  might  lead  to  a  politico- 
religious  alliance  between  that  country  and  the  Schmalkalden 
Leaguers.  Luther,  however,  stubbornly  refused  to  concede 
anything  to  the  King  in  the  matter  of  his  chief  doctrines,  for 
instance,  regarding  Justification  or  the  rejection  of  the  Mass. 

The  articles  agreed  upon  at  the  lengthy  conferences  held 
during  the  early  months  of  1536 — and  made  public  only  in  1905 
(see  above,  p.  9,  n.  4) — failed  to  satisfy  the  King,  although 
they  displayed  a  very  conciliatory  spirit.  Melanchthon  outdid 
himself  in  his  endeavour  to  render  the  Wittenberg  teaching 

1  For  full  particulars  concerning  the  change,  see  Rockwell,  loc.  cit., 
216  rT.    The  latter  says,  p.  217  :    "  Luther's  opinion  obviously  changed 
[before  March  12,  1536].   .   .  .  Yet  lie  expressed  himself  even  in  1536 
against  the  divorce  [Henry  the  Eighth's] ;  the  prohibition  [of  marriage 
with  a  sister  in-law]  from  which  the  Mosaic  Law  admitted  exceptions, 
might  be  dispensed,  whereas  the  prohibition  of  divorce  could  not  be 
dispensed,"  and,  p.   220  :     "In  the  change  of    1536  the  influence  of 
Osiander  is  unmistakable.  .   .   .  Cranmer,  when  at  Ratisbon  in   1532, 
had  visited  Osiander  several  times  at  Nuremberg,  and  finally  won  him 
over  to  the  side  of  the  King  of  England."     At  the  end  Rockwell  sums 
up  as  follows  (p.  222)  :    "  The  expedient  of  bigamy  .  .   .  was  approved 
by  Luther,  Melanchthon,  Grynseus,  Bucer  and  Capito,  but  repudiated 
by  (Ecolampadius  and  Zwingli.     Hence  we  cannot  be  surprised  that 
Luther,  Melanchthon  and  Bucer  should  regard  favourably  the  Hessian 
proposal    of    bigamy,    whereas    Zwingli's    successors    at    Zurich,    viz. 
Bullinger  and  Gualther,  opposed  it  more  or  less  openly." 

2  On  Feb.  16,  1542,   "Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  436.     Cp.  ibid., 
p.  584,  Letter  of  Jan.  18,  1545. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  152,  in  1540. 


HENRY  VIII  OF  ENGLAND          11 

acceptable.  "It  is  true  that  the  main  points  of  faith  were  not 
sacrificed,"  remarks  the  discoverer  and  editor  of  the  articles  in 
question,  "  but  the  desire  to  please  noticeable  in  their  form,  even 
in  such  questions  as  those  concerning  the  importance  of  good 
works,  monasteries,  etc.,  is  nevertheless  surprising."1  Luther 
himself,  in  a  letter  of  April  29,  1536,  to  the  Electoral  Vice- 
Chancellor  Burkhard,  spoke  of  the  concessions  made  in  these 
articles  as  the  final  limit ;  to  go  further  would  be  to  concede  to 
the  King  of  England  what  had  been  refused  to  the  Pope  and  the 
Emperor  ;  "at  Augsburg  [in  1530]  we  might  have  come  to  terms 
more  easily  with  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor,  nay,  perhaps  we 
might  do  so  even  now."  To  enter  into  an  ecclesiastico-political 
alliance  with  the  English  would,  he  considers,  be  "  dangerous," 
for  the  Schmalkalden  Leaguers  "  were  not  all  of  one  mind  "  ; 
hence  the  (theological)  articles  ought  first  to  be  accepted  ;  the 
League  was,  however,  a  secular  matter  and  therefore  he  would 
beg  the  "  beloved  Lords  and  my  Gracious  Master  to  consider  " 
whether  they  could  accept  it  without  a  previous  agreement  being 
reached  on  the  point  of  theology.2 

Though  Luther  and  the  Princes  set  great  store  on  the 
projected  alliance,  on  account  of  the  increase  of  strength  it 
would  have  brought  the  German  Evangelicals,  yet  their 
hopes  were  to  be  shattered,  for  the  articles  above  referred 
to  did  not  find  acceptance  in  England.  Luther  was  later 
on  to  declare  that  everything  had  come  to  nought  because 
King  Henry  wished  to  be  head  of  the  Protestants  in 
Germany,  which  the  Elector  of  Saxony  would  not  permit  : 
"  Let  the  devil  take  the  great  Lords  !  This  rogue  ('  is  nebulo  ') 
wanted  to  be  proclaimed  head  of  our  religion,  but  to  this 
the  Elector  would  in  no  wise  agree  ;  we  did  not  even  know 
what  sort  of  belief  he  had."3  Probably  the  King  demanded 
a  paramount  influence  in  the  Schmalkalden  League,  and  the 
German  Princes  were  loath  to  be  deprived  of  the  direction 
of  affairs. 

After  all  hopes  of  an  agreement  had  vanished  Henry  VIII 
made  no  secret  of  his  antipathy  for  the  Lutheran  teaching. 

The  quondam  Defender  of  the  Faith  even  allowed  himself 
to  be  carried  away  to  acts  of  bloodshed.  In  1540  he  caused 
Luther's  friend,  Robert  Barnes,  the  agent  already  referred 
to,  to  be  burnt  at  the  stake  as  a  heretic.  Barnes  had  adopted 
the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  Justification.  It  was  not  on  this 
account  alone,  however,  that  he  was  obnoxious  to  the  King, 

1  Mentz,  loc.  cit.,  p.  11. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  52,  p.  133  ("  Brief wechsel,"  10,  p.  327). 
3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  174,  in  1540. 


12  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

but  also  because  the  latter  had  grown  weary  of  Anne  of 
Cleves,  whom  Barnes  and  Thomas  Cromwell,  the  King's 
favourite,  had  given  him  as  a  fourth  consort,  after  Anne 
Boleyn  and  Jane  Seymour.  Cromwell,  though  not  favour 
ably  disposed  to  Lutheranism,  was  executed  a  few  days 
before.  On  April  9,  1536,  Luther  had  written  to  Cromwell 
a  very  polite  letter,  couched  in  general  terms,1  in  answer 
to  a  courteous  missive  from  that  statesman  handed  to  him 
by  Barnes.  From  Luther's  letter  we  see  that  Cromwell 
"  had  been  described  to  him  in  too  favourable  a  light,"2  as 
though  predisposed  to  the  Lutheran  doctrine  or  to  regard 
Luther  as  a  divinely  sent  teacher.  Luther  deceived  himself 
if  he  fancied  that  Cromwell  was  ready  to  "  work  for  the 
cause  "  ;  the  latter  remained  as  unfriendly  to  Lutheranism 
proper  as  the  King  himself. 

In  the  year  of  Barnes's  execution  Melanchthon  wrote  the 
letter  to  Veit  Dietrich  in  which  he  expresses  the  pious  wish, 
that  God  would  send  a  brave  murderer  to  bring  the  King  to 
the  end  he  deserved.3 

Luther,  on  his  side,  declared  :  "  The  devil  himself  rides 
astride  this  King  "  ;  "I  am  glad  that  we  have  no  part  in 
his  blasphemy."  He  boasted,  so  Luther  says,  of  being  head 
of  the  Church  of  England,  a  title  which  no  bishop,  much 
less  a  King,  had  any  right  to,  more  particularly  one  who 
with  his  crew  had  "  vexed  and  tortured  Christ  and  His 
Church."4  In  1540  Luther  spoke  sarcastically  of  the 
King's  official  title  :  "  Under  Christ  the  supreme  head  on 
earth  of  the  English  Church,"5  remarking,  that,  in  that 
case,  "even  the  angels  are  excluded."6  Of  Melanchthon's 
dedication  of  some  of  his  books  to  the  King,  Luther  says, 
that  this  had  been  of  little  service.  "  In  future  I  am  not 
going  to  dedicate  any  of  my  books  to  anyone.  It  brought 
Philip  no  good  in  the  case  of  the  bishop  [Albert  of  Mayence], 
of  the  Englishman,  or  of  the  Hessian  [the  Landgrave 
Philip]."7  Still  more  fierce  became  his  hatred  and  dis 
appointment  when  he  found  the  King  consorting  with  his 
sworn  enemies,  Duke  George,  and  Albert,  Elector  of  Mayence.8 

1   "  Brief wechsel,"  10,  p.  324.  2  Ibid.,  p.  326. 

3  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  400,  with  reference  to  "  Corp.  ref,"  3,  p.  1076. 

4  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,   1,  p.   537,  where  the  words  have  been 
transferred  to  July  10,  1539. 

5  Cp.  "  Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  1029.          «  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  178. 
7  Ibid.,  p.   145.  8  Ibid.,  p.  198. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  13 

When  he  heard  the  news  of  Barnes  having  been  cast  into 
prison,  he  said  :  "  This  King  wants  to  make  himself  God. 
He  lays  down  articles  of  faith  and  forbids  marriage  under 
pain  of  death,  a  thing  which  even  the  Pope  scrupled  to  do. 
I  am  something  of  a  prophet  and,  as  what  I  prophesy  comes 
true,  I  shall  refrain  from  saying  more."1 

Luther  never  expressed  any  regret  regarding  his  readiness 
to  humour  the  King's  lusts  or  regarding  his  suggestion  of 
bigamy. 

The  Landgrave  Philip  of  Hesse,  however,  referred  directly 
to  the  proposal  of  bigamy  made  to  the  King  of  England, 
when  he  requested  Luther's  consent  to  his  own  project  of 
taking  a  second  wife.  The  Landgrave  had  got  to  hear  of 
the  proposal  in  spite  of  the  unlucky  passage  having  been 
struck  out  of  the  deed. 

The  history  of  the  Hessian  bigamy  is  an  incident  which 
throws  a  curious  light  on  Luther's  exceptional  indulgence 
towards  princely  patrons  of  the  Evangel  in  Germany. 

2.  The  Bigamy  of  Philip  of  Hesse 

As  early  as  1526  Philip  of  Hesse,  whose  conduct  was  far 
from  being  conspicuous  for  morality,  had  submitted  to 
Luther  the  question  whether  Christians  were  allowed  to 
have  more  than  one  wife.  The  Wittenberg  Professor  gave 
a  reply  tallying  with  his  principles  as  already  described ;  2 
instead  of  pointing  out  clearly  that  such  a  thing  was  divinely 
forbidden  to  all  Christians,  was  not  to  be  dispensed  from 
by  any  earthly  authority,  and  that  such  extra  marriages 
would  be  entirely  invalid,  Luther  refused  to  admit  un 
conditionally  the  invalidity  of  such  unions.  Such  marriages, 
he  stated,  gave  scandal  to  Christians,  "for  without  due 
cause  and  necessity  even  the  old  Patriarchs  did  not  take 
more  than  one  wife  "  ;  it  was  incumbent  that  we  should  be 
able  "  to  appeal  to  the  Word  of  God,"  but  no  such  Word 
existed  in  favour  of  polygamy,  "  by  which  the  same  could 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  145.      On  account  of  his  cruelty  he 
says  of  Henry  VIII,  in  Aug.,  1540  :   "I  look  upon  him  not  as  a  man  but 
as  a  devil  incarnate.     He  has  added  to  his  other  crimes  the  execution 
of  the  Chancellor  Cromwell,   whom,   a  few  days  previously,  he  had 
made  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  Kingdom  "  (ibid.,  p.  174). 

2  For  Luther's  previous  statements  in  favour  of  polygamy,  see  vol. 
iii.,  p.  259  ff.  ;   and  above,  p.  4. 


14  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

be  proved  to  be  well  pleasing  to  God  in  the  case  of  Chris 
tians  "  ;  "  hence  I  am  unable  to  recommend  it,  but  would 
rather  dissuade  from  it,  especially  for  Christians,  unless  some 
great  necessity  existed,  for  instance  were  the  wife  to  contract 
leprosy  or  become  otherwise  unfit."1  It  is  not  clear  whether 
Philip  was  interested  in  the  matter  for  personal  reasons,  or 
simply  because  some  of  his  subjects  were  believers  in 
polygamy. 

Luther's  communication,  far  from  diverting  the  Prince 
from  his  project,  could  but  serve  to  make  him  regard  it  as 
feasible  ;  provided  that  the  "  great  necessity  "  obtained 
and  that  he  had  "  the  Word  of  God  on  his  side,"  then  the 
step  could  "  not  be  prevented."  By  dint  of  a  judicious 
interpretation  of  Scripture  and  with  expert  theological  aid, 
the  obstacles  might  easily  be  removed. 

The  Hessian  Prince  also  became  acquainted  with  Luther's 
statements  on  bigamy  in  his  Commentary  on  Genesis 
published  in  the  following  year.  To  them  the  Landgrave 
Philip  appealed  expressly  in  1540  ;  the  preacher  Anton 
Corvinus  having  suggested  that  he  should  deny  having  com 
mitted  bigamy,  he  replied  indignantly  :  "  Since  you  are  so 
afraid  of  it,  why  do  you  not  suppress  what  Luther  wrote 
more  than  ten  years  ago  on  Genesis  ;  did  he  and  others  not 
write  publicly  concerning  bigamy  :  '  Advise  it  I  do  not, 
forbid  it  I  cannot '  ?  If  you  are  allowed  to  write  thus  of  it 
publicly,  you  must  expect  that  people  will  act  up  to  your 
teaching."2 

The  question  became  a  pressing  one  for  Luther,  and  began 
to  cast  a  shadow  over  his  wayward  and  utterly  untraditional 
interpretation  of  the  Bible,  when,  in  1539,  the  Landgrave 
resolved  to  take  as  an  additional  wife,  besides  Christina 
the  daughter  of  George  of  Saxony,  who  had  now  grown 
distasteful  to  him,  the  more  youthful  Margeret  von  der 
Sale.  From  Luther  Margeret' s  mother  desired  a  favourable 
pronouncement,  in  order  to  be  able  with  a  good  conscience 
to  give  her  consent  to  her  daughter's  wedding. 

1  To  Philip  of  Hesse,  Nov.  28,  1526,  "  Brief  wechsel,"  5,  p.  411  f. 

2  "  Eriefwechsel  des  A.  Corvinus,"  ed.  Tschackert,  1900,  p.  81. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  15 

Philip  Seeks  the  Permission  of  Wittenberg. 

Early  in  Nov.,  1539,  Gereon  Sailer,  an  Augsburg  physician 
famous  for  his  skill  in  handling  venereal  cases,  who  had 
treated  the  Landgrave  at  Cassel,  was  sent  by  Philip  to 
Bucer  at  Strasburg  to  instruct  the  latter  to  bring  the  matter 
before  the  theologians  of  Wittenberg.  Sailer  was  a  friend 
of  the  innovations,  and  Bucer  was  highly  esteemed  by  the 
Landgrave  as  a  theologian  and  clever  diplomatist. 

Bucer  was  at  first  sorely  troubled  in  conscience  and 
hesitated  to  undertake  the  commission  ;  Sailer  reported 
to  the  Landgrave  that,  on  hearing  of  the  plan,  he  had  been 
"  quite  horrified"  and  had  objected  "the  scandal  such  an 
innovation  in  a  matter  of  so  great  importance  and  difficulty 
might  cause  among  the  weak  followers  of  the  Evangel."1 
After  thinking  the  matter  over  for  three  days  Bucer,  how 
ever,  agreed  to  visit  the  Landgrave  on  Nov.  16  and  receive 
his  directions.  A  copy  of  the  secret  and  elaborate  instruc 
tions  given  him  by  Philip  concerning  the  appeal  he  was  to 
make  to  Luther  still  exists  in  the  handwriting  of  Simon 
Bing,  the  Hessian  Secretary,  in  the  Marburg  Archives 
together  with  several  old  copies,2  as  also  the  original  rough 
draft  in  Philip's  own  hand.3  The  envoy  first  betook  him 
self  to  the  meeting  of  the  Schmalkalden  Leaguers,  held  at 
Arnstadt  on  Nov.  20,  to  confer  upon  a  new  mission  to  be 
sent  to  England  ;  on  Dec.  4  he  was  at  Weimar  with  the 
Elector  of  Saxony  and  on  the  9th  he  had  reached  Witten 
berg. 

The  assenting  answer  given  by  Luther  and  Melanchthon 
bears  the  date  of  the  following  day.4  It  is  therefore  quite 
true  that  the  matter  was  settled  "  in  haste,"  as  indeed  the 
text  of  the  reply  states.  Bucer  doubtless  did  his  utmost  to 

1  "  Brief wechsel  Landgraf  Philipps  des  Grossmiitigen  von  Hessen 
mit  Bucer,  hg.  und  erlautert  von  Max  Lenz  "  ("  Publikationen  aus  den 
Kgl.  preuss.  Staatsarchiven,"  Bd.  5,  28  und  47  =  1,  2,  3),  1,  1880,  p.  345. 
Cp.   N.    Paulus,    "  Die   hessische   Doppelehe   im   Urteile   der   protest. 
Zeitgenossen,"  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  147,  1911  (p.  503  ff.,  561  ff.)  p.  504. 

2  We   quote   the   instructions   throughout  from   the   most  reliable 
edition,  viz.  that  in  "  Luthers  Brief  wechsel,"  12  (1910,  p.  301  ff.),  which 
G.  Kawerau  continued  and  published  after  the  death  of  Enders. 

3  "  Philipps  Brief  wechsel,"  ed.  Lenz,  1,  p.  352. 

4  Best  given  in  "  Luthers  Briefwechsel,"  12,  p.  319  ff.    Cp.  "  Luthers 
Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  258  ff. ;   "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  237,  which 
gives  only  the  Latin  version;  "Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  851  sea, ;    "  Hist.-pol. 
BL,"  18,  1846,  p.  236  ff. 


16  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

prevent  the  theologians  from  having  recourse  to  subterfuge 
or  delay. 

The  above-mentioned  instructions  contain  a  sad  account 
of  the  "  dire  necessity  "  which  seemed  to  justify  the  second 
marriage  :  The  Landgrave  would  otherwise  be  unable  to 
lead  a  moral  life  ;  he  was  urged  on  by  deep  distress  of 
conscience  ;  not  merely  did  he  endure  temptations  of  the 
flesh  beyond  all  measure,  but,  so  runs  his  actual  confession, 
he  was  quite  unable  to  refrain  from  "  fornication,  un- 
chastity  and  adultery."1  The  confession  dealt  with  matters 
which  were  notorious.  It  also  contains  the  admission,  that 
he  had  not  remained  true  to  his  wife  for  long,  in  fact  not  for 
more  than  "  three  weeks  "  ;  on  account  of  his  sense  of  sin 
he  had  "  not  been  to  the  Sacrament."  As  a  matter  of  fact 
he  had  abstained  from  Communion  from  1526  to  1539,  viz. 
for  thirteen  years,  and  until  his  last  attack  of  the  venereal 
disease. 

But  were  the  scruples  of  conscience  thus  detailed  to  the 
Wittenbcrgers  at  all  real  ?  Recently  they  have  been 
characterised  as  the  "  outcome  of  a  bodily  wreck." 

"  I  am  unable  to  practise  self-restraint,"  Philip  of  Hesse 
had  declared  on  another  occasion,  "  I  am  forced  to  commit 
fornication  or  worse,  with  women."  His  sister  Elisabeth 
had  already  advised  him  to  take  a  concubine  in  place  of  so 
many  prostitutes.  In  all  probability  Philip  would  have 
abducted  Margaret  von  der  Sale  had  he  not  hoped  to  obtain 
her  in  marriage  through  the  intervention  of  her  relations 
and  with  Luther's  consent.  A  Protestant  historian  has 
recently  pointed  this  out  when  dealing  with  Philip's  alleged 
"  distress  of  conscience."2 

Bucer  was  well  able  to  paint  in  dismal  hues  the  weakness 
of  his  princely  client ;  he  pointed  out,  "  how  the  Landgrave, 
owing  to  his  wife's  deficiencies,  was  unable  to  remain 
chaste  ;  how  he  had  previously  lived  so  and  so,  which  was 
neither  good  nor  Evangelical,  especially  in  one  of  the 
mainstays  of  the  party."3  In  that  very  year  Philip  of 
Hesse  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  ailing  from  a  certain 

1  "  Luthers  Brief  wechsel,"  12,  p.  301. 

2  W.  Kohler,  "  Die  Doppelehe  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  von  Hessen  " 
("  Histor.  Zeitschr.,"  94,  1905,  p.  385  ff.),  p.  399,  400. 

3  Luther's  letter,  June,  1540,  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony  (below,  p.  37) 
ed.  Seidemann  from  a  Kiel  MS.  in  his  edition  of  "  Lauterbachs  Tage- 
buch,"  p.  196  ff. 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  17 

malady  brought  upon  him  by  his  excesses  ;  he  himself  spoke 
of  it  as  a  "  severe  attack  of  the  French  sickness  [syphilis], 
which  is  the  penalty  of  an  immoral  life."1 

True  to  his  instructions,  Bucer  went  on  to  say  that  the  Land 
grave  had  firmly  "  resolved  "  to  make  use  against  his  un- 
chastity — which  he  neither  could  nor  would  refrain  from  with 
his  present  wife — of  "  such  means  as  God  permitted  and  did  not 
forbid,"  viz.  to  wed  a  second  wife.  The  two  Wittenbergers  had 
perforce  to  listen  while  Bucer,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  Land 
grave,  put  forth  as  the  grounds  of  his  client's  firm  resolve  the 
very  proofs  from  Scripture  which  they  themselves  had  adduced 
in  favour  of  polygamy  ;  they  were  informed  that,  according  to 
the  tenor  of  a  memorandum,  "  both  Luther  and  Philip  had 
counselled  the  King  of  England  not  to  divorce  his  first  wife,  but 
rather  to  take  another."2  It  was  accordingly  the  Landgrave's 
desire  that  they  should  "  give  testimony  "  that  his  deed  was  not 
unjust,  and  that  they  should  "  make  known  in  the  press  and 
from  the  pulpit  what  was  the  right  course  to  pursue  in  such 
circumstances  "  ;  should  they  have  scruples  about  doing  this 
for  fear  of  scandal  or  evil  consequences,  they  were  at  least  to 
give  a  declaration  in  writing  :  "  That  were  I  to  do  it  secretly, 
yet  I  should  not  offend  God,  but  that  they  regard  it  as  a  real 
marriage,  and  would  meanwhile  devise  ways  and  means  whereby 
the  matter  might  be  brought  openly  before  the  world";  other 
wise,  the  instructions  proceeded,  the  "  wench  "  whom  the  Prince 
was  about  to  take  to  himself  might  complain  of  being  looked  upon 
as  an  improper  person  ;  as  "  nothing  can  ever  be  kept  secret," 
"  great  scandal  "  would  indeed  arise  were  not  the  true  state  of 
the  case  known.  Besides,  he  fully  intended  to  retain  his  present 
wife  and  to  consider  her  as  a  rightful  spouse,  and  her  children 
alone  were  to  be  the  "  lawful  princes  of  the  land  "  ;  nor  would 
he  ask  for  any  more  wives  beyond  this  second  one.  The  Land 
grave  even  piously  reminds  Luther  and  Melanchthon  "  not  to 
heed  overmuch  the  opinion  of  the  world,  and  human  respect,  but 
to  look  to  God  and  what  He  has  commanded  or  forbidden,  bound 
or  loosened  "  ;  he,  for  his  part,  was  determined  not  to  "  remain 
any  longer  in  the  bonds  of  the  devil." 

Philip  was  careful  also  to  remind  them  that,  if,  after  putting 
into  execution  his  project,  he  was  able  to  "  live  and  die  with  a 
good  conscience,"  he  would  be  "  all  the  more  free  to  fight  for  the 

1  Thus    Philip  to  his  friend,  Duke  Ulrich    of  Wurtemberg,   Oct., 
1540,  when  seeking  to  obtain  his  agreement  to  the  bigamy.     Ulrich, 
however,  advised  him  to  give  up  the  project,  which  would  be  a  great 
blow  to  the  Evangel.     F.  L.  Heyd,  "  Ulrich,  Herzog  von  Wurttem- 
berg,"  3,  p.  226  ff. 

2  Cp.  above,  p.  3  ff.;    also  Enders'  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  12,  p. 
308,  where  it  is  pointed  out  that  in  the  copy  of  the  letter  to  Henry  VIII 
sent  to  Hesse  (ibid.,  9,  p.  81  ff.)  the  passage  in  question  concerning 
bigamy  was  omitted  ;  the  Landgrave  Philip,  however,  learnt  the  con 
tents  of  the  passage,  doubtless  from  Bucer, 

IV.— C 


18  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

Evangelical  cause  as  befitted  a  Christian  "  ;  "  whatever  they 
[Luther  and  Melanchthon]  shall  tell  me  is  right  and  Christian — 
whether  it  refers  to  monastic  property  or  to  other  matters — 
that  they  will  find  me  ready  to  carry  out  at  their  behest."  On 
the  other  hand,  as  an  urgent  motive  for  giving  their  consent  to 
his  plan,  he  broadly  hinted,  that,  "  should  he  not  get  any  help 
from  them  "  he  would,  "  by  means  of  an  intermediary,  seek 
permission  of  the  Emperor,  even  though  it  should  cost  me  a  lot 
of  money  "  ;  the  Emperor  would  in  all  likelihood  do  nothing 
without  a  "  dispensation  from  the  Pope  "  ;  but  in  such  a  matter 
of  conscience  neither  the  Pope  nor  the  Emperor  were  of  any  great 
account,  since  he  was  convinced  that  his  "  design  was  approved 
by  God  "  ;  still,  their  consent  (the  Pope  and  Emperor's)  would 
help  to  overcome  "  human  respect  "  ;  hence,  should  he  be  unable 
to  obtain  "  consolation  from  this  party  [the  Evangelical],"  then 
the  sanction  of  the  other  party  was  "  not  to  be  despised."  Con 
cerning  the  request  he  felt  impelled  to  address  to  the  Emperor,  he 
says,  in  words  which  seem  to  convey  a  threat,  that  although  he 
would  not  for  any  reason  on  earth  prove  untrue  to  the  Evangel, 
or  aid  in  the  onslaught  on  the  Evangelical  cause,  yet,  the 
Imperial  party  might  "  use  and  bind  "  him  to  do  things  "  which 
would  not  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  cause."  Hence,  it  was  in 
their  interest  to  assist  him  in  order  that  he  might  "not  be  forced 
to  seek  help  in  quarters  where  he  had  no  wish  to  look  for  it." 

After  again  stating  that  he  "  took  his  stand  on  the  Word 
of  God "  he  concludes  with  a  request  for  the  desired 
"  Christian,  written  "  testimony,  "  in  order  that  thereby 
I  may  amend  my  life,  go  to  the  Sacrament  with  a  good 
conscience  and  further  all  the  affairs  of  our  religion  with 
greater  freedom  and  contentment.  Given  at  Milsungen  on 
the  Sunday  post  Catharine  anno  etc.  39." 

The  Wittenberg  theologians  now  found  themselves  in  a 
quandary.  Luther  says  :  "  We  were  greatly  taken  aback 
at  such  a  declaration  on  account  of  the  frightful  scandal 
which  would  follow."1  Apart  from  other  considerations, 
the  Landgrave  had  already  been  married  sixteen  years  and 
had  a  number  of  sons  and  daughters  by  his  wife  ;  the 
execution  of  the  project  would  also  necessarily  lead  to 
difficulties  at  the  Courts  of  the  Duke  of  Saxony  and  of  the 
Elector,  and  also,  possibly,  at  that  of  the  Duke  of  Wurtem- 
berg.  They  were  unaware  that  Margaret  von  Sale  had 
already  been  chosen  as  a  second  wife,  that  Philip  had 
secured  the  consent  of  his  wife  Christina,  and  that  the  way 

1  Letter  of  Luther  to  the  Elector  of  Saxony.  See  above,  p.  16,  n. 
3,  and  below,  p.  37  f. 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  19 

for  a  settlement  with  the  bride's  mother  had  already  been 
paved.1 

The  view  taken  by  Rockwell,  viz.  that  the  form  of  the 
memorandum  to  be  signed  by  Luther  and  Melanchthon 
had  already  been  drawn  up  in  Hesse  by  order  of  Philip,  is, 
however,  erroneous  ;  nor  was  the  document  they  signed  a 
copy  of  such  a  draft.2 

It  is  much  more  likely  that  the  lengthy  favourable  reply 
of  the  Wittenbergcrs  was  composed  by  Melanchthon.  It 
was  signed  with  the  formula  :  ' '  Wittenberg,  Wednesday  after 
St.  Nicholas,  1539.  Your  Serene  Highness's  willing  and 
obedient  servants  [and  the  signatures]  Martinus  Luther, 
Philippus  Melanchthon,  Martinus  Bucerus."3  The  docu 
ment  is  now  among  the  Marburg  archives. 

Characteristically  enough  the  idea  that  the  Landgrave  is,  and 
must  remain,  the  protector  of  the  new  religious  system  appears 
at  the  commencement  as  well  as  at  the  close  of  the  document. 
The  signatories  begin  by  congratulating  the  Prince,  that  God 
"  has  again  helped  him  out  of  sickness,"  and  pray  that  heaven 
may  preserve  him,  for  the  "  poor  Church  of  Christ  is  small 
and  forsaken,  and  indeed  stands  in  need  of  pious  lords  and 
governors  "  ;  at  the  end  God  is  again  implored  to  guide  and 
direct  him  ;  above  all,  the  Landgrave  must  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Imperialists. 

The  rest  of  the  document,  apart  from  pious  admonitions, 
consists  of  the  declaration,  that  they  give  their  "  testimony  that, 
in  a  case  of  necessity,"  they  were  "  unable  to  condemn  "  bigamy, 
and  that,  accordingly,  his  "  conscience  may  be  at  rest  "  should 
the  Landgrave  "  utilise  "  the  Divine  dispensation.  In  so  many 
words  they  sanction  the  request  submitted  to  them,  because 
"  what  was  permitted  concerning  matrimony  in  the  Mosaic  Law 
was  not  prohibited  in  the  Gospel."  Concerning  the  circum 
stances  of  the  request  they,  however,  declined  "  to  give  any 
thing  in  print,"  because  otherwise  the  matter  would  be  "  under 
stood  and  accepted  as  a  general  law  and  from  it  [i.e.  a  general 
sanction  of  polygamy]  much  grave  scandal  and  complaint  would 
arise."  The  Landgrave's  wish  that  they  should  speak  of  the  case 
from  the  pulpit,  is  also  passed  over  in  silence.  Nor  did  they 
reply  to  his  invitation  to  them  to  consider  by  what  ways  and 
means  the  matter  might  be  brought  publicly  before  the  world. 

1  Cp.  W.  W.  Rockwell,  "  Die  Doppelehe  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  von 
Hessen,"  Marburg,  1904,  p.  30  ff. 

2  This  error  has  been  confuted  by  Th.  Brieger  on  good  grounds  in 
the  "  Untersuchungen  iiber  Luther  und  die  Nebenehe  des  Landgrafen 
Philipp,"  in  "  Zeitschr.  f.  KG.,"  29,  p.  174  ff.  ;   ibid:,  p.  403  ff.     "  Hist. 
Jahrb.,"  26,  19C5,  p.  405  (N.  Paulus). 

3  Dec.  10,  1539,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  12,  p.  326. 


20  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

On  the  contrary,  they  appear  to  be  intent  on  burying  in  discreet 
silence  a  marriage  so  distasteful  to  them.  It  even  looks  as 
though  they  were  simple  enough  to  think  that  such  concealment 
would  be  possible,  even  in  the  long  run.  What  they  fear  is, 
above  all,  the  consequences  of  its  becoming  common  property. 
In  no  way,  so  they  declare,  was  any  universal  law,  any  "  public 
precedent"  possible,  whereby  a  plurality  of  wives  might  be 
made  lawful ;  according  to  its  original  institution  marriage  had 
signified  "  the  union  of  two  persons  only,  not  of  more  "  ;  but,  in 
view  of  the  examples  of  the  Old  Covenant,  they  "  were  unable 
to  condemn  it,"  if,  in  a  quite  exceptional  case,  "  recourse  were 
had  to  a  dispensation  .  .  .  and  a  man,  with  the  advice  of  his 
pastor,  took  another  wife,  not  with  the  object  of  introducing  a 
law,  but  to  satisfy  his  need." 

As  for  instances  of  such  permission  having  been  given  in  the 
Church,  they  were  able  to  quote  only  two  :  First,  the  purely 
legendary  case  of  Count  Ernest  of  Gleichen — then  still  regarded 
as  historical— who,  during  his  captivity  among  the  Turks  in 
1228,  had  married  his  master's  daughter,  and,  then,  after  his 
escape,  and  after  having  learnt  that  his  wife  was  still  living, 
applied  for  and  obtained  a  Papal  dispensation  for  bigamy  ; 
secondly,  the  alleged  practice  in  cases  of  prolonged  and  incurable 
illness,  such  as  leprosy,  to  permit,  occasionally,  the  man  to  take 
another  wife.  The  latter,  however,  can  only  refer  to  Luther's 
own  practice,  or  to  that  followed  by  the  teachers  of  the  new 
faith.1  In  1526  Luther  had  informed  the  Landgrave  that  this 
was  allowable  in  case  of  "  dire  necessity,"  "  for  instance,  where 
the  wife  was  leprous,  or  had  been  otherwise  rendered  unfit."2 
Acting  upon  this  theory  he  was  soon  to  give  a  decision  in  a 
particular  case  ;3  in  May  or  June,  1540,  he  even  stated  that  he 
had  several  times,  when  one  of  the  parties  had  contracted 
leprosy,  privately  sanctioned  the  bigamy  of  the  healthy  party, 
whether  man  or  woman.4 

They  are  at  great  pains  to  impress  on  the  Landgrave  that  he 
must  "  take  every  possible  care  that  this  matter  be  not  made 
public  in  the  world,"  otherwise  the  dispensation  would  be  taken 
as  a  precedent  by  others,  and  also  would  be  made  to  serve  as  a 
weapon  against  them  and  the  Evangel."  "  Hence,  seeing  how 
great  scandal  would  be  caused,  we  humbly  beg  your  Serene 
Highness  to  take  this  matter  into  serious  consideration." 

They  also  admonish  him  "  to  avoid  fornication  and  adultery  "  ; 
they  had  learnt  with  "  great  sorrow  "  that  the  Landgrave  "  was 
burdened  with  such  evil  lusts,  of  which  the  consequences  to  be 

[ !  Unless  the  reference  bo  to  certain  reputed  consulta  of  Gregory  II 
or  of  Alexander  III.  Cp.  "  P.L.,"  Ixxxix.,  525,  and  Deer.  IV,  15,  iii. 
Note  to  English  Ed.~\ 

2  See  above,  p.  14. 

3  Cp.  Luther's  "  Consideration,"  dated  Aug.  23,   1527,  concerning 
the  husband  of  a  leprous  wife,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  406  ("  Brief 
wechsel,"  6,  p.  80),  where  he  says  :    "  I  can  in  no  wise  prevent  him  or 
forbid  his  taking  another  wedded  wife."    He  here  takes  for  granted  the 
consent  of  the  leprous  party.       4  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  141. 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  21 

feared  were  the  Divine  punishment,  illness  and  other  perils ' ' ; 
such  conduct,  outside  of  matrimony,  was  "  no  small  sin  " — as 
they  proceed  to  prove  from  Scripture  ;  they  rejoiced,  however, 
that  the  Prince  felt  "  pain  and  remorse  "  for  what  he  had  done. 
Although  monogamy  was  in  accordance  with  the  original  institu 
tion  of  marriage,  yet  it  was  their  duty  to  tell  him  that,"  seeing 
that  your  Serene  Highness  has  informed  us  that  you  are  not  able 
to  refrain  from  an  immoral  life,  we  would  rather  that  your  High 
ness  should  be  in  a  better  state  before  God,  and  live  with  a  good 
conscience  for  your  Highness's  own  salvation  and  the  good  of  your 
land  and  people.  And,  as  your  Serene  Highness  has  determined 
to  take  another  wife,  we  consider  that  this  should  be  kept  secret, 
no  less  than  the  dispensation,  viz.  that  your  Serene  Highness  and 
the  lady  in  question,  and  a  few  other  trustworthy  persons,  should 
be  apprised  of  your  Highness's  conscience  and  state  of  mind  in 
the  way  of  confession." 

"  From  this,"  they  continue,  "  no  great  gossip  or  scandal  will 
result,  for  it  is  not  unusual  for  Princes  to  keep  '  concubinas,'  and, 
though  not  everyone  is  aware  of  the  circumstances,  yet  reason 
able  people  will  bear  this  in  mind  and  be  better  pleased  with 
such  a  manner  of  life  than  with  adultery  or  dissolute  and  immoral 
living." 

Yet,  once  again,  they  point  out  that,  were  the  bigamy  to 
become  a  matter  of  public  knowledge,  the  opinion  would  gain 
ground  that  polygamy  was  perfectly  lawful  to  all,  and  that 
everyone  might  follow  the  precedent ;  the  result  would  also  be 
that  the  enemies  of  the  Evangel  would  cry  out  that  the  Evangeli 
cals  were  not  one  whit  better  than  the  Anabaptists,  who  were 
likewise  polygamists  and,  in  fact,  just  the  same  as  the  Turks. 
Further,  the  great  Lords  would  be  the  first  to  give  the  example 
to  private  persons  to  do  likewise.  As  it  was,  the  Hessian  aristoc 
racy  was  bad  enough,  and  many  of  its  members  were  strongly 
opposed  to  the  Evangel  on  earthly  grounds  ;  these  would 
become  still  more  hostile  were  the  bigamy  to  become  publicly 
known.  Lastly,  the  Prince  must  bear  in  mind  the  injury  to  his 
"  good  name  "  which  the  tidings  of  his  act  would  cause  amongst 
foreign  potentates. 

A  paragraph  appended  to  the  memorandum  is,  accord 
ing  to  recent  investigation,  from  Luther's  own  pen  and,  at 
any  rate,  is  quite  in  his  style.1  It  refers  to  Philip's  threat 
to  seek  the  Emperor's  intervention,  a  step  which  would  not 
have  been  at  all  to  the  taste  of  the  Wittenbergers,  for  it  was 
obvious  that  this  would  cripple  Philip's  action  as  Protector 
of  the  Evangelicals.  This  menace  had  plainly  excited  and 
troubled  Luther.  He  declares  in  the  concluding  sentences, 
that  the  Emperor  before  whom  the  Prince  threatened  to 
lay  the  case,  was  a  man  who  looked  upon  adultery  as  a 

1  Cp.  the  remarks  in  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  12,  p.  327  f.,  and 
Brieger,  loc.  cit.,  p.  192. 


22  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

small  sin  ;  there  was  great  reason  to  fear  that  he  shared 
the  faith  of  the  Pope,  Cardinals,  Italians,  Spaniards  and 
Saracens  ;  he  would  pay  no  heed  to  the  Prince's  request 
but  only  use  him  as  a  cat's-paw.  They  had  found  him  out 
to  be  a  false  and  faithless  man,  who  had  forgotten  the  true 
German  spirit.  The  Emperor,  as  the  Landgrave  might  see 
for  himself,  did  not  trouble  himself  about  any  Christian 
concerns,  left  the  Turks  unopposed  and  was  only  interested 
in  fomenting  plots  in  Germany  for  the  increase  of  the 
Burgundian  power.  Hence  it  was  to  be  hoped  that  pious 
German  Princes  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  his  faithless 
practices. 

Such  are  the  contents  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon's 
written  reply.  Bucer,  glad  of  the  success  achieved,  at  once 
proceeded  with  the  memorandum  to  the  Electoral  Court. 

This  theological  document,  the  like  of  which  had  never 
been  seen,  is  unparalleled  in  the  whole  of  Church  history. 
Seldom  indeed  has  exegetical  waywardness  been  made  to 
serve  a  more  momentous  purpose.  The  Elector,  Johann 
Frederick  of  Saxony,  was,  at  a  later  date,  quite  horrified, 
as  he  said,  at  "  a  business  the  like  of  which  had  not  been 
heard  of  for  many  ages."1  Sidonie,  the  youthful  Duchess 
of  Saxony,  complained  subsequently,  that,  "  since  the 
Birth  of  Christ,  no  one  had  done  such  a  thing."2  Bucer's 
fears  had  not  been  groundless  "  of  the  scandal  of  such  an 
innovation  in  a  matter  of  so  great  importance  and  difficulty 
among  the  weak  followers  of  the  Evangel."3 

Besides  this,  the  sanction  of  bigamy  given  in  the  docu 
ment  in  question  is  treated  almost  as  though  it  denoted  the 
commencement  of  a  more  respectable  mode  of  life  incapable 
of  giving  any  "  particular  scandal "  ;  for  amongst  the 
common  people  the  newly  wedded  wife  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  concubine,  and  such  it  was  quite  usual  for  Princes 
to  keep.  Great  stress  is  laid  on  the  fact  that  the  secret 
bigamy  would  prevent  adultery  and  other  immorality. 
Apart,  however,  from  these  circumstances,  the  sanctioning, 
largely  on  the  strength  of  political  considerations,  of  an 

1  Seckendorf,  "  Commentarius  de  Lutheranismo,"  3,  1694,  p.  278. 

2  E.  Brandenburg,  "  Politische  Korrespondenz  des  Herzogs  Moritz 
von  Sachsen,"  2,  1903,  p.  101. 

3  Sailer  to  Philip  of  Hesse,  Nov.  6,  1539,  "  Briefwechsel  Philipps," 
1,  p.  345  ;   above,  p.  15.       Other  similar  statements  by  contemporaries 
are  to  be  found  in  the  article  of  N.  Paulus  (above,  p.  15,  n.  1). 


28 

exception  to  the  universal  New-Testament  prohibition,  is 
painful.  Anyone,  however  desirous  of  finding  extenuating 
circumstances  for  Luther's  decision,  can  scarcely  fail  to 
be  shocked  at  this  fact.  The  only  excuse  that  might  be 
advanced  would  be,  that  Philip,  by  his  determination  to 
take  this  step  and  his  threat  of  becoming  reconciled  to  the 
Emperor,  exercised  pressure  tantamount  to  violence,  and 
that  the  weight  of  years,  his  scorn  for  the  Church's  matri 
monial  legislation  and  his  excessive  regard  for  his  own 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  helped  Luther  to 
signify  his  assent  to  a  plan  so  portentous. 

The  Bigamy  is  Consummated  and  made  Public. 

The  object  of  Bucer's  hasty  departure  for  the  Court  of 
the  Elector  Johann  Frederick  of  Saxony  was  to  dispose  him 
favourably  towards  the  impending  marriage.  In  accord 
ance  with  his  instructions  from  Hesse,  he  was  to  submit 
to  this  Prince  the  same  arguments  which  had  served  him 
with  the  two  Wittenbergers,  for  the  superscription  of  the 
instructions  ran  :  "  What  Dr.  Martin  Bucer  is  to  demand 
of  D.  Martin  Luther  and  Philip  Melanchthon,  and,  should 
he  see  fit,  after  that  also  of  the  Elector."1  In  addition  to 
this  he  had  in  the  meantime  received  special  instructions 
for  this  delicate  mission  to  Weimar.2 

The  Landgrave  looked  upon  an  understanding  with  the 
Elector  as  necessary,  not  merely  on  account  of  his  relation 
ship  with  him  and  out  of  consideration  for  Christina  his 
first  wife,  who  belonged  to  the  House  of  Saxony,  but  also 
on  account  of  the  ccclesiastico-political  alliance  in  which 
they  stood,  which  made  the  Elector's  support  seem  to  him 
quite  as  essential  as  the  sanction  of  the  Wittenberg  theo 
logians. 

Bucer  treated  with  Johann  Frederick  at  Weimar  on  15 
or  16  Dec.  and  reached  some  sort  of  understanding,  as  we 
learn  from  the  Elector's  written  reply  to  the  Landgrave 
bearing  the  latter  date.  Bucer  represents  him  as  saying  : 
If  it  is  impossible  to  remove  the  scandal  caused  by  the 
Landgrave's  life  in  any  other  way,  he  would  ask,  as  a 

1  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  12,  p.  301. 

2  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  356  ff.,  and  Burkhardt,  "  Luthers 
Brief  wechsel,"  p.  388. 


24  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

brother,  that  the  plan  should  not  be  executed  in  any  other 
way  than  "  that  contained  in  our — Dr.  Luther's,  Philip's 
and  my  own — writing  "  ;  upon  this  he  was  unable  to 
improve  ;  he  was  also  ready  to  "  lend  him  fraternal  assist 
ance  in  every  way  "  should  any  complications  arise  from 
this  step.1  In  return,  in  accordance  with  the  special  instruc 
tions  given  to  Buccr,  he  received  from  the  Landgrave 
various  political  concessions  of  great  importance  :  viz. 
support  in  the  matter  of  the  Duke  of  Cleves,  help  in  his 
difficulties  about  Magdeburg,  the  eventual  renunciation 
of  Philip's  title  to  the  inheritance  of  his  father-in-law, 
Duke  George,  and,  finally,  the  promise  to  push  his  claims 
to  the  Imperial  crown  after  the  death  of  Charles  V,  or  in  the 
event  of  the  partitioning  of  the  Empire. 

The  Elector,  like  his  theologians,  was  not  aware  that  the 
"  lady  "  (she  is  never  actually  named)  had  already  been 
chosen.  Margaret  von  der  Sale,  who  was  then  only  seventeen 
years  of  age,  was  the  daughter  of  a  lady-in-waiting  to 
Philip's  sister,  Elisabeth,  Duchess  of  Rochlitz.  Her  mother, 
Anna  von  der  Sale,  an  ambitious  lady  of  the  lower  nobility, 
had  informed  the  Landgrave  that  she  must  stipulate  for 
certain  privileges.  As  soon  as  Philip  had  received  the 
replies  from  Wittenberg  and  Weimar,  on  Dec.  23,  1539,  the 
demands  of  the  mother  were  at  once  settled  by  persons 
vested  with  the  necessary  authority.  Even  before  this,  on 
the  very  day.  of  the  negotiations  with  Luther,  Dec.  11,  the 
Landgrave  and  his  wife  Christina  had  each  drawn  up  a 
formal  deed  concerning  wrhat  was  about  to  take  place  : 
Christina  agreed  to  Philip's  "  taking  another  wedded  wife  " 
and  promised  that  she  would  never  on  that  account  be 
unfriendly  to  the  Landgrave,  his  second  wife,  or  her  children  ; 
Philip  pledged  himself  not  to  countenance  any  claim  to  the 
Landgraviate  on  the  part  of  any  issue  by  the  second  wife 
during  the  lifetime  of  Christina's  two  sons,  but  to  provide 
for  such  issue  by  means  of  territories  situated  outside  his 
own  dominions.2  Such  was  the  assurance  with  which  he 
proceeded  towards  the  cherished  goal. 

Several  Hessian  theologians  of  the  new  faith,  for  instance, 
the  preacher  Dionysius  Melander,  a  personal  friend  of  the 
Landgrave's,  and  Johann  Lening  were  on  his  side.3  To  the 

"  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  308.     Cp.  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  30. 
2  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  31.  3  Ibid.,  p.  37. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  25 

memorandum  composed  by  Luther  and  Melanchthon  the 
signatures  of  both  the  above-mentioned  were  subsequently 
added,  as  well  as  those  of  Anton  Corvinus,  then  pastor  at 
Witzenhausen,  of  Adam  Fuldensis  (Kraft),  then  Superin 
tendent  at  Marburg,  of  Justus  Winther — since  1532  Court 
Schoolmaster  at  Cassel  and,  from  1542,  Superintendent  at 
Rotenburg  on  the  Fulda — and  of  Balthasar  Rhaide  (Raid), 
pastor  at  Hersfeld,  who,  as  Imperial  Notary,  certified  the 
marriage.  The  signature  of  the  last  was,  however,  subse 
quently  erased.1 

About  the  middle  of  Jan.,  1540,  Philip  informed  the  more 
prominent  Councillors  and  theologians  that  he  would  soon 
carry  out  his  project.  When  everything  was  ready  the 
marriage  was  celebrated  on  March  4  in  the  Castle  of  Roten 
burg  on  the  Fulda  by  the  Court  Chaplain,  Dionysius 
Melander,  in  the  presence  of  Bucer  and  Melanchthon  ;  were 
also  present  the  Commandant  of  the  Wartburg,  Eberhard 
von  der  Thann,  representing  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  Pastor 
Balthasar  Rhaide,  the  Hessian  Chancellor  Johann  Feige  of 
Lichtenau,  the  Marshal  Hermann  von  Hundelshausen, 
Rudolf  Schenk  zu  Schweinsberg  (Landvogt  of  Eschwege  on 
the  Werra),  Hermann  von  der  Malsburg,  a  nobleman,  and 
the  mother  of  the  bride,  Anna  von  der  Sale.2  The  draft  of 
the  short  discourse  still  exists  with  which  the  Landgrave 
intended  to  open  the  ceremony.  Melander  delivered  the 
formal  wedding  address.  On  the  following  day  Melanchthon 
handed  the  Landgrave  an  "  admonition,"  i.e.  a  sort  of 
petition,  in  which  he  warmly  recommended  to  his  care  the 
welfare  of  education.  It  is  possible  that  when  summoned, 
to  Rotenburg  from  a  meeting  of  the  Schmalkalden  League 
at  which  he  had  been  assisting,  he  was  unaware  of  the 
object  of  the  invitation.  Subsequent  explanations,  furnished 
at  the  last  moment,  by  Melander  and  Lening,  seem  to  have 
drawn  a  protest  from  Melanchthon  which  roused  the  anger 
of  the  two  preachers.  This  shows  that  "  everything  did 
not  pass  off  smoothly  at  Rotenburg."3  Both  were,  not  long 
after,  stigmatised  by  Melanchthon  as  "  ineruditi  homines  " 
and  made  chiefly  responsible  for  the  lax  principles  of  the 
Landgrave.4  Luther  tried  later  to  represent  Lening,  the 

1  "Luthers  Briefwechsel,"  12,  pp.  326  and  328. 

2  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  43.  3  Ibid.,  p.  41  f. 

4  Melanchthon  to  Camerarius,  Sep.  1,  1540,  first  fully  published  by 
Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  194. 


26  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

"  monster,"  as  the  man  by  whom  the  idea  of  the  bigamy, 
a  source  of  extreme  embarrassment  to  the  Wittenbergers, 
had  first  been  hatched.1 

Although  the  Landgrave  was  careful  to  preserve  secrecy 
concerning  the  new  marriage — already  known  to  so  many 
persons, — permitting  only  the  initiate  to  visit  the  "  lady," 
and  even  forbidding  her  to  attend  Divine  Worship,  still  the 
news  of  what  had  taken  place  soon  leaked  out.  "  Palpable 
signs  appeared  in  the  building  operations  commenced  at 
Weissenstein,  and  also  in  the  despatch  of  a  cask  of  wine  to 
Luther."2  At  Weissenstein,  in  the  former  monastery  near 
Cassel,  now  Wilhelmshohe,  an  imposing  residence  was 
fitted  up  for  Margaret  von  der  Sale.  In  a  letter  of  May  24, 
1540,  to  Philip,  Luther  expresses  his  thanks  for  the  gift  of 
wine  :  "  I  have  received  your  Serene  Highness's  present  of 
the  cask  of  Rhine  wine  and  thank  your  Serene  Highness 
most  humbly.  May  our  dear  Lord  God  keep  and  preserve 
you  body  and  soul.  Amen."3  Katey  also  received  a  gift 
from  the  Prince,  for  which  Luther  returned  thanks  on 
Aug.  22,  though  without  mentioning  its  nature.4  On  the 
cask  of  wine  and  its  destination  the  Schultheiss  of  Lohra 
spoke  "  openly  before  all  the  peasants,"  so  Anton  Corvinus 
informed  the  Landgrave  on  May  25,  saying  that  :  "  Your 
Serene  Highness  has  taken  another  wife,  of  which  he  was 
perfectly  sure,  and  your  Serene  Highness  is  now  sending  a 
cask  of  wine  to  Luther  because  he  gave  your  Serene  High 
ness  permission  to  do  such  a  thing."5 

On  June  9  Jonas  wrote  from  Wittenberg,  where  he  was  staying 
with  Luther — who  himself  was  as  silent  as  the  tornb — to  George 
of  Anhalt  :  Both  in  the  Meissen  district  and  at  Wittenberg  there 
is  "much  gossip"  ( '  ingens  jama  ' )  of  bigamy  with  a  certain  von 
Sale,  though,  probably,  it  was  only  "  question  of  a  concubine."6 

1  To  Justus  Menius,  Jan.  10,  1542,  "  Brief e,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  426. 
To  Chancellor  Briick,  soon  after  Jan.  10,  1542,  ibid.,  4,  p.  296.  Melanch- 
thon  wrote  to  Veit  Dietrich  on  Dec.    11,    1541,  concerning  Lening  : 
"  Monstroso  corpore  et  animo  est." 

2  Thus  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  48  f. 

3  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  362  f.    Rockwell's  statement,  p.  45, 
that  Luther  had  been  offered  200  Gulden  by  the  Landgrave  as  a  present, 
but  had  refused  the  gift,  is,  in  both  instances,  founded  on  a  misunder 
standing.    Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  1905,  p.  405. 

4  Luther  to  the  Landgrave,  Aug.  22,  1540,  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel," 
1,  p.  389. 

6  "Briefwechsel  des  Corvinus,"  (see  p.  14,  n.  2),  p.  79.  Paulus, 
ibid.,  p.  563. 

6  "  Briefwechsel  des  Jonas,"  ed.  G.  Kawerau,  1,  p.  394. 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  27 

Five  days  later,  however,  he  relates,  that  "  at  Wiirzburg  and 
similar  [Catholic]  localities  the  Papists  and  Canons  were  ex 
pressing  huge  delight  "  over  the  bigamy.1 

The  behaviour  of  the  Landgrave's  sister  had  helped  to  spread 
the  news.  On  March  13  the  Landgrave,  through  Marshal  von 
Hundelshausen,  had  informed  the  latter  of  the  fact,  as  he  had 
formally  promised  Margaret's  mother  to  do.  The  "  lady  began 
to  weep,  made  a  great  outcry  and  abused  Luther  and  Bucer  as 
a  pair  of  incarnate  scamps."2  She  was  unable  to  reconcile  her 
self  to  the  bigamy  or  to  refrain  from  complaining  to  others.  "  My 
angry  sister  has  been  unable  to  hold  her  tongue."  wrote  the 
Landgrave  Philip  on  June  8.3  The  Ducal  Court  of  Saxony  at 
Dresden  was  anxious  for  reliable  information.  Duke  Henry  was 
a  patron  of  Lutheranism,  but  one  of  the  motives  for  his  curiosity 
in  this  matter  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  Landgrave  was 
claiming  a  portion  of  the  inheritance  of  the  late  Duke  George,  who 
had  died  on  April  17,  1539.  In  accordance  with  Henry's  orders 
Anna  von  der  Sale,  as  a  subject  of  the  Saxon  duchy,  was  removed 
by  force  on  June  3  from  her  residence  at  Schonfeld  and  carried 
to  Dresden.  There  the  mother  confessed  everything  and 
declared,  not  without  pride,  that  her  daughter  Margaret  "  was 
as  much  the  rightful  wife  of  the  Landgrave  as  Christina."4  About 
Whitsun  the  Landgrave  personally  admitted  the  fact  to  Maurice 
of  Saxony. 

The  Court  of  Dresden  at  once  informed  the  Elector  of  Saxony 
of  its  discovery  and  of  the  very  unfavourable  manner  in  w^hich 
the  news  had  been  received,  and  the  latter,  in  turn,  communi 
cated  it,  through  Chancellor  Briick,  to  Luther  and  Melanchthon. 

The  Elector  Johann  Frederick,  in  view  of  the  change  of  circum 
stances,  became  more  and  more  vexed  with  the  marriage.  To 
a  certain  extent  he  stood  under  the  influence  of  Elisabeth  Duchess 
of  Rochlitz.  In  his  case,  too,  the  question  of  property  played  a 
part,  viz.  whether,  in  view  of  the  understanding  existing  between 
Hesse  and  Saxony  as  to  the  succession,  the  children  of  the  second 
wife  were  to  become  the  heirs  in  the  event  of  the  death  of  the 
children  of  the  first  wife,  this  being  what  the  Landgrave  de 
manded.  Above  all,  however,  the  cautious  Elector  was  anxious 
about  the  attitude  of  the  Empire  and  Emperor.  He  feared  lest 
steps  should  be  taken  against  the  general  scandal  which  had  been 
given  and  to  obviate  the  danger  of  the  spread  of  polygamous 
ideas.  Hence  he  was  not  far  from  withdrawing  from  Luther  the 
favour  he  had  hitherto  shown  him,  the  more  so  now  that  the 
Court  of  Dresden  was  intent  on  raising  trouble  against  all  who 
had  furthered  the  Landgrave's  plan. 

Meanwhile  the  news  rapidly  spread,  partly  owing  to  persons 
belonging  to  the  Court.  It  reached  King  Ferdinand,  and,  by  him, 

1  "  Brief wechsel  des  Jonas,"  ed.  G.  Kawerau,  p.  397. 

2  Account  of  the  Marshal  in  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  335. 

3  To  Anthony  von  Schonberg,  in  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  51,  according  to 
information  taken  from  the  archives. 

4  Rockwell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  53. 


28  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

and  still  more  by  Morone,  the  Nuncio,  it  was  carried  to  the 
Emperor. 

Morone  wrote  on  June  15,  from  the  religious  conference  then 
proceeding  at  Hagenau,  to  Cardinal  Farnese  at  Rome  :  "  During 
the  lifetime  of  his  first  wife,  a  daughter  of  Duke  George  of  Saxony 
of  good  memory,  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse,  has,  as  we  hear,  taken 
a  second  wife,  a  lady  of  distinction,  von  der  Sale  by  name,  a 
native  of  Saxony.  It  is  said,  his  theologians  teach  that  it  is  not 
forbidden  to  Christians  to  have  several  wives,  except  in  the  case 
of  a  Bishop,  because  there  is  no  such  prohibition  in  Holy  Scrip 
ture.  I  can  hardly  credit  it,  but  since  God  has  '  given  them  over 
to  a  reprobate  mind  '  [Rom.  i.  28]  and  as  the  King  has  assured 
me  that  he  has  heard  it  from  several  quarters,  I  give  you  the 
report  for  what  it  is  worth."1 

Philip  of  Hesse,  who  was  already  in  disgrace  with  the 
Emperor  on  account  of  his  expedition  into  Wurtembcrg 
and  his  support  of  Duke  Ulrich,  knew  the  penalties  which 
he  might  expect  unless  he  found  some  means  of  escape. 
The  "  Carolina  "  (1532)  decreed  "  capital  punishment  " 
against  bigamists,  no  less  than  against  adulterers.2  The 
Landgrave  himself  was  even  fully  prepared  to  forfeit  one- 
third  of  his  possessions  should  it  be  impossible  to  arrive 
otherwise  at  a  settlement.3  He  now  openly  declared — as 
he  had  already  hinted  he  would — that,  in  case  of  necessity, 
he  would  make  humble  submission  to  the  Emperor  ;  if  the 
worst  came  to  the  worst,  then  he  would  also  make  public 
the  memorandum  he  had  received  from  Wittenberg  in  order 
to  exculpate  himself — a  threat  which  filled  the  Elector  with 
alarm  on  account  of  his  University  and  of  Luther. 

Bucer,  the  first  to  be  summoned  to  the  aid  of  the  Hessian 
Court,  advised  the  Landgrave  to  escape  from  his  unfortu 
nate  predicament  by  downright  lying.  He  wrote  :  If 
concealment  and  equivocation  should  prove  of  no  avail,  he 
was  to  state  in  writing  that  false  rumours  concerning  his 
person  had  come  into  circulation,  and  that  no  Christian  was 
allowed  to  have  two  wives  at  the  same  time  ;  he  was  also 
to  replace  the  marriage-contract  by  another  contract  in 

1  Rockwell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  60. 

"Carolina,"  ed.  Kohler,  1900,  p.  63.  Cp.  the  Imperial  Law 
"  Neminem  "  in  "  Corp.  iur.  civ.,  Cod.  lusiin.,"  ed.  Krtiger,  1877,  p.  198. 
Bucer  pointed  out  to  the  Landgrave,  that  "  according  to  the  common 
law  of  the  Empire  such  things  were  punished  by  death."  "  Philipps 
Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  177  ;  cp.  pp.  178,  180. 

3  He  declared  on  Jan.  3,  1541  :  "  This  much  and  not  more  the  law 
may  take  from  us." 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  29 

which  Margaret  might  be  described  as  a  concubine — such 
as  God  had  allowed  to  His  beloved  friends — and  not  as  a 
wife  within  the  meaning  of  the  calamitous  Imperial  Law  ; 
an  effort  was  also  to  be  made  to  induce  the  Court  of  Dresden 
to  keep  silence,  or  to  deny  any  knowledge  of  the  business, 
and,  in  the  meantime,  the  "  lady  "  might  be  kept  even 
more  carefully  secluded  than  before.1 

The  Landgrave's  reply  was  violent  in  the  extreme.  He 
indignantly  rejected  Bucer's  suggestion  ;  the  dissimulation 
alleged  to  have  been  practised  by  others,  notably  by  the 
Patriarchs,  Judges,  Kings  and  Prophets,  etc.,  in  no  wise 
proved  the  lawfulness  of  lying  ;  Bucer  had  "  been  instigated 
to  make  such  proposals  by  some  worldly-wise  persons  and 
jurists  whom  we  know  well."2  Philip  wrote  to  the  same 
effect  to  the  Lutheran  theologians,  Schnepf,  Osiander  and 
Brenz,  who  urged  him  to  deny  that  Margaret  was  his  lawful 
wife  :  "  That,  when  once  the  matter  has  become  quite 
public,  we  should  assert  that  it  was  invalid,  this  we  cannot 
bring  ourselves  to  do.  We  cannot  tell  a  lie,  for  to  lie  does 
not  become  any  man.  And,  moreover,  God  has  forbidden 
lying.  So  long  as  it  is  possible  we  shall  certainly  reply 
'  dubitative  '  or  '  per  amphibologiam,'  but  to  say  that  it  is  in 
valid,  such  advice  you  may  give  to  another,  but  not  to  us."3 

The  "  amphibologia  "  had  been  advised  by  the  Hessian 
theologians,  who  had  pointed  out  that  Margaret  could  best 
be  described  to  the  Imperial  Court  of  Justice  as  a  "  concu- 
bina,"  since,  in  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  also 
in  that  of  the  ancient  Church,  this  word  had  sometimes 
been  employed  to  describe  a  lawful  wife.4  They  also  wrote 
to  Luther  and  Melanchthon,  fearing  that  they  might  desert 
the  Landgrave,  telling  them  that  they  were  expected  to 
stand  by  their  memorandum.  Although  they  were  in 
favour  of  secrecy,  yet  they  wished  that,  in  case  of  necessity, 
the  Wittenbergers  should  publicly  admit  their  share.  Good 
care  would  be  taken  to  guard  against  the  general  introduc 
tion  of  polygamy.5 

1  On  July  8,  1540,  ibid.,  p.  178  ff.  Before  this,  on  June  15,  he  had 
exhorted  the  Landgrave  to  hush  up  the  matter  as  far  as  possible  so 
that  the  whole  Church  may  not  be  "  denied  "  by  it.  Ibid.,  p.  174, 
Paulus,  loc.  cit.,  p.  507.  2  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  185  f. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  183.  4  Ibid.,  p.  341. 

5  "  Analecta  Lutherana,"  ed.  Kolde,  p.  353  seq.  Cp.  Rockwell, 
loc.  cit.,  p.  71,  n.  1. 


30  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

Dispensation  ;  Advice  in  Confession  ;   a  Confessor's  Secret  ? 

Was  the  document  signed  by  Luther,  Melanchthon  and 
Bucer  a  dispensation  for  bigamy  ? 

It  has  been  so  described.  But,  even  according  to  the 
very  wording  of  the  memorandum,  the  signatories  had  no 
intention  of  issuing  a  dispensation.  On  the  contrary, 
according  to  the  text,  they,  as  learned  theologians,  declared 
that  the  Divine  Law,  as  they  understood  it,  gave  a  general 
sanction,  according  to  which,  in  cases  such  as  that  of  Philip 
of  Hesse,  polygamy  was  allowed.  It  is  true  that  they  and 
Philip  himself  repeatedly  use  the  word  "  dispensation," 
but  by  this  they  meant  to  describe  the  alleged  general 
sanction  in  accordance  with  which  the  law  admitted  of 
exceptions  in  certain  cases,  hence  their  preference  for  the 
term  "  to  use  "  the  dispensation,  instead  of  the  more  usual 
"  to  beg  "  or  "  to  grant."  Philip  is  firmly  resolved  "  to 
use  "  the  dispensation  brought  to  his  knowledge  by  Luther's 
writings,  and  the  theologians,  taking  their  cue  from  him, 
likewise  speak  of  his  "  using  "  it  in  his  own  case.1 

It  was  the  same  with  the  "  dispensation  "  which  the 
Wittenbergers  proposed  to  Henry  VIII  of  England.  (See 
above,  p.  4  f.)  They  had  no  wish  to  invest  him  with  an 
authority  which,  according  to  their  ideas,  he  did  not  possess, 
but  they  simply  drew  his  attention  to  the  freedom  common 
to  all,  and  declared  by  them  to  be  bestowed  by  God,  viz. 
in  his  case,  of  taking  a  second  wife,  telling  him  that  he  was 
free  to  have  recourse  to  this  dispensation.  In  other  words, 
they  gave  him  the  power  to  dispense  himself,  regardless  of 
ecclesiastical  laws  and  authorities. 

Another  question  :  How  far  was  the  substance  of  the 
advice  given  in  the  Hessian  case  to  be  regarded  as  a  secret  ? 
Can  it  really  be  spoken  of  as  a  "  counsel  given  in  confession," 
or  as  a  "  secret  of  the  confessional  "  ? 

This  question  later  became  of  importance  in  the  negotia 
tions  which  turned  upon  the  memorandum.  In  order  to 
answer  it  without  prejudice  it  is  essential  in  the  first  place 
to  point  out,  that  the  subsequent  interpretations  and 
evasions  must  not  here  be  taken  into  account.  The  actual 

1  E.  Friedberg  remarks  in  the  "  Deutsche  Zeitschr.  f.  KR.,"  36, 
1904,  p.  441,  that  the  Wittenbergers  "  did  not  even  possess  any  power 
of  dispensing." 


THE  HESSIAN  BIGAMY  31 

wording  of  the  document  and  its  attendant  historical 
circumstances  have  alone  to  be  taken  into  consideration, 
abstraction  being  made  of  the  fine  distinctions  and  meanings 
afterwards  read  into  it. 

First,  there  is  110  doubt  that  both  the  Landgrave's 
request  for  the  Wittenberg  testimony  and  its  granting  were 
intended  to  be  confidential  and  not  public.  Philip  naturally 
assumed  that  the  most  punctilious  secrecy  would  be  pre 
served  so  long  as  no  decision  had  been  arrived  at,  seeing 
that  he  had  made  confidential  disclosures  concerning  his 
immorality  in  pleading  for  a  second  marriage.  The 
Wittenbergers,  as  they  explicitly  state,  gave  their  reply 
not  merely  unwillingly,  with  repugnance  and  with  great 
apprehension  of  the  scandal  which  might  ensue,  but  also 
most  urgently  recommended  Philip  to  keep  the  bigamy  to 
himself.  Both  the  request  and  the  theological  testimony 
accordingly  came  under  the  natural  obligation  of  silence, 
i.e.  under  the  so-called  confidential  seal  of  secrecy.  This, 
however,  was  of  course  broken  when  the  suppliant  on  his 
part  allowed  the  matter  to  become  public  ;  in  such  a  case 
no  one  could  grudge  the  theologians  the  natural  right  of 
bringing  forward  everything  that  was  required  for  their 
justification,  even  to  the  reasons  which  had  determined 
them  to  give  their  consent,  though  of  course  they  were 
in  honour  bound  to  show  the  utmost  consideration  ;  for 
this  the  petitioner  himself  was  alone  to  blame. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  strange  though  it  may 
seem,  Philip's  intention  all  along  had  been  ultimately  to 
make  the  marriage  public.  It  cannot  be  proved  that  he 
ever  made  any  written  promise  to  observe  the  recommenda 
tion  of  absolute  secrecy  made  by  the  theologians.  Those 
who  drew  up  the  memorandum  disregarded  his  wish  for 
publicity,  and,  on  the  contrary,  u  advised  "  that  the  matter 
should  be  kept  a  dead  secret.  Yet  ought  they  not  to  have 
foreseen  that  a  Prince  so  notoriously  unscrupulous  would 
be  likely  to  disregard  their  "  advice  "  ?  The  theologians 
were  certainly  no  men  of  the  world  if  they  really  believed 
that  the  Landgrave's  bigamy — and  their  memorandum  by 
which  it  was  justified— would  or  could  remain  concealed. 
They  themselves  had  allowed  a  number  of  other  parties  to 
be  initiated  into  the  secret,  nor  was  it  difficult  to  foresee  that 
Philip,  and  Margaret's  ambitious  mother,  would  not  allow 


32  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

the  stigma  of  concubinage  to  rest  permanently  on  the  newly 
wedded  bride.  The  mother  had  expressly  stipulated  that 
Margaret  should  be  treated  as  a  lawful  wife  and  given  this 
title,  and  not  as  a  concubine,  though  of  this  the  Witten- 
bergers  were  not  aware. 

Further,  the  theological  grounds  for  the  Wittenberg 
"  advice  "  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  considering  the 
question  of  the  obligation  of  silence  or  secrecy.  The  theo 
logians  based  their  decision  on  a  doctrine  which  they  had 
already  openly  proclaimed.  Nor  did  Luther  ever  withdraw 
from  the  standpoint  that  polygamy  was  lawful ;  he  even 
proclaimed  it  during  the  height  of  the  controversy  raised 
by  the  Hessian  bigamy,  though  he  was  careful  to  restrict  it 
to  very  rare  and  exceptional  cases  and  to  make  its  use 
dependent  on  the  consent  of  the  authorities.  Thus  the 
grounds  for  the  step  he  had  taken  in  Philip's  favour  were 
universally  and  publicly  known  just  as  much  as  his  other 
theological  doctrines.  If,  however,  his  teaching  on  this 
matter  was  true,  then,  strictly  speaking,  people  had  as  much 
right  to  it  as  to  every  other  piece  of  truth ;  in  fact,  it  was  the 
more  urgent  that  this  Evangelical  discovery  should  not 
be  put  under  a  bushel,  seeing  that  it  would  have  been  a 
veritable  godsend  to  many  who  groaned  in  the  bonds  of 
matrimony.  Hence  everything,  both  on  Philip's  side  and 
on  that  of  the  theologians,  pointed  to  publicity.  But 
may,  perhaps,  the  Wittenberg  "  advice "  have  been 
esteemed  a  sort  of  "counsel  given  in  Confession,"  and  did 
its  contents  accordingly  fall  under  the  "  secret  of  Con 
fession  "  ? 

The  word  "  Confession,"  in  its  sacramental  meaning,  was 
never  used  in  connection  with  the  affair  dealt  with  at 
Wittenberg,  either  in  Philip's  instructions  to  Bucer  or  in  the 
theologians'  memorandum,  nor  does  it  occur  in  any  of  the 
few  documents  relating  to  the  bigamy  until  about  six 
months  later.  "  Confession  "  is  first  alleged  in  the  letter 
of  excuse  given  below  which  Luther  addressed  to  the 
Elector  of  Saxony.  It  is  true  that  the  expression  "  in  the 
way  of  Confession  "  occurs  once  in  the  memorandum,  but 
there  it  is  used  in  an  entirely  different  sense  and  in  no  way 
stamps  the  business  as  a  matter  of  Confession.  There  it  is 
stated  (above,  p.  21),  that  those  who  were  to  be  apprised 
of  the  bigamy  were  to  learn  it  "in  the  way  of  Confession." 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  33 

Here  the  word  Confession  is  employed  by  metonymy  and 
merely  emphasises  the  need  of  discretion.  Here  there  was 
naturally  no  idea  of  the  sacramental  seal,  or  of  the  making  of 
a  real  Confession.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  term  Confession 
was  not  seldom  used  to  denote  the  imparting  of  an  ordinary 
confidential  secret,  just  as  the  word  to  confess  originally 
meant  to  admit,  to  acknowledge,  or  to  communicate  some 
thing  secret.  This,  however,  was  not  the  meaning  attached 
to  it  by  those  who  sought  to  shelter  themselves  behind  the 
term  in  the  controversies  which  ensued  after  the  bigamy 
had  become  generally  known.  To  vindicate  the  keeping 
secret  of  his  so-called  "  advice  in  Confession,"  Luther  falls 
back  upon  his  Catholic  recollections  of  the  entire  secrecy 
required  of  the  Confessor,  in  other  words,  on  the  sacra 
mental  "  seal." 

Undoubtedly  the  Seal  of  Confession  is  inexorable  ;  ac 
cording  to  the  Catholic  view  it  possesses  a  sacramental 
sanction  and  surrounds,  like  a  protecting  rampart,  the 
sanctuary  of  the  Sacrament  of  Penance,  which  otherwise 
would  be  shunned  by  all.  But  this  absolute  and  sacramental 
obligation  of  silence  attends  only  the  administration  of  the 
Sacrament  of  Penance. 

The  idea  that  Luther  and  his  comrades  when  signing  the 
"  advice "  were  dispensing  the  Sacrament  of  Penance 
cannot  but  raise  a  smile.  In  connection  with  this  matter 
non-Catholic  theologians  and  historians  would  never  have 
spoken  as  they  have  done  of  Luther  as  a  Confessor,  had 
they  been  better  acquainted  with  the  usages  of  the  older 
Church.  In  the  case  of  such  writers  all  that  is  known  of  the 
system  of  Confession  is  often  a  few  distorted  quotations  from 
casuists.  Even  under  its  altered  form,  as  then  in  use  among 
the  Protestants,  Confession  could  only  mean  an  admission 
of  one's  sins,  made  to  obtain  absolution.  In  Lutheranism, 
confession,  so  far  as  it  was  retained  at  all,  meant  the  awaken 
ing  and  animating  of  faith  by  means  of  some  sort  of  self- 
accusation  completed  by  the  assurance  given  by  the  preacher 
of  the  Divine  promise  and  forgiveness,  a  process  which  bears 
no  analogy  to  the  "  testimony  "  given  by  the  theologians 
to  Philip  of  Hesse.  In  the  Catholic  Church,  moreover,  in 
whose  practice  Luther  seems  anxious  to  take  refuge,  Con 
fession  involves  an  accusation  of  all  grievous  sins,  contrition, 
a  firm  resolve  to  amend,  satisfaction  and  absolution.  What 

IV.— D 


34  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

was  there  of  all  this  in  the  Landgrave's  so-called  Con 
fession  ?x  Where  was  the  authority  to  absolve,  even  had 
this  been  what  the  Landgrave  sought  ?  How  then  could 
there  come  into  play  the  Seal  of  Confession,  i.e.  any  sacra 
mental  obligation  apart  from  the  purely  natural  obligation 
of  keeping  silence  concerning  a  communication  made  in 
confidence  ?  Again,  Confession,  even  according  to  Lutheran 
ideas,  is  not  made  at  a  distance,  or  to  several  persons 
simultaneously,  or  with  the  object  of  securing  a  signed 
document. 

Apart  from  all  this  one  may  even  question  whether  the 
Landgrave's  disclosures  were  really  honestly  meant.  Not 
everyone  would  have  taken  them  from  the  outset  as  in 
tended  seriously,  or  have  regarded  them  as  above  suspicion. 
Melanchthon,  for  instance,  soon  began  to  have  doubts.  (See 
below.)  The  readiness,  nay,  eagerness,  shown  by  Philip 
later  to  repeat  his  Confession  to  others,  to  reinforce  it  by 
even  more  appalling  admissions  of  wickedness,  and  to  give 
it  the  fullest  publicity,  is  really  not  favourable  to  the  "  Con 
fession  "  idea  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  reminds  us  of  the  morbid 
pleasure  which  persons  habituated  to  vice  and  who  have 
lost  all  respect  whether  for  themselves  or  for  the  virtue  of 
others,  take  in  speaking  openly  of  their  moral  lapses. 
The  most  important  point  to  bear  in  mind  is,  however,  the 
fact,  that  with  Philip  of  Hesse  it  was  a  question  of  a  marriage 
which  he  intended  should  be  kept  secret  only  for  a  time, 
and  further  that  the  Wittenbergers  were  aware  of  Philip's 
readiness  to  lay  his  case  before  the  Emperor,  nay,  even  the 
Pope  should  necessity  arise.2  Owing  to  this  they  could  not 
be  blind  to  the  possibility  of  the  marriage,  and,  incidentally, 
of  the  Landgrave's  admission  of  moral  necessity,  and  further 
of  their  own  "  advice "  being  all  disclosed.  Thus  the 
"  Seal  of  Confession "  was  threatened  from  the  very 
first.  Philip  himself  never  recognised  a  binding  obliga 
tion  of  secrecy  on  the  part  of  the  Wittenbergers  ;  on  the 
contrary,  his  invitation  to  them  was  :  Speak  out  freely, 
now  that  the  step  has  been  taken  with  your  sanction  ! 
What  was  Luther's  answer  ?  He  appealed  to  the  Secret 
of  the  Confessional  and  refused  to  defend  the  act  before 

1  Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Das  Beichtgeheimnis  und  die  Doppelehe  Philipps 
usw.,"  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  135,  1905,  p.  317  ff. 

2  Cp.  Rockwell,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  154,  156. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  35 

the  world  and  the  Empire,  but  merely  "  before  God  "  ;  all 
he  was  willing  to  do  was  to  vindicate  it  "  before  God,  by 
examples  such  as  that  of  Abraham,  etc.,  and  to  conceal  it  as 
much  as  possible."  And  yet,  to  forestall  what  will  be 
related  below,  full  publicity  would  surely  have  been  the 
best  thing  for  himself,  as  then  the  world  would  at  least  have 
learnt  that  he  was  not  desirous  of  introducing  polygamy 
generally,  and  that  the  whole  business  had  only  been  made 
common  property  through  Philip's  disregard  of  the  recom 
mendation  of  secrecy.  Instead  of  this,  however,  he  pre 
ferred  to  profess  his  readiness  (it  was  probably  no  more 
than  a  threat)  to  admit  publicly  that  he  had  been  in  the 
wrong  all  along  and  had  acted  foolishly  ;  here  again,  had 
he  been  true  to  his  word,  the  "  Secret  of  the  Confessional  " 
would  assuredly  have  fared  badly. 

Even  in  his  letter  of  excuse  to  the  Elector  Johann 
Frederick  concerning  his  sanction  of  the  bigamy,  Luther 
explained  so  much  of  the  incident,  that  the  "  Seal  of  Con 
fession  "  was  practically  violated  ;  quite  unmindful  of  the 
inviolability  of  the  Seal  he  here  declared,  that  he  wrould 
have  preferred  to  say  nothing  of  the  "  counsel  given  in 
Confession  had  not  necessity"  forced  him  to  do  so.  But 
what  kind  of  Seal  of  Confession  wras  this,  we  may  ask,  which 
could  thus  be  set  aside  in  case  of  necessity  ? 

Melanchthon  acted  differently.  He,  without  any  neces 
sity,  at  once  recounted  everything  that  had  happened  to  a 
friend  in  a  letter  eloquent  with  grief.  He,  the  author  of 
the  "  Counsel  of  Confession,"  felt  under  no  obligation  to 
regard  the  Seal.  He  considers  himself  liberated,  by  Philip's 
behaviour,  from  the  obligation  even  of  confidential  secrecy.1 
Bucer  expressed  himself  on  Aug.  8,  1540,  in  a  similar 
fashion  concerning  the  counsel  given  to  the  Landgrave 
"  in  Confession  "  :  Luther  wrould  certainly  publish  and 
defend  it,  should  the  "  marriage  have  to  be  admitted  " 
through  no  fault  of  the  Landgrave's.2  No  one,  in  fact, 
displayed  the  slightest  scruple  regarding  the  secrecy  of  the 
Confession — except  Luther  and  those  who  re-echo  his 
sentiments. 

1  Yet  in  a  later  missive  to  Philip  of  Hesse  (Sep.  17,  1540)  he  too 
speaks  of  the  "  counsel  given  in  Confession  in  case  of  necessity."    Here, 
however,  he  bases  his  injunction  of  silence  on  other  considerations. 

2  "  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  208. 


36  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

According  to  the  above  we  are  justified  in  saying  that  the 
term  "  Counsel  given  in  Confession  "  is  in  no  wise  de 
scriptive  of  the  Wittenberg  document.  The  word  "  testi 
mony,"  or  "  certificate,"  used  both  in  Philip's  instructions 
and  in  an  important  passage  of  the  document  signed  by 
Luther,  Mclanchthon  and  Buccr,  is  historically  more  correct ; 
the  terms  "  opinion "  or  "  memorandum "  are  equally 
applicable. 

The  Wittenbergers  gave  their  testimony  or  opinion — such 
is  the  upshot  of  the  matter— but  no  Dispensation  or  Counsel 
in  Confession  in  the  sense  just  determined.  They  gave  a 
testimony,  which  was  asked  for  that  it  might  be  made 
public,  but  which  was  given  in  confidence,  which  was  more 
over  based  on  their  openly  expressed  teaching,  though  it 
actually  dealt  only  with  Philip's  own  case,  a  testimony 
which  no  longer  involved  them  in  any  obligation  of  secrecy 
once  the  marriage  had  been  made  public  by  Philip,  and  once 
the  latter  had  declared  his  intention  of  making  the  testi 
mony  public  should  circumstances  demand  it. 

Luther's  Embarrassment  on  the  Bigamy  becoming  Public. 

At  the  commencement  of  June,  1540,  Luther  was  in  great 
distress  on  account  of  the  Hessian  bigamy.  His  embarrass 
ment  and  excitement  increased  as  the  tidings  flew  far  and 
wide,  particularly  when  the  Court  of  Dresden  and  his  own 
Elector  began  to  take  fright  at  the  scandal,  and  the  danger 
of  complications  arising  with  the  Emperor.  On  the  other 
hand,  Luther  was  not  unaware  of  the  Landgrave's  doubts  as 
to  whether  he  would  stand  by  his  written  declaration.  Jonas 
wrote  from  Wittenberg  on  June  10  to  George  of  Anhalt  : 
"  Philip  is  much  upset  and  Dr.  Martin  full  of  thought."1 

On  that  very  day  Bruck,  the  Electoral  Chancellor,  dis 
cussed  the  matter  with  both  of  them  at  Wittenberg.  He 
acquainted  them  with  his  sovereign's  fears.  They  had  gone 
too  far,  and  the  publication  of  the  affair  had  had  the  most 
disastrous  results  ;  a  young  Princess  and  Landgravine  had 
appeared  on  the  scene,  which  was  not  at  all  what  the  Elector 
had  expected  ;  the  Court  of  Dresden  was  loud  in  its  com 
plaints  and  spared  not  even  the  Elector  ;  the  Dresden 

1  "  Briefwechsel  des  Jonas,"  1,  p.  394. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  37 

people  were  bringing  forward  against  Luther  what  he  had 
taught  in  favour  of  polygamy  thirteen  years  before  ;  the 
door  had  now  been  opened  wide  to  polygamists. 

Not  long  after  Luther  wrote,  that,  were  it  necessary,  he 
would  know  how  to  "  extricate  himself."1  Even  before 
dropping  this  curious  remark  he  had  shown  himself  very 
anxious  to  make  his  position  secure.  It  was  wTith  this  object 
in  view,  that,  after  his  interview  with  Briick,  probably  on 
the  same  day,  he  proceeded  to  explain  the  case  to  his 
sovereign  in  the  lengthy  letter2  in  which  he  appeals  to 
Confession  and  its  secrecy. 

"  Before  the  world  and  against  the  laws  of  the  Empire 
it  cannot  be  defended,"  but  "  we  were  desirous  of  glossing 
it  over  before  God  as  much  as  possible  with  examples,  such 
as  that  of  Abraham,  etc.  All  this  was  done  and  treated  of 
as  in  Confession,  so  that  we  cannot  be  charged  as  though 
we  had  done  it  willingly  and  gladly,  or  with  joy  and  pleasure. 
...  I  took  into  consideration  the  unavoidable  necessity 
and  weakness,  and  the  danger  to  his  conscience  which 
Master  Bucer  had  set  forth." 

Luther  goes  on  to  complain,  that  the  Landgrave,  by  allowing 
this  "  matter  of  Confession  "  and  "  advice  given  in  Confession  " 
to  become  to  a  certain  extent  public,  had  caused  all  this  "  annoy 
ance  and  contumely."  He  relates  in  detail  what  Bucer,  when 
seeking  to  obtain  the  Wittenberg  sanction,  had  recounted  con 
cerning  his  master's  immorality,  so  contrary  to  the  Evangel, 
"  though  he  should  be  one  of  the  mainstays  of  the  party."  They 
had  at  first  looked  askance  at  the  idea,  but,  on  being  told  that 
"  he  was  unable  to  relinquish  it,  and,  should  we  not  permit  it, 
would  do  it  in  spite  of  us,  and  obtain  permission  from  the 
Emperor  or  the  Pope  unless  we  were  beforehand,  we  humbly 
begged  His  Serene  Highness,  if  he  was  really  set  on  it,  and,  as  he 
declared,  could  not  in  conscience  and  before  God  do  otherwise, 
that  he  would  at  least  keep  it  secret."  This  had  been  promised 
them  [by  Bucer]  ;  their  intention  had  been  to  "  save  his  con 
science  as  best  we  might." 

Luther,  far  from  showing  himself  remorseful  for  his  indulgence, 
endeavoars  in  his  usual  way  to  suppress  any  scruples  of  con 
science  :  "  Even  to-day,  were  such  a  case  to  come  before  me 
again,  I  should  not  know  how  to  give  any  other  advice  than 
what  I  then  gave,  nor  would  it  trouble  me  should  it  afterwards 
become  known."  "  I  am  not  ashamed  of  the  testimony  even 

1  "  Briefwechsel,"  13,  p.  79. 

2  Ed.  by  Seidemann,  "  Lauterbachs  Tagebuch,"  p.  196  ff.,  with  the 
notice,  "  Written  in  April  or  June,   1540."      Rockwell  gives  the  date 
more  correctly,  as,  probably,  June  10  (pp.  138,  364). 


38  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

should  it  come  before  the  world,  though,  to  be  spared  trouble,  I 
should  prefer  it  to  be  kept  secret  so  long  as  possible."  Still,  no 
angel  would  have  induced  him  to  give  such  advice  "  had  he 
known  that  the  Landgrave  had  long  satisfied  and  could  still 
satisfy  his  cravings  on  others,  for  instance,  as  I  now  learn,  on 
lady  von  Essweg."  This  lady  was  perhaps  a  relative  of  Rudolf 
Schenk,  Landvogt  of  Eschwege  on  the  Werra.1  We  may  recall, 
that  the  proposal  of  taking  a  "  concubine  "  in  place  of  the  too 
numerous  "  light  women  "  had  been  made  to  Philip  by  his 
sister. 2 

Luther  goes  on  to  excuse  his  conduct  still  further  to  the 
Elector  :  "  Still  less  would  I  have  advised  a  public  marriage  "  ; 
that  the  second  wife  was  to  become  a  Princess  or  Landgravine — 
a  plan  at  which  the  whole  Empire  would  take  offence — had  been 
kept  from  him  altogether  ;  "  what  I  expected  was,  that,  since 
he  was  obliged  owing  to  the  weakness  of  the  flesh  to  follow  the 
ordinary  course  of  sin  and  shame,  he  would  perhaps  keep  an 
honest  girl  in  some  house,  and  wed  her  secretly — though  even 
this  would  look  ill  in  the  sight  of  the  world — and  thus  overcome 
his  great  trouble  of  conscience  ;  he  could  then  ride  backwards 
and  forwards,  as  the  great  lords  do  frequently  enough  ;  similar 
advice  I  gave  also  to  certain  parish  priests  under  Duke  George 
and  the  bishops,  viz.  that  they  should  marry  their  cook  secretly." 

Though  what  he  here  says  may  be  worthy  of  credence,  yet  to 
apply  the  term  Confession  to  what  passed  between  Philip  and 
Wittenberg  is  surely  to  introduce  an  alien  element  into  the 
affair.  Yet  he  does  use  the  word  three  times  in  the  course  of  the 
letter  and  seemingly  lays  great  stress  on  it.  The  Confession,  he 
says,  covered  all  that  had  passed,  and,  because  it  "  was  seemly  " 
to  "  keep  matters  treated  of  in  Confession  private  "  he  and 
Melanchthon  "  preferred  not  to  relate  the  matter  and  the  counsel 

1  Cp.  "  Brief wechsel,"  13,  p.  82,  n.  4,  the  remark  of    G.  Kawerau. 
"  The  regret  felt  by  Luther  was  caused  by  the  knowledge  that  the 
Landgrave  had  already  a  '  concubine  of  his  own  '    and  had  not  been 
satisfying  his  lusts  merely  on  '  common  prostitutes  '  ;     had  he  known 
this  at  the  time  he  gave  his  advice  he  would  certainly  have  counselled 
the  Landgrave  to  contract  a  sort  of  spiritual  marriage  with  this  concu 
bine."      Kostlin  had  seen  a  difficulty  in  Luther's  later  statement,  that 
he  would  not    have  given  his  counsel  (the  advice  tendered  did  not 
specify  the  lady)  had  he  known  that  the  Landgrave  had  "  long  satisfied, 
and  could  still  satisfy,  his  craving  on  others,"  etc.     That  there  is  really 
a  difficulty  involved,  at  least  in  Luther's  use  of   the  plural  "  others," 
seems  clear  unless,  indeed,  Kawerau  would  make  Luther  counsel   the 
Landgrave  to  contract   "  spiritual  marriage  "  with  all  these    several 
ladies.    ;  Elsewhere  Luther  describes  as  a  "  harlot  "  a  certain  Catharine 
whom  Kawerau  (ibid.)  surmises  to  have  been  this  same  Essweg.      By 
her  Philip  had  a  daughter  named  Ursula  whom,  in    1556,  he  gave  in 
marriage  to  Glaus  Ferber. 

2  "  Philipps  Brief  wechsel,"  1,  p.   160.      The  Landgrave  to  Bucer. 
He  was  to  tell  his  sister  "  that  she  must  surely  recollect   having  told 
him  that  he  should  keep  a  concubine  instead  of   having  recourse  to 
numerous  prostitutes  ;    if  she  was  willing  to  allow  what  was  contrary 
to  God's  law,  why  not  allow  this,  which  is  a  dispensation  of  God  ?  " 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  39 

given  in  Confession  "  to  the  Elector  ;  but,  since  the  Landgrave 
"  had  revealed  the  substance  of  the  Confession  and  the  advice," 
it  was  easier  for  him  to  speak.  Hence  he  would  now  reveal  the 
"  advice  given  in  Confession  ;  though  I  should  much  have  pre 
ferred  to  keep  it  secret,  unless -necessity  had  forced  it  from  me, 
now  I  am  unable  to  do  so."  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  real 
Seal  of  Confession  (and  of  this  Luther  was  quite  aware)  does  not 
allow  the  confessor  who  has  received  the  Confession  to  make  any 
communication  or  disclosure  concerning  it  ;  even  should  the 
penitent  make  statements  concerning  other  matters  which 
occurred  in  the  Confession,  under  no  circumstances  whatsoever, 
however  serious  these  may  be,  not  even  in  the  case  of  danger  to 
life  and  limb,  may  "  necessity  "  "  force  out  "  anything.  Although 
in  this  case  Luther  had  not  heard  a  Confession  at  all,  yet  he 
refers  to  the  Secret  of  the  Confessional  with  which  he  was  ac 
quainted  from  his  Catholic  days,  and  his  own  former  exercise  of 
it  :  "I  have  received  in  Confession  many  confidences,  both  in 
Popery  and  since,  and  given  advice,  but  were  there  any  question 
of  making  them  public  I  should  be  obliged  to  say  no.  .  .  .  Such 
matters  are  no  business  of  the  secular  courts  nor  ought  they  to  be 
made  public." 

This  uncalled-for  introduction  of  Confession  was  intended 
to  save  him  from  being  obliged  to  admit  his  consent 
publicly  ;  it  was  meant  to  reassure  so  weak  a  theologian  as 
the  Elector,  who  dreaded  the  scandal  arising  from  Luther's 
advice  to  commit  bigamy,  and  the  discussion  of  the  case 
before  the  Imperial  Court  of  Justice  ;  possibly  he  also 
hoped  it  would  serve  against  that  other  princely  theologian, 
viz.  the  Landgrave,  and  cause  him  to  withdraw  his  demand 
for  a  public  acknowledgment  of  the  sanction  given.  His 
tactics  here  remind  us  of  Luther's  later  denial,  when  he 
professed  himself  ready  simply  to  deny  the  bigamy  and 
his  share  in  it — because  everything  had  been  merely  a 
matter  of  Confession. 

Even  in  this  first  letter  dealing  with  the  question,  he  is 
clearly  on  the  look-out  for  a  loophole  by  which  he  may 
escape  from  the  calamitous  business. 

The  publication  of  the  "  testimony  "  was  to  be  prevented 
at  all  costs.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not  only  did  the 
"  Seal  of  Confession  "  present  no  obstacle,  but  even  the 
common  secrecy  referred  to  above  (p.  31)  wras  no  longer 
binding.  This  had  been  cancelled  by  the  indiscretion  of  the 
Landgrave.  Moreover,  apart  from  this,  the  natural  obliga 
tion  of  secrecy  did  not  extend  to  certain  extreme  cases 
which  might  have  been  foreseen  by  both  parties  and  in  the 


40  LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

event  of  which  both  would  recover  their  freedom.  It  should 
be  noted,  that  Luther  hardly  made  any  appeal  to  this 
natural  obligation  of  secrecy,  probably  because  it  could  not 
be  turned  to  account  so  easily.  The  Seal  of  Confession 
promised  to  serve  him  better  in  circles  so  little  acquainted 
with  theology. 

In  the  second  letter  dealing  with  the  bigamy,  dated 
June  27,  1540,  and  addressed  to  Philip's  intimate,  Ebcrhard 
von  der  Thann,  Luther  speaks  with  an  eye  on  Hesse.1 
Thann,  through  Chancellor  Briick,  had  informed  him  of 
what  wTas  being  said  of  him  there,  and  had  asked  what 
Luther  would  advise  the  Hessian  Prince,  and  whether,  in 
order  to  obviate  other  cases  of  polygamy  in  Hesse,  it  would 
be  advisable  for  the  authorities  to  issue  an  edict  against  the 
universal  lawfulness  of  having  several  wives.  Luther 
replied,  that  he  agreed  with  the  Landgrave's  intention  as 
announced  by  Thann  concerning  his  second  marriage,  viz. 
to  wait  until  the  Emperor  "  should  approach  His  Serene 
Highness  on  the  subject "  ;  and  then  to  write  to  the 
Emperor  :  "  That  he  had  taken  a  concubine  but  that  he 
would  be  perfectly  ready  to  put  her  away  again  if  other 
Princes  and  Lords  would  set  a  good  example."  If  the 
Emperor  were  compelled  "  to  regard  the  '  lady '  as  a 
concubine,"  "  no  one  else  would  dare  to  speak  or  think 
differently  "  ;  in  this  wise  the  real  state  of  things  would  be 
"  covered  over  and  kept  secret."  On  the  other  hand,  it 
would  not  be  at  all  advisable  to  issue  any  edict,  or  to  speak 
of  the  matter,"  for  then  "  there  would  be  no  end  or  limit  to 
gossip  and  suspicions." 

"  And  I  for  my  part  am  determined  [here  he  comes  to  his 
'  testimony  '  and  the  meaning  he  now  put  on  it]  to  keep  silence 
concerning  my  part  of  the  confession  which  I  heard  from  His 
Serene  Highness  through  Bucer,  even  should  I  suffer  for  it,  for  it 
is  better  that  people  should  say  that  Dr.  Martin  acted  foolishly 
in  his  concession  to  the  Landgrave — for  even  great  men  have 
acted  foolishly  and  do  so,  even  now,  as  the  saying  goes  :  A  wise 
man  makes  no  small  mistakes — rather  than  reveal  the  reasons 
why  we  secretly  consented  ;  for  that  would  greatly  disgrace  and 
damage  the  reputation  of  the  Landgrave,  and  would  also  make 
matters  worse."  To  the  Elector  his  sovereign  Luther  had  said 
that,  even  to-day,  he  "  would  not  be  able  to  give  any  different 

1  "  Luthers  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wettc,  6,  p.  267  f.,  and,  better,  in 
Rockwell,  p.  165,  after  the  original. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  41 

advice  "  and  that  he  saw  no  reason  to  blush  for  it.  Hence  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  he  seriously  contemplated  admitting  that  he 
had  been  guilty  of  an  act  of  "  folly  "  and  had  "  acted  foolishly." 
It  will  be  shown  more  clearly  below  what  his  object  was  in 
threatening  such  a  repudiation  of  his  advice  to  the  Landgrave. 

In  his  letter  to  Thann,  Luther  decides  in  favour  of  the  ex 
pedient  suggested  by  the  Hessian  theologians,  viz.  of  the  amphi 
bological  use  of  the  word  concubine  ;  here  it  should,  however,  be 
noted,  that  this  term,  if  used  officially  to  counteract  the  common 
report  concerning  the  new  marriage,  plainly  implied  a  denial  of  the 
reality  of  the  bigamy. 

But  how  if  the  Landgrave  were  directly  confronted  in  a  Court 
of  Justice  with  the  question  :  Have  you,  or  have  you  not, 
married  two  wives  ? 

Here  belongs  the  third  letter  of  Luther's  which  we  have 
on  the  subject  and  which  was  despatched  to  Hesse  before 
the  middle  of  July.  It  is  addressed  to  "  a  Hessian 
Councillor  "  who  has  been  identified,  with  some  probability, 
as  the  Hessian  Chancellor  Johann  Feige.1 

To  the  addressee,  who  was  acquainted  with  the  whole 
matter  and  had  applied  to  Luther  for  his  opinion  on  behalf 
of  the  Landgrave,  the  writer  defines  his  own  position  still 
more  clearly  ;  if  people  say  openly  that  the  Landgrave  has 
contracted  a  second  marriage,  all  one  need  answer  is,  that 
this  is  not  true,  although  it  is  true  that  he  has  contracted  a 
secret  union  ;  hence  he  himself  was  wont  to  say,  "  the 
Landgrave's  other  marriage  is  all  nonsense." 

The  justification  of  this  he  finds  in  the  theory  of  the  secrecy  of 
confession  upon  which  he  insists  strongly  in  this  letter.  Not 
only  is  his  own  share  in  the  matter  nil  because  ostensibly  done 
in  confession,  but  the  marriage  itself  is  merely  a  sort  of  "  con 
fession  marriage,"  a  thing  concealed  and  therefore  non-existent 
so  far  as  the  world  is  concerned.  "  A  secret  affirmative  cannot 
become  a  public  affirmative  ...  a  secret  '  yes  '  remains  a 
public  '  no  '  and  vice  versa.  .  .  .  On  this  I  take  my  stand  ; 
I  say  that  the  Landgrave's  second  marriage  is  nil  and  cannot  be 
convincing  to  anyone.  For,  as  they  say,  '  palam,'  it  is  not  true, 
and  although  it  may  be  true  '  clam,'  yet  that  they  may  not  tell." 

He  is  very  bitter  about  the  Landgrave's  purpose  of  making  the 
marriage  and  the  Wittenberg  "  advice "  public,  should  need 
arise.  The  fate  of  the  latter  was,  in  fact,  his  chief  anxiety.  "  In 
this  the  Landgrave  touches  us  too  nearly,  but  himself  even  more, 
that  he  is  determined  to  do  '  palam  '  what  we  arranged  with  him 
'  clam,'  and  to  make  of  a  '  nullum  '  an  '  omne '  ;  this  we  are 

1  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  263  scq.  For  the  address  see  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  166, 
where  the  date  is  fixed  between  July  7  and  15,  1540. 


42  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

unable  either  to  defend  or  to  answer  for,  and  we  should  certainly 
come  to  high  words."  The  last  sentence  was,  however,  felt  by 
Luther  to  be  too  strong  and  he  accordingly  struck  it  out  of  the 
letter. 

He  also  says  that  the  Landgrave's  appeal  to  his  sermon  on 
Genesis  would  be  of  no  avail,  because  he  (Luther)  had  taught, 
both  previous  to  and  after  it,  that  the  law  of  Moses  was  not  to 
be  introduced,  though  some  of  it  "  might  be  used  secretly  in 
cases  of  necessity,  or  even  publicly  by  order  of  the  authorities." 
But  advice  extorted  from  him  in  Confession  by  the  distress  of  a 
suffering  conscience  could  "  not  be  held  to  constitute  a  true 
precedent  in  law."  He  here  touches  upon  a  thought  to  which  he 
was  to  return  in  entirely  different  circumstances  :  Neither  the 
preachers,  nor  the  Gospel,  lay  down  outward  laws,  not  even 
concerning  religion  ;  the  secular  authorities  are  the  only  legis 
lators  ;  ecclesiastical  guidance  comprises  only  advice,  direction  and 
the  expounding  of  Scripture,  and  has  to  do  only  with  the  interior 
life,  being  without  any  jurisdiction,  even  spiritual  ;  as  public 
men,  the  pastors  were  appointed  to  preach,  pray  and  give  advice  ; 
to  the  individual  they  rendered  service  amidst  the  "  secret  needs 
of  conscience."1 

He  thereby  absolves  himself  from  the  consequence  apparently 
involved  in  the  step  he  had  taken,  viz.  the  introduction  of 
polygamy  as  a  "  general  right  "  ;  it  does  not  follow  that  : 
"  What  you  do  from  necessity,  I  have  a  right  to  do  "  ;  "  neces 
sity  knows  no  law  or  precedent,"  hence  a  man  who  is  driven  by 
hunger  to  steal  bread,  or  who  kills  in  self-defence  is  not  punished, 
yet  wrhat  thus  holds  in  cases  of  necessity  cannot  be  taken  as  a 
law  or  rule.  On  the  other  hand,  Luther  will  not  listen  to  the 
proposal  then  being  made  in  Hesse,  viz.  that,  in  order  to  counter 
act  the  bad  example,  a  special  edict  should  be  issued  declaring 
polygamy  unlawful  as  a  general  rule,  but  allowable  in  an  ex 
ceptional  case,  on  the  strength  "  of  secret  advice  given  in  Con 
fession  "  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  would  be  far  better  simply  to 
denounce  polygamy  as  unlawful. 

Hence  if  the  Landgrave,  so  Luther  concludes,  "  will  not 
forsake  the  sweetheart  "  on  whom  "  he  has  so  set  his  heart 
that  she  has  become  a  need  to  him,"  and  if,  moreover,  he 
will  "  keep  her  out  of  the  way,"  then  "  we  theologians  and 
confessors  shall  vindicate  it  before  God,  as  a  case  of  neces 
sity  to  be  excused  by  the  examples  of  Genesis.  But  defend 
it  before  the  world  and  '  hire  nunc  regente?  that  we  cannot 
and  shall  not  do.  Short  of  this  the  Landgrave  may  count 
upon  our  best  service." 

The  Landgrave  was,  however,  not  satisfied  with  either 
of  these  letters,  both  of  which  came  into  his  hands.  He 

1  Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  30  ff. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  43 

wanted  from  Luther  a  clear  and  public  admission  of  his 
share  in  the  business,  which,  to  the  Prince's  peril,  had  now 
become  as  good  as  public,  and  threatened  to  constitute  a 
precedent.  By  this  invitation  the  Prince  naturally  released 
Luther  from  all  obligation  of  secrecy.  Even  the  making 
public  of  the  immorality,  which  had  served  as  a  pretext  for 
the  new  marriage,  he  did  not  mind  in  the  least,  for  his  laxity 
in  morals  was  already  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  ;  he 
discussed  his  lapses  with  the  theologians  as  openly  as 
though  all  of  them  had  been  his  confessors  and  spiritual 
directors  ;  he  \vas  also  quite  ready  to  repeat  his  admissions, 
"  as  in  Confession,"  before  secular  witnesses.  Such  was  the 
depth  of  depravity  into  which  his  passions  had  brought  him. 

Yielding  to  pressure  brought  to  bear  on  him  by  Saxony, 
Luther  had  meanwhile  conceived  the  idea  of  publishing  a 
work  against  polygamy.  The  new  expedient  had  indeed 
been  foreshadowed  in  his  last  letter.  On  June  17, 1540,  Jonas 
wrote  to  George  of  Anhalt  that  Luther  might  be  expected 
to  write  a  work  "  Contra  polygamiam."1  Martin  Beyer  of 
Schaffhausen,  on  his  return  from  Wittenberg,  also  brought 
the  news,  so  Bullinger  was  informed,  that  "  Luther  was 
being  compelled  by  the  Hessian  business  to  write  a  work 
against  the  plurality  of  wives."2 

The  project  was,  however,  never  realised,  probably  on 
account  of  the  insuperable  difficulties  it  involved. 

But  though  this  work  never  saw  the  light,  history  has 
preserved  for  us  a  number  of  Luther's  familiar  conversations, 
dating  from  this  period  and  taken  down  directly  from  his 
lips,  utterances  which  have  every  claim  to  consideration 
and  faithfully  mirror  his  thoughts. 

Luther's  Private  Utterances  Regarding  the  Bigamy. 

The  Table-Talk,  dating  from  the  height  of  the  hubbub 
caused  by  the  bigamy,  affords  us  a  vivid  psychological 
picture  of  Luther. 

Of  this  Table-Talk  we  have  the  detailed  and  authentic 
notes  from  the  pen  of  Johann  Mathesius,  who  was  present. 
These  notes,  in  their  best  form,  became  known  only  in  1903, 

1  "  Briefwechsel  des  Jonas,"  1,  p.  397  f. 

2  Thus    Gualther  from  Frankfort>   Sep.    15,    1540,   to  Bullinger,  in 
Fueslin,  "  Epistolce,"  p.  205.     Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  176. 


44  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

thanks  to  Krokcr's  edition,  but,  for  the  better  understand 
ing  of  Luther's  personality,  his  intimate  descriptions  of 
what  was  passing  in  his  mind  are  of  inestimable  value. 
Conjointly  with  the  principal  passage,  which  probably 
dates  from  June  18,  1540,  other  sayings  dropped  regarding 
the  same  matter  may  be  considered.1 

The  scene  in  the  main  was  as  follows  :  The  usual  guests, 
among  them  the  disciples  with  their  note-books,  were  assembled 
after  the  evening  meal  in  Luther's  house,  grouped  around  the 
master,  who  seemed  sunk  in  thought ;  Melanchthon,  however, 
was  missing,  for  he  lay  seriously  ill  at  Weimar,  overwhelmed  by 
anxiety  now  that  his  consent  to  the  bigamy  was  leaking  out. 
Whilst  yet  at  table  two  letters  were  handed  to  Luther,  the  first 
from  Briick,  the  Electoral  Chancellor,  the  second  from  the 
Elector  himself.  Both  referred  to  Melanchthon.  The  Elector 
requested  Luther  to  betake  himself  as  soon  as  possible  to  Weimar 
to  his  friend,  who  seemed  in  danger  of  death,  and  informed  him 
at  the  same  time  of  the  measures  threatened  by  the  Landgrave 
in  the  matter  of  the  second  marriage. 

Luther,  after  glancing  at  Briick's  missive  concerning  Melanch 
thon,  said  to  the  guests  :  "  Philip  is  pining  away  for  vexation, 
and  has  fallen  into  a  fever  ('  tertiana  ').  But  why  does  the  good 
fellow  crucify  himself  so  about  this  business  ?  All  his  anxiety 
will  do  no  good.  I  do  wish  I  were  with  him  !  I  know  how 
sensitive  he  is.  The  scandal  pains  him  beyond  measure.  I,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  a  thick  skin,  I  am  a  peasant,  a  hard  Saxon 
when  such  x  are  concerned.2  I  expect  I  shall  be  summoned  to 
Philip." 

Someone  thereupon  interjected  the  remark  :  "  Doctor,  perhaps 
the  Colloquium  [which  was  to  be  held  at  Hagenau]  will  not  now 
take  place  "  ;  Luther  replied  :  "  They  will  certainly  have  to 
wait  for  us.  .  .  ." 

A  second  messenger  now  came  in  with  the  Elector's  letter, 
conveying  the  expected  summons  to  proceed  to  Weimar.  On 
the  reader  the  news  it  contained  concerning  the  Landgrave  fell 
like  the  blows  of  a  sledge-hammer.  After  attentively  perusing 
the  letter  "  with  an  earnest  mien,"  he  said  :  "  Philip  the  Land 
grave  is  cracked  ;  he  is  now  asking  the  Emperor  to  let  him  keep 
both  wives." 

The  allusion  to  the  Landgrave's  mental  state  is  explained  by 
a  former  statement  of  Luther's  made  in  connection  with  some 
words  uttered  by  the  Landgrave's  father  :  "  The  old  Landgrave 

1  The  chief  passage  will  be  found  in  Kroker  (Mathesius,   "  Tisch- 
reden,"  p.  156  f.)  more  correctly  than  in  Loesche  (Mathesius,  "  Aufzeich- 
nungen,"  p.  117  ff.).     It  is  headed  "  DC  Macedonico  negotio,"  because 
in  Luther's  circle  Philip  of   Hesse  was  known  as  the  "  Macedonian." 
Where  no  other  reference  is  given  our  quotations  are  taken  from  this 
passage. 

2  On  the  sign,  see  present  work,  vol.  iii.,  p.  231. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  45 

[William  II]  used  to  say  to  his  son  Philip  :  '  If  you  take  after 
your  mother,  then  you  won't  come  to  much  ;  if  you  take  after 
me,  you  will  have  nothing  about  you  that  I  can  praise  ;  if  you 
take  after  both  of  us,  then  you  will  be  a  real  demon.'  '  Luther 
had  added  :  "I  fear  he  is  also  mad,  for  it  runs  in  the  family."1 
"  And  Philip  [Melanchthon]  said  :  '  This  [the  bigamy]  is  the 
beginning  of  his  insanity.'  "2 

When  Luther  re-entered,  so  the  narrator  continues,  "  he  was 
as  cheerful  as  could  be,  and  he  said  to  us  :  '  It  is  grand  having 
something  to  do,  for  then  we  get  ideas  ;  otherwise  we  do  nothing 
but  feed  and  swill.  How  our  Papists  will  scream  !  But  let  them 
howl  to  their  own  destruction.  Our  cause  is  a  good  one  and  no 
fault  is  to  be  found  with  our  way  of  life,  or  rather  [he  corrects 
himself]  with  the  life  of  those  who  take  it  seriously.  If  the 
Hessian  Landgrave  has  sinned,  then  that  is  sin  and  a  scandal. 
That  we  have  frequently  discounselled  by  good  and  holy  advice  ; 
they  have  seen  our  innocence  and  yet  refuse  to  see  it.  Hence 
they  [the  Papists]  are  now  forced  to  look  the  Hessian  "  in  anum  "  3 
(i.e.  are  witnesses  of  his  shame).  But  they  will  be  brought  to 
destruction  by  [our]  scandals  because  they  refuse  to  listen  to  the 
pure  doctrine  ;  for  God  will  not  on  this  account  forsake  us  or 
His  Word,  or  spare  them,  even  though  we  have  our  share  of  sin, 
for  He  has  resolved  to  overthrow  the  Papacy.  That  has  been 
decreed  by  God,  as  we  read  in  Daniel,  where  it  is  foretold  of  him 
[Antichrist]  who  is  even  now  at  the  door  :  "  And  none  shall,  help 
him  "  (Dan.  xi.  45).  In  former  times  no  power  was  able  to  root 
out  the  Pope  ;  in  our  own  day  no  one  will  be  able  to  help  him, 
because  Antichrist  is  revealed.' 

Thus  amidst  the  trouble  looming  he  finds  his  chief  consolation 
in  his  fanatical  self-persuasion  that  the  Papacy  must  fall  and 
that  he  is  the  chosen  instrument  to  bring  this  about,  i.e.  in  his 
supposed  mission  to  thwart  Antichrist,  a  Divine  mission  which 
could  not  be  contravened.  Hence  his  pseudo-mysticism  was 
once  again  made  to  serve  his  purpose. 

"  If  scandals  occur  amongst  us,"  he  continues,  "  let  us  not 
forget  that  they  existed  in  Christ's  own  circle.  The  Pharisees 
were  doubtless  in  glee  over  our  Lord  Christ  on  account  of  the 
wickedness  of  Judas.  In  the  same  way  the  Landgrave  has 
become  a  Judas  to  us.  '  Ah,  the  new  prophet  has  such  followers 
[as  Judas,  cried  the  foes  of  Christ  !]  What  good  can  come  of 
Christ  ?  ' — But  because  they  refused  to  open  their  eyes  to  the 
miracles,  they  were  forced  to  see  '  Christum  Crucifixum  '  and 
.  .  .  later  to  see  and  suffer  under  Titus.  But  our  sins  may 
obtain  pardon  and  be  easily  remedied  ;  it  is  only  necessary  that 

1  Thilip's  father  and  his  uncle  William  I   (the  elder  brother)  died 
insane.     (See  below,  p.  61.) 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  143. 

3  On  the  Marcolfus  legend  (again  to  be  mentioned  on  the  next  page), 
cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  268,  n.  4  ;  F.  H.  von  der  Hagen,  "  Narrenbuch,"   Halle, 
1811,  p.  256  ff.,  and  Rockwell,  pp.  160  and  163,  where  other  instances 
are  given  of  Luther's  use  of  the  same  figure. 


46  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

the  Emperor  should  forbid  [the  bigamy],  or  that  our  Princes 
should  intercede  [for  the  Hessian],  which  they  are  at  liberty  to 
do,  or  that  he  should  repudiate  the  step  he  took." 

"  David  also  fell,  and  surely  there  were  greater  scandals  under 
Moses  in  the  wilderness.  Moses  caused  his  own  masters  to  be 
slain.  .  .  .  But  God  had  determined  to  drive  out  the  heathen, 
hence  the  scandals  amongst  the  Jews  availed  not  to  prevent  it. 
Thus,  too,  our  sins  are  pardonable,  but  not  those  of  the  Papists ; 
for  they  are  contemners  of  God,  crucify  Christ  and,  though  they 
know  better,  defend  their  blasphemies." 

"  What  advantage  do  they  expect  of  it,"  he  goes  on  to  ask  in  an 
ironical  vein  ;  "  they  put  men  to  death,  but  we  work  for  life  and 
take  many  wives."  This  he  said,  according  to  the  notes,  "  with 
a  joyful  countenance  and  amidst  loud  laughter."1  "God  has 
resolved  to  vex  the  people,  and,  when  my  turn  conies,  I  will  give 
them  hard  words  and  tell  them  to  look  Marcolfus  '  in  anum  ' 
since  they  refuse  to  look  him  in  the  face."  He  then  went  on  : 
"  I  don't  see  why  I  should  trouble  myself  about  the  matter.  I 
shall  commend  it  to  our  God.  Should  the  Macedonian  [the 
Landgrave]  desert  us,  Christ  will  stand  by  vis,  the  blessed 

Schevlimini  [TV^  IV  :  Sit  at  my  right  hand  (Ps.  cix.  1)].  He 
has  surely  brought  us  out  of  even  tighter  places.  The  restitution 
of  Wiirtemberg  puts  this  scandal  into  the  shade,  and  the  Sacra- 
mentarians  and  the  revolt  [of  the  Peasants]  ;  and  yet  God 
delivered  us  out  of  all  that."  What  he  means  to  say  is  :  Even 
greater  scandal  was  given  by  Philip  of  Hesse  when  he  imposed 
on  Wiirtemberg  the  Protestant  Duke  Ulrich,  heedless  of  the 
rights  of  King  Ferdinand  and  of  the  opposition  of  the  Emperor 
and  the  Church  ;2  in  the  same  way  the  ever-recurring  dissensions 
on  the  Sacrament  were  an  even  greater  scandal,  and  so  was  the 
late  Peasant  War  which  threatened  worse  things  to  the  Evan 
gelical  cause  than  the  Hessian  affair. 

"  Should  the  Landgrave  fall  away  from  us." — This  fear 
lest  Philip  should  desert  their  party  Luther  had  expressed 
in  some  rather  earlier  utterances  in  1540,  when  he  had 
described  more  particularly  the  Landgrave's  character  and 
attitude.  "  A  strange  man  !  "  he  says  of  him.  "  He  was 
born  under  a  star.  He  is  bent  upon  having  his  own  way, 
and  so  fancies  he  will  obtain  the  approval  of  Emperor  and 
Pope.  It  may  be  that  he  will  fall  away  from  us  on  account 
of  this  affair.  .  .  .  He  is  a  real  Hessian  ;  he  cannot  be  still 
nor  does  he  know  how  to  yield.  When  once  this  business 
is  over  he  will  be  hatching  something  else.  But  perhaps 

1  "  '  Ipsi  tamen  occidunt  homines  [heretics],  nos  laboramus  pro  vita 
et  ducimus  plures  uxores.'      Hcec  Icetissimo  vultu  dixit,  non  sine  magno 
risu." 

2  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  139. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  47 

death  will  carry  him,  or  her  (Margaret),  off  before."  A 
Hessian  Councillor  who  was  present  quite  bore  out  what 
Luther  had  said  :  Nothing  was  of  any  avail  with  the  Land 
grave,  "  what  he  once  undertakes  he  cannot  be  induced 
to  give  up."  In  proof  of  this  those  present  instanced  the 
violence  and  utter  injustice  of  the  raid  made  on  Wiirtem- 
berg.  "  Because  he  is  such  a  strange  character,"  Luther 
remarked,  "  I  must  let  it  pass.  The  Emperor,  moreover, 
will  certainly  not  let  him  have  his  way."1  "  No  sensible 
man  would  have  undertaken  that  campaign,  but  he,  carried 
away  by  fury,  managed  it  quite  well.  Only  wait  a  little  ! 
It  [the  new  scandal]  will  pass  !  "  Luther  was  also  ready 
to  acknowledge  that  the  Landgrave,  in  spite  of  the  promises 
arid  offers  of  the  Emperor  and  Duke  of  Saxony,  had 
remained  so  far  "  very  faithful  "  to  the  Evangel.2 

In  the  conversation  on  June  18,  Luther  adopts  a  forcedly  light 
view  of  the  matter  :  "  It  is  only  a  three-months'  affair,  then  the 
whole  thing  will  fizzle  out.  Would  to  God  Philip  would  look  at 
it  in  this  light  instead  of  grieving  so  over  it  !  The  Papists  are 
now  Demeas  and  I  Mitio  "  ;  with  these  words  commences  a 
string  of  word-for-word  quotations  from  Terence's  play  " Adelphi," 
all  concerning  the  harsh  and  violent  Demeas,  whom  Luther  takes 
as  a  figure  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  the  mild  and  peaceable 
Mitio,  in  whom  Luther  sees  himself.  In  the  Notes  the  sentences 
are  given  almost  unaltered  :  "  The  prostitute  and  the  matron 
living  in  one  house."  "  A  son  is  born."  "  Margaret  has  no 
dowry."  "  I,  Mitio,  say  :  '  May  the  gods  direct  all  for  the  best  !  '  ' 
"  Man's  life  is  like  a  throw  of  the  dice."3 

"  I  overlook  much  worse  things  than  this,"  he  continues.  "  If 
anyone  says  to  me  :  Are  you  pleased  with  what  has  taken  place  ? 
I  reply  :  No  ;  oh,  would  that  I  could  alter  it.  Since  I  cannot,  I 
am  resolved  to  bear  it  with  equanimity.  I  commit  it  all  to  our 
dear  God.  Let  Him  preserve  His  Church  as  it  now  stands  in 
order  that  it  may  remain  in  the  unity  of  faith  and  doctrine  and 
the  pure  confession  of  the  Word  ;  all  I  hope  for  is  that  it  may 
never  grow  worse  !  " 

"  On  rising  from  the  table  he  said  cheerfully  :  I  will  not  give 
the  devil  and  the  Papists  the  satisfaction  of  thinking  that  I  am 
troubled  about  the  matter.  God  will  see  to  it.  To  Him  we 
commend  the  whole." 

In  thus  shifting  the  responsibility  from  his  own  shoulders  and 
putting  it  on  God — -Whose  chosen  instrument,  even  at  the  most 

1  Ibid.,  p.  133.     He  speaks  in  the  same  way  of  the  Emperor  on  p.  160. 
t'lbid.,  p.  139.     May  21  to  June  11,  1540. 

3  For  the  quotations  from  Terence,  see  Rockwell,  p.  164.  Cp. 
Kroker,  ibid.,  p.  158. 


48  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

critical  juncture,  he  would  still  persuade  himself  he  was — he  finds 
the  most  convenient  escape  from  anxiety  and  difficulty.  It  has 
all  been  laid  upon  us  by  God  :  "  We  must  put  up  with  the  devil 
and  his  filth  as  long  as  we  live."  Therefore,  forward  against  the 
Papists,  who  seek  to  conceal  their  "  sodomitic  vices  "  behind  this 
bigamy  !  "  We  may  not  and  shall  not  yield.  Let  them  do  their 
dirty  work  and  let  us  lay  odds  on."1  With  these  words  he  is 
again  quite  himself.  He  is  again  the  inspired  prophet,  oblivious 
of  all  save  his  mission  to  champion  God's  cause  ;  all  his  difficulties 
have  vanished  and  even  his  worst  moral  faults  have  disappeared. 
But  in  this  frame  of  mind  Luther  was  not  always  able  to  persevere. 
"  All  I  hope  for  is  that  it  may  never  grow  worse."  The  de 
pressing  thought  implied  in  these  words  lingered  in  the  depths  of 
his  soul  in  spite  of  all  his  forced  merriment  and  bravado.  "  Alas, 
my  God,  what  have  we  not  to  put  up  with  from  fanatics  and 
scandals  !  One  follows  on  the  heels  of  the  other ;  when  this  [the 
bigamy]  has  been  adjusted,  then  it  is  certain  that  something  else 
will  spring  up,  and  many  new  sects  will  also  arise.  .  .  .  But  God 
will  preserve  His  Christendom."2 

Meanwhile  the  remarkably  speedy  recovery  of  his  friend 
Melanchthon  consoled  him.  Soon  after  the  arrival  of  the 
letters  mentioned  above  Luther  set  out  for  Weimar.  His 
attentions  to  the  sick  man,  and  particularly  his  words  of 
encouragement,  succeeded,  so  to  say,  in  recalling  him  to 
life.  Luther  speaks  of  it  in  his  letters  at  that  time  as  a 
"  manifest  miracle  of  God,"  which  puts  our  unbelief  to 
shame.3  The  fanciful  embellishment  which  he  gave  to  the 
incident  when  narrating  it,  making  it  into  a  sort  of  miracle, 
has  left  its  traces  in  his  friend  Ratzcberger's  account.4 

Confident  as  Luther's  language  here  seems,  when  it  is  a 
question  of  infusing  new  courage  into  himself,  still  he  admits 
plainly  enough  one  point,  concerning  which  he  has  not  a 
word  to  say  in  his  correspondence  with  strangers  or  in  his 
public  utterances  :  A  sin,  over  and  above  all  his  previous 
crimes,  now  weighed  upon  the  Hessian  and  his  party  owing 
to  what  had  taken  place.  He  repeatedly  uses  the  words 
"  sin,"  "  scandal,"  "  offence  "  when  speaking  of  the  bigamy  ; 
he  feels  the  need  of  seeking  consolation  in  the  "  unpardon 
able  "  sins  of  the  Catholics  for  the  moral  failings  of  his  own 
party,  which,  after  all,  would  be  remitted  by  God.  Nor 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  153. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  138. 

3  To  Johann  Lang,  July  2,  1540,  "  Briefe,"  4,  p.  298  :    "  miraculo 
Dei  manifesto  vivit." 

4  Ratzeberger,  p.  102  f.    Cp.  present  work,  vol.  iii.,  p.  162. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  49 

does  the  Landgrave's  sin  consist  in  his  carelessness  about 
keeping  the  matter  secret.  Luther  compares  his  sin  to 
David's,  whose  adultery  had  been  forgiven  by  God,  and 
reckons  Philip's  new  sin  amongst  the  sins  of  his  co-religion 
ists,  who,  for  all  their  failings,  were  destined,  with  God's 
help,  to  overthrow  the  Papal  Antichrist.  "  Would  that  I 
could  alter  it  !  "  Such  an  admission  he  would  not  at  any 
price  make  before  the  princely  Courts  concerned,  or  before 
the  world.  Still  less  would  he  have  admitted  publicly,  that 
they  were  obliged  "  to  put  up  with  the  devil's  filth."  It 
is  therefore  quite  correct  when  Kostlin,  in  his  Biography 
of  Luther,  points  out,  speaking  of  the  Table-Talk  :  "  That 
there  had  been  sin  and  scandal,  his  words  by  no  means 
deny."1  Concerning  the  whole  affair  Kostlin  moreover 
remarks  :  "  Philip's  bigamy  is  the  greatest  blot  on  the 
history  of  the  Reformation,  and  remains  a  blot  in  Luther's 
life  in  spite  of  everything  that  can  be  alleged  in  explanation 
or  excuse."2 

F.  W.  Hassencamp,  another  Protestant,  says  in  his 
"  Hessische  Kirchengeschichte  "  :  "  His  statements  at  that 
time  concerning  his  share  in  the  Landgrave's  bigamy  prove 
that,  mentally,  he  was  on  the  verge  of  despair.  Low 
pleasantry  and  vulgarity  are  mixed  up  with  threats  and 
words  of  prayer."  "  Nowhere  does  the  great  Reformer 
appear  so  small  as  here."3 — In  the  "  Historisch-politische 
Blatter,"  in  1846,  K.  E.  Jarcke  wrote  of  the  Table-Talk 
concerning  the  bigamy  :  "  Rarely  has  any  man,  however 
coarse-minded,  however  blinded  by  hate  and  hardened  by 
years  of  combat  against  his  own  conscience,  expressed  him 
self  more  hideously  or  with  greater  vulgarity."4 

"  After  so  repeatedly  describing  himself  as  the  prophet 
of  the  Germans,"  says  A.  Hausrath,  "  he  ought  not  to  have 
had  the  weakness  to  seek  a  compromise  between  morality 
and  policy,  but,  like  the  preacher  robed  in  camels'  hair,  he 
should  have  boldly  told  the  Hessian  Princelet :  It  is  not 
lawful  for  you  to  have  her."  Hausrath,  in  1904,  is  voicing 
the  opinion  of  many  earlier  Protestant  historians  when  he 
regrets  "  that,  owing  to  weariness  and  pressure  from  with- 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  526.  2  Ibid.,  p.  478. 

3  Thus  Hassencamp,  vol.  i.,  p.  507,  though  he  was  using  the  earlier 
editions  of  the  Table-Talk,  which  are  somewhat  more  circumspect. 

4  Vol.  xviii.,  p.  461. 


50  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

out,"  Luther  "  sanctioned  an  exception  to  God's  un 
conditional  command."  "  The  band  of  Protestant  leaders, 
once  so  valiant  and  upright,"  so  he  says,  "  had  for  once 
been  caught  sleeping.  Evening  was  approaching  and  the 
day  was  drawing  in,  and  the  Lord  their  God  had  left  them."1 

Luther  at  the  Conference  of  Eisenach. 
The  Landgrave's  Indignation. 

An  official  conference  of  theologians  and  Councillors  from 
Hesse  and  the  Electorate  of  Saxony  met  at  Eisenach  at  the 
instance  of  Philip  on  July  15,  1540,  in  order  to  deliberate 
on  the  best  means  of  escaping  the  legal  difficulty  and  of 
satisfying  Philip's  demand,  that  the  theologians  should 
give  him  their  open  support.  Luther,  too,  put  in  an  appear 
ance  and  lost  no  time  in  entering  into  the  debate  with  his 
wonted  bluster. 

According  to  one  account,  on  their  first  arrival,  he  bitterly 
reproached  ("  acerbissimis  vcrbis  ")2  the  Hessian  theo 
logians.  The  report  of  the  Landgrave's  sister  says,  that 
his  long  talk  with  Philip's  Chancellor  so  affected  the  latter 
that  the  "  tears  streamed  down  his  cheeks,"  particularly 
when  Luther  rounded  on  the  Hessian  Court  officials  for 
their  too  great  inclination  towards  polygamy.3  Though 
these  reports  of  the  effect  of  his  strictures  and  exhortations 
may  be  exaggerated,  no  less  than  the  remark  of  Jonas,  who 
says,  that  the  "  Hessians  went  home  from  Eisenach  with 
long  faces,"4  still  it  is  quite  likely  that  Luther  made  a 
great  impression  on  many  by  his  behaviour,  particularly 
by  the  energy  with  which  he  now  stood  up  for  the  cause  of 
monogamy  and  appealed  to  the  New  Testament  on  its 
behalf. 

Without  denying  the  possibility  of  an  exception  in  certain 
rare  cases,  he  now  insisted  very  strongly  on  the  general 
prohibition. 

The  instructions  given  to  the  Hessians  showed  him 
plainly  that  the  Landgrave  was  determined  not  to  conceal 
his  bigamy  any  longer,  or  to  have  it  branded  as  mere  con 
cubinage  ;  the  theologians,  so  the  document  declares,  would 
surely  never  have  advised  him  to  have  recourse  to  sinful 

1  "  Luthers  Leben,"  2,  1904,  p.  403  f. 

2  Gualther,  in  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  186,  n.  1.         3  Ibid.         4  Ibid. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  51 

concubinage.  That  he  was  not  married  to  his  second  wife 
was  a  lie,  which  he  would  not  consent  to  tell  were  he  to  be 
asked  point-blank  ;  his  bigamy  was  really  a  dispensation 
"  permitted  by  God,  admitted  by  the  learned,  and  consented 
to  by  his  wife."  If  "  hard  pressed  "  he  must  disclose  it. 
To  introduce  polygamy  generally  was  of  course  quite  a 
different  matter,  and  was  not  to  be  thought  of.1 — Needless 
to  say,  Luther  was  ready  enough  to  back  up  this  last  stipu 
lation,  for  his  own  sake  as  much  as  for  the  Landgrave's. 

During  the  first  session  of  the  conference,  held  in  the 
Rathaus  at  Eisenach,  Luther  formally  and  publicly  com 
mitted  himself  to  the  expedient  at  which  he  had  faintly 
hinted  even  previously.  He  unreservedly  proposed  the 
telling  of  a  lie.  Should  a  situation  arise  where  it  was 
necessary  to  reply  "  yes  "  or  "no,"  then  they  must  resign 
themselves  to  a  downright  "  No."  "  What  harm  would  it 
do,"  he  said  on  July  15,  according  to  quite  trustworthy 
notes,2  "  if  a  man  told  a  good,  lusty  lie  in  a  worthy  cause 
and  for  the  sake  of  the  Christian  Churches  ?  "  Similarly 
he  said  on  July  17  :  "  To  lie  in  case  of  necessity,  or  for 
convenience,  or  in  excuse,  such  lying  would  not  be  against 
God  ;  He  was  ready  to  take  such  lies  on  Himself."3 

The  Protestant  historian  of  the  Hessian  Bigamy  says  in 
excuse  of  this  :  "  Luther  was  faced  by  the  problem  whether 
a  lie  told  in  case  of  necessity  could  be  regarded  as  a  sin  at 
all  "  ;  he  did  not  have  recourse  to  the  "  expedient  of  a 
mental  reservation  fas  he  had  done  when  recommending  an 

u  o 

ambiguous  reply]  "  ;  he  merely  absolved  "  the  '  mendacium 
officiosum  '  [the  useful  lie]  of  sinfulness.  This  done,  Luther 
could  with  a  good  conscience  advise  the  telling  of  such  a 
lie."4 

Nevertheless  Luther  felt  called  upon  again  to  return  to 

1  "  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  369  f. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  373.     Concerning  the  notes  which  the  editor  calls  the 
"  Protokoll,"  see  N.  Paulus  in  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  135,  1905,  p.  323  f. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  375. 

4  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.   179.     The  Protestant  theologian  Th.  Brieger 
says  ("  Luther  und  die  Nebenehe,"  etc.,  "  Preuss.  Jahrb.,"  135,  1909, 
p.  46)  :    "  As  is  known,  in  the  summer  of  1540,  when  the  matter  had 
already  been  notorious  for  months,  Luther  gave  the  Landgrave  the 
advice,  that  he  should  give  a  flat  denial  of  the  step  he  had  taken.  .  .  . 
'  A  lie  of  necessity  was  not  against  God  ;    He  was  ready  to  take  that 
upon  Himself.' — Just  as  in  our  own  day  men  of  the  highest  moral 
character  hold  similar  views  concerning  certain  forms  of  the  lie  of 
necessity." 


52  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

the  alleged  Confession  made.  He  is  even  anxious  to  make 
out  that  his  memorandum  had  been  an  Absolution  coming 
under  the  Seal  of  Confession,  and  that  the  Absolution  might 
not  be  "  revealed  "  :  "If  the  Confession  was  to  be  regarded 
as  secret,  then  the  Absolution  also  must  be  secret."1  "  He 
considered  the  reply  given  in  Confession  as  an  Absolution," 
says  Rockwell.2  Moreover  he  gave  it  to  be  understood,  that, 
should  the  Landgrave  say  he  had  committed  bigamy  as  a 
right  to  which  he  was  entitled,  and  not  as  a  favour,  then  he, 
Luther,  was  quit  of  all  responsibility  ;  it  was  not  the  con 
fessor's  business  to  give  public  testimony  concerning  what 
had  taken  place  in  Confession.3 

Practically,  however,  according  to  the  notes  of  the 
conference,  his  advice  still  was  that  the  Landgrave  should 
conceal  the  bigamy  behind  the  ambiguous  declaration  that  : 
"  Margaret  is  a  concubine."  Under  the  influence  of  the 
hostility  to  the  bigamy  shown  by  the  Saxon  Courts  he 
urged  so  strongly  the  Bible  arguments  against  polygamy, 
that  the  Hessians  began  to  fear  his  withdrawal  from  his 
older  standpoint. 

The  Old-Testament  examples,  he  declared  emphatically,  could 
neither  "  exclude  nor  bind,"  i.e.  could  not  settle  the  matter 
either  way  ;  Paul's  words  could  not  be  overthrown  ;  in  the  New 
Testament  nothing  could  be  found  (in  favour  of  bigamy),  "  on 
the  contrary  the  New  Testament  confirmed  the  original  institu 
tion  [monogamy]  "  ;  therefore  "  since  both  the  Divine  and  the 
secular  law  were  at  one,  nothing  could  be  done  against  it  ;  he 
would  not  take  it  upon  his  conscience."  It  is  true,  that,  on  the 
other  side,  must  be  put  the  statement,  that  he  saw  no  reason  why 

1  "  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  373. 

2  P.  182. — Rockwell  (p.  181,  n.  4)  also  reminds  us  that  Luther  had 
written  to  the  Elector  :  "  In  matters  of  Confession  it  is  seemly  that  both 
the  circumstances  and  the  advice  given  in  Confession  "  should  be  kept 
secret.     Luther,   in   "  Lauterbachs  Tagebuch,"  p.  196,  see  p.  37,  n.  2. 
The  Elector  wrote  to  the  Landgrave  in  a  letter  dated  June  27,  1540 
(quoted  by  Rockwell,  ibid.,  from  the  archives),  that  the  marriage  could 
not  be  openly  discussed,  because,  otherwise,   "  the  Seal  of  Confession 
would  be  broken  in  regard  to  those  who  had  given  the  dispensation." 
In  this   he    re-echoes  Luther. — Rockwell,  p.   182    (cp.  p.   185,  n.   3), 
thinks,  that  Luther  was  following  the  "  more  rigorous  "  theologians  of 
earlier  days,  who  had  taught  that  it  was  "  a  mortal  sin  for  the  penitent 
to  reveal  what  the  priest  had  told  him."    This  is  not  the  place  to  rectify 
such  misunderstandings. 

3  Cp.  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  175,  with  a  reference  to  Luther's  statement 
of  July  17  :    If  the  Landgrave  would  not  be  content  with  a  dispensa 
tion,  "  and  claimed  it  as  a  right,  then  they  were  quit  of  their  advice  " 
("  Philipps  Brief  wechsel,"  1,  p.  375).     It  is  difficult  to  follow  Luther 
through  all  his  attempts  to  evade  the  issue. 


53 

the  Prince  should  not  take  the  matter  upon  his  own  conscience, 
declare  himself  convinced,  and  thus  "  set  their  [the  theo 
logians']  consciences  free."  That  he  still  virtually  stood  by  what 
had  happened,  is  also  seen  from  his  plain  statement  :  "  Many 
things  are  right  before  God  in  the  tribunal  of  conscience,  which, 
to  the  world,  must  appear  wrong."  "  In  support  of  this  he 
brought  forward  the  example,"  so  the  report  of  the  Conference 
proceeds,  "  of  the  seduction  of  a  virgin  and  of  an  illegitimate 
birth."  He  also  lays  stress  on  the  principle  that  they,  the 
theologians,  had  merely  "  to  dispense  according  to  God's  com 
mand  in  the  tribunal  of  conscience,"  but  were  unable  to  bear 
witness  to  it  publicly  ;  hence  their  advice  to  the  Landgrave  had 
in  reality  never  been  given  at  all,  for  it  was  no  business  of  the 
"forum  externum  "  ;  the  Landgrave  had  acted  in  accordance  with 
his  own  ideas,  just  as  he  had  undertaken  many  things  "  against 
their  advice,"  for  instance,  "  the  raid  on  Wirtenbergk."  He  was 
doing  the  same  in  "  this  instance  too,  and  acting  on  his  own 
advice." 

Again,  for  his  own  safety,  he  makes  a  request  :  "  Beg 
him  [the  Prince]  most  diligently  to  draw  in  [to  keep  it 
secret],"  otherwise,  so  he  threatens,  he  will  declare  that  "  Luther 
acted  like  a  fool,  and  will  take  the  shame  on  himself  ";  he  would 
"  say  :  I  made  a  mistake  and  I  retract  it  ;  he  would  retract  it 
even  at  the  expense  of  his  own  honour  ;  as  for  his  honour  he 
would  pray  God  to  restore  it."1 

In  a  written  memorandum  which  he  presented  during  the 
Conference  he  makes  a  similar  threat,  which,  however,  as  already 
shown  in  the  case  of  Thann  (above,  p.  40  f.),  it  is  wrong  to  take  as 
meaning  that  he  really  declared  he  had  acted  wrongly  in  the 
advice  given  to  the  Landgrave. 

He  begs  the  Landgrave,  "  again  to  conceal  the  matter  and 
keep  it  secret ;  for  to  defend  it  publicly  as  right  was  impossible  "  ; 
should  the  Landgrave,  however,  be  determined,  by  revealing  it, 
to  "  cause  annoyance  and  disgrace  to  our  Confession,  Churches 
and  Estates,"  then  it  was  his  duty  beforehand  to  consult  all 
these  as  to  whether  they  were  willing  to  take  the  responsibility, 
since  without  them  the  matter  could  not  take  place  and  Luther 
and  Melanchthon  alone  "  could  do  nothing  without  their 
authority.  And  rather  than  assist  in  publicly  defending  it,  I 
would  repudiate  my  advice  and  Master  Philip's  [Melanchthon's], 
were  it  made  public,  for  it  was  not  a  public  advice,  and  is  annulled 
by  publication.  Or,  if  this  is  no  use,  and  they  insist  on  calling 
it  a  counsel  and  not  a  Confession,2  which  it  really  was,  then  I 
should  rather  admit  that  I  made  a  mistake  and  acted  foolishly 
and  now  crave  for  pardon  ;  for  the  scandal  is  great  and  intoler 
able.  And  my  gracious  Lord  the  Landgrave  ought  not  to  forget 
that  his  Serene  Highness  was  lucky  enough  in  being  able  to  take 
the  girl  secretly  with  a  good  conscience,  by  virtue  of  our  advice 

1_"  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  373  f.  "  Anal.  Luth.,"  ed.  Kolde, 
p.  356  seq. 

2  "  Bichte,"  not  "Bitte,"  is  clearly  the  true  reading  here. 


54  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

in  Confession  ;  seeing  that  H.S.H.  has  no  need  or  cause  for 
making  the  matter  public,  and  can  easily  keep  it  secret,  which 
would  obviate  all  this  great  trouble  and  misfortune.  Beyond 
this  I  shall  not  go."1 

These  attempts  at  explanation  and  subterfuge  to  which  the 
sadly  embarrassed  authors  of  the  "  testimony  "  had  recourse 
were  keenly  criticised  by  Feige,  the  Hessian  Chancellor,  in  the 
sober,  legal  replies  given  by  him  at  the  Conference.2  He  pointed 
out,  that  :  The  Landgrave,  his  master,  could  not  now  "  regard 
or  admit  his  marriage  to  be  a  mere  '  liaison  '  "  ;  he  would  indeed 
keep  it  secret  so  far  as  in  him  lay,  but  deny  it  he  could  not  with 
out  prejudice  to  his  own  honour  ;  "  since  it  has  become  so 
widely  known  "  ;  those  to  whom  he  had  appealed,  "  as  the  chiefs 
of  our  Christian  Churches,  for  a  testimony,"  viz.  Luther  and  his 
theologians,  must  not  now  leave  him  in  the  lurch,  "but  bar 
witness,  should  necessity  arise,  that  he  had  not  acted  un- 
christianly  in  this  matter,  or  against  God."  Philip,  moreover, 
from  the  very  first,  had  no  intention  of  restricting  the  matter 
to  the  private  tribunal  of  conscience  ;  the  request  brought  by 
Bucer  plainly  showed,  that  he  "  was  publicly  petitioning  the 
tribunal  of  the  Church."  The  fact  is  that  the  instructions  given 
to  Bucer  clearly  conveyed  the  Prince's  intention  of  making 
public  the  bigamy  and  the  advice  by  which  it  was  justified. 

Hence,  proceeded  Feige  :  Out  with  it  plainly,  out  with  the 
theological  grounds  which  "  moved  the  theologians  to  grant  such 
a  dispensation  !  "  If  these  grounds  were  not  against  God,  then 
the  Landgrave  could  take  his  stand  on  them  before  the  secular 
law,  the  Emperor,  the  Fiscal  and  the  Courts  of  Justice.  Should 
the  theologians,  however,  really  wish  to  "  repudiate  "  their 
advice,  nothing  would  be  gained  ;  the  scandal  would  be  just  as 
great  as  if  they  had  "  admitted  "  it  ;  and  further,  it  would  cause 
a  split  in  their  own  confession,  for  the  Prince  would  be  obliged 
to  "  disclose  the  advice."  Luther  wanted  to  get  out  of  the  hole 
by  saying  he  had  acted  foolishly  !  Did  he  not  see  how  "  detri 
mental  this  would  be  to  his  reputation  and  teaching  "  ?  He 
should  "  consider  what  he  had  written  in  his  Exposition  of 
Genesis  twelve  years  previously,  and  that  this  had  never  been 
called  into  question  by  any  of  his  disciples  or  followers."  He 
should  remember  all  that  had  been  done  against  the  Papacy 
through  his  work,  for  which  the  Bible  gave  far  less  sanction  than 
for  the  dispensation,  and  which  "  nevertheless  had  been  accepted 
and  maintained,  in  opposition  to  the  worldly  powers,  by  an 
appeal  to  a  Christian  Council." 

Hence  the  Landgrave  must  urgently  request,  concludes  Feige, 
that  the  theologians  would,  at  least  "  until  the  Council,"  take  his 
part  and  "  admit  that  what  he  had  done  had  been  agreeable  to 
God." 

The    Saxon   representatives   present   at    the    Conference 

1  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  272  f.,  dated  July  20,  1540. 

2  Kolde,  loc.  cit.,  p.  357-360. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  55 

were,  however,  ready  to  follow  the  course  indicated  by 
Luther  in  case  of  necessity,  viz.  to  tell  a  downright  lie  ; 
rather  than  that  the  Prince  should  be  forced  to  vindicate 
openly  his  position  it  was  better  to  deny  it  flatly.  They 
declared,  without,  however,  convincing  the  Conference, 
"  that  a  flat  denial  was  less  culpable  before  God  and  in 
conscience — as  could  be  proved  by  many  examples  from 
Scripture — than  to  cause  a  great  scandal  and  lamentable 
falling  away  of  many  good  people  by  a  plain  and  open 
admission  and  vindication."1 

Philip  of  Hesse  was  not  particularly  edified  by  the  result 
of  the  Eisenach  Conference.  Of  all  the  reports  which  gradu 
ally  reached  him,  those  which  most  aroused  his  resent 
ment  were,  first,  that  Luther  should  expect  him  to  tell  a  lie 
and  deny  the  second  marriage,  and,  secondly,  his  threat  to 
withdraw  the  testimony,  as  issued  in  error. 

Luther  had,  so  far,  avoided  all  direct  correspondence 
with  the  Landgrave  concerning  the  disastrous  affair.  Now, 
however,  he  was  forced  to  make  some  statement  in  reply  to 
a  not  very  friendly  letter  addressed  to  him  by  the  Prince. 2 

In  this  Philip,  alluding  to  the  invitation  to  tell  a  lie,  says  : 
"  I  will  not  lie,  for  lying  has  an  evil  sound  and  no  Apostle 
or  even  Christian  has  ever  taught  it,  nay,  Christ  has  for 
bidden  it  and  said  we  should  keep  to  yea  and  nay.  That  I 
should  declare  the  lady  to  be  a  whore,  that  I  refuse  to  do, 
for  your  advice  does  not  permit  of  it.  I  should  surely  have 
had  no  need  of  your  advice  to  take  a  whore,  neither  does  it 
do  you  credit."  Yet  he  declares  himself  ready  to  give  an 
"  obscure  reply,"  i.e.  an  ambiguous  one  ;  without  need  he 
would  not  disclose  the  marriage. 

Nor  does  Luther's  threat  of  retracting  the  advice  and  of 
saying  that  he  had  "  acted  foolishly  "  affright  him.  The 
threat  he  unceremoniously  calls  a  bit  of  foolery.  "As  to 
what  you  told  my  Councillors,  viz.  that,  rather  than  reveal 
my  reasons,  you  would  say  you  had  acted  foolishly,  please 
don't  commit  such  folly  on  my  account,  for  then  I  will 
confess  the  reasons,  and,  in  case  of  necessity,  prove  them 
now  or  later,  unless  the  witnesses  die  in  the  meantime." 
"  Nothing  more  dreadful  has  ever  come  to  my  ears  than  that 

1  Kolde,  loc.  cit.,  p.  362  seq. 

2  Dated  July  18,  1540,  "  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  380  ff. 


56  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

it  should  have  occurred  to  a  brave  man  to  retract  what 
he  had  granted  by  a  written  dispensation  to  a  troubled 
conscience.  If  you  can  answer  for  it  to  God,  why  do  you 
fear  and  shrink  from  the  world  ?  If  the  matter  is  right  '  in 
conscientia  '  before  the  Almighty,  the  Eternal  and  Immortal 
God,  what  does  the  accursed,  sodomitic,  usurious  and 
besotted  world  matter  ?  "  Here  he  is  using  the  very  words 
in  which  Luther  was  wont  to  speak  of  the  world  and  of  the 
contempt  with  which  it  should  be  met.  He  proceeds  with  a 
touch  of  sarcasm  :  "  Would  to  God  that  you  and  your  like 
would  inveigh  against  and  punish  those  in  whom  you  see 
such  things  daily,  i.e.  adultery,  usury  and  drunkenness — 
and  who  y  c  t  are  supposed  to  be  members  of  the  Church — not 
merely  in  writings  and  sermons  but  with  serious  considera 
tions  and  the  ban  which  the  Apostles  employed,  in  order 
that  the  whole  world  may  not  be  scandalised.  You  see  these 
things,  yet  what  do  you  and  the  others  do  ?  "  In  thus 
finding  fault  with  the  Wittenberg  habits,  he  would  appear 
to  include  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  who  had  a  reputation  for 
intemperance.  He  knew  that  Luther's  present  attitude 
was  in  part  determined  by  consideration  for  his  sovereign. 
In  his  irritation  he  also  has  a  sly  hit  at  the  Wittenberg 
theologians  :  At  Eisenach  his  love  for  the  "  lady  "  (Margaret) 
had  been  looked  upon  askance  ;  "  I  confess  that  I  love  her, 
but  in  all  honour.  .  .  .  But  that  I  should  have  taken  her 
because  she  pleased  me,  that  is  only  natural,  for  I  see  that 
you  holy  people  also  take  those  that  please  you.  Therefore 
you  may  well  bear  with  me,  a  poor  sinner." 

Luther  replied  on  July  24, l  that  he  had  not  deserved  that 
the  Landgrave  should  write  to  him  in  so  angry  a  tone.  The 
latter  was  wrong  in  supposing,  that  he  wanted  to  get  his 
neck  out  of  the  noose  and  was  not  doing  all  that  he  could 
to  "  serve  the  Prince  humbly  and  faithfully."  It  was  not 
no  his  own  account  that  he  wished  to  keep  his  advice 
secret ;  "  for  though  all  the  devils  wished  the  advice  to  be 
made  public,  I  would  give  them  by  God's  Grace  such  an 
answer  that  they  would  not  find  any  fault  in  it." 

It  was,  so  Luther  says  in  this  letter,  a  secret  counsel  as  "  all 
the  devils  "  knew,  the  keeping  secret  of  which  he  had  requested, 
"  with  all  diligence,"  and  which,  even  at  the  worst,  he  would  be 

i  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  6,  p.  273  ff. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  57 

the  last  to  bring  to  light.  That  he,  or  the  Prince  himself,  was 
bound  to  silence  by  the  Seal  of  Confession,  he  does  not  say, 
though  this  would  have  been  the  place  to  emphasise  it.  He 
merely  states  that  he  knew  what,  in  the  case  of  a  troubled 
conscience,  "  might  be  remitted  out  of  mercy  before  God,"  and 
what  was  not  right  apart  from  this  necessity.  "  I  should  be 
sorry  to  see  your  Serene  Highness  starting  a  literary  feud  with 
me."  It  was  true  he  could  not  allow  the  Prince,  who  was  "  of 
the  same  faith  "  as  himself,  "  to  incur  danger  and  disgrace  "  ; 
but,  should  he  disclose  the  counsel,  the  theologians  would  not  be 
in  a  position  to  "  get  him  out  of  the  bother,"  because,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  world,  "  even  a  hundred  Luthers,  Philips  and  others  " 
could  not  change  the  law  ;  the  secret  marriage  could  never  be 
publicly  held  as  valid,  though  valid  in  the  tribunal  of  conscience. 
He  wished  to  press  the  matter  before  the  worldly  authorities  ; 
but  here  the  Prince's  marriage  would  never  be  acknowledged  ; 
he  would  only  be  exposing  himself  to  penalties,  and  withdrawing 
himself  from  the  "  protection  and  assistance  of  the  Divine 
Judgment  "  under  which  he  stood  so  long  as  he  regarded  it  as  a 
marriage  merely  in  conscience. 

In  this  letter  Luther  opposes  the  "  making  public  of  the 
advice,"  which  he  dreaded,  by  the  most  powerful  motive  at  his 
command  :  The  result  of  the  disclosure  would  be,  that  "  at  last 
your  Serene  Highness  would  be  obliged  to  put  away  your  sweet 
heart  as  a  mere  whore."  He  would  do  better  to  allow  her  to  be 
now  regarded  as  a  "  whore,  although  to  us  three,  i.e.  in  God's 
sight,  she  is  really  a  wedded  concubine  "  ;  in  all  this  the  Prince 
would  still  have  a  good  conscience,  "  for  the  whole  affair  was  due 
to  his  distress  of  conscience,  as  we  believe,  and,  hence,  to  your 
Serene  Highness's  conscience,  she  is  no  mere  prostitute." 

There  were,  however,  three  more  bitter  pills  for  the  Landgrave 
to  swallow.  He  had  pleaded  his  distress  of  conscience.  Luther 
hints,  that,  "  one  of  our  best  friends  "  had  said  :  "  The  Land 
grave  would  not  be  able  to  persuade  anyone  "  that  the  bigamy 
was  due  to  distress  of  conscience  ;  which  was  as  much  as  to  say, 
that  "  Dr.  Martin  believed  what  it  was  impossible  to  believe,  had 
deceived  himself  and  been  willingly  led  astray."  He,  Luther,  how 
ever,  still  thought  that  the  Prince  had  been  serious  in  what  he  had 
said  "  secretly  in  Confession  "  ;  nevertheless  the  mere  suspicion 
might  suffice  to  "  render  the  advice  worthless,"  and  then  Philip 
would  stand  alone.  .  .  .  The  Landgrave,  moreover,  had  unkindly 
hinted  in  his  letter,  that,  "  we  theologians  take  those  who  please 
us."  "  Why  do  not  you  [Princes]  do  differently  ?  "  he  replies.  "  I, 
at  least,  trust  that  this  will  be  your  Serene  Highness's  experience 
with  your  beloved  sweetheart."  "  Pretty  women  are  to  be 
wedded  either  for  the  sake  of  the  children  which  spring  from 
this  merry  union,  or  to  prevent  fornication.  Apart  from  this 
I  do  not  see  of  what  use  beauty  is."  "  Marry  in  haste  and  repent 
at  leisure  "  was  the  result  of  following  our  passions,  according 
to  the  proverb.  Lastly,  Luther  does  not  hide  from  the  Land 
grave  that  his  carelessness  in  keeping  the  secret  had  brought  not 


58  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

only  the  Prince  but  "  the  whole  confession  "  into  disrepute, 
though  "  the  good  people  "  belonging  to  the  faith  were  really  in 
no  way  involved  in  what  Philip  had  done.  "  If  each  were  to  do 
what  pleased  him  and  throw  the  responsibility  on  the  pious  "  this 
would  be  neither  just  nor  reasonable. 

Such  are  the  reasons  by  which  he  seeks  to  dissuade  the  warrior- 
Prince  from  his  idea  of  publishing  the  fatal  Wittenberg  "  advice," 
to  impel  him  to  allow  the  marriage  to  "  remain  an  '  ambiguum,'  " 
and  "  not  openly  to  boast  that  he  had  lawfully  wedded  his  sweet 
heart." 

He  also  gives  Philip  to  understand  that  he  will  get  a  taste  of  the 
real  Luther  should  he  not  obey  him,  or  should  he  expose  him  by 
publishing  the  "  advice,"  or  otherwise  in  writing.  He  says  :  "  If 
it  comes  to  writing  I  shall  know  how  to  extricate  myself  and 
leave  your  Serene  Highness  sticking  in  the  mud,  but  this  I  shall 
not  do  unless  I  can't  help  it."  The  Prince's  allusion  to  the 
Emperor's  anger  which  must  be  avoided,  did  not  affright  Luther 
in  the  least.  In  his  concluding  words  his  conviction  of  his 
mission  and  the  thought  of  the  anti-Evangelical  attitude  of  the 
Emperor  carry  him  away.  "  Were  this  menace  to  become 
earnest,  I  should  tweak  the  Emperor's  forelock,  confront  him  with 
his  practices  and  read  him  a  good  lecture  on  the  texts  :  '  Every 
man  is  a  liar  '  and  '  Put  not  your  trust  in  Princes.'  Was  he  not 
indeed  a  liar  and  a  false  man,  he  who  '  rages  against  God's 
own  truth,'  "  i.e.  opposes  Luther's  Evangel  ? 

Faced  by  such  unbounded  defiance  Philip  and  his  luckless 
bigamy,  in  spite  of  the  assurance  he  saw  fit  to  assume, 
seemed  indeed  in  a  bad  way.  One  can  feel  how  Luther 
despised  the  man.  In  spite  of  his  painful  embarrassment, 
he  is  aware  of  his  advantage.  He  indeed  stood  in  need  of 
the  Landgrave's  assistance  in  the  matter  of  the  new  Church 
system,  but  the  latter  was  entirely  dependent  on  Luther's 
help  in  his  disastrous  affair. 

Hence  Philip,  in  his  reply,  is  more  amiable,  though  he 
really  demolishes  Luther's  objections.  This  reply  he  sent  the 
day  after  receiving  Luther's  letter.1 

Certain  words  which  had  been  let  fall  at  Eisenach  had 
"  enraged  and  maddened  "  him  (Philip).  He  had,  however, 
good  "  scriptural  warrant  for  his  action,"  and  Luther  should 
not  forget  that,  "  what  we  did,  we  did  with  a  good  con 
science."  There  was  thus  no  need  for  the  Prince  to  bow 
before  the  Wittenbergers.  "  We  are  well  aware  that  you 
and  Philip  [Melanchthon]  cannot  defend  us  against  the 
secular  powers,  nor  have  we  ever  asked  this  of  you."  "  That 
Margaret  should  not  be  looked  upon  as  a  prostitute,  this  we 

1  On  July  27,  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  385  ff. 


59 

demand  and  insist  upon,  and  the  presence  of  pious  men 
[Melanchthon,  etc.]  at  the  wedding,  your  advice,  and  the 
marriage  contract,  will  prove  what  she  is."  "In  fine,  we 
will  allow  it  to  remain  a  secret  marriage  and  dispensation, 
and  will  give  a  reply  which  shall  conceal  the  matter,  and  be 
neither  yea  nor  nay,  as  long  as  we  can  and  may."  He 
insists,  however,  that,  "  if  we  cannot  prevent  it,"  then  we 
shall  bring  the  Wittenberg  advice  "  into  the  light  of  day." 

As  to  telling  a  downright  lie,  that  was  impossible,  because 
the  marriage  contract  was  in  the  hands  of  his  second  wife's 
friends,  who  would  at  once  take  him  to  task. 

"  It  was  not  our  intention  to  enter  upon  a  wordy  conflict, 
or  to  set  your  pen  to  work."  Luther  had  said,  that  he  would 
know  how  to  get  out  of  a  tight  corner,  but  what  business 
was  that  of  Philip's  :  "  We  care  not  whether  you  get  out  or 
in."  As  to  Luther's  malicious  allusion  to  his  love  for  the 
beautiful  Margaret,  he  says  :  "  Since  she  took  a  fancy  to  us, 
we  were  fonder  of  her  than  of  another,  but,  had  she  not 
liked  us,  then  we  should  have  taken  another."  Hence  he 
would  have  committed  bigamy  in  any  case.  He  waxes 
sarcastic  about  Luther's  remark,  that  the  world  would 
never  acknowledge  her  as  his  wife,  hinting  that  Luther's 
own  wife,  and  the  consorts  of  the  other  preachers  who  had 
formerly  been  monks  or  priests,  were  likewise  not  regarded 
by  the  imperial  lawyers  as  lawful  wedded  wives.  He  looked 
upon  Margaret  as  his  "  wife  according  to  God's  Word  and 
your  advice  ;  such  is  God's  will ;  the  world  may  regard  our 
wife,  yours  and  the  other  preachers'  as  it  pleases." 

Philip,  however,  was  diplomatic  enough  to  temper  all  this 
with  friendly  assurances.  "  We  esteem  you,"  he  says,  "  as 
a  very  eminent  theologian,  nor  shall  we  doubt  you,  so  long 
as  God  continues  to  give  you  His  Spirit,  which  Spirit  we 
still  recognise  in  you.  .  .  .  We  find  no  fault  with  you 
personally  and  consider  you  a  man  who  looks  to  God.  As  to 
our  other  thoughts,  they  are  just  thoughts,  and  come  and 
go  duty  free." 

These  "  duty-free  "  thoughts,  as  we  readily  gather  from 
the  letter,  concerned  the  Courts  of  Saxony,  whose  influence 
on  Luther  was  a  thorn  in  the  Landgrave's  flesh.  There  was 
the  "  haughty  old  Vashti  "  at  Dresden  (Duchess  Catherine), 
without  whom  the  "  matter  would  not  have  gone  so  far  "  ; 
then,  again,  there  was  Luther's  "  Lord,  the  Elector."  The 


60  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  cunning  of  the  children  of  the  world,"  which  the  Land 
grave  feared  would  infect  Luther,  had  its  head-quarters  at 
these  Courts.  But  if  it  came  to  the  point,  such  things  would 
be  "  disclosed  and  manifested  "  by  him,  the  Landgrave,  to 
the  Elector  and  "  many  other  princes  and  nobles,"  that 
"  you  would  have  to  excuse  us,  because  what  we  did  was 
not  done  merely  from  love,  but  for  conscience's  sake  and  in 
order  to  escape  eternal  damnation  ;  and  your  Lord,  the 
Elector,  will  have  to  admit  it  too  and  be  our  witness."  And 
in  still  stronger  language,  he  "  cites  "  the  Elector,  or,  rather, 
both  the  Elector  and  himself,  to  appear  before  Luther  :  "If 
this  be  not  sufficient,  then  demand  of  us,  and  of  your  master, 
that  we  tell  you  in  confession  such  things  as  will  satisfy  you 
concerning  us.  They  would,  however,  sound  ill,  so  help 
me  God,  and  we  hope  to  God  that  He  will  by  all  means  pre 
serve  us  from  such  in  future.  You  wish  to  learn  it,  then 
learn  it,  and  do  not  look  for  anything  good  but  for  the  worst, 
and  if  we  do  not  speak  the  truth,  may  God  strike  us  "  ;  "to 
prove  it  "  we  are  quite  ready.  Other  things  (see  below, 
xxiv.,  2)  make  it  probable,  that  the  Elector  is  here  accused 
as  being  Philip's  partner  in  some  very  serious  sin.  It  looks 
as  though  Philip's  intention  was  to  frighten  him  and  prevent 
his  proceeding  further  against  him.  Since  Luther  in  all 
probability  brought  the  letter  to  the  cognisance  of  the 
Elector,  the  step  was,  politically,  well  thought  out. 

Melanchthon's  Complaints. 

Melanchthon,  as  was  usual  with  him,  adopted  a  different 
tone  from  Luther's  in  the  matter.  He  was  very  sad,  and 
wrote  lengthy  letters  of  advice. 

As  early  as  June  15,  to  ease  his  mind,  he  sent  one  to  the 
Elector  Johann  Frederick,  containing  numerous  arguments 
against  polygamy,  but  leaving  open  the  possibility  of  secret 
bigamy.1  Friends  informed  the  Landgrave  that  anxiety 
about  the  bigamy  was  the  cause  of  Melanchthon's  serious 
illness.  Philip,  on  the  other  hand,  wrote,  that  it  was  the 
Saxon  Courts  which  were  worrying  him.2  Owing  to  his 
weakness  he  was  unable  to  take  part  in  the  negotiations  at 
Eisenach.  On  his  return  to  Wittenberg  he  declared  aloud 

1  Rockwell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  190.     Cp.  p.  61. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  192,  from  Philip's  letter  to  Luther,  on  July  18. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  61 

that  he  and  Luther  had  been  outwitted  by  the  malice  of 
Philip  of  Hesse.  The  latter's  want  of  secrecy  seemed  to 
show  the  treasonable  character  of  the  intrigue.  To  Camer- 
arius  he  wrote  on  Aug.  24  :  "  We  are  disgraced  by  a  horrid 
business  concerning  which  I  must  say  nothing.  I  will  give 
you  the  details  in  due  time."1  On  Sep.  1,  he  admits  in  a 
letter  to  Veit  Dietrich  :  "  We  have  been  deceived,  under  a 
semblance  of  piety,  by  another  Jason,  Avho  protested  con 
scientious  motives  in  seeking  our  assistance,  and  who  even 
swore  that  this  expedient  was  essential  for  him."2  He  thus 
gives  his  friend  a  peep  into  the  Wittenberg  advice,  of  which 
he  was  the  draughtsman,  and  in  which  he,  unlike  Luther, 
could  see  nothing  that  came  under  the  Seal  of  Confession. 
The  name  of  the  deceitful  polygamist  Jason  he  borrows 
from  Terence,  011  whom  he  was  then  lecturing.  Since 
Luther,  about  the  same  time,  also  quotes  from  Terence  when 
speaking  at  table  about  Philip's  bigamy,  we  may  infer  that 
he  and  Melanchthon  had  exchanged  ideas  on  the  work  in 
question  (the  "  Adelphi  ").  Melanchthon  was  also  fond  of 
dubbing  the  Hessian  "  Alcibiades  "  on  account  of  his  dissem 
bling  and  cunning.3 

Most  remarkable,  however,  is  the  assertion  he  makes  in 
his  annoyance,  viz.  that  the  Landgrave  was  on  the  point  of 
losing  his  reason  :  "  This  is  the  beginning  of  his  insanity."4 
Luther,  too,  had  said  he  feared  he  was  going  crazy,  as  it  ran 
in  the  family.5  Philip's  father,  Landgrave  William  II,  had 
succumbed  to  melancholia  as  the  result  of  syphilis.  The 
latter's  brother,  William  I,  had  also  been  insane.  Philip's 
son,  William  IV,  sought  to  explain  the  family  trouble  by 
a  spell  cast  over  one  of  his  ancestors  by  the  "  courtisans  " 
at  Venice.6  In  1538,  previous  to  the  bigamy  scandal,  Henry 
of  Brunswick  had  written,  that  the  Landgrave,  owing  to  the 
French  disease,  was  able  to  sleep  but  little,  and  would  soon 
go  mad.7 

Melanchthon  became  very  sensitive  to  any  mention  of  the 
Hessian  bigamy.  At  table,  on  one  occasion  in  Aug.,  1540, 

1  Rockwell,  loc.  cit.,  p.  193.  "  Ibid.,  p.  194. 

3  "  Alcibiadea  natura  non  Achillea.^     "Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  1079.     Cp. 
4,  p.  116.    Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  194. 

4  "  Hcec  sunt  principia  furoris."    Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  143. 
Above,  p.  45. 

5  Ibid.,   on  the   same   day    (June    1-1,    1540),   Luther's   statement. 
Above,  p.  44. 

6  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  159,  n.  2  ;   p.  4,  n.  1.         7  Ibid.,  p.  102. 


62  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Luther  spoke  of  love  ;  no  one  was  quite  devoid  of  love  because 
all  at  least  desired  enjoyment ;  one  loved  his  wife,  another 
his  children,  others,  like  Carlstadt,  loved  honour.  When 
Bugenhagen,  with  an  allusion  to  the  Landgrave,  quoted  the 
passage  from  Virgil's  "  Bucolica  "  :  "  Omtiia  vincit  amor  et 
nos  cedarnus  amori,"  Melanchthon  jumped  up  and  cried  : 
"  Pastor,  leave  out  that  passage."1 

Brooding  over  the  permission  given,  the  scholar  sought 
earnestly  for  grounds  of  excuse  for  the  bigamy.  "  I  looked 
well  into  it  beforehand,"  he  writes  in  1543,  "  I  also  told  the 
Doctor  [Luther]  to  weigh  well  whether  he  could  be  mixed  up 
in  the  affair.  There  are,  however,  circumstances  of  which 
the  women  [their  Ducal  opponents  at  Meissen]  are  not 
aware,  and  understand  not.  The  man  [the  Landgrave]  has 
many  strange  ideas  on  the  Deity.  He  also  confided  to  me 
things  which  I  have  told  no  one  but  Dr.  Martin  ;  on  account 
of  all  this  we  have  had  no  small  trouble."2  We  must  not 
press  the  contradiction  this  presents  to  Melanchthon's  other 
statement  concerning  the  Prince's  hypocrisy. 

Melanchthon's  earlier  letter  dated  Sep.  1,  1540,  Camer- 
arius  ventured  to  publish  in  the  collection  of  his  friend's 
letters  only  with  omissions  and  additions  which  altered  the 
meaning. 

Until  1904  this  letter,  like  Melanchthon's  other  letter  on 
Luther's  marriage  (vol.  ii.,  p.  176),  was  only  known  in  the 
amended  form.  W.  Rockwell  has  now  published  the  following 
suppressed  passages  from  the  original  in  the  Chigiana  at  Rome, 
according  to  the  manuscript  prepared  by  Nicholas  Mxiller  for  the 
new  edition  of  Melanchthon's  correspondence.  Here  Melanchthon 
speaks  out  plainly  without  being  conscious  of  any  "  Secret  of 
Confession,"  and  sees  little  objection  to  the  complete  publication 
by  the  Wittenbergers  of  their  advice.  "  I  blame  no  one  in  this 
matter  except  the  man  who  deceived  us  with  a  simulated  piety 
('  simulations  pietatis  fe/ellit ').  Nor  did  he  adhere  to  our  trusty 
counsel  [to  keep  the  matter  secret].  He  swore  that  the  remedy 
was  necessary.  Therefore,  that  the  universal  biblical  precept 
[concerning  the  unity  of  marriage]  :  '  They  shall  be  two  in  one 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  175,  7-24  Aug.,  1540. 

2  To   the   Elector  Johann  Frederick,   March,    1543,   see  Rockwell 
p.  199  f.,  from  archives.     Rockwell  quotes  the  following  from  a  passage 
in  which  several  words  have  been  struck  out  :    "I  have  always  pre 
ferred  that  he  [...?]  should  deal  with  the  matter,  than  that  he 
should  altogether  [  .  .  .?]."     Was  the  meaning  :    He  preferred  that 
Luther  should  be  involved  in  such  an  affair  rather  than  that  he  [the 
Landgrave]  should  desert  their  party  altogether  ?     Other  utterances 
of  Melanchthon's  and  Luther's,  given  above,  would  favour  this  sense. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  63 

flesh  '  might  be  preserved,  we  counselled  him,  secretly,  and 
without  giving  scandal  to  others,  to  make  use  of  the  remedy  in 
case  of  necessity.  I  will  not  be  judge  of  his  conscience,  for  he 
still  sticks  to  his  assertion  ;  but  the  scandal  he  might  well  have 
avoided  had  he  chosen.  Either  [what  follows  is  in  Greek]  love 
got  the  upper  hand,  or  here  is  the  beginning  and  foretaste  of 
that  insanity  which  runs  in  the  family.  Luther  blamed  him 
severely  and  he  thereupon  promised  to  keep  silence.  But  .  .  . 
[Melanchthon  has  crossed  out  the  next  sentence  :  As  time  goes 
on  he  changes  his  views]  whatever  he  may  do  in  the  matter,  we 
are  free  to  publish  our  decision  ('  edere  sententiam  nostram  ')  ;  for 
in  it  too  we  vindicated  the  law.  He  himself  told  me,  that 
formerly  he  had  thought  otherwise,  but  certain  people  had  con 
vinced  him  that  the  thing  was  quite  indifferent.  He  has  un 
learned  men  about  him  who  have  written  him  long  dissertations, 
and  who  are  not  a  little  angry  with  me  because  I  blamed  them 
to  their  teeth.  But  in  the  beginning  we  were  ignorant  of  their 
prejudices."  He  goes  on  to  speak  of  Philip  as  "  depraved  by  an 
Alcibiadean  nature  ('  Alcibiadea  natura  perditus  '),"  an  expression 
which  also  fell  under  the  red  pencil  of  the  first  editor,  Camerarius. x 

Literary  Feud  with  Duke  Henry  of  Brunswick. 

Prominent  amongst  those  who  censured  the  bigamy  was 
the  Landgrave's  violent  opponent  Duke  Henry  of  Brunswick  - 
Wolfenbiittel.  The  Duke,  a  leader  of  the  Catholic 
Alliance  formed  to  resist  the  Schmalkalden  Leaguers  in 
North  Germany,  published  in  the  early  'forties  several 
controversial  works  against  Philip  of  Hesse.  This  brisk  and 
active  opponent,  whose  own  character  was,  however,  by  no 
means  unblemished,  seems  to  have  had  a  hand  in  the  attacks 
of  other  penmen  upon  the  Landgrave.  Little  by  little  he 
secured  fairly  accurate  accounts  of  the  proceedings  in  Hesse 
and  at  Wittenberg,  and,  as  early  as  July  22,  1540,  made  a 
general  and  public  reference  to  what  had  taken  place.2 

In  a  tract  published  on  Nov.  3,  he  said  quite  openly  that 
the  Landgrave  had  "  two  wives  at  the  same  time,  and  had 
thus  rendered  himself  liable  to  the  penalties  against  double 
marriage."  The  Elector  of  Saxony  had,  however,  permitted 
"  his  biblical  experts  at  the  University  of  Wittenberg  to 
assist  in  dealing  with  these  nice  affairs,"  nay,  had  himself 
concurred  in  the  bigamy.3 

1  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  194.  Text  of  Camerarius  in  "  Corp.  ref.,"  3, 
p.  1077  seq.  2  Ibid.,  p.  103. 

3  "  Ergriindete  .  .  .  Duplica  .  .  .  wider  des  Churfiirsten  von 
Sachsen  Abdruck,"  etc.  The  work  is  directed  primarily  against  the 
Elector  Johann  Frederick,  the  "  drunken  Nabal  of  Saxony,"  as 
the  author  terms  him. 


64  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

In  consequence  of  these  and  other  charges  contained  in 
the  Duke's  screed,  Luther  wrote  the  violent  libel  entitled 
"  Wider  Hans  Worst,"  of  which  the  still  existing  manu 
script  shows  in  what  haste  and  frame  of  mind  the  work  was 
dashed  off.  All  his  exasperation  at  the  events  connected 
with  the  bigamy  now  become  public  boils  up  in  his  attack 
on  the  "  Bloodhound,  and  incendiary  Harry  "  of  Brunswick, 
and  the  "  clerical  devil's  whores  in  the  Popish  robbers' 
cave."1  Of  Henry's  charge  he  speaks  in  a  way  which  is 
almost  more  than  a  mere  concealing  of  the  bigamy.2  He 
adds  :  "  The  very  name  of  Harry  stinks  like  devil's  ordure 
freshly  dropped  in  Germany.  Did  he  perchance  desire  that 
not  he  alone  should  stink  so  horribly  in  the  nostrils  of 
others,  but  that  he  should  make  other  honourable  princes 
to  stink  also  ?  "  He  was  a  renegade  and  a  coward,  who  did 
everything  like  an  assassin.  "  He  ought  to  be  set  up  like  a 
eunuch,  dressed  in  cap  and  bells,  with  a  feather-brush  in  his 
hand  to  guard  the  women  and  that  part  on  account  of  which 
they  are  called  women,  as  the  rude  Germans  say."  "  Assas 
sin-adultery,  assassin-arson  indeed  became  this  '  wild  cat,'  ' 
etc. 

Even  before  this  work  was  finished,  in  February,  1541,  a 
pseudonymous  attack  upon  the  Landgrave  appeared  which 
"  horrified  Cruciger,"3  who  was  with  Luther  at  Wittenberg. 
The  Landgrave  is  here  upbraided  with  the  bigamy,  the 
reproaches  culminating  in  the  following  :  "I  cannot  but 
believe  that  the  devil  resides  in  your  Serene  Highness,  and 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  58. 

2  Ibid.,  p.   77  :    "  Concerning  the  Landgrave,  whom  he  abuses  as 
bigamous,  an  Anabaptist  and  even  as  having  submitted  to  re-baptism, 
though  in  such  ambiguous  terms  as  to  suit  a  cardinal  or  a  weather-cock, 
so  that  were  his  proofs  asked  for  he  could  twist  his  tongue  round  and 
say,  that  he  was  not  sure  it  was  so,  but  merely  suspected  it  ...  of 
this  I  will  not  now  say  much.    The  Landgrave  is  man  enough  and  has 
learned  men  about  him.     I  know  of  one  Landgravine  in  Hesse  [one  only 
bore  the  title],  who  is  and  is  to  be  styled  wife  and  mother  in  Hesse,  and, 
in  any  case,  no  other  will  be  able  to  bear  young  Princes  and  suckle 
them  ;    I  refer  to  the  Duchess,  daughter  of  Duke  George  of  Saxony. 
And  if  her  Prince  has  strayed,  that  was  owing  to  your  bad  example, 
which  has  brought  things  to  such  a  pass,  that  the  very  peasants  do  not 
look  upon  it  as  sin,  and  have  made  it  difficult  for  us   to  maintain 
matrimony  in  honour  and  esteem,  nay,  to  re-establish  it.     From  the 
very  beginning  none   has   abused  matrimony  more   grievously   than 
Harry  of  Wolff enbiittel,  the  holy,  sober  man."    That  is  all  Luther  says 
of  the  Hessian  bigamy. 

3  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  107,  on  the  writing  of  "  Justinus  Warsager  " 
against  the  Landgrave,  with  a  reference  to  "  Corp.  ref.,"  4,  p.  112. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  65 

that  the  Miinster  habit  has  infected  your  S.H.,  so  that  your 
S.H.  thinks  that  you  may  take  as  many  wives  as  you  please, 
even  as  the  King  of  Miinster  did." 

An  anonymous  reply  to  this  screed  penned  by  the  pastor 
of  Mclsungen,  Johann  Lening,  is  the  first  attempt  at  a 
public  justification  of  Philip's  bigamy.  The  author  only 
disclaims  the  charge  that  the  Landgrave  had  intended  to 
"  introduce  a  new  '  ius.'  5?1 

Henry  of  Brunswick  replied  to  "  Hans  Worst  "  and  to 
this  vindication  of  the  bigamy  in  his  "  Quadruplicce  "  of 
May  31,  1541.  He  said  there  of  Luther's  "  Hans  Worst  "  : 
"  That  we  should  have  roused  Luther,  the  arch-knave,  arch- 
heretic,  desperate  scoundrel  and  godless  arch-miscreant,  to 
put  forth  his  impious,  false,  unchristian,  lousy  and  rascally 
work  is  due  to  the  scamp  [on  the  throne]  of  Saxony."  "  We 
have  told  the  truth  so  plainly  to  his  Munsterite  brother,  the 
Landgrave,  concerning  his  bigamy,  that  he  has  been  unable 
to  deny  it,  but  admits  it,  only  that  he  considers  that  he  did 
not  act  dishonourably,  but  rightly  and  in  a  Christian  fashion, 
which,  however,  is  a  lie  and  utterly  untrue."  In  some  of  his 
allegations  then  and  later,  such  as  that  the  Landgrave  was 
thinking  of  taking  a  third  wife  "  in  addition  to  his  numerous 
concubines,"  and  that  he  had  submitted  to  re-baptism,  the 
princely  knight-errant  was  going  too  far.  A  reply  and 
defence  of  the  Landgrave,  published  in  1544,  asserts  with 
unconscious  humour  that  the  Landgrave  knew  how  to  take 
seriously  "  to  heart  what  God  had  commanded  concerning 
marriage  .  .  .  and  also  the  demands  of  conjugal  fidelity 
and  love." 

Johann  Lening,  pastor  of  Melsungen,  formerly  a  Car 
thusian  in  the  monastery  of  Eppenberg,  had  been  the  most 
zealous  promoter  of  the  bigamy.  He  was  also  very  active 
in  rendering  literary  service  in  its  defence.  The  string  of 
Bible  proofs  alleged  by  Philip  in  his  letter  to  Luther  of 
July  18  (above,  p.  55  f.)  can  undoubtedly  be  traced  to  his 
inspiration.  In  October,  1541,  he  was  at  Augsburg  with 
Gereon  Sailer, 2  the  physician  so  skilled  in  the  treatment  of 
syphilis  ;  a  little  later  Veit  Dietrich  informed  Melanchthoii 
of  his  venereal  trouble.3  He  was  much  disliked  by  the 
Saxons  and  the  Wittenbergers  on  account  of  his  defence  of 

1  Cp.  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  108. 

2  "  Philipps  Briefwechsel,"  3,  1891,  p.  186,  n.  1. 

3  On  Dec.  11,  1541.    Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  117,  n.  1. 

IV. — F 


66  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

his  master.  Chancellor  Briick  speaks  of  him  as  a  "  violent, 
bitter  man  "  ;  Luther  calls  him  the  "  Melsingen  nebulo  " 
and  the  "  monstrum  Carthusianum  "  ;x  Frederick  Myconius 
speaks  of  the  "  lenones  Leningi  "  and  fears  he  will  catch  the 
"  Dionysiorum  vesania." 

Such  was  the  author  of  the  "  Dialogue  of  Huldericus 
Neobulus,"  which  has  become  famous  in  the  history  of  the 
Hessian  Bigamy  ;  it  appeared  in  1541,  towards  the  end  of 
summer,  being  printed  at  Marburg  at  Philip's  expense. 

The  book  was  to  answer  in  the  affirmative  the  question 
contained  in  the  sub-title  :  "  Whether  it  be  in  accordance 
with  or  contrary  to  the  Divine,  natural,  Imperial  and 
ecclesiastical  law,  to  have  simultaneously  more  than  one 
wife."  The  author,  however,  clothed  his  affirmation  in 
so  pedantic  and  involved  a  form  as  to  make  it  unintelligible 
to  the  uninitiate  so  that  Philip  could  say  that,  "  it  would  be 
a  temptation  to  nobody  to  follow  his  example,"  and  that  it 
tended  rather  to  dissuade  from  bigamy  than  to  induce 
people  to  commit  it.2 

This  work  was  very  distasteful  to  the  Courts  of  Saxony, 
and  Luther  soon  made  up  his  mind  to  write  against  it. 

He  wrote  on  Jan.  10,  1542,  to  Justus  Menius,  who  had 
sent  him  a  reply  of  his  own,  intended  for  the  press  :  "  Your 
book  will  go  to  the  printers,  but  mine  is  already  waiting 
publication  ;  your  turn  will  come  next.  .  .  .  How  this  man 
disgusts  me  with  the  insipid,  foolish  and  worthless  argu 
ments  he  excretes."  To  this  Pandora  all  the  Hessian  gods 
must  have  contributed.  "  Bucer  smells  bad  enough  already 
on  account  of  the  Ratisbon  dealings.  .  .  .May  Christ  keep 
us  well  disposed  towards  Him  and  steadfast  in  His  Holy 
Word.  Amen."3  From  what  Luther  says  he  was  not 
incensed  at  the  Dialogue  of  Neobulus  so  much  on  account 
of  its  favouring  polygamy  itself,  but  because,  not  content 
with  allowing  bigamy  conditionally,  and  before  the  tribunal 

1  To  Justus  Menius,  Jan.  10,  1542,  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  426. 
Cp.  above,   p.  25  f.,  for  Luther's  opinion  that  Lening  had  been  the 
first  to  suggest  the  plan  of  the  bigamy  to  the  Landgrave.     For  other 
points  in  the  text,  see  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  117  f.    Koldewey  remarks  of 
Lening,  that  "  his  wretched  servility  and  his  own  lax  morals  had  made 
him  the  advocate  of  the  Landgrave's  carnal  lusts."     ("  Theol.  Studien 
und  Kritiken,"  57,  1884,  p.  560.) 

2  The   Landgrave  to   Sailer,   Aug.    27,    1541,   in   "  Philipps   Brief- 
wechsel,"  3,  p.  148,  and  to  Melanchthon. 

3  See  above,  note  1. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  67 

of  conscience,  it  sought  also  to  erect  it  into  a  public  law. 
When,  however,  both  Elector  and  Landgrave1  begged  him 
to  refrain  from  publishing  his  reply,  he  agreed  and  stopped 
the  printers,  though  only  after  a  part  of  it  had  already  left 
the  press.2 

His  opinion  concerning  the  permissibility  of  bigamy  in 
certain  cases  he  never  changed  in  spite  of  the  opposition  it 
met  with.  But,  in  Luther's  life,  hardly  an  instance  can  be 
cited  of  his  having  shrunk  back  when  attacked.  Rarely  if 
ever  did  his  defiance — which  some  admire — prove  more 
momentous  than  on  this  occasion.  An  upright  man  is  not 
unwilling  to  allow  that  he  may  have  been  mistaken  in  a 
given  instance,  and,  when  better  informed,  to  retract. 
Luther,  too,  might  well  have  appealed  to  the  shortness  of 
the  time  allowed  him  for  the  consideration  of  the  counsel  he 
had  given  at  Wittenberg.  Without  a  doubt  his  hand  had 
been  forced.  Further,  it  might  have  been  alleged  in  excuse 
for  his  act,  that  misapprehension  of  the  Bible  story  of  the 
patriarchs  had  dragged  him  to  consequences  which  he  had 
not  foreseen.  It  would  have  been  necessary  for  him  to 
revise  completely  his  Old-Testament  exegesis  on  this  point, 
and  to  free  it  from  the  influence  of  his  disregard  of  ecclesi 
astical  tradition  and  the  existing  limitations  on  matrimony. 
In  place  of  this,  consideration  for  the  exalted  rank  of  his 
petitioners  induced  him  to  yield  to  the  plausible  reasons 
brought  forward  by  a  smooth-tongued  agent  and  to  remain 
silent. 

The  tract  of  Menius,  on  the  same  political  grounds,  was 
likewise  either  not  published  at  all  or  withdrawn  later.  The 
truth  was,  that  it  was  desirable  that  the  Hessian  affair 
should  come  under  discussion  as  little  as  possible,  so  that  no 
grounds  should  be  given  "  to  increase  the  gossip,"  as  Luther 
put  it  in  1542  ;  "I  would  rather  it  were  left  to  settle  as  it 
began,  than  that  the  filth  should  be  stirred  up  under  the 
noses  of  the  whole  world."3 

1  In  the  letter  to  Melanchthon,  quoted  p.  66,  note  2,  Philip  says,  that 
if  Luther's  work  had  not  yet  appeared  Melanchthon  was  to  explain  to 
him  that  the  Dialogue  of  Neobulus  tended  rather  to  dissuade  from, 
than  to  permit  bigamy,  "  so  that  he  might  forbear  from  such  [reply], 
or  so  moderate   it   that  it  may  not   injure   us   or  what  he  himself 
previously  sanctioned  and  wrote  [i.e.  in  the  Wittenberg  testimony]." 

2  Printed  in  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  206  ff. 

3  Luther  to  the  Electoral  Chancellor,  Briick,  "  shortly  after  Jan.  10," 
"  Briefe,"  6,  p.  296,  where  he  also  approvingly  notes  that  Menius  had 


68  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  work  of  Neobulus  caused  much  heart-burning  among 
the  Swiss  reformers  ;  of  this  we  hear  from  Bullinger,  who 
also,  in  his  Commentary  on  Matthew,  in  1542,  expressed 
himself  strongly  against  the  tract.1  His  successor,  Rudolf 
Gualther,  Zwingli's  son-in-law,  wrote  that  it  was  shocking 
that  a  Christian  Prince  should  have  been  guilty  of  such  a 
thing  and  that  theologians  should  have  been  found  to 
father,  advocate  and  defend  it.2 

In  time,  however,  less  was  heard  of  the  matter  and  the 
rumours  died  down.  A  peace  was  even  patched  up  between 
the  Landgrave  and  the  Emperor,  chiefly  because  the 
Elector  of  Saxony  was  against  the  Schmalkalden  League 
being  involved  in  the  Hessian  affair.  Without  admitting 
the  reality  of  the  bigamy,  and  without  even  mentioning  it, 
Philip  concluded  with  Charles  V  a  treaty  which  secured  for 
him  safety.  Therein  he  made  to  the  Emperor  political 
concessions  of  such  importance3  as  to  arouse  great  dis 
content  and  grave  suspicions  in  the  ranks  of  the  Evangelicals. 
At  a  time  when  the  German  Protestants  were  on  the  point 
of  appealing  to  France  for  assistance  against  Charles  V,  he 
promised  to  do  his  best  to  hinder  the  French  and  to  support 
the  Imperial  interests.  In  the  matter  of  the  Emperor's  feud 
with  Julich,  he  pledged  himself  to  neutrality,  thus  ensuring 
the  Emperor's  success.  After  receiving  the  Imperial  pardon 
on  Jan.  24,  1541,  his  complete  reconciliation  was  guaranteed 
by  the  secret  compact  of  Ratisbon  on  June  13  of  the  same 
year.  He  had  every  reason  to  be  content,  and  as  the 
editor  of  Philip's  correspondence  with  Bucer  writes,4  what 
better  could  even  the  Emperor  desire  ?  The  great  danger 
which  threatened  was  a  league  of  the  German  Protestants 
with  France.  And  now  the  Prince,  Avho  alone  was  able  to 
bring  this  about,  withdrew  from  the  opposition  party,  laid 
his  cards  on  the  table,  left  the  road  open  to  Guelders,  offered 

not  written  "  ''contra  necessitatem  et  casualem  dispensationem  individual 
personce,'  of  which  we,  as  confessors,  treated  "  ;  he  only  "  inveighed 
'  contra  legem  et  exemplum  publicum  polygamice,'  which  we  also  do." 
Still,  he  finds  that  Menius  "  excuses  the  old  patriarchs  too  feebly." 

1  Cp.  his  outburst  against  "  those  who  teach  polygamy  "  in  his  "  In 
evangelium  s.  Mt.  Commentaria,"  Tiguri,  1543,  p.  179. 

2  To  Oswald  Myconius,  Sep.  13,  1540,  in  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  325  : 
"  pudet  imprimis  inter  theologos  talium  authorcs,   tutores  et  patronos 
posse  reperiri." 

3  Cp.  Janssen,   "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  "  (Engl.   Trans.),   6, 
p.  149  f.  ;  and  Rockwell,  ibid.,  pp.  130,  132. 

4  Max  Lenz,  in  "  Philipps  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  497. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  69 

his  powerful  support  both  within  and  outside  of  the  Empire, 
and,  in  return,  asked  for  nothing  but  the  Emperor's  favour. 
The  Landgrave's  princely  allies  in  the  faith  were  pained  to  see 
him  forsake  "  the  opposition  [to  the  Emperor].  For  their 
success  the  political  situation  was  far  more  promising  than 
in  the  preceding  winter.  An  alliance  with  France  offered  [the 
Protestants]  a  much  greater  prospect  of  success  than  one 
with  England,  for  Frangois  I  was  far  more  opposed  to  the 
Emperor  than  was  Henry  VIII.  ...  Of  the  German 
Princes,  William  of  Jiilich  had  already  pledged  himself 
absolutely  to  the  French  King."1 

Philip  was  even  secretly  set  on  obtaining  the  Pope's 
sanction  to  the  bigamy.  Through  Georg  von  Carlowitz  and 
Julius  Pflug  he  sought  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Rome  ; 
they  were  not  to  grudge  an  outlay  of  from  3000  to  4000 
gulden  as  an  "  offering."2  As  early  as  the  end  of  1541 
Chancellor  Feige  received  definite  instructions  in  the  matter. 

The  Hessian  Court  had,  however,  in  the  meantime  been 
informed,  that  Cardinal  Contarini  had  given  it  to  be  under 
stood  that  "  no  advice  or  assistance  need  be  looked  for  from 
the  Pope."3 

Landgravine  Christina  died  in  1549,  and,  after  her  death, 
the  unfortunate  marriage  was  gradually  buried  in  oblivion. 
— But  did  Landgrave  Philip,  after  the  conclusion  of  the 
second  marriage,  cease  from  immoral  intercourse  with 
women  as  he  had  so  solemnly  promised  Luther  he  would  ? 

In  the  Protestant  periodical,  "Die  christliche  Welt,"4  atten 
tion  was  drawn  to  a  Repertory  of  the  archives  of  Philip  of  Hesse, 
published  in  1904, 6  in  which  a  document  is  mentioned  which 
would  seem  to  show  that  Philip  was  unfaithful  even  subsequent  to 
his  marriage  with  Margaret.  The  all  too  brief  description  of  the 
document  is  as  follows  :  "  Suit  of  Johann  Meckbach  against 
Landgrave  Philip  on  behalf  of  Lady  Margaret  ;  the  Landgrave's 
infidelity  ;  Margaret's  demand  that  her  marriage  be  made 
public."  "  This  sounds  suspicious,"  remarks  W.  Kohler,  "  we 
have  always  taken  it  for  granted  that  the  bigamy  was  moral  only 
in  so  far  as  the  Landgrave  Philip  refrained  from  conjugal  infidelity 

1  Max  Lenz,  in  "  Philipps  Brief  wechsel,"  1,  p.  499. 
"  Briefwechsel,"  ibid.,  p.  368  f. 

3  Feige  to  the  Landgrave,  July  19,   1541,  published  by  Rockwell, 
ibid.,  p.  331  ;    cp.  p.  100  f. 

4  No.  35,  August  30,  1906. 

8  "  Das  politische  Archiv  des  Landgrafen  Philipp  von  Hessen  ; 
Repertorium  des  landgrafl.  polit.  Archivs,"  Bd.  1.  (Publikationen  aus 
den  Kgl.  preuss.  Staatsarchiven,  Bd.  78).  Year  1556,  No.  27. 


70  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

after  its  conclusion,  and  now  we  are  confronted  with  this  charge. 
Is  it  founded  ?  "  Concerning  this  new  document  N.  Paulus 
remarks  :  "In  order  to  be  able  properly  to  appreciate  its  im 
portance,  we  should  have  to  know  more  of  the  suit.  At  any  rate 
Margaret  would  not  have  caused  representations  to  be  made  to 
her  '  husband  '  concerning  his  infidelity  without  very  weighty 
reasons."1 

In  the  Landgrave's  family  great  dissatisfaction  continued  to 
be  felt  with  Luther.  When,  in  1575,  Philip's  son  and  successor, 
Landgrave  William  IV,  was  entertaining  Palsgravine  Elisabeth, 
a  zealous  friend  of  Lutheranism,  he  spoke  to  her  about  Luther, 
as  she  relates  in  a  letter.2  "He  called  Dr.  Luther  a  rascal, 
because  he  had  persuaded  his  father  to  take  two  wives,  and 
generally  made  out  Dr.  Luther  to  be  very  wicked.  Whereat  I 
said  that  it  could  not  be  true  that  Luther  had  done  such  a  thing." 
— So  completely  had  the  fact  become  shrouded  in  obscurity. 
William,  however,  fetched  her  the  original  of  the  Wittenberg 
testimony.  Although  she  was  unwilling  to  look  at  it  lest  her 
reverence  for  Luther  should  suffer,  yet  she  was  forced  to  hear  it. 
In  her  own  words  :  "  He  locked  me  in  the  room  and  there  I  had 
to  remain  ;  he  gave  it  me  to  read,  and  my  husband  [the  Palsgrave 
Johann  Casimir]  who  was  also  with  me,  and  likewise  a  Zwinglian 
Doctor  both  abused  Dr.  Luther  loudly  and  said  we  simply  looked 
upon  him  as  an  idol  and  that  he  was  our  god.  The  Landgrave 
brought  out  the  document  and  made  the  Doctor  read  it  aloud 
so  that  I  might  hear  it  ;  but  I  refused  to  listen  to  it  and  thought 
of  something  else  ;  seeing  I  refused  to  listen  the  Landgrave  gave 
me  a  frightful  scolding,  but  afterwards  he  was  sorry  and  craved 
pardon." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  William's  dislike  for  Luther,  here 
displayed,  played  a  part  in  his  refusal  to  accept  the  formula  of 
Concord  in  1580. 3 

So  meagre  were  the  proofs  made  public  of  Luther's  share 
in  the  step  which  Philip  of  Hesse  had  taken,  that,  even  in 
Hesse,  the  Giessen  professor  Michael  Siricius  was  able  to 
declare  in  a  writing  of  1679,  entitled  "  Uxor  una"  that 
Luther's  supposed  memorandum  was  an  invention.4 

Of  the  Wittenberg  "  advice  "  only  one,  fairly  long,  but 
quite  apocryphal  version,  was  put  in  circulation  during 

1  Koln.  Volksztng.,  1906,  No.  758. 

2  K.   v.   Weber,   "  Anna  Churfiirstin  zu  Sachsen,"   Leipzig,    1865, 
p.  401  f.    Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  132  f. 

3  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.   133.     William  IV  wrote  a  curious  letter  to 
Coelestin  on  this  "  great  book  of  discord  and  on  the  '  dilaceratio  eccle- 
siarum  '  "  ;  see  G.   Th.   Strobel,   "  Beitrage  zur  Literatur,    besonders 
des  16.  Jahrh.,"  2,  1786,  p.  162. 

4  "  Theologos    Witenbergenses   et    in   specie   Megalandrum   nostrum 
Lutherum    consilio    suo   id  factum   suasisse   vel   approbasse,  manifests 
falsum  est."      Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  134. 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  71 

Melanchthon's  lifetime  ;  it  appeared  in  the  work  of  Erasmus 
Sarcerius,  "  On  the  holy  married  state,"  of  which  the 
Preface  is  dated  in  1553.  It  is  so  worded  as  to  leave  the 
reader  under  the  impression  that  its  authors  had  refused 
outright  to  give  their  consent.  Out  of  caution,  moreover, 
neither  the  authors  nor  the  addressee  are  named.1  In  this 
version,  supposed  to  be  Luther's  actual  text,  it  was  em 
bodied,  in  1661,  in  the  Altenburg  edition  of  his  works,  then 
in  the  Leipzig  reprint  of  the  same  (1729  ff.)  and  again  in 
Walch's  edition  (Halle,  1740  ff.).2  Yet  Lorenz  Beger,  in 
his  work  "  Daphnceus  Arcuarius  "  (1679),  had  supplied  the 
real  text,  together  with  Bucer's  instructions  and  the  marriage 
contract,  from  "  a  prominent  Imperial  Chancery."  The 
importance  of  these  documents  was  first  perceived  in  France. 
Bossuet  used  them  in  his  "  Histoire  des  variations  des 
eglises  protestantes  "  (1688). 3  He  was  also  aware  that 
Landgrave  Ernest,  of  Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg,  who 
returned  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  1652,  had  supplied  copies 
of  the  three  documents  (to  Elector  Carl  Ludwig  of  the 
Palatine).  In  more  recent  times  Max  Lenz's  publication  of 
the  Hessian  archives  has  verified  these  documents  and 
supplied  a  wealth  of  other  material  which  we  have  duly 
utilised  in  the  above. 

Opinions  Old  and  New  Regarding  the  Bigamy. 

As  more  light  began  to  be  thrown  on  the  history  of  the 
bigamy,  Protestant  historians,  even  apart  from  those  already 
mentioned,  were  not  slow  in  expressing  their  strong  con 
demnation,  as  indeed  was  only  to  be  expected. 

Julius  Boehmer,  in  outspoken  language,  points  to  "  the 
unfortunate  fact  "  that  "  Luther,  in  his  old  age,  became  weak, 
nay,  flabby  in  his  moral  judgments  and  allowed  himself  to  be 
guided  by  political  and  diplomatic  considerations,  and  not  by 
truth  alone  and  an  uncorruptible  conscience."* 

Walter  Kohler,  in  the  "  Historische  Zeitschrift,"  has  thrown  a 
strong  light  on  the  person  and  the  motives  of  the  Landgrave.5 
Whilst  admitting  that  Philip  may  have  suffered  from  remorse 

1  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  131. 

2  Altenburg  ed.,  8,  p.  977  ;   Leipzig  ed.,  22,  p.  496  ;  Walch's  ed.,  10, 
p.   886.      (Cp.  Walch,  102,  p.   748.)      See  De  Wette  in  his  edition  of 
Luther's  Letters,  5,  p.  236,  and  Enders-Kawerau,  in  "  Briefwechsel," 
)2,  p.  319.  3  Page  221. 

4  "  Luthers  Werke  fur  das  deutsche  Volk,"  1907,  Introd.,  p.  xvi. 

5  Bd.  94,  1905,  p.  385  ff. 


72  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

of  conscience  and  depression,  he  shows  how  these  were  "  in  great 
part  due  to  his  physical  deterioration,  his  unrestrained  excesses 
having  brought  on  him  syphilis  in  its  worst  form  ;  sores  broke 
out  on  his  hands  and  he  suffered  from  trouble  with  the  throat." 
His  resolution  to  commit  bigamy  also  sprang  from  the  same 
source,  "  not  from  a  sudden  realisation  of  the  wickedness  of  his 
life,  but  simply  from  the  sense  of  his  physical  bankruptcy." 
Besides,  as  Kohler  points  out,  the  Landgrave's  intention  was 
not  at  first  to  marry  Margaret,  but  rather  to  maintain  her  as 
a  kept  woman  and  so  render  excesses  unnecessary.  Philip,  how 
ever,  was  unable  to  get  her  as  a  concubine,  owing  to  the  opposition 
of  her  mother,  who  demanded  for  her  daughter  the  rank  of 
princess  and  wife.  Hence  the  idea  of  a  bigamy. 

The  following  indignant  reference  of  Onno  Klopp's  must  be 
included  amongst  the  Protestant  statements,  since  it  was  written 
some  time  before  the  eminent  historian  joined  the  Catholic 
Church  :  "  The  revolting  story  has  left  a  blot  on  the  memory  of 
Luther  and  Melanchthon  which  oceans  of  sophisms  will  not  avail 
to  wash  away.  This,  more  than  any  other  deed,  brought  to  light 
both  the  waywardness  of  the  new  Church  and  its  entire  depend 
ence  on  the  favour  of  Princes."1 

As  for  the  concealment,  and  the  secrecy  in  which  the  sanction 
of  the  bigamy  was  shrouded,  G.  Ellinger  considers,  that  the 
decision  of  Luther  and  his  friends  "  became  absolutely  immoral 
only  through  the  concealment  enjoined  by  the  reformers."  In 
consequence  of  the  matter  being  made  a  secret  of  conscience, 
"  the  second  wife  would  seem  to  the  world  a  concubine  "  ;  hence 
not  only  the  first  wife,  but  also  the  second  would  suffer  degrada 
tion.  The  second  wife's  relatives  had  given  their  consent  "  only 
on  the  hypothesis  of  a  real  marriage  "  ;  this  too  was  what 
Philip  intended  ;  yet  Luther  wished  him  to  tell  the  Emperor  that 
she  was  a  mere  concubine  ;  the  Landgrave,  however,  refused  to 
break  the  word  he  had  given,  and  "  repudiated  Luther's 
suggestion  that  he  should  tell  a  lie."2 

Another  Protestant,  the  historian  Paul  Tschackert,  has 
recently  characterised  the  Hessian  affair  as  "  a  dirty  story."  "  It 
is,  and  must  remain,"  he  says,  "  a  shameful  blot  on  the  German 
Reformation  and  the  life  of  our  reformers.  We  do  not  wish  to 
gloss  it  over,  still  less  to  excuse  it."3 

Yet,  notably  in  modern  theological  literature,  some 
Protestants  have  seemed  anxious  to  palliate  the  affair.  An 
attempt  is  made  to  place  the  Wittenberg  advice  and  Luther's 
subsequent  conduct  in  a  more  favourable  light  by  empha 
sising  more  than  heretofore  the  secrecy  of  the  advice  given, 

1   "  Studien  iiber  Katholizismus,   Protestantismus  und  Gewissens- 
freiheit  in  Deutschland,"  Schaffhausen,  1857  (anonvmous),  p.  104. 
"  Phil.  Melanchthon,"  pp.  378,  382. 

3  "  Die  Entstehung  der  lutherischen  und  reformierten  Kirchen- 
lehre,"  Gottingen,  1910,  p.  271. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  73 

which  Luther  did  not  consider  himself  justified  in  revealing 
under  any  circumstances,  and  the  publication  of  which  the 
Landgrave  was  unjustly  demanding.  It  is  also  urged,  that 
the  ecclesiastical  influence  of  the  Middle  Ages  played  its 
part  in  Luther's  sanction  of  the  bigamy.  One  author  even 
writes  :  "  the  determining  factor  may  have  been,"  that  "  at 
the  critical  moment  the  reformer  made  way  for  the  priest 
and  confessor  "  ;  else\vhere  the  same  author  says  :  "  Thus 
the  Reformation  begins  with  a  mediaeval  scene."  Another 
Protestant  theologian  thinks  that  "  the  tendency,  taken 
over  from  the  Catholic  Church,"  to  treat  the  marriage  pro 
hibitions  as  aspects  of  the  natural  law  was  really  respon 
sible  ;  in  Luther's  evangelical  morality  "  there  was  a  good 
lump  of  Romish  morality,  worthless  quartz  mingled  with 
good  metal  "  ;  "  Catholic  scruples  "  had  dimmed  Luther's 
judgment  in  the  matter  of  polygamy  ;  to  us  the  idea  of 
bigamy  appears  "  simply  monstrous,"  "  but  this  is  a  result 
of  age-long  habits  ";  in  the  16th  century  people  thought 
"  very  differently." 

In  the  face  of  the  detailed  quotations  from  actual  sources 
already  given  in  the  present  chapter,  all  such  opinions — not 
merely  Luther's  own  appeal  to  a  "  secret  of  confession," 
invented  by  himself — are  seen  to  be  utterly  unhistorical. 
Particularly  so  is  the  reference  to  the  Catholic  Middle  Ages. 
It  was  just  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  ecclesiastical  tradition 
of  earlier  times,  which  excited  among  Luther's  contem 
poraries,  even  those  of  his  own  party,  such  opposition  to  the 
bigamy  wherever  news  of  the  same  penetrated  in  any  shape 
or  form.1 

In  the  following  we  shall  quote  a  few  opinions  of 
16th-century  Protestants  not  yet  mentioned.  With 
the  historian  their  unanimous  verdict  must  weigh  more 
heavily  in  the  scale  than  modern  theories,  which,  other 
considerations  apart,  labour  under  the  disadvantage  of 
having  been  brought  forward  long  after  the  event  and  the 
expressions  of  opinion  which  accompanied  it,  to  bolster  up 
views  commonly  held  to-day. 2 

1  That  the  death  penalty  for  bigamy  also  dated  from  the  Middle 
Ages  need  hardly  be  pointed  out. 

2  For  the  proofs  which  follow  we  may  refer  to  the  selection  made 
by  N.  Paulus  ("  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"   147,  1911,  p.  503  ff.,  561  ff.)  in  the 
article    "  Die    hessische   Doppelehe    im    Urteile    der   protest.    Zeitge- 
nossen." 


74  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  bigamy  was  so  strongly  opposed  to  public  opinion  and 
thus  presumably  to  the  tradition  handed  down  from  the  Middle 
Ages,  that  Nicholas  von  Amsdorf,  Luther's  friend,  declared  the 
step  taken  by  Philip  constituted  "  a  mockery  and  insult  to  the 
Holy  Gospel  and  a  scandal  to  the  whole  of  Christendom."1  He 
thought  as  did  Justus  Jonas,  who  exclaimed  :  "  Oh,  what  a  great 
scandal  !  "  and,  "  Who  is  not  aghast  at  so  great  and  calamitous 
a  scandal  ?  "  Erasmus  Alber,  preacher  at  Marburg,  speaks  of 
the  "awful  scandal"  ("  immane  scandalum")  which  must 
result.3  In  a  letter  to  the  Landgrave  in  which  the  Hessian 
preacher,  Anton  Corvinus,  fears  a  "  great  falling  away "  on 
account  of  the  affair,  he  also  says,  that  the  world  will  not  "  in  any 
way  "  hear  of  such  a  marriage  being  lawful ;  his  only  advice  was  : 
'  Your  Serene  Highness  must  take  the  matter  to  heart  and,  on 
occasion,  have  recourse  to  lying."4  To  tell  a  deliberate  untruth, 
as  already  explained  (pp.  29,  53),  appeared  to  other  preachers 
likewise  the  only  possible  expedient  with  which  to  meet  the 
universal  reprobation  of  contemporaries  who  judged  of  the 
matter  from  their  "  mediaeval  "  standpoint. 

Justus  Menius,  the  Thuringian  preacher,  in  his  work  against 
polygamy  mentioned  above,  appealed  to  the  universal,  Divine 
"prohibition  which  forbids  and  restrains  us,"  a  prohibition 
which  applied  equally  to  the  "  great  ones  "  and  allowed  of  no 
dispensation.  He  also  pointed  out  the  demoralising  effect  of  a 
removal  of  the  prohibition  in  individual  cases  and  the  cunning 
of  the  devil  who  wished  thereby  "  to  brand  the  beloved  Evangel 
with  infamy."5 

Philip  had  defiled  the  Church  with  filth  ("  fcedissime  "),  so 
wrote  Johann  Brenz,  the  leader  of  the  innovations  in  Wiirtem- 
berg.  After  such  an  example  he  scarcely  dared  to  raise  his  eyes 
in  the  presence  of  honourable  women,  seeing  what  an  insult  this 
was  to  them.6 

Not  to  show  how  reprehensible  was  the  deed,  but  merely  to 
demonstrate  anew  how  little  ground  there  was  for  throwing  the 
responsibility  on  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church,  we  may  recall 
that  the  Elector,  Johann  Frederick  of  Saxony,  on  first  learning 
of  the  project  through  Bucer,  expressed  his  "  horror,"  and  two 
days  later  informed  the  Landgrave  through  Briick,  that  such  a 
thing  had  been  unheard  of  for  ages  and  the  law  of  the  land  and 
the  tradition  of  the  whole  of  Christendom  were  likewise  against 

1  Amsdorfs  "  Bedenken,"  probably  from  the  latter  end  of  June, 
1540,  published  by  Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  324. 

"  Briefwechsel  des  Jonas,"  1,  pp.  394,  396.     Above,  p.  27,  n.  1. 
Further  details  in  Paulus,  ibid.,  p.  562. 

3  Jonas,  ibid.,  p.  397. 

4  P.  Tschackert,  "  Briefwechsel  des  Anton  Corvinus,"  1900,  p.  79. 
Paulus,  ibid.,  p.  563. 

5  G.  T.  Schmidt,  "  Justus  Menius  iiber  die  Bigamie."    ("  Zeitschr.  f. 
d.  hist.  Theol.,"  38,  1868,  p.  445  ff.     More  from  it  in  Paulus,  p.  565.     Cp. 
Rockwell,  ibid.,  p.  126.) 

6  Th.  Pressel,   "  Anecdota  Brentiana,"   1868,  p.  210  :    "  Commacu- 
lavit  ecclesiam  temeritate  sua  foedissime." 


THE   HESSIAN  BIGAMY  75 

it.  It  is  true  that  he  allowed  himself  to  be  pacified  and  sent  his 
representative  to  the  wedding,  but  afterwards  he  again  declared 
with  disapproval,  that  the  whole  world,  and  all  Christians  without 
distinction,  would  declare  the  Emperor  right  should  he  interfere  ; 
he  also  instructed  his  minister  at  the  Court  of  Dresden  to  deny 
that  the  Elector  or  the  Wittenberg  theologians  had  had  any  hand 
in  the  matter.1  Other  Princes  and  politicians  belonging  to  the 
new  faith  left  on  record  strong  expressions  of  theirj[disapproval ; 
for  instance  :  Elector  Joachim  II  of  Brandenburg,  Duke  Ulrich 
of  Wiirtemberg,  King  Christian  III  of  Denmark,  the  Strasburg 
statesman  Jacob  Sturm  and  the  Augsburg  ambassador  David 
Dettigkof er. 2  To  the  latter  the  news  ' '  was  frightful  tidings 
from  which  would  result  great  scandal,  a  hindrance  to  and  a 
falling  away  from  the  Holy  Evangel."3 

All  there  now  remains  to  do  is  to  illustrate,  by  statements 
made  by  Protestants  in  earlier  and  more  recent  times,  two 
important  points  connected  with  the  Hessian  episode  ;  viz. 
the  unhappy  part  which  politics  played  in  Luther's  attitude, 
and  what  he  said  on  lying.  Here,  again,  during  the  last  ten 
years  there  has  been  a  movement  in  Luther's  favour  amongst 
many  Protestant  theologians. 

Concerning  the  part  of  politics  W.  Rockwell,  the  historian 
of  the  bigamy,  openly  admits,  that :  "  By  his  threat  of 
seeking  protection  from  the  Emperor  for  his  bigamy,  Philip 
overcame  the  unwillingness  of  the  Wittenbergers  to  grant 
the  requested  dispensation."4  "It  is  clear,"  he  also  says, 
"  that  political  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  on  the  Witten- 
bergeis  by  the  Landgrave,  and  that  to  this  pressure  they 
yielded."5 

That  consideration  for  the  effect  his  decision  was  likely  to 
have  on  the  attitude  of  the  Landgrave  weighed  heavily  in 
the  balance  with  Luther  in  the  matter  of  his  "  testimony," 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  deny,  after  what  we  have  seen. 
"  The  Hessian  may  fall  away  from  us  "  (above,  p.  46), 
such  was  one  of  the  fears  which  undoubtedly  had  something 
to  do  with  his  compliance.  To  inspire  such  fear  was  plainly 
the  object  of  Philip's  threat,  that,  should  the  Wittenbergers 
not  prove  amenable,  he  would  make  advances  to  the 
Emperor  and  the  Pope,  and  the  repeated  allusions  made  by 
Luther  and  his  friends  to  their  dread  of  such  a  step,  and  of 
his  falling  away,  show  how  his  threat  continued  to  ring  in 
their  ears.6 

1  Paulus,  ibid.,  p.  569  f.          2  Ibid.,  p.  570  ff. 

3  Fr.  Roth,  "  Augsburgs  Reformationsgesch.,"  3,  1907,  p.  56. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  95.      5  Ibid.,  p.  154.      6  See  above,  p.  18,  21  f.,  46,  62  n.  2. 


76  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Bucer  declared  he  had  himself  agreed  to  the  bigamy  from  fear 
lest  Philip  should  otherwise  be  lost  to  the  Evangelical  cause, J  and 
his  feelings  were  doubtless  shared  at  Wittenberg.  Melanchthon 
speaks  not  merely  of  a  possible  attempt  on  Philip's  part  to  obtain 
the  Emperor's  sanction  to  his  marriage,  but  of  an  actual  threat 
to  leave  the  party  in  the  lurch. 2  Johann  Brenz,  as  soon  as  news 
reached  him  in  Wiirtemberg  of  the  Landgrave's  hint  of  an 
appeal  to  the  Emperor,  saw  in  it  a  threat  to  turn  his  back  on 
the  protesting  party.3  All  three  probably  believed  that  at 
heart  the  Landgrave  would  remain  true  to  the  new  faith,  but 
what  Luther  had  chiefly  in  view  was  Philip's  position  as  head 
of  the  Schmalkalden  League. 

The  result  was  all  the  more  tragic.  The  compliance  wrung 
from  the  Wittenbergers  failed  to  protect  the  party  from  the 
evil  they  were  so  desirous  of  warding  off.  Philip's  recon 
ciliation  with  the  Emperor,  as  already  pointed  out,  was 
very  detrimental  to  the  Schmalkalden  League,  however 
insincere  his  motives  may  have  been. 

On  this  point  G.  Kawerau  says  :4  "In  the  Landgrave's  resolu 
tion  to  address  himself  to  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope,  of  which 
they  were  informed,  they  [Luther  and  Melanchthon]  saw  a 
'  public  scandal,'  a  '  publica  offensio,'  which  they  sought  to 
obviate  by  demanding  absolute  secrecy."5  "  But  the  disastrous 
political  consequences  did,  in  the  event,  make  their  appearance. 
.  .  .  The  zealously  promoted  alliance  with  Francois  I,  to  which 
even  the  Saxon  Elector  was  not  averse,  came  to  nothing  and 
Denmark  and  Sweden's  overtures  had  to  be  repelled.  The  prime- 
mover  in  the  Schmalkalden  League  was  himself  obliged  to  cripple 
the  League.  '  The  dreaded  champion  of  the  Evangel  became  the 
tool  of  the  Imperial  policy  '  (v.  Bezold).  From  that  time  forward 
his  position  lacked  precision  and  his  strong  initiative  was  gone." 

G.  Ellinger,  in  his  study  on  Melanchthon,  writes  :  "It  can 
scarcely  be  gainsaid  that  Luther  and  Melanchthon  allowed  them 
selves  in  a  moment  of  weakness  to  be  influenced  by  the  weight 
of  these  considerations."  The  petition,  he  explains,  had  been 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  475.    Cp.  Kolde,  "  Luther,"  2,  p.  489,  and 
"  RE.  fiir  prot.  Theol.,"  153,  p.  310. 

2  "  Defectionem  etiam  minitabatur,    si  nos   consulere  ei   nollemus." 
To  Camerarius,  Aug.  24,  1540,  "  Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  1079.     Cp.  p.  863. 
Above,  p.  62. 

3  "  Hoc  fere   tantumdcm  cst  ac  si  minatus  esset,   se   ab  Evangelio 
defecturum."    Pressel,  p.  211. 

4  Moller,  "  Lehrb.  der  KG.,"  33,  p.  146  f. 

6  The  scandal  lay  rather  elsewhere.  According  to  Kawerau  Luther's 
"  principal  motive  was  his  desire  to  save  the  Landgrave's  soul  by  means 
of  an  expedient,  which,  though  it  did  not  correspond  with  the  perfect 
idea  of  marriage,  was  not  directly  forbidden  by  God,  and  in  certain 
circumstances  had  even  been  permitted.  The  questionable  nature  of 
this  advice  is,  however,  evident,"  etc. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  77 

warmly  urged  upon  the  Wittenbergers  from  a  political  point  of 
view  by  Bucer,  the  intermediary.  "  If  Bucer  showed  himself 
favourable  to  the  Landgrave's  views  this  was  due  to  his  wish  to 
preserve  thereby  the  Evangelical  cause  from  the  loss  of  its  most 
doughty  champion  ;  for  Philip  had  told  him  in  confidence, 
that,  in  the  event  of  the  Wittenbergers  and  the  Saxon  Electorate 
refusing  their  consent,  he  intended  to  address  himself  directly 
to  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope  in  order  to  obtain  sanction  for 
his  bigamy."  The  Landgrave  already,  in  the  summer  of  1534, 
had  entertained  the  idea  of  approaching  the  Emperor,  and  in 
the  spring  of  1535  had  made  proposals  to  this  end.  "  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  in  Bucer's  case  political  reasons  turned 
the  scale."  Ellinger  refers  both  to  the  admission  made  by 
Melanchthon  and  to  the  significant  warning  against  the  Emperor 
with  which  the  letter  of  Dispensation  closes.1 

The  strongest  reprobation  of  the  evil  influence  exerted  over 
Luther  by  politics  comes,  however,  from  Adolf  Hausrath.2  He 
makes  it  clear,  that,  at  Wittenberg,  they  were  aware  that 
Protestantism  "  would  assume  quite  another  aspect  were  the 
mighty  Protestant  leader  to  go  over  to  the  Pope  or  the  Emperor  ' '  ; 
never  has  "  the  demoralising  character  of  all  politics  "  been  more 
shamefully  revealed  ;  "  eternal  principles  were  sacrificed  to  the 
needs  of  the  moment  "  ;  "  Philip  had  to  be  retained  at  any  cost." 
Hence  came  the  "  great  moral  defeat  "  and  Luther's  "  fall." 

This  indignant  language  on  the  part  of  the  Heidelberg 
historian  of  the  Church  has  recently  been  described  by  a 
learned  theologian  on  the  Protestant  side  as  both  "  offen 
sive  "  and  uncalled  for.  Considering  Luther's  bold  char 
acter  it  is  surely  very  improbable,  that  an  attempt  to 
intimidate  him  would  have  had  any  effect  except  "  to 
arouse  his  spirit  of  defiance  "  ;  not  under  the  influence  of 
mere  "  opportunism  "  did  he  act,  but,  rather,  after  having, 
as  a  confessor,  heard  "  the  cry  of  deep  distress  "  he  sought 
to  come  to  "  the  aid  of  a  suffering  conscience." — In  answer 
to  this  we  must  refer  the  reader  to  what  has  gone  before, 
where  this  view,  which  seems  a  favourite  with  some  moderns, 
has  already  sufficiently  been  dealt  with.  It  need  only  be 
added,  that  the  learned  author  says  of  the  bigamy,  that  "  a 
fatal  blunder  "  was  made  by  Luther  .  .  .  but  only  because 
the  mediaeval  confessor  intervened.  "  The  reformer  was  not 
able  in  every  season  and  situation  to  assert  the  new  religious 
principle  which  we  owe  to  him  ;  hence  we  have  merely  one 
of  many  instances  of  failure,  though  one  that  may  well  be 
termed  grotesque  and  is  scarcely  to  be  matched."  "  Nothing 

1  "  Phil.  Melanchthon,"  pp.  378,  382. 

2  "  Luthers  Leben,"  2,  p.  393  ff. 


78  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

did  more  to  hinder  the  triumphal  progress  of  the  Reforma 
tion  than  the  Landgrave's  '  Turkish  marriage.'  '  As  to  the 
argument  drawn  from  Luther's  boldness  and  defiance,  a 
Protestant  has  pointed  out,  that  we  are  not  compelled  to 
regard  any  compliance  from  motives  of  policy  as  "  abso 
lutely  precluded "  ;  to  say  that  "  political  expediency 
played  no  part  whatever  in  Luther's  case  "  is  "  going  a  little 
too  far."  "  Did  then  Luther  never  allow  any  room  to 
political  considerations  ?  Even,  for  instance,  in  the  question 
of  armed  resistance  to  the  Emperor  ?  'u 

Referring  to  Luther's  notorious  utterance  on  lying, 
G.  Ellinger,  the  Protestant  biographer  of  Melanchthon,  says  : 
Luther's  readiness  to  deny  what  had  taken  place  is  "  one 
of  the  most  unpleasing  episodes  in  his  life  and  bears  sad 
testimony  to  the  frailty  of  human  nature."  His  statements 
at  the  Eisenach  Conference  "  show  how  even  a  great  man 
was  driven  from  the  path  of  rectitude  by  the  blending  of 
politics  with  religion.  He  advised  a  '  good,  downright  lie  ' 
that  the  world  might  be  saved  from  a  scandal.  ...  It  is 
sad  to  see  a  great  man  thus  led  astray,  though  at  the  same 
time  we  must  remember,  that,  from  the  very  start,  the 
whole  transaction  had  been  falsified  by  the  proposal  to 
conceal  it."2 

Th.  Kolde  says  in  a  similar  strain,  in  a  work  which  is 
otherwise  decidedly  favourable  to  Luther,  "  Greater  offence 
than  that  given  by  the  '  advice  '  itself  is  given  by  the 
attitude  Avhich  the  reformers  took  up  towards  it  at  a  later 
date."3 

"  The  most  immoral  part  of  the  whole  business,"  so  Frederick 
von  Bezold  says  in  his  "  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Reformation," 
"  lay  in  the  advice  given  by  the  theologians  that  the  world  should 
be  imposed  upon.  ...  A  man  [Luther]  who  once  had  been 
determined  to  sacrifice  himself  and  the  whole  world  rather  than 
the  truth,  is  now  satisfied  with  a  petty  justification  for  his  falling 
away  from  his  own  principles."4  And,  to  conclude  with  the 
most  recent  biographer  of  Luther,  Adolf  Hausrath  thus  criticises 
the  invitation  to  tell  a  "  downright  lie  "  :  "  It  is  indeed  sad  to 

1  O.  Clemen,  "  Zeitschr.  f.  KG.,"  30,  1909,  p.  389  f.     Cp.  the  views 
of  the  Protestant  historians,   K.   Wenck,  H.   Virck  and  W.   Kohler, 
adduced  by  Paulus  (loc.  cit.,  p.  515),  who  all  admit  the  working  of 
political  pressure. 

2  "  Phil.  Melanchthon,"  pp.  382,  383.          3  Bd.,  2,  p.  488  f. 
*  Page  736. 


THE   HESSIAN   BIGAMY  79 

see  the  position  into  which  the  ecclesiastical  leaders  had  brought 
themselves,  and  how,  with  devilish  logic,  one  false  step  induced 
them  to  take  another  which  was  yet  worse."1 

This  notwithstanding,  the  following  opinion  of  a  defender  of 
Luther  (1909)  has  not  failed  to  find  supporters  in  the  Protestant 
world  :  "  The  number  of  those  who  in  the  reformation-period 
had  already  outgrown  the  lax  mediaeval  view  regarding  the  require 
ments  of  the  love  of  truth  was  probably  not  very  great.  One 
man,  however,  towers  in  this  respect  above  all  his  contemporaries, 
viz.  Luther.  He  it  was  who  first  taught  us  what  truthfulness 
really  is.  The  Catholic  Church,  which  repudiated  his  teaching, 
knows  it  not  even  to  this  day."  "  A  truthfulness  which  dis 
regards  all  else,"  nay,  a  "  positive  horror  for  all  duplicity  "  is, 
according  to  this  writer,  the  distinguishing  mark  of  Luther's  life. 

1  "  Luthers  Leben/'  2,  p.  403. 


CHAPTER   XXII 

LUTHER   AND    LYING 

1.  A  Battery  of  Assertions.1 

LUTHER'S  frank  admission  of  his  readiness  to  make  use  of 
a  "  good  big  lie  "  in  the  complications  consequent  on 
Philip's  bigamy,  and  his  invitation  to  the  Landgrave  to 
escape  from  the  dilemma  in  this  way,  may  serve  as  a  plea 
for  the  present  chapter.  "  What  harm  is  there,"  he  asks, 
"  if,  in  a  good  cause  and  for  the  sake  of  the  Christian 
Churches,  a  man  tells  a  good,  downright  lie  ?  "  "  A  lie  of 
necessity,  of  convenience,  or  of  excuse,  all  such  lies  are  not 
against  God  and  for  such  He  will  Himself  answer  "  ;  "  that 
the  Landgrave  was  unable  to  lie  strongly,  didn't  matter  in 
the  least."2 

It  is  worth  while  ascertaining  how  Luther — who  has  so 
often  been  represented  as  the  embodiment  of  German 
integrity  and  uprightness — -behaved  in  general  as  regards 
the  obligation  of  speaking  with  truth  and  honesty.  Quite 
recently  a  Protestant  author,  writing  with  the  sole  object 
of  exonerating  his  hero  in  this  particular,  bestowed  on  him 
the  title  of  "  Luther  the  Truthful."  "  Only  in  one  single 
instance,"  so  he  has  it,  "  did  Luther  advise  the  use  of  a  lie 
of  necessity  at  which  exception  might  be  taken."  In  order 
not  to  run  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  make  mountains  out 
of  mole-hills  we  shall  do  well  to  bear  in  mind  how  great  was 
the  temptation,  during  so  titanic  a  struggle  as  his,  for 
Luther  to  ignore  at  times  the  rigorous  demands  of  truth 
and  justice,  particularly  when  he  saw  his  opponents  occa 
sionally  making  light  of  them.  We  must  likewise  take  into 
consideration  the  vividness  of  Luther's  imagination,  the 

1  The  larger  portion  of  the  present  chapter  appeared  as  an  article 
in  the  "  Zeitschr.  fur  kath.  Theol.,"  29,  1905,  p.  417  ff. 

2  See  above,  p.  51. 

80 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  81 

strength  of  the  ideas  which  dominated  him,  his  tendency  to 
exaggeration  and  other  mitigating  circumstances. 

There  was  a  time  when  Luther's  foes  were  ready  to 
describe  as  lies  every  false  statement  or  erroneous  quota 
tion  made  by  Luther,  as  though  involuntary  errors  and 
mistakes  due  to  forgetfulness  were  not  liable  to  creep  into 
his  works,  written  as  they  were  in  great  haste. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  Luther's  admirers  are  ready 
enough  to  make  admissions  such  as  the  following  :  "In 
point  of  fact  we  find  Luther  holding  opinions  concerning 
truthfulness  which  are  not  shared  by  every  Christian,  not 
even  by  every  evangelical  Christian."  "  Luther  unhesi 
tatingly  taught  that  there  might  be  occasions  when  it  was 
a  Christian's  duty  to  depart  from  the  truth."1 

To  this  we  must,  however,  add  that  Luther,  repeatedly  and 
with  the  utmost  decision,  urged  the  claims  of  truthfulness, 
branded  lying  as  "the  devil's  own  image,"2  and  extolled 
as  one  of  the  excellencies  of  the  Germans — in  Avhich  they 
differed  from  Italians  and  Greeks — their  reputation  for  ever 
being  "  loyal,  truthful  and  reliable  people  "  ;  he  also  adds — 
and  the  words  do  him  credit —  "  To  my  mind  there  is  no 
more  shameful  vice  on  earth  than  lying."3 

This,  however,  does  not  dispense  us  from  the  duty  of 
carefully  examining  the  particular  instances  which  seem  to 
militate  against  the  opinion  here  expressed. 

We  find  Luther's  relations  with  truth  very  strained  even 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  and  that,  too,  in  the  most 
important  and  momentous  explanations  he  gave  of  his 
attitude  towards  the  Church  and  the  Pope.  Frequently 
enough,  by  simply  placing  his  statements  side  by  side, 
striking  falsehoods  and  evasions  become  apparent.4 

For  instance,  according  to  his  own  statements  made  in 
private,  he  is  determined  to  assail  the  Pope  as  Antichrist, 
yet  at  the  same  time,  in  his  official  writings,  he  declares 
any  thought  of  hostility  towards  the  Pope  to  be  alien  to 
him.  It  is  only  necessary  to  note  the  dates:  On  March  13, 
1519,  he  tells  his  friend  Spalatin  that  he  is  wading  through  th'j 
Papal  Decretals  and,  in  confidence,  must  admit  his  uncertainty 
as  to  whether  the  Pope  is  Antichrist  or  merely  his  Apostle,  so 
miserably  had  Christ,  i.e.  the  truth,  been  crucified  by  him  in  the 

1  W.  Walther,  "  Theol.  Literaturblatt,"  1904,  No.  35.  Cp.  Walther, 
"  Fur  Luther,"  p.  425  ff. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  92,  p.  306.          3  Ibid.,  39,  p.  356. 
4  Fuller  proofs  will  be  found  scattered  throughout  our  earlier  volumes. 

IV. — G 


82  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Decretals.1  Indeed,  even  in  the  earlier  half  of  Dec.,  1518,  he  had 
been  wondering  whether  the  Pope  was  not  Antichrist  ;  on 
Dec.  11,  writing  to  his  friend  Link,  he  said  he  had  a  suspicion, 
that  the  "  real  Antichrist  "  of  whom  Paul  speaks  ruled  at  the  Court 
of  Rome,  and  believed  that  he  could  prove  that  he  was  "  even 
worse  than  the  Turk."2  In  a  similar  strain  he  wrote  as  early  as 
Jan.  13,  1519,  that  he  intended  to  fight  the  "  Roman  serpent  " 
should  the  Elector  and  the  University  of  Wittenberg  allow  him  so 
to  do  ;3  on  Feb.  3,4  and  again  on  Feb.  20,  1519,5  he  admits  that  it 
had  already  "  long  "  been  his  intention  to  declare  war  on  Rome 
and  its  falsifications  of  the  truth. — In  spite  of  all  this,  at  the 
beginning  of  Jan.,  1519,  he  informed  the  Papal  agent  Miltitz  that 
he  was  quite  ready  to  send  a  humble  and  submissive  letter  to 
the  Pope,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  on  Jan.  5  (or  6),  1519,  he 
wrote  that  strange  epistle  to  Leo  X  in  which  he  speaks  of  himself 
as  "  the  dregs  of  humanity  "  in  the  presence  of  the  Pope's 
"  sublime  majesty  "  ;  he  approaches  him  like  a  "  lambkin," 
whose  bleating  he  begs  the  Vicar  of  Christ  graciously  to  give  ear 
to.  Nor  was  all  this  merely  said  in  derision,  but  with  a  fixed 
purpose  to  deceive.  He  declares  with  the  utmost  solemnity 
"  before  God  and  every  creature  "  that  it  had  never  entered  his 
mind  to  assail  in  any  way  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Church 
and  the  Pope  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  ' '  entirely  admits  that  the  power 
of  the  Church  extends  over  all,  and  that  nothing  in  heaven  or  on 
earth  is  to  be  preferred  to  her,  except  Jesus  Christ  alone,  the 
Lord  of  all  things."  The  original  letter  still  exists,  but  the  letter 
itself  was  never  despatched,  probably  because  Miltitz  raised 
some  objection.6  Only  through  mere  chance  did  the  Papal 
Curia  fail  to  receive  this  letter,  which,  compared  with  Luther's 
real  thought  as  elsewhere  expressed,  can  only  be  described  as 
outrageous.7 

In  his  dealings  with  his  Bishop,  Hieronymus  Scultetus  the 
chief  pastor  of  Brandenburg,  he  had  already  displayed  a  like 
duplicity. 

1   "  Briefwcchsel,"  1,  p.  450.          2  Ibid.,  p.  316. 

3  To  Christoph  Scheurl,  ibid.,  p.  348. 

4  To  Johann  Lang,  ibid.,  p.  410. 

5  To  Willibald  Pirkheimer,  ibid.,  p.  436. 

6  "  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  444.     Concerning  the  date  and  the  keeping 
back  of  the  letter,  see  Brieger,  "  Zeitschr.  fur  KG.,"  15,  1895,  p.  204  f. 

7  Strange  to  say,  this  document  has  not  been  taken  into  considera 
tion  by  G.   Sodeur,  in   "  Luther  und  die  Luge,  eine  Schutzschrift  " 
(Leipzig,   1904).     In  tho  same  way  other  sources  throwing  light  on 
Luther's  attitude  towards  lying  have  been  passed  over.     That  his 
object,  viz.  Luther's  vindication,  is  apparent  throughout,  is  perhaps 
only  natural.    How  far  this  object  is  attained  the  reader  may  see  from 
a  comparison  of  our  material  and  results  with  those  of  the  "  Schutz 
schrift."     The  same  holds  of  W.  Walther's  efforts  on  Luther's  behalf 
in  his  art.  "  Luther  und  die  Luge,"  and  in  his  "  Fur  Luther."     See 
above,  p.  81,  n.  1.     See  also  N.  Paulus,   "  Zu  Luthers  Doppelziingig- 
keit  "    ("Beil.    zur   Augsburger   Postztng.,"    1904,  No.    33);     "Hist. 
Jahrb.,"   26,   1905,  p.    168  f.;     "  Hist.-pol.   Bl.,"    1905,    135,   323  ff.  ; 
"  Wissenschaftl.  Beil.  zur  Germania,"  1904,  Nos.  33,  35. 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  83 

In  May,  1518,  he  wrote  assuring  him  in  the  most  respectful 
terms,  that  he  submitted  unconditionally  to  the  judgment  of  the 
Church  whatever  he  was  advancing  concerning  Indulgences  and 
kindred  subjects  ;  that  the  Bishop  was  to  burn  all  his  scribbles 
(Theses  and  Resolutions)  should  they  displease  him,  and  that  he 
would  "  not  mind  in  the  least."1 — And  yet  a  confidential  letter 
sent  three  months  earlier  to  his  friend  Spalatin  mentions,  though 
for  the  benefit  of  him  "  alone  and  our  friends,"  that  the  whole 
system  of  Indulgences  now  seemed  to  Luther  a  "  deluding  of 
souls,  good  only  to  promote  spiritual  laziness."2 

To  the  Emperor  too  he  also  gives  assurances  couched  in  sub 
missive  and  peaceful  language,  which  are  in  marked  contrast 
with  other  statements  which  emanated  from  him  about  the 
same  time. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  recall  his  letter  of  Aug.  30,  1520,  to 
Charles  V. 3  Here  Luther  seeks  to  convince  the  Emperor  that  he 
is  the  quietest  and  most  docile  of  theologians  ;  who  was  "  forced 
to  write  only  owing  to  the  snares  laid  for  him  by  others  "  ;  who 
wished  for  nothing  more  than  to  be  ignored  and  left  in  peace  ;  and 
who  was  ready  at  any  moment  to  welcome  the  instruction  which 
so  far  had  been  refused  him. — Very  different  was  his  language  a 
few  weeks  earlier  when  writing  to  Spalatin,  his  tool  at  the 
Electoral  Court  of  Saxony  :  "  The  die  is  cast  ;  the  despicable 
fury  or  favour  of  the  Romans  is  nothing  to  me  ;  I  desire  no 
reconciliation  or  communion  with  them.  ...  I  shall  burn  the 
whole  of  the  Papal  Laws  and  all  humility  and  friendliness  shall 
cease."4  He  even  hopes,  with  the  help  of  Spalatin  and  the 
Elector,  to  send  to  Rome  the  ominous  tidings  of  the  offer  made 
by  the  Knight  Silvester  von  Schauenburg  to  protect  him  by 
armed  force  ;  they  might  then  see  at  Rome  "  that  their  thunders 
are  of  no  avail  "  ;  should  they,  however,  obtain  from  the  Elector 
his  dismissal  from  his  chair  at  Wittenberg,  then,  "  with  the 
support  of  the  men-at-arms,  he  would  make  things  still  warmer 
for  the  Romans."5  And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  Luther  was  just 
then  most  anxious  that  Spalatin,  by  means  of  the  Elector,  should 
represent  his  cause  everywhere,  and  particularly  at  Rome,  as  not 
yet  defined,  as  a  point  of  controversy  urgently  calling  for  examina 
tion  or,  at  the  very  least,  for  a  biblical  refutation  before  the 
Emperor  and  the  Church  ;  the  Sovereign  also  was  to  tell  the 
Romans  that  "  violence  and  censures  would  only  make  the  case 
of  Germany  worse  even  than  that  of  Bohemia,"  and  would  lead 
to  "  irrepressible  tumults."  In  such  wise,  by  dint  of  dishonest 
diplomacy,  did  he  seek  to  frighten,  as  he  says,  the  "  timid 
Romanists  "  and  thus  prevent  their  taking  any  steps  against 
him.6 

If  we  go  back  a  little  further  we  find  a  real  and  irreconcilable 
discrepancy  between  the  actual  events  of  the  Indulgence  contro- 

1  On  May  22,  1518,  "  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  149. 

2  On  Feb.  15,  1518,  ibid.,  p.  155. 

"  Briefwechsel,"  2,  p.  469.  *  July  10,  1520,  ibid.,  p.  432. 

B  Ibid.,  Schauenbuvg's  letter,  ibid.,  p.  415.          8  Ibid.,  p.  433. 


84  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

versy  of  1517  and  1518  and  the  accounts  which  he  himself  gave 
of  them  later. 

"  I  was  forced  to  accept  the  degree  of  Doctor  and  to  swear  to 
preach  and  teach  my  cherished  Scriptures  truly  and  faithfully. 
But  then  the  Papacy  barred  my  way  and  sought  to  prevent  me 
from  teaching."1  "While  I  was  looking  for  a  blessing  from 
Rome,  there  came  instead  a  storm  of  thunder  and  lightning  ;  I 
was  made  the  lamb  that  fouled  the  water  for  the  wolf  ;  Detzel 
escaped  scot-free,  but  I  was  to  be  devoured."2 

His  falsehoods  about  Tetzel  are  scarcely  believable.  The  latter 
was,  so  he  says,  such  a  criminal  that  he  had  even  been  condemned 
to  death.3 

The  Indulgence-preachers  had  declared  (what  they  never 
thought  of  doing)  "  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  have  remorse 
and  sorrow  in  order  to  obtain  the  indulgence."4  In  his  old  age 
Luther  stated  that  Tetzel  had  even  given  Indulgences  for  future 
sins.  It  is  true,  however,  that  when  he  spoke  "  he  had  already 
become  a  myth  to  himself  "  (A.  Hausrath).  "  Not  only  are  the 
dates  wrong  but  even  the  events  themselves.  ...  It  is  the  same 
with  the  statement  that  Tetzel  had  sold  Indulgences  for  sins  not 
yet  committed.  ...  In  Luther's  charges  against  Tetzel  in  the 
controversy  on  the  Theses  we  hear  nothing  of  this  ;  only  in  the 
work  '  Wider  Hans  Worst '  (1541),  written  in  his  old  age,  does 
he  make  such  an  assertion."5  In  this  tract  Luther  does  indeed 
make  Tetzel  teach  that  "  there  was  no  need  of  remorse,  sorrow  or 
repentance  for  sin,  provided  one  bought  an  indulgence,  or  an 
indulgence-letter."  He  adds  :  "  And  he  [Tetzel]  also  sold  for 
future  sins."  (See  vol.  i.,  p.  342.) 

This  untruth,  clearly  confuted  as  it  was  by  facts,  passed  from 
Luther's  lips  to  those  of  his  disciples.  Mathesius  in  his  first 
sermon  on  Luther  seems  to  be  drawing  on  the  passage  in  "  Wider 
Hans  Worst  "  when  he  says,  Tetzel  had  preached  that  he  was 
able  to  forgive  the  biggest  past  "  as  well  as  future  sins." 6  Luther's 
friend,  Frederick  Myconius,  helped  to  spread  the  same  falsehood 
throughout  Germany  by  embodying  it  in  his  "  Historic  Reforma- 
tionis  "  (1542),'  whilst  in  Switzerland,  Henry  Bullinger,  who  also 
promoted  it,  expressly  refers  to  "  Wider  Hans  Worst  "  as  his 
authority.8 

In  this  way  Luther's  misrepresentations  infected  his  whole 
circle,  nor  can  we  be  surprised  if  in  this,  as  in  so  many  similar 
instances,  the  falsehood  has  held  the  field  even  to  our  own  day.9 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  3,  p.  386  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  87. 

2  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  72.  3  Ibid.,  p.  70,  68  f. 

4  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.   284;    Erl.   ed.,  242,  p.  367.     On  in 
dulgences  for  the  departed,  see  our  vol.  i.,  p.  344. 

5  Hausrath,  "  Luthers  Leben,"  2,  1904,  p.  432. 

6  Historien  (1566),  p.  11.  7  Ed.  Cyprian.,  p.  20. 

8  "  Reformationsgesch.     von    H.    Bullinger,"     ed.    Hottinger    u. 
Vogeli,  1,  1838,  p.  19. 

\&  *  One  such  tale  put  in  circulation  by  the  Lutherans  in  the  16th 
century  has  been  dealt  with  by  N.  Paulus  in  "  Gibt  es  Ablasse  fur 
zukunftigo  Siinden  ?  "  ("Lit.  Beil.  derKoln.  Volksztng.,"  1905,  No.  43.) 


RESPECT  FOR   TRUTH  85 

We  may  mention  incidentally,  that  Luther  declares  concern 
ing  the  fame  which  his  printed  "  Propositions  against  Tetzel's 
Articles  "  brought  him  :  "It  did  not  please  me,  for,  as  I  said,  I 
myself  did  not  know  what  the  Indulgence  was,"1  although  his 
first  sermons  are  a  refutation,  both  of  his  own  professed  ignorance 
and  of  that  which  he  also  attributes  "  to  all  theologians  generally." 
— Finally,  Luther  was  very  fond  of  intentionally  representing  the 
Indulgence  controversy  as  the  one  source  of  his  opposition  to  the 
Church,  and  in  this  he  was  so  successful  that  many  still  believe 
it  in  our  own  times.  The  fact  that,  long  before  1517,  his  views  on 
Grace  and  Justification  had  alienated  him  from  the  teaching  of 
the  Church,  he  keeps  altogether  in  the  background. 

At  length  the  Church  intervened  with  the  Ban  and  Luther 
was  summoned  before  the  Emperor  at  the  Diet  of  Worms. 
Three  years  later,  at  the  cost  of  truth,  he  had  already  con 
trived  to  cast  a  halo  of  glory  around  his  public  appearance 
there.  For  instance,  we  know  how,  contrary  to  the  true 
state  of  the  case,  he  wrote  :  "I  went  to  Worms  although 
I  knew  that  the  safe  conduct  given  me  by  the  Emperor 
would  be  broken  "  ;  for  the  German  Princes,  otherwise  so 
staunch  and  true,  had,  he  says,  learned  nothing  better 
from  the  Roman  idol  than  to  disregard  their  plighted  word  ; 
when  he  entered  Worms  he  had  "  taken  a  jump  into  the 
gaping  jaws  of  the  monster  Behemoth."2  Yet  he  knew  well 
enough  that  the  promise  of  a  safe  conduct  was  to  be  kept 
most  conscientiously.  Only  on  the  return  journey  did  he 
express  the  fear  lest,  by  preaching  in  defiance  of  the  pro 
hibition,  he  might  make  people  say  that  he  had  thereby 
forfeited  his  safe  conduct.3 

Yet  again  it  was  no  tribute  to  truth  and  probity,  when, 
after  the  arrival  in  Germany  of  the  Bull  of  Excommunication, 
though  perfectly  aware  that  it  was  genuine,  he  nevertheless 
feigned  in  print  to  regard  it  as  a  forgery  concocted  by  his 
enemies,  to  the  detriment  of  the  Evangel.  In  confidence 

Here,  in  view  of  some  modern  misapprehensions  of  the  so-called 
Confession  and  Indulgence  letters,  he  says  :  "  They  referred  to  future 
sins,  only  inasmuch  as  they  authorised  those  who  obtained  them  to 
select  a  confessor  at  their  own  discretion  for  their  subsequent  sins,  and 
promised  an  Indulgence  later,  provided  the  sins  committed  had  been 
humbly  confessed.  In  this  sense  even  our  modern  Indulgences 
promised  for  the  future  may  be  said  to  refer  to  future  sins." 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  71. 

2  To  Count  Sebastian  Schlick,  July  15,  1522,  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6, 
p.  385  ("  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  433). 

3  To   Count  Albert   of   Mansfeld,    from    Eisenach,    May   9,    1521, 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  74  ("  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  144). 


86  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

he  declared  that  he  "  believed  the  Bull  to  be  real  and 
authentic,"1  and  yet  at  that  very  time,  in  his  "  Von  den 
ne wen  Eckischenn  Bullen  und  Lugen,"  he  brought  forward 
four  reasons  for  its  being  a  forgery,  and  strove  to  make  out 
that  the  document  was,  not  the  work  of  the  Pope,  but  a 
"  tissue  of  lies  "  woven  by  Eck.2 

His  tactics  had  been  the  same  in  the  case  of  an  edict 
directed  against  him  by  the  Bishop  of  Meissen,  the  first  of 
the  German  episcopate  to  take  action.  He  knew  very  well 
that  the  enactment  was  genuine.  Yet  he  wrote  in  reply 
the  "  Antwort  auff  die  Tzedel  sso  unter  des  Officials  tzu 
Stolpen  Sigel  ist  aussgangen,"  as  though  the  writer  were 
some  unknown  opponent,  who  ..."  had  lost  his  wits  on 
the  Gecksberg."3 

A  similar  artifice  was  made  to  serve  his  purpose  in  the 
matter  of  the  Papal  Brief  of  Aug.  23,  1518,  in  which  Cardinal 
Cajetan  received  full  powers  to  proceed  against  him.  He 
insisted  that  this  was  a  malicious  fabrication  of  his  foes  in 
Germany  ;  and  yet  he  was  well  aware  of  the  facts  of  the 
case  ;  he  cannot  have  doubted  its  authenticity,  seeing  that 
the  Brief  had  been  officially  transmitted  to  him  from  the 
Saxon  Court  through  Spalatin.4 

While,  however,  accusing  others  of  deception,  even 
occasionally  by  name,  as  in  Eck's  case,  he  saw  no  wrong  in 
antedating  his  letter  to  Leo  X  ;  for  this  neither  he  nor  his 
adviser  Miltitz  was  to  be  called  to  account ;  it  sufficed  that 
by  dating  it  earlier  the  letter  appeared  to  have  been  written 
in  ignorance  of  the  Excommunication,  and  thereby  served 
Luther's  interests  better.5 

In  fact,  right  through  the  period  previous  to  his  open 
breach  with  Rome,  we  see  him  ever  labouring  to  postpone  the 
decision,  though  a  great  gulf  already  separated  him  from  the 
Church  of  yore.  Across  the  phantom  bridge  which  still 
spanned  the  chasm,  he  saw  with  satisfaction  thousands 
passing  into  his  own  camp.  When  on  the  very  point  of 

1  To  Spalatin,  (11)  October^  1520,  "  Brief wechsel,"  2,  p.  491: 
"  credo  veram  et  propriam  esse  bullam." 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  592  ;   Erl.  ed.,  242,  p.  29  ff. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  138=27,  p.  80,  in  February,  1520. 

4  Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  pp.  214,  759. 

6  The  letter  was  written  after  Oct.  13,  1520,  but  is  dated  Sep.  6,  the 
Excommunication  having  been  published  on  Sep.  21.  Cp.  Miltitz  to 
the  Elector  of  Saxony,  Oct.  14,  1520,  in  Enders,  "  Brief  wechsel 
Luthers,"  2,  p.  495,  n.  3. 


RESPECT  FOR   TRUTH  87 

raising  the  standard  of  revolt  he  seemed  at  pains  to  prove  it 
anything  but  an  emblem  of  uprightness,  probity  and  truth. 

Passing  now  to  the  struggle  of  his  later  life,  similar 
phenomena  can  scarcely  escape  the  eyes  of  the  unprejudiced 
observer. 

He  was  proposing  untruth  and  deception  when,  in  1520, 
he  advised  candidates  to  qualify  for  major  Orders  by  a 
fictitious  vow  of  celibacy.  Whoever  was  to  be  ordained 
subdeacon  was  to  urge  the  Bishop  not  to  demand  continency, 
but  should  the  Bishop  insist  upon  the  law  and  call  for 
such  a  promise,  then  the  candidates  were  quietly  to 
give  it  with  the  proviso  :  "  quantum  fragilitas  humana 
permittit  "  ;  then,  says  Luther,  "  each  one  is  free  to  take 
these  words  in  a  negative  sense,  i.e.  I  do  not  vow  chastity 
because  human  frailty  does  not  allow  of  a  man  living 
chastely."1 

To  what  lengths  he  was  prepared  to  go,  even  where 
members  of  Reformed  sects  were  concerned,  may  be  seen 
in  one  of  his  many  unjust  outbursts  against  Zwingli  and 
(Ecolampadius.  Although  they  were  suffering  injustice 
and  violence,  yet  he  denounced  them  mercilessly.  They 
were  to  be  proclaimed  "  damned,"  even  though  this  led  to 
"  violence  being  offered  them  "  ;  this  was  the  best  way  to 
make  people  shrink  from  their  false  doctrines.2  His  own 
doctrines,  on  the  other  hand,  he  says,  are  such  that  not  even 
Catholics  dared  to  condemn  them.  On  his  return  to  Witten 
berg  from  the  Coburg  he  preached,  that  the  Papists  had 
been  forced  to  admit  that  his  doctrine  did  not  offend  against 
a  single  article  of  the  Faith.3 — Of  Carlstadt,  his  theological 
child  of  trouble,  he  asserted,  that  he  wished  to  play  the  part 
of  teacher  of  Holy  Scripture  though  he  had  never  in  all  his 
life  even  seen  the  Bible, 4  and  yet  all,  Luther  inclusive,  knew 
that  Carlstadt  was  not  so  ignorant  of  the  Bible  and  that 
he  could  even  boast  of  a  considerable  acquaintance  with 
Hebrew.  Concerning  Luther's  persecution  of  Carlstadt,  a 
Protestant  researcher  has  pointed  to  the  "  ever-recurring 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  441  f.  ;    Erl.  eel.,  21,  p.  323  f. 

2  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  279  :    "  It  was  much  better  and  safer 
to  declare  them  damned  than  saved." 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  32,  1906,  p.  133,  sermons  here  printed  for 
the  first  time. 

4  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  2,  p.  240. 


88  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

flood   of  misrepresentations,    suspicions,    vituperation   and 
abuse  which  the  Reformer  poured  upon  his  opponent."1 

Such  being  his  licence  of  speech,  what  treatment  could 
Catholics  expect  at  his  hands  ?  One  instance  is  to  be  found 
in  the  use  he  makes  against  the  Catholics  of  a  well-known 
passage  of  St.  Bernard's. 

St.  Bernard,  says  Luther,  had  declared  the  religious  life  to  be 
worthless  and  had  said  :  "  Perdite  vixi  "  ("I  have  shamefully 
wasted  my  life  ").  The  great  Saint  of  the  religious  life,  the 
noblest  patron  and  representative  of  the  virtues  of  the  cloister, 
Luther  depicts  as  condemning  with  these  words  the  religious  life 
in  general  as  an  abominable  error  ;  he  would  have  him  brand 
his  own  life  and  his  attention  to  his  vows,  as  an  existence  foreign 
to  God  which  he  had  too  late  recognised  as  such  !  By  this  state 
ment,  says  Luther,  he  "  hung  up  his  cowl  on  the  nail,"  and 
proceeds  to  explain  his  meaning  :  "  Henceforward  he  cared  not 
a  bit  for  the  cowl  and  its  foolery  and  refused  to  hear  any  more 
about  it."2  Thus,  so  Luther  assures  us,  St.  Bernard,  at  the 
solemn  moment  of  quitting  this  world,  "  made  nothing  "  ("  nihili 
fecit  ")  of  his  vows.3 

When  quoting  the  words  "  Perdite  vixi  "  Luther  frequently 
seeks  to  convey  an  admission  on  the  Saint's  part  of  his  having 
come  at  last  to  see  that  the  religious  life  was  a  mistake,  and 
merely  led  people  to  forget  Christ's  merits  ;  that  he  had  at  last 
attained  the  perception  during  sickness  and  had  laid  hold  on 
Christ's  merits  as  his  only  hope.4  Even  on  internal  grounds  it  is 
too  much  to  assume  Luther  to  have  been  in  good  faith,  or  merely 
guilty  of  a  lapse  of  memory.  That  we  have  here  to  do  with  a 
distorted  version  of  a  perfectly  harmless  remark  is  proved  to  the 
historian  by  another  passage,  dating  from  the  year  1518,  where 
Luther  himself  refers  quite  simply  and  truly  to  the  actual  words 
employed  by  St.  Bernard  and  sees  in  them  merely  an  expression 
of  humility  and  the  admission  of  a  pure  heart,  which  detested 
the  smallest  of  its  faults. 5 

Denifle  has  followed  up  the  "  Perdite  vixi  "  with  great  acumen, 
shown  the  frequent  use  Luther  made  of  it  and  traced  the  words 
to  their  actual  context  in  St.  Bernard's  writings.  The  text  does 
not  contain  the  faintest  condemnation  of  the  religious  life,  so 
that  Luther's  incessant  misuse  of  it  becomes  only  the  more 
incomprehensible. 8 

1  Barge,  "  Andreas  Bodenstein  von  Carlstadt,"  2,  p.  223. 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  47,  p.  37  f. 

3  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  658  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  360. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  601  =  p.  278. 

6  Ibid.,  1,  p.  323=1,  p.  338  ;    1,  p.  534=2,  p.  142. 

6  Denifle,  "  Luther,"  I2,  p.  44.  Denifle  has  shown  that  the  passage 
in  question  occurs  in  the  form  of  a  prayer  in  St.  Bernard's  "  Sermo  XX 
in  Cantica  "  "  P.L.,"  183,  col.  867  :  "  De  mea  misera  vita  suscipe 
(Deus),  obsecro,  residuum  annorum  meorum  ;  pro  his  ve.ro  (annis)  quos 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  89 

St.  Bernard  is  here  speaking  solely  of  his  own  faults  and 
imperfections,  not  at  all  of  the  religious  life  or  of  the  vows.  Nor 
were  the  words  uttered  on  his  death-bed,  when  face  to  face  with 
eternity,  but  occur  in  a  sermon  preached  in  the  full  vigour  of 
manhood  and  when  the  Saint  was  eagerly  pursuing  his  monastic 
ideal. 

Again,  what  things  were  not  circulated  by  Luther,  in  the 
stress  of  his  warfare,  concerning  the  history  of  the  Popes 
and  the  Church  ?  Here,  again,  some  of  his  statements  were 
not  simply  errors  made  in  good  faith,  but,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  by  Protestant  historians,  malicious  inventions 
going  far  beyond  the  matter  contained  in  the  sources  which 
\ve  know  to  have  been  at  his  command.  The  Popes 
"  poisoned  several  Emperors,  beheaded  or  otherwise  be 
trayed  others  and  put  them  to  death,  as  became  the 
diabolical  spectre  of  the  Papacy."1  The  bloodthirsty  Popes 
were  desirous  of  "  slaying  the  German  Emperors,  as 
Clement  IV  did  with  Conradin,  the  last  Duke  of  Suabia  and 
hereditary  King  of  Naples,  whom  he  caused  to  be  publicly 
put  to  death  by  the  sword."2  Of  this  E.  Schafer  rightly 
says,  that  the  historian  Sabellicus,  whom  Luther  was 
utilising,  simply  (and  truly)  records  that  :  "  Conradin  was 
taken  while  attempting  to  escape  and  was  put  to  death  by 
order  of  Charles  [of  Anjou]  "  ;  Clement  IV  Sabellicus  does 
not  mention  at  all,  although  it  is  true  that  the  Pope  \vas  a 
strong  opponent  of  the  Staufen  house.3 

The  so-called  letter  of  St.  Ulrich  of  Augsburg  against 
clerical  celibacy,  with  the  account  of  3000  (6000)  babies' 
heads  found  in  a  pond  belonging  to  St.  Gregory's  nunnery 
in  Rome,  is  admittedly  one  of  the  most  impudent  forgeries 
found  in  history  and  emanated  from  some  foe  of  Gregory  VII 
and  opponent  of  the  ancient  law  of  celibacy.  Luther 
brought  it  out  as  a  weapon  in  his  struggle  against  celibacy, 
and,  according  to  Kostlin-Kawerau,  most  probably  the 
Preface  to  the  printed  text  published  at  Wittenberg  in  1520 

vivendo  perdidi,  quia  perdite  vixi,  cor  contritum  et  humiliatum  Deus  non 
despicias.  Dies  mei  sicut  umbra  declinaverunt  et  prceterierunt  sine 
fruciu.  Impossibile  est,  ut  revocem  ;  placeat,  ut  recogitem  tibi  eos  in 
amaritudine  animce  mece."  Denifle  points  out  that  the  sermon  in 
question  was  preached  about  1136  or  1137,  about  sixteen  years  before 
Bernard's  death,  thus  certainly  not  in  his  last  illness. 

1   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  249.          2  Ibid.,  p.  145  ;    cp.  p.  204. 

3  "  Luther  als  Kirchenhistoriker,"  Giitersloh,  1897,  p.  391,  referring 
to  Sabellicus,  "  Rhapsod.  hist.  Ennead.,"  9,  8. 


90  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

came  from  his  pen.1  The  manuscript  had  been  sent  to 
Luther  from  Holland.  Emser  took  him  to  task  and  proved 
the  forgery,  though  on  not  very  substantial  grounds.  Luther 
demurred  to  one  of  his  arguments  but  declared  that  he  did 
not  build  merely  on  a  doubtful  letter.  In  spite  of  this, 
however,  the  seditious  and  alluring  fable  was  not  only  not 
withdrawn  from  circulation  but  actually  reprinted.  When 
Luther  said  later  that  celibacy  had  first  been  introduced  in 
the  time  of  St.  Ulrich,  he  is  again  speaking  on  the  authority 
of  the  supposititious  letter.  This  letter  was  also  worked  for 
all  it  was  worth  by  those  who  later  took  up  the  defence  of 
Luther's  teaching.2 

To  take  one  single  example  of  Luther's  waywardness  in 
speaking  of  Popes  who  were  almost  contemporaries  :  He 
tells  us  with  the  utmost  assurance  that  Alexander  VI  had 
been  an  "  unbelieving  Marane."  However  much  we  may 
execrate  the  memory  of  the  Borgia  Pope,  still  so  extra 
ordinary  an  assertion  has  never  been  made  by  any  sensible 
historian.  Alexander  VI,  the  pretended  Jewish  convert  and 
"  infidel  "  on  the  Papal  throne  !  Who  could  read  his  heart 
so  well  as  to  detect  an  infidelity,  which,  needless  to  say,  he 
never  acknowledged  ?  Who  can  credit  the  tale  of  his  being  a 
Marane  ? 

When,  in  July  14,  1537,  Pope  Paul  III  issued  a  Bull  grant 
ing  an  indulgence  for  the  war  against  the  Turks,  Luther  at 
once  published  it  with  misleading  notes  in  which  he  sought 
to  show  that  the  Popes,  instead  of  linking  up  the  Christian 
powers  against  their  foes,  had  ever  done  their  best  to  promote 
dissensions  amongst  the  great  monarchs  of  Christendom.3 

In  1538  he  sent  to  the  press  his  Schmalkalden  "  Artickel  " 
against  the  Pope  and  the  prospective  Council,  adding 
observations  of  a  questionable  character  regarding  their 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,    1,   p.    766,   p.   350,   n.    1.      For  the   literature 
dealing  with  the  Ulrich  fable,  see  N.  Paulus,   "  Die  Dominikaner  im 
Kampfe    gegen    Luther,"    p.    253;    and  particularly    J.    Haussleiter, 
"  Beitrage  zur  bayerischen  KG.,"  6,  p.  121  f. 

2  Cp.  Mathesius,  "  Historien,"  p.  40,  and  Flacius  Illyricus  in  his  two 
separate  editions  of  the  letter.     Flacius  also  incorporated  the  Ulrich 
letter  in  his  "  Catalogue  testium  veritatis  "  and  repeatedly  referred  to 
it   in   his   controversial   writings.      See  J.   Niemoller's   article   on   the 
mendacity  of  a  certain  class  of  historical  literature  in  the  16th  century, 
"Flacius  und  Flacianismus  "   ("  Zeitschr.  f.  kath.  Theol.,"   12,  1888, 
pp.  75-115,  particularly  p.  107  i'.). 

3  Cp.  Knaake,  "  Zeitschr.  fur  luth.  Theol.,"  1876,  p.  362. 


RESPECT  FOR  TRUTH  91 

history  and  meaning.  He  certainly  was  exalting  unduly 
the  Articles  when  he  declared  in  the  Introduction,  that 
"  they  have  been  unanimously  accepted  and  approved  by 
our  people."  It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge,  that, 
owing  to  Melanchthon's  machinations,  they  had  never  even 
been  discussed.  (See  vol.  iii.,  p.  434.)  They  were  neverthe 
less  published  as  though  they  had  been  the  official  scheme 
drafted  for  presentation  to  the  Council.  Luther  also  put 
into  the  printed  Artickel  words  which  are  not  to  be  found 
in  the  original.1  The  following  excuse  of  his  statement  as 
to  their  having  been  accepted  at  Schmalkaldeii  has  been 
made  :  "  It  is  evident,  that,  owing  to  his  grave  illness  at 
Schmalkalden,  he  never  learnt  the  exact  fate  of  his  Articles." 
Yet  who  can  believe,  that,  after  his  recovery,  he  did  not 
make  enquiries  into  what  had  become  of  the  Articles  on 
which  he  laid  so  much  weight,  or  that  he  "  never  learnt  " 
their  fate,  though  the  matter  was  one  well  known  to  both 
the  Princes  and  the  theologians  ?  Only  after  his  death  were 
these  Articles  embodied  in  the  official  Confessions.2 

Seeing  that  he  was  ready  to  misrepresent  even  the  official 
proceedings  of  his  own  party,  we  cannot  be  surprised  if,  in 
his  controversies,  he  was  careless  about  the  truth  where  the 
person  of  an  opponent  was  concerned.  Here  it  is  not  always 
possible  to  find  even  a  shadow  of  excuse  behind  which  he 
can  take  refuge.  Of  Erasmus's  end  he  had  received  accounts 
from  two  quarters,  both  friendly  to  his  cause,  but  they  did 
not  strike  him  as  sufficiently  damning.  Accordingly  he  at 
once  set  in  currency  reports  concerning  the  scholar's  death 
utterly  at  variance  with  what  he  had  learnt  from  the  letters 
in  question.3  He  accused  the  Catholics,  particularly  the 
Catholic  Princes,  of  attempting  to  murder  him,  and  fre 
quently  speaks  of  the  hired  braves  sent  out  against  him. 
Nor  were  his  friends  and  pupils  slow  to  take  his  words 
literally  and  to  hurl  such  charges,  more  particularly  against 
Duke  George  of  Saxony.4  Yet  not  a  single  attempt  on  his 
life  can  be  proved,  and  even  Protestants  have  admitted 
concerning  the  Duke  that  "  nothing  credible  is  known  of 

1  Cp.  Kolde  on  Luther's  "  private  print,"  in  Miiller,  "  Bekenntnis- 
schriften  "10,  p.  xxvi.,  n.  1. 

2  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  397  f. 

3  For  proofs  from  Luther's  correspondence,  vol.  xi.,  see  the  article  of 
N.  Paulus  in  the  "  Lit.  Beil.  der  Koln.  Volksztng.,"  1908,  p.  220.     On 
Erasmus,  see  below,  p.  93. 

4  "  Ratzebergers  Chronik,"  ed.  Neudecker,  p.  69  f. 


92  LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

any  attempt  on  George's  part  to  assassinate  Luther."1 
Cochlaeus  merely  relates  that  murderers  had  offered  their 
services  to  Duke  George  ;2  beyond  that  nothing. 

Far  more  serious  than  such  misrepresenting  of  individuals 
was  the  injustice  he  did  to  the  whole  ecclesiastical  life  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  which  he  would  fain  have  made  out  to  have 
entirely  fallen  away  from  the  true  standard  of  Christian 
faith  and  practice.  Seen  through  his  new  glasses,  mediaeval 
life  was  distorted  beyond  all  recognition.  Walter  Kohler 
gives  a  warning  which  is  to  the  point  :  "  Protestant 
historians  must  beware  of  looking  at  the  Middle  Ages  from 
Luther's  standpoint."3  In  particular  was  mediaeval 
Scholasticism  selected  by  Luther  and  his  friends  as  a  butt 
for  attack  and  misrepresentation.  Bucer  admits  in  a  letter 
to  Bullinger  how  far  they  had  gone  in  this  respect  :  "  We 
have  treated  all  the  Schoolmen  in  such  a  way  as  to  shock 
many  good  and  worthy  men,  who  see  that  we  have  not  read 
their  works  but  are  merely  anxious  to  slander  them  out  of 
prudence."4 

However  desirous  we  may  be  of  crediting  the  later 
Luther  with  good  faith  in  his  distorted  views  of  Catholic 
practices  and  doctrines,  still  he  frequently  goes  so  far  in  this 
respect  as  to  make  it  extremely  difficult  to  believe  that  his 
misrepresentations  were  based  on  mere  error  or  actual 
conviction.  One  would  have  thought  that  he  would  at 
least  have  noticed  the  blatant  contrast  between  his  insinua 
tions  and  the  text  of  the  Breviary  and  Missal — books  with 
which  he  was  thoroughly  conversant — and  even  of  the  rule 
of  his  Order.  As  a  monk  and  priest  he  was  perfectly 
familiar  with  them  ;  only  at  the  cost  of  a  violent  wrench 
could  he  have  passed  from  this  so  different  theological 
world  to  think  as  he  ultimately  did  of  the  doctrines  of 
Catholicism.  Dollinger  was  quite  right  when  he  wrote  : 
"  As  a  controversialist  Luther  combined  undeniably 
dialectic  and  rhetorical  talent  with  a  degree  of  unscrupulous- 
ness  such  as  is  rarely  met  with  in  this  domain.  One  of  his 
most  ordinary  methods  was  to  distort  a  doctrine  or  institu 
tion  into  a  mere  caricature  of  itself,  and  then,  forgetful  of 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  G62,  p.  307,  n.  1. 

2  Joh.  Karl  Seidemann,  "  Beitrage  zur  RG.,"  1845  ff.,  p.  137. 

3  "  Katholizismus  und  Reformation,"  p.  45. 

*  Letter  to  Bullinger,  1535,  "  Corp.  ref.,"  10,  p.  138. 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  93 

the  fact  that  what  he  was  fighting  was  a  simple  creation 
of  his  fancy,  to  launch  out  into  righteous  abuse  of  it.  ... 
So  soon  as  he  touches  a  theological  question,  he  confuses  it, 
often  of  set  purpose,  and  as  for  the  reasons  of  his  opponents, 
they  are  mutilated  and  distorted  out  of  all  recognition."1 
The  untruthfulness  of  his  polemics  is  peculiarly  apparent 
in  his  attack  on  free-will.  It  is  impossible,  even  with  the 
best  of  intentions,  to  put  it  all,  or  practically  all,  to  the 
account  "  of  the  method  of  disputation  "  then  in  use.  That 
method,  the  syllogistic  one,  called  for  a  clear  and  accurate 
statement  of  the  opponent's  standpoint.  The  controversy 
round  "  De  servo  arbitrio  "  (fully  dealt  with  in  vol.  ii.,  pp. 
223-294)  has  recently  been  studied  by  two  scholars,  one  a 
Protestant,  the  other  a  Catholic,  and  both  authors  on  the 
whole  agree  at  least  on  one  point,  viz.  that  Luther  ascribed 
to  his  opponent  a  denial  of  the  necessity  of  Grace,  such  as 
the  latter  never  defended,  and  such  as  is  quite  unknown  to 
Catholics.2  Indeed,  at  a  later  juncture  in  that  same  con 
troversy  Luther  even  declared  of  the  author  of  the  "  Hyper- 
aspistes  "  that  he  denied  the  Trinity  !3 

Instead  of  instancing  anew  all  the  many  minor  mis 
representations  of  the  dogmas  and  practices  of  the  older 
Church  for  which  Luther  was  responsible,  and  which  are 
found  scattered  throughout  this  work,  we  may  confine  our 
selves  to  recalling  his  bold  assertion,  that  all  earlier  ex 
positors  had  taken  the  passage  concerning  "  God's  justice," 
in  Rom.  i.  17,  as  referring  to  punitive  justice.4  This  was  what 

1  "  Luther,  eine  Skizze,"  p.  56  f.;    "  KL.,"  82,  col.  342  f. 

2  K.  Zickendraht,  "  Der  Streit  zwischen  Erasmus  und  Luther  iiber 
die  Willensfreiheit,"  Leipzig,  1909,  admits  at  least  concerning  some  of 
Luther's  assertions  in  the  "  De  servo  arbitrio,"  that  "  he  was  led  away 
by  the  wish  to  draw  wrong  inferences  from  his  opponent's  premises  "  ; 
for  instance,  in  asserting  that  Erasmus  "  outdid  the  Pelagians  "  ;    by 
reading  much  into  Erasmus  which  was  not  there  he  brought  charges 
against  him  which  are  "  manifestly  false  "  (p.  81).    Luther  sought  "  to 
transplant  the  seed  sown  by  Erasmus  from  its  native  soil  to  his  own 
field  "  (p.  79)  ;    the  ideas  of  Erasmus  "  were  interpreted  agreeably  to 
Luther's  own  ways  and  logic"   (cp.   p.   v.);    it  would  not  be  right 
"  simply  to  take  for  granted  that  Luther's  supposed  allies  (such  as 
Laurentius  Valla,  '  De   libero   arbitrio  '  ;    cp.    '  Werke,'    Erl.    ed.,    58, 
p.  237  ff.)  in  the  struggle  with  Erasmus,  really  were  what  he  made  them 
out  to  be  "   (p.   2). — H.   Humbertclaude,    "  Erasme  et  Luther,   leur 
polemique  sur  le  libre  arbitre,"  Paris,  1910,  lays  still  greater  stress  on 
the  injustice  done  to  Erasmus  by  Luther. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  531  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  523. 
Cp.  Enders,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  253,  n.  3,  and  our  vol.  ii., 
p.  398  f.  4  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  7,  p.  74.    Cp.  our  vol.  i.,  p.  400  f. 


he  taught  from  his  professor's  chair  and  what  we  find 
vouched  for  in  the  notes  of  a  zealous  pupil  of  whose  fidelity 
there  can  be  no  question.  And  yet  it  has  been  proved,  that, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Abelard,  not  one  can  be 
found  who  thus  explained  the  passage  of  which  Luther 
speaks  ("  hunc  locum "),  whilst  Luther  himself  was  ac 
quainted  with  some  at-  least  of  the  more  than  sixty  com 
mentators  who  interpret  it  otherwise.  Significant  enough 
is  the  fact  that  he  only  reached  this  false  interpretation 
gradually. 

Luther  also  says  that  he  and  all  the  others  had  been  told 
it  was  a  mortal  sin  to  leave  their  cell  without  their  scapular, 
though  he  never  attempts  to  prove  that  this  was  the  general 
opinion,  or  was  even  held  by  anybody.  The  rule  of  his 
Order  rejected  such  exaggeration.  All  theologians  were 
agreed  that  such  trifles  did  not  constitute  a  grievous  sin. 
Luther  was  perfectly  aware  that  Gerson,  who  was  much 
read  in  the  monasteries,  was  one  of  these  theologians  ;  he 
praised  him,  because,  though  looked  at  askance  at  Rome, 
he  set  consciences  free  from  over-great  scrupulosity  and 
refused  to  brand  the  non-wearing  of  the  scapular  as  a  crime.1 
Gerson  was  indeed  not  favourably  regarded  in  Rome,  but 
this  was  for  other  reasons,  not,  as  Luther  makes  out,  on 
account  of  such  common-sense  teaching  as  the  above. 

Then  again  we  have  the  untruth  he  is  never  tired  of 
reiterating,  viz.  that  in  the  older  Church  people  thought 
they  could  be  saved  only  by  means  of  works,  and  that, 
through  want  of  faith  in  Christ,  the  "  Church  had  become 
a  whore."2  Yet  ecclesiastical  literature  in  Luther's  day  no 
less  than  in  ours,  and  likewise  an  abundance  of  documents 
bearing  on  the  point  teach  quite  tha  contrary  and  make  faith 
in  Christ  the  basis  of  all  the  good  works  enjoined.3  All  were 
aware,  as  Luther  himself  once  had  been,  that  outward 
works  taken  by  themselves  were  worthless.  And  yet  Luther, 
in  one  of  the  charges  which  he  repeated  again  and  again, 
though  at  the  outset  he  cannot  have  believed  it,  says  :  "  The 
question  is,  how  we  are  to  become  pious.  The  Grey  Friar 
says  :  Wear  a  grey  hood,  a  rope  and  the  tonsure.  The 
Black  Friar  says :  Put  on  a  black  frock.  The  Papist :  Do 

1  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  41. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  58,  p.  391  ("  Tischreden  "). 

3  Cp.  e.g.  the  summarised  teaching  of  an  eminent  theologian,  Denis 
the  Carthusian,  in  Krogh-Tonning,  "  Der  letzte  Scholastiker,"  1904. 


RESPECT   FOR  TRUTH  95 

this  or  that  good  work,  hear  Mass,  pray,  fast,  give  alms, 
etc.,  and  each  one  whatever  he  fancies  will  help  him  to  be 
saved.  But  the  Christian  says  :  Only  by  faith  in  Christ  can 
you  become  pious,  and  righteous  and  secure  salvation  ; 
only  through  Grace  alone,  without  any  work  or  merits  of 
your  own.  Now  look  and  see  which  is  true  righteousness."1 
Let  us  listen  for  a  moment  to  the  indignant  voice  of  a 
learned  Catholic  contemporary,  viz.  the  Saxon  Dominican, 
Bartholomew  Kleindienst,  himself  for  a  while  not  unfavour 
able  to  the  new  errors,  who,  in  1560,  replied  to  Luther's 
misrepresentations  :  "  Some  of  the  leaders  of  sects  are  such 
impudent  liars  as,  contrary  to  their  own  conscience,  to 
persuade  the  poor  people  to  believe,  that  we  Catholics  of 
the  present  day,  or  as  they  term  us  Papists,  do  not  believe 
what  the  old  Papists  believed  ;  we  no  longer  think  any 
thing  of  Christ,  but  worship  the  Saints,  not  merely  as  the 
friends  of  God  but  as  gods  themselves  ;  nay,  we  look  upon 
the  Pope  as  our  God  ;  we  Avish  to  gain  heaven  by  means 
of  our  works,  without  God's  Grace  ;  we  do  not  believe  in 
Holy  Writ ;  have  no  proper  Bible  and  should  be  unable 
to  read  it  if  we  had  ;  trust  more  in  holy  wrater  than  in 
the  blood  of  Christ.  .  .  .  Numberless  such-like  horrible, 
blasphemous  arid  hitherto  unheard-of  lies  they  invent  and 
use  against  us.  The  initiate  are  well  aware  that  this  is  the 
chief  trick  of  the  sects,  wrhereby  they  render  the  Papacy  an 
abomination  to  simple  and  otherwise  well-disposed  folk."2 

But  had  not  Luther,  carried  away  by  his  zeal  against  the 
Papists,  taken  his  stand  on  the  assumption,  that,  against 
the  deception  and  depravity  of  the  Papal  Antichrist,  every 
weapon  was  good  provided  only  that  it  helped  to  save  souls  ? 
Such  at  any  rate  was  his  plea  in  justification  of  his  work 
"An  den  christlichen  Adel."3  Again,  during  the  menacing 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  58,  p.  391. 

2  From   Kleindienst,    "  Ein   recht    catholisch   Ermanung   an   seine 
lieben  Teutschen,"  Dillingen,  1560,  Paulus,   "  Die  deutschen  Domini- 
kaner,"  etc.,  1903,  p.  276. 

3  To  Johann   Lang,   Aug.    18,    1520,    "  Briefwechsel,"    2,   p.   461  : 
"  Nos  hie  persuasi  sumus,  papatum  esse  veri  et  germani  illius  Antichristi 
sedem,  in  cuius  deceptionem  et  nequitiam  ob  salutem  animarum  nobis 
omnia  licere  arbitramur."      This  must  not   be   translated   "  to   their 
deceiving  and  destruction,"  but,  "  against  their  trickery  and  malice." 
The  passage  strictly  refers  to  his  passionate  work   "  An  den  Christ- 
lichen  Adel,"  but  seems  also  to  be  intended  generally. 


96  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Diet  of  Augsburg,  when  recommending  the  use  of  the 
questionable  "  Gospel-proviso,"  he  let  fall  the  following  in  a 
letter :  Even  "  tricks  and  failings  "  ("  doli  et  lapsus  "),  should 
they  occur  amongst  his  followers  in  their  resistance  to  the 
Papists,  "  can  easily  be  atoned  for  once  we  have  escaped 
the  danger."1  He  even  adds  :  "  For  God's  Mercy  watches 
over  us." 

In  the  midst  of  the  double-dealing  then  in  progress 
Luther  again  appealed  to  Christ  in  his  letter  to  Wenceslaus 
Link  on  Sep.  20,  1530,  where  he  says  :  Christ  "  would  be 
well  pleased  with  such  deceit  and  would  scornfully  cheat 
the  [Papist]  deceivers,  as  he  hoped,"  i.e.  raise  false  hopes 
that  the  Lutherans  would  yield  ;  later  they  would  find  out 
their  mistake,  and  that  they  had  been  fooled.  Here  is  my 
view  of  the  matter,  he  continues,  "  I  am  secure,  that  with 
out  my  consent,  their  consent  [the  concessions  of  Melanch- 
thon  and  his  friends  at  the  Diet]  is  invalid.  Even  were  I 
too  to  agree  with  these  blasphemers,  murderers  and  faithless 
monsters,  yet  the  Church  and  [above  all]  the  teaching  of 
the  Gospel  would  not  consent."  This  was  his  "  Gospel- 
proviso,"  thanks  to  which  all  the  concessions,  doctrinal  or 
moral,  however  solemnly  granted  by  him  or  by  his  followers, 
might  be  declared  invalid — "  once  we  have  escaped  the 
danger."  (See  vol.  iii.,  p.  337  ff.) 

The  underhandedness  which  he  advocated  in  order  that 
the  people  might  not  be  made  aware  of  the  abrogation  of 
the  Mass,  has  been  considered  above  (vol.  ii.,  p.  321). 
Another  strange  trick  on  his  part — likewise  for  the  better 
furtherance  of  his  cause — was  his  attempt  to  persuade  the 
Bishop  of  Samland,  George  von  Polenz,  who  had  fallen  away 
from  the  Church  and  joined  him,  "  to  proceed  with  caution  "; 

1  To  Melanchthon,  Aug.  28,  1530,  "  Brief wechsel,"  8,  p.  235.  Cp. 
vol.  ii.,  p.  386.  Luther  says:  " dolos  et  lapsus  nostroa  facile  emenda- 
bimus  "  ;  thus  assuming  his  part  of  the  responsibility.  The  explana 
tion  that  he  is  speaking  merely  of  the  mistakes  which  Melanchthon 
might  make,  and  simply  wished  "  to  console  and  sympathise  with  him," 
is  too  far-fetched  to  be  true.  In  his  edition  of  the  "  Brief  wechsel  " 
Enders  has  struck  out  the  word  "  mendacia  "  after  "  dolos,"  though 
wrongly,  as  we  shall  see  in  vol.  vi.,  xxxvi.,  4.  According  to  Enders  the 
handwriting  is  too  faint  for  it  to  be  accepted  as  genuine.  As  there  is 
no  original  of  the  letter  the  question  remains  how  it  came  into  the  old 
copies  which  were  in  Lutheran  hands.  In  any  case,  such  an  interpella 
tion  would  be  more  difficult  to  understand  than  its  removal.  Cp.  also 
Luther's  own  justification  of  such  mendacia  in  1524  and  1528,  given 
below  on  p.  109  ff. 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  97 

"  therefore  that  it  would  be  useful  foi1  him  [the  Bishop] 
to  appear  to  suspend  his  judgment  ("  ut  velut  suspendens  sen- 
tentiam  appareret '  ) ;  to  wait  until  the  people  had  consented, 
and  then  throw  in  his  weight  as  though  he  had  been  con 
quered  by  their  arguments."1  Couched  in  Luther's  ordinary 
language  this  would  mean  that  the  Bishop  was  to  pretend 
to  be  wavering  between  Christ  and  Antichrist,  between 
hell  and  the  Evangel,  though  any  such  wavering,  to  say 
nothing  of  any  actual  yielding,  would  have  been  a  capital 
crime  against  religion.  At  the  best  the  Bishop  could  only 
hypocritically  feign  to  be  wavering  in  spite  of  the  other  public 
steps  he  had  taken  in  Luther's  favour  and  of  which  the 
latter  was  well  aware. 

Later,  in  1545,  considering  the  "  deception  and  depravity  " 
of  the  Papacy  Luther  thought  himself  justified  in  insinu 
ating  in  a  writing  against  the  Catholic  Duke  Henry  of 
Brunswick,2  then  a  prisoner,  that  the  Pope  had  furnished 
him  supplies  for  his  unfortunate  Avarlike  enterprise  against 
the  allies  of  the  evangelical  confession. 

Of  this  there  was  not  the  shadow  of  a  proof.  The  contrary  is 
clear  from  Protestant  documents  and  protocols.3  The  Court  of 
the  Saxon  Electorate,  where  an  insult  to  the  Emperor  was 
apprehended,  was  aghast  at  Luther's  resolve  to  publish  the 
charge  concerning  the  "  equipment  from  Italy,"  and  Chancellor 
Briick  hastened  to  request  him  to  alter  the  proofs  for  fear  of  evil 
consequences.4  Luther,  however,  was  in  no  mood  to  yield  ;  the 
writing  comprising  this  malicious  insinuation  and  other  false 
hoods  was  even  addressed  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  the  Saxon 
Elector  and  the  allied  Princes.  At  the  same  time  the  author,  both 
in  the  text  and  in  his  correspondence,  gave  the  impression  that 
the  writing  had  been  composed  without  the  Elector's  knowledge 
and  only  at  the  request  of  "  many  others,  some  of  them  great 
men,"  though  in  reality,  as  Protestants  admit,  the  "  work  had 
been  written  to  order,"  viz.  at  the  instigation  of  the  Electoral 
Court.5 

"  We  all  know,"  Luther  says,  seemingly  with  the  utmost 
gravity,  in  this  work  against  the  Duke,  "  that  Pope  and  Papists 
desire  our  death,  body  and  soul.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  desire 

1  To  the  apostate  Franciscan  Johann  Briesmann,  July  4,  1524, 
"  Briefwechsel,"  4,  p.  360.  These  instructions  to  the  preacher  who  was 
to  work  for  the  apostasy  of  the  Teutonic  Order  in  Prussia  are  character 
istic  of  Luther's  diplomacy.  Cp.  the  directions  to  Martin  Weier  (above, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  323).  2  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  386  ff. 

3  Cp.  v.  Druffel  in  the  "  SB.  der  bayer.  Akad.,  phil.-hist.  Kl.,"  2, 
1888,  and  "  Forschungen  zur  deutschen  Gesch.,"  25,  p.  71. 

4  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  693,  p.  612,  n.  1.  5  Ibid.,  p.  612. 

IV.— H 


98  LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

to  save  them  with  us,  soul  and  body." l  There  is  no  need  to  waste 
words  on  the  intentions  here  ascribed  to  the  Papists.  As  to 
Luther's  own  good  intentions  so  far  as  the  material  welfare  of 
the  Papists  goes,  what  he  says  does  not  tally  with  the  wish  he  so 
loudly  expressed  at  that  very  time  for  the  bloody  destruction  of 
the  Pope.  Further,  as  regards  the  Papists'  souls,  what  he  said 
of  his  great  opponent,  Archbishop  Albert  of  Mayence,  deserves 
to  be  mentioned  :  "  He  died  impenitent  in  his  sins  and  must  be 
damned  eternally,  else  the  Christian  faith  is  all  wrong."2  Did 
Luther  perhaps  write  this  with  a  heavy  heart  ?  Yet  he  also 
condemns  in  advance  the  soul  of  the  unhappy  Duke  of  Bruns 
wick,  "  seeing  there  is  no  hope  of  his  amendment,"  and  "  even 
though  he  should  feign  to  repent  and  become  more  pious,"  yet 
he  would  not  be  trusted  since  "  he  might  pretend  to  repent  and 
amend  merely  in  order  to  climb  back  to  honour,  lands  and  people, 
which  assuredly  would  be  nothing  but  a  false  and  foxy  repent 
ance."3  Hence  he  insists  upon  the  Princes  refusing  to  release 
the  Duke.  But  even  his  own  friends  will  not  consider  his  religious 
motives  for  this  very  profound  or  genuine,  for  instance,  when  he 
says  :  Were  he  to  be  released,  "  many  pious  hearts  would  be 
saddened  and  their  prayers  for  your  Serene  Highnesses  become 
tepid  and  cold."4  His  political  reasons  were  no  less  founded  on 
untruth.  The  only  object  of  the  League  of  the  Catholic  Princes 
was  to  seize  upon  the  property  of  the  evangelical  Princes  ;  "  they 
were  thinking,  not  of  the  Christian  faith,  but  of  the  lands  of  the 
Elector  and  the  Landgrave  "  ;  they  have  made  "  one  league 
after  the  other  "  and  now  "  call  it  a  defensive  one,  as  though 
forsooth  they  were  in  danger,"  whereas  "  we  for  our  part  have 
without  intermission  prayed,  implored,  called  and  cried  for 
peace."5 

While  Luther  was  himself  playing  fast  and  loose  with 
truth,  he  was  not  slow  to  accuse  his  opponents  of  lying  even 
when  they  presented  matters  as  they  really  were.  When 
Eck  published  the  Bull  of  Excommunication,  which  Luther 
himself  knew  to  be  authentic,  he  was  roundly  rated  for 
saying  that  his  "tissue  of  lies  "  was  "the  Pope's  work."6 
In  fact,  in  all  and  everything  that  Catholics  undertake 
against  his  cause,  they  are  seeking  "  to  deceive  us  and  the 
common  people,  though  well  aware  of  the  contrary.  .  .  . 
You  see  how  they  seek  the  truth.  .  .  .  They  are  rascals 
incarnate."7  In  fighting  against  the  lies  of  his  opponents 
Luther,  once, — curiously  enough — in  his  writing  "  Widder 
die  hymelischen  Propheten  "  actually  takes  the  Pope  under 

1  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  401.          2  Ibid.,  p.  386. 
3  Ibid.  4  Ibid.,  p.  387.  5  Ibid.,  p.  391. 

c  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  592  ;   Erl.  ed.,  242,  p.  29. 
7  Ibid.,  26,  p.  532  f.  =  63,  p.  276. 


RESPECT   FOR   TRUTH  99 

his  protection  against  the  calumnies  of  his  Wittenberg 
opponent  Carlstadt ;  seeking  to  brand  him  as  a  liar,  he 
declares  that  he  "  was  notoriously  telling  lies  of  the  Pope." 

We  already  know  how  much  Carlstadt  had  to  complain 
of  Luther's  lying  and  fickleness. 

This  leads  to  a  short  review  of  the  remarks  made  by 
Luther's  then  opponents  and  friends  concerning  his  want  of 
truthfulness. 

2.  Opinions  of  Contemporaries  in  either  Camp 

Luther's  work  against  Duke  Henry  of  Brunswick  entitled 
"  Wider  Hans  Worst  "  was  so  crammed  with  malice  and 
falsehoods  that  even  some  of  Luther's  followers  were 
disposed  to  complain  of  its  unseemliness.  Simon  Wilde, 
who  was  then  studying  medicine  at  Wittenberg,  wrote  on 
April  8,  1541,  when  forwarding  to  his  uncle  the  Town  Clerk, 
Stephen  Roth  of  Zwickau,  a  copy  of  the  booklet  which  had 
just  appeared  :  "  I  am  sending  you  a  little  work  of  Dr. 
Martin  against  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  which  bristles  with 
calumnies,  but  which  also  [so  he  says]  contains  much  that  is 
good,  and  may  be  productive  of  something  amongst  the 
virtuous."1 

Statements  adverse  to  Luther's  truthfulness  emanating 
from  the  Protestant  side  are  not  rare  ;  particularly  are  they 
met  with  in  the  case  of  theologians  who  had  had  to  suffer 
from  his  violence  ;  nor  can  their  complaints  be  entirely 
disallowed  simply  because  they  came  from  men  who  were 
in  conflict  with  him,  though  the  circumstance  would  call  for 
caution  in  making  use  of  them  were  the  complaints  not 
otherwise  corroborated. 

QEcolampadius  in  his  letter  to  Zwingli  of  April  20,  1525, 
calls  Luther  a  "  master  in  calumny,  and  prince  of  sophists."2 

The  Strasburg  preachers  Bucer  and  Capito,  though 
reputed  for  their  comparative  moderation,  wrote  of  one  of 
Luther's  works  on  the  Sacrament,  that  "  never  had  anything 
more  sophistical  and  calumnious  seen  the  light."3 

1  G.   Buchwald,    "  Simon    Wilde  "    ("  Mitt,   der  deutschen    Gesell- 
schaft  zur  Erforschung  vaterland.  Sprache  und  Altertums  in  Leipzig," 
9,  1894,  p.  61  ff.),  p.  95  :   "  libellum  calumniis  refertissimum." 

2  "  Zwinglii  Opp.,"   8,  p.   165:    "  calumniandi  magister  ct  sophis- 
tarum  princeps." 

3  Letter  to  J.   Vadian,   April    14,    1528,    "  Die  Vadianische  Brief- 
sammlung,"  4,  p.  101.    "Mitt,  zur  vaterl.  Gesch.  von  St.  Gallen,"  28, 
1902. 


100          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Thomas  Miinzer  repeatedly  calls  his  enemy  Luther  "Dr. 
Liar  "  and  "  Dr.  Lyinglips,"1  on  account  of  the  unkind- 
ness  of  his  polemics ;  more  picturesquely  he  has  it  on  one 
occasion,  that  "  he  lied  from  the  bottom  of  his  gullet."2 

Bucer  complains  in  terms  of  strong  disapprobation,  that, 
when  engaged  with  his  foes,  Luther  was  wont  to  misrepresent 
and  distort  their  doctrines  in  order  the  more  readily  to  gain  the 
upper  hand,  at  least  in  the  estimation  of  the  multitude.  He 
finds  that  "  in  many  places  "  he  has  "  rendered  the  doctrines 
and  arguments  of  the  opposite  side  with  manifest  untruth,"  for 
which  the  critic  is  sorry,  since  this  "  gave  rise  to  grave  doubts 
and  temptations  "  amongst  those  who  detected  this  practice, 
and  diminished  their  respect  for  the  Evangelical  teaching.3 

The  Lutheran,  Hieronymus  Pappus,  sending  Luther's  work 
"  Wider  Hans  Worst  "  to  Joachim  Vadian,  declared  :  "In 
calumny  he  does  not  seem  to  me  to  have  his  equal."4 

Johann  Agricola,  once  Luther's  friend,  and  then,  on  account 
of  his  Antinomianism,  his  adversary,  brings  against  Luther 
various  charges  in  his  Notes  (see  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  278)  ;  the 
worst  refer  to  his  "  lying."  God  will  punish  Luther,  he  writes, 
referring  to  his  work  "  Against  the  Antinomians  "  ;  "he  has 
heaped  too  many  lies  on  me  before  all  the  world."  Luther  had 
said  that  Agricola  denied  the  necessity  of  prayer  or  good  works  ; 
this  the  latter,  appealing  to  his  witnesses,  brands  as  an  "  abomin 
able  lie."  He  characterises  the  whole  tract  as  "  full  of  lies,"5  and, 
in  point  of  fact,  there  is  no  doubt  it  did  contain  the  worst  ex 
aggerations. 

Among  the  writers  of  the  opposite  camp  the  first  place  is  due 
to  Erasmus.  Of  one  of  the  many  distortions  of  his  meaning  com 
mitted  by  Luther  he  says  :  "  It  is  true  I  never  look  for  modera 
tion  in  Luther,  but  for  so  malicious  a  calumny  I  was  certainly 
not  prepared."6  Elsewhere  he  flings  in  his  face  the  threat  :  "  I 
shall  show  everybody  what  a  master  you  are  in  the  art  of  mis 
representation,  defamation,  calumny  and  exaggeration.  But 
the  world  knows  this  already.  ...  In  your  sly  way  you  contrive 
to  twist  even  what  is  absolutely  true,  whenever  it  is  to  your 

1  "  Neudrucke  deutscher  Literaturwerke,"  Hft.  118,  1893,  pp.  19, 

29,  etc. 

2  Cp.  Miinzer  in  Enders,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  4,  p.  374,  n.  6. 
Ibid.,  p.  373,  n.  1,  "  the  mendacious  Luther." 

3  "  Vergleichung  D.  Luthers  und  seines  Gegenteiles  vom  Abendmahl 
Christi,"  1528,  p.  23. 

4  "  Vadianische  Brief sammlung,"  6,  p.  16  ("  Mitt.  z.  v.  G.  v.  S.G."), 

30,  1,  1906)  :   Pappus  calls  the  book  :    "  librum  famosissimum,  plaustra 
et  carros  convitiorum.      Misereor   huius    tarn  felicissimi   ingenii,    quod 
tantis  se  immiscet  sordibus  ;  et  profecto,  ut  est  Lutherus  vertendo  et  docendo 
inimitabilis,    ita    mihi    iam    quoque    videtur    calumniando    non    parem 
habere."      Letter   of   April    13,    1541.      Pappus   was   Burgomaster   of 
Lindau. 

5  E.  Thiele,  "  Theol.  Stud,  und  Krit.,"  1907,  p.  265  f. 

6  "  Ep.,"  1,  18  ;    "  Opp.,"  3,  col.  1056. 


RESPECT  FOR  TRUTH  101 

interest  to  do  so.  You  know  how  to  turn  black  into  white  and 
to  make  light  out  of  darkness." 1  Disgusted  with  Luther's  methods, 
he  finally  became  quite  resigned  even  to  worse  things.  He  writes  : 
"  I  have  received  Luther's  letter  ;  it  is  simply  the  work  of  a 
madman.  He  is  not  in  the  least  ashamed  of  his  infamous  lies 
and  promises  to  do  even  worse.  What  can  those  people  be  think 
ing  of  who  confide  their  souls  and  their  earthly  destiny  to  a  man 
who  allows  himself  to  be  thus  carried  away  by  passion  ?  "2 

The  polemic,  Franz  Arnoldi,  tells  Luther,  that  one  of  his  works 
contains  "  as  many  lies  as  words."3 

Johann  Dietenberger  likewise  says,  referring  to  a  newly 
published  book  of  Luther's  which  he  had  been  studying  :  "  He 
is  the  most  mendacious  man  under  the  sky."4 

Paul  Bachmann,  shortly  after  the  appearance  of  Luther's 
booklet  "  Von  der  Winckelmesse,"  in  his  comments  on  it  emits 
the  indignant  remark  :  "  Luther's  lies  are  taller  even  than  Mount 
Olympus."5 

"  This  is  no  mere  erring  man,"  Bachmann  also  writes  of  Luther, 
"  but  the  wicked  devil  himself  to  whom  no  lie,  deception  or 
falsehood  is  too  much." 6 

Johann  Eck  sums  up  his  opinion  of  Luther's  truthfulness  in 
these  words  :  "  He  is  a  man  who  simply  bristles  with  lies  ('  homo 
totus  mendaciis  scatens  ')".7  The  Ingolstadt  theologian,  like 
Bartholomew  Kleindienst  (above,  p.  95),  was  particularly  struck 
by  Luther's  parody  of  Catholic  doctrine. — Willibald  Pirkheimer's 
words  in  1528  we  already  know.8 

We  pass  over  similar  unkindly  epithets  hurled  at  him  by 
indignant  Catholic  clerics,  secular,  or  regular.  The  latter, 
particularly,  speaking  with  full  knowledge  and  therefore  all  the 
more  indignantly,  describe  as  it  deserves  what  he  says  of  vows, 
as  a  glaring  lie,  of  the  falsehood  of  which  Luther,  the  quondam 
monk,  must  have  been  fully  aware. 

Of  the  Catholic  Princes  who  were  capable  of  forming  an 
opinion,  Duke  George  of  Saxony  with  his  downright  language 
must  be  mentioned  first.  In  connection  with  the  Pack  negotia 
tions  he  says  that  Luther  is  the  "  most  cold-blooded  liar  he  had 
ever  come  across."  "  We  must  say  and  write  of  him,  that  the 
apostate  monk  lies  like  a  desperate,  dishonourable  and  for 
sworn  miscreant."  "  We  have  yet  to  learn  from  Holy  Scripture 
that  Christ  ever  bestowed  the  mission  of  an  Apostle  on  such  an 

1  "  Hypcraspistes,"  1,  9,  col.  1043. 

2  Letter  to  George  Agricola,  in  Buchwald,   "  Zeitschr.  fur  kirchl. 
Wissenschaft  und  kirchl.  Leben,"  5,  Leipzig,  1884,  p.  56. 

3  "  Antwort  auf  das  Buchlein,"  1531.    "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  89. 

4  "  De  votis  monasticis,"   1,  2,  Colon.,   1524,  Bl.  S  5':    "Omnium 
mendacissimus,  qui  sub  ccelo  vivunt,  hominum." 

5  "  Lobgesang  auff  des  Luthers  Winckelmesse,"  Leipzig,  1534,  Bl. 
E  2'.    The  author  was  Abbot  of  Altzelle. 

6  "  Ein    Maulstreich    dem    lutherischen    liigenhaften,    weit    aufges- 
perrten  Rachen,"  Dresden,  1534.  '  See  above,  vol.  ii.,  p.  147. 

8  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  40  :  "  Quum  ita  frontem  perfricucrit,  ut  a  nullo 
abslineut  mendacio,'"  etc. 


102         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

open  and  deliberate  liar  or  sent  him  to  proclaim  the  Gospel."1 
Elsewhere  he  reminds  Luther  of  our  Lord's  words  :  "  By  their 
fruits  you  shall  know  them  "  :  To  judge  of  the  spirit  from  the 
fruits,  Luther's  spirit  must  be  a  "spirit  of  lying";  indeed, 
Luther  proved  himself  "  possessed  of  the  spirit  of  lies."2 

3.  The  Psychological  Problem 
Self-suggestion  and  Scriptural  Grounds  of  Excuse 
Not    merely    isolated    statements,    but    whole    series    of 
regularly  recurring  assertions  in  Luther's  works,  constitute 
a  real  problem,  and,  instead  of  challenging  refutation  make 
one  ask  how  their  author  could  possibly  have  come  to  utter 
and  make  such  things  his  own. 

A  Curious  Mania. 

He  never  tires  of  telling  the  public,  or  friends  and  supporters 
within  his  own  circle,  that  "  not  one  Bishop  amongst  the  Papists 
reads  or  studies  Holy  Scripture  "  ;  "  never  had  he  [Luther] 
whilst  a  Catholic  heard  anything  of  the  Ten  Commandments  "  ; 
in  Rome  they  say  :  "  Let  us  be  cheerful,  the  Judgment  Day  will 
never  come  "  ;  they  also  call  anyone  who  believes  in  revelation 
a  "  poor  simpleton  "  ;  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  they 
believe  that  "  there  is  no  God,  no  hell  and  no  life  after  this  life  "  ; 
when  taking  the  religious  vows  the  Papists  also  vowed  they 
"  had  no  need  of  the  Blood  and  Passion  of  Christ  "  ;  I,  too,  "  was 
compelled  to  vow  this  "  ;  all  religious  took  their  vows  "  with  a 
blasphemous  conscience." 

He  says  :  In  the  Papacy  "  they  did  not  preach  Christ,"  but 
only  the  Mass  and  good  works  ;  and  further  :  "  No  Father  [of 
the  Church]  ever  preached  Christ  "  ;  and  again  :  "  They  knew 
nothing  of  the  belief  that  Christ  died  for  us  "  ;  or :  "No  one  [in 
Popery]  ever  prayed  "  ;  and  :  Christ  was  looked  upon  only  as  a 
"  Judge  "  and  wre  "  merely  fled  from  the  wrath  of  God,"  knowing 
nothing  of  His  mercy.  "  The  Papists,"  he  declares,  "  condemned 
marriage  as  forbidden  by  God,"  and  "  I  myself,  while  still  a 
monk,  was  of  the  same  opinion,  viz.  that  the  married  state  was  a 
reprobate  state." 

In  the  Papacy,  so  Luther  says  in  so  many  words,  "  people 
sought  to  be  saved  through  Aristotle."3  "In  the  Papacy  the 
parents  did  not  provide  for  their  children.  They  believed  that 
only  monks  and  priests  could  be  saved."4  "  In  the  Papacy  you 
will  hardly  meet  with  an  honest  man  who  lives  up  to  his  calling  " 
(i.e.  who  performs  his  duties  as  a  married  man).5 

1  Letter  of  George,  in  Hortleder,  "  Von  den  Ursachen  des  deutschen 
Krieges  Karls  V,"  pp.  604,  606.     Denifie,  I2,  p.  126,  n.  3. 

2  Vol.  ii.,  p.  395  f. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  286.  4  Ibid.,  p.  86. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  210.  The  last  three  passages  are  from  sermons  preached 
by  Luther  at  Wittenberg  in  1528  when  doing  duty  for  Bugenhagen. 


RESPECT  FOR  TRUTH  103 

But  enough  of  such  extravagant  assertions,  which  to 
Catholics  stand  self-condemned,  but  were  intended  by 
their  author  to  be  taken  literally.  He  flung  such  wild  say 
ings  broadcast  among  the  masses,  until  it  became  a  second 
nature  with  him.  For  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  grotesque 
and  virulent  misstatements  such  as  the  above  occur  not 
merely  now  and  again,  but  simply  teem  in  his  books, 
sermons  and  conversations.  It  would  be  an  endless  task  to 
enumerate  his  deliberate  falsehoods.  He  declares,  for 
instance,  that  the  Papists,  in  all  their  collects  and  prayers, 
extolled  merely  the  merits  of  the  Saints  ;  yet  this  aspersion 
which  he  saw  fit  to  cast  upon  the  Church  in  the  interests  of 
his  polemics,  he  well  knew  to  be  false,  having  been  familiar 
from  his  monastic  days  with  another  and  better  aspect  of 
the  prayers  he  here  reviles.  He  knew  that  the  merits  of  the 
Saints  were  referred  to  only  in  some  of  the  collects ;  he  knew, 
moreover,  why  they  were  mentioned  there,  and  that  they 
were  never  alleged  alone  but  always  in  subordination  to  the 
merits  and  the  mediation  of  our  Saviour  ("  Per  Dominum 
nostrum  lesum  Christum,'''  etc.). 

A  favourite  allegation  of  Luther's,  viz.  that  the  Church  of 
the  past  had  regarded  Christ  exclusively  as  a  stern  Judge, 
was  crushingly  confuted  in  Denifle's  work.  The  importance 
of  this  brilliant  and  scholarly  refutation  lies  in  the  fact,  that 
it  is  principally  founded  on  texts  and  usages  of  the  older 
Church  with  which  Luther  was  perfectly  familiar,  which, 
for  instance,  he  himself  had  recited  in  the  liturgy  and  more 
especially  in  the  Office  of  his  Order  year  after  year,  and 
which  thus  bear  striking  testimony  against  his  good  faith  in 
the  matter  of  his  monstrous  charge.1 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge  that,  also  in  other 
branches  of  the  history  of  theology  and  ecclesiastical  life, 
Denifle  has  refuted  with  rare  learning,  though  with  too 
sharp  a  pen,  Luther's  paradoxical  "  lies  "  concerning 
mediaeval  Catholicism.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  this  may  be 
followed  by  other  well-grounded  and  impartial  comments 
from  the  pen  of  other  writers,  for,  in  spite  of  their  monstrous 

1  "  Luther,"  I2,  p.  400  ff.  We  may  discount  the  objection  of 
Protestant  controversialists  who  plead  that  Luther  at  least  described 
correctly  the  popular  notions  of  Catholics.  The  popular  works  then  in 
use,  handbooks  and  sermons  for  the  instruction  of  the  people,  prayer- 
books,  booklets  for  use  in  trials  and  at  the  hour  of  death,  etc.,  give 
a  picture  of  the  then  popular  piety,  and  the  best  refutation  of  Luther's 
statements. 


104          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

character,  some  of  Luther's  accusations  still  live,  partly  no 
doubt  owing  to  the  respect  in  which  he  is  held.  Some  of 
them  will  be  examined  more  closely  below.  The  principal 
aim  of  these  pages  is,  however,  to  seek  the  psychological 
explanation  of  the  strange  peculiarity  which  manifests  itself 
in  Luther's  intellectual  life,  viz.  the  abnormal  tendency  to 
level  far-fetched  charges,  sometimes  bordering  on  the  insane. 

An  Attempt  at  a  Psychological  Explanation. 

A  key  to  some  of  these  dishonest  exaggerations  is  to  be 
found  in  the  need  which  Luther  experienced  of  arming  him 
self  against  the  Papacy  and  the  older  Church  by  ever  more 
extravagant  assertions.  Realising  how  unjust  and  un 
tenable  much  of  his  position  was,  and  oppressed  by  those 
doubts  to  which  he  often  confessed,  a  man  of  his  temper  was 
sorely  tempted  to  have  recourse  to  the  expedient  of  insisting 
yet  more  obstinately  on  his  pet  ideas.  The  defiance  which 
was  characteristic  of  him  led  him  to  pile  up  one  assertion  on 
the  other  which  his  rhetorical  talent  enabled  him  to  clothe 
in  his  wonted  language.  Throughout  he  was  acting  on 
impulse  rather  than  from  reflection. 

To  this  must  be  added — incredible  as  it  may  appear  in 
connection  with  the  gravest  questions  of  life — his  tendency 
to  make  fun.  Jest,  irony,  sarcasm  were  so  natural  to  him 
as  to  obtrude  themselves  almost  unconsciously  whenever  he 
had  to  do  with  opponents  wrhom  he  wished  to  crush  and  on 
whom  he  wished  to  impose  by  a  show  of  merriment  which 
should  display  the  strength  of  his  position  and  his  comfort 
able  sense  of  security,  and  at  the  same  time  duly  impress  his 
own  followers.  Those  who  looked  beneath  the  surface,  how 
ever,  must  often  have  rejoiced  to  see  Luther  so  often  blunt 
ing  the  point  of  his  hyperboles  by  the  drolleries  by  which 
he  accompanies  them,  which  made  it  evident  that  he  was 
not  speaking  seriously.  To-day,  too,  it  would  be  wrong  to 
take  all  he  says  as  spoken  in  dead  earnest ;  at  the  same  time 
it  is  often  impossible  to  determine  where  exactly  the 
serious  ends  and  the  trivial,  vulgar  jest  begins  ;  probably 
even  Luther  himself  did  not  always  know.  A  few  further 
examples  may  be  given. 

"  In  Popery  we  were  compelled  to  listen  to  the  devil  and  to 
worship  things  that  some  monk  had  spewed  or  excreted,  until  at 
last  we  lost  the  Gospel,  Baptism,  the  Sacrament  and  everything 


RESPECT  FOR  TRUTH  105 

else.  After  that  we  made  tracks  for  Rome  or  for  St.  James  of 
Compostella  and  did  everything  the  Popish  vermin  told  us  to  do, 
until  we  came  to  adore  even  their  lice  and  fleas,  nay,  their  very 
breeches.  But  now  God  has  returned  to  us."1 

"  Everywhere  there  prevailed  the  horrid,  pestilential  teaching 
of  the  Pope  and  the  sophists,  viz.  that  a  man  must  be  uncertain 
of  God's  grace  towards  himself  ('  incertum  debere  esse  de  gratia 
Dei  erga  se  ')."2  By  this  doctrine  and  by  their  holiness-by-works 
Pope  and  monks  "  had  driven  all  the  world  headlong  into  hell  " 
for  "  well-nigh  four  hundred  years."3  Of  course,  "  for  a  man  to 
be  pious,  or  to  become  so  by  God's  Grace,  was  heresy  "  to  them  ; 
"  their  works  were  of  greater  value,  did  and  wrought  more  than 
God's  Grace,"4  and  with  all  this  "they  do  no  single  work  which 
might  profit  their  neighbour  in  body,  goods,  honour  or  soul."5 

A.  Kalthoff6  remarks  of  similar  distortions  of  which  Luther 

1  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed..  52,  p.  378. 

2  Cp.  "  Comment,  in  Gal.,"  2,  p.  175.     "  Opp.  lat,  exeg.,"  16,  p.  197 
seq.     Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.,"  22,  p.  218. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  72,  p.  255.  4  Ibid. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  256.  "  The  Pope's  teaching  and  all  the  books  and 
writings  of  his  theologians  and  decretalists  did  nothing  but  revile 
Christ  and  His  Baptism,  so  that  no  one  was  able  to  rejoice  or  comfort 
himself  therewith  "  ;  this  he  knew,  having  been  himself  fifteen  years 
a  monk.  Ibid.,  192,  p.  151,  in  a  sermon  of  1535,  "  On  Holy  Baptism." 

Even  in  the  learned  disputations  of  his  Wittenberg  pupils  similar 
assertions  are  found  :  The  Papists  have  ever  taught  that  the  powers 
of  man  after  the  Fall  still  remained  unimpaired  ("  adhuc  integras  "),  and 
that  therefore  he  could  fulfil  the  whole  law  ;  doctrines  no  better  than 
those  of  the  Turks  and  Jews  had  been  set  up  ("  non  secus  apud  Turcas  et 
ludceos,"  etc.).  "  Disputationes,"  ed.  Drews,  p.  340. 

And  so  Luther  goes  on  down  to  the  last  sermon  he  preached  at 
Eisleben  just  before  his  death  :  The  Pope  destroyed  Baptism  and  only 
left  works,  tonsures,  etc.,  in  the  Church  (ibid.,  202,  2,  p.  534)  ;  the 
"  purest  monks  "  had  usually  been  the  "  worst  lewdsters  "  (p.  542)  ; 
the  monks  had  done  nothing  for  souls,  but  "  merely  hidden  themselves 
in  their  cells  "  (p.  543)  ;  "  the  monks  think  if  they  keep  their  Rule 
they  are  veritable  saints  "  (p.  532). 

In  his  accusations  against  the  religious  life  we  find  him  making 
statements  which,  from  his  own  former  experience,  he  must  have  known 
to  be  false.  For  instance,  when  he  says,  that,  in  their  hypocritical 
holiness,  they  had  regarded  it  as  a  mortal  sin  to  leave  their  cell  with 
out  the  scapular  ("Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  44,  p.  347;  38,  p.  203;  60, 
p.  270).  Denifle  proves  convincingly  (I2,  p.  54),  that  all  monks  were 
well  aware  that  such  customs,  prescribed  by  the  Constitutions,  were 
not  binding  under  sin,  but  merely  exposed  transgressors  to  punish 
ment  by  their  superiors. — Luther  also  frequently  declared,  that  in  the 
Mass  every  mistake  in  the  ceremonies  was  looked  upon  as  a  mortal  sin, 
even  the  omission  of  an  "  enim  "  or  an  "  ceterni  "  in  the  Canon  (ibid.,  28, 
p.  65),  and  that  the  incorrect  use  of  the  frequently  repeated  sign  of 
the  cross  had  caused  such  apprehension,  that  they  were  "  plagued 
beyond  measure  with  the  Mass  "  (ibid.,  59,  p.  98).  And  yet  his  own 
words  ("  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  164)  show  he  was  aware  that  such 
involuntary  mistakes  were  no  sin  :  "  cum  casus  quispiam  nullum 
peccatum  /uerit." 

6   "  Das  Zeitalter  der  Reformation,"  Jena,  1907,  p.  221. 


106         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

was  guilty  :  "  Hardly  anyone  in  the  whole  of  history  was  so 
little  able  to  bear  contradiction  as  Luther  ;  it  was  out  of  the 
question  to  discuss  with  him  any  opinion  from  another  point  of 
view  ;  he  preferred  to  contradict  himself  or  to  assert  what  was 
absolutely  monstrous,  rather  than  allow  his  opponent  even  a 
semblance  of  being  in  the  right." — The  misrepresentation  of 
Catholic  doctrine  which  became  a  tradition  among  Lutheran 
polemics  was  in  great  part  due  to  Luther. — With  equal  skill  and 
moderation  Duke  Anton  Ulrich  of  Brunswick,  in  his  "  Fifty 
Reasons  "  for  returning  to  the  Catholic  Church,1  protests  against 
this  perversion  of  Catholic  doctrine  by  Lutheran  writers.  He 
had  observed  that  arguments  were  adduced  by  the  Lutherans 
to  prove  truths  which  the  Church  does  not  deny  at  all,  whilst 
the  real  points  at  issue  were  barely  touched  upon.  "  For  instance, 
they  bring  forward  a  heap  of  texts  to  prove  that  God  alone  is  to 
be  adored,  though  Catholics  never  question  it,  and  they  teach 
that  it  is  a  sin  of  idolatry  to  pay  divine  worship  to  any  creature." 
"  They  extol  the  merits  of  Christ  and  the  greatness  of  His 
satisfaction  for  our  sins.  But  what  for  ?  Catholics  teach  the 
same,  viz.  that  the  merits  of  Christ  are  infinite  and  that  His 
satisfaction  suffices  to  blot  out  all  the  sins  of  the  world,  and  thus 
they,  too,  hold  the  Bible  doctrine  of  the  appropriation  of  Christ's 
merits  by  means  of  their  own  good  works  (1  Peter  i.  10)." 

Two  things  especially  were  made  the  butt  of  Luther's  extrava 
gant  and  untrue  charges  and  insinuations,  viz.  the  Mass  and  the 
religious  life.  In  his  much  read  Table-Talk  the  chapter  on  the 
Mass  is  full  of  misrepresentations  such  as  can  be  explained  only  by 
the  animus  of  the  speaker.2  Of  religious  he  can  relate  the  most 
incredible  tales.  Thus  :  "  On  the  approach  of  death  most  of 
them  cried  in  utter  despair  :  Wretched  man  that  I  am  ;  I  have 
not  kept  my  Riile  and  whither  shall  I  flee  from  the  anger  of  the 
Judge  ?  Alas,  that  I  was  not  a  sow-herd,  or  the  meanest  creature 
on  earth  !  "3  On  account  of  the  moral  corruption  of  the  Religious 
Orders,  he  declares  it  would  be  right,  "  were  it  only  feasible,  to 
destroy  both  Papacy  and  monasteries  at  one  blow  !  "4  He  is 
fond  of  jesting  at  the  expense  of  the  nuns  ;  thus  he  makes  a 
vulgar  allusion  to  their  supposed  practice  of  taking  an  image  of 
the  Crucified  to  bed  with  them,  as  though  it  were  their  bride 
groom.  He  roundly  charges  them  all  with  arrogance  :  "  The 
nuns  are  particularly  reprehensible  on  account  of  their  pride  ; 
for  they  boast  :  Christ  is  our  bridegroom  and  we  are  His  brides 
and  other  women  are  nothing."5 

1  "  Cinquante  raisons,"  Munich,  1736,  29,  p.  37.  Above,  vol,  iii., 
p.  273,  n.  2.  2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  395  ff. 

3  Cp.  ibid.,  31,  p.  279.  4  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  1,  p.  227. 

5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  52,  p.  430  f. :  "  Yet  how  few  can  ever  have  had 
such  a  thought,  much  less  expressed  it  ?  "  Denifle- Weiss,  172,  p.  774. 
Speaking  of  this  passage,  Denifle  rightly  remarks  :  "I  have  frequently 
pointed  ovit  that  it  was  Luther's  tactics  to  represent  wicked  Catholics 
as  typical  of  all  the  rest."  Here  again  Denifle  might  have  quoted 
Luther  against  Luther,  as  indeed  he  often  does.  In  one  passage 


RESPECT  FOR  TRUTH  107 

It  is  putting  the  matter  rather  too  mildly  when  a  Protestant 
historian,  referring  to  the  countless  assertions  of  this  nature, 
remarks,  "  that,  in  view  of  his  habits  and  temper,  some  of 
Luther's  highly  flavoured  statements  call  for  the  use  of  the  blue 
pencil  if  they  are  to  be  accorded  historical  value."1 

Lastly,  we  must  point  to  another  psychological,  or,  more 
accurately,  pathological,  element  which  may  avail  to 
explain  falsehoods  so  glaring  concerning  the  Church  of 
former  times.  Experience  teaches,  that  sometimes  a  man 
soaked  in  prejudice  will  calumniate  or  otherwise  assail  a 
foe,  at  first  from  an  evil  motive  and  with  deliberate  in 
justice,  and  then,  become  gradually  persuaded,  thanks  to 
the  habit  thus  formed,  of  the  truth  of  his  calumnies  and  of 
the  justice  of  his  proceedings.  Instances  of  such  a  thing  are 
not  seldom  met  with  in  history,  especially  among  those 
engaged  in  mighty  conflicts  in  the  arena  of  the  world. 
Injustice  and  falsehood,  not  indeed  entirely,  but  with 
regard  to  the  matter  in  hand,  are  travestied,  become  matters 
of  indifference,  or  are  even  transformed  in  their  eyes  into 
justice  and  truth. 

In  Luther's  case  the  phenomenon  in  question  assumes  a 
pathological  guise.  We  cannot  but  perceive  in  him  a  kind 
of  self-suggestion  by  which  he  imposed  upon  himself. 
Constituted  as  he  was,  such  suggestion  was  possible,  nay 
probable,  and  was  furthermore  abetted  by  his  nervous 
excitement,  the  result  of  his  never-ceasing  struggle.2 

It  is  in  part  to  his  power  of  suggestion  that  must  also 
be  attributed  his  success  in  making  his  disciples  and  followers 
accept  even  his  most  extravagant  views  and  become  in 
their  turn  missioners  of  the  same. 

("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  172,  p.  412)  Luther  points  out  quite  correctly,  that 
to  make  all  or  even  a  class  responsible  for  the  faults  of  a  few  is  to  be 
guilty  of  injustice. 

1  "  Theol.  Stud,  und  Krit.,"  1908,  p.  580. 

2  "  There  are  passionate  natures  gifted  with  a  strong  imagination, 
who  gradually,   and  sometimes  even  rapidly,  come  to  take  in  good 
faith  that  for  true,   which  their  own  spirit  of  contradiction,   or  the 
desire  to  vindicate  themselves  and  to  gain  the  day,  suggests.     Such  a 
one  was  Luther.   ...  It  was  possible  for  him  to  persuade  himself  of 
things  which  he  had  once  regarded  in  quite  a  different  light."     Thus 
Alb.  M.  Weiss,  "  Luther,"  I2,  p.  424.     Ad.  Hausrath  rightly  character 
ises  much  of  what  Luther  says  that  he  had  learnt  of  Rome  on  his  trip 
thither,  as  the  "  product  of  a  self -deception  which  is  readily  under 
stood  "    ("Luthers   Leben,"    1,   p.    79).      "During   a   quarrel,"    aptly 
remarks    Fenelon,    "  the    imagination    becomes    heated    and    a    man 
deceives  himself." 


108         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  New  Theology  of  Lying. 

Another  explanation,  this  time  a  theologieal  one,  of 
Luther's  disregard  for  the  laws  of  truth  is  to  be  found  in  the 
theory  he  set  up  of  the  permissibility  of  lies. 

Previously,  even  in  1517,  he,  like  all  theologians,  had 
regarded  every  kind  of  lie  as  forbidden.  Theologians  of 
earlier  times,  when  dealing  with  this  subject,  usually  agreed 
with  Augustine  and  Peter  Lombard,  the  "  Magister  Sententi- 
arum,"  and  likewise  with  Gratian,  that  all  lies,  even  lies  of 
excuse,  are  forbidden.  After  the  commencement  of  his  public 
controversy,  however,  strange  as  it  may  appear,  Luther 
gradually  came  to  assert  in  so  many  words  that  lies  of  excuse, 
of  convenience,  or  of  necessity  were  not  reprehensible,  but 
often  good  and  to  be  counselled.  How  far  this  view  con 
cerning  the  lawfulness  of  lying  might  be  carried,  remained, 
however,  a  question  to  be  decided  by  each  one  individually. 

Formerly  he  had  rightly  declared  :  A  lie  is  "  contrary  to  man's 
nature  and  the  greatest  enemy  of  human  society  "  ;  hence  no 
greater  insult  could  be  offered  than  to  call  a  man  a  liar.  To  this 
he  always  adhered.  But  besides,  following  St.  Augustine,  he 
had  distinguished  between  lies  of  jest  and  of  necessity  and  lies  of 
detraction.  Not  merely  the  latter,  so  he  declared,  were  unlawful, 
but,  as  Augustine  taught,  even  lies  of  necessity  or  excuse — by 
which  he  understands  lies  told  for  our  own  or  others'  advantage, 
but  without  injury  to  anyone.  "  Yet  a  lie  of  necessity,"  he  said  at 
that  time,  "  is  not  a  mortal  sin,"  especially  when  told  in  sudden 
excitement  "  and  without  actual  deliberation."  This  is  his 
language  in  January,  1517, l  in  his  Sermons  on  the  Ten  Com 
mandments,  when  explaining  the  eighth.  Again,  in  his  con 
troversy  with  the  Zwinglians  on  the  Sacrament  (1528),  he 
incidentally  shows  his  attitude  by  the  remark,  that,  "  when 
anyone  has  been  publicly  convicted  of  falsehood  in  one  par 
ticular  we  are  thereby  sufficiently  warned  by  God  not  to  believe 
him  at  all."2  In  1538,  he  says  of  the  Pope  and  the  Papists,  that, 
on  account  of  their  lies  the  words  of  Chrysippus  applied  to  them  : 
"  If  you  are  a  liar  you  lie  even  in  speaking  the  truth."3 

Meanwhile,  however,  his  peculiar  reading  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  possibly  no  less  the  urgent  demands  of  his 

1  "  Werke,"    Weim.    ed.,    1,    p.    510    f.  ;     "  Opp.   lat.    exeg.,"    12, 
p.  200  seq. 

2  In  his  "  Vom  Abendmal  Christ!  Bekentnis  "  ("  Werke,"  Weim.  ed., 
26,  p.  241  ff. ;  Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  152  ff.),  he  frequently  asserts  this  principle. 

"  Si  mentiris,  etiam  quod  verum  dicis  menliris."  "  Werke,"  Erl. 
ed.,  25 2,  p.  214  in  "  Eines  aus  den  hohen  Artikeln  des  Bepstlichen 
Glaubens  genant  Dcmatio  Constantini." 


PERMISSIBLE   LIES  109 

controversy,  had  exerted  an  unfortunate  influence  on  his 
opinion  concerning  lies  of  convenience  or  necessity. 

It  seems  to  him  that  in  certain  Old-Testament  instances  of 
such  lies  those  who  employed  them  were  not  to  blame.  Abraham's 
lie  in  denying  that  Sarah  was  his  wife,  the  lie  of  the  Egyptian 
rnidwives  about  the  Jewish  children,  Michel's  lie  told  to  save 
David,  appear  to  Luther  justifiable,  useful  and  wholesome.  On 
Oct.  2,  1524,  in  his  Sermons  on  Exodus,  as  it  would  seem  for  the 
first  time,  he  defended  his  new  theory.  Lies  were  only  real  lies 
"  when  told  for  the  purpose  of  injuring  our  neighbour  "  ;  but, 
"  if  I  tell  a  lie,  not  in  order  to  injure  anyone  but  for  his  profit 
and  advantage  and  in  order  to  promote  his  best  interests,  this  is 
a  lie  of  service  "  ;  such  was  the  lie  told  by  the  Egyptian  mid- 
wives  and  by  Abraham  ;  such  lies  fall  "  under  the  grace  of 
Heaven,  i.e.  came  under  the  forgiveness  of  sins  "  ;  such  false 
hoods  "  are  not  really  lies."1 

In  his  lectures  on  Genesis  (1536-45)  the  same  system  has  been 
further  elaborated  :  "  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  only  one  kind 
of  lie,  that  which  injures  our  neighbour  in  his  soul,  goods  or 
reputation."  "  The  lie  of  service  is  wrongly  termed  a  lie,  for  it 
rather  denotes  virtue,  viz.  prudence  used  for  the  purpose  of 
defeating  the  devil's  malice  and  in  order  to  serve  our  neighbour's 
life  and  honour.  Hence  it  may  be  called  Christian  and  brotherly 
charity,  or  to  use  Paul's  words  :  Zeal  for  godliness."2  Thus 
Abraham  "  told  no  lie"  in  Egypt  (Gen.  xii.  11  ff.);  what  he  told 
was  "  a  lie  of  service,  a  praiseworthy  act  of  prudence."3 

According  to  his  Latin  Table-Talk  not  only  Abraham's  lie, 
but  also  Michol's  was  a  "  good,  useful  lie  and  a  work  of  charity."4 
A  lie  for  the  advantage  of  another  is,  so  he  says,  an  act  "  by  means 
of  which  we  assist  our  neighbour." 

"  The  monks,"  says  Luther,  "  insist  that  the  truth  should  be 
told  under  all  circumstances."5 — Such  certainly  was  the  teaching 
of  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  whose  opinion  on  the  subject  then  held 
universal  sway,  and  who  rightly  insists  that  a  lie  is  never  under 
any  circumstances  lawful.6  St.  Augustine  likewise  shared  this 
monkish  opinion,  as  Luther  himself  had  formerly  pointed  out. 
Long  before  Aquinas's  time  this  Doctor  of  the  Church,  whom 
Luther  was  later  on  deliberately  to  oppose,7  had  brought  his 
view — the  only  reliable  one,  viz.  that  all  untruth  is  wrong— into 
general  recognition,  thanks  to  his  arguments  and  to  the  weight 
of  his  authority.  Pope  Alexander  III,  in  a  letter  to  the  Arch- 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  16,  p.  15  ;   Erl.  ed.,  35,  p.  18.     The  passage 
in  vindication  of  the  Egyptian  midwives  was  not  merely  added  later. 

2  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  5,  p.  18.  3  Ibid.,  3,  p.  139  seq. 

4  "Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  420.     Cp.  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch," 
p.  85  :    "  Mentiri  et  fallere  differunt,  nam  mendacium  est  falsitas  cum 
studio  nocendi,  fallacia  vero  est  simplex." 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  12,  Sermon  of  Jan.  5,  1528. 

6  "  Sumrna  theol.,"  2-2,  Q.  Ill,  a.  3. 

7  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  6,  p.  288. 


110          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

bishop  of  Palermo,  declared  that  even  a  lie  told  to  save  another's 
life  was  unlawful  ;  this  statement  was  incorporated  in  the  official 
Decretals — a  proof  of  the  respect  with  which  the  mediaeval  Church 
clung  to  the  truth.1 

Some  few  writers  of  antiquity  had,  it  is  true,  defended  the 
lawfulness  of  lies  of  necessity  or  convenience.  For  instance, 
Origen,  possibly  under  the  influence  of  pagan  philosophy, 
also  Hilary  and  Cassian.  Eventually  their  opinion  disappeared 
almost  completely. 

It  was  reserved  for  Luther  to  revive  the  wrong  view 
concerning  the  lawfulness  of  such  lies,  and  to  a  certain  extent 
to  impose  it  on  his  followers.  Theologically  this  spelt 
retrogression  and  a  lowering  of  the  standard  of  morality 
hitherto  upheld.  "  Luther  here  forsook  his  beloved 
Augustine,"  says  Staudliri,  a  Protestant,  "  and  declared 
certain  lies  to  be  right  and  allowable.  This  opinion,  though 
not  universally  accepted  in  the  Evangelical  Church,  became 
nevertheless  a  dominant  one."2 

1  "  Corp.  iur.  can.,"  ed.  Friedberg,  2,  p.  812.     Yet  a  champion  of 
Luther's   "  truthfulness  "  has  attempted  to  prove  of  Alexander  III, 
that  "  the  objectivity  of  good  was  foreign  to  him,"  and  that  he  taught 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means.    As  K.  Hampe  has  pointed  out  in  the 
"  Hist.  Zeitschr.,"  93,  1904,  p.  415,  the  letter  from  the  Pope  to  Thomas 
Becket   ("  P.L.,"   200,   col.    290),   here  referred  to,   has  been   "  quite 
misunderstood."    The  same  is  the  case  with  a  letter  of  Gregory  VII  to 
Alphoiisus  of  Castile,  which  has  also  been  alleged  to  show  that  a  Pope 
"  had  not  unconditionally  rejected  lying,  nay,  had  even  made  use  of 
it."     Gregory  on  the  contrary  declares  that  even  "  a  lie  told  for  a  pious 
object  and  for  the  sake  of  peace  "  was  a  sin  ("  illud  peccatum  esse  non 
dubitaveris,  in  sacerdotibus  quasi  sacrilegium  coniicias."    "  P.L.,"  148, 
col.  604).     Cp.  Hampe,  ibid.,  p.  385  ff.;    N.  Paulus,  "  Lit.  Beilage  der 
Koln.  Volksztng.,"  1904,  No.  51. 

2  "  N.    Lehrb.    der    Moral,"    Gottingen,     1825,    p.    354.      Sodeur 
("  Luther  und  die  Luge  ")  says  that  in  his  teaching  on  lies  Luther 
led  the  way  to   "a  more  profound  understanding  of  the  problem  " 
(p.   2),  he  taught  us  "to  act  according  to  simple  and  fundamental 
principles  "  ;    "  under  certain  conditions  "  it  became  "  a  duty  to  tell 
untruths,  not   merely  on   casuistic   grounds    as    formerly    [!],  but  'on 
principle  ;    Luther  harked  back  to  the  all  embracing  duty  of  charity 
which  constitutes  the  moral  life  of  the  Christian  "  (p.  30)  ;   he  desired 
"  falsehood   to   be   used   only   to   the   advantage   of   our  neighbour," 
"  referring  our  conduct  in  every  instance  to  the  underlying  principle  of 
charity  "  (p.  32  f.).     Chr.  Rogge,  another  Protestant,  says  of  all  this 
("  Tiirmer,"  Jan.,  1906,  p.  491)  :    "  I  wish  Sodeur  had  adopted  a  more 
decided  and  less  apologetic  attitude." 

W.  Walther,  in  the  article  quoted  above  (p.  81,  n.  1),  admits  that 
Luther  taught  "  in  the  clearest  possible  manner  that  cases  might 
occur  where  a  departure  from  truth  became  the  Christian's  duty.  .  .  . 
It  is  probable  that  many  Evangelicals  will  strongly  repudiate  this 
thesis,  but,  in  our  opinion,  almost  everybody  follows  it  in  practice  "  ; 
if  charity  led  to  untruth  then  the  latter  was  no  evil  act,  and  it  could 


PERMISSIBLE   LIES  111 

It  must  be  specially  noted  that  Luther  does  not  justify 
lies  of  convenience,  merely  when  told  in  the  interests  of  our 
neighbour,  but  also  when  made  use  of  for  our  own  advantage 
when  such  is  well  pleasing  in  God's  sight.  This  he  states 
explicitly  when  speaking  of  Isaac,  who  denied  his  marriage 
with  Rebecca  so  as  to  save  his  life  :  "  This  is  no  sin,  but  a 
serviceable  lie  by  which  he  escaped  being  put  to  death  by 
those  with  whom  he  was  staying  ;  for  this  would  have 
happened  had  he  said  Rebecca  was  his  wife."1  And  not 
only  the  lawful  motive  of  personal  advantage  justifies, 
according  to  him,  such  untruths  as  do  not  injure  others,  but 
much  more  the  love  of  God  or  of  our  neighbour,  i.e.  regard 
for  God's  honour  ;  the  latter  motive  it  was,  according  to 
him,  which  influenced  Abraham,  when  he  gave  out  that 
Sarah  was  his  sister.  Abraham  had  to  co-operate  in  ac 
complishing  the  great  promise  made  by  God  to  him  and  his 
progeny  ;  hence  he  had  to  preserve  his  life,  "  in  order  that 
he  might  honour  and  glorify  God  thereby,  and  not  give  the 
lie  to  God's  promises."  Many  Catholic  interpreters  of  the 
Bible  have  sought  to  find  expedients  whereby,  without 
justifying  his  lie,  they  might  yet  exonerate  the  great 
Patriarch  of  any  fault.  Luther,  on  the  contrary,  following 

not  be  said  that  Luther  accepted  the  principle  that  the  end  justifies 
the  means.  It  was  not  necessary  for  Walther,  having  made  Luther's 
views  on  lying  his  own,  to  assure  us,  "  that  they  were  not  shared  by 
every  Christian,  not  even  by  every  Evangelical."  As  regards  the  end 
justifying  the  means,  Walther  should  prove  that  the  principle  does  not 
really  underlie  much  of  what  Luther  says  (cp.  also  above,  p.  94  f.).  Cp. 
what  A.  Baur  says,  with  praiseworthy  frankness,  in  a  work  entitled 
"  Johann  Calvin  "  ("  Religionsgeschichtl.  Volksb.,"  Reihe  4,  Hft.  9), 
p.  29,  concerning  the  reformer  of  Geneva  whom  he  extols  :  "  Con 
sciously,  or  unconsciously,  the  principle  that  the  end  justifies  the 
means  became  necessarily  more  and  more  deeply  rooted  in  Calvin's 
mind,  viz.  the  principle  that  the  holy  purpose  willed  by  God  justifies 
the  use  of  means — the  employment  of  which  would  otherwise  appear 
altogether  repugnant  and  reprehensible  to  a  refined  moral  sense — at 
least  when  no  other  way  presents  itself  for  the  attainment  of  the  end. 
To  renounce  the  end  on  account  of  the  means  appeared  to  Calvin  a 
betrayal  of  God's  honour  and  cause."  And  yet  it  is  clear  that  only  a 
theory  which  "  transcends  good  and  evil  "  can  approve  the  principle 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 

We  may  add  that,  according  to  Walther  ("Die  Sittlichkeit  nach 
Luther,"  1909,  p.  11  f.),  Luther,  in  view  of  the  exalted  end  towards 
which  the  means  he  used  were  directed,  "  gradually  resolved  "  to  set 
the  law  of  charity  above  that  of  truth  ;  he  did  not,  however,  do  this 
in  his  practical  writings,  fearing  its  abuse  ;  yet  Luther  still  contends 
that  Abraham  was  permitted  to  tell  an  untruth  in  order  "  to  prevent 
the  frustration  of  God's  Will,"  i.e.  from  love  of  God  (ibid.,  p.  13). 

1   "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  6,  p.  289. 


112          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

his  own  arbitrary  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  approves,  nay, 
even  glories  in  the  fault.  "  If,"  he  says,  "  the  text  be  taken 
thus  [according  to  his  interpretation]  no  one  can  be  scandal 
ised  at  it ;  for  what  is  done  for  God's  honour,  for  the  glory 
and  furtherance  of  His  Word,  that  is  right  and  well  done  and 
deserving  of  all  praise."1 

On  such  principles  as  these,  what  was  there  that  Luther 
could  not  justify  in  his  polemics  with  the  older  Church  ? 

In  his  eyes  everything  he  undertook  was  done  for  "  God's 
glory."  "  For  the  sake  of  the  Christian  Church,"  he  was 
ready,  to  tell  "a  downright  lie"  (above,  p.  51)  in  the 
Hessian  affair.  "  Against  the  deception  and  depravity  of 
the  Papal  Antichrist,"  he  regarded  everything  "  as  per 
missible  "  for  the  salvation  of  souls  (above,  p.  95)  ;  more 
over,  was  not  the  war  he  was  waging  part  of  his  divine 
mission  ?  The  public  welfare  and  the  exalted  interests  of 
his  work  might  therefore  at  any  time  call  for  a  violation  of  the 
truth.  Was  he  to  be  deterred,  perhaps,  by  the  injury  his 
opponents  might  thereby  suffer  ?  By  no  means.  They 
suffered  no  real  injury;  on  the  contrary,  it  all  redounded  to 
their  spiritual  good,  for  by  ending  the  reign  of  prejudice 
and  error  their  souls  would  be  saved  from  imminent  peril 
and  the  way  paved  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  ancient 
promises  "  to  the  glory  and  furtherance  of  the  Word." 

We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Luther  actually  formed  his 
conscience  thus  in  any  particular  instance.  Of  this  we 
cannot  judge  and  it  would  be  too  much  to  expect  from  him 
any  statement  on  the  subject.  But  the  danger  of  his  doing 
so  was  sufficiently  proximate. 

The  above  may  possibly  throw  a  new  light  on  his  famous 
words  :  "  We  consider  everything  allowable  against  the 
deception  and  depravity  of  the  Papal  Antichrist."2 

Luther's  Influence  on  His  Circle. 

Our  remarks  on  Luther  and  lying  would  be  incomplete 
were  we  not  to  refer  to  the  influence  his  example  and  theory 
exercised  on  his  surroundings  and  on  those  who  assisted 
him  in  establishing  the  new  Church  system. 

Melanchthon  not  only  incurred,  and  justly  too,  the  reproach 
of  frequently  playing  the  dishonest  diplomatist,  particularly 

1  "Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  3,  pp.  139-144. 

2  To  Johann  Lang,  Aug.  18,  1520,  above,  p.  95,  n.  3. 


DISHONESTY  OF  LUTHER'S  FRIENDS    113 

at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg, l  but  even  advocated  in  his  doctrinal 
works  the  Lutheran  view  that  lying  is  in  many  cases  lawful. 

"  The  lie  of  convenience,"  ho  says,  "  is  praiseworthy,  it  is  a 
good  useful  lie  and  proceeds  from  charity  because  one  desires 
thereby  to  help  one's  neighbour."  Hence,  we  may  infer,  where 
the  object  was  to  bring  the  Evangel  home  to  a  man,  a  lie  was 
all  the  less  reprehensible.  Melanchthon  appeals  to  Abraham's 
statement  that  Sarah  was  his  sister  (Gen.  xii.  and  xx.),  and  to 
the  artifice  of  Eliseus  (4  Kings  vi.  19),  but  overlooks  the  fact  that 
these  instances  prove  nothing  in  his  favour  since  there  no  "  neigh 
bour  was  helped,"  but,  on  the  contrary,  untruth  was  dictated 
purely  by  self-love. 2 

During  the  negotiations  carried  on  between  England,  Hesse 
and  Saxony  in  view  of  an  ecclesiastical  understanding,  Melanch 
thon,  at  the  instance  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony,  drew  up  for  him 
and  the  Landgrave,  a  document  to  be  sent  to  Henry  VIII  of 
England,  giving  him  information  concerning  the  Anabaptist  move 
ment.  His  treatment  of  the  matter  has  already  been  referred  to 
(vol.  iii.,  p.  374),  but  it  now  calls  for  more  detailed  consideration. 

In  this  writing  Melanchthon,  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  new 
Evangel,  had  the  courage  to  deny  that  the  movement  had  made 
its  appearance  in  those  parts  of  Germany  "  where  the  pure 
Gospel  is  proclaimed,"  but  was  only  to  be  met  with  "  where  the 
people  are  not  preserved  from  such  errors  by  sound  doctrine," 
viz.  "in  Frisia  and  Westphalia."3  The  fact  is  that  the  Ana 
baptists  were  so  numerous  in  the  Saxon  Electorate  that  we 
constantly  hear  of  prosecutions  being  instituted  against  them. 
P.  Wappler,  for  instance,  quotes  an  official  minute  from  the 
Weimar  archives,  actually  dated  in  1530,  which  states,  that  the 
Elector  "  caused  many  Anabaptists  to  be  punished  and  put  to 
death  by  drowning  and  the  sword,  and  to  suffer  long  terms  of 
imprisonment."4  Shortly  before  Melanchthon  wrote  the  above, 
two  Anabaptists  had  been  executed  in  the  Saxon  Electorate. 
Beyond  all  doubt  these  facts  were  known  to  Melanchthon.  The 
Landgrave  of  Hesse  refused  to  allow  the  letter  to  be  despatched. 
Feige,  his  Chancellor,  pointed  out  the  untruth  of  the  statement, 
"  that  these  errors  only  prevailed  in  places  where  the  pure 
doctrine  was  lacking  "  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  Anabaptist  error 
was  unfortunately  to  be  found  throughout  Germany,  and  even 
more  under  the  Evangel  than  amongst  the  Papists.5  An  amended 
version  of  the  letter,  dated  Sep.  23,  1538,  was  eventually  sent  to 
the  King.  Wappler,  who  relates  all  this  fully,  says  :  "  Melanch 
thon  was  obviously  influenced  by  his  wish  to  warn  the  King  of 
the  '  plague  '  of  the  Anabaptist  heresy  and  to  predispose  him 

1  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  384  ff.          2  "  Corp.  ref.?"  20,  p.  573. 

3  The  document  in  "  Corp.  ref.,"  3,  p.  578. 

4  "  Die    Stellung   Kursachsens    und   des    Landgrafen    Philipp    von 
Hessen  zur  Tauferbewegung,"  Miinster,  1910,  p.  75. 

5  Cp.  Lenz,  "  Briefwechsel  Philipps,"  1,  p.  320. 

IV.— I 


114          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

for  the  '  pure  doctrine  of  the  Evangel.'  '       "  What  lie  said  was 
glaringly  at  variance  with  the  actual  facts."1 

Like  Luther,  Martin  Bucer,  too,  urged  the  Landgrave  to 
tell  a  deliberate  lie  and  openly  deny  his  bigamy.  Though  at 
first  unwilling,  he  had  undertaken  to  advocate  the  Land 
grave's  bigamy  with  Luther  and  had  defended  it  personally 
(above,  p.  28).  In  spite  of  this,  however,  when  complica 
tions  arose  on  its  becoming  public,  he  declared  in  a  letter  of 
1541  to  the  preachers  of  Memmingen,  which  so  far  has 
received  little  attention,  that  the  Landgrave's  wrong  step, 
some  rumours  of  which  had  reached  his  ears,  should  it  prove 
to  be  true,  could  not  be  laid  to  his  charge  or  to  that  of  the 
Wittenbergers.  "  I  declare  before  God  ('  coram  Deo  affirmo  ') 
that  no  one  has  given  the  Prince  such  advice,  neither  I,  nor 
Luther,  nor  Philip,  nor,  so  far  as  I  know,  any  Hessian 
preacher,  nor  has  anyone  taught  that  Christians  may  keep 
concubines  as  well  as  their  wives,  or  declared  himself  ready 
to  defend  such  a  step."2  And,  again  calling  God  to  witness 
("  hcec  ego  ut  coram  Deo  scripta  "),  he  declares  that  he  had 
never  written  or  signed  anything  in  defence  of  the  bigamy.3 
In  the  following  year  he  appeared  before  the  magistrates  of 
Strasburg  and,  in  the  presence  of  two  colleagues,  "  took  God 
to  witness  concerning  the  suspicion  of  having  advised  the 
Landgrave  the  other  marriage,"  "  that  the  latter  had 
consulted  neither  him  nor  any  preacher  concerning  the 
matter  "  ;  he  and  Capito  had  "  throughout  been  opposed 
to  it  "  (the  bigamy),  "  although  his  help  had  been  sought  for 
in  such  matters  by  honourable  and  highly  placed  persons."4 
The  reference  here  is  to  Henry  VIII  of  England,  to  whom, 
however,  he  had  never  expressed  his  disapproval  of  bigamy  ; 
in  fact  he,  like  Capito  and  the  two  Wittenbergers  (above, 
p.  4),  had  declared  his  preference  for  Henry's  taking  an 
extra  wife  rather  than  divorcing  his  first. 

Bucer  (who  had  so  strongly  inveighed  against  Luther's 
lies,  above,  p.  99),  where  it  was  a  question  of  a  Catholic 
opponent  like  the  Augustinian  Johann  Hoffmeister,  had 

1  Loc.  ciL,  p.  74  f. 

2  "  Corp.  ref.,"  10,  p.  156  seq.     N.  Paulus  in  "  Hist.-pol.   Bl.,"  147, 
1911,  p.  509. 

3  "  Quod    defendam    ipsum   f  acinus,    cquidem    nullum    [scriptum] 
scripsi  aut  subscripsi."    Paulus,  ibid.,  p.  511. 

4  F.  W.  Hassenkamp,  "  Hessische  KG.,"  1,  p.  510.     Paulus,  ibid., 
p.  512, 


DISHONESTY  OF  LUTHER'S  FRIENDS    115 

himself  recourse  to  notorious  calumnies  concerning  this  man, 
whom  even  Protestant  historians  now  allow  to  have  been  of 
blameless  life  and  the  "  greatest  enemy  of  immorality."1 
He  accused  him  of  "  dancing  with  nuns,"  of  "  wallowing  in 
vice,"  and  of  being  "  an  utterly  abandoned,  infamous  and 
dissolute  knave,"  all  of  them  groundless  charges  at  very 
most  based  upon  mere  hearsay.2 — This  same  Bucer,  who 
accused  the  Catholic  Princes  of  being  double-tongued  and 
pursuing  dubious  policies,  was  himself  notorious  amongst 
his  own  party  for  his  wiliness,  deceit  and  cunning. 

Johann  Bugenhagen,  the  Pastor  of  Wittenberg,  when 
called  upon  to  acknowledge  his  share  in  a  certain  question 
able  memorandum  of  a  semi-political  character  also  laid 
himself  open  to  the  charge  of  being  wanting  in  truthfulness 
(vol.  iii.,  p.  74  f.). 

P.  Kalkoff  has  recently  made  clear  some  of  Wolfgang 
Capito's  double-dealings  and  his  dishonest  behaviour, 
though  he  hesitates  to  condemn  him  for  them.  Capito  had 
worked  in  Luther's  interests  at  the  Court  of  Archbishop 
Albert  of  Mayence,  and  there,  with  the  Archbishop's  help, 
"  rendered  incalculable  services  to  the  Evangelical  cause." 
In  extenuation  of  his  behaviour  Kalkoff  says  :  "In  no  way 
was  it  more  immoral  than  the  intrigues  "  of  the  Elector 
Frederick.  On  the  strength  of  the  material  he  has  collected 
J.  Greving  rightly  describes  Capito  as  a  "  thoroughbred 
hypocrite  and  schemer."3  The  dealings  of  this  "  eminent 
diplomatist,"  as  Greving  also  terms  him,  remind  us  only 
too  often  of  Luther's  own  dealings  with  highly  placed 
ecclesiastics  and  seculars  during  the  first  period  of  his 
apostasy.  If,  in  those  early  days,  Luther's  theory  had 
already  won  many  friends  and  imitators,  in  the  thick  of  the 
fight  it  made  even  more  converts  amongst  the  new  preachers, 
men  ready  to  make  full  use  of  the  alluring  principle,  that, 
against  the  depravity  of  the  Papacy  everything  is  licit. 

From  vituperation  to  the  violation  of  truth  there  was  but 
a  step  amidst  the  passion  which  prevailed.  How  Luther's 
abuse — ostensibly  all  for  the  love  of  his  neighbour — infected 
his  pupils  is  plain  from  a  letter  in  the  newly  published 

1  H.  Rocholl,  in  N.  Paulus's  art.  on  the  Catholic  lawyer  and  writer, 
Conrad  Braun  (t!563),  in  "  Hist.  Jahrb."   (14,  1893,  p.  517  ff.),  p.  525. 

2  Paulus,    "Johann   Hoffmeister,"    1891,    p.    206,    and   in    "Hist, 
Jahrb.,"  loc.  cit. 

»  "  Theol.  Rev.,"  1908,  p.  215, 


116          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

correspondence  of  the  Brothers  Blaurer.  This  letter,  written 
from  Wittenberg  on  Oct.  8,  1522,  by  Thomas  Blaurer,  to 
Ulrich  Zasius,  contains  the  following  :  "  Not  even  from  the 
most  filthy  and  shameful  vituperation  [of  the  hateful  Papacy] 
shall  we  shrink,  until  we  see  it  everywhere  despised  and 
abhorred."  What  had  to  be  done  was  to  vindicate  the 
doctrine  that,  "  Christ  is  our  merit  and  our  satisfaction."1 
Luther,  he  says,  poured  forth  abuse  ("  convicia  "),  but  only 
to  God's  glory,  and  for  the  "  salvation  and  encouragement  of 
the  little  ones."2 

4.  Some  Leading  Slanders  on  the  Mediaeval  Church 

Historically  Considered 

"  In  Luther's  view  the  Middle  Ages,  whose  history  was 
fashioned  by  the  Popes,  was  a  period  of  darkest  night.  .  .  . 
This  view  of  the  Middle  Ages,  particularly  of  the  chief 
factor  in  mediaeval  life,  viz.  the  Church  in  which  it  found  its 
highest  expression,  is  one-sided  and  distorted."  Such  is  the 
opinion  of  a  modem  Protestant  historian.  He  is  sorry  that 
false  ideas  of  the  mediaeval  Church  and  theology  "  have  been 
sheltered  so  long  under  the  aegis  of  the  reformer's  name."3 
— "  It  will  not  do,"  a  lay  Protestant  historian,  as  early  as 
1874,  had  told  the  theologians  of  his  faith,  speaking  of 
Kostlin's  work  "  Luthers  Theologie,"  "  to  ignore  the 
contemporary  Catholic  literature  when  considering  Luther 
and  the  writings  of  the  reformers.  ...  It  is  indispensable 
that  the  condition  of  theology  from  about  1490  to  1510 
should  be  carefully  examined.  We  must  at  all  costs  rid 
ourselves  of  the  caricatures  we  meet  with  in  the  writings  of 
the  reformers,  and  of  the  misunderstandings  to  which  they 
gave  rise,  and  learn  from  their  own  writings  what  the 
theologians  of  that  time  actually  thought  and  taught." 
"  Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  it  is  just  the  theological  side 
of  the  history  of  the  Reformation  which,  at  the  present 
day,  is  least  known."4 

1  Bd.    1,    1908,    p.    66  :    "  Nullis    conviciis    parcemus    quantumvis 
turpibus  et  ignominiosis,"  etc. 

2  Luther's  friend  Jonas  also  distinguished  himself  in  controversy 
by  the  character  of  the  charges  he  brings  forward  against  his  opponents 
as  true  "  historia."    (See  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  416,  n.  3.) 

3  W.    Kohler,    "  Luthers   Werden  "    ("  Prot.    Monatshefte,"    1907, 
Hft.  8-9,  p.  292  ff.,  p.  345  ff.,  p.  294). 

1^  *  W.    Maurenbrecher,     "  Studien    und    Skizzen    zur    Gesch,     der 
Reform.,"  pp.  221,  220. 


SLANDERS   ON  CATHOLICISM        117 

During  the  last  fifty  years  German  scholars  have  devoted 
themselves  with  zeal  and  enthusiasm  to  the  external  and 
social  aspect  of  the  Middle  Ages.  That  great  undertaking, 
the  "  Monumenta  Germanice  historical  its  periodical  the 
"  Archiv,"  and  a  number  of  others  dealing  largely  with 
mediaeval  history  brought  Protestants  to  a  juster  and  more 
objective  appreciation  of  the  past.  Yet  the  theological,  and 
even  in  some  respects  the  ecclesiastical,  side  has  been  too 
much  neglected,  chiefly  because  so  many  Protestant 
theologians  were  scrupulous  about  submitting  the  subject 
to  a  new  and  unprejudiced  study.  Hence  the  astonishment 
of  so  many  when  Johannes  Janssen,  with  his  "  History  of 
the  German  People,"  and,  to  pass  over  others,  Heinrich 
Denifle  with  his  work  on  Luther  entered  the  field  and 
demonstrated  how  incorrect  had  been  the  views  prevalent 
since  Luther's  time  concerning  the  doctrine  and  the  ecclesi 
astical  life  of  his  age.  Astonishment  in  many  soon  made 
way  for  indignation  ;  in  Denifle's  case,  particularly,  annoy 
ance  was  caused  by  a  certain  attitude  adopted  by  this 
author  which  led  some  to  reject  in  their  entirety  the  theo- 
logico-historical  consequences  at  which  he  arrived,  whilst 
even  Janssen  was  charged  with  being  biassed.  Other 
Protestants,  however,  have  learned  something  from  the 
Catholic  works  which  have  since  made  their  appearance  in 
greater  numbers,  have  acknowledged  that  the  ideas  hitherto 
in  vogue  were  behind  the  times  and  have  invited  scholars  to 
undertake  a  more  exact  study  of  the  materials. 

"  The  later  Middle  Ages,"  says  W.  Friedensburg,  speaking  of 
the  prevailing  Protestant  view,  "  seemed  only  to  serve  as  a  foil 
for  the  history  of  the  Reformation,  of  which  the  glowing  colours 
stood  out  all  the  more  clearly  against  the  dark  background." 
"  As  late  as  a  few  years  ago  the  history  of  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  almost  a  '  terra  incognita.'  '  Only  through  Janssen, 
Friedensburg  continues,  "  were  we  led  to  study  more  carefully 
the  later  Middle  Ages  "  and  to  discover,  amongst  other  things, 
that  the  "majority  of  the  people  [sic]  had  not  really  been  so 
ignorant  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,"  that  "the  Church  had  not 
yet  lost  her  power  over  people's  minds,"  that  "  towards  the  end  of 
the  Middle  Ages  the  people  had  already  been  growing  familiar  with 
the  Bible,"  and  that  "  sermons  in  the  vulgar  tongue  had  not  been 
neglected  to  the  extent  that  has  been  frequently  assumed."  This 
author,  like  H.  Bohmer,  characterises  it  as  erroneous  "  to  suppose 
that  Luther  was  the  first  to  revive  regard  for  Paul  and  to  restore 
Paulinism  "  or  "to  insist  upon  the  reform  of  godliness  on  the 
model  of  the  theology  of  Christ."  Coming  to  Denifle,  he  says, 


118          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

that  the  latter  "  on  account  of  his  learning  was  without  a  doubt 
qualified  as  scarcely  any  other  scholar  of  our  time  for  the  task 
he  undertook.  When  he  published  his  '  Luther  '  he  could  look 
back  on  many  years  of  solid  and  fruitful  labour  in  the  field  of 
mediaeval  Scholasticism  and  Mysticism."  From  Denifle's  work 
it  is  clear  that  Luther  was  "  but  little  conversant  with  mediaeval 
Scholasticism,  particularly  that  of  Thomas  Aquinas,"1 

"  Denifle  is  right,"  wrote  Gustav  Kawerau  in  an  important 
Protestant  theological  periodical,  "  and  touches  a  weak  spot  in 
Luther  research  when  he  reproaches  us  with  not  being  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  mediaeval  theology."  An  "  examination  of  the 
Catholic  surroundings  in  which  Luther  moved  "  is,  so  Kawerau 
insists,  essential,  and  Protestants  must  therefore  apply  them 
selves  to  "  the  examination  of  that  theology  which  influenced 
Luther."2 

What  is,  however,  imperative  is  that  this  theology  be,  if 
possible,  examined  without  Luther's  help,  i.e.  without,  as  usual, 
paying  such  exaggerated  regard  to  his  own  statements  as  to  what 
influenced  him. 

Luther,  moreover,  does  not  alwrays  speak  against  the  Middle 
Ages  ;  on  occasion  he  can  employ  its  language  himself,  par 
ticularly  when  he  thinks  he  can  quote,  in  his  own  interests, 
utterances  from  that  time.  What  W.  Kb'hler  says  of  a  number 
of  such  instances  holds  good  here  :  "  Luther  fancied  he  recognised 
himself  in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  is  why  his  historical  judgment 
is  so  often  false."  In  point  of  fact,  as  the  same  writer  remarks, 
"  Luther's  idea  of  history  came  from  his  own  interior  experience  ; 
this  occupies  the  first  place  throughout."3  If  for  "  interior 
experience  "  we  substitute  "  subjective  bias  "  the  statement  will 
be  even  more  correct. 

In  returning  here  to  some  of  Luther's  legends  mentioned 
above  (p.  92  f.)  concerning  the  Catholic  past  and  the  religious 
views  then  prevailing,  our  object  is  merely  to  show  by  a  few 
striking  examples  how  wrong  Luther  was  in  charging  the 
Middle  Ages  with  errors  in  theology  and  morals. 

One  of  his  most  frequently  repeated  accusations  was,  that 
the  Church  before  his  day  had  merely  taught  a  hollow 
"  holiness  by  works  "  ;  all  exhortations  to  piety  uttered  by 

1  "  Fortschritte  in  Kenntnis  und  Verstandnis  der  RG."   ("  Schriften 
des  Vereins  fur  RG.,"  No.  100,1910,  pp.  1-59,  pp.  4,  5,  7,8,  10,  12,  16  f.). 
The  author's  standpoint  is  expressed  on  p.   13  :    "  It  is  self-evident 
that  this  does  not  in  any  way  detract  from  Luther's  importance.   .   .   . 
Luther  merely  stands  out  all  the  more  as  the  last  link  of  the  previous 
evolution,"  etc.     On  p.  17  he  declares  that  the  author  of  "  Luther  und 
Luthertum  "  lacked  entirely  the  "  sense  of  truth."     See  the  passage 
from  Bohmer  in  "  Luther  im  Lichte  der  neueren  Forschung,"  2,  1901, 
p.  144. 

2  "  Theol.  Stud,  und  Krit.,"  1908,  p.  581. 

3  "  Luther  und  die  KG.,"  1,  1900,  p.  363. 


SLANDERS  ON  CATHOLICISM      119 

preachers  and  writers  insisted  solely  on  outward  good  works ; 
of  the  need  of  cultivating  an  inward  religious  spirit,  interior 
virtues  or  true  righteousness  of  heart  no  one  had  any 
conception. 

Against  this  we  may  set  a  few  Catholic  statements  made 
during  the  years  shortly  before  Luther's  appearance. 

Gabriel  Biel,  the  "standard  theologian"  of  his  time,  whose 
works  Luther  himself  had  studied  during  his  theological  course, 
in  one  of  his  sermons  distinctly  advocates  the  Church's  doctrine 
against  any  external  holiness-by-works.  Commenting  on  the 
Gospel  account  of  the  hypocrisy  and  externalism  of  the  Pharisees 
and  their  semblance  of  holiness,  he  pauses  at  the  passage  : 
"  Except  your  righteousness  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  ye  shall  not  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  " 
(Mt.  v.  20).  "  Hence,  if  we  desire  to  be  saved,"  he  says,  "  our 
righteousness  must  not  merely  be  shown  in  outward  works  but 
must  reside  in  the  heart  ;  for  without  the  inward  spirit,  outward 
works  are  neither  virtuous  nor  praiseworthy,  though  the  spirit 
may  be  so  without  outward  works."  After  proving  this  he  again 
insists  :  "  Thus  true  service  of  God  does  not  consist  in  externals  ; 
on  the  contrary  it  is  on  the  inward,  pious  acts  of  the  will  that 
everything  depends,  and  this  presupposes  a  right  judgment  and 
the  recognition  of  the  spirit.  Hence  in  the  practice  of  good 
works  we  must  expend  greater  care  on  the  interior  direction  of 
the  will."  The  learned  preacher  goes  on  fervently  to  exhort  his 
hearers  to  amend  their  lives,  to  be  humble,  to  trust  in  Christ  and 
to  lead  lives  of  real,  inward  piety. 1 

Another  preacher  and  theologian  with  whom  Luther  was  well 
acquainted  was  Andreas  Proles  (f  1503),  the  founder  of  the 
German  Augustinian  Congregation  to  which  Luther  had  once 
belonged.  In  the  sermons  published  by  Petms  Sylvius,  Proles 
insists  upon  the  good  intention  and  interior  disposition  by  which 
works  are  sanctified.  They  are  "  smothered,"  so  he  tells  his 
hearers,  "  if  done  not  out  of  love  for  God  but  with  evil  intent, 
for  instance,  for  the  sake  of  praise,  or  in  order  to  deceive,  or 
again,  if  done  in  sin  or  for  any  bad  purpose."  "  Hence  ...  in 
the  practice  of  all  his  works  a  man  must  diligently  strive  after 
Divine  justice,  after  a  true  faith  with  love  of  God  and  of  his 
neighbour,  after  innocence  and  humility  of  heart,  with  a  good 
purpose  and  intention,  since  every  good  work,  however  insignifi 
cant,  even  a  drink  of  cold  water  given  to  the  meanest  creature 
for  God's  sake,  is  deserving  of  reward  in  eternity.  .  .  .  Without 
charity  neither  faith  nor  good  works  are  profitable  unto  salva 
tion."2 

At  about  that  same  time  the  so-called  "  holiness-by-works 

1  "  Sermo  60  in   Dom.    6   post.    Trin."    ("  Sermones  de  tempore," 
Tubingse,  1500). 

2  "  Sibend  und  Acht  ader  letzte  Sermon,"  Lipsie,   1533.     On  this 
work  cp.  Paulus,  "  Die  deutschen  Dominikaner, "  p.  66,  n.  2. 


120         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

was  also  condemned  by  the  learned  Franciscan  theologian, 
Stephen  Brulefer.  "  Merit,"  so  he  emphasises,  "  depends  not 
on  the  number  of  external  works  but  on  the  zeal  and  charity 
with  which  the  work  is  done  ;  everything  depends  on  the  interior 
act  of  the  will."  Amongst  his  authorities  he  quotes  the  far- 
famed  theologian  of  his  Order,  Duns  Scotus,  who  had  enunciated 
the  principle  with  the  concision  of  the  scholastic  :  "  Deus  non 
pensat  quantum  sed  ex  quanta."1 

"  God  wants,  not  your  work,  but  your  heart."  So  Marquard  of 
Lindau  writes  in  his  "  Buch  der  X  Gepot,"  printed  in  1483. 
Before  this,  under  the  heading  :  "  That  we  must  love  God  above 
all  things,"  he  declares,  that,  whoever  does  not  turn  to  God  with 
his  whole  heart  cannot  merely  by  his  works  gain  Him,  even 
though  he  should  surrender  "  all  his  possessions  to  God  and 
allow  himself  to  be  burnt."2 

Thus  we  find  in  the  writings  of  that  period,  language  by 
no  means  wanting  in  vigour  used  in  denunciation  of  the 
so-called  "  holincss-by- works  "  ;  hence  Luther  was  certainly 
not  first  in  the  field  to  raise  a  protest. 

From  their  preachers,  too,  the  people  frequently  heard 
this  same  teaching. 

Johann  Herolt,  a  Dominican  preacher,  very  celebrated 
at  the  commencement  of  the  15th  century,  points  out 
clearly  and  definitely  in  his  sermons  on  the  Sunday  Epistles, 
that  every  work  must  be  inspired  by  and  permeated  with 
charity  if  man's  actions  are  not  to  deteriorate  into  a  mere 
"  holiness-by-works  "  ;  a  poor  man  who,  with  a  pure 
conscience,  performs  the  meanest  good  work,  is,  according 
to  him,  of  "  far  greater  worth  in  God's  sight  than  the 
richest  Prince  who  erects  churches  and  monasteries  while  in 
a  state  of  mortal  sin  "  ;  the  outward  work  was  of  small 
account.3  Herolt  thus  becomes  a  spokesman  of  "  inward 
ness  "  in  the  matter  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  duties  of  the 
Christian  life  ;4  many  others  spoke  as  he  did. 

Sound  instruction  concerning  "  holiness-by-works  "  and 
the  necessary  "  inwardness  "  was  to  be  found  in  the  most 
popular  works  of  devotion  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

1  "  Reportata  in  qnatiwr  S.  Bonaventurce  sententiarum  libros,  Scoli 
subtilis  secundi,"  Basilese,  1501.    L.  2  d.  5  q.  6. 

2  Bl.     2.      On   the   work,    see   Hasak,    "  Der   christl.    Glaube   des 
deutschen  Volkes  beim  Schluss  des  MA.,"  1868,  p.  67  ff. 

"  Sermones  super  epistolas  dominicales,"  s.  1.  e.  a.  Bl.  51.  N. 
Paulus  quotes  more  of  Herolt's  sayings  in  "  Johann  Herolt  und  seine 
Lehre,  Beitrag  zur  Gesch.  des  religiosen  Volksunterrichts  am  Ausgang 
des  MA."  ("  Zeitschr.  f.  kath.  Theol.,"  26,  1902,  p.  417  ff.,  particularly 
P-  429).  «  Paulus,  ibid.,  pp.  429,  430. 


SLANDERS  ON  CATHOLICISM       121 

The  "  Evangelibuch,"  for  instance,  a  sermon-book  with 
glosses  on  the  Sunday  Gospels,  has  the  following  for  those 
who  are  too  much  devoted  to  outward  works  :  "It  matters 
not  how  good  a  man  may  be  or  how  many  good  works  he 
performs  unless,  at  the  same  time,  he  loves  God."  The 
author  even  goes  too  far  in  his  requirements  concerning  the 
interior  disposition,  and,  agreeably  with  a  view  then  held  by 
many,  will  not  admit  as  a  motive  for  love  a  wholesome  fear 
of  the  loss  of  God  ;  he  says  a  man  must  love  God,  simply 
because  "  he  is  the  most  excellent,  highest  and  most  worthy 
Good  ;  .  .  .  for  a  man  filled  with  Divine  love  does  not 
desire  the  good  which  God  possesses,  but  merely  God  Him 
self  "  ;  thus,  in  his  repudiation  of  all  so-called  "  holiness- 
by-works,"  he  actually  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme.1 

Man  becomes  pleasing  to  God  not  by  reason  of  the 
number  or  greatness  of  his  works,  but  through  the  interior 
justice  wrought  in  him  by  grace  ;  such  is  the  opinion  of  the 
Dominican,  Johann  Mensing.  He  protests  against  being 
accused  of  disparaging  God's  grace  because  at  the  same 
time  he  emphasises  the  value  of  works  ;  he  declares  that  he 
exalts  the  importance  of  God's  sanctifying  Grace  even  more 
than  his  opponents  (the  Lutherans)  did,  because,  so  he  says, 
"  we  admit  (what  they  deny,  thereby  disparaging  the  grace 
of  God),  viz.  that  we  are  not  simply  saved  by  God,  but  that 
He  so  raises  and  glorifies  our  nature  by  the  bestowal  of  grace, 
that  we  are  able  ourselves  to  merit  our  salvation  and  attain 
to  it  of  our  own  free  will,  which,  without  His  Grace,  would 
be  impossible.  Hence  our  belief  is  not  that  we  are  led  and 
driven  like  cattle  who  know  not  whither  they  go.  We  say  : 
God  gives  us  His  grace,  faith  and  charity,  at  first  without 
any  merit  on  our  part ;  then  follow  good  works  and  merits, 
all  flowing  from  the  same  Grace,  and  finally  eternal  happiness 
for  such  works  as  bring  down  Grace."2 

This  was  the  usual  language  in  use  in  olden  time,  par 
ticularly  in  the  years  just  previous  to  Luther,  and  it  was  in 
accordance  with  this  that  most  of  the  faithful  obediently 
shaped  their  lives.  If  abuses  occurred— and  it  is  quite  true 
that  we  often  do  meet  with  a  certain  degree  of  formalism  in 
the  customs  of  the  people- — they  cannot  be  regarded  as  the 

1  "  Evangelibuch,"  Augsburg,  1560,  Bl.   15.     Cp.  the  Basle  "  Plen- 
arium,"  1514,  Bl.  25. 

2  "  Errettunge  des  christl.  Bescheydts,"  usw.,  1528,  32,  Bl.  4°,  h.  2. 


122         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

rule  and  were  reproved  by  zealous  and  clear-sighted  church 
men. 

A  favourite  work  at  that  time  was  the  "  Imitation  of 
Christ  "  by  Thomas  a  Kempis.  Thousands,  more  par 
ticularly  amongst  the  clergy  and  religious,  were  edified  by 
the  fervent  and  touching  expositions  of  the  author  to 
permeate  all  works  with  the  spirit  of  interior  piety.1  We 
know  how  strongly  he  condemns  formalism  as  exemplified 
in  frequent  pilgrimages  devoid  of  virtue  and  the  spirit  of 
penance,  and  how  he  does  not  spare  even  the  religious  ; 
"  the  habit  and  the  tonsure  make  but  little  alteration,  but 
the  moral  change  and  the  entire  mortification  of  the  passions 
make  a  true  religious."2 

The  practice  of  works  of  charity,  which  at  that  time 
flourished  exceedingly  among  both  clergy  and  laity,  offered 
a  field  for  the  realisation  of  these  principles  of  the  true 
spirit  in  which  good  works  are  to  be  performed.  We  have 
countless  proofs  of  how  the  faithful  in  Germany  despoiled 
themselves  of  their  temporal  goods  from  the  most  sincere 
religious  motives — out  of  love  for  their  neighbour,  or  to 
promote  the  public  Divine  worship — "  for  the  love  of  God 
our  Lord,"  as  a  common  phrase,  used  in  the  case  of 
numerous  foundations,  expresses  it. 

G.  Uhlhorn,  the  Protestant  author  of  the  "  Geschichte  der 
christlichen  Liebestatigkeit,"  also  pays  a  tribute  to  the 
spirit  which  preserved  charity  from  degenerating  into  mere 
"  holiness-by-works."  "  We  should  be  doing  injustice  to  that 
period,"  he  says  of  the  Middle  Ages  generally,  "  were  we  to 
think  that  it  considered  as  efficacious,  i.e.  as  satisfactory, 
mere  external  works  apart  from  the  motive  which  inspired 
them,  for  instance,  alms  without  love."  In  support  he 
quotes  Thomas  of  Aquin  and  Pope  Innocent  III,  remarking, 
however,  that  even  such  alms  as  were  bestowed  without  this 
spirit  of  love  were  regarded,  by  the  standard  authorities,  as 
predisposing  a  man  for  the  reception  of  Grace,  and  as 
deserving  of  temporal  reward  from  God,  hence  not  as 
altogether  "  worthless  and  unproductive."3 

Another  fable  concerning  the  Middle  Ages,  sedulously 
fostered  by  Luther  in  his  writings,  was,  that,  in  those  days 

1   "  De  imitations  Christi,"  I,  15  ;   and  3,  4.          2  Ibid.,  1,  17,  19. 
3  Bd.  2,  Stuttgart,  1884,  p.  143. 


SLANDERS  ON  CATHOLICISM       123 

man  had  never  come  into  direct  relations  with  God,  that  the 
hierarchy  had  constituted  a  partition  between  him  and 
Christ,  and  that,  thanks  only  to  the  new  Evangel,  had  the 
Lord  been  restored  to  each  man,  as  his  personal  Saviour  and 
the  object  of  all  his  hopes  ;  Luther  was  wont  to  say  that  the 
new  preaching  had  at  length  brought  each  one  into  touch 
with  Christ  the  Lamb,  Who  taketh  away  our  sin  ; 
Melanchthon,  in  his  funeral  oration  on  Luther,  also  said  of 
him,  that  he  had  pointed  out  to  every  sinner  the  Lamb  in 
Whom  he  would  find  salvation. 

To  keep  to  the  symbol  of  the  Lamb  :  The  whole  Church 
of  the  past  had  never  ceased  to  tell  each  individual 
that  he  must  seek  in  the  Lamb  of  God  purgation  from  his 
guilt  and  confirmation  of  his  personal  love  of  God.  The 
Lamb  was  to  her  the  very  symbol  of  that  confidence  in 
Christ's  Redemption  which  she  sought  to  arouse  in  each 
one's  breast.  On  the  front  of  Old  St.  Peter's,  for  instance, 
the  Lamb  was  shown  in  brilliant  mosaic,  with  the  gentle 
Mother  of  the  Redeemer  on  its  right  and  the  Key-bearer  on 
its  left,  and  this  figure,  in  yet  older  times,  had  been  pre 
ceded  by  the  ancient  "  Agnus  Dei."1 

Every  Litany  recited  by  the  faithful  in  Luther's  day,  no 
less  than  in  earlier  ages  and  in  our  own,  concluded  with  the 
trustful  invocation  of  the  "  Lamb  of  God  "  ;  the  waxen 
"  Agnus  Dei,"  blessed  by  the  Pope,  and  so  highly  prized  by 
the  people,  was  but  its  symbol.2  The  Lamb  of  God  was, 
and  still  is,  solemnly  invoked  by  priest  and  people  in 
the  Canon  of  the  Mass  for  the  obtaining  of  mercy  and 
peace. 

The  centre  of  daily  worship  in  the  Catholic  Church,  in 
Luther's  day  as  in  the  remoter  past,  was  ever  the  Eucharistic 
Sacrifice.  The  Lamb  of  God,  which,  according  to  Catholic 
belief,  is  there  offered  to  the  Father  under  the  mystic 
elements,  and  mysteriously  renews  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Cross,  was  as  a  well,  daily  opened,  in  which  souls  athirst  for 
God  might  find  wherewith  to  unite  themselves  in  love  and 
confidence  with  their  Redeemer. 

1  See  the  figures  in  Grisar,  "  Analecta  Romana,"  1,  tab.  10-12. 

2  On  the  origin  of  the  waxen  "  Agnus  Dei  "  and  its  connection  with 
the  oldest  baptismal  rite,  see  my  art.  in  the  "  Civilta  Cattolica,"  June 
2,    1907.      From  the  beginning  it  was  a  memorial  of  the  baptismal 
covenant  and  served  as  a  constant  stimulus  to  personal  union  with 
Christ. 


124         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

It  was  Luther  who,  with  cruel  hand,  tore  this  pledge  of  hope 
and  consolation  from  the  heart  of  Christendom.  Inspiring 
indeed  are  the  allusions  to  the  wealth  of  consolation  contained 
in  the  Eucharist,  which  we  find  in  one  of  the  books  in  most  general 
use  in  the  days  before  Luther.  "  Good  Jesus,  Eternal  Shepherd, 
thanks  be  to  Thee  Who  permittest  me,  poor  and  needy  as  I  am, 
to  partake  of  the  mystery  of  Thy  Divine  Sacrifice,  and  feedest 
me  with  Thy  precious  Body  and  Blood  ;  Thou  commandest  me 
to  approach  to  Thee  with  confidence.  Come,  sayest  Thou,  to  Me, 
all  you  that  labour  and  are  burdened,  and  I  will  refresh  you. 
Confiding,  O  Lord,  in  Thy  goodness  and  in  Thy  great  mercy,  I 
come  sick  to  my  Saviour,  hungry  and  thirsty  to  the  Fountain  of 
life,  needy  to  the  King  of  Heaven,  a  servant  to  my  Lord,  a 
creature  to  my  Creator,  and  one  in  desolation  to  my  loving 
Comforter."1 

The  doctrine  that  the  Mass  is  a  renewal  of  the  Sacrifice  of 
Christ  "  attained  its  fullest  development  in  the  Middle  Ages  "  ; 
thus  Adolf  Franz  at  the  conclusion  of  his  work  "  Die  Messe  im 
deutschen  Mittelalter."  At  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  was 
the  rule  to  "  direct  the  eyes  of  the  faithful,  during  the  sacrifice 
on  the  altar,  to  the  sufferings  and  death  of  the  Redeemer  in  all 
its  touching  and  thrilling  reality.  At  the  altar  a  mystery  is 
enacted  ;  Christ  suffers  and  dies  ;  the  priest  represents  Him,  and 
every  act  typifies  Christ's  Passion  ;  just  as  He  expired  on  the 
cross  in  actual  fact,  so,  mystically,  He  dies  upon  the  altar."2 
Though  some  writers  of  the  period  dwell  perhaps  a  little  too 
much  on  the  allegorical  sense  then  so  popular  in  explaining  the 
various  acts  of  the  Mass,  yet,  in  their  conviction  that  its  character 
was  sacrificial  and  that  it  truly  re-enacted  the  death  of  Christ, 
they  were  in  perfect  agreement  with  the  past.  In  the  explana 
tions  of  the  Mass  everyone  was  reminded  of  his  union  with  Christ  ; 
and  our  Lord's  sufferings  "  were  brought  before  the  mind  of 
both  priest  and  people  "  ;  by  this  means  the  "  outward  cere 
monial  of  the  Mass  was  made  a  fruitful  source  of  inward  edifica 
tion."  "  The  abundant  mediaeval  literature  on  the  Mass  is  a 
proof  both  of  the  needs  of  the  clergy,  and  of  the  care  displayed 
by  the  learned  and  those  in  authority,  to  instruct  them.  In  this 
matter  the  15th  century  excels  the  earlier  Middle  Ages."3  The 
very  abuses  and  the  formalism  which  Franz  finds  witnessed  to  in 
certain  mediaeval  sermons  on  the  Mass,  chiefly  in  the  matter  of 
undue  stress  laid  on  the  "  fruits  of  the  Mass,"  reveal  merely  an 
over-estimation  on  the  part  of  the  individual  of  his  union  with 
Christ,  or  a  too  great  assurance  of  obtaining  help  in  bodily  and 
spiritual  necessities  ;  of  want  of  fervour  or  of  hope  there  is  not 
the  least  trace. 

It  is  well  worthy  of  note  that  Luther,  if  we  may  believe  what 
he  said  in  a  sermon  in  1532,  even  in  his  monastic  days,  did  not 
prize  or  love  the  close  bond  of  union  established  with  Christ  by 
the  daily  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  :  "  Ah,  bah,  Masses  !  Let  what 

1  "  De  imit.  Christi,"  4,  1,  2. 

2  Freiburg,  i/B.,  1902,  p.  730  f.  3  Ibid.,  p.  737  f. 


SLANDERS   ON  CATHOLICISM       125 

cannot  stand  fast  fall.  You  never  cared  about  saying  Mass 
formerly  ;  of  that  I  am  sure.  I  know  it  from  my  own  case  ;  for 
I  too  was  a  holy  monk,  and  blasphemed  my  dear  Lord  miserably 
for  the  space  of  quite  fifteen  years  with  my  saying  of  Masses, 
though  I  never  liked  doing  so,  in  spite  of  being  so  holy  and 
devout."1 

In  spite  of  this  Luther  succeeded  in  bequeathing  to 
posterity  the  opinion  that  it  was  he  who  delivered  people 
from  that  "  alienation  from  God  "  imposed  on  the  world  in 
the  Middle  Ages ;  "  who  broke  down  the  prohibition  of  the 
mediaeval  Church  against  anyone  concerning  himself  on 
his  own  account  with  matters  of  religion  " ;  and  who  gave 
back  "  personal  religion  "  to  the  Christian. 

Were  Protestants  to  bestow  more  attention  on  the 
religious  literature  of  the  Later  Middle  Ages,  such  statements 
would  be  simply  impossible.  One  of  those  best  acquainted 
with  this  literature  writes  :  "  During  the  last  few  months 
the  present  writer  has  gone  carefully,  pen  in  hand,  through 
more  than  one  hundred  printed  and  manuscript  religious 
works,  written  in  German  and  belonging  to  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages  :  catechetical  handbooks,  general  works  of 
piety,  confession  manuals,  postils,  prayer-books,  booklets  on 
preparation  for  death  and  German  sermonaries.  In  this 
way  he  has  learnt  from  the  most  reliable  sources  not  only 
how  in  those  days  people  were  guided  to  devout  intercourse 
with  God,  but  also  with  what  fervent  piety  the  faithful  were 
accustomed  to  converse  with  their  Saviour."  Let  Protes 
tants,  he  adds,  at  least  attempt  to  vindicate  their  pet 
assertions  "  scientifically,  i.e.  from  trustworthy  sources."2 

The  relations  between  the  individual  and  God  were  by  no 
means  suppressed  because  the  priesthood  stood  as  an  inter 
mediary  between  the  faithful  and  God,  or  because  ecclesi 
astical  superiors  watched  over  and  directed  public  worship 
and  the  lines  along  which  the  life  of  faith  was  to  move.  If 
the  union  of  the  individual  with  God  was  endangered  by 
such  interference  on  the  part  of  the  clergy,  then  it  was 
endangered  just  as  much  by  Luther,  who  insists  so  strongly 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  202,  2,  p.  407. 

2  N.    Paulus,    "Koln.  Volksztng.,"    1903,    No.    961.      Cp.    Paulus 
"  Der   Katholik,"    1898,    2,    p.    25  :     "  Had   Luther's  intention   been 
merely  to  impress  this  fundamentally  Catholic  message  on  Christen 
dom  [the  trustful  relations  between  the  individual  and  God]  there  would 
never  have  been  a  schism." 


126          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

on  the  preachers  being  listened  to,   and  on  the  ministers 
taking  the  lead  in  things  pertaining  to  God. 

He  teaches,  for  instance  :  "  It  is  an  unsufferable  blasphemy  to 
reject  the  public  ministry  or  to  say  that  people  can  become 
holy  without  sermons  and  Church.  This  involves  a  destruction 
of  the  Church  and  rebellion  against  ecclesiastical  order  ;  such 
upheavals  must  bo  warded  off  and  punished  like  all  other 
revolts."1 

The  fact  is,  the  ecclesiastical  order  of  things  to  which  Luther 
attached  himself  more  and  more  strongly  amounted  to  this,  as 
he  declares  in  various  passages  of  his  Table-Talk.  Through  the 
ministers  and  preachers,  as  through  His  servants,  God  speaks  to 
man  ;  through  them  God  baptises,  instructs  and  absolves  ; 
what  the  ministers  of  the  Gospel  say  and  do,  that  God  Himself 
does  through  and  in  us  as  His  instruments.  Whoever  does  not 
believe  this,  Luther  looks  on  as  damned.  In  a  sermon  of  1528, 
speaking  of  the  spiritual  authority  which  intervenes  between 
God  and  man,  he  exclaims  :  "  God  requires  for  His  Kingdom 
pious  Bishops  and  pastors,  through  them  he  governs  His  subjects 
[the  Emperor,  on  the  other  hand,  so  he  had  said,  had  not  even 
to  be  a  Christian  since  the  secular  power  was  all  outward  and 
merely  served  to  restrain  evil-doers].2  If  you  will  not  hearken  to 
these  Bishops  and  pastors,  then  you  will  have  to  listen  to  Master 
Hans  [the  hangman]  and  get  no  thanks  either."3 
(*•  He  uses  similar  language  in  his  sermons  on  Matthew  :  "  God,  by 
means  of  Prophets  and  Apostles,  ministers  and  preachers, 
baptises,  gives  the  sacraments,  preaches  and  consoles  ;  without 
preachers  and  holy  persons,  He  does  nothing,  just  as  He  does  not 
govern  land  and  people  without  the  secular  power."4 

Hence  Luther  shows  himself  very  anxious  to  establish  a  kind 
of  hierarchy.  If  then  he  charges  the  priesthood  of  the  past  with 
putting  itself  between  God  and  man,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  he  is  to 
avoid  a  similar  charge  being  brought  forward  against  himself. 
Moreover,  at  the  bottom  of  his  efforts,  memories  of  his  Catholic 
days  were  at  work,  and  the  feeling  that  an  organised  ministry 
was  called  for  if  the  religious  sentiment  was  not  to  die  out  com 
pletely  among  the  people.  His  practical  judgment  of  the 
conditions  even  appears  here  in  a  favourable  light,  for  instance, 
in  those  passages  where  he  insists  on  the  authority  of  rightly 
appointed  persons  to  act  as  intermediaries  between  God  and 
man,  and  as  vicars  and  representatives  of  Christ.  The  word 
Christ  spoke  on  earth  and  the  word  of  the  preacher,  are, 
he  says,  one  and  the  same  "  re  et  effectu,"  because  Christ  said  : 
"  He  that  heareth  you  heareth  me  "  (Luke  x.  16)  ;  "  God  deals 
with  us  through  these  instruments,  through  them  He  works 
everything  and  offers  us  all  His  treasures."5  Indeed,  "it  is  our 

1  "  Corp.  ref.,"  4,  pp.  737-740. 

2  Cp.  our  vol.  ii.,  p.  297.          3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  418. 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  45,  p.  184. 

*  M&thesius,  "  Tischreden  "  (Kroker),  p.  186, 


greatest  privilege  that  we  have  such  a  ministry  and  that  God  is  so 
near  to  us  ;  for  he  that  hears  Christ  hears  God  Himself  ;  and  he 
that  hears  St.  Peter  or  a  preacher,  hears  Christ  and  God  Himself 
speaking  to  us."1 

"  We  must  always  esteem  the  spoken  Word  very  highly, 
for  those  who  despise  it  become  heretics  at  once.  The  Pope 
despises  this  ministry"2  [  !  ].  God,  however,  "has  ordained 
that  no  one  should  have  faith,  except  thanks  to  the  preacher's 
office,"  and,  "  without  the  Word,  He  does  no  work  whatever  in 
the  Church."3 

Thus  we  find  Luther,  on  the  one  hand  insisting  upon  an 
authority,  and,  on  the  other,  demanding  freedom  for  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture.  How  he  sought  to  harmonise 
the  two  is  reserved  for  later  examination.  At  any  rate,  it 
is  to  misapprehend  both  the  Catholic  Church  and  Luther's 
own  theological  attitude,  to  say  that  "  independent  study 
of  religious  questions  "  had  been  forbidden  in  the  Middle 
Ages  and  was  "  reintroduced  "  only  by  Luther,  that  he 
removed  the  "  blinkers  "  which  the  Church  had  placed  over 
people's  eyes  and  that  henceforward  "  the  representatives 
of  the  Church  had  no  more  call  to  assume  the  place  of  the 
Living  God  in  man's  regard." 

Luther  also  laid  claim  to  having  revived  respect  for  the 
secular  authorities,  who,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  had  been 
despised  owing  to  the  one-sided  regard  shown  to  the  monks 
and  clergy.  He  declares  that  he  had  again  brought  people 
to  esteem  the  earthly  calling,  family  life  and  all  worldly 
employments  as  being  a  true  serving  of  God.  Boldly  he 
asserts,  that,  before  my  time,  "  the  authorities  did  not 
know  they  were  serving  God  "  ;  "  before  my  time  nobody 
knew  .  .  .  what  the  secular  power,  what  matrimony, 
parents,  children,  master,  servant,  wife  or  maid  really 
signified."  On  the  strength  of  his  assertions  it  has  been 
stated,  that  he  revived  the  "  ideal  of  life  "  by  discovering 
the  "  true  meaning  of  vocation,"  which  then  became  the 
"  common  property  of  the  civilised  world  " ;  on  this  account 
he  was  "  the  creator  of  those  theories  which  form  the  founda 
tion  upon  which  the  modern  State  and  modern  civilisation 
rest." 

The   fact   is,    however,    the   Church   of   past   ages   fully 

1  Mathesius,  <;  Tischreden  "  (Kroker),  p.  230. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  193,  o  Ibid.,  p.  323, 


128          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

recognised  the  value  of  the  secular  state  and  spheres  of 
activity,  saw  in  them  a  Divine  institution,  and  respected 
and  cherished  them  accordingly. 

A  very  high  esteem  for  all  secular  callings  is  plainly  expressed 
in  the  sermons  of  Johann  Herolt,  the  famous  and  influential 
Nuremberg  Dominican,  whose  much-read  "  Sermones  de  tempore 
et  de  Sanctis  "  (Latin  outlines  of  sermons  for  the  use  of  German 
preachers)  had,  prior  to  1500,  appeared  in  at  least  forty  different 
editions. 

"It  has  been  asked,"  he  says  in  one  sermon,  "  whether  the 
labour  of  parents  for  their  children  is  meritorious.  I  reply  : 
Yes,  if  only  they  have  the  intention  of  bringing  up  their  children 
for  the  glory  of  God  and  in  order  that  they  may  become  good 
servants  of  Christ.  If  the  parents  are  in  a  state  of  grace,  then  all 
their  trouble  with  their  children,  in  suckling  them,  bathing  them, 
carrying  them  about,  dressing  them,  feeding  them,  watching  by 
them,  teaching  and  reproving  them,  redounds  to  their  eternal 
reward.  All  this  becomes  meritorious.  And  in  the  same  way 
when  the  father  labours  hard  in  order  to  earn  bread  for  his  wife 
and  children,  all  this  is  meritorious  for  the  life  beyond."1 — A 
high  regard  for  work  is  likewise  expressed  in  his  sermon  "  To 
workmen,"  which  begins  with  the  words  :  "  Man  is  born  to 
labour  as  the  bird  is  to  fly."2  Another  sermon  praises  the  calling 
of  the  merchant,  which  he  calls  a  "  good  and  necessary  pro 
fession."3 

Another  witness  to  the  Church's  esteem  for  worldly  callings 
and  employments  is  Marcus  von  Weida,  a  Saxon  Dominican. 
In  the  discourses  he  delivered  on  the  "  Our  Father  "  at  Leipzig, 
in  1501,  he  says  :  "  All  those  pray  who  do  some  good  work  and 
live  virtuously."  For  everything  that  a  man  does  to  the  praise 
and  glory  of  God  is  really  prayer.  A  man  must  always  do  what 
his  state  of  life  and  his  calling  demands.  "  Hence  it  follows  that 
many  a  poor  peasant,  husbandman,  artisan  or  other  man  who 
does  his  work,  or  whatever  he  undertakes,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
redound  to  God's  glory,  is  more  pleasing  to  God,  by  reason  of 
the  work  he  daily  performs,  and  gains  more  merit  before  God 
than  any  Carthusian  or  Friar,  be  he  Black,  Grey  or  White,  who 
stands  daily  in  choir  singing  and  praying."4 

It  is  evident  that  Catholic  statements,  such  as  that  just  quoted 
from  Herolt,  concerning  the  care  of  children  being  well-pleasing 
to  God,  have  been  overlooked  by  those  who  extol  Luther  as 
having  been  the  first  to  discover  and  teach,  that  even  to  rock 
children's  cradles  and  wash  their  swaddling  clothes  is  a  noble, 
Christian  work.  What  is,  however,  most  curious  is  the  assur 
ance  with  which  Luther  himself  claimed  the  merit  of  this  dis 
covery,  in  connection  with  his  teaching  on  marriage. 

The    Carthusian,    Erhard    Gross,    speaks    very    finely   of    the 

1   "  Sermo  25  de  tempore."          2  "  Sermo  55  de  tempore." 

3  "  Sermones  super  epistolas  dominicales."     Sermo  15. 

4  "  Eine  nutzliche  Lere,"  usw.,  Leipzig,  1502,  c.  1. 


SLANDERS   ON   CATHOLICISM       129 

different  secular  callings  and  states  of  life,  and  assigns  to  them 
an  eminently  honourable  place  :  "  What  are  the  little  precious 
stones  in  Christ's  crown  but  the  various  classes  of  the  Christian 
people,  who  adorn  the  head  of  Christ  ?  For  He  is  our  Head  and 
all  the  Christian  people  are  His  Body  for  ever  and  ever.  Hence, 
amongst  the  ornaments  of  the  house  of  God  some  must  be 
virgins,  others  widows,  some  married  and  others  chaste,  such  as 
monks,  priests  and  nuns.  Nor  are  these  all,  for  we  have  also 
Princes,  Kings  and  Prelates  who  rule  the  commonwealth,  those 
who  provide  for  the  needs  of  the  body,  as,  for  instance,  husband 
men  and  fishermen,  tailors  and  merchants,  bakers  and  shoe 
makers,  and,  generally,  all  tradesmen."  If  the  general  welfare  is 
not  to  suffer,  he  says,  each  one  must  faithfully  follow  his  calling. 
"  Therefore  whoever  wishes  to  please  God,  let  him  stick  to  the 
order  [state]  in  which  God  has  placed  him  and  live  virtuously ;  he 
will  then  receive  his  reward  from  God  here,  and,  after  this  life,  in 
the  world  to  come."1 

Although  Luther  must  have  been  well  aware  of  the  views 
really  held  on  this  subject,  some  excuse  for  his  wild  charges 
may  perhaps  be  found  in  his  small  practical  experience,  prior 
to  his  apostasy,  of  Christian  life  in  the  world.  His  poverty 
had  forced  him,  even  in  childhood,  into  irregular  ways  ;  he 
had  been  deprived  of  the  blessings  of  a  truly  Christian 
family-life.  His  solitary  studies  had  left  him  a  stranger  to 
the  active  life  of  good  Catholics  engaged  in  secular  callings  ; 
the  fact  of  his  being  a  monk  banished  him  alike  from  the 
society  of  the  bad  and  impious  and  from  that  of  the  good 
and  virtuous.  Thus  in  many  respects  he  was  out  of  touch 
with  the  stimulating  influence  of  the  world  ;  the  versatility 
which  results  from  experience  was  still  lacking,  when,  in  his 
early  years  at  Wittenberg,  he  began  to  think  out  his  new 
theories  on  God  and  sin,  Grace  and  the  Fall. 

"  Whoever  wishes  to  please  God  let  him  stick  to  the  order 
[state]  in  which  God  has  placed  him."  These  words  of 
Gross,  the  Carthusian,  quoted  above,  remind  us  of  a  com 
parison  instituted  by  Herolt  the  Dominican  between 
religious  Orders  and  the  "  Order  "  of  matrimony.  Com 
mending  the  secular  calling  of  matrimony,  he  says  here, 
that  it  was  instituted  by  God  Himself,  whereas  the  religious 
Orders  had  been  founded  by  men  :  "  We  must  know  that 

1  In  a  "  Novelle,"  published  by  Ph.  Strauch  in  the  "  Zeitschr.  fur 
deutsches  Luthertum,"  29,  1885,  p.  389.  — For  further  particulars  of 
the  respect  for  worldly  callings  before  Luther's  day,  see  N.  Paulus, 
"  Luther  und  der  Beruf  "  ("  Der  Katholik,"  1902,  1,  p  .327  ff.),  and  in 
the  "  Lit.  Beil.  der  Koln.  Volksztng.,"  1903,  No.  20,  p.  148  ;  likewise 
Denifle,  "  Luther,"  I2,  p.  138  ff. 

IV. — K 


130          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

God  first  honoured  matrimony  by  Himself  instituting  it. 
In  this  wise  the  Order  of  matrimony  excels  all  other  Orders 
('  ordo  matrimonialis  prcecellit  olios  ordines  ') ;  for  just  as 
St.  Benedict  founded  the  Black  Monks,  St.  Francis  the 
Order  of  Friars  Minor  and  St.  Dominic  the  Order  of  Friars 
Preacher,  so  God  founded  matrimony."1 

True  Christian  perfection,  according  to  the  ancient  teach 
ing  of  the  Church,  is  not  bound  up  with  any  particular  state, 
but  may  be  attained  by  all,  no  matter  their  profession,  even 
by  the  married. 

Luther,  and  many  after  him,  even  down  to  the  present 
day,  have  represented,  that,  according  to  the  Catholic  view, 
perfection  was  incapable  of  attainment  save  in  the  religious 
life,  this  alone  being  termed  the  "  state  of  perfection."  In 
his  work  "  On  Monkish  Vows  "  he  declares  :  "  The  monks 
have  divided  Christian  life  into  a  state  of  perfection  and  one 
of  imperfection.  To  the  great  majority  they  have  assigned 
the  state  of  imperfection,  to  themselves,  that  of  perfection."2 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  "  state  of  perfection  "  only  means, 
that,  religious,  by  taking  upon  themselves,  publicly  and 
before  the  Church,  the  three  vows  of  poverty,  chastity  and 
obedience,  bind  themselves  to  strive  after  perfection  along 
this  path  as  one  leading  most  surely  to  the  goal  ;  it  doesn't 
imply  that  they  are  already  in  possession  of  perfection,  still 
less  that  they  alone  possess  it.  By  undertaking  to  follow  all 
their  life  a  Rule  approved  by  the  Church,  under  the  guidance 
of  Superiors  appointed  by  the  Church,  they  form  a  "  state  " 
or  corporation  of  which  perfection  is  the  aim,  and,  in  this 
sense  alone,  are  said  to  belong  to  the  "  state  of  perfection." 
In  addition,  it  was  always  believed  that  equal,  in  fact  the 
highest,  perfection  might  be  attained  to  in  any  state  of  life. 
Though  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered  in  the  worldly 
state  were  regarded  as  greater,  yet  the  conquest  they 
involved  was  looked  upon  as  the  fruit  of  an  even  greater  love 
of  God,  the  victory  as  more  splendid,  and  the  degree  of 
perfection  attained  as  so  much  the  more  exalted. 

It  is  the  love  of  God  which,  according  to  the  constant 
teaching  of  the  Church,  constitutes  the  essence  of  perfection. 

The  most  perfect  Christian  is  he  who  fulfils  the  law  of 
charity  most  perfectly,  and  this — notwithstanding  what- 

1  "  Sermo  25  de  tempore." 

2  "  Cp.  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  27,  1906,  p.  496  ff.  (N.  Paulus  on  O.  Scheel). 


ON  MATRIMONY  131 

ever  Luther  may  say — according  to  what  has  ever  been  the 
teaching  of  the  Church,  the  ordinary  Christian  may  quite 
well  do  in  his  everyday  calling,  and  in  the  married  as  much 
as  in  the  religious  state.  Even  should  the  religious  follow 
the  severest  of  Rules,  yet  if  he  does  not  make  use  of  the 
more  abundant  means  of  perfection  at  his  command  but 
lives  in  tepidity,  then  the  ordinary  Christian  approaches 
more  closely  than  he  to  the  ideal  standard  of  life  if  only  he 
fulfils  his  duties  in  the  home  with  greater  love  of  God. 

The  Bavarian  Franciscan,  Caspar  Schatzgeyer,  Luther's 
contemporary,  is  right  when  he  says  in  his  work  "  Scru- 
tinium  divince  scriptures  "  :  "  We  do  not  set  up  a  twofold 
standard  of  perfection,  one  for  people  in  the  world  and 
another  for  the  religious.  For  all  Christians  there  is  but  one 
order,  one  mode  of  worshipping  God,  one  evangelical  per 
fection.  .  .  .  But  we  do  say  this,  that  in  cloistral  life  the 
attainment  of  perfection  is  easier,  though  a  Christian  living 
in  the  world  may  excel  all  religious  in  perfection."1  For — 
such  is  the  ground  he  gives  in  a  German  work — "  it  may  well 
happen  that  in  the  ordinary  Christian  state  a  man  runs  so 
hotly  and  eagerly  towards  God  as  to  outstrip  all  religious  in 
all  the  essentials  of  Christian  perfection,  just  as  a  sculptor 
may  with  a  blunt  chisel  produce  a  masterpiece  far  superior 
to  that  carved  by  an  unskilful  apprentice  even  with  the  best 
and  sharpest  of  tools."2 

This  may  suffice  to  elucidate  the  question  of  the  Catholic 
ideal  of  life  in  respect  of  Luther's  statements,  a  question 
much  debated  in  recent  controversies  but  not  always  set  in 
as  clear  a  light  as  it  deserved. 

The  preceding  remarks  on  Luther's  misrepresentations  of 
the  Church's  teaching  concerning  worldly  callings  lead  us 
to  consider  his  utterances  on  the  Church's  depreciation  of 
the  female  sex  and  of  matrimony. 

5.  Was  Luther  the  Liberator  of  Womankind  from 

"  Mediaeval  Degradation  "  ? 

Luther  maintained  that  he  had  raised  the  dignity  of 
woman  from  the  depths  to  which  it  had  fallen  in  previous 
ages  and  had  revived  due  respect  for  married  life.  What 
the  Church  had  defined  on  this  subject  in  the  past  he 

1  Basle,  1522,  B.  1'. 

2  "  Von  dem  waren  christl.  Leben,"  Bl.  C.  3'. 


132          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

regarded  as  all  rubbish.  Indeed,  "not  one  of  the  Fathers," 
he  says,  "  ever  wrote  anything  notable  or  particularly  good 
concerning  the  married  state."1  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
secular  authority  and  the  preaching  office,  so  God,  before 
the  coming  of  the  Judgment  Day,  by  His  special  Grace  and 
through  His  Word,  i.e.  through  the  new  Evangel,  had 
restored  married  life  to  its  rightful  dignity,  "as  He  had 
at  first  instituted  and  ordained  it."  Marriage,  so  Luther 
asserts,  had  been  regarded  as  "  a  usage  and  practice  rather 
than  as  a  'thing  ordained  by  God.  In  the  same  way  the 
secular  authorities  did  not  know  that  they  were  serving 
God,  but  were  all  tied  up  in  ceremonies.  The  preaching 
office,  too,  was  nothing  but  a  sham  consisting  of  cowls, 
tonsures,  oilings,"  etc.2 

In  short,  by  his  teaching  on  marriage  he  had  ennobled 
woman,  whereas  the  Catholics  had  represented  matrimony 
as  an  "  unchristian  "  state,  only  permitted  out  of  necessity, 
even  though  they  called  it  a  Sacrament.3 

Conspectus  of  Luther's  Distortion  of  the  Catholic  View  of 

Marriage. 

Luther  based  his  charges  chiefly  on  the  canonical  enforce 
ment  of  clerical  celibacy  and  on  the  favour  shown  by  the 
Church  to  the  vow  of  chastity  and  the  monastic  life.  How 
this  proved  his  contention  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  Further,  he 
will  have  it,  that  the  Church  taught  that  true  service  of 
God  was  to  be  found  only  in  the  monastic  state,  and  that 
vows  were  a  sure  warrant  of  salvation — though,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  neither  Church  nor  theologians  had  ever  said  any 
thing  of  the  sort.4 

In  his  remarks  on  this  subject  in  1527  he  openly  accused  the 
Papists  of  saying  that  "  whoever  is  desirous  of  having  to  do  with 
God  and  spiritual  matters  must,  whether  man  or  woman,  remain 
unmarried,"  and  "  thus,"  so  he  says,  "  they  have  scared  the 
young  from  matrimony,  so  that  now  they  are  sunk  in  fornica 
tion."5 

1   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  178.  2  Ibid. 

3  What  follows  has,  it  is  true,  no  close  relation  to  "  Luther  and 
Lying  "  ;    the  author  has,  however,  thought  it  right  to  deal  with  the 
matter  here  because  of  the  connection  between  Luther's  misrepresenta 
tions  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  his  calumny  against  Catholic  times,  both 
of  which  were  founded,  not  on  the  facts  of  the  case,  but  on  personal 
grounds.      Cp.  below,  p.  147. 

4  Denifle,  "  Luther  und  Luthertum,"  I2,  p.  71  ff.,  pp.  155,  238,  242. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  24,  p.  55. 


ON  MATRIMONY  133 

At  first  Luther  only  ventured  on  the  charge,  that  matrimony 
had  been  "  de  facto  "  forbidden,  though  it  had  not  actually  been 
declared  sinful,  by  the  Pope  ; l  by  forbidding  the  monks  to  marry 
he  had  fulfilled  the  prophecy  in  1  Timothy  iv.  1  ff.,  concerning  the 
latter  times,  when  many  would  fall  away  from  the  faith  and 
forbid  people  to  marry.  "  The  Pope  forbids  marriage  under 
the  semblance  of  spirituality."2  "  Squire  Pope  has  forbidden 
marriage,  because  one  had  to  come  who  would  prohibit  marriage. 
The  Pope  has  made  man  to  be  no  longer  man,  and  woman  to  be 
no  longer  woman."3 

As  years  passed  Luther  went  further  ;  forgetful  of  his  admission 
that  the  Pope  had  not  made  matrimony  sinful,  he  exclaimed  : 
To  him  and  to  his  followers  marriage  is  a  sin.  The  Church  had 
hitherto  treated  marriage  as  something  "non-Christian";4  the 
married  state  she  had  "handed  over  to  the  devil";5  her  theo 
logians  look  down  on  it  as  a  "  low,  immoral  sort  of  life,"6  and  her 
religious  can  only  renounce  it  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  kind  of 
legalised  "  incontinence."7 

In  reality,  however,  religious,  when  taking  their  vow,  merely 
acted  on  the  Christian  principle  which  St.  Augustine  expresses  as 
follows  :  Although  "  all  chastity,  conjugal  as  well  as  virgina,!, 
has  its  merit  in  God's  sight,"  yet,  "  the  latter  is  higher,  the 
former  less  exalted."8  They  merely  renounced  a  less  perfect 
state  for  one  more  perfect  ;  they  could,  moreover,  appeal  not 
only  to  1  Cor.  vii.  33,  where  the  Apostle  speaks  in  praise  of  the 
greater  freedom  for  serving  God  which  the  celibate  state  affords, 
but  even  to  Luther  himself  who,  in  1523,  had  interpreted  this 
very  passage  in  the  same  sense,  and  that  with  no  little  warmth.9 

His  later  and  still  more  extravagant  statements  concerning 
the  Catholic  view  of  marriage  can  hardly  be  taken  seriously  ;  his 
perversion  of  the  truth  is  altogether  too  great. 

He  says,  that  married  people  had  not  been  aware  that  God 
"  had  ordained  "  that  state,  until  at  last  God,  by  His  special 
Grace,  and  before  the  Judgment  Day,  had  restored  the  dignity 
of  matrimony  no  less  than  that  of  the  secular  authority  and  the 
preaching  office,  "  through  His  Word  [i.e.  through  Luther's 
preaching]."  The  blame  for  this  state  of  things  went  back  very 

1  Cp.  Denifle,  ibid.,  p.  239  f. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  152  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28,  p.  194.    "  Wyder 
den  falsch  genantten  geystlichen  Standt." 

3  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  14,  p.  157.    4  Ibid.,  24,  p.  123  f.    5  Ibid.,  27,  p.  26. 
6  "  Werke."  Erl.  ed.,  182,  p.  92.  7  Ibid.,  31,  p.  297. 

8  Sermo  343,  n.   7;  Denifle,   I2,  p.    243,  refers  also  to   "  De   bono 
coniugali,"  n.  9,  27,  28. 

9  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  12,  p.  138  f.  :    "  A  married  man  cannot  give 
himself  up  entirely  to  reading  and  prayer,  but  is,  as  St.  Paul  says, 
'  divided  '  and  must  devote  a  great  part  of  his  life  to  pleasing  his 
spouse."     The  Apostle  says  that  though  the  "  troubles  and  cares  of 
the  married  state  are  good,  yet  it  is  far  better  to  be  free  to  pray  and 
attend  to  the  Word  of  God."  — Luther  is  more  silent  concerning  our 
Lord's  own  recommendation  of  virginity  ("  Non  omnes  capiunt  verbum 
istud,   sed  quibus  datum  est,"  etc.,  Mat.  xix.  11  f.).     Of  his  attitude 
towards  voluntary  virginity  we  have  already  spoken  in  vol.  iii.,  246  ff. 


134         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

far,  for  the  Fathers,  like  Jerome,  "  had  seen  in  matrimony  mere 
sensuality,"  and  for  this  reason  had  disparaged  it.1 

The  Prophet  Daniel  had  foreseen  the  degradation  of  marriage 
under  the  Papacy  :  It  is  of  the  Papal  Antichrist  "  that  Daniel 
says  [xi.  37],  that  he  will  wallow  in  the  unnatural  vice  which  is 
the  recompense  due  to  contemners  of  God  (Rom.  i.  [27]),  in  what 
we  call  Italian  weddings  and  silent  sin.  For  matrimony  and 
a  right  love  and  use  of  women  he  shall  not  know.  Such  are 
the  horrible  abominations  prevailing  under  Pope  and  Turk."2 
"  The  same  prophet,"  he  writes  elsewhere,  "  says  that  Anti 
christ  shall  stand  on  two  pillars,  viz.  :  idolatry  and  celibacy. 
The  idol  he  calls  Mausim,  thus  using  the  very  letters  which  form 
the  word  Mass."  The  Pope  had  deluded  people,  on  the  one 
hand  by  the  Mass,  and,  on  the  other,  "  by  celibacy,  or  the  un 
married  state,  fooling  the  whole  world  with  a  semblance  of 
sanctity.  These  are  the  two  pillars  on  which  the  Papacy  rests, 
like  the  house  of  the  Philistines  in  Samson's  time.  If  God  chose 
to  make  Luther  play  the  part  of  Samson,  lay  hold  on  the  pillars 
and  shake  them,  so  that  the  house  fall  on  the  whole  multitude, 
who  could  take  it  ill  ?  He  is  God  and  wonderful  are  His  ways."3 

Luther  appeals  expressly  to  the  Pope's  "  books  "  in  which 
marriage  is  spoken  of  as  a  "sinful  state."4  The  Papists,  when 
they  termed  marriage  a  sacrament,  were  only  speaking  "  out  of  a 
false  heart,"  and  trying  to  conceal  the  fact  that  they  really  looked 
on  it  as  "  fornication."5  "  They  have  turned  all  the  words  and 
acts  of  married  people  into  mortal  sins,  and  I  myself,  when  I  was 
a  monk,  shared  the  same  opinion,  viz.  that  the  married  state  was 
a  damnable  state."6 

This  alone  was  wanting  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  his  falsehoods. 
One  wonders  whether  Luther,  when  putting  forward  statements 
so  incredible,  never  foresaw  that  his  own  earlier  writings  might 
be  examined  and  his  later  statements  challenged  in  their  light  ? 
Certainly  the  contradiction  between  the  two  is  patent.  We  have 
only  to  glance  at  his  explanation  of  the  fourth  and  sixth  Com 
mandments  in  his  work  on  the  Ten  Commandments,  published 
in  1518,  to  learn  from  Luther  himself  what  Catholics  really 
thought  of  marriage,  and  to  be  convinced  that  it  was  anything 
but  despised  ;  there,  as  in  other  of  his  early  writings,  Luther 
indeed  esteems  virginity  above  marriage,  but  to  term  the  latter 
sinful  and  damnable  never  occurred  to  him. 

The  olden  Church  had  painted  an  ideal  picture  of  the 
virgin.  By  this,  though  not  alone  by  this,  she  voiced  her 
respect  for  woman,  from  that  Christian  standpoint  which 
differs  so  much  from  that  of  the  world.  From  the  earliest 

1  "  Werke.,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  178  (Table-Talk). 

2  Ibid.,  64,  p.  155.    From  his  glosses  on  tho  Bible. 

3  Ibid.,  31,  p.  390.    From  the  "  Winckelmesse,"  1534. 

4  Ibid.,  44,  p.  376.  6  Ibid.,  p.  252,  p.  432  ;   cp.  p.  428. 

6  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  6,  p.  283  :  "  Ipse  ego,  cum  essem  adhuc 
monachus,  idem  sapiebam,  coniugium  esse  damnatum  genus  vitce." 


ON  MATRIMONY  135 

times  she,  like  the  Gospel  and  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles, 
set  up  voluntary  virginity  as  a  praiseworthy  state  of  life. 
Hereby  she  awakened  in  the  female  sex  a  noble  emulation 
for  virtue,  in  particular  for  seclusion,  purity  and  morality — 
woman's  finest  ornaments — and  amongst  men  a  high  re 
spect  for  woman,  upon  whom,  even  in  the  wedded  state,  the 
ideal  of  chastity  cast  a  radiance  which  subdued  the  impulse 
of  passion.  Virgin  and  mother  alike  were  recommended  by 
the  Church  to  see  their  model  and  their  guide  in  the  Virgin 
Mother  of  our  Saviour.  Where  true  devotion  to  Mary 
flourished  the  female  sex  possessed  a  guarantee  of  its 
dignity,  from  both  the  religious  and  the  human  point  of 
view,  a  pledge  of  enduring  respect  and  honour. 

How  the  Church  of  olden  days  continued  to  prize  matri 
mony  and  to  view  it  in  the  light  of  a  true  Sacrament  is 
evident  from  the  whole  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Such 
being  its  teaching  it  is  incomprehensible  how  a  well-known 
Protestant  encyclopaedia,  as  late  as  1898,  could  still  venture 
to  say  :  "As  against  the  contempt  for  marriage  displayed 
in  both  religious  and  secular  circles,  and  to  counteract  the 
immorality  to  which  this  had  given  rise,  Luther  vindicated 
the  honour  of  matrimony  and  placed  it  in  an  entirely 
new  light." 

In  those  days  Postils  enjoyed  a  wider  circulation  than  any 
other  popular  works.  The  Postils,  however,  do  not  teach  "  con 
tempt  of  marriage,"  but  quite  the  contrary.  "  The  Mirror  of 
Human  Conduct,"  published  at  Augsburg  in  1476,  indeed  gives 
the  first  place  to  virginity,  but  declares  :  "  Marriage  is  good  and 
holy,"  and  must  not  be  either  despised  or  rejected  ;  those  who 
"  are  mated  in  matrimony  "  must  not  imagine  that  the  maids 
(virgins)  alone  are  God's  elect ;  "  Christ  praises  marriage,  for 
it  is  a  holy  state  of  life  in  which  many  a  man  becomes  holy,  for 
marriage  was  instituted  by  our  Lord  in  Paradise  "  ;  from  Christ's 
presence  at  the  marriage  at  Cana  we  may  infer  that  "  the  married 
life  is  a  holy  life." 

Other  works  containing  the  same  teaching  are  the  "  Evangeli- 
buch,"  e.g.  in  the  Augsburg  edition  of  1487,  the  "  Postils  on  the 
Four  Gospels  throughout  the  year,"  by  Geiler  of  Kaysersberg 
(f  1510),  issued  by  Heinrich  Wessmer  at  Strasburg  in  1522,  and 
the  important  Basle  "  Plenarium  "  of  1514,  in  which  the  author, 
a  monk,  writes  :  "  The  conjugal  state  is  to  be  held  in  high 
respect  on  account  of  the  honour  done  to  it  by  God  "  ;  he  also 
appends  some  excellent  instructions  on  the  duties  of  married 
people,  concluding  with  a  reference  to  the  story  of  Tobias  "  which 
you  will  find  in  the  Bible  "  (which,  accordingly,  he  assumed  was 
open  to  his  readers). 


136          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  "  Marriage-booklets  "  of  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages 
form  a  literary  group  apart.  One  of  the  best  is  "  Ein  niitzlich 
Lehre  und  Predigt,  wie  sich  zwei  Menschen  in  dem  Sacrament 
der  Ehe  halten  sollen,"  which  was  in  existence  in  MS.  as  early  as 
1456.  "  God  Himself  instituted  marriage,"  it  tells  us,  "  when 
He  said,  '  Be  fruitful  and  multiply  !  '  The  Orders,  however, 
were  founded  by  Bernard,  Augustine,  Benedict  and  Dominic  ; 
thus  the  command  of  God  is  greater  than  that  of  the  teacher," 
i.e.  the  Sacrament  excels  all  Rules  made  by  men,  even  by  Saints. 
It  also  gives  a  touching  account  of  how  marriage  is  founded  on 
love  and  sustained  by  it. 1 

Another  matrimonial  handbook,  composed  by  Albert  von  Eyb, 
a  Franconian  cleric,  and  printed  at  Augsburg  in  1472,  lavishes 
praise  on  "  holy,  divine  matrimony  "  without,  however,  neglect 
ing  to  award  still  higher  encomium  to  the  state  of  virginity. 
Erhard  Gross,  the  Nuremberg  Carthusian,  about  the  middle  of 
the  15th  century,  wrote  a  "  Novel  "  containing  good  advice  for 
married  people.2  The  hero,  who  was  at  first  desirous  of  remain 
ing  unmarried,  declares  :  "  You  must  not  think  that  I  condemn 
matrimony,  for  it  is  holy  and  was  established  by  God."3 

Among  the  unprinted  matrimonial  handbooks  dating  from  the 
period  before  Luther's  time,  and  containing  a  like  favourable 
teaching  on  marriage,  are  the  "  Booklet  on  the  Rule  of  Holy 
Matrimony,"4  "  On  the  Sacrament  of  Matrimony,"5  and  the 
excellent  "  Mirror  of  the  Matrimonial  Order,"  by  the  Dominican 
Marcus  von  Weida.6  Fr.  A.  Ebert,  the  Protestant  bibliographer, 
remarks  of  the  latter's  writings  :  "  They  effectually  traverse 
the  charges  with  which  self-complacent  ignorance  loves  to 
overwhelm  the  ages  previous  to  the  Saxon  Reformation,"  and 
what  he  says  applies  particularly  to  the  teaching  on  marriage.7 

To  come  now  to  the  preachers.  We  must  first  mention  Johann 
Herolt,  concerning  whose  influence  a  recent  Protestant  writer 
aptly  remarks,  that  his  "  wisdom  had  been  listened  to  by  thou 
sands."8  The  passage  already  given,  in  which  he  describes 
marriage  as  an  Order  instituted  by  Christ  (p.  129  f.),  is  but  one 
instance  of  his  many  apt  and  beautiful  sayings.  In  the  very  next 
sermon  Herolt  treats  of  the  preparation  which  so  great  a  Sacra 
ment  demands.  In  the  same  way  that  people  prepare  themselves 
for  their  Easter  Communion,  so  they,  bride  and  bridegroom,  must 
prepare  themselves  for  matrimony  by  contrition  and  confession  ; 
for  "  marriage  is  as  much  a  Sacrament  as  the  Eucharist." 

1  And  yet  a  Protestant  has  said  quite  recently  :    "  The  Church  per 
sistently  taught  that  love  had  nothing  to  do   with  marriage."      As 
though  the  restraining  of  sexual  love  within  just  limits  was  equivalent 
to  the  exclusion  of  conjugal  love. 

2  Ed.  Ph.  Strauch,  "  Zeitschr.  fur  deutsches  Altertum."  29,  1885, 
pp.  373-427.  3  P.  385. 

4  Munich  State  Library,  cod.  germ.,  757.  5  Ibid.,  cod.  756. 

6  Heinemann,    "  Die    Handschriften    der    Herzogl.    Bibliothek    zu 
Wolfenbiittel,"  2,  4,  p.  332  f. 

7  "  t)berlieferungen  zur  Gesch.,"  etc.,  1,  2,  p.  204  f. 

8  "N.  kirchl.  Zeitschr.,"  3,  1892,  p.  487. 


ON   MATRIMONY  137 

A  similar  view  prevailed  throughout  Christendom. 

One  of  the  most  popular  of  Italian  preachers  was  Gabriel 
Barletta,  who  died  shortly  after  1480.  Amongst  his  writings 
there  is  a  Lenten  sermon  entitled  :  "  De  amore  conjugali  vel  de 
laudibus  mulierum."  In  this  he  speaks  of  the  "  cordial  love  " 
which  unites  the  married  couple.  He  points  out  that  marriage 
was  instituted  in  Paradise  and  confirmed  anew  by  Christ. 
Explaining  the  meaning  of  the  ring,  he  finds  that  it  signifies  four 
things,  all  of  which  tend  to  render  Christian  marriage  praise 
worthy.  He  declares  that  a  good  wife  may  prove  an  inestimable 
treasure.  If  he  dwells  rather  too  much  on  woman's  physical  and 
mental  inferiority,  this  does  not  prevent  him  from  extolling  the 
strength  of  the  woman  who  is  upheld  by  Christian  virtue,  and  who 
often  succeeds  in  procuring  the  amendment  of  a  godless  husband.1 

Barletta,  in  his  sermons,  frequently  follows  the  example  of  his 
brother  friar,  the  English  Dominican  preacher,  Robert  Holkot 
(f  1349),  whose  works  were  much  in  request  at  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 2  Holkot  had  such  respect  for  Christian  matrimony, 
that  he  applies  to  it  the  words  of  the  Bible  :  "  O  how  beautiful 
is  the  chaste  generation  with  glory  ;  for  the  memory  thereof  is 
immortal."  Since  the  "  actus  matrimonialis  "  was  willed  by 
God,  it  must  be  assumed,  he  says,  that  it  can  be  accomplished 
virtuously  and  with  merit.3  If  the  intention  of  the  married 
couple  is  the  begetting  of  children  for  the  glory  of  God,  they 
perform  an  act  of  the  virtue  of  religion  ;  they  also  exercise  the 
virtue  of  justice  if  they  have. the  intention  of  mutually  fulfilling 
the  conjugal  duties  to  which  they  have  pledged  themselves. 
According  to  him,  mutual  love  is  the  principal  duty  of  the  married 
couple. 4  Franz  Falk  has  dwelt  in  detail  on  the  testimony  borne 
by  the  Late  Middle  Ages  to  the  dignity  of  marriage.8 

1  "  Sermones  Fratris  Barlete,"  Brixie,  1497  and  1498,  several  times 
republished  in  the  16th  century.     See  sermon  for  the  Friday  of  the 
fourth  week  of  Lent. 

2  "  Opus  super  Sapientiam   Salomonis,"  ed.   Hagenau,    1494  (and 
elsewhere),    "  Lectio  "   43   and  44,   on  Marriage.      Cp.   ibid.,    181,   the 
"  Lectio  "  on  the  Valiant  Woman,   and   in   his   work,    "  In  Proverbia 
Salomonis    explanationes,"      Paris,      1510,     "Lectio"     91,    with    the 
explanation  of  Prov.  xii.  4  :    "A  diligent  woman  is  a  crown  to  her 
husband." 

3  Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  declares  :     "  The  work  of  begetting 
children  was  not  distinguished  from  other  sins,  such  as  fornication  and 
adultery.     But  now  we  have  learnt  and  are  assured  by  the  Grace  of 
God  that  marriage  is  honourable."     "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  7,  p.  116. 

4  On  Barletta  and  Holkot,  cp.  N.  Paulus  in  "  Lit.  Beil.  der  Koln. 
Volksztng.,"    1904,  Nos.  19  and  20  ;    and  his  art.,  "  Die  Ehe  in  den 
deutschen    Postillen   des   ausgehenden   MA.,"    and    "  Gedruckte   und 
Ungedruckte  deutsche  Ehebiichlein  des  ausgehenden  MA.,"  ibid.,  1903, 
Nos.  18  and  20.    See  also  F(alk)  in  "  Der  Katholik,"  1906,  2,  p.  317  ff.  : 
"  Ehe  und  Ehestand  im   MA.,"  and  in  the  work  about  to  be  quoted. 
Denifle,  "  Luther,"  1,  has  much  to  say  of  the  Catholic  and  the  Lutheran 
views  of  marriage. 

5  "  Die  Ehe  am  Ausgange  des  MA.,  Eine  Kirchen-  und  kulturhist. 
Studie,"  1908  ("  Erlaut.  und  Erganz.  zu  Janssens  Gesch.  des  d.  Volkes," 
6,  Hft.  4). 


138          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

Commencing  with  the  prayers  of  the  marriage-service  and  the 
blessing  of  the  ring,  the  prayers  for  those  with  child  and  in  child 
bed,  and  for  the  churching  of  women,  he  goes  on  to  deal  with  the 
civil  rights  pertaining  to  the  married  state  and  with  the  Church's 
opinion  as  witnessed  to  in  the  matrimonial  handbooks  and  books 
of  instruction  and  edification.  With  the  respect  for  the  Sacra 
ment  and  the  dignity  of  the  married  woman  there  found  expressed, 
Falk  compares  the  sentiments  likewise  found  in  the  prose 
"  novels  "  and  so-called  "  Volksbucher,"  and,  still  more  practi 
cally  expressed,  in  the  numerous  endowments  and  donations  for 
the  provision  of  bridal  outfits.  "  It  is  quite  incomprehensible," 
such  is  the  author's  conclusion,  "  how  non-Catholic  writers  even 
to  the  present  time  can  have  ventured  to  reproach  the  Church 
with  want  of  regard  for  the  married  state."1  Of  the  information 
concerning  bridal  outfits,  he  says,  for  instance  :  "  The  above 
collection  of  facts,  a  real  '  nubes  testium,'  will  sufficiently  demon 
strate  what  a  task  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages  here  fulfilled 
towards  her  servants  and  children.  .  .  .  Many  other  such  founda 
tions  may,  moreover,  have  escaped  our  notice  owing  to  absence 
of  the  deeds  which  have  either  not  been  printed  or  have  perished. 
From  the  16th  century  onwards  records  of  such  foundations 
become  scarce."2 

In  the  "  Internationale  Wochenschrift  "  Heinrich  Finke 
pointed  out  that  he  had  examined  hundreds  of  Late-mediseval 
sermons  on  the  position  of  women,  with  the  result,  that  "it  is 
impossible  to  discover  in  them  any  contempt  for  woman."3  The 
fact  is,  that  "  there  exist  countless  statements  of  the  sanctity  of 
marriage  and  its  sacramental  character  .  .  .  statements  drawn 
from  theologians  of  the  highest  standing,  Fathers,  Saints  and 
Doctors  of  the  Church.  Indeed,  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  they  grow  still  more  numerous.  The  most  popular  of  the 
monks,  whether  Franciscans  or  Dominicans,  have  left  us  matri 
monial  handbooks  which  imply  the  existence  of  that  simple, 
happy  family  life  they  depict  and  encourage."4  Finke  recalls  the 
15th-century  theologian,  Raymond  of  Sabunde,  who  points  out 
how  union  with  God  in  love  may  be  reproduced  in  marriage. 
Countless  theologians  are  at  one  with  him  here,  and  follow 
Scripture  in  representing  the  union  of  Christ  with  the  Church 
as  an  exalted  figure  of  the  marriage-bond  between  man  and 
wife  (Eph.  v.  25,  32).  Of  the  respect  which  the  ancient  Church 
exhibited  towards  women  Finke  declares  :  "  Never  has  the 
praise  of  women  been  sung  more  loudly  than  in  the  sermons  of 
the  Fathers  and  in  the  theological  tractates  of  the  Schoolmen." 
Here  "  one  picture  follows  another,  each  more  dazzling  than  the 
last."5  Certainly  we  must  admit,  as  he  does,  that  it  is  for  the 
most  part  the  ideal  of  virginity  which  inspires  them,  and  that  it 

1  "  Die  Ehe  am  Ausgange  des  MA.,  Eine  Kirchen-  und  kulturhist. 
Studie,"  1908  ("  Erlaut.  und  Erganz.  zu  Janssens  Gesch.  des  d.  Volkes," 
6,  Hft.  4),  p.  67.  2  Ibid.,  p.  66. 

3   "  Die  Stellung  der  Frau  im  MA.,"  Oct.  1  and  8,  1910,  p.  1253. 

«  Ibid.,  p.  1299.  5  Ibid.,  p.  1248. 


ON  MATRIMONY  139 

is  the  good,  chaste,  virtuous  wife  and  widow  whom  they  extol, 
rather  than  woman  qua  woman,  as  a  noble  part  of  God's 
creation.  Their  vocation  as  spiritual  teachers  naturally  explains 
this  ;  and  if,  for  the  same  cause,  they  seem  to  be  very  severe  in 
their  strictures  on  feminine  faults,  or  to  strike  harsh  notes  in 
their  warnings  on  the  spiritual  dangers  of  too  free  intercourse 
with  the  female  sex,  this  must  not  be  looked  upon  as  "  hatred  of 
women,"  as  has  been  done  erroneously  on  the  strength  of  some 
such  passages  in  the  case  of  St.  Antoninus  of  Florence  and 
Cardinal  Dominici.1 

"  Just  as  Church  and  Councils  energetically  took  the  side  of 
marriage  "  when  it  was  decried  in  certain  circles,2  so  the  accusa 
tion  of  recent  times  that,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  woman  was  univer 
sally  looked  upon  with  contempt,  cannot  stand  ;  according  to 
Finke  this  was  not  the  case,  even  in  "  ascetical  circles,"  and 
"  still  less  elsewhere."3  The  author  adduces  facts  which  "  utterly 
disprove  any  such  general  disdain  for  woman."4 

The  splendid  Scriptural  eulogy  with  which  the  Church  so 
frequently  honours  women  in  her  liturgy,  might,  one  would 
think,  be  in  itself  sufficient.  To  the  married  woman  who  fulfils 
her  duties  in  the  home  out  of  true  love  for  God,  and  with  zeal  and 
assiduity,  the  Church,  in  the  Mass  appointed  for  the  Feasts  of 

1  Cp.  F.  Schaub,  "  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  26,  1905,  p.  117  ff.,  on  H.  Crohns, 
who,  in  order  to  accuse  St.  Antoninus  and  others  of  "  hatred  of  women," 
appeals  to  the  "  Witches'  Hammer  "  :    "  It  is  unjust  to  make  these 
authors  responsible  for  the  consequences  drawn  from  their  utterances 
by  such  petty  fry  as  the  producers  of  the  '  Witches'  Hammer.'  "     Cp. 
Paulus,  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  134,  1904,  particularly  p.  812  ff. 

2  Finke,  ibid.,  p.  1249.  3  Ibid.,  p.  1256. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  1258. — Finke's  statements  may  be  completed  by  the 
assurance  that  full  justice  was  done  to  marriage  by  both  theologians 
and  liturgical  books,  and  that  not  merely  "  traces  "  but  the  clearest 
proofs  exist,  that  "  mutual  help  "  was  placed  in  the  foreground  as  the 
aim  of  marriage.  Details  on  this  point  are  contained  in  Denifle's 
"  Luther  und  Luthertum,"  I2,  p.  254  ff.  The  following  remark  by  a 
writer,  so  deeply  versed  in  mediaeval  Scholasticism,  is  worthy  of  note  : 
"  There  is  not  a  single  Schoolman  of  any  standing,  who,  on  this  point 
[esteem  for  marriage  in  the  higher  sense],  is  at  variance  with  Hugo  of 
St.  Victor,  the  Lombard,  or  ecclesiastical  tradition  generally.  Though 
there  may  be  differences  in  minor  points,  yet  all  are  agreed  concerning 
the  lawfulness,  goodness,  dignity  and  holiness  of  marriage  "  (p.  261). 
"  It  is  absolutely  ludicrous,  nay,  borders  on  imbecility,"  he  says  (ibid.) 
with  characteristic  indignation,  "  that  Luther  should  think  it  neces 
sary  to  tell  the  Papists  that  Adam  and  Eve  were  united  according  to 
the  ordinance  and  institution  of  God  "  ("  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  4,  p.  70). 
He  laments  that  Luther's  assertions  concerning  the  contempt  of 
Catholics  for  marriage  should  have  left  their  trace  in  the  Symbolic 
Books  of  Protestantism  ("Confess.  August.,"  art.  16,  "Symb.  Biicher  10," 
ed.  Miiller-Kolde,  p.  42),  and  exclaims  :  "  Surely  it  is  time  for  such 
rubbish  to  be  too  much  even  for  Protestants."  Jos.  Lohr  ("  Method- 
isch-kritische  Beitr.  zur  Gesch.  der  Sittlichkeit  des  Klerus,  bes.  der 
Erzdiozese  K6ln  am  Ausgang  des  MA.,"  1911,  "  Reformations- 
geschichtl.  Studien  und  Texte,"  Hft.  17,  pp.  77-84)  has  dealt  with 
the  same  matter,  but  in  a  more  peaceful  tone. 


140         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Holy  Women,  applies  the  words  of  Proverbs  i1  "  The  price  of  the 
valiant  woman  is  as  of  things  brought  from  afar  and  from  the 
uttermost  coasts.  The  heart  of  her  husband  trusteth  in  her  .  .  . 
she  will  render  him  good  and  not  evil  all  the  days  of  her  life. 
She  hath  sought  wool  and  flax  and  hath  wrought  by  the  counsel 
of  her  hands.  .  .  .  Her  husband  is  honourable  in  the  gates  when 
he  sitteth  among  the  senators  of  the  land.  .  .  .  Strength  and 
beauty  are  her  clothing,  and  she  shall  laugh  in  the  latter  day.  She 
hath  opened  her  mouth  to  wisdom.  .  .  .  Her  children  rose  up 
and  called  her  blessed,  her  husband,  and  he  praised  her.  .  .  .  The 
woman  that  feareth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be  praised." — Else 
where  the  liturgy  quotes  the  Psalmist  :2  "  Grace  is  poured 
abroad  from  thy  lips,"  "  With  thy  comeliness  and  thy  beauty 
set  out,  proceed  prosperously  and  reign.  .  .  .  Therefore  God, 
thy  God,  hath  anointed  thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  thy 
fellows." 

It  cannot  be  objected  that  the  ordinary  woman,  in  the  exercise 
of  her  household  duties  and  of  a  humbler  type  of  virtue,  had  no 
part  in  this  praise.  On  the  contrary,  in  honouring  these  Saints 
the  Church  was  at  the  same  time  honouring  all  women  who  had 
not,  by  their  misconduct,  rendered  themselves  unworthy  of 
the  name.  To  all,  whatever  their  rank  or  station,  the  high 
standard  of  the  Saints  was  displayed,  and  all  were  invited  to 
follow  their  example  and  promised  their  intercession.  At  the 
foot  of  the  altar  all  were  united,  for  their  mother,  the  Church, 
showed  to  all  the  same  consideration  and  helpful  love.  The 
honours  bestowed  upon  the  heroines  of  the  married  state  had  its 
influence  on  their  living  sisters,  just  as  the  Church's  "  undying 
respect  for  virginity  was  calculated  to  exercise  a  wholesome 
effect  on  those  bound  by  the  marriage  tie,  or  about  to  be  so 
bound."3 

In  Luther's  own  case  we  have  an  instance  in  the  devotion 
he  showed  in  his  youth  to  St.  Anne,  who  was  greatly  venerated 
by  both  men  and  women  in  late  mediaeval  times.  The  vow  he 
had  made  to  enter  the  cloister  he  placed  in  the  hands  of  this 
Saint.  The  liturgical  praise  to  which  we  have  just  listened,  and 
which  is  bestowed  on  her  in  common  with  other  holy  spouses, 
he  repeated  frequently  enough  as  a  monk,  when  saying  Mass, 
and  the  words  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  praise  of  the  true  love  of  the 
faithful  helpmate  he  ever  treasured  in  his  memory.4 

1  Prov.  xxxi.  10  f.  :    "  Mulierem  fortcm  quis  inveniet  ?  "  etc.      The 
Lesson  of  the  Mass  De  communi  nee  virginum  nee  martyrum. 
-  The  Gradual  of  the  same  Mass,  taken  from  Psalm  xliv. 

3  Falk,  op.  cit.,  p.  71. 

4  Cp.  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  207  (Table-Talk).    In  his  translation 
of  the  Bible  Luther  quotes  the  German  verse  :    ''  Nought  so  dear  on 
earth  as  the  love  of  woman  to  the  man  who  shares  it "  ("  Werke,"  Erl. 
ed.,  64,  p.  113),  in  connection  with  Proverbs  xxxi.  10  ff.  ("Mulierem 
fortem,"  etc.).     In  the  Table-Talk  he  quotes  the  same  when  speaking 
of  those  who  are  unfaithful  to  their  marriage  vow  in  not  praying  : 
"  People  do  not  pray.     Therefore  my  hostess  at  Eisenach  [Ursula, 
Cunz  Cotta's  wife,  see  vol.  i.,  p.  5  f.,  and  vol.  hi.,  p.  288  f.]  was  right  in 


ON  MATRIMONY  141 

How  well  Luther  succeeded  in  establishing  the  fable  of  the 
scorn  in  which  the  married  state  was  held  in  the  Middle  Ages  is 
evident  from  several  recent  utterances  of  learned  Protestants. 

One  Church  historian  goes  so  far,  in  his  vindication  of  the 
Reformer's  statements  concerning  the  mediaeval  "  contempt 
felt  for  womankind,"  as  actually  to  lay  the  blame  for  Luther's 
sanction  of  polygamy  on  the  low,  "  mediaeval  view  of  the  nature 
of  matrimony."  Another  theologian,  a  conservative,  fancies 
that  he  can,  even  to-day,  detect  among  "  Romanists  "  the 
results  of  the  mediaeval  undervaluing  of  marriage.  According 
to  Catholics  "  marriage  is  not  indeed  forbidden  to  everyone — 
for  otherwise  where  would  the  Church  find  new  children  ? — but 
nevertheless  is  looked  at  askance  as  a  necessary  evil."  Perfection 
in  Catholic  theory  consists  in  absolute  ignorance  of  all  that 
concerns  marriage.  One  scholar  declares  the  Church  before 
Luther's  day  had  taught,  that  "  marriage  had  nothing  to  do 
with  love  "  ;  "of  the  ethical  task  [of  marriage]  and  of  love  not  a 
trace  is  to  be  found  "  in  the  teaching  of  the  Middle  Ages.  An 
eminent  worker  in  the  field  of  the  history  of  dogma  also  declares, 
in  a  recent  edition  of  his  work,  that,  before  Luther's  day,  marriage 
had  been  "  a  sort  of  concession  to  the  weak  "  ;  thanks  only  to 
Luther,  was  it  "  freed  from  all  ecclesiastical  tutelage  to  become 
the  union  of  the  sexes,  as  instituted  by  God  [his  italics],  and  the 
school  of  highest  morality."  Such  assertions,  only  too  commonly 
met  with,  are  merely  the  outcome  of  the  false  ideas  disseminated 
by  Luther  himself  concerning  the  Church  of  olden  days.  The 
author  of  the  fable  that  woman  and  marriage  were  disdained  in 
the  Middle  Ages  scored  a  success,  of  which,  could  he  have  fore 
seen  it,  he  would  doubtless  have  been  proud. 

Two  publications  by  Professors  of  the  University  of  Witten 
berg  have  been  taken  as  clear  proof  of  how  low  an  opinion  the 
Catholic  Middle  Ages  had  of  woman  and  marriage.  Of  these 
publications  one,  however,  a  skit  on  the  devil  in  Andr.  Mein- 
hardi's  Latin  Dialogues  of  1508 — which,  of  the  two,  would,  in 
this  respect,  be  the  most  incriminating — has  absolutely  nothing 
to  do  with  the  mediaeval  Church's  views  on  marriage,  but  simply 
reproduces  those  of  the  Italian  Humanists,  though  revealing  that 
their  influence  extended  even  as  far  as  Germany.  It  tells  how 
even  the  devil  himself  was  unable  to  put  up  with  matrimony  ; 
since  the  difficulties  of  this  state  are  so  great,  one  of  the  speakers 
makes  up  his  mind  "  never  to  marry,  so  as  to  be  the  better  able 
to  devote  himself  to  study."  Despite  this  the  author  of  the 
Dialogue  entered  the  married  state.  The  other  publication  is  a 
discourse,  in  1508,  by  Christopher  Scheurl,  containing  a  frivolous 
witticism  at  the  expense  of  women,  likewise  due  to  Italian 
influence.  This,  however,  did  not  prevent  Scheurl,  too,  from 

saying  to  me  when  I  went  to  school  there  :  '  There  is  no  dearer  thing 
on  earth  than  the  love  of  woman  to  the  man  on  whom  it  is  bestowed  '  " 
("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  212).  Luther's  introduction  of  the  phrase 
in  connection  with  the  passage  on  the  "  Mulier  fortis  "  was  an  injustice, 
and  an  attempt  to  prove  again  the  alleged  contempt  of  Catholicism  for 
the  love  of  woman. 


142          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

marrying.1  The  truth  is  that  the  Italian  Humanists'  "  favourite 
subjects  are  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  treated  with  the 
crudest  realism,  and,  in  connection  with  this,  attacks  on  marriage 
and  the  family."2  At  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
individual  writers,  men  influenced  by  anti-clerical  Humanism,  or 
ascetical  theologians  knowing  nothing  of  the  world,  did  some 
times  speak  of  marriage  in  a  manner  scarcely  fair  to  woman  and 
did  occasionally  unduly  exalt  the  state  of  celibacy. 

Against  such  assertions  some  of  Luther's  finest  sayings  on 
woman's  dignity  deserve  to  be  pitted. 

Luther's  Discordant  Utterances  on  the  Value  of  Marriage  in 
his  Sermons  and  Writings. 

Any  objective  examination  of  Luther's  attitude  towards 
woman  and  marriage  must  reveal  the  fact,  that  he  frequently 
seeks  to  invest  Christian  marriage,  as  he  conceived  it,  with  a 
religious  character  and  a  spiritual  dignity.  This  he  does  in 
language  witty  and  sympathetic,  representing  it  as  a  close 
bond  of  love,  though  devoid  of  any  sacramental  character. 
Nor  does  he  hesitate  to  use  the  noble  imagery  of  the  Church 
when  describing  his  substitute  for  the  Christian  marriage 
of  the  past. 

"  It  is  no  small  honour  for  the  married  state,"  he  says  in  a 
sermon  of  1536,  "  that  God  should  represent  it  under  the 
type  and  figure  of  the  unspeakable  grace  and  love  which  He 
manifests  and  bestows  on  us  in  Christ,  and  as  the  surest 
and  most  gracious  sign  of  the  intimate  union  between  Himself 
and  Christendom  and  all  its  members,  a  union  than  which 
nothing  more  intimate  can  be  imagined."3 

In  another  sermon  he  praises  the  edification  provided  in  the 
married  state,  when  "  man  and  wife  are  united  in  love  and  serve 
each  other  faithfully  "  ;  Luther  invites  them  to  thank  God 
"  that  the  married  state  is  profitable  alike  to  body,  property, 
honour  and  salvation."  "  What,  however,  is  best  of  all  in 
married  life,"  so  he  insists,  "  for  the  sake  of  which  everything 
must  be  suffered  and  endured,  is  that  God  may  give  offspring 
and  command  us  to  train  it  in  His  service.  This  is  earth's 
noblest  and  most  priceless  work,  because  God  loves  nothing  so 
well  as  to  save  souls."4 

1  N.  Paulus,  "  Zur  angeblichen  Geringschatzung  der  Frau  und  der 
Ehe  im  MA.,"  in  the  "Wissensch.  Beil.  zur  Germania,"  1904,  Nos.  10 
and  12. 

2  Pastor,  "  Hist,  of  the  Popes  "  (Eng.  Trans.),  5,  p.  119. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  19Z,  p.  246  f.          *  Ibid.,  162,  p.  536  ff. 


ON   MATRIMONY  143 

Such  exhortations  of  Luther's,  apart  from  peculiarities  of 
expression,  differ  from  those  of  earlier  writers  only  in  that  those 
authors,  relying  on  the  traditional,  sacramental  conception  of  the 
matrimonial  union,  had  an  even  greater  right  to  eulogise  marriage 
and  the  blessing  of  children. 

Catholic  preachers  might  quite  profitably  have  made  use  of 
the  greater  part  of  a  wedding  discourse  delivered  by  Luther  in 
1531, J  though  they  might  have  failed  to  emulate  the  force  and 
emphasis  with  which  it  was  uttered.  His  theme  there  is  "  that 
marriage  is  to  be  held  in  honour  "  ;  he  quotes  Hebr.  xiii.  4, 
"  Marriage  is  honourable  in  all,  and  the  bed  undefiled  "  ;  he 
continues  :  "  It  is  true  that  our  flesh  is  full  of  evil  lusts  which 
entice  us  to  sin,  but  to  these  we  must  not  consent  ;  if,  however, 
you  hold  fast  to  the  Word  of  God  and  see  to  it,  that  this  state 
is  blessed  and  adorned,  this  will  preserve  and  comfort  you,  and 
make  of  it  a  holy  state  for  you." 2  It  was  necessary,  he  continues, 
not  merely  to  fight  against  any  sensual  lusts  outside  of  the 
marriage  bond,  but  also  to  cultivate  virtue.  Conjugal  fidelity 
must  be  preserved  all  the  more  carefully  since  "  Satan  is  your 
enemy  and  your  flesh  wanton."  "  Fornication  and  adultery  are 
the  real  stains  which  defile  the  marriage  bed."  "  Married 
persons  are  embraced  in  the  Word  of  God."  This  they  must  take 
as  their  guide,  otherwise  (here  Luther's  language  ceases  to  be  a 
pattern)  "  the  bed  is  soiled,  and,  practically,  they  might  as  well 
have  passed  their  motions  in  it."3 

Such  an  emphasising  of  the  religious  side  of  matrimony  almost 
gives  the  impression,  that  Luther  was  following  an  interior 
impulse  which  urged  him  to  counteract  the  effects  of  certain 
other  statements  of  his  on  marriage.  Doubtless  he  felt  the  con 
trast  between  his  worldly  view  of  matrimony  and  the  higher 
standard  of  antiquity,  though  he  would  certainly  have  refused 
to  admit  that  he  was  behindhand  in  the  struggle  against  sensu 
ality.  In  view  of  the  sad  moral  consequences  which  were  bearing 
witness  against  him,  he  was  disposed  to  welcome  an  opportunity 
to  give  expression  to  such  sentiments  as  those  just  described, 
which  tended  to  justify  him  both  to  his  listeners  and  to  himself. 
Nor  were  such  sentiments  mere  hypocrisy  ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
have  their  psychological  place  as  a  true  component  part  of  his 
picture.  On  one  occasion  Luther  bewails  the  want  of  attention 
paid  to  his  excellent  doctrines  :  "  The  teachers  are  there,  but 
the  doers  are  nowhere  to  be  found  ;  as  with  the  other  points  of 
our  doctrine,  there  are  but  few  who  obey  or  heed  us."4 

Not  infrequently,  however,  instead  of  praising  the  dignity 
of  woman  and  the  purity  of  married  life,  Luther  speaks  in 
a  far  from  respectful,  nay,  offensive  manner  of  woman, 
though  without  perhaps  meaning  all  that  his  words  would 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  1,  p.  51  ff. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  58.  3  Ibid.,  pp.  66,  68. 

4  Ibid.,  30,  3,  p.  278  ;    Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  6.     "  Warnunge  an  seine 
lieben  Deudschen,"  1531. 


144          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

seem  to  convey.  He  thereby  exposes  woman,  in  her 
relations  with  man,  to  the  danger  of  contempt,  and  thus 
forfeits  the  right  of  posing  as  the  defender  of  feminine 
dignity  and  of  the  married  state  against  alleged  detractors 
among  the  Catholics.  His  false  aspersions  on  former  days 
thus  stand  out  in  a  still  more  unpleasant  light. 

In  a  sermon  of  1524,  where  it  is  true  he  has  some  fine 
words  on  the  indulgent  treatment  to  be  meted  out  to  the 
wife,  he  says  :  St.  Peter  calls  woman  the  "  weaker  vessel  " 
(1  Peter  iii.  7)  ;  he  "  had  given  faint  praise  to  woman,"  for 
"  woman's  body  is  not  strong  and  her  spirit,  as  a  general  rule, 
is  even  weaker  ;  whether  she  is  wild  or  mild  depends  on 
God's  choice  of  man's  helpmate.  Woman  is  half  a  child  ; 
whoever  takes  a  wife  must  look  upon  himself  as  the  guardian 
of  a  child.  .  .  .  She  is  also  a  crazy  beast.  Recognise  her  weak 
ness.  If  she  does  not  always  follow  the  straight  path,  bear 
with  her  frailty.  A  woman  will  ever  remain  a  woman. 
.  .  .  But  the  married  state  is  nevertheless  the  best,  because 
God  is  there  with  His  Word  and  Work  and  Cross."1 

With  those  who  complain  of  the  sufferings  of  the  mother 
in  pregnancy  and  childbirth  he  is  very  angry,  and,  in  one 
sermon,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  :  "  Even  though  they  grow 
weary  and  wear  themselves  out  with  child-bearing,  that  is 
of  no  consequence  ;  let  them  go  on  bearing  children  till  they 
die,  that  is  what  they  are  there  for."2 

His  description  of  marriage  "as  an  outward,  material 
thing,  like  any  other  worldly  business,3  was  certainly  not 
calculated  to  raise  its  repute  ;  and  in  the  same  passage  he 
proceeds  :  "  Just  as  I  may  eat  and  drink,  sleep  and  walk, 
ride,  talk  and  do  business  with  a  heathen  or  a  Jew,  a  Turk 
or  a  heretic,  so  also  I  may  contract  marriage  with  him."4 

Matrimonial  cases  had  formerly  belonged  to  the  ecclesi 
astical  courts,  but  Luther  now  drives  the  parties  concerned 
to  the  secular  judge,  telling  them  that  he  will  give  them  "  a 
good  hog,"  i.e.  a  sound  trouncing,  for  having  sought  to 
"  involve  and  entangle  him  in  such  matters  "  which  "  really 
concerned  the  secular  authority."5  "Marriage  questions," 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  420. 

2  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  538. 

3  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  283  ;   Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  519.    Cp.  present 
work,  vol.  iii.,  p.  263  and  p.  241  ff. 

*  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  205  (Table-Talk). 

5  Cp.  the  passages  in  the  Table-Talk  on  marriage  and  on  women, 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  pp.  182-213,  and  57,  pp.  270-273. 


ON   MATRIMONY  145 

he  says,  "  do  not  touch  the  conscience,  but  come  within  the 
province  of  the  secular  judge."1  Previously,  parties  whose 
rights  had  been  infringed  were  able  to  seek  redress  from 
the  ecclesiastical  tribunals,  the  sentences  of  which  were 
enforced  by  Canon  Law  under  spiritual  penalties,  to  the 
advantage  of  the  injured  party.  Luther,  on  the  other  hand, 
after  having  secularised  marriage,  finds  himself  unable  to 
cope  with  the  flood  of  people  clamouring  for  justice  :  "I  am 
tired  of  them  [the  matrimonial  squabbles]  and  I  have  thrown 
them  overboard  ;  let  them  do  as  they  like  in  the  name  of 
all  the  devils."2  He  is  also  determined  to  rid  the  preachers 
of  this  business  ;  the  injured  parties  are,  he  says,  to  seek 
for  justice  and  protection  "  in  the  latrines  of  the  lawyers  "  ; 
his  own  conduct,  he  hopes,  will  serve  as  a  model  to  the 
preachers,  who  will  now  repel  all  who  solicit  their  help.3 

The  increase  in  the  number  of  matrimonial  misunder 
standings  and  quarrels,  the  haste  with  which  marriage  was 
entered  upon  and  then  dissolved,  particularly  in  the  Saxon 
Electorate  and  at  Wittenberg,  was  not  merely  the  result 
of  the  new  Evangelical  freedom,  as  Luther  and  his  friends 
sadly  admitted,  but  was  due  above  all  to  the  altered 
views  on  marriage.  In  the  new  preaching  on  marriage  the 
gratification  of  the  sensual  impulse  was,  as  will  be  shown 
below,  placed  too  much  in  the  foreground,  owing  partly  to 
the  fanatical  reaction  against  clerical  celibacy  and  religious 
vows.  "  To  marry  is  a  remedy  for  fornication  "  ;  these 
words  of  Luther's  were  again  and  again  repeated  by  him 
self  and  others  in  one  form  or  another,  as  though  they 
characterised  the  main  object  of  marriage.  Nature  was 
persistently  painted  as  excessively  weak  in  the  matter  of 
chastity,  and  as  quite  captive  under  the  yoke  of  passion. 
People  were  indeed  admonished  to  curb  their  passions  with 
the  help  of  Grace,  but  such  means  of  acquiring  God's  Grace 
as  mortification  and  self-conquest  were  only  too  frequently 
scoffed  at  as  mere  holiness-by-works,  while  as  for  the  means 
of  grace  sought  by  Catholics  in  the  Sacraments,  they  had 
simply  been  "  abolished." 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  205. 

2  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  25.    Cp.  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch," 
p.  121  ;    "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  421  ;    2,  p.  368.     Cp.  Kostlin- 
Kawerau,  2,  p.  440. 

3  "  Briefwechsel,"   10,  p.  266  :    "  reicio  .  .  .  ubi  possum."     There 
are,  however,  some  instances  of  sympathy  and  help  being  forthcoming. 

IV.— L 


146          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

By  his  patronage  of  polygamy,  forced  on  him  by  his 
wrong  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  Luther  put  the  crowning 
touch  on  his  contempt  for  Christian  marriage.1  This  was  to 
relinquish  the  position  of  privilege  in  which  Christianity 
had  established  marriage,  when,  following  the  Creator's 
intention,  it  insisted  on  monogamy. 

Birth  of  the  New  Views  on  Marriage  during  the  Controversy 
on  the  VO~M  of  Chastity. 

How  did  Luther  reach  his  opinion  and  succeed  in  endow 
ing  it  with  credibility  and  life  ?  A  glance  at  its  birth  and 
growth  will  give  us  an  instructive  insight  into  Luther's 
manner  of  proceeding. 

He  had  already  long  been  engaged  in  his  struggle  with 
"  Popish  abuses  "  and  had  already  set  up  all  the  essential 
points  of  his  new  theology,  before  becoming  in  the  least  con 
scious  of  the  supposed  contempt  in  which  marriage  was  held  by 
the  Roman  Church.  In  his  exposition  of  the  Ten  Command 
ments,  in  1518,  he  still  speaks  of  it  in  the  respectful  language 
of  his  earlier  years  ;  in  his  sermon  on  the  Married  State,  in 
1519,  he  still  terms  it  a  Sacrament,  without  hinting  in  any 
way  that  it  had  hitherto  been  considered  disreputable. 
Whether  he  uses  the  term  Sacrament  in  its  traditional 
meaning  we  do  not,  of  course,  know.  At  any  rate,  he  says  : 
"  Matrimony  is  a  Sacrament,  an  outward,  holy  sign  of  the 
greatest,  most  sacred,  worthy  and  exalted  thing  that  ever 
has  been,  or  ever  will  be,  viz.  of  the  union  of  the  Divine  and 
human  nature  in  Christ."2  Enumerating  the  spiritual 
advantages  of  marriage,  which  counteract  the  "  sinful  lusts 
therewith  intermingled,"  he  expressly  appeals  to  the 
"  Doctors  "  of  the  Church,  and  the  three  benefits  they 
perceived  in  matrimony  ;  "  first,  marriage  is  a  Sacrament," 
"  secondly,  it  is  a  bond  of  fidelity,"  "  thirdly,  it  brings 
offspring,  which  is  the  end  and  principal  office  of  marriage  "  ; 
a  further  benefit  must  be  added,  viz.  the  "  training  of  the 
offspring  in  the  service  of  God."3 

In  his  book  "  On  the  Babylonish  Captivity  "  (1520)  he 
has  already  arrived  at  the  explicit  denial  to  marriage  of  the 
name  and  character  of  a  sacrament. 

1  See  above,  pp.  3  ff.,  13  &.,  and  vol.  iii.,  259  ff. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.   168  ;    Erl.  ed.,  242,  p.  63.     Second 
edition  of  the  Sermon.  3  Ibid.,  p.  168  f.  =  63  f. 


ON  MATRIMONY  147 

But  it  was  only  in  the  war  he  waged  against  his  own  vow 
of  chastity  that  the  idea  arose  in  his  mind,  and  even  then 
only  gradually,  that  the  true  value  and  excellence  of 
marriage  had  never  hitherto  been  recognised.  The  more  he 
sought  for  theological  grounds  on  which  to  prove  the 
worthlessness  of  religious  celibacy  and  the  nullity  of  the 
vow  of  chastity,  the  more  deeply  he  persuaded  himself  that 
proofs  existed  in  abundance  of  the  utter  perversity  of  the 
prevailing  opinions  on  matrimony.  He  began  to  impute  to 
the  Church  extravagant  views  on  virginity,  of  which  neither 
he  nor  anyone  else  had  ever  thought.  He  now  accused  her 
of  teaching  the  following  :  That  virginity  was  the  only 
state  in  which  God  could  be  served  perfectly ;  that 
marriage  was  forbidden  to  the  clergy  because  it  was  dis 
reputable  and  a  thing  soiled  with  sin ;  finally,  that  family 
life  with  its  petty  tasks  must  be  regarded  as  something 
degrading,  while  woman  herself,  to  whom  the  chief 
share  in  these  tasks  belongs  and  who,  moreover,  so 
often  tempts  man  to  sins  of  incontinence,  is  a  contemptible 
creature. 

All  these  untruths  concerning  the  ancient  Church  were 
purely  the  outcome  of  Luther's  personal  polemics. 

His  system  of  attack  exhibits  no  trace  of  any  dispassion 
ate  examination  of  the  testimonies  of  antiquity.  But  his 
false  and  revolting  charges  seemed  some  sort  of  justification 
for  his  attack  on  religious  vows  and  clerical  celibacy. 
From  such  theoretical  charges  there  was  but  a  step  to 
charges  of  a  more  practical  character  and  to  his  boundless 
exaggerations  concerning  the  hideous  vices  supposed  to  have 
been  engendered  by  the  perversion  of  the  divinely  appointed 
order,  and  to  have  devastated  the  Church  as  a  chastisement 
for  her  contempt  for  marriage. 

In  the  second  edition  of  the  sermon  of  1519  on  the  Married 
State  he  places  virginity  on  at  least  an  equal  footing  with 
matrimony.  Towards  the  end  of  the  sermon  he  (like  the 
earlier  writers)  calls  matrimony  "  a  noble,  exalted  and 
blessed  state  "  if  rightly  observed,  but  otherwise  "  a 
wretched,  fearful  and  dangerous  "  one ;  he  proceeds  : 
Whoever  bears  this  in  mind  "  will  know  Avhat  to  think  of  the 
sting  of  the  flesh,  and,  possibly,  will  be  as  ready  to  accept 
the  virginal  state  as  the  conjugal."1  Even  during  his 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  170;    Erl.  ed.,  24 2,  p.  66. 


148          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Wartburg  days,  when  under  the  influence  of  the  burning 
spirit  of  revolt,  and  already  straining  at  the  vows  which 
bound  him,  he  still  declared  in  the  theses  he  sent  Melanch- 
thon,  that  "  Marriage  is  good,  but  virginity  better " 
("  Bonum  coniugium,  melior  virginitas"),1  a  thesis,  which, 
like  St.  Paul,  he  bases  mainly  on  the  immunity  from 
worldly  cares.  This  idea  impressed  Melanchthon  so  deeply, 
that  he  re-echoes  it  in  his  praise  of  virginity  in  the  "  Apology 
for  the  Confession  of  Augsburg "  :  "  We  do  not  make 
virginity  and  marriage  equal.  For,  as  one  gift  is  better  than 
another,  prophecy  better  than  eloquence,  strategy  better 
than  agriculture,  eloquence  better  than  architecture,  so 
virginity  is  a  gift  excelling  marriage."2 

But  this  great  gift,  to  Luther's  mind,  was  a  moral  im 
possibility,  the  rarest  of  God's  Graces,  nay,  a  "  miracle  "  of 
the  Almighty.  Hence  he  teaches  that  such  a  privilege  must 
not  be  laid  claim  to,  that  the  monastic  vow  of  chastity  was 
therefore  utterly  immoral,  and  clerical  celibacy  too,  to  say 
nothing  of  private  vows  of  virginity  ;  in  all  such  there 
lurked  a  presumptuous  demand  for  the  rarest  and  most 
marvellous  of  Divine  Graces ;  even  to  pray  for  this  was  not 
allowed. 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  theses  for  Melanchthon,  Luther 
enforces  what  he  had  said  by  the  vilest  calumnies  against 
all  who,  in  the  name  of  the  Church,  had  pledged  themselves 
to  remain  unmarried.  Were  it  known  what  manner  of  persons 
those  who  profess  such  great  chastity  really  are,  their 
"  greatly  extolled  chastity  "  would  not  be  considered  fit 
"  for  a  prostitute  to  wipe  her  boots  on." 

Then  follow  his  further  unhappy  outbursts  at  the  Wart- 
burg  on  religious  vows  (vol.  ii.,  p.  83  ff.)  consummating  his 
perversion  of  the  Church's  teaching  and  practice  regarding 
celibacy  and  marriage.  In  marriage  he  sees  from  that  time 
forward  nothing  by  the  gratification  of  the  natural  im 
pulse  ;  to  it  every  man  must  have  recourse  unless  he 
enjoys  the  extraordinary  grace  of  God  ;  the  ancient  Church, 
with  her  hatred  of  marriage,  her  professed  religious  and 
celibate  clergy,  assumes  in  his  imagination  the  most 
execrable  shape.  He  fancies  that,  thanks  to  his  new  notions, 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  330  f.  ;   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  4,  p.  353  seq. 
"  ludicium  de  votis  monasticis."    Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  248. 

2  "  Apol.  Conf.  Augustanae,"  c.  23,  n.  38  ;    Bekenntnisschriften,  10, 
p.  242  :    "  Ita  virginitas  donum  est  prcestantius  coniugio" 


ON  MATRIMONY  149 

he  has  risen  far  above  the  Christianity  of  the  past,  albeit 
the  Church  had  ever  striven  to  guard  the  sanctity  of 
marriage  as  the  very  apple  of  her  eye,  by  enacting  many 
laws  and  establishing  marriage-courts  of  her  own  under 
special  judges.  He  becomes  ever  more  reckless  in  casting 
marriage  matters  on  the  shoulders  of  the  State.  In  the 
Preface  to  his  "  Trawbiichlin,"  in  1529,  he  says,  for  instance, 
"  Since  wedlock  and  marriage  are  a  worldly  business,  we 
clergy  and  ministers  of  the  Church  have  nothing  to  order 
or  decree  about  it,  but  must  leave  each  town  and  country 
to  follow  its  own  usage  and  custom."1 

From  that  time  forward,  particularly  when  the  Diet  of 
Augsburg  had  embittered  the  controversy,  Luther  pours 
out  all  the  vials  of  his  terrible  eloquence  on  the  bondage  in 
which  marriage  had  been  held  formerly,  and  on  the  con 
tempt  displayed  by  Rome  for  it.  He  peremptorily  demands 
its  complete  secularisation. 

And  yet  he  ostentatiously  extols  marriage  as  "  holy  and 
Divine,"  and  even  says  that  wedlock  is  most  pleasing  to 
God,  a  mystery  and  Sacrament  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word.  Of  one  of  these  passages  Emil  Friedberg,  the  Protes 
tant  canonist,  remarks  in  his  "  Recht  der  Eheschliessung  "  : 
"  Luther's  views  as  here  expressed  completely  contradict 
other  passages,  and  this  same  discrepancy  is  apparent 
throughout  the  later  literature,  and,  even  now,  prevents 
[Protestants]  from  appreciating  truly  the  nature  of 
marriage."2 

Every  impartial  observer  could  have  seen  that  the 
preference  given  to  virginity  by  the  Catholic  Church,  her 
defence  of  the  manner  of  life  of  those  whom  God  had  called 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  74  ;   Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  208. 

2  Leipzig,  1865,  p.  159.     Friedberg  adduces  passages  from  H.L.  v. 
Strampff,  "  Uber  die  Ehe  ;  aus  Luthers  Schriften  zusammengetragen," 
Berlin,  1857.     Falk,  "  Die  Ehe  am  Ausgang  des  MA.,"  p.  73.    Th.  Kolde 
says,  in  his  "  M.  Luther,"  2,  p.  488,  that  the  reformers,  and  Luther  in 
particular,  "  lacked  a  true  insight  into  the  real,  moral  nature  of  mar 
riage."     "  At  that  time  at  any  rate  [1522  f.]  it  was  always  the  sensual 
side  of  marriage  to  which  nature  impels,  which  influenced  him.      That 
marriage  is  essentially  the  closest  communion  between  two  individuals, 
and  thus,  by  its  very  nature,  excludes  more  than  two,  never  became 
clear  to  him  or  to  the  other  reformers."     Kolde,  however,  seeks  to 
trace  this   want  of  perception  to   the   "  mediaeval  views  concerning 
marriage."     Cp.  Denifle,   I1,  p.   285.     Otto  Scheel,  the  translator  of 
Luther's  work    on   Monastic  Vows  ("  Werke  Luthers,  Auswahl,   usw., 
Erganzungsbd.,"  1,  p.  199  ff.),  speaks  of  Luther's  view  of  marriage  as 
"  below  that  of  the  Gospel  "  (p.  198). 


150          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

to  the  cloister,  and  her  guardianship  of  the  celibacy  of  the 
priesthood,  handed  down  from  the  earliest  ages,  did  not  in 
the  least  imply  any  undervaluing  of  marriage  on  her  part — 
unless  indeed,  as  Joseph  Mausbach  remarks,  he  was  pre 
pared  to  admit  that,  "  because  one  thing  is  better,  its  opposite 
must  needs  be  bad." 

"  Who  thinks,"  continues  the  same  writer,  that  "  prefer 
ence  for  gold  involves  contempt  for  silver,  or  preference  for 
the  rose  a  depreciation  of  all  other  flowers  ?  But  these  very 
comparisons  are  to  be  met  with  even  amongst  the  ancient 
Fathers.  .  .  .  Why  should  the  Church's  praise  of  virginity 
be  always  misconstrued  as  a  reproach  against  matrimony  ? 
All  this  is  mere  thoughtlessness,  when  it  is  not  blind 
prejudice,  for  the  Church  did  everything  to  prevent  any 
misunderstanding  of  her  praise  of  virginity,  and  certainly 
taught  and  defended  the  sanctity  of  marriage  with  all  her 
power."1 

Luther's  judgment  was  not  due  so  much  to  mere  thought 
lessness  as  to  his  burning  hatred  of  the  Papacy  ;  this  we  see 
from  the  vulgar  abuse  which,  whenever  he  comes  to  speak 
of  marriage  and  celibacy,  he  showers  on  the  Pope,  the 
supreme  champion  of  the  Evangelical  Counsels  and  of  the 
priestly  ideal  of  life  ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  also  to  some 
extent  due  to  his  deeply  rooted  and  instinctive  aversion 
for  everything  whereby  zealous  Christians  do  violence  to 
nature  out  of  love  for  God,  from  the  motive  of  penance  and 
from  a  desire  to  obtain  merit. 


The  Natural  Impulse  and  the  Honour  of  Marriage. 

Ecclesiastical  writers  before  Luther's  day  speak  frequently 
and  plainly  enough  of  the  impulse  of  nature,  but,  as  a  rule, 
only  in  order  to  recommend  its  control,  to  point  out  the 
means  of  combating  excesses,  and  to  insist  on  the  Sacra 
ment  which  sanctifies  conjugal  intercourse  and  brings  down 
the  blessings  we  require  if  the  earthly  and  eternal  purpose 
of  marriage  is  to  be  fulfilled. 

Luther,  however,  if  we  may  trust  one  of  his  most  zealous 
defenders,  rendered  a  great  service  with  regard  to  sexual  inter 
course  in  that  "  he  shook  off  the  pseudo-ascetic  spirit  of  the 
past."  He  demonstrated,  so  we  are  told,  particularly  in  what  he 

1  "Die  kath.  Moral,"  1902,  p.  118. 


ON  MATRIMONY  151 

wrote  to  Spalatin  about  the  "  actus  matrimonialis"1 — words 
which  some  have  regarded  as  offensive — -"  that  even  that  act, 
though  represented  by  his  opponents  as  obscene,  to  the  faithful 
Christian  who  'receives  it  with  thanksgiving'  (1  Tim.  iv.  4), 
contained  nothing  to  raise  a  blush  or  to  forbid  its  mention." 
According  to  the  "  Roman  view  "  it  is  perfectly  true  that  "  the 
'  actus  matrimonialis  '  is  sinless  only  when  performed  with  the 
object  of  begetting  children,  or  in  order  to  fulfil  the  conjugal 
due."2  This,  he  exclaims,  "  was  forsooth  to  be  the  sole  motive 
of  conjugal  intercourse  !  And,  coupled  with  this  motive,  the  act 
even  becomes  meritorious  !  Is  there  any  need  of  confuting  so 
repulsive  a  notion  ?  .  .  .  Luther's  view  is  very  different.  The 
natural  sexual  passion  was,  according  to  him,  the  will  and  the 
work  of  God."  "  The  effect  of  the  Roman  exaltation  of  celibacy 
was  to  make  people  believe,  that  the  motive  [of  conjugal  inter 
course]  implanted  by  God,  viz.  sexual  attraction,  must  not  be 
yielded  to."  This  attraction  Luther  declared  to  be  the  one  motive 
on  account  of  which  we  should  "  thankfully  avail  ourselves  "  of 
matrimony.  "  This  Luther  conveys  most  clearly  in  his  letter 
to  Spalatin,  his  intimate  friend,  shortly  after  both  had  wedded. 
.  .  .  We  know  no  higher  conception  of  conjugal  intercourse." 

This  description  does  not  do  justice  to  the  mediaeval  Catholic 
teaching  on  matrimony,  its  duties  and  privileges.  This  teaching 
never  demanded  the  suppression  of  sensual  attraction  or  love. 
It  fully  recognised  that  this  had  been  implanted  in  human  nature 
by  God's  wise  and  beneficent  hand  as  a  stimulus  to  preserve  and 
multiply  the  human  race,  according  to  His  command  :  "  Be 
fruitful  and  multiply."  But  the  Church  urged  all  to  see  that  this 
impulse  was  kept  pure  and  worthy  by  attention  to  its  higher 
purpose,  viz.  to  the  object  appointed  from  above.  Instead  of 
becoming  its  slave  the  Christian  was  to  ennoble  it  by  allowing 
the  motives  of  faith  to  play  their  part  in  conjugal  intercourse. 
The  Church's  teaching  would  indeed  have  been  "  repulsive  "  had 
it  demanded  the  general  repression  of  the  sexual  instinct  and  not 
merely  the  taming  of  that  unruliness  which  is  the  result  of 
original  sin,  and  is  really  unworthy  of  man.  Had  she  imposed 
the  obligation  to  wage  an  impossible  struggle  against  it  as  a 
thing  essentially  sinful,  then  her  teaching  might  indeed  have 
been  described  as  "  repulsive." 

Still  it  is  sufficiently  tragic,  that,  in  spite  of  the  gratification  of 
the  sensual  impulse  of  nature  playing  the  principal  part  in  his  new 
and  supposedly  more  exalted  view  of  conjugal  intercourse,  Luther 
should,  on  account  of  the  concupiscence  involved,  characterise 
the  "  actus  matrimonialis  "  as  a  mortal  sin.  In  "  De  votis  mon- 

1  On  Dec.  G,  1525,  "  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  279.     See  vol.  iii.,  p.  269. 
The  passage  was  omitted  by  Aurifaber  and  De  Wette  probably  because 
not  judged  quite  proper. 

2  Aug.,  "  De  bono  coniug.,"  c.  6,  n.  6  ;    c.  7,  n.  6.     According  to 
Denifle,  I1,  p.  277,  n.  2,  the  Schoolmen  knew  the  passages  through  the 
Lombard  "  Sent.,"  4,  dist.  31,  c.  5.    He  also  quotes  S.  Thorn.,  "  Summa 
theol.,"  Supplem.,  q.  41,  a.  4  ;    q.   49,  a.   5  ;    q.   64,  a.  4  :     "  ut  sibi 
invicem  debitum  reddant." 


152         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

astici-s,"  his  work  written  at  the  Wartburg,  he  says  :  "  Accord 
ing  to  Ps.  1.  7,  it  is  a  sin  differing  in  nothing  from  adultery  and 
fornication  so  far  as  the  sensual  passion  and  hateful  lust  are 
concerned  ;  God,  however,  does  not  impute  it  to  the  married, 
though  simply  because  of  His  compassion,  since  it  is  impossible 
for  us  to  avoid  it,  although  our  duty  would  really  be  to  do 
without  it."1  We  are  already  familiar  with  his  curious  and 
impossible  theory  of  imputation,  according  to  which  God  is  able 
to  close  His  eyes  to  a  sin,  which  nevertheless  is  really  there. 

That  there  is  actual  sin  in  the  act  Luther  also  insists  elsewhere, 
at  the  same  time  pleading,  however,  that  the  sin  is  not  imputed 
by  God,  who,  as  it  were,  deliberately  winks  at  it  :  "In  spite  of 
all  the  good  I  say  of  married  life,  I  will  not  grant  so  much  to 
nature  as  to  admit  that  there  is  no  sin  in  it ;  what  I  say  is  that 
we  have  here  flesh  and  blood,  depraved  in  Adam,  conceived  and 
born  in  sin  (Ps.  1.  7),  and  that  no  conjugal  due  is  ever  rendered 
without  sin."2 — The  blessing  which  God  bestowed  on  marriage, 
he  says  elsewhere,  fallen  human  nature  was  "  not  able  to  ac 
complish  without  sin  "  ;  "  without  sin  no  married  persons  could 
do  their  duty."3 

Hence  the  following  inference  would  seem  justified  :  Matri 
mony  is  really  a  state  of  sin.  Such  was  the  opinion,  not  of  the 
Church  before  Luther's  day,  but  of  her  assailant,  whose  opponents 
soon  pointed  out  to  him  how  unfounded  was  his  supposition.4 
The  ancient  Church,  by  the  voice  of  her  theologians,  declared  the 
"  actus  matrimonialis,"  when  performed  in  the  right  way  and  to 
a  right  end,  to  be  no  sin  ;  they  admitted  the  inevitable  satisfac 
tion  of  concupiscence,  but  allowed  it  so  long  as  its  gratification 
was  not  all  that  was  sought.  According  to  Luther — whom  the 
author  above  referred  to  has  quite  rightly  understood — it  is 
different  :  Sin  is  undoubtedly  committed,  but  we  may,  nay,  are 
bound,  to  commit  it. 

With  the  above,  all  Luther's  statements  on  the  inevitable 
strength  of  the  impulse  of  nature  agree.  Though  the  union 
of  husband  and  wife  is  a  rule  of  the  natural  law  applying 
to  the  majority  rather  than  to  the  individual,  Luther 
practically  makes  it  binding  upon  all.  In  this  connection 
he  seems  to  be  unable  to  view  the  moral  relation  of  the 
sexes  in  any  other  light  than  as  existing  for  the  gratification 
of  mutual  lust,  since  without  marriage  they  must  inevitably 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  654  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  355.    On 
the  text,  see  Denifle,  I2,  p.  263,  n.  3. 

2  Ibid.,    20,    2,    p.    304 ;    Erl.    ed.,    162,    p.    541.      "  On    Married 
Life,"  1522. 

3  Ibid.,  12,  p.  114.    Cp.  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  4,  p.  10. 

4  N.  Paulus,   "  Hist.   Jahrb.,"   27,    1906,  p.  495,  art.  "  Zu  Luthers 
Schrift  iiber  die  Monchsgeliibde  "  :   "  Luther's  false  view  of  the  sinful- 
ness     of    the     '  actus    matrimonialis  '     was    strongly    repudiated    by 
Catholics,  particularly  by  Clichtoveus  and  Cochlaeus." 


ON   MATRIMONY  153 

fall  into  every  sort  of  carnal  sin.  "  It  is  a  necessary  and 
natural  thing,  that  every  man  should  have  a  wife,"  he  says 
in  the  lengthy  passage  already  quoted,  where  he  concludes, 
"  it  is  more  necessary  than  eating  and  drinking,  sleeping  and 
waking,  or  passing  the  natural  motions  of  the  body."1 
Elsewhere,  in  a  characteristic  comparison,  he  says  :  "  Were 
a  man  compelled  to  close  his  bowels  and  bladder — surely  an 
utter  impossibility — what  would  become  of  him  ?  "2  Accord 
ing  to  him,  "  man  must  be  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and 
breed,"  "  like  all  other  animals,  since  God  has  created  him 
thereto,  so  that,  of  necessity,  a  man  must  seek  a  wife,  and  a 
woman  a  husband,  unless  God  works  a  miracle."3 

Many  were  they  who,  during  the  controversies  which 
accompanied  the  schism,  listened  to  such  teaching  and 
believed  it  and  were  ready  to  forgo  the  miracle  in  order  to 
follow  the  impulse  of  nature  ;  were  ready  to  indulge  their 
weakness  did  their  state  of  life  prohibit  marriage,  or  to 
dissolve  the  marriage  already  contracted  when  it  did  not 
turn  out  to  their  taste,  or  when  they  fancied  they  could 
advance  one  of  the  numerous  reasons  proclaimed  by  Luther 
for  its  annulment.  The  evil  effects  of  such  morality  in  the 
16th  century  (see  below,  p.  164  ff.  and  xxiv.  1  and  2), 
witnessed  to  on  all  sides  by  Lutherans  as  well  as  Catholics, 
prove  conclusively  that  the  originator  of  the  new  matri 
monial  theories  was  the  last  man  qualified  to  reproach  the 
ancient  Church  with  a  want  of  appreciation  for  marriage  or 
for  woman. 

Nor  must  we  look  merely  at  the  results.  The  man's  very 
character,  his  mode  of  thought  and  his  speech,  suffice  to 
banish  him  from  the  society  of  the  olden,  earnest  moralists. 
Albeit  unwillingly,  we  must  add  here  some  further  state 
ments  to  those  already  adduced.4 

"  If  a  man  feels  his  manhood,"  Luther  says,  "  let  him  take  a 
wife  and  not  tempt  God.  '  Puella  propterea  habet  pudenda,'  to 
provide  him  a  remedy  that  he  may  escape  pollution  and 
adultery."5 

1  "Werke,"    Weim.    ed.,    10,    2,   p.    276;     Erl.    ed.,    162,   p.    511. 
"  Sermon  on  the  Married  Life,"  1522. 

2  Ibid.,  12,  p.  66  ;    Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  188. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  113.  4  Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  264  ff. 

6  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  101.  Then  follows  a  highly 
questionable  statement  concerning  a  rule  of  the  Wittenberg  Augus- 
tinian  monastery,  in  which  Luther  fails  to  distinguish  between  "  pollu- 


154          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  The  sting  of  the  flesh  may  easily  be  helped,  so  long  as  girls 
and  women  are  to  be  found."1 

Our  readers  will  not  have  forgotten  the  reason  he  gives  why 
women  have  so  little  intellect  ;2  or  the  reproof  addressed  to  him 
by  Staupitz.3 

Luther  urges  early  marriage  in  the  words  of  an  old  proverb  : 
"  To  rise  early  and  to  marry  young  will  cause  regret  to  no  one." 
"  It  will  fare  with  you,"  he  says  to  the  same  addressee,  "  as  with 
the  nuns  to  whom  they  gave  carved  Jesuses.  They  cast  about 
for  others,  who  at  least  were  living  and  pleased  them  better, 
and  sought  how  best  to  escape  from  their  convent."4 — "What 
greater  service  can  one  do  a  girl  than  to  get  her  a  baby  ?  This  rids 
her  of  many  fancies."6  Here,  and  elsewhere  too,  he  is  anxious 
that  people  should  marry,  even  though  there  should  not  be 
enough  to  live  upon  ;  God  would  not  allow  the  couple  to  starve 
if  they  did  their  duty.6 — "A  young  fellow  should  be  simply 
given  a  wife,  otherwise  he  has  no  peace.  Then  the  troubles  of 
matrimony  will  soon  tame  him."7 

On  another  occasion  (1540)  Luther  expresses  himself  with 
greater  caution  about  too  early  matches  :  "  It  is  not  good  for 
young  people  to  marry  too  soon.  They  are  ruined  in  their  prime, 
exhaust  their  strength  and  neglect  their  studies."  "  But  the 
young  men  are  consumed  with  passion,"  one  of  those  present 
objected,  "  and  the  theologians  work  upon  their  conscience  and 
tell  them  that  '  To  marry  young  will  cause  regret  to  no  one.'  ' 
Luther's  reply  was  :  "  The  young  men  are  unwilling  to  resist 
any  temptations.  .  .  .  They  should  console  themselves  with  the 
hope  of  future  marriage.  We  used  to  be  forbidden  to  marry  in 
almost  all  the  Faculties,  hence  the  youths  indulged  in  all  kinds  of 
excesses,  knowing  that,  later  on,  they  would  no  longer  be  able  to 
do  so.  Thus  they  sunk  into  every  kind  of  disorder.  But  now 
everybody  is  allowed  to  marry,  even  the  theologian  and  the 
bishop.  Hence,  in  their  own  interests,  they  ought  to  learn  to 
wait."8 

At  other  times  he  was  inclined  to  promote  hasty  marriages 
from  motives  of  policy,  and,  without  a  thought  of  the  dignity  of 
the  conjugal  union  and  the  respect  due  to  woman,  to  use  it  as  a 
means  to  increase  the  number  of  his  followers. 

tiones  voluntaries  "  and  "  involuntarice,"  but  which  draws  from  him 
the  exclamation  :  "  All  the  monasteries  and  foundations  ought  to  be 
destroyed,  if  only  on  account  of  these  shocking  '  pollutiones  '  /  " 

1  Mathesius,   "  Aufzeichn.,"  p.   73,  where  some  improper  remarks 
may  be  found  on  the  temptation  of  St.  Paul  (according  to  the  notes,  on 
account  of  St.  Thecla)  and  that  of  St.  Benedict,  who,  we  are  told, 
rolled  himself  in  the  thorns  to  overcome  it. 

2  See  vol.  iii.,  p.  267,  n.  10. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  122  :    "  Scribis,  mea  iactari  ab  Us  qui  lupanaria  colunt." 
"  Briefe,"  ed.  by  De  Wette,  6,  p.  419,  undated. 

5  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  373.     To  a  bridegroom  in  1536. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  364  f.  ;  Erl.  ed.,  41,  p.  135.    Branden 
burg,  "  Luther  iiber  die  Obrigkeit,"  p.  7. 

7  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  437.  8  Ibid.,  p.  219. 


ON  MATRIMONY  155 

This  happened  in  the  case  of  many  of  his  converts  from  the 
ranks  of  the  clergy  and  religious.1 

In  the  case  of  the  Bishop  of  Samland,  George  von  Polenz,  and 
his  adviser,  Johann  Briesmann,  the  ex-Franciscan,  who  both 
were  desirous  of  marrying,  Luther  judged  that  delay  would  be 
disastrous.  He  urged  them  to  make  haste  and  be  publicly 
wedded,  both  having  already  contracted  a  so-called  marriage 
in  conscience  ;  in  their  case  there  was  "  danger  in  delay,"  and, 
as  the  saying  goes,  "  If  you  wait  a  night,  you  wait  a  year  "  ;  even 
Paul  had  said  we  must  not  receive  the  grace  of  God  in  vain  (2  Cor. 
vi.  1),  and  the  bride  in  the  Canticle  complained  that  the  bride 
groom  "  was  gone,"  because  she  had  been  tardy  in  opening  the 
door  (v.  6).  A  German  proverb  said,  "  Wenn  das  Ferkel  beut 
soil  man  den  Sack  herhalten."  Esau's  lost  birthright,  and  the 
solemn  words  of  Christ  concerning  separation  from  Him  (John 
xii.  35  f.)  were  also  made  to  serve  his  purpose.  "  Take  it  when, 
where  and  how  you  can,  or  you  won't  get  another  chance."  A 
man  could  not  be  sure  of  his  own  mind  on  account  of  the  snares 
of  the  devil  ;  a  marriage  not  yet  publicly  ratified  remained 
somewhat  uncertain.2 

Before  these  exhortations  reached  them  both  the  parties  in 
question  had,  however,  already  taken  the  public  step. 

It  was  in  those  very  days  that  Luther  celebrated  his  own 
wedding  and  sent  his  pressing  invitation  to  marry  to  the  Cardinal 
and  Elector  of  Mayence,  telling  him  that,  short  of  a  miracle,  or 
without  some  peculiar  grace,  it  was  a  "  terrible  thing  "  for  a  man 
"to  be  found  without  a  wife  at  the  hour  of  death."3  It  was 
then,  too,  that  he  sent  to  Albert  of  Prussia,  the  Grand  Master 
of  the  Teutonic  Order,  \vho  was  contemplating  marriage,  his 
congratulations  on  the  secularisation  of  the  lands  of  the  Order 
and  the  founding  of  the  Duchy,  which  he  had  even  previously 
strongly  urged  him  to  do.  In  this  letter  he  tells  the  Grand  Master 
that  it  was  "  God  Almighty,"  "  Who  had  graciously  and  merci 
fully  helped  him  to  such  a  position  [that  of  a  secular  Prince]."4 
The  Grand  Master's  marriage  and  consequent  breach  of  his  vow 
of  chastity  followed  in  1526.  He  invited  Luther  to  the  wedding 
and  wrote  to  him,  that  God  had  given  him  "  the  grace  to  enter 
the  Order  [of  marriage]  instituted  by  Himself  "  after  he  had 

1  See  vol.  ii.,  pp.  115-28. 

2  To  Spalatin,  June  10,  1525,  "  Briefwechsel,"  5,  p.  189  f.     Enders 
(p.  191)  would  refer  the  above  passages  to  Luther's  own  marriage,  but 
G.  Bossert  ("  Theol.  Literaturztng.,"  1907,  p.  691)  makes  out  a  better 
case  for  their  reference  to  Polenz  and  Briesmann.  Two  persons  at  least 
are  obviously  referred  to  :    "  Quod  illi  vero  prcetexunt,  certos  sese  fore  de 
animo  suo,  stultum  est  ;    nullius  cor  eat  in  manu  sua,  diabolus  poten- 
tissimus  est,"   etc.      Luther  evidently  felt,  that,  until  the  persons  in 
question  had  been  bound  to  the  new  Evangel  by  their  public  marriages, 
their  support  could  not  be  entirelv  reckoned  on. 

3  On  June  2,  1525,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  308  ("  Briefwechsel," 
5,  p.  186).     See  vol.  ii.,  p.  142. 

4  On  May  26,   1525,   "  Werke,"  ibid.,  p.    304  ("  Briefwechsel,"    5, 
p.  179). 


156         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

"  laid  aside  the  cross  [the  sign  of  the  Order]  and  entered  the 
secular  estate." 

It  cannot  be  denied,  that  in  all  these  marriages  which  Luther 
promoted,  or  at  least  favoured,  what  he  had  his  eye  on  was  the 
advantage  of  the  new  Church  system,  Of  any  raising  of  the 
moral  position  of  women,  of  any  deepening  of  the  significance  of 
marriage,  there  is  here  no  trace  ;  these  marriages  served  quite 
another  purpose.  The  circumstances  attending  them  were, 
moreover,  frequently  far  from  dignified.  "  The  Bishop  of 
Samland,"  so  Philip  von  Creutz,  a  Knight  of  the  Teutonic  Order, 
relates,  "  gave  up  his  bishopric  to  the  Duke  [Albert]  in  the 
presence  of  the  whole  assembly.  .  .  .  He  caused  his  mitre  to  be 
broken  up  and,  out  of  its  precious  stones  and  jewels,  he  had 
ornaments  made  for  his  wife."1 

Practical  Consequences  of  the  New  View  of  Woman  : 
Matrimonial  Impediments,  Divorce. 

The  readiness  shown  by  Luther  to  annul  valid  marriages, 
and  the  wayward  manner  in  which  he  disposed  of  the 
impediments  fixed  by  the  Church,  were  not  calculated  to 
enhance  respect  either  for  marriage  or  for  Woman. 

As  regards  the  impediments  to  marriage  we  shall  here 
merely  refer  to  the  practical  and  not  uncommon  case  where 
a  person  wished  to  marry  a  niece.  Whereas  Canon  Law,  at 
one  with  Roman  Law,  regarded  this  relationship  as  consti 
tuting  an  impediment,  which  might,  however,  be  dispensed 
from  by  the  Pope,  Luther  at  first  saw  fit  to  declare  it  no 
impediment  at  all ;  he  even  issued  memoranda  to  this 
effect,  one  of  which  was  printed  in  1526  and  circulated 
widely.2  "  If  the  Pope  was  able  to  dispense,"  he  said  later 
on  concerning  this,  "  why  can't  I  too?  "3  In  favour  of  the 
lawfulness  of  such  marriages  he  appealed  to  the  example  of 
Abraham,  and  in  reply  to  objections  declared  :  "  If  they 
blame  the  work  and  example  of  the  holy  Patriarch  Abraham, 
then  let  them  be  scandalised."4  At  a  later  date,  nevertheless, 

1  Janssen,  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  "  (Eng.  Trans.,  5,  p.  114). 

2  Advice  to  this  effect  is  found  in  letters  of  Dec.  22,  1525,  and  Jan. 
5,   1526,  both  addressed  to  Marquard  Schuldorp  of  Magdeburg,  who 
married  his  niece,  "  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  283  (and  p.  303).    The  second 
letter,   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  364,  was  printed  at  Magdeburg  in 
1526.     In  the  first  letter  he  says,  that  though  the  Pope  would  in  all 
likelihood  refuse  to  grant  a  dispensation  in  this  case,  yet  it  sufficed  that 
God  was  not  averse  to  the  marriage.     "  They  shall  not  be  allowed  to 
curtail  our  freedom  !  " 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  337,  in  1544. 

4  In  the  second  letter  to  Schuldorp.    Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.," 
135,  1905,  p.  85. 


ON   MATRIMONY  157 

he  changed  his  mind  and  held  such  marriages  to  be  unlawful. 
His  previous  statements  he  explained  by  saying  that  once 
he  had  indeed  given  a  different  decision,  not  in  order  to  lead 
others  into  excesses  but  in  order  "  to  assist  consciences  at 
the  hour  of  death  against  the  Pope  "  ;  he  had  merely  given 
advice  in  Confession  to  troubled  consciences,  and  had  not 
laid  down  any  law ;  to  make  laws  was  not  within  his 
province,  either  in  the  State  or  in  the  Church.  His  former 
memoranda  were  not  to  be  alleged  now  ;  a  certain  man  of 
the  name  of  Borner,  who,  on  the  strength  of  them,  had 
married  his  niece,  had  acted  very  ill  and  done  injustice  to 
his  (Luther's)  decision.  The  Pope  alone,  so  Luther  says, 
was  to  blame  for  his  previous  advice — because  many,  owing 
to  his  laws,  were  reduced  to  despair  and  had  come  to  Luther 
for  help.  "It  is  true  that  in  Confession  and  in  order  to 
pacify  consciences  I  have  advised  differently,  but  I  made  a 
mistake  in  allowing  such  counsels  to  be  made  public.  Now, 
however,  it  is  done.  This  is  a  matter  for  Confession  only."1 

When  speaking  in  this  way,  in  1544,  he  probably  had  in 
mind  his  so-called  advice  in  Confession  to  Philip  of  Hesse. 
He  was  still  acting  on  the  principle,  that  advice  given  in 
Confession  might  afterwards  be  publicly  repudiated  as  quite 
wrong  ;  he  failed  somehow  to  see  that  the  case  of  marriage 
of  uncle  and  niece  was  of  its  very  nature  something  public. 

The  multitude  of  divorces  caused  him  great  anxiety. 
Even  the  preachers  of  the  new  faith  were  setting  a  bad 
example  by  putting  away  their  spouses  and  contracting 
fresh  marriages.  Melander,  for  instance,  who  blessed  Philip's 
second  marriage,  after  deserting  "  two  wives  in  succession 
without  even  seeking  legal  aid,  married  a  third."2  At 
Gotha,  as  Luther  himself  relates,  a  woman  deserted  her 

1  Mathesius,  ibid.     For  further  explanation  of  this  statement,  cp. 
Luther's  letter  of  Dec.  10,  1543,  to  D.  Hesse,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  606  ff.   He 
there  says  of  his  decision  on  the  lawfulness  of  this  marriage  :    "  Est 
nuda  tabula,  in  qua  nihil  docetur  aut  iubetur,  sed  modeste  ostenditur,  quid 
in  veteri  lege  de  his  traditum  sit.  .  .  .  In  consolationem  confessorem  seu 
conscientiarum  mea   quoque   scheda  fuit   emissa  contra  papam."      He 
insists  that  he  had  always  spoken  in  support  of  the  secular  laws  on 
marriage  and  against  the  rein tr eduction  of  the  Mosaic  ordinances. 
"  Ministrorum  verbi  non  est  leges  condere,  pertinet  hoc  ad  magistratum 
civilem  .  .  .  ideo  et  coniugium  debet  legibus  ordinari.     Tamen  si  quis 
casus  cogeret  dispensare,  non  vererer  occulte  in  conscientiis  aliter  consulere, 
vel  si  esset  publicus  casus,  consulere,  ut  a  magistratu  peteret  dispensa- 
tionem." 

2  Rockwell,  "  Die  Doppelehe  Philipps,"  p.  86. 


158          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

husband  and  her  three  children,  and  sent  him  a  message  to 
tell  him  he  might  take  another  wife.  When,  however,  he 
had  done  so  the  woman  again  asserted  her  claims.  "  Our 
lawyers,"  Luther  complains,  "  at  once  took  her  part,  but  the 
Elector  decided  she  should  quit  the  country.  My  own 
decision  would  have  been  to  have  her  done  to  death  by 
drowning."1 

In  a  still  existing  letter  of  1525,  Luther  permitted  Michael 
Kramer,  preacher  at  Domitsch,  near  Torgau,  to  contract  a 
third  marriage,  two  previous  ones  having  turned  out  un 
fortunate.  Kramer,  as  a  Catholic  priest,  had  first  married  a 
servant  maid  and,  for  this,  had  been  sent  to  jail  by  Duke 
George  his  sovereign.  When  the  maid  proved  unfaithful 
and  married  another,  Luther,  to  whom  Kramer  had  attached 
himself,  declared  her  to  be  really  "  deceased  "  and  told  the 
preacher  he  might  use  his  "  Christian  freedom."  Kramer 
thereupon  married  a  girl  from  Domitsch,  where  he  had  been 
in  the  meantime  appointed  Lutheran  pastor.  This  new  wife 
likewise  ran  away  from  him  three  weeks  later.  He  now 
addressed  himself  to  the  local  board  of  magistrates,  who, 
conjointly  with  him,  wrote  to  Luther,  pointing  out  how  the 
poor  man  "  could  not  do  without  a  wife."  Luther  thereupon 
sent  a  memorandum,  addressed  to  the  "  magistrates  and  the 
preacher  of  Domitsch,"  in  which  he  allowed  a  divorce  from 
the  second  wife  and  gave  permission  for  a  third  marriage, 
which,  apparently,  was  more  of  a  success.  During  the 
Visitations  in  1528  this  preacher,  who  had  since  been  trans 
ferred  to  Lucka,  got  into  trouble  on  account  of  his  three 
marriages,  but  saved  his  skin  by  appealing  to  Luther's 
letter.2 

The  reader  already  knows  that,  according  to  Luther, 
a  woman  who  has  no  children  by  her  husband,  may,  with 
the  latter's  consent,  quietly  dissolve  the  marriage  and 
cohabit  with  another,  for  instance,  with  her  brother-in-law  ; 
this,  however,  was  to  be  secret,  because  the  children  were  to 
be  regarded  as  her  first  husband's.  Should  he  refuse  his 
consent,  says  Luther,  "  rather  than  suffer  her  to  burn  or 
have  recourse  to  adultery,  I  would  advise  her  to  marry 
another  and  flee  to  some  place  where  she  is  unknown.  What 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  374,  Jan.,  1537. 

2  Luther's  memorandum,  Aug.   18,   1525,   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53, 
p.  326  ("  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  228).    Cp.  Enders'  Notes  to  this  letter. 


ON   MATRIMONY  159 

other  advice  can  be  given  to  one  who  is  in  constant  danger 
from  carnal  lusts  ?  5?1  Duke  George  of  Saxony,  referring  to 
a  similar  passage  in  Luther's  work  "  On  Conjugal  Life  " 
(1522),2  said  in  a  letter  to  Luther  which  was  immediately 
printed  :  "  When  was  it  ever  heard  of  that  wives  should  be 
taken  from  their  husbands  and  given  to  other  men,  as  we 
now  find  it  stated  in  your  Evangel  ?  Has  adultery  ever  been 
more  common  than  since  you  wrote  :  If  a  woman  has  no 
children  by  her  husband,  then  let  her  go  to  another  and  bear 
children  whom  her  husband  must  provide  for  as  though  he 
were  the  father  ?  This  is  the  fruit  of  the  precious  Evangel 
which  you  dragged  forth  out  of  the  gutter.  You  were  quite 
right  when  you  said  you  found  it  in  the  gutter  ;  what  we 
want  to  know  is,  why  you  didn't  leave  it  there."3 

What  Luther  had  said  concerning  the  refusal  to  render  the 
conjugal  due  :  "If  the  wife  refuse,  then  let  the  maid  come," 
attracted  more  attention  than  he  probably  anticipated,  both 
among  his  own  adherents  and  among  his  foes.  It  is  true,  as 
already  pointed  out,  that  the  context  does  not  justify  illicit 
relations  outside  marriage  (see  vol.  iii.,  p.  252  f.),  but  the  words 
as  they  stand,  to  say  nothing  of  the  unlikelihood  of  any  real 
marriage  with  the  maid,  and,  finally,  the  significance  which 
may  have  clung  to  a  coarse  saying  of  the  populace  possibly 
alluded  to  by  Luther,  all  favoured  those  who  chose  to  make 
the  tempting  phrase  a  pretext  for  such  extra-matrimonial 
relations. 

When  the  sermon  on  marriage  in  which  the  passage  occurs  was 
published,  Duke  George's  representative  at  the  Diet  of  Nurem 
berg  in  1522  sent  his  master  at  Dresden  a  copy  of  the  booklet, 
"  which  the  devilish  monk,"  so  he  writes,  "  has  unblushingly 
published,  though  it  has  cost  him  the  loss  of  many  followers 
about  here  ;  it  would  not  go  well  with  us  poor  husbands,  should 
our  naughty  wives  read  it.  I  shall  certainly  not  give  my  wife 
one."4  Duke  George  replied  with  a  grim  jest  which  doubtless 
went  the  rounds  at  Nuremberg  among  those  whom  the  booklet 
had  offended  :  "  As  to  what  you  write,"  George  says,  "  viz.  that 
you  won't  let  your  wife  read  the  little  book  on  marriage,  me- 
thinks  you  are  acting  unwisely  ;  in  our  opinion  it  contains 
something  which  might  serve  even  a  jealous  husband  like  you 
very  well ;  for  it  says,  that  if  your  wife  refuses  to  do  your  will 
you  have  only  to  turn  to  the  maid.  Hence  keep  a  look  out  for 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  558  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  5,  p.  98  seq, 
"  De  captivitate  babylonica." 

2  Ibid.,  10.  2,  p.  278  ;    Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  513  f. 

3  Dec.  28,  1525,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  289. 

4  Dec.    19,    1522,    "  Akten    und    Brief e    des    Herzogs    Georg    von 
Sachsen,"  ed.  F.  Gess,  1,  1905,  p.  402. 


160          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

pretty  maids.  These  and  similar  utterances  you  may  very  well 
hold  over  your  wife."1 

In  1542  Wicel,  in  his  Postils,  speaking  of  the  preachers,  says  : 
"  The  words  of  St.  Paul,  '  Art  thou  loosed  from  a  wife,  seek  not 
a  wife,'  1  Cor.  vii.  27,  have  a  very  unevangelical  sound  on 
the  lips  of  these  Evangelists.  How  then  must  it  be  ?  Quick, 
take  a  wife  or  a  husband  ;  whether  you  be  young  or  old,  make 
haste  ;  should  one  die,  don't  delay  to  take  another.  Celebrate 
the  wedding,  if  it  turns  out  ill,  then  let  the  maid  come  !  Divorce 
this  one  and  take  in  marriage  that  one,  whether  the  first  be  living 
or  dead  !  For  chambering  and  wantonness  shall  not  be  neglected," 
— "  Since  the  coming  of  Christ,"  says  the  same  writer  elsewhere, 
"  there  have  never  been  so  many  divorces  as  under  Luther's 
rule."2 

Of  the  unlooked-for  effects  produced  among  Luther's  preachers 
by  the  above  saying,  Sebastian  Flasch,  an  ex-Lutheran  preacher 
and  native  of  Mansfeld,  complained  in  1576  :  "  Although  the 
preachers  are  married,  yet  they  are  so  ill-content  with  their 
better  halves,  that,  appealing  to  Luther's  advice,  they  frequently, 
in  order  to  gratify  their  insatiable  concupiscence,  seduce  their 
maids,  and,  what  is  even  more  shameful,  do  not  blush  to  mis 
conduct  themselves  with  other  men's  wives  or  to  exchange  wives 
among  themselves."  He  appeals  to  his  long  experience  of 
Lutheranism  and  relates  that  such  a  "  commutatio  uxorum  "  had 
been  proposed  to  him  by  a  preacher  of  high  standing.3 — Much 
earlier  than  this,  in  1532,  Johann  Mensing,  the  Dominican,  wrote 
sadly,  that  the  state  of  matrimony  was  dreadfully  disgraced  by 
the  new  preachers  ;  "  for  they  give  a  man  two  wives,  a  woman 
two  husbands,  allow  the  man  to  use  the  maid  should  the  wife 
not  prove  compliant,  and  the  wife  to  take  another  husband  should 
her  own  prove  impotent."  "  When  they  feel  disposed  or  moved 
to  what  is  sin  and  shameful,  they  say  the  Holy  Spirit  urges  them. 
Is  not  that  a  fine  tale  that  all  the  world  is  telling  about  Melchior 
Myritsch  of  Magdeburg,  of  Jacob  Probst  of  Bremen  and  of  others 
in  the  Saxon  land.  What  certain  mothers  have  discovered  con 
cerning  their  daughters  and  maids,  who  listened  to  such  preaching, 
it  is  useless  to  relate."4 — The  name  of  the  ex-Augustinian, 
Melchior  Myritsch,  or  Meirisch,  recalls  the  coarseness  of  the 
advice  given  by  Luther,  on  Feb.  10,  1525,  to  the  latter's  new 
spouse.  (See  vol.  ii.,  p.  144.) 

1  Jan.  1,  1523,  ibid.,  p.  415.     Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Hist.-pol.  BI.,"  137, 
1906,  p.  56  f. 

2  "  Postille,"  Mainz,  1542,  4b.     Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  1, 
p.  52. 

3  "  Professio     catholica,"     Coloniae,     1580     (reprint),    p.     219    seq. 
Janssen-Pastor,  "  Gesch.  des  deutschen  Volkes,"  814,  p.  456.     Several 
replies   were   called   forth  by   this   over-zealous  and   extremely   anti- 
Lutheran  polemic. 

4  "  Vormeldung    der    Unwahrheit   Luterscher   Clage,"    Frankfurt/ 
Oder,  1532.      N.   Paulus,  "  Die  deutschen  Dominikaner,"  etc.,  p.  33. 


ON  MATRIMONY  161 

Respect  for  the  Female  Sex  in  Luther's  Conversations. 

Had  Luther,  as  the  legend  he  set  on  foot  would  make  us 
believe,  really  raised  the  dignity  of  woman  and  the  married 
state  to  a  higher  level,  we  might  naturally  expect,  that, 
when  he  has  to  speak  of  matters  sexual  or  otherwise  re 
pugnant  to  modesty,  he  would  at  least  be  reticent  and 
dignified  in  his  language.  We  should  expect  to  find  him 
surrounded  at  Wittenberg  by  a  certain  nobility  of  thought, 
a  higher,  purer  atmosphere,  a  nobler  general  tone,  in  some 
degree  of  harmony  with  his  extraordinary  claims.  Instead 
we  are  confronted  with  something  very  different.  Luther's 
whole  mode  of  speech,  his  conversations  and  ethical  trend, 
are  characterised  by  traits  which  even  the  most  indulgent 
of  later  writers  found  it  difficult  to  excuse,  and  which, 
particularly  his  want  of  delicacy  towards  women,  must 
necessarily  prove  offensive  to  all.1 

Luther  was  possibly  not  aware  that  the  word  "  nun  " 
comes  from  the  Low  Latin  "  nonna,"  i.e.  woman,  and  was 
originally  the  name  given  to  those  who  dwelt  in  the  numerous 
convents  of  Upper  Egypt ;  he  knew,  however,  well  enough 
that  the  word  "  monk  "  was  but  a  variant  of  "  monachus." 
He  jestingly  gives  to  both  the  former  and  the  latter  an 
odious  derivation.  "  The  word  nun,"  he  says,  "  comes  from 
the  German,  and  cloistered  women  are  thus  called,  because 
that  is  the  term  for  unsexed  sows  ;  in  the  same  way  the  word 
monk  is  derived  from  the  horses  [viz.  the  gelded  horses]. 
But  the  operation  was  not  altogether  successful,  for  they  are 
obliged  to  wear  breeches  just  like  other  people."2  It  may 
be  that  Catherine,  the  ex-nun,  was  present  when  this  was 
said  ;  at  any  rate  she  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  Table- 
Talk  as  assisting.3 

He  could  not  let  slip  the  opportunity  of  having  a  dig  at  the 
ladies  who  were  sometimes  present  at  his  post-prandial  entertain 
ments.  In  1542  conversation  turned  on  Solomon's  many  wives 
and  concubines.  Luther  pointed  out,4  that  the  figures  given  in 
the  Bible  must  be  taken  as  referring  to  all  the  women  dwelling  in 
the  palace,  even  to  such  as  had  no  personal  intercourse  with 
Solomon.  "  One  might  as  well  say,"  he  continues,  '  Dr.  Martin 

1  Cp.  above,  p.  152  f. 

2  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  340.     Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichnungen," 
p.  252. 

3  Cp.,  for  instance,  present  work,  vol.  iii.,  p.  268,  and  vol.  ii.,  p.  378. 

4  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  281. 

IV.— M 


162          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

has  three  wives  ;  one  is  Katey,  another  Magdalene,  the  third  the 
pastoress ;  also  a  concubine,  viz.  the  virgin  Els.1  This  made 
him  laugh  [writes  the  narrator,  Caspar  Heydenreich]  ;  and 
besides  these  he  has  many  girls.  In  the  same  way  Solomon  had 
three  hundred  queens  ;  if  he  took  only  one  every  night,  the  year 
would  be  over,  and  he  would  not  have  had  a  day's  rest.  That 
cannot  be,  for  he  had  also  to  govern."2 

He  advised  that  those  who  were  troubled  with  doubts  con 
cerning  their  salvation  should  speak  of  improper  subjects 
("  loquaris  de  venereis"),  that  was  an  infallible  remedy.3  In 
one  such  case  he  invited  a  pupil  to  jest  freely  with  his  own  wife, 
Catherine.  "  Talk  about  other  things,"  Luther  urges  him, 
"  which  entirely  distract  your  thoughts."4 

As  we  know,  Luther  himself  made  liberal  use  of  such  talk  to 
cheer  up  himself  and  others.  Thus,  in  the  presence  of  his  guests, 
in  1537,  he  joked  about  Ferdinand,  the  German  King,  his  extreme 
thinness  and  his  very  stout  wife  who  was  suspected  of  misconduct  : 
"  Though  he  is  of  such  an  insignificant  bodily  frame,"  he  says, 
"  others  will  be  found  to  assist  him  in  the  nuptial  bed.  But  it  is 
a  nuisance  to  have  the  world  filled  with  alien  heirs."5 — This  leads 
him  to  speak  of  adulteresses  in  other  districts. 6 

A  coarser  tale  is  the  one  he  related  about  the  same  time.  A 
minister  came  to  him  complaining  of  giddiness  and  asking  for  a 
remedy.  His  answer  was  :  "  Lass  das  Loch  daheime,"  which, 
so  the  narrators  explain,  meant,  "  that  he  should  not  go  to  such 
excess  in  chambering."7 — A  similar  piece  of  advice  is  given  by 
Luther  in  the  doggerel  verses  which  occur  in  his  Table-Talk  : 
"  Keep  your  neck  warm  and  cosy, — Do  not  overload  your  belly. — 
Don't  be  too  sweet  on  Gertie  ;— Then  your  locks  will  whiten 
slowly."8 — On  one  occasion  he  showed  his  friends  a  turquoise 
("  turchesia  "),  which  had  been  given  him,  and  said,  following  the 
superstition  of  the  day,  that  when  immersed  in  water  it  would 
make  movements  "  sicut  isti  qui  eveniunt  juveni  cum  a  virgine  in 
chorea  circumfertur,"  but,  that,  in  doing  so,  it  broke.9  On  account 
of  the  many  children  he  had  caused  to  be  begotten  from  priests 
and  religious,  he,  as  we  already  know,  compared  himself  to 
Abraham,  the  father  of  a  great  race  :  He,  like  Abraham,  was 

1  This  was  Elisabeth  Kaufmann,  a  niece  of  Luther's,  yet  unmarried, 
who  lived  with  her  widowed  sister  Magdalene  at  the  Black  Monastery. 
The   "  pastoress  "   was  the  wife  of  the  apostate  priest  Bugenhagen, 
Pastor  of  Wittenberg,  who,  during  Bugenhagen's  absence  in  Brunswick, 
seems    to    have    enjoyed    the    hospitality    of   the    same    great    house. 
The    "  many   girls  "    are   Luther's   servants   and   those   of    the    other 
inhabitants. 

2  Aurifaber  suppressed  the  end  of  this  conversation.    Cp.  "  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  201. 

3  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  221. 

4  Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  175  f.     Cp.  p.  179. 

5  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  390. 

6  Cp.  vol.  v.,  xxxi.,  5. 

7  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  396.  8  Ibid.,  p.  415. 
9  Ibid.,  p.  405  f. 


ON  MATRIMONY  163 

the  grandfather  of  all  the  descendants  of  the  monks,  priests  and 
nuns  and  the  father  of  a  mighty  people.1 

We  may  not  pass  over  here  Luther's  frequent  use  of  filthy 
expressions,  which,  though  they  agree  well  with  his  natural 
coarseness,  harmonise  but  ill  with  the  high  ideals  we  should  ex 
pect  in  one  whose  vocation  it  was  to  rescue  marriage  and  feminine 
dignity  from  the  slough  of  the  Papacy.  He  is  fond  of  using  such 
words  in  his  abuse  of  the  Popish  teaching  on  marriage  :  At  one 
time,  he  writes,  the  Papists  make  out  marriage  to  be  a  Sacra 
ment,  "  at  another  to  be  impure,  i.e.  a  sort  of  merdiferous 
Sacrament."2  The  Pope,  who  waywardly  teaches  this  and  other 
doctrines,  "  has  overthrown  the  Word  of  God  "  ;  "  if  the  Pope's 
reputation  had  not  been  destroyed  by  the  Word  of  God,  the 
devil  himself  would  have  ejected  him"  ('  a  posteriori  ').3  Else 
where  he  voices  his  conviction  as  to  the  most  fitting  epithet  to 
apply  to  the  Pope's  "  human  ordinances."  One  thing  in  man, 
he  explains,  viz.  "the  ''anus,'  cannot  be  bound;  it  is  determined 
to  be  master  and  to  have  the  upper  hand.  Hence  this  is  the  only 
thing  in  man's  body  or  soul  upon  which  the  Pope  has  not  laid 
his  commands."4 

"  The  greatest  blessing  of  marriage,"  he  tells  his  friends,  "  lies 
in  the  children  ;  this  D.G.  [Duke  George]  was  not  fated  to  see  in 
his  sons,  '  quos  spectatissima  principissa  cacatos  in  lucem  ederat.'  "5 

The  Pope  and  his  people,  he  says  in  a  sermon,  had  "  condemned 
and  rejected  matrimony  as  a  dirty,  stinking  state."  "  Had  the 
creation  of  human  beings  been  in  the  Pope's  power  he  would 
never  have  created  woman,  or  allowed  any  such  to  exist  in  the 
world."6  "  The  Pope,  the  devil  and  his  Church,"  he  says  in  1539, 
"  are  hostile  to  the  married  state.  .  .  .  Matrimony  [in  their 
opinion]  is  mere  fornication."7 

The  Pope,  he  says,  had  forbidden  the  married  state  ;  he 
and  his  followers,  "  the  monks  and  Papists,"  "  burn  with 
evil  lust  and  love  of  fornication,  though  they  refuse  to  take 
upon  themselves  the  trouble  and  labour  of  matrimony."8 
"  With  the  help  of  the  Papacy  Satan  has  horribly  soiled 
matrimony,  God's  own  ordinance  "  ;  the  fact  was,  the  clergy 
had  been  too  much  afraid  of  woman  ;  "  and  so  it  goes  on  :  If 

1  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  426.     See  vol.  iii.,  p.  273.     Akin  to  this 
is  his  self-congratulation  (above,  p.  46),  that  he  works  for  the  increase 
of  mankind,  whereas  the  Papists  put  men  to  death. 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  430. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  405. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  388. 

5  Ibid.,  61,  p.    193.     The  last  words  are  omitted  in  the  two  old 
editions  of  the  Table-Talk  by  Selnecker  and  Stangwald. 

6  Ibid.,   202,   p.    365.     At   the  marriage  of  the  apostate  Dean  of 
Merseburg. 

7  Ibid.,  2o2,  p.  373  ;    cp.  p.  369  and  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  251,  n.  3. 

8  Ibid.,  61,  p.  204  (Table-Talk). 


164          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

a  man  fears  fornication  he  falls  into  secret  sin,  as  seems  to 
have  been  the  case  with  St.  Jerome."1 

He  saw  sexual  excesses  increasing  to  an  alarming  extent 
among  the  youth  of  his  own  party.  At  table  a  friend  of  the 
"  young  fellows  "  sought  to  excuse  their  "  wild,  immoral 
life  and  fornication  "  on  the  ground  of  their  youth  ;  Luther 
sighed,  at  the  state  of  things  revealed,  and  said  :  "  Alas, 
that  is  how  they  learn  contempt  for  the  female  sex."  Con 
tempt  will  simply  lead  to  abuse  ;  the  true  remedy  for  im 
morality  was  prayerfully  to  hold  conjugal  love  in  honour.2 

Luther,  however,  preferred  to  dwell  upon  the  deep- 
seated  vice  of  an  anti-matrimonial  Papacy  rather  than  on 
the  results  of  his  teaching  upon  the  young. 

"  Every  false  religion,"  he  once  exclaimed  in  1542  in  his 
Table-Talk,3  "  has  been  denied  by  sensuality  !  Just  look 
at  the  |  !  " — [He  must  here  have  used,  says  Kroker,  "  a  term 
for  phallus,  or  something  similar,"  which  Caspar  Heyden- 
reich  the  reporter  has  suppressed.]4  "  What  else  were  the 
pilgrimages,"  Luther  goes  on,  "  but  opportunities  for 
coming  together  ?  What  does  the  Pope  do  but  wallow 
unceasingly  in  his  lusts  ?  .  .  .  The  heathen  held  marriage 
in  far  higher  honour  than  do  the  Pope  and  the  Turk.  The 
Pope  hates  marriage,  and  the  Turk  despises  it.  But  it  is 
the  devil's  nature  to  hate  God's  Word.  What  God  loves,  e.g. 
the  Church,  marriage,  civic  order,  that  he  hates.  He  desires 
fornication  and  impurity  ;  for  if  he  has  these,  he  knows  well 
that  people  will  no  longer  trouble  themselves  about  God." 

The  New  Matrimonial  Conditions  and  the  Slandered 
Opponents. 

It  is  a  fact  witnessed  to  by  contemporaries,  particularly 
by  Catholics,  that  Luther's  unrestraint  when  writing  on 
sexual  subjects,  his  open  allusions  to  organs  and  functions, 
not  usually  referred  to,  and,  especially,  the  stress  he  laid  on 
the  irresistibility  of  the  natural  impulse,  were  not  without 
notable  effect  on  the  minds  of  the  people,  already  excited  as 
they  were. 

1  "  Werke,"  ibid.,  p.  205  (Table-Talk). 

2  Ibid.,  p.  211.  3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  262. 

4  For  similar  instances  of  the  use  of  such  signs  see  vol.  iii.,  p.  231. 
The  Nuremberg  MS.  of  the  Mathesius  collection  substitutes  here, 
according  to  Kroker,  a  meaningless  phrase.  The  MS.  in  the  Ducal 
Library  at  Gotha,  entitled  "  Farrago  "  (1551),  omits  it  altogether. 


ON   MATRIMONY  165 

In  1522,  after  having  explained  his  new  views  on  divorce, 
he  puts  himself  the  question,  whether  this  "  would  not  make 
it  easy  for  wicked  men  and  women  to  desert  each  other,  and 
betake  themselves  to  foreign  parts  "  ?  His  reply  is  :  "  How 
can  I  help  it  ?  It  is  the  fault  of  the  authorities.  Why  do 
they  not  strangle  adulterers  ?  '?1 

Certain  preachers  of  Lutheranism  made  matters  worse  by 
the  fanaticism  with  which  they  preached  the  freedom  of  the 
Evangel.  So  compromising  was  their  support,  that  other 
of  Luther's  followers  found  fault  with  it,  for  instance,  the 
preacher  Urbanus  Rhegius2  It  was,  however,  impossible 
for  these  more  cautious  preachers  to  prevent  Luther's 
principles  being  carried  to  their  consequences,  in  spite  of  all 
the  care  they  took  to  emphasise  his  reserves  and  his  stricter 
admonitions. 

The  Protestant  Rector,  J.  Rivius,  complained  in  1547  :  "If 
you  are  an  adulterer  or  lewdster,  preachers  say  .  .  .  only 
believe  and  you  will  be  saved.  There  is  no  need  for  you  to  fear 
the  law,  for  Christ  has  fulfilled  it  and  made  satisfaction  for  all 
men."  "  Such  words  seduce  people  into  a  godless  life."3 

E.  Sarcerius,  the  Superintendent  of  the  county  of  Mansfeld, 
also  bewailed,  in  a  writing  of  1555,  the  growing  desecration  of 
the  married  state  :  Men  took  more  than  one  wife  ;  this  they  did 
by  "  fleeing  to  foreign  parts  and  seeking  other  wives.  Some 
women  do  the  same.  Thus  there  is  no  end  to  the  desertions  on 
the  part  of  both  husbands  and  wives."  "  In  many  places  horrible 
adultery  and  fornication  prevail,  and  these  vices  have  become  so 
common,  that  people  no  longer  regard  them  as  sinful."  "  Thus 
there  is  everywhere  confusion  and  scandal  both  in  match-making 
and  in  celebrating  the  marriages,  so  that  holy  matrimony  is 
completely  dishonoured  and  trodden  under  foot."  "  Of  adultery, 
lewdness  and  incest  there  is  no  end."4- — These  complaints  were 
called  forth  by  the  state  of  things  in  the  very  county  where  Luther 
was  born  and  died. 

The  convert  George  Wicel,  who  resided  for  a  considerable  time 
at  Mansfeld,  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  the  effects  of 
Luther's  matrimonial  teaching  and  of  his  preaching  generally  on 
a  population  almost  entirely  Protestant.  He  writes,  in  1536  : 
"  It  is  enough  to  break  a  Christian's  heart  to  see  so  many  false 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  289  ;   Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  525.    On  the 
"  strangling,"  cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  253,  n.  3. 

2  "  Wie  man  fiirsichtiglich  reden  soil,"  ed.  A.  Uckeley,  Leipzig,  1908, 
according  to  the  1536  German  ed.  ("  Quellenschriften  zur  Gesch.  des 
Protest.,"  Hft.  6). 

3  "  De  stultitia  mortalium,"  Basil.,  1557,  1,  1,  p.  50  seq.    Denifle,  I2, 
p.  287. 

4  "  Von  werlicher  Visitation,"  Eisleben,   1555,  Bl.  K.  3.      Denifle, 
I2,  p.  280. 


166          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

prophets  and  heretics  flourishing  in  Germany,  whose  comforting 
and  frivolous  teaching  fills  the  land  not  merely  with  adulterers 
but  with  regular  heathen."1  In  an  earlier  work  he  had  said  : 
"  Oh,  you  people,  what  a  fine  manner  of  life  according  to  the 
Gospel  have  you  introduced  by  your  preaching  on  Grace  !  Yes, 
they  cry,  you  would  make  of  Christ  a  Moses  and  a  taskmaster  ; 
they,  however,  make  of  Him  a  procurer  and  an  Epicurean  by 
their  sensual  life  and  knavish  example."2 

Luther,  it  is  true,  had  an  excuse  ready.  He  pleaded  that  the 
freedom  of  the  Gospel  was  not  yet  rightly  understood.  "  The 
masses,"  he  wrote  to  Margrave  George  of  Brandenburg,  on  Sep.  14, 
1531,  "  have  now  fallen  under  the  freedom  of  the  flesh,  and  there 
we  must  leave  them  for  a  while  until  they  have  satisfied  their 
lust.  Things  will  be  different  when  the  Visitation  is  in  working 
order  [the  first  Visitation  in  the  Margrave's  lands  had  taken  place 
as  early  as  1528].  It  is  quick  work  pulling  down  an  old  house, 
but  building  a  new  one  takes  longer.  .  .  .  Jerusalem,  too,  was 
built  very  slowly  and  with  difficulty.  .  .  .  Under  the  Pope  we 
could  not  endure  the  constraint,  and  the  lack  of  the  Word  ;  now 
we  cannot  endure  the  freedom  and  the  superabundant  treasure  of 
the  Gospel."3 

Amidst  all  these  disorders  Luther  found  great  consolation  in 
contemplating  the  anti-Christian  character  of  the  Popish  Church 
and  Daniel's  supposed  prophecy  of  Antichrist's  enmity  for 
woman. 4  His  preachers  only  too  eagerly  followed  in  his  footsteps. 

George  Wicel  speaks  of  the  preachers,  who,  while  themselves 
leading  loose  lives,  used  Daniel's  prophecy  against  the  Catholic 
view  of  marriage.5  "They  mock  at  those  who  wish  to  remain 
single  or  who  content  themselves  with  one  wife,  and  quote  the 
words  of  Daniel  :  '  He  shall  not  follow  the  lust  of  wromen  nor 
regard  any  gods,'  so  that  anyone  belonging  to  this  sect  who 
is  not  addicted  to  the  pursuit  of  women,  is  hardly  safe  from 
being  taken  for  Antichrist.  The  words  of  St.  Paul  in  Cor.  vii., 
of  Our  Lord  in  Mat.  xix.,  concerning  the  third  sex  of  the  eunuchs, 
and  of  St.  John  in  Apoc.  xiv.,  on  those  who  have  not  defiled 
themselves  with  women,  and,  again,  of  St.  Paul  when  speaking 
of  the  '  vidua  digama  '  in  1  Tim.  v.,  don't  count  a  farthing  in 
this  Jovinian  school.6  ...  It  is  an  Epicurean  school  and  an 
Epicurean  life  and  nothing  else."  With  biting  satire,  in  part 

1  "  Annotationen  zu  den  Propheten,"   2,   Eisleben,   1536,   fol.   88. 
Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  1,  p.  48. 

2  "  Ein    unviberwindlicher    griindlicher    Bericht    was    die    Recht- 
fertigung  in  Paulo  sei,"  Leipzig,  1533.     Dollinger,  ibid.,  p.  40. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  54,  p.  253  ("  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  103). 

4  Dan.  xi.,  37.    Cp.  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  64,  p.  155. 

5  "  Annotationen  zum  A.T.,"  2,  fol.  198'.     Dollinger,  ibid.,  p.  106. 

6  The  passages  referred  to  are,  according  to  the  text  of  the  Vulgate  : 
1  Cor.  vii.  32  :    "  Qui  sine  uxore  est,  sollicitus  est  quce  Domini  sunt," 
etc.    Ibid.,  38  :    "  Qui  non  iungit  (virginem  suam)  melius  facit."    Ibid., 
40:  "  Beatior  erit,  si  sic  permanserit,"  etc.    Mat.  xix.  12:  "  Sunt  eunuchi, 
gui  se  ipsos  castraverunt  propter  regnum  Dei.     Qui  potest  capere  capiat." 
Apoc.  xiv.  3  f.,  of  those  who  sing  "  the  new  song  before  the  throne  "  of 


ON   MATRIMONY  167 

the  result  of  the  controversy  thrust  upon  him,  in  part  the  out 
come  of  his  temper,  he  had  declared  shortly  before,  that 
Lutheranism  was  all  "  love  of  women,"  was  "  full  of  senseless 
lust  for  women  "  ;  he  uses  "  gynecophiles  "  as  an  adjective  to 
qualify  it,  and  speaks  of  its  "gynecomania  "  ;  by  this  means  men 
were  to  become  better  Christians,  and  be  more  secure  of  salvation 
than  all  the  Saints  of  God  ever  were  in  the  ancient  apostolic 
Church.  "See  there  what  Satan  is  seeking  by  means  of  this 
exalted  respect  for  the  love  of  women,  and  by  his  glib,  feminist 
preachers  in  Saxony.  Hence  his  and  his  followers'  concern  for 
women,  to  whom  they  cling  so  closely  that  they  can  hardly  get 
into  their  pulpits  without  them,  and,  rather  than  live  a  celibate 
life,  the  Evangelist  would  prefer  to  be  the  husband,  not  of  one 
wife,  but  of  three  or  four."1 

An  intimate  friend  of  Luther's,  Johann  Brenz,  wrote,  in  1532, 
in  a  book  to  which  Luther  supplied  the  Preface  :  "  The  youngsters 
are  barely  out  of  the  cradle  before  they  want  wives,  and  girls, 
not  yet  marriageable,  already  dream  of  husbands."2 — After  the 
immoral  atmosphere  has  brought  about  their  fall,  writes  Fr. 
Staphylus,  "  they  grow  so  impudent  as  to  assert  that  a  chaste 
and  continent  life  is  impossible  and  the  gratification  of  the 
sexual  appetite  as  essential  as  eating  and  drinking."3 — The  same 
author,  who  returned  to  the  Catholic  Church,  also  wrote,  in  1562  : 
"  So  long  as  matrimony  was  looked  upon  as  a  Sacrament, 
modesty  and  an  honourable  married  life  was  loved  and  prized, 
but  since  the  people  have  read  in  Luther's  books  that  matrimony 
is  a  human  invention  ...  his  advice  has  been  put  in  practice 
in  such  a  way,  that  marriage  is  observed  more  chastely  and 
honourably  in  Turkey  than  amongst  our  German  Evangelicals."4 

The  list  of  testimonies  such  as  these  might  be  considerably 
lengthened. 5 

the  Lamb  :  "  Hi  sunt,  qui  cum  mulieribus  non  sunt  coinquinati,  virgines 
enim  sunt.  Hi  sequuntur  agnum  quocunque  ierit.  Hi  empti  sunt  ex 
hominibus  primitice  Deo  et  Agno."  1  Tim.  v.  12,  of  those  widows 
dedicated  to  God  who  marry  :  "  Habentes  damnationem,  qui  primam 
fidem  irritam  fecerunt."  —  Against  Jovinian  St.  Jerome  wrote,  in  392  : 
"Adv.  lovinianum  "  ("  P.L.,"  23,  col.  211  seq.),  where,  in  the  first 
part,  he  defends  virginity,  which  the  former  had  attacked,  and  demon 
strates  its  superiority  and  its  merit. 

1  "  Annotationen  zum  A.T.,"  2,  1536,  fol.  198',  on  Daniel  xi.,  37.. 
Dollinger,  ibid.,  p.  105  f. 

2  "  Homilise    XXII,"    Vitebergse,     1532.       Denifle,    "  Luther    und 
Luthertum,"  I2,  p.  278. 

3  "  De    corruptis    moribus    utriusque   partis,"  Bl.   F.   III.     In  the 
title  page  the  author's  name  is  given  as  Czecanovius  ;    this  is  identical 
with  Staphylus,  as  N.  Paulus  has  shown  in  the  "  Katholik,"  1895,  1, 
p.  574  f. 

4  F.    Staphylus,    "  Nachdruck    zu    Verfechtung    des    Buches    vom 
rechten  Verstandt  des  gottlichen  Worts,"  Ingolstadt,   1562,  fol.  202'. 

5  Cp.  the  quotations  in  Denifle  (I2,  Preface,  p.  15  ff.),  commencing 
with  one  from  Billicanus  :    "  By  the  eternal  God,  what  fornication  and 
adultery  are  we  not  forced  to  witness  "  ;  also  those  on  pp.  282  ff.,  805  f. 


168          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

It  would,  however,  be  unfair,  in  view  of  the  large  number 
of  such  statements,  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  remarkable 
increase,  at  that  time,  in  the  immorality  already  prevalent 
even  in  Catholic  circles,  though  this  was  due  in  great  measure 
to  the  malignant  influence  of  the  unhappy  new  idea  of  freedom, 
and  to  that  contempt  for  ecclesiastical  regulations  as  mere 
human  inventions,  which  had  penetrated  even  into  regions 
still  faithful  to  the  Church.1  Owing  to  the  general  confusion, 
ecclesiastical  discipline  was  at  a  standstill,  evil-doers  went 
unpunished,  nor  could  moral  obligations  be  so  regularly  and 
zealously  enforced.  It  is  true  that  favourable  testimonies 
arc  not  lacking  on  both  sides,  but  they  chiefly  refer  to 
remote  Catholic  and  Protestant  localities.  As  is  usual,  such 
reports  are  less  noticeable  than  the  unfavourable  ones,  the 
good  being  ever  less  likely  to  attract  attention  than  the  evil. 
Staphylus  complains  bitterly  of  both  parties,  as  the  very 
title  of  his  book  proves.2  Finally,  all  the  unfavourable 
accounts  of  the  state  of  married  life  under  Lutheranism  are 
not  quite  so  bad  as  those  given  above,  in  which  moreover, 
maybe,  the  sad  personal  experience  of  the  writers  made  them 
see  things  with  a  jaundiced  eye. 

That,  in  the  matter  of  clerical  morals,  there  wras  a  great 
difference  between  the  end  of  the  15th  and  the  middle  of  the 
16th  centuries  can  be  proved  by  such  ecclesiastical  archives 
as  still  survive  ;  the  condemnations  pronounced  in  the  16th 
century  are  considerably  more  numerous  than  in  earlier  times. 

On  the  grounds  of  such  data  Joseph  Lohr  has  quite  recently 
made  a  very  successful  attempt  to  estimate  accurately  the  moral 
status  of  the  clergy  in  the  Lower  Rhine  provinces,  particularly 
Westphalia.3  He  has  based  his  examination  more  particularly 
on  the  records  of  the  Archdeaconry  of  Xanten  concerning  the 
fines  levied  on  the  clergy  for  all  sorts  of  offences.  The  accounts 
"cover  a  period  of  about  one  hundred  years."4  In  the  16th 
century  we  find  a  quite  disproportionate  increase  in  the  number 
of  offenders.  There  are,  however,  traces,  over  a  long  term  of 
years,  of  a  distinct  weakening  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  which 
made  impossible  any  effective  repression  of  the  growing  evil. 

A  glance  at  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the  15th  century  in 
the  regions  on  which  Lohr's  researches  bear  is  very  instructive. 

1  Cp.  Janssen-Pastor,  "  Gesch.  des  deutschen  Volkes,"  814,  pp. 
378  f.,  384  ff.,  392.  *  See  above,  p.  167,  11.  3. 

3  J.  Lohr,  "  Methodisch-kritische  Beitrage  zur  Gesch.  der  Sittlich- 
keit  des   Klerus,  besonders  der  Erzdiozese  Koln,   am  Ausgange  des 
MA."  ("  Reformationsgesch.  Studien  und  Texte,"  Hft.  17.  1910). 

4  Page  44. 


ON   MATRIMONY  169 

It  enables  us  to  see  how  extravagant  and  untrue  were — at  least 
with  regard  to  these  localities — the  frequent,  and  in  themselves 
quite  incredible,  statements  made  by  Luther  regarding  the  utter 
degradation  of  both  clergy  and  religious  owing  to  the  law  of  celi 
bacy.  "  Of  a  total  of  from  450  to  600  clergy  in  the  Archdeaconry 
of  the  Lower  Rhine  (probably  the  number  was  considerably 
higher)  we  find,  up  to  the  end  of  the  15th  century,  on  an  average, 
only  five  persons  a  year  being  prosecuted  by  the  Archdeacon 
for  [various]  offences."1  "Assuming  a  like  density  of  clergy  in 
Westphalia,  the  number  prosecuted  by  the  ecclesiastical  com 
missioner  in  1495  and  in  1499  would  amount  roughly  to  2  per  cent., 
but,  in  1515,  already  to  6  per  cent."2 

The  results  furnished  by  such  painstaking  research  are 
more  reliable  than  the  vague  accounts  and  complaints  of 
contemporaries.3  Should  the  examination  be  continued  in 
other  dioceses  it  will  undoubtedly  do  as  much  to  clear  up  the 
question  as  the  Visitation  reports  did  for  the  condition  of 
affairs  in  the  16th  century  under  Lutheranism,  though 
probably  the  final  result  will  be  different.  The  Lutheran 
Visitation  reports  mostly  corroborate  the  unfavourable 
testimony  of  olden  writers,  whereas  the  fewness  of  the 
culprits  shown  in  the  Catholic  lists  of  fines  would  seem  to 
bear  out,  at  least  with  regard  to  certain  localities,  those 
contemporaries  who  report  favourably  of  the  clergy  at  the 
close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  One  such  favourable  contemporary 
testimony  comes  from  the  Humanist,  Jacob  Wimpfeling, 
and  concerns  the  clergy  of  the  Rhine  Lands.  The  statement 
of  this  writer,  usually  a  very  severe  critic  of  the  clergy,  runs 
quite  counter  to  Luther's  general  and  greatly  exaggerated 
charges.4  "  God  knows,  I  am  acquainted  with  many,  yea, 

1  Page  59. 

2  Page   65.     That  all  offenders  without  exception  were  punished 
is  of  course  not  likely. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  1-24. — For  the  16th  and  17th  centuries  we  refer  the  reader 
to    J.    Schmidlin,    "  Die    kirchl.    Zustande    in    Deutschland   vor    dem 
Dreissigjahrigen  Kriege  nach  den  bischoflichen  Diozesanberichten  an 
den  Heiligen  Stuhl,"  Freiburg,    1908-1911   ("  Erlauterungen  usw.  zu 
Janssens  Gesch.,"  7,  Hft.  1-10).    In  the  "  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  31,  1910,  p.  163, 
we  read  of  the  reports  contained  in  the  first  part  of  the  work  :    "  They 
commence  by  revealing  the  sad  depths  to  which  Catholic  life  had  sunk, 
but  go  on  to  show  an  ever-increasing  vigour  on  the  part  of  the  bishops, 
in  many  cases  crowned  with  complete  success." 

4  "  De   vita  et  miraculis  lohannis   Gerson"  s.l.e.a.  (1506),  B  4b  ; 
Janssen-Pastor,     I18,    p.    681.      Wimpfeling    is,    however,    answering 
the  Augustiiiian,  Johann  Paltz,  who  had  attacked  the  secular  clergy  ; 
elsewhere  he  witness.es  to  the  grave  blots,  on  the  life  of  the  secular 
clergy. 


170          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

countless  pastors  amongst  the  secular  clergy  in  the  six 
dioceses  of  the  Rhine,  who  are  richly  equipped  with  all  the 
knowledge  requisite  for  the  cure  of  souls  and  whose  lives 
are  blameless.  I  know  excellent  prelates,  canons  and  vicars 
both  at  the  Cathedrals  and  the  Collegiate  Churches,  not  a 
few  in  number  but  many,  men  of  unblemished  reputation, 
full  of  piety  and  generous  and  humble-minded  towards  the 
poor." 

Luther  himself  made  statements  which  deprive  his 
accusations  of  their  point.  Even  what  he  says  of  the 
respect  paid  to  the  clerical  state  militates  against  him.  Of 
the  first  Mass  said  by  the  newly  ordained  priest  he  relates, 
that  "  it  was  thought  much  of  "  ;  that  the  people  on  such 
occasions  brought  offerings  and  gifts  ;  that  the  "  bride 
groom's  "  "  Hours  "  were  celebrated  by  torchlight,  and 
that  he,  together  with  his  mother,  if  still  living,  was  led 
through  the  streets  with  music  and  dancing,  "  the  people 
looking  on  and  weeping  for  joy."1  It  is  true  that  he 
is  loud  in  his  blame  of  the  avarice  displayed  at  such  first 
Masses,  but  the  respect  shown  by  the  people,  and  here 
described  by  him,  would  never  have  been  exhibited  towards 
the  clergy  had  they  rendered  themselves  so  utterly  con 
temptible  by  their  immorality  as  he  makes  out. 

In  a  sermon  of  1521,  speaking  of  the  "  majority  of  the 
clergy,"  he  admits  that  most  of  them  "  \vork,  pray  and  fast 
a  great  deal  "  ;  that  they  "  sing,  speak  and  preach  of  the 
law  and  lead  men  to  many  works  "  ;  that  they  fancy  they 
will  gain  heaven  by  means  of  "  pretty  works,"  though  all 
in  vain,  so  he  thinks,  owing  to  their  lack  of  knowledge  of 
the  Evangel.2  During  the  earlier  period  of  his  change  of 
opinions  he  was  quite  convinced,  that  a  pernicious  self- 
righteousness  (that  of  the  "  iustitiarii  ")  was  rampant 
amongst  both  clergy  and  religious  ;  not  only  in  the  houses 
of  his  own  Congregation,  but  throughout  the  Church,  a 
painstaking  observance  of  the  law  and  a  scrupulous  fulfil 
ment  of  their  duty  by  the  clergy  and  monks  constituted  a 
danger  to  the  true  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  as  he  understood  it. 
It  was  his  polemics  which  then  caused  him  to  be  obsessed 
with  the  idea,  that  the  whole  world  had  been  seized  upon  by 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  400  ("  Tischreden  ").     Cp.  Lauterbach, 
"  Tagebuch,"  p.  186  :    "  Cum  summo  fletu  spectator 'urn." 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  239  ;   Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  234. 


ON   MATRIMONY  171 

the  self-righteous.  It  was  his  polemics  again,  which,  later, 
made  him  regard  the  whole  world  as  full  of  immoral  clerics. 
The  extravagance  of  Luther's  utterances  in  his  fight 
against  clerical  celibacy  might  perhaps  be  regarded  as  due 
to  the  secluded  life  he  had  led  at  Wittenberg  during  the 
years  he  was  a  monk,  which  prevented  him  from  knowing 
the  true  state  of  things.  Experience  gained  by  more  exten 
sive  travel  and  intercourse  with  others  might  indeed  have 
corrected  his  views.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  not 
altogether  untravelled ;  besides  visiting  Rome  and  Southern 
Germany  he  had  been  to  Heidelberg,  Worms  and  Cologne. 
His  stay  at  the  latter  city  is  particularly  noteworthy,  for 
there  he  was  in  the  heart  of  the  very  region  of  which 
Wimpfeling  had  given  so  favourable  an  account.  Can  he, 
during  the  long  journey  on  foot  and  in  his  conversations  with 
his  brother  monks  there,  not  have  convinced  himself,  that 
the  clergy  residing  in  that  city  were  by  no  means  sunk  in 
immorality  and  viciousness  ?  His  visit  to  Cologne  coincided 
in  all  probability  with  the  general  Chapter  which  Staupitz 
had  summoned  there  at  the  commencement  of  May,  1512. 
Luther  only  recalls  incidentally  having  seen  there  the  bodies 
of  the  Three  Kings ;  having  swallowed  all  the  legends  told 
him  concerning  them ;  and  having  drunk  such  wine  as  he  had 
never  drunk  before.1 

1  We  may  here  remark  concerning  Luther's  stay  at  Cologne  (passed 
over  in  vol.  i.,  p.  38  f.,  for  the  sake  of  brevity),  that  at  the  Chapter  then 
held  by  Staupitz — to  whose  party  Luther  had  now  gone  over — the  former 
probably  refrained,  in  his  official  capacity,  from  putting  in  force  his 
plans  for  an  amalgamation  of  the  Observantin.es  and  the  Conventuals 
of  the  Saxon  Province.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Luther  came  to 
Cologne  from  Wittenberg,  whither  he  had  betaken  himself  on  his 
return  from  Rome.  After  the  Chapter  at  Cologne  he  made  prepara 
tions  for  his  promotion.  Possibly  the  project  of  securing  the  Doctorate 
was  matured  at  Cologne.  He  speaks  of  the  relics  of  the  Three  Kings  in 
a  sermon  of  January  5th,  of  which  two  accounts  have  been  preserved 
("Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  1,  p.  22:  "I  have  seen  them."  "I  too 
have  seen  them  ").  In  the  so-called  "  Bibelprotokollen,"  of  1539,  he 
says  (*bid.,  p.  585)  :  "  At  Cologne  I  drank  a  wine  quod  penetrabat  in 
mensa  manum"  (which  probably  means,  was  so  fiery  that  soon  after 
drinking  it  he  felt  a  tingling  down  to  his  finger-tips).  "  Never  in  all  my 
life  have  I  drunk  so  rich  a  wine."  Cp.,  for  the  Cologne  Chapter,  Kolde, 
"  Die  deutsche  Augustinerkongregation,"  p.  242  f.,  and  for  the  same 
and  Luther's  Cologne  visit,  Walter  Kohler,  "  Christl.  Welt,"  1908, 
No.  30  ;  N.  Paulus,  "  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"  142,  1908,  p.  749  ;  and  G. 
Kawerau,  "  Theol.  Stud,  und  Krit.,"  81,  1908,  p.  348.  Buchwald 
refers  to  a  statement  of  Luther's  on  a  monument  at  Cologne  ("  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  371="  Tischreden,"  ed.  Forstemann,  4,  p.  625)  in 
"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  2,  p.  609. 


172          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Two  Concluding  Pictures  towards  the  History  of  Woman. 

We  may,  in  conclusion,  give  two  pictures  which  cast  a 
new  and  lurid  light  on  what  has  gone  before. 

Luther's  standpoint,  and,  no  less,  the  confusion  which 
had  arisen  in  married  life  and  the  humiliations  to  which 
many  women  were  exposed,  come  out  clearly  in  the  story  of 
his  relations  with  the  preacher  Jodocus  Kern  and  his  spouse. 
Kern,  an  apostate  monk,  had  wedded  at  Nuremberg  Ursula 
Tagler,  an  ex-nun  from  the  convent  of  Engelthal.  On  Dec. 
24,  1524,  Luther  joyously  commended  him  as  "  a  monk, 
metamorphosed  into  a  married  man,"  to  the  care  of  Spalatin.1 
AVhen  Kern  went  to  Saxony  in  search  of  a  post  the  girl 
refused  to  accompany  him  until  he  had  found  employment. 
During  his  absence  she  began  to  regret  the  step  she  had 
taken,  and  the  letters  she  received  from  her  former  Prioress 
determined  her  to  return  no  more  to  her  husband.  The 
persuasion  of  her  Lutheran  relatives  indeed  induced  her  to 
go  to  Allstedt  after  Kern  had  been  appointed  successor  to 
Thomas  Miinzer  in  that  town,  but  there  her  horror  only  grew 
for  the  sacrilegious  union  she  had  contracted.  Coercion  was 
quite  fruitless.  The  minister,  at  the  advice  of  her  own 
relatives,  treated  her  very  roughly,  forced  her  to  eat  meat 
on  Good  Friday  and  refused  to  listen  when  she  urged  him  to 
return  to  the  Catholic  Church.  Having  made  an  attempt 
to  escape  to  Mansfeld,  her  case  was  brought  before  the 
secular  Courts  ;  she  was  examined  by  the  commissioner  of 
Allstedt  on  January  11,  1526,  when  she  declared,  that  it 
was  against  her  conscience  to  look  upon  Kern  as  her  husband, 
that  her  soul  was  dearer  to  her  than  her  body  and  that  she 
would  rather  die  than  continue  to  endure  any  longer  the 
bonds  of  sin.  This  the  commissioner  reported  to  the  Elector 
Johann,  and  the  latter,  on  Jan.  17,  forwarded  her  statement 
to  Luther,  together  with  Kern's  account,  for  the  purpose  of 
hearing  from  one  so  "  learned  in  Scripture  "  "  how  the 
matter  ought  to  be  treated  and  disposed  of  in  accordance 
with  God's  Holy  Writ."2 

Luther  took  a  week  to  reply  :  The  Allstedt  woman  was 
suffering  such  "  temptations  from  the  devil  and  men,  that  it 
would  verily  be  a  wonder  if  she  could  resist  them."  The 
only  means  of  keeping  her  true  to  the  Evangel  and  to  her 

*  "  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  86.  •  Ibid.,  p.  308. 


ON  MATRIMONY  173 

duty  would  be  to  send  her  to  her  people  at  Nuremberg. 
Should,  even  there,  "  the  devil  refuse  to  yield  to  God's  good 
exhortation  "  then  she  would  have  to  "  be  allowed  to  go,"  and 
"  be  reckoned  as  dead,"  and  then  the  pastor  might  marry 
another.  Out  of  the  scandal  that  the  wanton  spirit  had 
given  through  her  God  might  yet  work  some  good.  "  The 
Evangel  neither  will  nor  can  be  exempt  from  scandals."1 

The  unhappy  nun  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  forcibly  brought 
to  Nuremberg  and  placed  amongst  Lutheran  surroundings 
instead  of  being  conveyed  to  her  convent  at  Engelthal,  as 
the  laws  of  the  Empire  demanded.  From  thence  she  never 
returned  to  Allstedt.  Kern,  during  the  proceedings,  had 
declared  that  he  did  not  want  her  against  her  conscience, 
and  was  ready  to  submit  to  the  Word  of  God  and  to 
comply  exactly  with  whatever  this  imposed.  In  accordance 
therewith  he  soon  found  a  fresh  bride.  During  the  Visita 
tions,  in  1533,  he  was  charged  with  bigamy  and  was  repri 
manded  for  being  a  "  drinker  and  gambler,"  although  his 
industry  and  talents  were  at  the  same  time  recognised. 
Nothing  is  known  of  his  later  doings.2 

Two  open  letters  addressed  to  Luther  by  Catholics  in 
1528  form  a  companion  picture  to  the  above.  They  portray 
the  view  taken  by  many  faithful  Catholics  of  Luther's  own 
marriage. 

In  that  year  two  Professors  at  the  Leipzig  University, 
Johann  Hasenberg  and  Joachim  von  der  Heyden,  published 
printed  circulars  addressed  to  Luther  and  Catherine  von 
Bora,  admonishing  them — now  that  ten  years  had  elapsed 
since  Luther  first  attacked  the  Church — on  their  breaking 
of  their  vows,  their  desecration  of  the  Sacrament  of  Matri 
mony  and  their  falling  away  from  the  Catholic  faith.3  It  is 
probable  that  Duke  George  of  Saxony  had  something  to  do 
with  this  joint  attack.4  It  is  also  likely  that  hopes  of 

1  Jan.  25,  1526,  ibid.,  p.  312. 

2  Cp.  Enders  on  the  letter  last  quoted. 

3  "  Brief wechsel  Luthers,"  6,  p.  322  f.     Hasenberg's  Latin  letter, 
Aug.  10,  1528,  p.  334  ff. ;  v.  der  Heyden's  German  one  of  same  date. 

4  Cp.  Duke  George's  fierce  letter  to  Luther  of  Dec.  28,  1525  ("  Brief  - 
wechsel,"  5,  p.  285  ff.),  which  was  also  printed  forthwith.     He  will 
speak  freely   and   openly   to   him,   he   says  :     "  Seek   the   hypocrites 
amongst  those  who  call  you  a  prophet,  a  Daniel,  the  Apostle  of  the 
Germans  and  an  Evangelist."     "  At  Wittenberg  you  have  set  up  an 
asylum  where  all  the  monks  and  nuns  who,  by  their  robbing  and 


174          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

sterner  measures  on  the  part  of  the  Imperial  authorities  also 
helped  to  induce  the  writers  to  put  pen  to  paper.1  In  any 
case  it  was  their  plan,  vigorously  and  before  all  the  world, 
to  attack  the  author  of  the  schism  in  his  most  vulnerable 
spot,  where  it  would  not  be  easy  for  him  to  defend  himself 
publicly.  Master  Hasenberg,  a  Bohemian,  was  one  of 
George's  favourites,  who  had  made  him  three  years  previously 
Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Arts.  He  addressed  his  open 
letter  to  "  Martinus  Luderus,"  the  "  destroyer  of  the 
public  peace  and  piety."  Von  der  Heyden,  known  in  Latin 
as  Myricianus  or  Phrisomynensis  (a  Frisian  by  birth),  was 
likewise  a  Master,  and  Papal  and  academic  Notary  at 
Leipzig.  Of  the  two  he  was  the  younger.  His  letter  was 
addressed  to  "  Khete  von  Bhore,  Luther's  pretended  wife," 
and  served  as  preface  to  a  printed  translation  he  had  made 
of  the  work :  "  De  lapsu  virginis  consecratce,"  then  attributed 
to  St.  Ambrose.2  Both  epistles,  according  to  one  of  the 
answers,  must  have  been  despatched  by  special  messenger 
and  delivered  at  Luther's  house.  They  drew  forth  printed 
replies,  some  of  which  can  be  traced  to  Luther  himself,  while 
Euricius  Cordus  ridiculed  the  writers  in  a  screed  full  of 
biting  epigram. 

The  Leipzig  letters,  the  first  of  Avhich  was  also  published 
in  German,  made  a  great  sensation  in  German  circles  and 
constituted  an  urgent  exhortation  to  thousands  of  apostates 
estranged  from  the  Church  by  Luther's  new  doctrine  on 
Christian  freedom  and  on  the  nullity  of  vows. 

Relentlessly  Hasenberg  put  to  Luther  the  questions  :  "  Who 
has  blasphemously  slandered  the  pious  promise  of  celibacy  which 
priests,  religious  and  nuns  made  to  God,  and  which,  throughout 
the  ages,  had  been  held  sacred  ?  Luderus.  Who  has  shrouded 

stealing,  deprive  us  of  our  churches  and  convents  find  refuge."  "  When 
have  more  acts  of  sacrilege  been  committed  by  people  dedicated  to 
God  than  since  your  Evangel  has  been  preached  ?  "  Did  not  Christ 
say  :  "  By  their  fruits  you  shall  know  them  "  ?  All  the  great  preachers 
of  the  faith  have  been  "  pious,  respectable  and  truthful  men,  not 
proud,  avaricious  or  unchaste."  "  Your  marriage  is  the  work,  not  of 
God,  but  of  the  enemy.  .  .  .  Since  both  of  you  once  took  an  oath  not 
to  commit  unchastity  lest  God  should  forsake  you,  is  it  not  high  time 
that  you  considered  your  position  ?  "  —  The  greater  part  of  the  letter  was 
incorporated  by  Cochlaeus  in  his  Acta  (p.  119). 

1  On  p.  336  von  der  Heyden  says  :    Luther  is  "  beginning  to  draw 
in  his  horns  and  is  in  great  fear  lest  his  nun  should  be  unyoked." 

2  Nicetas,  Bishop  of  Romatiana,  may  be  the  author  of  this  anony 
mous  work,  printed  in  "  P.L.,"  16,  col.  367-384. 


ON   MATRIMONY  175 

in  darkness  free-will,  good  works,  the  ancient  and  unshaken  faith, 
and  that  jewel  of  virginity  which  shines  more  brightly  than  the 
sun  in  the  Church  ?  Luderus.  .  .  .  Do  you  not  yet  see,  you 
God-forsaken  man,  what  all  Christians  think  of  your  impudent 
behaviour,  your  temerity  and  voluptuousness  ?  " 

Referring  to  the  sacrilegious  union  with  Bora,  he  proceeds  : 
"  The  enormity  of  your  sin  is  patent.  You  have  covered  yourself 
with  guilt  in  both  your  private  and  public  life,  particularly  by 
your  intercourse  with  the  woman  who  is  not  your  wife."  In  his 
indignation  he  does  not  shrink  from  comparing  the  ex-nun  to  a 
lustful  Venus.  He  thunders  against  Luther  :  "  You,  a  monk, 
fornicate  by  day  and  by  night  with  a  nun  !  And,  by  your  writings 
and  sermons,  you  drag  down  into  the  abyss  with  you  ignorant 
monks  and  unlearned  priests,  questionable  folk,  many  of  whom 
were  already  deserving  of  the  gallows.  Oh,  you  murderer  of  the 
people!"  "Yes,  indeed,  this  is  the  way  to  get  to  heaven — or 
rather  to  Lucifer's  kingdom  !  Why  not  say  like  Epicurus  :  There 
is  no  God  and  no  higher  power  troubles  about  us  poor  mortals  ? 
Call  upon  your  new  gods,  Bacchus,  Venus,  Mars,  Priapus,  Futina, 
Potina,  Subigus  and  Hymenseus."  His  wish  for  Luther's  spouse 
is,  that  she  may  take  to  heart  the  touching  words  of  St.  Ambrose 
to  the  fallen  nun,  so  as  not  to  fall  from  the  abyss  of  a  vicious  life 
into  the  abyss  of  everlasting  perdition  prepared  "  for  the  devil  and 
his  Lutheran  angels."  And  again,  turning  to  Luther  :  "  Have 
pity,"  he  says,  "  on  the  nun,  have  compassion  on  the  concubine 
and  the  children,  your  own  flesh  and  blood.  Send  the  nun  back 
to  the  cloistral  peace  and  penance  which  she  forsook  ;  free  the 
unhappy  creature  from  the  embraces  of  sin  and  restore  her  to 
her  mother  the  Church  and  to  her  most  worthy  and  loving 
bridegroom  Christ,  so  that  she  may  again  sing  in  unison  with  the 
faithful  the  Ambrosian  hymn  :  '  Ie.su,  corona  virginum.'1  .  .  . 
This  much  at  least,  viz.  the  dismissal  of  the  nun,  you  cannot 
refuse  us,  however  blindly  you  yourself  may  hurry  along  the  sad 
path  you  have  chosen.  All  the  faithful,  linked  together  through 
out  the  world  by  the  golden  chain  of  charity,  implore  you  with 
tears  of  blood ;  so  likewise  does  your  kind  Mother,  the  Church, 
and  the  holy  choirs  of  Angels,  who  rejoice  over  the  sinner  who 
returns  penitent." 

The  writer,  who  seasons  his  counsel  with  so  much  bitterness, 
had  plainly  little  hope  of  the  conversion  of  the  man  he  was 
addressing  ;  his  attack  was  centred  on  Catharine  Bora.  This 
was  even  more  so  the  case  with  von  der  Heyden,  a  man  of  lively 
character  who  delighted  in  controversy  ;  even  from  his  first 
words  it  is  clear  that  he  had  no  intention  of  working  on  her  kindlier 
feelings  :  "  Woe  to  you,  poor  deluded  woman."  He  upbraids  her 
with  her  fall  from  light  into  darkness,  from  the  vocation  of  the 
cloister  into  an  "  abominable  and  shameful  life  "  ;  by  her 
example  she  has  brought  "  many  poor,  innocent  children  into  a 
like  misery  "  ;  formerly  they  had,  as  nuns,  "  lived  in  discipline 

1  For  the  full  text  of    this  anonymous  hymn  (incorporated  in  the 
Office  for  Virgins  in  the  Breviary),  see  "  P.L.,"  16,  col.  1221. 


176         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

and  purity,"  now  they  are  "  not  merely  in  spiritual  but 
in  actual  bodily  want,  nay,  the  poorest  of  the  poor  and  have 
become  the  most  despicable  of  creatures."  Many  of  them  now 
earned  a  living  in  "  houses  of  ill-fame,"  they  were  frequently 
forced  to  pawn  or  sell  their  poor  clothing,  and  sometimes  them 
selves  ;  they  had  hoped  for  the  true  freedom  of  the  spirit  that 
had  been  promised  them,  and,  instead,  they  had  been  cast  into 
a  "  horrible  bondage  of  soul  and  body."  Luther  "  in  his  pesti 
lential  writings  had  mistaken  the  freedom  of  the  flesh  for  the 
true  liberty  of  the  spirit,  in  opposition  to  St.  Paul,  who  had  based 
this  freedom  solely  on  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  as  in  2  Cor.  iii.  17  : 
'  Where  the  Spirit  of  God  is,  there  is  liberty  '  Luther's  preach 
ing  on  liberty  was  one  big  lie,  and  another  was  his  opinion  that 
the  "  vow  of  virginity,  where  it  was  observed,  was  wicked  and 
sinful,  which  statement  was  contrary  to  God  and  the  whole  of 
Scripture,"  and  more  particularly  opposed  to  St.  Paul,  who 
strongly  condemned  those  who  broke  their  plighted  faith  to 
Christ  ;  St.  Paul  had  quite  plainly  recommended  clerical  celibacy 
when  he  wrote,  that  he  who  is  without  a  wife  is  solicitous  for  the 
things  that  are  the  Lord's,  but  that  the  husband  is  solicitous  for 
the  things  of  the  world,  how  best  he  may  please  his  wife  (1  Cor. 
vii.  32  f.). 

Your  "  Squire  Luther,"  he  says  to  Bora,  "  behaves  himself 
very  impudently  and  proudly  "  ;  "he  fancies  he  can  fly,  that  he 
is  treading  on  roses  and  is  '  lux  mundi  '  "  ;  he  forgets  that  God 
has  commanded  us  to  keep  what  we  have  vowed  ;  people  gladly 
obeyed  the  Emperor,  yet  God  was  "  an  Emperor  above  all 
Emperors,"  and  had  still  more  right  to  fealty  and  obedience. 
Was  she  ignorant  of  Christ's  saying  :  "  No  man  having  put  his 
hand  to  the  plough  and  looking  back  is  fit  for  the  Kingdom  of 
God  "  (Luke  ix.  62)  ?  He  reminds  her  of  the  severe  penalties 
imposed  by  the  laws  of  the  Empire  on  those  religious  who  were 
openly  unfaithful  to  their  vow,  and,  particularly,  of  the  eternal 
punishment  which  should  move  her  to  leave  the  "  horrid,  black 
monk  "  (the  Augustinians  wrore  a  black  habit),  to  bewail  like 
"  St.  Magdalene  the  evil  she  had  done  "  and,  by  returning 
to  the  convent,  to  make  "  reparation  for  her  infidelity  to  God." 
St.  Ambrose's  booklet  on  the  fallen  nun  might  lead  her,  and  her 
companions  in  misfortune,  to  a  "  humble  recognition  "  (of  their 
sin),  "  and  enable  her  to  flee  from  the  swift  wrath  of  God  and 
return  to  the  fold  of  Christ,  attain  to  salvation  together  with  us 
all  and  praise  the  Lord  for  all  eternity." 

We  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  gulf  which  divided  people's 
minds  at  that  time  in  the  very  title  of  the  reply  by  Euricius 
Cordus  :  "  The  Marburg  literary  society's  peal  of  laughter 
over  the  screed  against  Luther  of  two  Leipzig  poets."1 

1  "  Literarii  sodalitii  apud  Marpuryam  aliquot  cachinni  super 
quodam  duorum  Lypsiensium  poetarum  in  Lutherum  scripto  libello 
effusi  "  (Marburgse),  1528. 


ON  MATRIMONY  177 

Two  satirical  and  anonymous  replies  immediately  appeared 
in  print  at  Wittenberg,  the  one  entitled  :  "  New-Zeittung 
von  Leyptzig,"  of  which  Luther  "  was  not  entirely  innocent," 
and  the  other  quite  certainly  his  work,  viz.  "  Ein  newe  Fabel 
Esopi  newlich  verdeudscht  gefunden."1  In  the  first  reply 
spurious  epistles  are  made  to  relate  how  the  two  Leipzig 
letters  had  been  brought  by  a  messenger  to  Luther's  house, 
and  had  then  been  carried  by  the  servants  unread  to  the 
"  back-chamber  where  it  stinketh."  "  The  paper  having 
duly  been  submitted  to  the  most  ignominious  of  uses  it  was 
again  packed  into  a  bundle  and  despatched  back  to  the 
original  senders  by  the  same  messenger."2 

In  his  "  Newe  Fabel  "  (of  the  Lion  and  the  Ass)  Luther 
implicitly  includes  von  der  Heyden,  all  the  defenders  of 
the  Pope,  and  the  Pope  himself  under  the  figure  of  the  Ass 
(with  the  cross  on  its  back)  ;  "  there  is  nothing  about  the 
Ass  that  is  not  worthy  of  royal  and  papal  honours."3  The 
author  of  the  letter  he  calls  an  ass's  head  and  sniveller  ;  the 
very  stones  of  Leipzig  would  spit  upon  him ;  he  was  the 
"  horse-droppings  in  which  the  apples  were  packed  "  ;  his 
art  had  brought  on  him  "  such  an  attack  of  diarrhoea  that 
all  of  us  have  been  bespattered  with  his  filth  "  ;  "  If  you  wish 
to  devour  us,  you  might  begin  downstairs  at  the  commode," 
etc.4 

We  find  nothing  in  either  writing  in  the  nature  of  a  reply — 
of  which  indeed  he  considered  the  Leipzig  authors  unworthy 
— except  the  two  following  statements  :  firstly,  Luther  had 
sufficiently  instructed  his  faithful  wife,  and  the  world  in 
general,  "that  the  religious  life  was  wrong";5  secondly, 
Ambrose,  Jerome,  or  whoever  wrote  the  booklet,  "  had 
stormed  and  raved  like  a  demon  "  in  that  work,  which  was 
"  more  heretical  than  Catholic,  against  the  nun  who  had 
yielded  to  her  sexual  instincts  ;  he  had  not  spoken  like  a 
Doctor,  .  .  .  but  as  one  who  wished  to  drive  the  poor 
prostitute  into  the  abyss  of  hell ;  a  murderer  of  souls  pitted 
against  a  poor,  feeble,  female  vessel."6  Hence  Luther's 
views  are  fairly  apparent  in  the  replies. 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  539  ff.  (with  the  editor's  opinion  on 
the  authorship)  ;    Erl.  ed.,  64,  pp.  324-337. 

2  Ibid.,   p.    540=339.      The   writing  aptly  concludes:     "...  tuo, 
vates,  carmine  tergo  nates." 

3  Ibid.,  p.  548=  330.  4  Ibid.,  547=  327  f . 

5  Ibid.,  p.  544=344.  «  Ibid.,  p.  553  f.  =  335  f. 

IV.  — N 


178         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  Church,  yea,  even  the  Church  of  the  earliest  times, 
was  made  to  bear  the  curse  of  having  degraded  woman  and 
of  having,  by  the  religious  life,  declared  war  on  marriage. 

A  contemporary,  Petrus  Silvius,  who  read  Luther's 
writings  with  indignation  and  disgust,  wrote,  in  1530  : 
"  Luther,  with  his  usual  lies  and  blasphemy,  calumniates  the 
Christian  Church  and  now  says,  that  she  entirely  rejected 
and  condemned  matrimony."1 

In  what  has  gone  before  these  falsehoods  concerning  the 
earlier  degradation  and  his  own  exaltation  of  woman  have 
been  refuted  at  some  length  ;  the  detailed  manner  in  which 
this  was  done  may  find  its  vindication  in  the  words  of  yet 
another  opponent  of  Luther's,  H.  Sedulius,  who  says  :  "It 
must  be  repeated  again  and  again,  that  it  is  an  impudent  lie 
to  say  we  condemn  marriage."2 

1  "  Sermones  dominicales  des  gnadenreichen  Predigers  Andree 
Prolis  "  (with  notes),  Leipzig,  1530,  fol.  K.  4'. 

"  Apologeticus  adv.   Alcoranum  Franciscanorum  pro  Libra   Con- 
formitatum,"  Antverpise,  1607,  p.  101. 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

FRESH  CONTROVERSIES  WITH  ERASMUS  (1534,  1536)  AND 
DUKE  GEORGE  (f  1539) 

1.  Luther  and  Erasmus  Again 

IN  reply  to  Luther's  "  De  servo  arbitrio  "  against  Erasmus 
the  latter  had  published,  in  1526,  a  sharp  retort  entitled 
"  Hyperaspistes,"  which,  in  the  following  year,  he  enlarged 
by  adding  to  it  a  second  part.1  In  this  work  the  author's 
able  pen  brings  into  the  light  of  day  the  weakness  of  Luther's 
objections,  his  distortion  of  the  Church's  teaching,  his 
frequent  misrepresentations  of  Erasmus  and  his  own  self- 
contradictions. 

Luther  did  not  then  reply  to  the  work  of  the  chief  of  the 
Humanists.  In  the  ensuing  years,  however,  he  became  pain 
fully  aware  that  the  hostility  of  Erasmus  had  lost  him  many 
adherents  belonging  to  the  Erasmian  school.  A  great 
cleavage  had  become  apparent  in  the  scholar's  circle  of 
friends  till  then  so  closely  united,  the  greater  number  taking 
their  master's  side  against  the  smaller  group  which  remained 
true  to  Luther.  It  was  in  vain  that  several  of  Erasmus's 
admirers  intervened  and  besought  Luther  to  spare  the 
feelings  of  the  elder  man.  The  Wittenberg  professor  made 
many  cutting  allusions  to  his  opponent  and  assumed  more 
and  more  an  attitude  which  foreboded  another  open  out 
burst  of  furious  controversy. 

With  the  art  peculiar  to  him,  he  came  to  persuade  himself, 

that  the  champion  of  free-will  was  hostile  to  the  idea  of 

any  Divine  supremacy  over  the  human  will,  scoffed  at  all 

religion,    denied   the    Godhead    and    was    worse    than    any 

persecutor  of  the  Church  ;    he  was  confirmed  in  this  belief 

by  the  sarcastic  sayings  about  his  Evangel,  to  which  Erasmus 

gave   vent   in   his   correspondence   and   conversations,    and 

which  occasionally  came  to  Luther's  knowledge.     It  is  true 

1  "  Opp.,"  ed.  Lugd.,  9,  col.  1249  seq. 

179 


180          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

that  if  we  look  at  the  matter  through  Luther's  spectacles  we 
can  understand  how  certain  darker  sides  of  Erasmus  and 
his  Humanist  school  repelled  him.  Luther  fixed  on  these, 
and,  as  was  his  wont,  harshly  exaggerated  and  misrepre 
sented  them.  The  too-great  attention  bestowed  on  the 
outward  form,  seemingly  to  the  detriment  of  the  Christian 
contents,  displeased  him  greatly  ;  still  more  so  did  the 
undeniable  frivolity  with  which  sacred  things,  still  dear  to 
him,  Avere  treated.  At  the  same  time  it  was  strange  to  him, 
and  rightly  so,  how  little  heed  the  Humanists  who  remained 
faithful  to  the  Church  paid  to  the  principle  of  authority  and 
of  ecclesiastical  obedience,  preferring  to  follow  the  lax 
example  set  by  Erasmus  himself,  more  particularly  during 
the  first  period  of  his  career  ;  they  appeared  to  submit  to 
the  yoke  of  the  Church  merely  formally  and  from  force  of 
habit,  and  showed  none  of  that  heart-felt  conviction  and 
respect  for  her  visible  supremacy  which  alone  could  win  the 
respect  of  those  without.1 

Schlaginhaufen  has  noted  down  the  following  remark  made  by 
Luther  in  1532  when  a  picture  of  Erasmus  was  shown  him. 
"  The  cunning  of  his  mode  of  writing  is  perfectly  expressed  in 
his  face.  He  does  nothing  but  mock  at  God  and  religion.  When  he 
speaks  of  our  Holy  Christ,  of  the  Holy  Word  of  God  and  the  Holy 
Sacraments,  these  are  mere  fine,  big  words,  a  sham  and  no  reality. 
.  .  .  Formerly  he  annoyed  and  confuted  the  Papacy,  now  he 
draws  his  head  out  of  the  noose."2  In  the  same  year,  and 
according  to  the  same  reporter,  he  declared  :  "  Erasmus  is  a 
knave  incarnate.  .  .  .  Were  I  in  good  health,  I  should  inveigh 
against  him.  To  him  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost  are  some 
thing  ludicrous.  .  .  .  Erasmus  is  as  sure  there  is  no  God  as  I 
am  that  I  can  see.  Lucian  himself  was  not  so  bold  and  impudent 
as  Erasmus."3 

At  Easter  of  the  following  year  Veit  Dietrich,  who  lived  in 
Luther's  house,  announced  in  a  letter  to  Nuremberg,  that  the 
storm  was  about  to  break  :  Luther  was  arming  himself  against 
Erasmus,  reading  his  books  carefully  and  gathering  together 
his  blasphemies.  The  same  writer  in  a  collection  of  Luther's 
conversations  not  yet  published  quotes  the  following  outbursts  : 
"  Erasmus  makes  use  of  ambiguities,  intentionally  and  with 
malice,  this  I  shall  prove  against  him.  .  .  .  Were  I  to  cut  open 
Erasmus's  heart,  I  should  find  nothing  but  mockeries  of  the 
Trinity,  the  Sacraments,  etc.  To  him  the  whole  thing  is  a 
joke."4 

1  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  242  ff. 

2  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichmmgen,"  p.  29.          3  Ibid.,  p.  96  f. 
4  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  311. 


ERASMUS  181 

And  yet,  at  that  very  time,  Erasmus,  who,  as  years  passed, 
had  come  to  regret  his  earlier  faults  of  the  pen,1  was  engaged 
in  composing  serious  and  useful  works,  in  which,  though  not 
unfaithful  to  his  older  style,  he  sought  to  defend  the  dogmas  of 
religion  and  the  authority  of  the  Church.  In  March  his  "  Expla- 
natio  symboli,  decalogi  et  dominicce  precationis  "  was  issued  at 
Basle  by  Froben  ;  another  important  work  of  the  same  year, 
appearing  in  the  guise  of  an  exposition  of  Psalm  Ixxxiv.,  contained 
counsels  how  best  to  restore  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  to  root 
out  abuses.  Therein  he  does  not  deny  the  duty  of  submitting 
to  the  Church,  but  recommends  both  sides  to  be  ready  to  give 
and  take. 

When  Luther's  little  son  Hans  had,  in  his  Latin  lessons,  to 
study  some  works  composed  by  Erasmus  for  the  young,  his 
father  wrote  out  for  him  the  following  warning  :  "  Erasmus  is  a 
foe  to  all  religion  and  an  arch-enemy  of  Christ  ;  he  is  the  very 
type  of  an  Epicurus  and  Lucian.  This  I,  Martin  Luther,  declare 
in  my  own  handwriting  to  you,  my  very  dear  son  Johann,  and, 
through  you,  to  all  my  children  and  the  holy  Church  of  Christ."2 

Luther's  pent-up  wrath  at  length  vented  itself  in  print. 
He  had  received  a  letter  sent  him  from  Magdeburg,  on  Jan. 
28,  1534,  by  Nicholas  Amsdorf,  the  old  friend  who  knew  so 
well  how  to  fan  the  flames  of  enthusiasm  for  the  new  teach 
ing,  and  who  now  pointed  out  Erasmus  as  the  source  whence 
George  Wicel  had  drawn  all  his  material  for  his  latest 
attack  on  Lutheranism.3  It  was  high  time,  he  wrote,  that 
Luther  should  paint  Erasmus  "  in  his  true  colours  and  show 
that  he  was  full  of  ignorance  and  malice."  This  he  would 
best  do  in  a  tract  "  On  the  Church,"  for  this  was  the 
Erasmians'  weak  point  :  They  stick  to  the  Church,  because 
"  bishops  and  cardinals  make  them  presents  of  golden 
vessels,"  and  then  "  they  cry  out  :  Luther's  teaching  is 
heresy,  having  been  condemned  by  Emperor  and  Pope." 
"  I,  on  the  other  hand,  see  all  about  me  the  intervention  and 
the  wonders  of  God  ;  I  see  that  faith  is  a  gift  of  God  Who 
works  when  and  where  He  wills,  just  as  he  raised  His  Son 
Christ  from  the  dead.  Oh,  that  you  could  see  the  country 
folk  here  and  admire  in  them  the  glory  of  Christ  !  " 

The  letter  pleased  Luther  so  well  that  he  determined  to 
print  it,  appending  to  it  a  lengthy  answer  to  Amsdorf,  both 
being  published  together.4 

In  this  answer,  before  launching  out  into  invective  against 

1  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  249  ff. 

2  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  368  f.  3  Ibid.,  p.  382. 
«  Ibid.,  10,  p.  8  ff.,  about  March  11,  1534. 


182          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Erasmus  he  joins  in  his  friend's  enthusiastic  praise  of  the 
Evangel  which  has  dawned  :  "  Our  cause  was  heard  at 
Augsburg  before  the  Emperor  and  the  whole  world,  and  has 
been  found  blameless  ;  they  could  not  but  recognise  the 
purity  of  our  teaching.  .  .  .  We  have  confessed  Christ 
before  the  evil  generation  of  our  day,  and  He  too  will  confess 
us  before  God  the  Father  and  His  angels."  "  Wicel,  I  shall 
vanquish  by  silence  and  contempt,  as  my  custom  is.  How 
many  books  I  have  disposed  of  and  utterly  annihilated 
merely  by  my  silence,  Eck,  Faber,  Emser,  Cochlscus  and 
many  others  could  tell.  Had  I  to  fight  with  filth,  I  should, 
even  if  victorious,  get  dirty  in  the  process.  Hence  I  leave 
them  to  revel  in  their  blasphemy,  their  lying  and  their 
calumny." 

He  might,  he  proceeds,  leave  Erasmus  too  to  dissolve 
into  smoke  like  those  others.  For  a  long  time  past  he  had 
looked  on  him  as  one  crazy  ("  delirus  ")  ;  since  he  had 
given  birth  to  the  "  viperaspides  "  (i.e.  "  brood  of  vipers," 
a  play  on  the  title  of  the  "  Hyperaspistes ")  he  had 
given  up  all  hopes  of  his  theology,  but  would  follow 
Amsdorf's  advice  and  expose  his  malice  and  ignorance 
to  the  \vorld. 

In  contradiction  to  the  facts  he  goes  on  to  declare,  that, 
in  his  "  Explanatio  symboli,"  of  1533,  Erasmus  had  "  slyly 
planned  "  to  undermine  all  respect  for  the  Christian 
doctrines,  and  for  this  purpose  ingratiated  himself  with  his 
readers  and  sought  to  befool  them,  as  the  serpent  did  in 
Paradise.  The  Creed  was  nothing  to  him  but  a  "  fable,"- 
in  support  of  which  Luther  adduces  what  purports  to  be  a 
verbal  quotation — nothing  but  the  "  mouthpiece  and  organ 
of  Satan  "  ;  his  method  was  but  "  a  mockery  of  Christ  "  ; 
according  to  him,  the  Redeemer  had  come  into  the  world 
simply  to  give  an  example  of  holiness  ;  His  taking  flesh  of 
a  virgin  Erasmus  described  in  obscene  and  blasphemous 
language  ;  naturally  the  Apostles  fared  no  better  at  his 
hands,  and  he  even  said  of  John  the  Evangelist,  "  meros 
crepat  mundos  "  (because  he  mentions  the  "  world  "  too 
often)  :  there  were  endless  examples  of  this  sort  to  be  met 
with  in  the  writings  of  Erasmus.  He  was  another  Demo- 
crites  or  Epicurus  ;  even  what  was  doubtful  in  his  state 
ments  had  to  be  taken  in  the  worst  sense,  and  he  himself 
(Luther)  would  be  unable  to  believe  this  serpent  even 


ERASMUS  183 

should  he  come  to  him  with  the  most  outspoken  confession 
of  Christianity. 

All  this  he  wrote  seemingly  with  the  utmost  conviction,  as 
though  it  were  absolutely  certain.  At  about  that  same  time 
he  sent  a  warning  to  his  friend  Amsdorf  not  to  allege  any 
thing  against  Erasmus,  which  was  not  certain,  should  he  be 
tempted  to  write  against  him.1  Yet  Luther's  fresh  charges 
were  undoubtedly  unjust  to  his  opponent,  although  his 
letter  really  does  forcibly  portray  much  that  was  blame 
worthy  in  Erasmus,  particularly  in  his  earlier  work,  for 
instance,  his  ambiguous  style  of  writing,  so  often  intention 
ally  vague  and  calculated  to  engender  scepticism.2 

Not  even  in  Luther's  immediate  circle  did  this  letter  meet 
with  general  approval.  Melanchthon  wrote,  on  March  11, 

1534,  to  Camerarius  :    "  Our  Arcesilaus  [Luther]  is  starting 
again  his  campaign  against  Erasmus  ;    this  I  regret ;    the 
senile  excitement  of  the  pair  disquiets  me."3    On  May  12, 

1535,  he   even   expressed   himself   as   follows   to   Erasmus, 
referring  to  the  fresh  outbreak  of  hostilities  :   "  The  writings 
published   here   against  you  displease  me,   not  merely  on 
account  of  my  private  relations  with  you,  but  also  because 
they  do  no  public  good."4 

Boniface  Amerbach,  a  friend  of  Erasmus's,  sent  Luther's 
letter  to  his  brother,  calling  it  a  "  parum  sana  epistola,"  and 
adding,  "  Hcrvagius  [the  Basle  printer]  told  me  recently 
that  Luther,  for  more  than  a  year,  had  been  suffering  from 
softening  of  the  brain  ('  cephalcea  '),  I  think  the  letter  proves 
this,  and  also  that  he  has  not  yet  recovered,  for  in  it  there  is 
no  trace  of  a  sound  mind."5 

Recent  Protestant  historians  speak  of  the  letter  as  "on 
the  whole  hasty  and  dictated  by  jealousy,"6  and  as  based 
"  in  part  on  inaccurate  knowledge  and  a  misapprehension  of 
Erasmus's  writings."7 

1  On  March  31,  1534,  "  Brief wechsel,"  10,  p.  36. 

2  At   the    conclusion    Luther   says    of    the    young    people  :     "  Hoc 
levitate   et  vanitate  paulatim  desuescit   a  religione,   donee  abhorreat  et 
penitus  profanescat.'1'1     And  :    "  Dominus  noster  lesus,  quern  mihi  Pctrus 
non  tacet  Deum,  sed  in  cuius  virtute  scio  et  certus  sum  me  scepius  a  morte 
liberatum,  in  cuius  fide  hcec  omnia  incepi  et  hactemis  effeci,  quce  ipsi 
hostes  mirantur,  ipse  custodial  et  liberet  nos  in  finem.    Ipse  est  Dominus 
Deus  noster  verus." 

3  "  Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  709  :    yepovriKa  wadtj.  4  Ibid.,  3,  p.  69. 

5  On  April  15,  1534,  Burckhardt-Biedermann,  "  Bonif.  Amerbach," 
1894,  p.  297.     Eiiders,  "  Luthers  Brief  wechsel,"  10,  p.  24. 

6  Enders,  ibid.,  p.  23.  7  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  312. 


184          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Shortly  after  this  Luther  expressed  himself  with  rather 
more  moderation  in  a  Preface  which  he  composed  for 
Anton  Corvinus's  reply  to  Erasmus's  proposals  for  restoring 
the  Church  to  unity.  In  this  writing  he  sought  to  make  his 
own  the  more  moderate  tone  which  dominated  Corvinus's 
works.  He  represented  as  the  chief  obstacle  to  reunion  the 
opinion  prevalent  amongst  his  opponents  of  the  considera 
tion  due  to  the  Church.  Their  one  cry  was  "  the  Church, 
the  Church,  the  Church  "  ;  this  has  confirmed  Erasmus  in 
his  unfounded  opposition  to  the  true  Evangel,  in  spite  of 
his  having  himself  thrown  doubt  on  all  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church.1  He  could  not  as  yet  well  undertake  a  work  on  the 
subject  of  the  Church,  such  as  Amsdorf  wished,  as  he  was 
fully  occupied  with  his  translation  of  the  Bible.  In  the 
Preface  referred  to  above  he  announced,  however,  his 
intention  of  doing  so  later.  The  result  was  his  "  Von  den 
Conciliis  und  Kirchen,"  of  1539,  which  will  be  treated  of 
below. 2 

Erasmus  was  unwilling  to  go  down  to  the  grave  bearing 
the  calumnies  against  his  faith  which  Luther  had  heaped 
upon  him.  He  owed  it  to  his  reputation  to  free  himself  from 
these  unjust  charges.  This  he  did  in  a  writing  which  must 
be  accounted  one  of  the  most  forcible  and  sharpest  which 
ever  left  his  pen.  The  displeasure  and  annoyance  which  he 
naturally  felt  did  not,  however,  interfere  with  his  argument 
or  prevent  him  from  indulging  in  sparkling  outbursts  of  wit. 
Amerbach  had  judged  Luther's  attack  "  insane  "  ;  Erasmus, 
for  his  part,  addressed  his  biting  reply  to  "  one  not  sober." 
The  title  of  the  writing,  published  at  Basle  in  1534,  runs  : 
"  Purgatio  adversus  epistolam  non  sobriam  M.  Lutheri."3 

It  was  an  easy  matter  for  Erasmus  to  convict  the  author 
of  manifest  misrepresentation  and  falsehood. 

He  repeatedly  accuses  the  writer  of  downright  lying.  What 
he  charges  me  with  concerning  my  treatment  of  the  Apostle 
John,  "  is  a  palpable  falsehood.  Never,  even  in  my  dreams,  did 
the  words  which  he  quotes  as  mine  enter  my  mind."  Such  a  lie 
he  can  have  "  welded  together  "  only  by  joining  two  expressions 
used  in  other  contexts.4 

As  for  his  alleged  blasphemy  concerning  Christ's  birth  from 

1   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  526  seq. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  278  ff.  3  "  Opp.,"  3,  col.  1494  seq. 

*  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p,  663,  admits  that  Luther's  charge  wag 
"  groundless," 


ERASMUS  185 

the  Virgin  Mary,  Erasmus  protests  :  "I  can  swear  I  never  said 
anything  of  the  kind  either  in  a  letter,  as  Luther  makes  out, 
though  he  fails  to  say  which,  or  in  any  of  my  writings."  Moreover 
he  was  a  little  surprised  to  find  Luther,  whose  own  language  was 
not  remarkable  for  modesty,  suddenly  transformed  into  a 
champion  of  cleanliness  of  speech  :  "  Everything,  bridegroom, 
bride  and  even  best  man,  seems  of  a  sudden  to  have  become 
obscene  to  this  Christian  Luther,"  etc, 

Erasmus  also  points  out  that  the  passage  concerning  the  Creed 
being  a  mere  fable  had  been  invented  by  Luther  himself  by  means 
of  deliberate  "  distortion  "  and  shameful  misinterpretation  : 
"  No  text,"  he  exclaims,  "  is  safe  from  his  calumny  and  mis 
representation."  As  for  what  Luther  had  said,  viz.  that  "  who 
ever  tells  untruths  lies  even  when  he  speaks  the  truth,"  and  that 
he  would  refuse  to  believe  Erasmus  even  were  he  to  make  an 
orthodox  profession  of  faith,  Erasmus's  retort  is  :  "  Whoever 
spoke  this  bit  of  wisdom  was  assuredly  out  of  his  senses  and 
stood  in  need  of  hellebore  "  (the  remedy  for  madness).  As  to 
the  charge  of  deliberately  leading  others  into  infidelity  he  does 
not  shrink  from  telling  Luther,  that  "  he  will  find  it  easier  to 
persuade  all  that  he  has  gone  mad  out  of  hatred,  is  suffering 
from  some  other  form  of  mental  malady,  or  is  led  by  some  evil 
genius."1 

Luther  took  good  care  to  say  nothing  in  public  about  the 
rebuff  he  had  received  from  Erasmus  ;  nor  did  he  ever  make 
any  attempt  to  refute  the  charge  of  having  "  lied." 

In  the  circle  of  his  intimate  friends,  however,  he  inveighed 
all  the  more  against  the  leader  of  the  Humanists  as  a  sceptic 
and  seducer  to  infidelity. 

After  Erasmus's  death  he  declared  that,  till  his  end  (1536),  he 
lived  "  without  God."  He  refused  to  give  any  credence  to  the 
report  that  he  had  displayed  faith  and  piety  at  the  hour  of  death. 
Erasmus's  last  words  were  :  "  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  God,  have 
mercy  on  me.  I  will  extol  the  mercies  of  the  Lord  and  His 
judgments."2  Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  Latin  Table- 
Talk  says  :  "  He  died  just  as  he  lived,  viz.  like  an  Epicurean, 
without  a  clergyman  and  without  comfort.  .  .  .  '  Securissime 
vixit,  sicut  etiam  morixit,'  "  he  adds  jestingly.  "  Those  pious 
words  attributed  to  him  are,  sure  enough,  an  invention."3 

1  Most  of  the  above  passages  from  Erasmus's  reply  are  quoted  by 
Enders,  p.  25  ff.     The  outspoken  passage  last  quoted  is  given  in  Latin 
in  vol.  hi.,  p.  136.  n.  2. 

2  Quoted  by  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  663,  p.  313,  n.  1. 

3  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  275  :    "  Vixit  et  decessit  ut  Epicureua 
sine  oliquo  ministro  et  consolatione.   .   .   .  Multa  quidem  prceclara  scripsit, 
habuit  ingenium  prcestantissimum,  otium  tranquillum.  .  .  .  In  agone  non 
expetivit  ministrum  verbi  neque  sacramenta,  et  fortasse  ilia  verba  sues 
confessionis  in  agone  '  Fili  Dei  miserere  mei  '  illi  afflnguntur."     Cp, 
Luther's  words  in  1544  in  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  343  ;  '•'•  He  died. 


186          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Erasmus,  he  says, — revealing  for  once  the  real  ground  of  all 
his  hatred — "  might  have  been  of  great  service  to  the  cause  of 
the  Evangel  ;  often  was  he  exhorted  to  this  end.  .  .  .  But  he 
considered  it  better  that  the  Gospel  should  perish  and  not  be 
preached  than  that  all  Germany  should  be  convulsed  and  all 
the  Princes  be  troubled  with  risings."  "  He  refuses  to  teach 
Christ,"  he  said  of  him  during  his  lifetime  ;  "he  does  not  take  it 
seriously,  that  is  the  way  with  all  Italians  and  with  them  he  has 
had  much  intercourse.  One  page  of  Terence  is  better  than  his 
whole  '  Dialogus  '  or  his  '  Colloquium  '  ;  he  mocks  not  only  at 
religion  but  even  at  politics  and  at  public  life.  He  has  no  other 
belief  than  the  Roman  ;  he  believes  what  Clement  VII  believes  ; 
this  he  does  at  his  command,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  sneers  at 
it.  ...  I  fear  he  will  die  the  death  of  the  wicked."1  After  the 
scholar's  decease,  Luther  naturally  desired  to  find  his  prophecy 
fulfilled. 

An  obvious  weapon,  one  constantly  employed  against 
Luther  by  his  foes,  was  to  twit  him  with  his  lies  ;  a  reply 
addressed  to  him  in  1531  by  a  friend  of  George  of  Saxony, 
Franz  Arnoldi  of  Collen,  near  Meissen,  was  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  In  this  little  work  entitled  "  Antwort  auf  das  Biich- 
lein,"  etc.,  it  is  not  merely  stated  that  Luther,  in  his  "  Auff 
das  vermeint  Keiserlich  Edict,"  had  put  forward  "  as 
many  lies  as  there  were  words,"2  but  it  is  also  pointed  out 
that  the  Augsburg  Edict,  "  which  is  truly  Christian  and 
requires  no  glosses,"  had  been  explained  by  him  most 
abominably  and  shamefully,  and  given  a  meaning  such  as 
His  Imperial  Majesty  and  those  who  promulgated  or 
executed  it  had  never  even  dreamt  of."3  "  He  promises  us 
white  and  gives  us  black.  This  has  come  down  to  him  from 
his  ancestor,  the  raging  devil,  who  is  the  father  of  lies.  .  .  . 
With  such  lies  does  Martin  Luther  seek  to  deck  out  his 
former  vices."4 

'  sine  crux  et  sine  lux  '  "  ;  here  again  Luther  says  he  had  been  the 
cause  of  many  losing  body  and  soul  and  had  been  the  originator  of  the 
Sacramentarians.  See  our  vol.  ii.,  p.  252,  n.  1,  for  further  details  of 
Erasmus's  end.  We  read  in  Mathesius,  p.  90  (May,  1540)  :  "  The 
Doctor  said  :  He  arrogated  to  himself  the  Divinity  of  which  he 
deprived  Christ.  In  his  '  Colloquia  '  he  compared  Christ  with  Priapus 
[Kroker  remarks  :  '  Erasmus  did  not  compare  Christ  with  Priapus  '], 
he  mocked  at  Him  in  his  '  Catechism  '  ['  Symbolum  '],  and  particu 
larly  in  his  execrable  book  the  '  Farragines.'  " 

1  See  the  whole  passage  in  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  272  seq, 
"  Luthors  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  89.     See  above,  p.  101. 

3  "  Werke,"  ibid.,  p.  92.  4  Ibid. 


DUKE   GEORGE   OF   SAXONY        187 

2.  Luther  on  George  of  Saxony  and  George  on  Luther 

The  hostile  relations  between  Luther  and  Duke  George  of 
Saxony  found  expression  at  the  end  of  1525  in  a  corre 
spondence,  which  throws  some  light  on  the  origin  and 
extent  of  the  tension  and  on  the  character  of  both  men.  The 
letters  exchanged  were  at  once  printed  and  spread  rapidly 
through  the  German  lands,  one  serving  to  enlist  recruits  to 
Luther's  standard,  the  other  constituting  a  furious  attack 
on  the  innovations.1 

Luther's  letter  of  Dec.  21,  1525,  to  the  Duke,  "  his 
gracious  master,"  was  "  an  exhortation  to  join  the  Word 
of  God,"  as  the  printed  title  runs.  Sent  at  a  time  when  the 
peasants,  after  their  defeat,  had  deserted  Luther,  and  when 
the  latter  was  attaching  himself  all  the  more  closely  to  those 
Royal  Courts  which  were  well  disposed  towards  him,  the 
purpose  of  the  letter  was  to  admonish  the  chief  opponent 
of  the  cause,  "  not  so  barbarously  to  attack  Christ,  the 
corner-stone,"  but  to  accept  the  Evangel  "  brought  to  light 
by  me."  He  bases  his  "  exhortation  "  on  nothing  less  than 
the  absolute  certainty  of  his  mission  and  teaching. 
"  Because  I  know  it,  and  am  sure  of  it,  therefore  I  must, 
under  pain  of  the  loss  of  my  own  soul,  care,  beg  and  implore 
for  your  Serene  Highness 's  soul."  He  had  already  diligently 
prayed  to  God  to  "  turn  his  heart,"  and  he  was  loath  now 
"  to  pray  against  him  for  the  needs  of  the  cause  "  ;  his 
prayers  and  those  of  his  followers  were  invincibly  powerful, 
yea,  "  stronger  than  the  devil  himself,"  as  the  failure  of  all 
George's  and  his  friends'  previous  persecutions  proved, 
"  though  men  do  not  see  or  mark  God's  great  wonders 
in  me." 

It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  author,  in  spite  of  all  he  says, 
really  expected  his  letter  to  effect  the  conversion  of  so 
energetic  and  resolute  an  opponent ;  nevertheless,  his 
assurances  of  his  peaceable  disposition  were  calculated  to 
promote  the  Lutheran  cause  in  the  public  eye,  whatever  the 
answer  might  be.  He  will,  he  says  in  this  letter,  once  again 
"  beseech  the  Prince  in  a  humble  and  friendly  manner, 
perhaps  for  the  last  time  "  ;  George  and  Luther  might  soon 
be  called  away  by  God  ;  "I  have  now  no  more  to  lose  in 

1  Luther  to  Duke  George,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  338  ff.  ("  Brief- 
wechsel,"  5,  p.  281,  with  amended  date  and  colophon).  George  to 
Luther,  "  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  285  ff. 


188          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

this  world  but  my  carcase,  which  each  day  draws  closer  to 
the  grave."  Formerly  he  had,  it  is  true,  spoken  "harshly 
and  crossly  "  to  him,  as  God  also  does  "  to  those  whom  He 
afterwards  blesses  and  consoles  "  ;  he  had,  however,  also 
published  "  many  kindlier  sermons  and  booklets  in  which 
everyone  might  discern  that  I  mean  ill  to  no  one  but  desire 
to  serve  every  man  to  the  best  of  my  ability." 

The  letter  partook  of  the  nature  of  a  manifesto,  intended 
to  place  the  Catholic-minded  Prince  publicly  in  the  wrong, 
if  it  did  not,  as  was  hardly  to  be  expected,  draw  him  over 
to  the  side  of  the  innovators. 

The  Duke  replied,  on  Dec.  28,  in  a  manner  worthy  of  his 
status  in  the  Empire  and  of  the  firm  attitude  he  had  main 
tained  so  far.  "  As  a  layman  "  he  refused  to  enter  upon  a 
"  Scriptural  disputation  "  with  Luther  ;  it  was  not  untrue 
that  Luther  had  attacked  him  "  harshly  and  contrary  to  the 
ordinance  of  God  and  the  command  of  the  Gospel  "  ;  Luther 
might,  if  he  chose,  compare  his  former  severity  with  that  of 
God,  but  he  certainly  would  not  find,  "  in  the  Gospels  or 
anywhere  in  Scripture,"  abusive  epithets  such  as  he  em 
ployed  ;  for  him,  as  a  sovereign,  to  have  had  to  put  up  with 
such  treatment  from  a  man  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire, 
had  cost  him  much  ;  he  had  been  compelled  to  put  pressure 
on  himself  to  accept  "  persecution  for  justice'  sake."  Luther's 
"  utterly  shameful  abuse  of  our  most  gracious  Lord,  the 
Roman  Emperor,"  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  be  Luther's 
"  gracious  master." 

Formerly,  so  George  admits,  when  Luther's  writings  "  first 
appeared,  some  of  them  had  pleased  him.  Nor  were  we  displeased 
to  hear  of  the  Disputation  at  Leipzig,  for  we  hoped  from  it  some 
amendment  of  the  abuses  amongst  Christians."  Luther,  how 
ever,  in  his  very  hearing  at  Leipzig,  had  advanced  Hussite  errors, 
though  he  had  afterwards  promised  him  privately  to  "  write 
against  them  "  in  order  to  allay  any  suspicion  ;  in  spite  of  this  he 
had  written  in  favour  of  Hus  and  against  the  Council  of  Constance 
and  against  "  all  our  forefathers." 

He,  for  his  part,  held  fast  to  the  principle,  "  that  all  who  acted 
in  defiance  of  obedience  and  separated  themselves  from  the 
Christian  Churches  were  heretics  and  should  be  regarded  as  such, 
for  so  they  had  been  declared  by  the  Holy  Councils,  all  of  which 
you  deny,  though  it  does  not  beseem  you  nor  any  Christian." 
Hence  he  would  "  trouble  little  "  about  Luther's  Evangel,  but 
would  continue  to  do  his  best  to  exclude  it  from  his  lands. 

"  One  cause  for  so  doing  is  given  us  in  the  evil  fruit  which 
springs  from  it  ;  for  neither  you  nor  any  man  can  say  that  aught 


DUKE  GEORGE  OF  SAXONY   189 

but  blasphemy  of  God,  of  the  Blessed  and  Holy  Sacrament,  of 
the  most  Holy  Mother  of  God  and  all  the  Saints  has  resulted 
from  your  teaching  ;  for  in  your  preaching  all  the  heresies 
condemned  of  old  are  revived,  and  all  honourable  worship  of  God 
destroyed  to  an  extent  never  witnessed  since  the  days  of  Sergius 
[the  monk  supposed  to  have  taught  Mohammed].  When  have 
more  acts  of  sacrilege  been  committed  by  persons  dedicated  to 
God  than  since  you  introduced  the  Evangel  ?  Whence  has  more 
revolt  against  authority  come  than  from  your  Evangel  ?  When 
has  there  been  such  plundering  of  poor  religious  houses  ?  When 
more  robbery  and  thieving  ?  When  were  there  so  many  escaped 
monks  and  nuns  at  Wittenberg  as  now  ?  "l  etc. 

"  Had  Christ  wanted  such  an  Evangel,  He  would  not  have 
said  so  often  :  Peace  be  with  you  !  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  would 
not  have  said  that  the  authorities  must  be  obeyed.  Thus  the 
fruits  of  your  teaching  and  Evangel  fill  us  with  horror  and 
disgust.  We  are,  however,  ready  to  stake  body,  soul,  goods  and 
honour  in  defence  of  the  true  Gospel,  in  which  may  God's  Grace 
assist  us  !  " 

After  urgent  admonitions  offered  to  Luther  "  as  New- Year 
wishes,"  more  particularly  to  sever  his  connection  with  the  nun, 
he  promises  him  his  assistance  should  he  obey  him  :  "  We  shall 
spare  no  pains  to  obtain  the  clemency  of  our  most  gracious  Lord 
the  Emperor,  so  far  as  is  possible  to  us  here,  and  you  need  have 
no  fear  of  any  ill  on  account  of  what  you  have  done  against  us, 
but  may  expect  all  that  is  good.  That  you  may  see  your  way 
to  this  is  our  hope.  Amen." 

Few  Princes  were  to  suffer  worse  treatment  at  Luther's 
hands  than  Duke  George.  The  Duke  frequently  retaliated 
by  charging  Luther  with  being  a  liar. 

He  wrote,  for  instance,  in  1531,  that  Luther  simply  bore 
witness  to  the  fact  that  the  "  spirit  of  lying  "  dwelt  in  him, 
"  who  speaks  nothing  but  his  own  fabrications  and  false 
hood."  "You  forsworn  Luther,"  he  says  to  him,  "you 
who  treacherously  and  falsely  calumniate  His  Imperial 
Majesty."2 

Luther's  anger  against  the  most  influential  Prince  in  the 
Catholic  League  was  not  diminished  by  the  fact,  that  the 
Duke  severely  censured  the  real  evils  on  the  Catholic  side, 
was  himself  inclined  to  introduce  reforms  on  his  own,  and 
even,  at  times,  to  go  too  far.  Such  action  on  George's  part 
annoyed  Luther  all  the  more,  because  in  all  this  the  Duke 
would  not  hear  of  any  relinquishing  of  ancient  dogma. 
Hence  we  find  Luther,  quite  contrary  to  the  real  state  of  the 

1  More  in  the  same  strain  above,  p.  173,  n.  4. 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  134. 


190         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

case,  abusing  George  as  follows  :  The  Duke  was  secretly  in 
favour  of  the  new  teaching  and  his  resistance  was  merely 
assumed  ;  he  was  opposed  to  the  reception  of  the  Sacra 
ment  under  both  kinds,  only  because  he  wished  to  tread 
under  foot  the  whole  teaching  of  Christ,  to  forbid  Holy 
Scripture  altogether  and  particularly  to  condemn  St.  Paul  ;l 
if  he,  Luther,  were  not  allowed  to  abuse  the  Duke,  then 
neither  might  he  call  the  devil  a  murderer  and  a  liar.2  "  He 
is  my  sworn,  personal  enemy,"  he  says,  and  proceeds  in  the 
same  vein  :  "  Had  I  written  in  favour  of  the  Pope,  he  would 
noAV  be  against  the  Pope,  but  because  I  write  against  the 
Pope,  he  fights  for  him  and  defends  him."3 

Luther,  as  his  manner  was,  announced  as  early  as  1522 
that  "  the  Judgment  of  God  would  inevitably  overtake 
him."4  When  the  Duke,  in  1539,  had  died  the  death  of  a 
Christian,  Luther  said  :  "  It  is  a  judgment  on  those  who 
despise  the  one  true  God."  "  It  is  an  example  when  a 
father  and  two  fine  grown-up  sons  sink  into  the  grave  in  so 
short  a  time,  but  I,  Dr.  Luther,  prophesied  that  Duke 
George  and  his  race  would  perish."5  There  was,  according 
to  Luther,  only  one  ray  of  hope  for  the  eternal  happiness  of 
the  Duke,  viz.  that,  when  his  son  Hans  lay  dying  in  1537, 
not  so  long  before  his  own  death,  it  was  reported  he  had 
consoled  him  in  the  Lutheran  fashion.  According  to  Luther 
he  had  encouraged  him  with  the  article  on  Justification  by 
Faith  in  Christ  and  reminded  him,  "  that  he  must  look  only 
to  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  forget  his  own  works 
and  merits."6  Needless  to  say  the  pious  thoughts  suggested 
to  the  dying  man  were  simply  those  usually  placed  before 
the  mind  of  faithful  Catholics  at  the  hour  of  death. 

Luther's  imagination  and  his  polemics  combine  to  trace  a 
picture  of  Duke  George  which  is  as  characteristic  of  him 
self  as  it  is  at  variance  with  the  figure  of  the  Duke,  as 
recorded  in  history.  He  accused  the  Duke  of  misgovernment 
and  tyranny  and  incited  his  subjects  against  him  ;  and, 
in  his  worst  fit  of  indignation,  launched  against  the  Duke 

1  "Werkp,"  Erl.  ed.,  58,  p.  411,  Table-Talk. 

2  Ibid.,  31,  p.  250  ff.  3  Ibid.,  61,  p.  343,  Table-Talk. 

4  To  the  Elector  Frederick  of  Saxony,  March  5,   1522,  "  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  107  ("  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  296). 

5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  343  f.,  Table-Talk. 

6  Ibid.,  58,  p.  412  (Table-Talk),  where  Luther  bases  his  tale  on  a 
remark  of  the  Protestant  Elector  Johaim  Frederick  of  Saxony. 


DUKE  GEORGE   OF    SAXONY       191 

the  booklet  "  Widder  den  Meuchler  zu  Dresen  "  (1531). 1 
Yet  the  Saxons  generally  did  not  regard  the  Duke's  govern 
ment  as  tyrannical  or  look  upon  him  as  an  "  assassin,"  not 
even  the  Lutherans  who  formed  the  majority.  On  the 
contrary,  they  were  later  on  to  acknowledge,  that,  under 
the  Duke's  reign,  they  had  enjoyed  "  prosperity  and  peace  " 
with  the  Emperor,  amongst  themselves  and  with  their 
neighbours.  His  firmness  and  honour  were  no  secret  to  all 
who  knew  him.  The  King  of  France  admired  his  dis 
interestedness,  when,  in  1532,  he  rejected  the  proffered 
yearly  pension  of  at  least  5000  Gulden  which  was  to  detach 
him  from  the  Empire.  At  the  Diet  of  Worms  this  Catholic 
Duke  had  been  the  most  outspoken  in  condemning  the 
proposal  made,  that  Luther  should  be  refused  a  safe  conduct 
for  his  return  journey  ;  he  pointed  out  how  much  at  variance 
this  was  with  German  ways  and  what  a  lasting  shame  it 
would  bring  on  the  German  Princes.  As  for  the  rest  he 
favoured  the  use  of  strong  measures  to  safeguard  Germany 
from  religious  and  political  revolution.  He  also  befriended, 
more  than  any  other  German  Prince  or  Bishop,  those 
scholars  who  attacked  Luther  in  print. 

After  the  appearance  of  the  libel  "  Widder  den  Meuchler 
zu  Dresen,"  he  wrote  a  reply  entitled  "  About  the  insulting 
booklet  which  Martin  Luther  has  published  against  the 
Dresden  murderer,"  though  it  was  issued  in  1531,  not  under 
his  own  name,  but  under  that  of  Franz  Arnoldi.2 

The  work  is  more  a  vindication  of  the  Empire's  Catholic 
standpoint  and  of  the  honour  of  the  Catholics  against 
Luther's  foul  suspicions  and  calumnies,  than  a  personal 
defence  of  his  own  cause.  It  is  couched  in  the  language  we 
might  expect  from  a  fighter  and  a  sovereign  pelted  with 
filth  before  the  eyes  of  his  own  subjects.  It  hails  expressions 
of  the  roughest  against  Luther,  the  convicted  "  rebel  against 
the  Emperor  and  all  authority,"  the  inventor  of  "  slimy 
fabrications  and  palpable  lies "  not  worth  an  answer, 
amongst  which  was  the  "  downright  false  "  assertion,  that 
"  the  Papists  are  up  in  arms  "  against  the  Protestant 
Estates.3  In  order  to  understand  its  tone  we  must  bear  in 
mind  Luther's  own  method  of  belabouring  all  his  foes  with 
the  coarsest  language  at  his  command. 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  413  ff.  ;    ErJ.  cd.,  252,  p.   108  ff. 
See  our  vol.  ii.,  p.  295  f. 

2  "  Luthers  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  129  ff.  3  P.  135. 


192         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

At  the  beginning  of  his  writing  the  Duke  says  of  Luther's 
abuse  :  "If  both  Lutherans  and  Papists  could  be  reformed  by 
vituperation  and  abuse,  cursing  and  swearing,  then  His  Imperial 
Roman  Majesty,  Christian  kings,  princes  and  lords  would  have 
had  no  need  of  a  scholar  ;  plenty  other  people,  for  instance, 
worn-out  whores,  tipsy  boors  and  loose  knaves,  might  have  done 
it  just  as  well  without  any  assistance  or  help  of  yours."1 

The  following,  taken  from  the  Duke's  writing,  carries  us  back 
into  the  very  thick  of  the  excitement  of  those  years  : 

"  Who  is  the  man  who,  contrary  to  God,  law,  justice  and  all 
Scripture  and  knowledge,  has  sacrilegiously  robbed,  stolen  and 
taken  from  Christ  all  the  possessions  bestowed  upon  Him 
hundreds  of  years  ago  by  emperors,  kings,  princes,  lords,  counts, 
knights,  nobles,  burghers  and  peasants,  all  of  whom,  out  of 
fervent  love  and  appreciation  for  His  sacred  Passion,  His  rosy 
blood  and  guiltless  death,  gave  their  gifts  for  the  establishment 
of  monasteries,  parish-churches,  altars,  cells,  hospitals,  mortuaries, 
guilds,  roods,  etc.,  etc.  ?  Why,  Squire  Martin,  Dr.  Luther  ! — 
Who  has  plundered  and  despoiled  the  poor  village  clergy — who 
were  true  pastors  of  the  Church,  ministers  of  the  Sacraments, 
preachers  and  guides  of  souls — of  their  blood  and  sweat,  their 
hardly  earned  yearly  stipend,  nay,  their  sacred  gifts  such  as  tithes, 
rents,  offerings  and  Church  dues,  and  that  without  any  permission 
of  the  Ordinaries  and  contrary  to  God,  to  honour  and  to  justice  ? 
Why,  Dr.  Pig-trough  Luther  ! — Who  has  robbed,  plundered 
and  deprived  God  during  the  last  twelve  years  of  so  many 
thousand  souls  and  sent  them  down  with  bloody  heads  to 
Lucifer  in  the  abyss  of  hell  ?  Who,  but  the  arch-murderer  of 
souls,  Dr.  Donkey-ear  Mertein  Luther  ! — Who  has  robbed  Christ 
of  His  wedded  spouses — many  of  whom  (though  perhaps  not  all) 
had  served  Him  diligently  day  and  night  for  so  many  years  in  a 
lovely,  spiritual  life — and  has  brought  them  down  to  a  miserable, 
pitiable  and  wicked  mode  of  life  ?  Shame  upon  you,  you  blas 
phemous,  sacrilegious  man,  you  public  bordeller  for  all  escaped 
monks  and  nuns,  apostate  priests  and  renegades  generally  ! — 
Who  has  filched,  robbed  and  stolen  from  his  Imperial  Roman 
Majesty,  our  beloved,  innocent,  Christian  Prince  Charles  V.,  and 
from  kings,  princes  and  lords,  the  honour,  respect,  service, 
obedience  and  the  plighted  oath  of  their  subjects  (not  of  all, 
thank  God)  by  false,  seditious  and  damnable  writings  and 
doctrines  ?  Why,  sure,  Dr.  Luther  !— Who  has  made  so  many 
thieves  and  scoundrels  as  are  now  to  be  found  in  every  corner, 
amongst  them  so  many  runaway  monks,  so  that  in  many  places, 
as  I  hear,  one  is  not  safe  from  them  either  in  the  streets  or  at 
home  ?  Why,  Dr.  Luther  !  That  nothing  might  be  left  undone, 
he  has  also  destroyed  the  religious  houses  of  nuns. — '  Summa 
summarum,'  there  would  be  so  rmich  to  tell,  that,  for  the  sake  of 
brevity,  it  must  stick  in  the  pen.  .  .  .  But  I  will  show  you  from 
Scripture  who  was  the  first,  the  second  and  the  third  sacrilegious 
robber.  The  first  was  Lucifer,  who,  out  of  pride,  tried  to  rob 

1  P.  130. 


DUKE  GEORGE   OF  SAXONY         193 

the  Almighty  of  His  glory,  power,  praise  and  service  (Is.  xiv.  12). 
He  received  his  reward.  The  second  was  Aman,  who  stole  from 
God  the  highest  honour,  viz.  worship,  for,  in  his  malice,  he  caused 
himself  to  be  worshipped  as  God.  He  wa&  hanged  on  a  gallows 
50  ells  high.  Judas  Scariothis  stole  from  Christ  and  His  Apostles 
the  tenth  penny  of  their  daily  living  ;  he  hanged  himself.  Luther, 
the  fourth  sacrilegious  robber,  has  surpassed  all  men  in  iniquity  ; 
what  his  end  and  reward  will  be  God  alone  knows."1 

It  has  been  said,  that,  among  the  defenders  of  Catholicism, 
no  voice  was  raised  which  could  compare  in  any  way  in 
emphasis  and  power  with  that  of  Luther.  Dollinger  in 
later  life  considered  that,  in  comparison  with  Luther,  his 
opponents  could  only  "  stammer  "  ;  what  they  advanced 
sounded  "  feeble,  weak  and  colourless."2  Yet,  what  we 
have  just  quoted  from  Duke  George  cannot  in  fairness  be 
charged  with  weakness.  Their  indignation  and  fiery  zeal 
inspired  other  Catholics  too  to  express  with  eloquence  and 
rudeness  their  conviction  of  the  evil  consequences  of  Luther's 
action. 

1  P.  144.         2  "  Wiedervereinigung  der  christl.  Kirchen,"  p.  53. 


IV. — O 


CHAPTER    XXIV 

MORAL   CONDITIONS    ACCOMPANYING   THE    REFORMATION 
PRINCELY    PATRONS 

1.  Reports  from  various  Lutheran  Districts 

AFTER  Duke  George  of  Saxony  had  been  carried  off  by  death 
on  April  17,  1539,  a  sudden  revulsion  in  favour  of  Lutheran- 
ism  took  place  in  his  land.  Duke  Henry,  his  brother,  who 
succeeded  him,  introduced  the  new  teaching  to  which  he 
had  long  been  favourable.  Luther  came  at  once  to  Leipzig 
with  Melanchthon,  Jonas  and  Cruciger  to  render  at  least 
temporary  assistance,  by  preaching  and  private  counsel. 
In  July  of  that  same  year  an  Evangelical  Visitation  was 
already  arranged  by  Duke  Henry  on  the  lines  of  that  in 
the  Saxon  Electorate  ;  this  was  carried  out  by  Luther's 
preachers. 

Many  abuses  dating  from  Catholic  times  were  prevalent 
amongst  both  people  and  parochial  clergy.  Concubinage  in 
particular  had  increased  greatly  in  the  clerical  ranks  under 
the  influence  of  the  new  ideas.  Luther  himself  boasted  of 
having  advised  "  several  parish-priests  under  Duke  George 
to  marry  their  cook  secretly."1  But  much  greater  dis 
orders  than  had  previously  existed  crept  in  everywhere  at 
the  commencement  of  the  change. 

Luther  himself  was  soon  at  a  loss  to  discover  any  religious 
spirit  or  zeal  for  ecclesiastical  affairs,  either  in  the  ruler  or  in  his 
councillors.  The  Duke  seemed  to  him  "  old,  feeble  and  in 
capable."  He  complained,  on  March  3,  1540,  to  his  friend 
Anton  Lauterbach,  then  minister  at  Pirna  :  "  I  see  well  enough, 
that,  at  the  Dresden  Court  there  is  an  extraordinary  unwilling 
ness  to  advance  the  cause  of  God  or  man  ;  there  pride  and  greed 
of  gain  reign  supreme.  The  old  Prince  can't  do  anything,  the 
younger  Princes  dare  not,  and  would  not  even  had  they  the 
courage.  May  God  keep  the  guidance  of  His  Church  in  His  own 
Hands  until  He  finds  suitable  tools."2  On  the  moral  conditions 

1  Above,  p.  38,  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  262- 

2  Letters  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  271. 

194 


SAXONY  AND   BRANDENBURG      195 

at  the  Ducal  Court  he  passes  a  startling  and  hasty  judgment 
when  he  says,  writing  to  his  Elector  in  1540,  that  there  the 
"  scandals  were  ten  times  worse  "  than  those  caused  by  the 
Hessian  bigamy.  He  was  annoyed  to  find  that,  even  after 
the  introduction  of  the  new  teaching,  the  courtiers  and  nobles 
thought  only  of  replenishing  their  purses.  He  speaks  of  them  as 
the  "  aristocratic  harpies  of  the  land,"  and  exclaims  :  "  These 
courtiers  will  end  by  eating  themselves  up  by  their  own  avarice."1 
They  refused  to  support  the  ministers  of  the  Word  and  disputed 
amongst  themselves  as  to  whose  duty  it  was  to  do  so  ;  they  did 
not  hide  their  old  contempt  for  Wittenberg,  i.e.  for  its  theologians 
and  theology,  and  yet  they  expected  Wittenberg  to  carry  out  the 
Visitations  free  of  cost.  "  Even  should  you  get  nothing  for  the 
Visitation,"  he  nevertheless  instructs  one  of  the  preachers,  "  still' 
you  must  hold  it  as  well  as  you  can,  comfort  souls  to  the  best  of 
your  power  and,  in  any  case,  expel  the  poisonous  Papists."2 

The  unexpected  and  apparently  so  favourable  change  in 
the  Duchy  really  did  little  to  dispel  his  gloom,  though  he 
occasionally  intones  a  hymn  of  gratitude  and  admiration 
for  the  working  of  Providence  displayed  in  the  change  of 
rulers. 

About  this  time  (1539),  in  Brandenburg,  the  Elector 
Joachim  II.  also  ushered  in  the  innovations.  The  rights  and 
possessions  of  the  ancient  Church  fell  a  prey  to  the  spoilers. 
Luther  praised  the  ruler  for  going  forward  so  bravely  "  to 
the  welfare  and  salvation  of  many  souls."  He  was,  how 
ever,  apprehensive  lest  the  "  roaring  of  the  lion  in  high 
places  "  might  influence  the  Elector ;  with  the  Divine 
assistance,  however,  he  would  not  fear  even  this.3  He 
showed  himself  strangely  lenient  in  regard  to  the  Elector's 
prudent  retention  of  much  more  of  the  Catholic  ceremonial 
than  had  been  preserved  in  any  other  German  land.  Even 
the  Elevation  of  the  Sacrament  at  Mass  (or  rather  at  the 
sham  Mass  still  in  use)  was  tolerated  by  Luther  ;  he  writes  : 
"  We  had  good  reasons  for  doing  away  with  the  elevation 
[of  the  Sacrament]  here  at  Wittenberg,  but  perhaps  at 
Berlin  you  have  not."4 

1  To    Johannes    Cellarius,    minister    at    Dresden,    Nov.    26,    1540, 
Letters  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  229. 

2  Ibid.,  cp.  the  letter  to  Wenceslaus  Link  of  Oct.  26,  1539,  "  Brief- 
wechsel,"  12,  p.  270  :    "  Proceres  veteri  odio  despiciunt  Wittembergam.'" 

3  Letter  of  Dec.  4,  1539,  "  Brief wechsel,"  ibid.,  p.  313. 

4  To  Provost  George  Buchholzer  at  Berlin,  Dec.  4,  1539,  ibid.,  p.  316. 
At  the  Wittenberg  Schlosskirche  the  elevation  had  gone  before  1539, 
and  soon  after  was  discontinued  throughout  the  Saxon  Electorate. 
It  was  retained,  however,  in  the  parish   church  of  Wittenberg  until 


196          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

In  the  Duchy  of  Prussia,  formerly  ecclesiastical  property 
of  the  Teutonic  Knights,  the  way  had  been  paved  for  the 
apostasy  of  these  Knights,  all  bound  by  the  vow  of  chastity, 
by  Luther's  alluring  tract  "  An  die  Herrn  Deutschs  Ordens, 
das  sic  falsche  Keuscheyt  meyden  und  zur  rechten  ehlichen 
Keuschcyt  greyffen."1  Albert,  the  Grand  Master,  who  had 
visited  Luther  twice,  as  already  narrated,  seized  upon  the 
lands  of  the  Order  belonging  to  the  Church  and  caused 
himself  to  be  solemnly  invested  and  proclaimed  hereditary 
Duke  of  Prussia  on  April  10,  1525  ;  thereupon  Luther  sent 
him  his  congratulations  that  God  should  have  so  graciously 
called  him  to  this  new  Estate.  The  Grand  Master,  himself 
a  married  man,  with  the  assistance  of  the  two  apostate 
Bishops  of  Samland  and  Pomerania,  then  established 
Lutheranism.  As  chief  Bishop  he  assumed  the  position  of 
head  of  the  territorial  Church,  agreeably  with  the  Protestant 
practice  in  the  other  German  lands.  The  episcopal  juris 
diction  was  transferred  to  the  civil  Consistorial  Courts. 

Violent  appropriation  of  alien  property,  as  well  as  illegal 
assumption  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  also  characterised 
the  advent  of  the  new  "faith  in  Wiirtemberg.  Duke  Ulrich, 
who  had  been  raised  to  the  throne  in  1534  by  a  breach  of 
the  peace  of  the  Empire  and  contrary  to  all  law  and  justice, 
thanks  to  the  successful  raid  of  Philip  of  Hesse  (above,  p.  47  ; 
vol.  iii.,  p.  67  f.),  continued  to  labour  under  the  stigma 
attaching  to  the  manner  in  which  he  had  obtained  the 
Duchy,  in  spite  of  the  peace  he  had  patched  up  with  the 
Emperor.  The  religious  transformation  of  the  country  was 
however,  soon  accomplished,  thanks  to  his  pressure. 

The  chief  part  in  this,  so  far  as  Upper  Wiirtemberg  was 
concerned,  devolved  on  the  preacher,  Ambrosius  Blaurer 
(Blarer),  who  favoured  the  Zwinglian  leanings  of  Bucer. 

Blaurer  was  openly  accused  of  deception  and  hypocrisy  in  the 
matter  of  his  profession  of  faith.  Though  he  had  formerly  sided 
with  Zwingli  in  the  denial  of  the  Sacrament,  he  vindicated  his 
Lutheran  orthodoxy  to  his  patron,  the  Duke,  by  means  of  a 

Bugenhagen  did  away  with  it  on  June  25,  1542.  Luther  reserved  to 
himself  the  liberty  of  reintroducing  it  should  heresy  or  other  reasons 
call  for  it.  He  had  retained  the  elevation  at  Wittenberg  for  a  while 
as  a  protest  against  Carlstadt's  attacks  on  the  Sacrament,  at  least 
such  was  the  reason  he  gave  in  May,  1542,  to  Landgrave  Philip,  who 
wanted  its  abrogation.  Cp.  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  578. 

1  Dec.,  1523,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  12,  p.  232  ff . ;  Erl.  ed.,  29, 
p/16  ff.  ("  Brief wechsel,"  4,  p.  266). 


WURTEMBERG  197 

formulary1  tallying  with  Luther's  doctrine  on  the  Supper. 
Subsequently,  however,  he  issued  an  "  Apology,"  in  which  he 
declared  he  had  not  in  the  least  altered  his  views.  "  Who  does 
not  see  the  deception  ?  "  wrote  Luther's  friend,  Veit  Dietrich ; 
"  formerly  he  made  a  profession  of  faith  in  our  own  words,  and 
now  he  attacks  everybody  who  says  he  has  retracted  his  previous 
opinion."2  Luther  had  been  a  prey  to  the  greatest  anxiety  on 
learning  that  Blaurer  had  become  the  Duke's  favourite.  "  If 
this  be  true,"  he  wrote,  "  what  hope  is  left  for  the  whole  of  Upper 
Germany  ?  "3  Much  as  he  had  rejoiced  at  Blaurer's  apparent 
retractation  in  the  matter  of  the  Sacrament,  he  was  very  mis 
trustful  of  his  bewildering  "  Apology."  "  I  only  hope  it  be  meant 
seriously,"  he  declared  ;  "  it  scandalises  many  that  Blaurer 
should  be  so  anxious  to  make  out  that  he  never  thought  differ 
ently.  People  find  this  hard  to  believe."  "  For  the  sake  of  unity 
I  shall,  however,  put  a  favourable  interpretation  on  everything. 
I  am  ready  to  forgive  anyone  who  in  his  heart  thinks  aright,  even 
though  he  may  have  been  in  error  or  hostile  to  me."4  Thus  he 
practically  pledged  himself  to  silence  regarding  the  work. 

Of  "  Blarer's  "  doings  in  Wiirtemberg,  now  won  over  to  the 
new  Evangel,  the  Bavarian  agent,  Hans  Werner,  a  violent 
opponent  of  Duke  Ulrich's,  wrote  :  "  He  preaches  every  day  ; 
yet  none  save  the  low  classes  and  common  people,  etc.,  attend 
his  sermons,  for  these  readily  accept  the  Evangel  of  mine  being 
thine  and  thine  mine.  Item,  Blarer  has  full  powers,  writes 
hither  and  thither  in  the  land,  turns  out  here  a  provost,  there  a 
canon,  vicar,  rector  or  priest  and  banishes  them  from  the  country 
by  order  of  Duke  Ulrich  ;  he  appoints  foreigners,  Zwinglians  or 
Lutheran  scamps,  of  whom  no  one  knows  anything  ;  all  must 
have  wife  and  child,  and  if  there  be  still  a  priest  found  in  the  land, 
he  is  forced  to  take  a  wife."5 

In  the  Wiirtemberg  lowlands,  north  of  Stuttgart,  a 
zealous  Lutheran,  Erhard  Schnepf,  laboured  for  the 
destruction  of  the  old  Church  system  ;  Duke  Ulrich  also 
summoned  Johann  Brenz,  the  Schwabisch-Hall  preacher,  to 
his  land  for  two  years. 

At  Christmas,  1535,  Ulrich  gave  orders  to  all  the  prelates 
in  his  realm  to  dismiss  the  Catholic  clergy  in  their  districts 
and  appoint  men  of  the  new  faith,  as  the  former  "  did 
nothing  but  blaspheme  and  abuse  the  Divine  truth."6  Even 

1  Cp.  Enders,  ibid.,  10,  p.  98,  n.  7. 

2  Letter  to  Coler,  April  30,  1535.     Enders,  ibid.,  p.  151,  n.  5. 

3  To  Justus  Jonas,  Dec.  17,  1534,  "  Brief wechsel,"  10,  p.  98. 

4  To  Erhard  Schnepf  at  Stuttgart,  May  15,  1535,  ibid.,  p.  150. 

5  Letter  to  the  Chancellor  Leonard  v.  Eck,  Jan.  21,  1535,  in  Wille, 
"  Anal,  zur  Gesch.  Oberdeutschlands,  1534-1540  "  ("  Zeitschr.  fur  die 
Gesch.  des  Oberrheins,"  37,  p.  263  ff.),  p.  293  f. 

6  G.  Bossert  in  "  Wiirttemberg.  KG.,"  ed.  Calwer  Verlagsverein, 
Calw,  1893,  p.  335. 


198         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

the  assisting  at  Mass  in  neighbouring  districts  was  pro 
hibited  by  the  regulation  issued  in  the  summer  of  1536, 
which  at  the  same  time  prescribed  the  attendance  of 
Catholics  at  least  once  every  Sunday  and  Holiday  at  the 
preaching  of  the  new  ministers  of  the  Word  ;  under  this 
intolerable  system  of  compulsion  Catholics  were  reduced  to 
performing  all  their  religious  exercises  in  their  own  homes.1 
The  violent  suppression  of  the  monasteries  and  the  sequestra 
tion  of  monastic  property  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  above. 
In  the  convents  of  women,  which  still  existed,  the  nuns 
were  forced  against  their  will  to  listen  to  the  sermons  of  the 
preachers.  Church  property  was  everywhere  confiscated 
so  far  as  the  ancient  Austrian  law  did  not  prevent  it.  The 
public  needs  and  the  scarcity  of  money  were  alleged  as  pretexts 
for  this  robbery.  The  Mass  vestments  and  church  vessels 
were  allotted  to  the  so-called  poor-boxes.  At  Stuttgart, 
for  instance,  the  costly  church  vestments  were  sold  for  the 
benefit  of  the  poor.  In  the  troubles  many  noble  works 
of  art  perished,  for  "  all  precious  metal  was  melted  down 
and  minted,  nor  were  cases  of  embezzlement  altogether 
unknown."  "  The  Prince,  with  the  approach  of  old  age, 
manifested  pitiable  miserliness  and  cupidity."2  Un 
fortunately  he  was  left  a  free  hand  in  the  use  of  the  great 
wealth  that  poured  into  his  coffers.  But,  not  even  in  the 
interests  of  the  new  worship,  would  he  expend  what  was 
necessary,  so  that  the  vicarages  fell  into  a  deplorable  state. 
In  other  matters,  too,  the  new  Church  of  the  country 
suffered  in  consequence  of  the  way  in  which  Church  property 
was  handled.  "  The  inevitable  consequence  was  the  rise  of 
many  quarrels,  complaints  were  heard  on  all  sides  and  even 
the  Schmalkalden  League  was  moved  to  remonstrate  with 
Ulrich.3 

Terrible  details  concerning  the  alienation  of  church  and 
monastic  property  are  reported  from  Wiirtemberg  by  con 
temporaries.  The  preacher  Erhard  Schnepf,  the  Duke's  chief 
tool,  was  also  his  right  hand  in  the  seizure  of  property.  Loud 
complaints  concerning  Schnepf's  doings,  and  demands  that  he 
should  be  made  to  render  an  account,  were  raised  even  by  such 
Protestants  as  Bucer  and  Myconius,  and  by  the  speakers  at  the 
religious  conference  at  Worms.  He  found  means,  however,  to 
evade  this  duty.  One  of  those  voices  of  the  past  bewails  the 
treatment  meted  out  to  the  unfortunate  religious  :  "  Even  were 

1  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  336.          2  Ibid.,  p.  347.          3  Ibid.,  p.  348. 


WURTEMBERG  199 

the  Wiirtemberg  monks  and  nuns  all  devils  incarnate  and  no 
men,  still  Duke  Ulrich  ought  not  to  proceed  against  them  in  so 
un-Christian,  inhuman  and  tyrannical  a  fashion."1 

The  relentless  work  of  religious  subversion  bore  every 
where  a  political  stamp.  The  leaders  were  simply  tools  of 
the  Court.  Frequently  they  were  at  variance  amongst 
themselves  in  matters  of  theology,  and  their  people,  too, 
were  dragged  into  the  controversy.  To  the  magistrates  it 
was  left  to  decide  such  differences  unless  indeed  some 
dictatorial  official  forestalled  them,  as  was  the  case  when 
the  Vogt  of  Herrenberg  took  it  into  his  own  hands  to  settle 
a  matter  of  faith.  In  the  struggles  between  Lutherans  and 
Zwinglians,  the  highest  court  of  appeal  above  the  town- 
Councillors  and  the  officials  was  the  Ducal  Chancery. 

Ulrich  himself  did  not  explicitly  side  either  with  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg  or  with  the  "  Confessio  Tetra- 
politana"  viz.  with  the  more  Zwinglian  form  of  faith  agreed 
upon  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  by  the  four  South-German 
townships  of  Strasburg,  Constance,  Memmingen  and  Lindau. 

The  preachers  who  assembled  in  1537  at  the  so-called  Idols- 
meeting  of  Urach,  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  veneration  of 
images  which-  had  given  rise  to  serious  dissensions  amongst  them, 
appealed  to  Ulrich.  Blaurer  inveighed  against  the  \ise  of  images 
as  idolatrous.  Brenz  declared  that  their  removal  in  Wiirtem 
berg  would  be  tantamount  to  a  condemnation  of  the  Lutheran 
Church  in  Saxony  and  elsewhere  where  they  were  permitted. 
The  Court,  to  which  the  majority  of  the  theologians  appealed, 
ordered  the  removal  of  all  images  on  Jan.  20,  1540.  Distressing 
scenes  were  witnessed  in  many  places  when  the  images  and 
pictures  in  the  churches,  which  were  not  only  prized  by  the 
people,  but  were  also,  many  of  them,  of  great  artistic  value,2  were 
broken  and  torn  to  pieces  in  spite  of  the  warning  issued  by  the 
authorities  against  their  violent  destruction.  The  "  Tetra- 
polilana  "  had  already  forcibly  denounced  the  use  of  images. 

At  Ulm,  which  so  far  had  refused  to  accept  the  "  Tetrapolitana," 
the  magistrates  in  1544  decided  to  adhere  to  the  Confession  of 
Augsburg  and  the  "  Apologia."  Blaurer,  some  years  before 
(1541),  had  justifiably  complained  of  the  arbitrary  action  of  the 
civic  authorities  and  said  that  every  town  acted  according  to  its 
own  ideas.  But  the  preachers  were  frequently  so  exorbitant  in 
the  material  demands  they  made  on  behalf  of  themselves  and 
their  families  that  the  Town  Council  of  Ulm  declared,  they 
behaved  as  though  "  each  one  had  the  right  to  receive  a  full 
saucepan  every  day."3 

1  Hans  Werner  to  Chancellor  Eck,  Jan.  14,  1536,  Wille,  ibid.,  p.  298. 

2  Bossert,  ibid.,  remarks,  p.  333  :    "  Many  mediaeval  works  of  art 
were  preserved."  3  Ibid.,  p.  356. 


200         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

In  place  of  any  amendment  of  the  many  moral  disorders 
already  prevailing,  still  greater  moral  corruption  became  the 
rule  among  the  people  of  Wiirtemberg,  as  is  attested  by  Myconius 
the  Zwinglian  in  1539,  and  thirty  years  later  by  the  Chancellor 
of  the  University  of  Tubingen,  Jacob  Andrese. 

The  former  declared  that  the  "  people  are  full  of  impudence 
and  godlessness  ;  of  blasphemy,  drunkenness,  sins  of  the  flesh 
and  wild  licentiousness  there  is  no  end"1  Andrese  directly  con 
nects  with  the  new  faith  this  growing  demoralisation  :  "A 
dissolute,  Epicurean,  bestial  life,  feeding,  swilling,  avarice,  pride 
and  blasphemy."  "  We  have  learnt,"  so  the  people  said,  accord 
ing  to  him,  "  that  only  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  are  we 
saved,  Who  by  His  death  has  atoned  for  all  our  sins  ;  .  .  .  that 
all  the  world  may  see  they  are  not  Papists  and  rely  not  at  all  on 
good  works,  they  perform  none.  Instead  of  fasting  they  gorge 
and  swill  day  and  night,  instead  of  giving  alms,  they  flay  the 
poor."  "  Everyone  admits  this  cannot  go  on  longer,  for  things 
have  come  to  a  crisis.  Amongst  the  people  there  is  little  fear 
of  God  and  little  or  no  veracity  or  faith  ;  all  forms  of  injustice 
have  increased  and  we  have  reached  the  limit."2 

A  General  Rescript  had  to  be  issued  on  May  22,  1542,  for  the 
whole  of  Wiirtemberg,  to  check  "the  drunkenness,  blasphemy, 
swearing,  gluttony,  coarseness  and  quarrelsomeness  rampant  in 
the  parishes."3 

Few  bright  spots  are  to  be  seen  in  the  accounts  of  the 
early  days  of  the  Reformation  in  Wiirtemberg,  if  we  except 
the  lives  of  one  or  two  blameless  ministers.  It  is  no  fault  of 
the  historian's  that  there  is  nothing  better  to  chronicle. 
Even  the  Protestant  historians  of  Wiirtemberg,  albeit  pre 
disposed  to  paint  the  change  of  religion  in  bright  colours, 
have  to  admit  this.  They  seek  to  explain  the  facts  on  the 
score  that  the  period  was  one  of  restless  and  seething  tran 
sition,  and  to  throw  the  blame  on  earlier  times  and  on  the 
questionable  elements  among  the  Catholic  clergy  from 
whose  ranks  most  of  the  preachers  were  recruited.4  But 
though  grave  responsibility  may  rest  on  earlier  times,  not 
only  here  but  in  the  other  districts  which  fell  away  from  the 
Church,  and  though  those  of  the  clergy  who  forgot  their 
duty  and  the  honour  of  their  calling  may  have  contributed 
even  more  than  usual  to  damage  the  fair  reputation  of 

1  In  Heyd,  "  Ulrich  Herzog  von  Wiirtenberg,"  3,  p.  89. 

2  The  passages  are  given  in  greater  detail  in  "  Erinnerung  nach  dem 
Lauf  der  Planeten  gestellt,"  Tubingen,  1568,  and  "  Dreizehn  Predigten 
vom  Tiirken,"  Tubingen,   1569,  in  Dollinger,   "  Die  Reformation,"  2, 
pp.  376-378.  3  Bossert,  ibid.,  p.  357. 

4  Thus,  e.g.  Bossert,  loc.  cit.,  and  in  other  studies  on  Wiirtemberg 
Church-History  in  the  16th  century,  called  forth  by  Janssen's  work. 


WURTEMBERG  AND   HESSE        201 

Protestantism,  yet  the  increase  of  immorality  which  has 
been  proved  to  have  endured  for  a  long  course  of  years, 
brings  the  historian  face  to  face  with  a  question  not  lightly 
to  be  dismissed  :  Why  did  the  preaching  of  the  new  Evangel, 
with  its  supposedly  higher  standard  of  religion  and  morality, 
especially  at  the  springtide  of  its  existence  and  in  its  full 
vigour,  not  bring  about  an  improvement,  but  rather  the 
reverse  ? 

This  question  applies,  however,  equally  to  other  countries 
which  were  then  torn  from  the  Church,  and  to  the  persons 
principally  instrumental  in  the  work. 

In  Hesse  the  religious  upheaval,  as  even  Protestant 
contemporaries  conceded,  also  promoted  a  great  decline  of 
morals. 

The  bad  example  given  by  Landgrave  Philip  tended  to 
increase  the  evil.1  A  harmful  influence  was  exercised  not 
only  by  the  Landgrave's  Court  but  also  by  certain  preachers, 
such  as  Johann  Lening,2  who  enjoyed  Philip's  favour. 
Elisabeth,  Duchess  of  Rochlitz,  the  Landgrave's  sister,  and 
a  zealous  patron  of  the  Evangel,  like  the  Prince  himself, 
cherished  rather  lax  views  on  morality.  At  first  she  was 
indignant  at  the  bigamy,  though  not  on  purely  moral 
grounds.  The  sovereign  met  her  anger  with  a  threat  of 
telling  the  world  what  she  herself  had  done  during  her 
widowhood.  The  result  was  that  the  Duchess  said  no  more.3 
The  Landgrave's  Court-preacher,  Dionysius  Melander,  who 
performed  the  marriage  ceremony  with  the  second  wife,  had, 
five  years  before,  laid  down  his  office  as  preacher  and  leader 
of  the  innovations  at  Frankfort  on  the  Maine,  "  having  fallen 
out  with  his  fellows  and  personally  compromised  himself 
by  carrying  on  with  his  housekeeper."  He  was  a  "  violent, 
despotic  and,  at  times,  coarse  and  obscene,  popular  orator 
whose  personal  record  was  not  unblemished."4 

A  Hessian  church  ordinance  of  1539  complains  of  the  moral 
retrogression  :  Satan  has  estranged  men  from  the  communion 
of  Christ  "  not  only  by  means  of  factions  and  sects,  but  also  by 
carnal  wantonness  and  dissolute  living."5  The  old  Hessian 

1  Cp.  above,  passim.  2  See  above,  p.  65. 

"  Brief wechsel  Philipps  von  Hessen,"  1,  p.  334  f. 
4  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  31'5  f.     On  his  marriage,  see  above,  p.  157. 
6  A.  L.  Richter,    "Die   evangel.   Kirchenordnungen    des    16.  Jahr- 
hunderts,"  1,  p.  290. 


202         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

historian  Wigand  Lauze  writes,  in  his  "  Life  and  deeds  of  Philip 
the  Magnanimous,  Landgrave  of  Hesse,"  that,  the  people  have 
become  very  savage  and  uncouth,  "  as  though  God  had  given  us 
His  precious  Word,  and  thereby  delivered  us  from  the  innumer 
able  abominations  of  Popery  and  its  palpable  idolatry,  simply 
that  each  one  might  be  free  to  do  or  leave  undone  whatever  he 
pleased  "  ;  "  many  evil  deeds  were  beginning  to  be  looked  upon 
by  many  as  no  longer  sinful  or  vicious."  He  accuses  "  the 
magistrates,  ministers  and  governors  "  of  corrupting  the  people 
by  themselves  transgressing  the  "  good,  Christian  regulations  " 
which  had  been  set  up,  and  charges  both  preachers  and  hearers 
with  serving  Mammon,  and  with  "  barefaced  extortion,"  "  not 
to  mention  other  sins  and  vices."1 

The  Hessian  theologians  and  preachers  transferred  the  re 
sponsibility  for  the  abolition  of  "  law  and  order,"  for  the  increase  of 
the  "freedom  of  the  flesh  within  the  Evangel  "  and  for  the  falling 
away  into  a  "  state  like  that  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrha  "  to  the 
shoulders  of  the  "  magistrates  and  officials."2  The  latter,  on  the 
other  hand,  boldly  asserted  that  the  preachers  themselves  were 
the  cause  of  the  evil,  since  they  led  a  "  wicked,  scandalous  life, 
drinking,  gambling,  practising  usury  and  so  forth,  and  were, 
some  of  them,  guilty  of  still  worse  things,  brawling,  fighting  and 
wrangling  with  the  people  in  the  taverns  and  behaving  improperly 
with  the  women."3  Bucer  himself,  Philip's  adviser  in  ecclesi 
astical  matters,  wrote  sadly  to  the  Landgrave,  in  1539,  from 
Marburg  :  "  The  people  are  becoming  demoralised  and  immorality 
is  gaining  the  upper  hand."  "  Where  such  contempt  prevails  for 
God  and  the  authorities  there  the  devil  is  omnipotent."4 

2.  At  the  Centre  of  the  New  Faith 

If  we  glance  at  the  Saxon  Electorate  we  shall  find  the 
deep  despondency  frequently  displayed  by  Luther  con 
cerning  the  deplorable  moral  decadence  prevailing  there 
only  too  well  justified. 

The  downward  trend  appeared  to  have  set  in  in  earnest 
and  all  hope  of  remedying  affairs  seemed  lost.5 

The  Court  and  those  in  authority  not  only  did  little  to  check 
the  evil  but,  by  their  example,  even  tended  to  promote  many 
disorders.  The  Elector,  Johann  Frederick  "the  Magnanimous' ' 
(1532-1547),  was  addicted  to  drink.  The  banquets  which  he 

1  "  Leben,"  etc.  ("  Zeitschr.  des  Vereins  fur  hess.  Gesch.,"  Snppl.  2, 
Bd.  1  und  2),  1,  p.  379  ff. 

2  Neudecker,    "  Urkunden   aus  der  Reformationszeit,"    p.    684   ff. 
Janssen,  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  "  (Eng.  Trans.),  6,  pp.  88-91. 

3  Hassencamp,    "  Hess.    KG.    im    Zeitalter   der   Reformation,"    2, 
p.  613  f.    Janssen,  ibid. 

4  "  Briefwechsel  Philipps,"  1,  p.  121  f.     Janssen,  ibid. 

5  Cp.  above,  passim,  and  vol.  iii.,  p.  324  ;  vol.  ii.,  pp.  123  ff.,  218  ff. 
344,  349  f. 


THE   SAXON   ELECTORATE          203 

gave  to  his  friends — in  which  wine  was  indulged  in  to  an 
extent  unusual  even  in  those  days  when  men  were  ac 
customed  to  heavy  drinking — became  a  byword.  Luther 
himself  came  to  speak  strongly  on  his  excessive  drinking. 
"  His  only  faults,"  he  laments  in  the  Table-Talk,  "  are  his 
drinking  and  routing  too  much  with  his  companions."1 
"  He  has  all  the  virtues— but  just  fancy  him  swilling  like 
that  !  "2  Yet  Luther  has  an  excuse  ready  :  "  He  is  a  stout 
man  and  can  stand  a  deep  draught ;  what  he  must  needs 
drink  would  make  another  man  dead  drunk."3  "  Un 
fortunately  not  only  our  Court  here  but  the  whole  of  - 
Germany  is  plagued  with  this  vice  of  drunkenness.  It  is  a 
bad  old  custom  in  the  German  lands  which  has  gone  on 
growing  and  will  continue  to  grow.  Henry,  Duke  of  [Bruns 
wick]  Wolfenbuttel  calls  our  Elector  a  drunkard  and  very 
Nabal  with  whom  Abigail  could  not  speak  until  he  had  slept 
off  his  carouse."4  We  have  the  Elector's  own  comment  on 
this  in  a  letter  to  Chancellor  Briick  :  "If  the  Brunswick 
fellow  writes  that  we  are  a  drunken  Nabal  and  Benadad,  we 
cannot  entirely  deny  that  we  sometimes  follow  the  German 
custom  "  ;  at  any  rate  the  Bruns wicker  was  not  the  man  to 
find  fault,  for  he  was  an  even  harder  drinker.5 

Johann  Frederick  was  accused  by  Philip  of  Hesse  of  the 
grossest  immorality.  This  happened  when  the  former  refused 
to  defend  Philip's  bigamy  and  when  his  Superintendent,  Justus 
Menius,  who  was  given  to  lauding  the  Elector's  virtues,  showed 
an  inclination  to  protest  publicly  against  the  Landgrave's  bigamy. 
This  led  Philip  to  write  this  warning  to  his  theologian  Bucer  : 
"  If  those  saintly  folk,  Justus  Menius  and  his  crew,  amuse  them 
selves  by  writing  against  us,  they  shall  have  their  answer.  And 
we  shall  not  leave  hidden  under  a  bushel  how  this  most  august 
and  quite  sinless  Elector,  once,  under  our  roof  at  Cassel,  and 
again,  at  the  time  of  the  first  Diet  of  Spires,  committed  the  crime 
of  sodomy."6 

A.  Hausrath  remarks  concerning  this  in  his  "  Luthers  Leben  "  : 
That  Philip  was  lying  "  can  hardly  be  taken  for  granted  "  ;7  G. 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden  "  (Kroker),  p.   173.          2  Ibid.,  p.   100. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  373.  *  Hausrath,  2,  p.  391. 

6  Letter  of  Feb.  9,  1541.  See  G.  Mentz,  "  Johann  Friedrich  der 
Grossmiitige,"  3,  Jena,  1908,  p.  344,  according  to  certain  "  archives."  — 
Steinhausen  ("  Kulturgesch.  der  Deutschen,"  p.  508),  calls  the  Elector 
Johann  Frederick  quite  pimply  a  "  drunkard."  He  points  out  that 
Anna  of  Saxony  died  of  drink  and  that  the  Saxons,  even  in  the  15th 
century,  were  noted  for  their  drinking  habits. 

6  Letter  of  Jan.  3,  1541,  "  Briefwechsel  Philipps,"  ed.  Lenz,  1,  p.  302. 

7  Ci  Luthers. Leben,"  2,  Berlin,  1904,  p.  391. 


204         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Mentz,  likewise,  in  his  recent  work,  "  Job.  Friedrich  der  Gross- 
rnutige,"1  says  :  "  It  is  difficult  simply  to  ignore  the  Landgrave's 
statement,  but  we  do  not  know  whether  the  allusion  may  not  be 
to  some  sin  committed  in  youth."  Here  belongs  also  the  passage 
in  Philip  of  Hesse's  letter  to  Luther  of  July  27,  1540  (above, 
p.  60),  where  he  calls  the  Elector  to  bear  witness  that  he  (the 
Landgrave)  had  done  "  the  worst."  The  Biblical  expression 
"  peccatum  pessimum  "  stood  for  sodomy.  Further  charges  of  a 
similar  nature  were  even  more  explicitly  laid  at  the  door  of  Johann 
Frederick.  A  Catholic,  relating  the  proceedings  in  Brunswick 
at  the  close  of  the  conquest  of  that  country  by  the  Protestant 
troops  in  1542,  speaks  of  "  vices  and  outrages  against  nature 
then  indulged  in  by  the  Elector  at  the  Castle  as  is  commonly 
reported  and  concerning  which  there  is  much  talk  among  the 
Court  people."2  Duke  Henry  of  Brunswick  in  a  tract  of  1544 
referred  not  only  to  the  Elector's  sanction  of  the  Landgrave's 
bigamy,  in  return  for  which  he  was  spared  by  the  latter,  but  also 
to  the  "  many  other  pranks  which  might  be  circumstantially 
proved  against  them  and  which  deserved  more  severe  punish 
ment  "  than  that  of  the  sword. 3  The  "  more  severe  punishment  " 
means  burning  at  the  stake,  which  was  the  penalty  decreed  by 
the  laws  of  the  Empire  for  sodomy,  whereas  polygamy  and 
adultery  were  simply  punished  by  decapitation.  Both  sovereigns 
in  their  reply  flatly  denied  the  charge,  but,  evidently,  they  clearly 
understood  its  nature  ;  they  had  never  been  guilty,  they  said, 
of  "  shameful,  dishonourable  pranks  deserving  of  death  by  fire."4 

Whatever  the  truth  may  be  concerning  this  particular 
charge  which  involves  them  both,5  both  Landgrave  and 
Elector  certainly  left  behind  them  so  bad  a  record  that 
Adolf  Hausrath  could  say  :  The  pair  (but  the  Landgrave 
even  more  than  the  Elector)  did  their  best  "  to  make 
mockery  of  the  claim  of  the  Evangelicals  that  their  Evangel 
would  revive  the  morality  of  the  German  nation."  He 
instances  in  particular  the  bigamy,  "  which  put  any  belief 
in  the  reality  of  their  piety  to  a  severe  test  and  prepared 
the  way  for  a  great  moral  defeat  of  Luther's  cause."6 

In  the  matter  of  the  bigamy  attempts  were  made  to 
exculpate  the  Elector  Johann  Frederick  by  alleging,  that 

1  3  Teil,  Jena,  1909,  p.  343  f. 

2  Janssen,  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  "  (Eng.  Trans.),  6,  p.  213. 

3  Hortleder,   "  Von  den  Ursachen  des  Teutschen  Kriegs  Karls  V. 
wider  die  Schmalkaldische,"  1,  Gotha,  1645,  p.  1837. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  1869  f. 

5  N.  Paulus,  who  examined  the  matter  more  closely  in  the  "  Hist. 
Jahrb.,"  30,  1909,  p.   154,  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  Mentz  in  his 
Life  of  Johann  Frederick  has  not  laid  sufficient  weight  on  the  testimony 
of  the  witnesses. 

6  "  Luthers  Leben,"  2,  p.  391  f. 


THE   SAXON   ELECTORATE          205 

he  regarded  the  Landgrave's  step  not  as  a  real  new  marriage 
but  as  mere  concubinage.  The  fact  is,  however,  he  was 
sufficiently  well  informed  by  Bucer  in  Dec.  1539,  i.e.  from 
the  very  beginning,  learnt  further  details  two  months 
later  from  the  Landgrave's  own  lips,  and  declared  himself 
"  satisfied  with  everything."  When,  later,  the  Elector 
began  to  take  an  unfavourable  view  of  the  business,  Philip 
wrote  to  Bucer  (July  24,  1540),  pointing  out  that  he  had 
nevertheless  sent  his  representative  to  the  wedding.  It  is, 
however,  true  that  the  Elector  had  all  along  been  against 
any  making  public  of  so  compromising  an  affair  and  had 
backed  up  his  theologians  when  they  urged  the  Landgrave 
to  deny  it.1 

There  is  no  more  ground  for  crediting^  Johann  Frederick 
with  "  strictness  of  morals  "  than  for  saying  that  the  Elector 
Frederick  the  Wise  (1486-1525),  under  whose  reign 
Lutheranism  took  root  in  the  land,  was  upright  and  truth 
ful  in  his  dealings  with  the  Pope  and  the  Empire. 

The  diplomatic  artifices  by  which  the  latter  protected 
Luther  whilst  pretending  not  to  do  so,  the  dissembling  and 
double-dealing  of  his  policy  throws  a  slur  on  the  memory  of 
one  who  was  a  powerful  patron  of  Lutheranism.  Even  in 
Kostlin-Kawerau2  we  find  his  behaviour  characterised  as 
"  one  long  subterfuge,  seeing,  that,  whilst  giving  Luther  a 
free  hand,  he  persisted  in  making  out  that  Luther's  cause 
was  not  his  "  ;  his  declaration,  that  "  it  did  not  become  him 
as  a  layman  to  decide  in  such  a  controversy,"  is  rightly 
branded  as  misleading. 

The  Protestant  Pietists  were  loudest  in  their  complaints. 
In  his  "  Kirchenhistorie,"  Gottfried  Arnold,  who  was  one  of 
them,  blamed,  in  1699,  this  Elector  for  the  "  cunning  and 
the  political  intrigues  "  of  which  he  was  suspected  ;  he  is 
angry  that  this  so  undevout  promoter  of  Lutheranism 
should  have  written  to  Duke  George,  his  cousin,  "  that  he 
never  undertook  nor  ever  would  undertake  to  defend 
Luther's  sermons  or  his  controversial  writings,"  and  that  he 
should  have  sent  to  his  minister  at  Rome  the  following 
instructions,  simply  to  pacify  the  Pope  :  "It  did  not 
become  him  as  a  secular  Prince  to  judge  of  these  matters, 
and  he  left  Luther  to  answer  for  everything  at  his  own 


1  Cp.  above,  passim. 

2  Vol.  i.,  p.  601. 


206 

risk."1  The  same  historian  also  points  out  with  dissatisfac 
tion  that  the  Elector  Frederick,  "  though  always  unmarried, 
had,  by  a  certain  female,  two  sons  called  Frederick  and 
Sebastian.  How  he  explained  this  to  his  spiritual  directors 
is  nowhere  recorded."2  The  "  female  "  in  question  was 
Anna  Weller,  by  whom  he  had,  besides  these  two  sons,  also 
a  daughter.3 

Against  his  brother  and  successor,  Johann,  surnamed  the 
Constant  (1525-1532),  Luther's  friends  brought  forward  no 
such  complaints,  but  merely  reproached  him  with  letting 
things  take  their  course.  Arnold  instances  a  statement  of 
Melanchthon's  according  to  which  this  good  Lutheran 
Prince  "  had  been  very,  negligent  in  examining  this  thing 
and  that,"  so  that  grave  disorders  now  called  for  a  remedy. 
Luther,  too,  whilst  praising  the  Elector's  good  qualities, 
declares,  that  "  he  was  far  too  indulgent."4  "  I  inter 
fere  with  no  one,"  was  his  favourite  saying,  "  but  merely 
trust  more  in  God's  Word  than  in  man."  The  protests 
of  the  Emperor  and  the  representations  of  the  Catholics, 
politics  and  threats  of  war  left  him  quite  unmoved,  whence 
his  title  of  "  the  Constant  "  ;  "he  was  just  the  right  man 
for  Luther,"  says  Hausrath, 5  "  for  the  latter  did  not  like  to 
see  the  gentlemen  of  the  Saxon  Chancery,  Briick,  Beyer, 
Planitz  and  the  rest,  interfering  and  urging  considerations 
of  European  politics.  '  Our  dear  old  father,  the  Elector,' 
Luther  said  of  him  in  1530,  '  has  broad  shoulders,  and  must 
now  bear  everything.'  ' 

The  favour  of  these  Princes  caused  Luther  frequently  to 
overstep  the  bounds  of  courtesy  in  his  behaviour  towards 
them.  Julius  Boehmer,  who  is  sorry  for  this,  in  the  Intro 
duction  to  his  selection  of  Luther's  works  remarks,  that  he 
was  guilty  of  "  want  of  respect,  nay,  of  rudeness,  towards 
the  Elector  Frederick  and  his  successor  Johann."6  Of 
Luther's  relations  with  Johann  Frederick,  Hausrath  says  : 
"  It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  Duke's  [Henry  of 
Brunswick's]  opinion  [viz.  that  Luther  used  to  speak  of  his 
own  Elector  as  Hans  Wurst  (i.e.  Jack  Pudding)]  was  with 
out  foundation  ;  in  any  case,  it  was  not  far  from  the  mark. 
With  his  eternal  plans  and  his  narrow-minded  obstinacy, 

1  Frankfurt,  1699,  2,  p.  44.  2  Ibid. 

3  "  Allg.  deutsche  Biographie,"  7,  p.  781  (Flathe). 

4  Hausrath,  loc.  cit.,  2,  p.  67.  5  Ibid.,  p.  68. 

6  "  Martin  Luthers  Werke  fur  das  deutsche  Volk,"  1907,  p.  xiii. 


THE   SAXON   ELECTORATE  207 

Luther's  corpulent  master  was  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the 
aged  Reformer.  .  .  .  '  He  works  like  a  donkey,'  Luther  once 
said  of  him,  and,  unfortunately,  this  was  perfectly  true."1 

In  his  will,  dated  1537,  Luther  addressed  the  following 
words  of  consolation  to  the  princely  patrons  and  promoters 
of  his  work,  the  Landgrave  and  the  Elector  Johann 
Frederick  :  It  was  true  they  were  not  quite  stainless,  but 
the  Papists  were  even  worse  ;  they  had  indeed  trespassed 
on  the  rights  and  possessions  of  others,  but  this  was  of  no 
great  consequence  ;  they  must  continue  to  work  for  the 
Evangel,  though  in  what  way  he  would  not  presume  to 
dictate  to  them.2 — Melanchthon,  who  was  so  often  distressed 
at  the  way  the  Princes  behaved  on  the  pretext  of  defending 
the  Evangel,  complains  that  "  the  sophistry  and  wickedness 
of  our  Princes  are  bringing  the  Empire  to  ruin,"  in  which 
"  bitter  cry,"  writes  a  Protestant  historian,  "  he  sums  up 
the  result  of  his  own  unhappy  experiences."3 

From  the  accounts  of  the  Visitations  in  the  Electorate  we 
learn  more  details  of  the  condition  of  morality,  law  and 
order  in  this  the  focus  of  the  new  Evangel.  The  proximity 
and  influence  of  Luther  and  of  his  best  and  most  faithful 
preachers  did  not  constitute  any  bulwark  against  the  grow 
ing  corruption  of  morals,  which  clear-sighted  men  indeed 
attributed  mainly  to  the  new  doctrines  on  good  works,  on 
faith  alone  and  on  Evangelical  freedom. 

In  the  protocols  of  the  first  Visitation  (1527-1529)  we  read  : 
The  greater  number  of  those  entrusted  with  a  cure  of  souls,  are 
"  in  an  evil  case"  ;  reckless  marriages  are  frequent  amongst  the 

1  Hausrath,  ibid.,  2,  p.  390. 

2  "  Brief wechsel,"  11,  p.  209,  from  the  original  at  Weimar,  written 
by  Bugenhagen  :     "  Utcunque  sint  in  quibusdam  peccatores  et  non  in 
omnibus  puri,  calumniantibus  hoc  etiam  vel  forte  accusantibus  adversariis, 
tamen  confidant  de  Domini  bonitate"  etc.    And  before  this,  concerning 
the  "  adversariorum  clamores  '  Rapiunt  bona  ecclesiastical  "  etc.,  they 
were  to  comfort  themselves,    "  quia  non  sic  rapiunt,   quemadmodum 
quidam  alii  ;    video  enim  eos  per  hcec  bona  curare  quce  sunt  religionis. 
Si  quid  prceterea  ipsis  ex  talibus  bonis  accedit,  quis  potius  ea  susciperet  ? 
Principum    sunt    talia,    non    nebulonum    papistarum."      The    general 
spoliation  of  church  property  disturbed  his  mind,  as  we  can  see,  but  he 
overcomes  his  scruples,  and  persuades  himself  that  their  action,  like 
his  own,  was  really  directed  against  Antichrist  :    "  lube  meis  verbis,  ut 
faciant  in  Deo  confidenter  pro  causa  evangelii  quicquid  Spiritus  sanctus 
suggesserit  ;  non  prcescribo  eis  modum.    Misericors  Deus  confortet  eos,  ut 
maneant  in  ista  sana  doctrina  et  gratias  agant,   quod  sunt  liberati  ab 
Antichristo." 

3  Ellinger,  "  Melanchthon,"  p.  588. 


208          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

preachers  ;  complaints  were  lodged  with  the  Electoral  Visitors 
concerning  the  preacher  at  Lucka  who  "  had  three  wives  living."1 
At  a  later  Visitation  a  preacher  was  discovered  to  have  had  six 
children  by  two  sisters.  Many  of  the  preachers  had  wives  whom 
they  had  stolen  from  husbands  still  living.  The  account  of  the 
people  whether  in  town  or  country  was  not  much  more  reassur 
ing  ;  many  localities  had  earned  themselves  a  bad  repute  for 
blasphemy  and  general  adultery.  In  many  places  the  people 
were  declared  to  be  so  wicked  that  only  "  the  hangman  and  the 
jailer  would  bo  of  any  avail."  Besides  this,  the  parsonages  were 
in  a  wretched  state.  "  The  foundations  had  fallen  in,  or,  in  many 
instances,  had  been  seized  by  the  nobles,  the  lands  and  meadows 
belonging  to  the  parsonages  had  been  sold  by  the  parish-councils, 
and  the  money  from  the  sale  of  chalices  and  monstrances  spent 
on  drink.  The  educational  system  was  so  completely  ruined  that 
in  the  Wittenberg  district,  for  instance,  in  which  there  were  145 
town  and  country  livings  with  hundreds  of  chapels  of  ease,  only 
21  schools  remained. 

As  early  as  1527  Melanchthon  had  viewed  with  profound 
dismay  the  "  serious  ruin  and  decay  that  menaces  everything 
good,"  which,  he  says,  was  clearly  perceived  at  Wittenberg. 
"  You  see,"  he  writes,  "  how  greatly  men  hate  one  another,  how 
great  is  the  contempt  for  all  uprightness,  how  great  the  ignorance 
of  those  who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  churches,  and  above  all  how 
forgetful  the  rulers  are  of  God."  And  again,  in  1528  :  "  No  one 
hates  the  Evangel  more  bitterly  than  those  who  like  to  be  con 
sidered  ours."  "  We  see,"  he  laments  in  the  same  year,  "  how 
greatly  the  people  hate  us."2 

His  friend  Justus  Jonas,  who  was  acquainted  with  the  con 
ditions  in  the  Saxon  Electorate  from  long  personal  experience, 
wrote  in  1530  :  "  Those  who  call  themselves  Evangelical  are 
becoming  utterly  depraved,  and  not  only  is  there  no  longer  any 
fear  of  God  among  them  but  there  is  no  respect  for  outward 
appearances  either  ;  they  are  weary  of  and  disgusted  with 
sermons,  they  despise  their  pastors  and  preachers  and  treat  them 
like  the  dirt  and  dust  of  the  streets."  "  And,  besides  all  this,  the 
common  people  are  becoming  utterly  shameless,  insolent  and 
ruffianly,  as  if  the  Evangel  had  only  been  sent  to  give  lewd 
fellows  liberty  and  scope  for  the  practice  of  all  their  vices."3 

The  next  Visitation,  held  seven  years  later,  only  confirmed 
the  growth  of  the  evil.  In  the  Wittenberg  district  in  particular 
complaints  were  raised  concerning  "  the  increase  in  godless 

1  This  ex-priest,  Michael  Kramer,  first  took  a  wife  at  Cunitz,  and 
when  she  began  to  lead  a  bad  life,  married  a  second  at  Dommitzsch 
"  on  the  strength  of  an  advice  secured."  On  account  of  matrimonial 
squabbles  he  married  a  third  time,  after  obtaining  advice  from  Luther 
through  the  magistrates.  C.  A.  Burkhardt,  "  Briefwechsel  Luthers," 
p.  87 ;  cp.  his  "Gesch.  d.  sachs.  Kirchen-  und  Schulvisitationen,"  p.  48. 
"  Corp.  ref.,"  1,  pp.  888,  913,  982.  Dollinger,  "  Reformation,"  1, 
pp.  302  f.,  369.  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  324. 

3  Quoted  in  Janssen,  "Hist,  of  the  German  People"  (Ens.  Trans.). 
5,  p.  100  f. 


209 

living,  the  prevailing  contempt  and  blasphemy  of  the  Word  of 
God,  the  complete  neglect  of  the  Supper  and  the  general  flippant 
and  irreverent  behaviour  during  Divine  service."1 

Of  a  later  period,  when  the  fruits  of  the  change  of  religion  had 
still  further  ripened,  Melanchthon's  friend  Camerarius  says  : 
"  Mankind  have  now  attained  the  goal  of  their  desires — bound 
less  liberty  to  think  and  act  exactly  as  they  please.  Reason, 
moderation,  law,  morality  and  duty  have  lost  all  value,  there  is 
no  reverence  for  contemporaries  and  no  respect  for  posterity."2 

The  Elector  Augustus  of  Saxony  goes  more  into  particulars 
when  he  writes  :  "A  disgraceful  custom  has  become  established 
in  our  villages.  The  peasants  at  the  high  festivals,  such  as 
Christmas  and  Whitsuntide,  begin  their  drinking-bouts  on  the 
eve  of  the  festival  and  prolong  them  throughout  the  night,  and 
the  next  day  they  either  sleep  through  the  morning  or  else  come 
drunk  to  church  and  snore  and  grunt  like  pigs  during  the  whole 
service."  He  reproves  the  custom  of  making  use  of  the  churches 
as  wine-cellars,  the  contempt  displayed  for  the  preachers,  the 
scoffing  at  sacred  rites  and  the  "  frequent  blasphemy  and 
cursing."  "  Murder  and  abominable  lasciviousness  "  were  the 
consequences  of  such  contempt  for  religion.  But  any  improve 
ment  was  not  to  be  looked  for  seeing  that  there  were  hardly  any 
schools  remaining,  and  the  cure  of  souls  was  left  principally  in 
the  charge  of  ministers  such  as  the  Elector  proceeds  to  describe. 
The  nobles  and  the  other  feudal  lords,  he  says,  "  appoint  every 
where  to  the  ministry  ignorant,  destitute  artisans,  or  else  rig  out 
their  scribes,  outriders  or  grooms  as  priests  and  set  them  in  the 
livings  so  as  to  have  them  all  the  more  under  their  thumb."3 

The  state  of  things  in  Saxony  provided  the  Landgrave  with  a 
serviceable  weapon  against  Luther  when  the  latter  showed  an 
inclination  to  repudiate  the  bigamy,  or  to  say  he  had  merely 
"  acted  the  fool  "  in  sanctioning  it.  The  passage  has  been 
quoted  above  (p.  56),  where  the  Landgrave  exhorted  him  to 
pay  less  attention  to  the  world's  opinion,  but  rather  to  set  him 
self  and  all  the  preachers  in  the  Saxon  Electorate  to  the  task  of 
checking  the  "  vices  of  adultery,  usury  and  drunkenness  which 
were  no  longer  regarded  as  sins,  and  that,  not  merely  by  writings 
and  sermons,  but  by  earnest  admonition  and  by  means  of  the 
ban." 

It  is  true  that  the  conditions  which  accompanied  the  introduc 
tion  of  his  new  system  were  a  trial  to  Luther,  which  he  sought  to 
remedy.  The  Landgrave  could  not  reproach  him  with  actual 
indifference.  Not  merely  by  "  writings  and  sermons,"  but  also  by 
"  earnest  admonition  "  and  even  by  re-introducing  the  "  ban  of 

1  From  Burkhardt,  ibid.    Janssen,  ibid. 

2  Janssen,  ibid.,  6,  p.  521,  given  as  Melanchthon's  words. 

3  A.  L.  Richter,  "  Die  evangel.  Kirchenordnungen  des  16.  Jahrh.," 
2,  pp.  181,  192  f.    Janssen,  ibid.,  p.  523.    W.  Schmidt  ("  Kirchen-  und 
Schulvisitationen    im    sachs.    Kurkreis    von    1555,"    1907,    Hft.    1—2, 
"  Schriften   des  Vereins  fiir  RG.,"  No.   90)  fancies  he  can  discern  a 
certain  improvement  in  ecclesiastical  life  and  in  the  school  system 
about  the  year  1555. 

IV.— P 


210          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

the  Church  "  he  strove  to  check  the  rising  tide  of  moral  evil.  But 
the  evil  was  the  stronger  of  the  two,  and  the  causes,  for  which  he 
himself  was  responsible,  lay  too  deep.  We  have  an  example  of 
the  way  in  which  he  frequently  sought  to  curb  the  mischief,  in  his 
quarrel  with  Hans  Metzsch,  the  depraved  Commandant  of 
Wittenberg,  whom  he  excluded  from  the  Supper.1 

He  sums  up  his  grievances  against  the  state  of  things  in  the 
Electorate  and  at  Wittenberg  in  a  letter  to  Johann  Mantel,  in 
which  he  calls  Wittenberg  a  new  Sodom.  He  writes  to  this 
preacher  (Nov.  10,  1539)  :  "  Together  with  Lot  (2  Peter  ii.  8), 
you  and  other  pious  Christians,  I,  too,  am  tormented,  plagued 
and  martyred  in  this  awful  Sodom  by  shameful  ingratitude  and 
horrible  contempt  of  the  Divine  Word  of  our  beloved  Saviour, 
when  I  see  how  Satan  seizes  upon  and  takes  possession  of  the 
hearts  of  those  who  think  themselves  the  first  and  most  important 
in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God  ;  beyond  this  I  am  tempted 
and  plagued  with  interior  anxiety  and  distress."  He  then  goes 
on  to  console  his  friend,  who  was  also  troubled  with  melancholy 
and  the  fear  of  death,  by  a  sympathetic  reference  to  the  death 
of  Christ.  He  then  admits  again  of  himself  that  he  was  "  dis 
tressed  and  greatly  plagued  "  and  "  compassed  by  more  than 
one  kind  of  death  in  this  miserable,  lamentable  age,  where  there 
is  nothing  but  ingratitude,  and  where  every  kind  of  wickedness 
gains  the  upper  hand.  .  .  .  Wait  for  the  Lord  with  patience,  for 
He  is  now  at  hand  and  will  not  delay  to  come.  Amen."2 

3.  Luther's  Attempts  to  Explain  the  Decline  in  Morals 

Luther  quite  candidly  admitted  the  distressing  state  of  things 
described  above  without  in  the  least  glossing  it  over,  which 
indeed  he  could  not  well  have  done  ;  in  fact,  his  own  statements 
give  us  an  even  clearer  insight  into  the  seamy  side  of  life  in  his 
day.  He  speaks  of  the  growing  disorders  with  pain  and  vexation  ; 
the  more  so  since  he  could  not  but  see  that  they  were  being 
fomented  by  his  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith  alone. 

"  This  preaching,"  he  says,  "  ought  by  rights  to  be  accepted 
and  listened  to  with  great  joy,  and  everyone  ought  to  improve 
himself  thereby  and  become  more  pious.  But,  unfortunately, 
the  reverse  is  now  the  case  and  the  longer  it  endures  the  worse 
the  world  becomes  ;  this  is  [the  work  of]  the  devil  himself,  for 
now  we  see  the  people  becoming  more  infamous,  more  avaricious, 
more  unmerciful,  more  unchaste  and  in  every  way  worse  than 
they  were  under  Popery."3 

The  Evangelicals  now  are  not  me-rely  worse,  but  "  seven  times 
worse  than  before,"  so  he  complains  as  early  as  1529.  "  For  after 
having  heard  the  Evangel  we  still  continue  to  steal,  lie,  cheat, 
feed  and  swill  and  to  practise  every  vice.  Now  that  one  devil 

1  For  the  way  Metzsch  was  dealt  with,  see  Lauterbach,   "  Tage- 
buch,"  pp.  163,  167.     "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  213  f.    Below,  vol.  v.,  xxx.,  3. 

2  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  223  f. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  I2,  p.  14,  "  Hauspostille." 


THE    PREVALENT    LAXITY        211 

[that  of  Popery]  has  been  driven  out  seven  others  worse  than  it 
have  entered  into  us,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  way  the  Princes, 
lords,  nobles,  burghers  and  peasants  behave,  who  have  lost  all 
sense  of  fear,  and  regard  not  God  and  His  menaces."1 

From  his  writings  a  long,  dreary  list  of  sins  might  be 
compiled,  of  which  each  of  the  classes  here  mentioned  had 
been  guilty.  In  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  such  lamenta 
tions  give  the  tone  to  most  of  what  he  wrote. 

"  The  nobles  scrape  money  together,  rob  and  plunder  "  ; 
"  like  so  many  devils  they  grind  the  poor  churches,  the  pastors 
and  the  preachers."  "  The  burghers  and  peasants  do  nothing 
but  hoard,  are  usurers  and  cheats  and  behave  defiantly  and 
wantonly  without  any  fear  of  punishment,  so  that  it  cries  to 
heaven  for  vengeance  and  the  earth  can  endure  it  no  longer." 
"  On  all  hands  and  wherever  we  turn  we  see  nothing  in  all  classes 
but  a  deluge  of  dreadful  ingratitude  for  the  beloved  Evangel."2 

"  Nowadays  the  Gospel  is  preached,  and  whoever  chooses  can 
hear  it  ...  but  burghers,  peasants  and  nobles  all  scorn  their 
ministers  and  preachers."3 

"  I  have  often  said  that  a  plague  must  fall  upon  Germany  ; 
the  Princes  and  gentry  deserve  that  our  Lord  God  should  play 
them  a  trick  ;  there  will  be  such  bloodshed  that  no  one  will 
know  his  own  home."4  "Now  that  all  this  [the  Evangel]  is 
preached  rightly  and  plainly,  people  cannot  despise  it  enough. 
In  old  days  monasteries  and  churches  were  built  with  no  regard 
for  cost,  now  people  won't  even  repair  a  hole  in  the  roof  that  the 
minister  may  lie  dry  ;  of  their  contempt  I  say  nothing,  it  is 
enough  to  move  one  to  tears  to  witness  such  scorn.  Hence  I  say  : 
Take  care,  you  are  young  ;  it  may  be  you  will  live  to  see  and 
experience  the  coming  misfortune  that  will  break  over  Germany. 
For  a  storm  will  burst  over  Germany,  and  that  without  fail.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  mind  so  much  the  peasants'  avarice  and  the  fornication 
and  immorality  now  on  the  increase  everywhere,  as  the  con 
tempt  for  the  Evangel.  .  .  .  That  peasants,  burghers  and  nobles 
thus  contemn  the  Word  of  God  will  be  their  undoing."5 

To  the  question  whence  the  moral  decline  amongst  the 
adherents  of  the  new  teaching  came,  Luther  was  wont  to  give 
various  answers.  Their  difference  and  his  occasional  self- 
contradictions  show  how  his  consciousness  of  the  disorders 
and  the  complaints  they  drew  from  every  side  drive  him 
into  a  corner. 

1  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  28,  p.  763;  Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  411,  conclusion  of 
the  "  Auslegung  iiber  etlicho  Kapitel  des  fiinften  Buches  Mosis,"  1529. 

2  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  92,  p.  330  f.,  "  Kirchenpostille." 

3  Ibid.,  42,  p.  4,  "  Hauspostille." 

4  Ibid.  5  Ibid.,  p.  6. 


212          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  most  correct  explanation  was,  of  course,  that  the 
mischief  was  due  to  the  nature  of  his  teaching  on  faith  and 
good  works  ;  to  this,  involuntarily,  he  comes  back  often 
enough. 

"  That  we  are  now  so  lazy  and  cold  in  the  performance  of  good 
works,"  he  says,  in  a  recently  published  sermon  of  1528,  "  is  due 
to  our  no  longer  regarding  them  as  a  means  of  justification.  For 
when  we  still  hoped  to  be  justified  by  our  works  our  zeal  for  doing 
good  was  a  marvel.  One  sought  to  excel  the  other  in  uprightness 
and  piety.  Were  the  old  teaching  to  be  revived  to-day  and  our 
works  made  contributory  to  righteousness,  we  should  be  readier 
and  more  willing  to  do  what  is  good.  Of  this  there  is,  however, 
no  prospect  and  thus,  when  it  is  a  question  of  serving  our  neigh 
bour  and  praising  God  by  means  of  good  works,  we  are  sluggish 
and  not  disposed  to  do  anything."1  "The  surer  we  are  of  the 
righteousness  which  Christ  has  won  for  us,  the  colder  and  idler 
we  are  in  teaching  the  Word,  in  prayer,  in  good  works  and  in 
enduring  misfortune."2 

"  We  teach,"  he  continues,  "  that  we  attain  to  God's  grace 
without  any  work  on  our  part.  Hence  it  comes  that  we  are  so 
listless  in  doing  good.  When,  once  upon  a  time,  we  believed  that 
God  rewarded  our  works,  I  ran  to  the  monastery,  and  you  gave 
ten  gulden  towards  building  a  church.  Men  then  were  glad  to 
do  something  through  their  works  and  to  be  their  own  '  Justus  et 
Salvator  '  (Zach.  ix.,  9)."  Now,  when  asked  to  give,  everybody 
protests  he  is  poor  and  a  beggar,  and  says  there  is  no  obligation 
of  giving  or  of  performing  good  works.  "  We  have  become  worse 
than  formerly  and  are  losing  our  old  righteousness.  Moreover, 
avarice  is  increasing  everywhere."3 

Though  here  Luther  finds  the  reason  of  the  neglect  of  good 
works  so  clearly  in  his  own  teaching,  yet  on  other  occasions,  for 
instance,  in  a  sermon  of  1532,  he  grows  angry  when  his  doctrine 
is  made  responsible  for  the  mischief. 

Only  "  clamourers,"  so  he  says,  could  press  such  a  charge. 
Yet,  at  the  same  time,  he  fully  admits  the  decline  :  "I  own,  and 
others  doubtless  do  the  same,  that  there  is  not  now  such  earnest 
ness  in  the  Gospel  as  formerly  under  the  monks  and  priests  when 
so  many  foundations  were  made,  when  there  was  so  much  build 
ing  and  no  one  was  so  poor  as  not  to  be  able  to  give.  But  now 
there  is  not  a  town  willing  to  support  a  preacher,  there  is  nothing 
but  plundering  and  thieving  among  the  people  and  no  one  can 
prevent  it.  Whence  comes  this  shameful  plague  ?  The 
clamourers  answer,  '  from  the  teaching  that  we  must  not  build 
upon  or  trust  in  works.'  But  it  is  the  devil  himself  who  sets  down 
such  an  effect  to  pure  and  wholesome  doctrine,  whereas  it  is 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  443. 

"  Comment,  in  ep.  ad  Galatas,"  2,  p.  351. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  443,  according  to  another  set  of  notes 
of  the  sermon  quoted  in  n.  1. 


THE    PREVALENT    LAXITY         213 

in  reality  due  to  his  own  and  the  people's  malice  who  ill-use  such 
doctrines,  and  to  our  old  Adam.  .  .  .  We  are,  all  unawares, 
becoming  lazy,  careless  and  remiss."1 

"  The  devil's  malice  !  "  This  is  another  explanation  to 
which  Luther  and  others  not  unfrequently  had  recourse. 
The  devil  could  do  such  extraordinary  and  apparently  con 
tradictory  things  !  He  could  even  teach  men  to  "  pray 
fervently."  In  the  Table-Talk,  for  instance,  when  asked 
by  his  wife  why  it  was,  that,  whereas  in  Popery  "  we  prayed 
so  diligently  and  frequently,  we  are  now  so  cold  and  pray 
so  seldom,"  Luther  put  it  down  to  the  devil.  "  The  devil 
made  us  fervent,"  he  says  ;  "he  ever  urges  on  his  servants, 
but  the  Holy  Ghost  teaches  and  exhorts  us  how  to  pray 
aright ;  yet  we  are  so  tepid  and  slothful  in  prayer  that 
nothing  comes  of  it."2  Thus  it  might  well  be  the  devil  who 
was  answerable  for  the  misuse  of  the  Evangel. 

On  another  occasion,  in  order  to  counteract  the  bad 
impression  made  on  his  contemporaries  by  the  fruits  of  his 
preaching,  he  says  :  "  Our  morals  only  look  so  bad  on 
account  of  the  sanctity  of  the  Evangel ;  in  Catholic  times 
they  stood  very  low  and  many  vices  prevailed,  but  all  this 
was  unperceived  amidst  the  general  darkness  which  shrouded 
doctrine  and  the  moral  standards  which  then  held  ;  now, 
on  the  other  hand,  our  eyes  have  been  opened  by  a  purer 
faith  and  even  small  abuses  are  seen  in  their  true  colours." 
His  words  on  this  subject  will  be  given  below. 

It  even  seemed  to  Luther  that  the  decay  of  almsgiving 
and  the  parsimony  displayed  towards  the  churches  and  the 
preachers  proved  the  truth  of  the  Evangel  ("  signum  est, 
verutn  esse  evangelium  nostrum  "),  for,  so  he  teaches  in  a 
sermon  preached  at  Wittenberg  in  1527,  "  the  devil  is  the 
Prince  of  this  world  and  all  its  riches,  as  we  learn  from  the 
story  of  Christ's  Temptation.  He  is  now  defending  his 
kingdom  from  the  Evangel  which  has  risen  up  against  him. 
He  does  not  now  allow  us  so  many  possessions  and  gifts  as 
he  formerly  did  to  those  who  served  him  (i.e.  the  Papists), 
for  their  Masses,  Vigils,  etc.  ;  nay,  he  robs  us  of  everything 
and  spends  it  on  himself.  Formerly  we  supported  many 
hundred  monks  and  now  we  cannot  raise  the  needful  for 
one  Evangelical  preacher,  a  sign  that  our  Evangel  is  the 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  182,  p.  353. 

2  Ibid.,  59,  p.  6.     Cp.  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  95. 


214          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

true  one  and  that  the  Pope's  empire  was  the  devil's  own, 
where  he  bestowed  gifts  on  his  followers  with  open  hands 
and  incited  them  to  luxury,  avarice,  fornication  and  gluttony. 
And  their  teaching  was  in  conformity  therewith,  for  they 
urged  those  works  which  pleased  them."1 

The  observer  may  well  marvel  at  such  strange  trains  of 
thought.  Luther's  doctrine  has  become  to  him  like  a  pole- 
star  around  which  the  whole  firmament  must  revolve. 
Experience  and  logic  alike  must  perforce  be  moulded  at  his 
pleasure  to  suit  the  idea  which  dominates  him. 

It  was  impossible  to  suppress  the  inexorable  question 
put  by  his  opponents,  and  the  faint-hearted  doubts  of  many 
.of  his  own  followers  :  Since  our  Saviour  taught  :  "  By 
their  fruits  shall  you  know  them,"  how  can  you  be  a  Divinely 
sent  teacher  if  these  are  the  moral  effects  of  your  new 
Evangel  ?  And  yet  Luther,  to  the  very  close  of  his  career, 
in  tones  ever  more  confident,  insists  on  his  higher,  nay, 
Divine,  calling,  and  on  his  election  to  "  reveal  "  hidden 
doctrines  of  faith,  strange  to  say,  those  very  doctrines  to 
which  he,  like  others  too,  attributed  the  decline. 

Concerning  his  Divine  mission  he  had  not  hesitated  to 
say  in  so  many  words  :  Unless  God  calls  a  man  to  do  a 
work  no  one  who  does  not  wish  to  be  a  fool  may  venture  to 
undertake  it  ;  "  for  a  certain  Divine  call  and  not  a  mere 
whim  "  is  essential  to  every  good  work.2  Hence  he  fre 
quently  sees  in  success  the  best  test  of  a  good  work.  In 
his  own  case,  however,  he  could  point  only  to  one  great 
result,  and  that  a  negative  one,  viz.  the  harm  done  to 
Popery  ;  the  Papacy  had  been  no  match  for  him  and  had 
failed  to  check  the  apostasy.  The  Papists'  undertaking, 
such  is  his  proof,  is  not  a  success  ;  it  goes  sideways  "  after 
the  fashion  of  the  crab."  "  Even  for  those  who  had  a  sure 
Divine  vocation  it  was  difficult  to  undertake  and  carry 
through  anything  good,  though  God  was  with  them  and 
assisted  them ;  what  then  could  those  silly  fools,  who 
wished  to  undertake  it  without  being  called,  expect  to  do  ?  " 
"  But  I,  Dr.  Martin,  was  called  and  compelled  to  become  a 
Doctor.  .  .  .  Thus  I  was  obliged  to  accept  the  office  of  a 
Doctor.  Hence,  owing  to  my  work,  "  this  which  you  see 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  24,  p.  455. 

2  Ibid.,  30,   3,  p.  386  ;    Erl.  ed.,   252,  p.   86,   "  Auff  das  vermeint 
Edict,"  1531. 


THE    PREVALENT   LAXITY         215 

has  befallen  the  Papacy,  and  worse  things  are  yet  in  store 
for  it."  To  those  who  still  refused  to  acknowledge  Luther's 
call  to  teach  he  addresses  a  sort  of  command  :  St.  Paul,  1  Cor. 
xiv.,  30,  commanded  all,  even  superiors,  to  be  silent  and 
obey  "  when  some  other  than  the  chief  teacher  receives 
a  revelation."  "  The  work  that  Luther  undertakes," 
"  the  great  work  of  the  Reformation,"  he  assures  all,  was 
given  not  to  the  other  side,  but  to  him  alone.1 — It  is  no 
wonder  that  his  gainsayers  and  the  doubters  on  his  own 
side  refused  to  be  convinced  by  such  arguments  and 
appeals  to  the  work  of  destruction,  accomplished,  but 
continued  to  harp  on  the  words  :  "  By  their  fruits  you 
shall  know  them,"  which  text  they  took  literally,  viz.  as 
referring  to  actual  fruits  of  moral  improvement. 

The  "  great  work  of  the  Reformation,"  i.e.  of  real  reform, 
to  which  Luther  appeals — unless  he  was  prepared  to  regard 
it  as  consisting  solely  in  the  damage  done  to  the  Roman 
Church — surely  demanded  that,  at  least  at  Wittenberg  and 
in  Luther's  immediate  sphere,  some  definite  fruits  in  the 
shape  of  real  moral  amelioration  should  be  apparent.  Yet 
it  was  precisely  of  Wittenberg  and  his  own  surroundings 
that  Luther  complained  so  loudly.  The  increase  of  every 
kind  of  disorder  caused  him  to  write  to  George  of  Anhalt  : 
"  We  live  in  Sodom  and  Babylon,  or  rather  must  die  there  ; 
the  good  men,  our  Lots  and  Daniels,  whom  we  so  urgently 
need  now  that  things  are  daily  becoming  worse,  are  snatched 
from  us  by  death."2  So  bad  were  matters  that  Luther  was 
at  last  driven  to  flee  from  Wittenberg.  The  sight  of  the 
immorality,  the  vexation  and  the  complaints  to  which  he  was 
exposed  became  too  much  for  him  ;  perhaps  Wittenberg 
would  catch  the  "  Beggars'  dance,  or  Beelzebub's  dance," 
he  wrote  ;  "  at  any  rate  get  us  gone  from  this  Sodom."3 

According  to  his  letters,  the  Wittenberg  authorities  did  not 
interfere  even  in  the  case  of  the  gravest  disorders,  but  allowed 
themselves  to  be  "  playthings  of  the  devils  "  ;  they  looked  on 
whilst  the  students  "  were  ruined  by  bad  women,"  and  "  though 
half  the  town  is  guilty  of  adultery,  usury,  theft  and  cheating, 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  p.  385  ff.  =  86  f. 

2  March  9,   1545,   "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  722,  letter  called 
forth  by  the  death  of -George  Held  Forchheim,  to  whom  the  Prince  was 
much  attached. 

3  To  Catherine  Bora,  end  of  July,  1545,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  753. 


216         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

no  one  tries  to  put  the  law  in  force.  They  all  simply  smile,  wink 
at  it  and  do  the  same  themselves.  The  world  is  a  troublesome 
thing."1  "The  hoiden-folk  have  grown  bold,"  he  writes  to  the 
Elector,  "  they  pursue  the  young  fellows  into  their  very  rooms 
and  chambers,  freely  offering  them  their  love  ;  and  I  hear  that 
many  parents  are  recalling  their  children  home  because,  they  say, 
when  they  send  their  children  to  us  to  study  we  hang  women 
about  their  necks."2  He  is  aghast  at  the  thought  that  the 
"  town  and  the  school  "  should  have  heard  God's  Word  so  often 
and  so  long  and  yet,  "  instead  of  growing  better,  become  worse  as 
time  goes  on."  He  fears  that  at  his  end  he  may  hear,  "that 
things  were  never  worse  than  now,"  and  sees  Wittenberg  threat 
ened  with  the  curse  of  Chorazin,  Bethsaida  and  Capharnaum."3 

In  point  of  fact  he  did  preach  a  sermon  to  the  Wittenbergers 
in  which,  like  a  prophet,  he  predicts  the  judgments  of  heaven.4 

In  another  sermon  he  angrily  acquaints  them  with  his  deter 
mination  :  "  What  am  I  to  do  with  you  Wittenbergers  ?  I  am 
not  going  to  preach  to  you  any  longer  of  Christ's  Kingdom,  seeing 
that  you  will  not  accept  it.  You  are  thieves,  robbers  and  men  of 
no  mercy.  I  shall  have  to  preach  you  the  '  Sachsenspiegel.'  ' 
They  refuse,  he  says,  to  give  anything  to  clergy,  church  or  schools. 
"  Are  you  still  ignorant,  you  unthankful  beasts  ('  ingratce  bestiw  ') 
of  what  they  do  for  you  ?  "  He  concludes  :  They  must  make  up 
their  minds  to  provide  the  needful,  "  otherwise  I  shall  abandon 
the  pulpit."5 

"  Later  you  will  find  my  prophecy  fulfilled,"  he  cried  on  cne 
occasion  after  having  foretold  "  woes  "  ;  "  then  you  will  long 
for  one  of  those  exhortations  of  Martin  Luther."6 

His  Table-Talk  bears,  if  possible,  even  stronger  witness  than 
his  letters  and  sermons  to  the  conditions  at  Wittenberg,  for  there 
he  freely  lets  himself  go.  Some  of  the  things  he  says  of  the  town 
and  neighbourhood,  found  in  the  authentic  notes  of  docile  pupils, 
such  as  Mathesius-,  Lauterbach  and  Schlaginhaufen,  are  worth 
consideration. 

We  hear  from  Lauterbach  not  only  that  Hans  Metzsch,  the 
town  Commandant  whom  Luther  had  "  excommunicated,"  con 
tinued  to  persecute  the  good  at  Wittenberg  "  with  satanic 
malice  "  and  to  "  boast  of  his  wickedness,"7  but  that  in  the  same 
year  Luther  had  to  complain  of  other  men  of  influence  and  stand 
ing  in  the  town  who  injured  the  Evangel  by  their  example.  "  So 
great  is  the  godlessness  of  those  of  rank  that  one  was  not  ashamed 
to  boast  of  having  begotten  forty-three  children  in  a  single  year  ; 
another  asked  whether  he  might  not  take  40  per  cent  interest  per 
annum."  In  the  same  year  Luther  was  obliged  to  exclude  from 
the  Sacrament  another  notorious,  highly-placed  usurer.8 

1  To  Justus  Jonas,  June  18,  1543,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  570. 

2  On  Jan.  22,  1544,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  615. 

3  "  Vermahnung,"  Feb.  or  Nov.,  1542,  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  302. 

4  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  2,  p.  80  ff.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  182,  p.  23  ff. 
6  Ibid.,  27,  p.  408  f.,  in  the  newly  published  sermons  of  1528. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  418  f.  7  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  107. 

6  Ibid,,  p.  153. 


THE   PREVALENT   LAXITY         217 

"  The  soil  of  Wittenberg  is  bad,"  he  declared,  speaking  from 
sad  experience  ;  "  even  were  good,  honest  people  sown  here  the 
crop  would  be  one  of  coarse  Saxons."1 

"  The  Gospel  at  Wittenberg,"  he  once  said  poetically,  if  we 
may  trust  Mathesius,  "  is  like  rain  that  falls  on  water,  i.e.  it  has 
no  effect.  The  good  catch  the  law  and  the  wicked  the  Gospel."2 

"  I  have  often  wondered,"  he  said  in  1532,  according  to 
Schlaginhaufen,  "  why  Our  Lord  God  sent  His  Word  to  this  un 
faithful  world  of  Wittenberg  :  I  believe  that  He  sent  it  to 
Jerusalem,  Wittenberg  and  such-like  places  that  He  might,  at 
the  Last  Day,  be  able  to  reprove  their  ingratitude."  And  again, 
"  My  opinion  is  that  God  will  punish  severely  the  ingratitude 
shown  to  His  Word  ;  for  there  is  not  a  man  of  position  or  a 
peasant  who  does  not  stamp  on  the  ministers  ;  but  the  service  of 
the  Word  must  remain  ;  even  the  Turk  has  his  ministers,  other 
wise  he  could  not  maintain  his  rule."3 

Luther's  Evangel  had  made  "  law  and  command  "  to  retreat 
into  the  background  as  compared  with  the  liberty  of  the  children 
of  God  ;  the  penalties  he  devised,  e.g.  his  exclusion  of  persons 
from  the  reception  of  the  Sacrament,  proved  ineffectual.  He 
would  willingly  have  made  use  of  excommunication  if  only 
"  there  had  been  people  who  would  let  themselves  be  excom 
municated."  "  The  Pope's  ban  which  kept  the  people  in  check," 
he  says,  "  has  been  abolished,  and  it  would  be  a  difficult  task  to 
re-establish  law  and  command."4 

"  No,  I  should  not  like  to  endure  this  life  for  another  forty 
years,"  so  he  told  his  friends  on  June  11,  1539,  "  even  were  God 
to  turn  it  into  a  Paradise  for  me.  I  would  rather  hire  an  execu 
tioner  to  chop  off  my  head  ;  the  world  is  so  bad  that  all  are  turn 
ing  into  devils,  so  that  they  could  wish  one  nothing  better  than  a 
happy  death-bed,  and  then  away  !  "5  "  The  dear,  holy  Evangel  of 
Christ,  that  great  and  precious  treasure,  we  account  as  insignifi 
cant,  as  if  it  were  a  verse  from  Terence  or  Virgil."6 

He  found  such  disdain  of  his  teaching  even  in  his  own  house 
hold  a.nd  family.  This  it  was  which  caused  him,  in  1532,  to 
preach  a  course  of  sermons  to  his  family  circle  on  Sundays.  No 
head  of  a  family,  least  of  all  here,  could  connive  at  any  "  contempt 
of  the  Word."  To  the  question  of  Dr.  Jonas  as  to  the  wherefore 
of  these  private  addresses,  he  replied  :  "I  see  and  know  that  the 
Word  of  God  is  as  much  neglected  in  my  house  as  in  the  Church."7 

There  was  no  more  hope  for  the  world  ;  nothing  remains  "  un 
spoiled  and  incorrupt  "  although,  "  now,  God's  Word  is  revealed," 
yet  "it  is  despised,  spurned,  corrupted,  mocked  at  and  perse 
cuted,"  even  by  the  adherents  of  his  teaching.8 

Luther  made  Mathesius  the  recipient  of  some  of  his  confidences, 

1  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch,"  179. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  402. 

3  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  139.          4  Ibid.,  p.  138. 
6  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  185. 

6  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  57,  p.  323  (Table-Talk). 

7  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Rebenstock,  2,  p.  19. 

8  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  57,  p.  95  f.  (Table-Talk). 


218         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

as  the  latter  relates  in  his  sermons  ;  on  account  of  the  scandals 
among  the  preachers  of  the  neighbourhood  he  was  forced  and 
urged  by  his  own  people  to  appeal  to  the  Elector  to  erect  a  jail 
"  into  which  such  wild  and  turbulent  folk  might  be  clapped." 
"  Satan  causes  great  scandals  amongst  the  patrons  and  hearers 
of  the  new  doctrine,"  says  Mathesius.  The  common  people  have 
become  rough  and  self-confident  and  have  begun  to  regard  the  min 
isters  as  worthless.  "  Verily,"  he  exclaims,  "  the  soul  of  this  pious 
old  gentleman  was  sadly  tormented  day  by  day  by  the  unrighteous 
deeds  he  was  obliged  to  witness,  like  pious  Lot  in  Sodom."1 

With  a  deep  sigh,  as  we  read  in  Lauterbach's  Notes,  Luther 
pointed  to  the  calamities  which  were  about  to  overtake  the 
world  ;  it  was  so  perverse  and  incorrigible  thfet  discipline  or 
admonition  would  be  of  no  avail.  Already  there  was  the  greatest 
consternation  throughout  the  world  on  account  of  the  revelation 
of  the  Word.  "  It  is  cracking  and  I  hope  it  will  soon  burst,"  and 
the  Last  Day  arrive  for  which  we  are  waiting.  For  all  vices 
have  now  become  habitual  and  people  will  not  bear  reproof.  His 
only  comfort  was  the  progress  made  by  studies  at  Wittenberg, 
and  in  some  other  places  now  thrown  open  to  the  Evangel.2 

But  how  were  the  future  preachers  now  growing  up  there  to 
improve  matters  ?  This  he  must  well  have  asked  himself  when 
declaring,  "  with  sobs,"  as  Lauterbach  relates,  that  "  preachers 
were  treated  in  most  godless  and  ungrateful  fashion."  The 
churches  will  soon  be  left  without  preachers  and  ministers  ;  we 
shall  shortly  experience  this  misfortune  in  the  churches  ;  there 
will  be  a  dearth  not  only  of  learned  men  but  even  of  men  of  the 
commonest  sort.  Oh,  that  our  young  men  would  study  more 
diligently  and  devote  themselves  to  theology."3 

In  view  of  the  above  it  cannot  surprise  us  that  Luther 
gradually  became  a  victim  to  habitual  discouragement  and 
melancholy,  particularly  towards  the  end  of  his  life.  Proofs 
of  the  depression  from  which  he  suffered  during  the  latter 
years  of  his  life  will  be  brought  forward  in  a  later  volume. 

Such  fits  of  depression  were,  however,  in  those  days  more 
than  usually  common  everywhere, 

4.  A  Malady  of  the  Age  :  Doubts  and  Melancholy 

One  of  the  phenomena  which  accompanied  the  religious 
revulsion  and  which  it  is  impossible  to  pass  over,  was,  as 
contemporary  writers  relate,  the  sadness,  discontent  and 
depression,  in  a  word  "  melancholy,"  so  widespread  under 
the  new  Evangel  even  amongst  its  zealous  promoters. 

1  "  Historian,"  p.  136'.      Cp.  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  120  and 
ibid.,  Introduction,  p.  72  ;  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch,"  p.  13.    See  above, 
p.  210. 

2  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  70,  Khummer.  3  Ibid.,  p.  80. 


219 

Melanchthon,  one  of  Luther's  most  intimate  friends, 
furnished  on  many  occasions  of  his  life  a  sad  spectacle  of 
interior  dejection.  Of  a  weaker  and  more  timid  mental 
build  than  Luther,  he  appeared  at  times  ready  to  succumb 
under  the  weight  of  faint-heartedness  and  scruples,  doubts 
and  self-reproaches.  (Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  363  ff.)  We  may 
recall  how  his  anxieties,  caused  by  the  scandal  subsequent  on 
his  sanctioning  of  Philip's  bigamy,  almost  cost  him  his  life. 
So  many  are  the  records  he  left  behind  of  discouragement 
and  despondency  that  his  death  must  appear  in  the  light  of 
a  welcome  deliverance.  Luther  sought  again  .and  again  to 
revive  in  him  the  waning  consciousness  of  the  Divine 
character  of  their  work.  It  is  just  in  these  letters  of  Luther 
to  Melanchthon  that  we  find  him  most  emphatic  in  his 
assertion  that  their  common  mission  is  from  God.  It  was 
to  Melanchthon,  that,  next  to  himself,  Luther  applied  the 
words  already  quoted,  spoken  to  comfort  a  dejected  pupil  : 
"  There  must  be  some  in  the  Church  as  ready  to  slap  Satan 
as  we  three  ;  but  not  all  are  able  or  willing  to  endure  this."1 

Spalatin,  who  has  so  frequently  been  referred  to  as 
Luther's  go-between  at  the  Electoral  Court,  and  who  after 
wards  became  pastor  of  Altenburg,  towards  the  end  of 
his  life  fell  into  incurable  despondency.2  Justus  Jonas,  like 
wise,  was  for  a  considerable  time  a  prey  to  melancholy.3 
Hieronymus  Weller,  one  of  Luther's  best  friends,  confessed 
to  having  suffered  at  times  such  violent  doubts  and  fears  as 
would  have  driven  a  heathen  to  commit  suicide.4  The 
preachers  George  Mohr  5  and  Nicholas  Hausmann  (a  very 
intimate  friend  of  Luther's6)  had  to  endure  dreadful  pangs 
of  soul  ;  the  same  was  the  case  with  Johann  Beltzius,  Pastor 

1  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  410. 

2  G.  Wagner,   "  Georg  Spalatin,"  Altenburg,   1830,  p.   105  f.     Cp. 
Luther's  letter  to  Spalatin,  quoted  in  vol.  iii.,  p.   197,  n.  1,  where  he 
tells  him  :    "  Tristitia  occidet  te  "  ;   by  his  (Luther's)  mouth  Christ  had 
raised  up  Melanchthon  from  a  similar  state  induced  by  the  "  spiritus 
tristitice  "  ;    such  continuous  sorrow  over  sin  was  an  even  greater  sin  ; 
he  was  still  inexperienced  "  in  the  battle  against  sin  or  conscience  and 
the  law  "  ;   now,  however,  he  must  look  upon  Luther  as  St.  Peter,  who 
speaks  to  him  as  he  did  to  the  lame  man :    "In  the  name  of  Christ, 
arise  and  walk  "  ;    Christ  did  not  wish  him  to  be   "  crucified  with 
sorrow  "  ;    this  came  from  the  devil. — We  do  not  learn  that  these 
words  had  any  effect. 

3  Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  416.   *  Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  2,  p.  193. 

5  "  Fortgesetzte  Sammlung,"  Leipzig,  1740,  p.  519. 

6  M.  Hempel,  "  Libellus  H.  Welleri,"  Lipsise,  1581,  p.  60. 


220         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

at  Allerstedt  in  Thuringia,1  and  with  Simon  Musaeus,  who 
died  at  Mansfeld  in  1576  as  Superintendent  and  who  com 
posed  two  works  against  the  devil  of  melancholy.2  Nicholas 
Selnecker,  who  died  Superintendent  at  Leipzig,  was  respon 
sible  for  the  rearranged  edition  of  Luther's  Table-Talk  ; 
according  to  the  title  his  hope  was  to  produce  a  work 
"  which  it  might  console  all  Christians  to  read,  especially 
in  these  wretched  last  days."  Elsewhere  he  confirms  the 
need  of  such  consolation  when  he  says  :  "  We  experience 
in  our  own  selves  "  that  sadness  is  of  frequent  occurrence.3 

Wolfgang  Capito,  the  Strasburg  preacher,  wrote  in  1536 
to  Luther  that  his  experience  of  the  wrant  of  agreement  in 
doctrine  had  caused  him  such  distress  of  mind  that  he  was 
on  the  verge  of  the  "  malady  of  melancholia  "  ;  he  trusted 
he  would  succeed  in  reaching  a  better  frame  of  mind  ;  the 
burden  of  gloom,  so  he  comforts  himself,  was,  after  all,  not 
without  its  purpose  in  God's  plan  in  the  case  of  many  under 
the  Evangel.  With  Capito,  too,  melancholy  was  a  "  frequent 
guest."4  Bucer  wrote  in  1532  to  A.  Blaurer  that  Capito 
had  often  bemoaned  "  his  rejection  by  God."5 

Joachim  Camerarius,  the  celebrated  Humanist  and  writer, 
confessed  in  a  letter  to  Luther,  that  he  was  oppressed  and 
reduced  to  despair  by  the  sight  of  the  decline  in  morals 
"  in  people  of  every  age  and  sex,  in  every  condition  and 
grade  of  life  "  ;  everything,  in  both  public  and  private  life, 

1  H.  Weller,  Preface  to  Beltzius,  "  On  Man's  Conversion,"  Leipzig, 
1575. 

~  He  wrote  "  Against  the  grievous  plague  of  Melancholy,"  Erfurt, 
1557,  and  "  A  useful  instruction  against  the  demon  of  melancholy," 
1569  (s.l.).  In  the  latter  work  he  says  in  the  Preface  that  he  con 
sidered  himself  all  the  more  called  to  comfort  "  sad  and  sorrowful 
hearts  "  because  he  himself  "  not  seldom  lay  sick  in  that  same 
hospital." 

3  "  We   experience   in    our   own   selves,    that   our   hearts   become 
increasingly  stupid,  weak  and  timid,  and  often  know  not  whence  it 
comes  or  what  it  is."     "  Der  ganze  Psalter,"  Bd.  2,  Niirnberg,   1565, 
p.  94.— On  his  edition  of  the  Table-Talk,  cp.  "  Luthers  Werke,"  Erl. 
ed.,  57,  p.  xvi. 

4  Cp.  Kolde,  "  Analecta,"  p.  231,  where  Capito's  letter  to  Luther  of 
June  13,  1536,  is  given.    The  letter  is  also  in  Luther's  "  Brief wechsel," 
10,  p.  353.     Capito  there  laments,   "  me  deiectiorem  apud  me  factum, 
adeo  ut  in  morbum  melancholicum  props  inciderim.     Hilaritatem,   si 
potero,   revocabo."      The   internal   dissensions,    which   pained   and   dis 
tressed  him  to  the  last  degree,  were  the  immediate  cause  of  his  sadness, 
so  he  declares. 

6  C.  Gerbert,  "  Gesch.  der  Strassburger  Sektehbewegung  zur  Zeit 
der  Reformation,"  Strasburg,  1889,  p.  183  f. 


CHRONIC   MELANCHOLY  221 

was  so  corrupt  that  he  felt  all  piety  and  virtue  was  done  for. 
Of  the  Schools  in  particular  he  woefully  exclaimed  that  it 
would  perhaps  be  better  to  have  none  than  to  have  "  such 
haunts  of  godlessness  and  vice."  At  the  same  time,  however, 
he  makes  admissions  concerning  faults  of  his  own  which 
may  have  served  to  increase  his  dejection  :  He  himself,  in 
his  young  days,  had,  like  others,  disgraced  himself  by  a 
very  vicious  life  ("  turpissime  in  adolescentia  deformatum  ").x 

The  Nuremberg  preacher,  George  Besler,  fell  into  a  state 
of  melancholia,  declared  "  in  his  ravings  that  things  were 
not  going  right  in  the  Church,"  began  to  see  hidden  enemies 
everywhere  and  finally  committed  suicide  with  a  "  hog- 
spear  "  in  1536.2  William  Bidembach,  preacher  at  Stuttgart, 
and  his  brother  Balthasar,  Abbot  of  Bebenhausen,  both 
became  a  prey  to  melancholia  towards  the  end  of  their  life.3 

It  would,  of  course,  be  foolish  to  think  that  many  good 
souls,  in  the  simplicity  of  their  heart,  found  no  consolation 
in  the  new  teaching  and  in  working  for  its  furtherance.  Of 
the  preachers,  for  instance,  Beltzius,  who  has  just  been 
mentioned,  declares,  that,  amidst  his  sadness  Luther's 
consolations  had  "  saved  him  from  the  abyss  of  hell."4 
Amongst  those  who  adhered  in  good  faith  to  the  innovations 
there  were  some  who  highly  lauded  the  solace  of  the  Evangel. 
But,  notwithstanding  all  that  may  be  alleged  to  the 
contrary,  we  cannot  get  over  such  testimonies  as  the 
following. 

Felix,  son  of  the  above-mentioned  William  Bidembach, 
and  Court  preacher  in  Wiirtemberg,  declared  in  a  "  Hand 
book  for  young  church  ministers  "  :  "It  happens  more  and 
more  frequently  that  many  pious  people  fall  into  distressing 
sadness  and  real  melancholia,  to  such  an  extent  that  they 
constantly  experience  in  their  hearts  fear,  apprehension, 
dread  and  despair  "  ;  in  the  course  of  his  ministry  he  had 
met  with  both  persons  of  position  and  common  folk  who 
were  oppressed  with  such  melancholia.5  Nicholas  Selnecker 
(above,  p.  220)  assures  us  that  not  only  were  theologians 

1  Kolde,  "  Analecta,"  p.  462  seq. 

2  Contemporary   account   in   J.    C.    Siebenkees,    "  Materialien   zur 
Niirnberg.  Gesch.,"  2,  Nuremberg,  1792,  p.  754. 

3  Fischlin,    "  Memoria  theoloyorum    Wirlembergensium,"    1,  Ulmae, 
1720,  pp.  144,  171. 

4  Cp.  Beltzius,  "  Vom  Jammer  und  Elend  menschlichen  Lebens  und 
Wesens,"  Leipzig,  1574,  Bl.  3'. 

6  "  Handbuch,"  etc.,  Frankfurt  a.  M.,  1613,  p.  725  f.  (1  ed.,  1603). 


222 

perplexed  with  many  "  melancholy  and  anxious  souls  and 
consciences  whom  nothing  could  console,"  but  physicians, 
too,  "  never  remembered  such  prevalence  of  evil  melan 
cholia,  depression  and  sadness,  even  in  the  young,  and  of 
other  maladies  arising  therefrom,  as  during  these  few  years, 
and  such  misfortune  continues  still  to  grow  and  increase."1 

The  Leipzig  Pastor,  Erasmus  Sarcerius,  speaks  in  a 
similar  strain  of  the  "  general  faint-heartedness  prevalent  in 
every  class,"  who  are  acquainted  with  nothing  but  "  fear 
and  apprehension  "  ;2  Victorinus  Strigel,  Professor  at  the 
University  of  Leipzig,  of  the  "  many  persons  who  in  our 
day  have  died  simply  and  solely  of  grief  "  ;  3  Michael 
Sachse,  preacher  at  Wechmar,  of  people  generally  as  being 
"  timid  and  anxious,  trembling  and  despairing  from  fear."4 

When  the  preacher  Leonard  Beyer  related  to  Luther  how 
in  his  great  "  temptations  "  the  devil  had  tried  to  induce 
him  to  stab  himself,  Luther  consoled  him  by  telling  him 
that  the  same  had  happened  in  his  own  case.5 

We  are  told  that  in  latter  life  Luther's  pupil  Mathesius 
was  a  prey  to  a  "  hellish  fear  "  which  lasted  almost  three 
months  ;  "he  could  not  even  look  at  a  knife  because  the 
sight  tempted  him  to  suicide."6  Later,  his  condition 
improved.  The  same  Mathesius  relates  how  Pastor  Musa 
found  consolation  in  his  gloomy  doubts  on  faith  in  Luther's 
account  of  his  own  similar  storms  of  doubt. 7 

In  the  16th  century  we  hear  many  lamentations  in 
Protestant  circles  concerning  the  unheard-of  increase  in  the 
number  of  suicides. 

"  There  is  such  an  outcry  amongst  the  people,"  wrote  the 
Lausitz  Superintendent,  Zacharias  Rivander,  "  that  it  deafens 
one's  ears  and  makes  one's  hair  stand  on  end.  The  people  are  so 
heavy-hearted  and  yet  know  not  why.  Amidst  such  lowness  of 
spirit  many  are  unable  to  find  consolation,  and,  so,  cut  their 
throats  and  slay  themselves."8 — In  1554  the  Nuremberg 
Councillor,  Hieronymus  Baumgiirtner,  lamented  at  a  meeting 
attended  by  the  clergy  of  the  town  :  "  We  hear,  alas,  how  daily 

1  "  Der  ganze  Psalter,"  Bd.  2,  Nuremberg,  1565,  p.  94. 

2  Sarcerius,  "  Etliche  Predigten,"  etc.,  Leipzig,  1551,  Bl.  C  2'. 

3  Strigel,  "  Ypomnemata  1,"  Lipsise,  1505,  p.  219. 

4  Sachse,  "  Acht  Trostpredigten,"  Leipzig,  1602,  Bl.  A  5'. 

5  Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichn.,"  p.  213  f.     On  the  Disputation  held  at 
Leipzig  by  Beyer,  the  ex-Augustinian,  see  vol.  i.,  p.  316. 

6  G.  Loesche,  "  Joh.  Mathesius,"  1,  Gotha,  1895,  p.  223. 

7  Mathesius,  "  Historien,"  p.  147'. 

8  "  Fest-Chronika,"  2  Tl.,  Leipzig,  1602,  Bl.  2'  (1  ed.,  1591). 


CHRONIC   MELANCHOLY  223 

and  more  than  ever  before,  people,  whether  in  good  health  or  not, 
fall  into  mortal  fear  and  despair,  lose  their  minds  and  kill  them 
selves."1  In  1569,  within  three  weeks,  fourteen  suicides  occurred 
at  Nuremberg.2 — •"  You  will  readily  recall,"  Lucas  Osiander  said 
in  a  sermon  about  the  end  of  the  century,  "  how  in  the  years  gone 
by  many  otherwise  good  people  became  so  timorous,  faint 
hearted  and  full  of  despair  that  they  could  not  be  consoled  ;  and 
how  of  these  not  a  few  put  an  end  to  their  own  lives  ;  this  is  a 
sign  of  the  Last  Day."3 

Luther  himself  confirms  the  increase  in  the  number  of  suicides 
which  took  place  owing  to  troubles  of  conscience. 

In  a  sermon  of  1532  he  bemoans,  that  "  so  many  people  are  so 
disquieted  and  distressed  that  they  give  way  to  despair  "  ;  this 
was  chiefly  induced  by  the  "  spirits,"  for  there  "  have  been,  and 
still  are,  many  who  are  driven  by  the  devil  and  plagued  with 
temptations  and  despair  till  they  hang  themselves,  or  destroy 
themselves  in  some  other  way  out  of  very  fear."4  He  is  quite 
convinced  that  the  devil  "  drives  "  all  suicides  and  makes  them 
helpless  tools  of  his  plans  against  human  life. — It  was  to  this  idea 
that  the  Lutheran  preacher  Hamelmann  clung  when  he  wrote,  in 
1568,  that  many  trusted  "  that  those  who  had  been  overtaken 
and  destroyed  by  the  devil  would  not  be  lost  irretrievably."5 

Andreas  Celichius,  Superintendent  in  the  Mark  of  Branden 
burg,  was  of  opinion  that  such  suicides,  such  "  very  sudden  and 
heartrending  murders,"  "  gave  a  bad  name  to  the  Evangel  in  the 
world  "  ;  one  sees  and  hears  "  that  some  in  our  very  midst  are 
quite  unable  to  find  comfort  in  the  Evangelical  sanctuary.  .  .  . 
This  makes  men  distrustful  of  the  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
even  causes  it  to  be  hated."6 

Michael  Helding,  Bishop-auxiliary  of  Mayence,  found  a  special 
reason  for  the  increase  in  the  number  of  suicides  amongst  those 
who  had  broken  with  the  Church,  in  their  rejection  of  the 
Catholic  means  of  grace.  In  a  sermon  which  he  delivered  towards 
the  end  of  1547  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  he  pointed  out  that, 
ever  since  the  use  of  the  Sacraments  had  been  scorned,  people 
were  more  exposed  to  the  strength  of  the  evil  one  and  to  dis 
couragement.  "  When  has  the  devil  ever  driven  so  many  to 
desperation,  so  that  they  lose  all  hope  and  kill  themselves  ? 
Whose  fault  is  it  ?  Ah,  we  deprive  ourselves  of  God's  grace  and 
refuse  to  accept  the  Divine  strength  which  is  offered  us  in  the 
Holy  Sacraments."7 

1  G.  Th.  Strobel,  "  Neue  Beytrage  zur  Literatur,"   1,  Nuremberg, 
1790,  p.  97. 

2  Hondorf- Sturm,  "  Calendarium  Sanctorum,"  Leipzig,  1599,  p.  338. 

3  L.  Osiander,  "  Bauren-Postilla,"  4  Tl.,  Tubingen,  1599,  p.  188. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  182,  p.  365. 

6  Hocker-Hamelmann,  "  Der  Teufel  selbs,"  3  Tl.,  Ursel,  1568,  p.  130. 

6  Celichius  in  a  work  on  suicide  :   "  Niitzlicher  und  nothwendiger 
Bericht  von  den  Leuten,  so  sich  selbst  aus  Angst,  Verzweiffelung  oder 
andern  Ursachen    entleiben   und    hinrichten,"   Magdeburg,    1578,    Bl. 
A2,S  5,  R  5'. 

7  Helding,  "  Von  der  hailigisten  Messe,"  Ingolstadt,  1548,  p.  7, 


224          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Among  the  Lutheran  preachers  the  expected  end  of  the 
world  was  made  to  play  a  part  and  to  explain  the  increase  of 
faint-heartedness  and  despair. 

Mathesius  says  in  his  Postils  :  "  Many  pine  away  and  lose 
hope  ;  there  is  no  more  joy  or  courage  left  among  the  people  ; 
therefore  let  us  look  for  the  end  of  the  world,  and  prepare,  and  be 
ready  at  any  moment  for  our  departure  home  !  "  "  For  the  end 
is  approaching  ;  heaven  and  earth  and  all  government  now  begin 
to  crack  and  break."1 

Luther's  example  proved  catching,  and  the  end  of  the 
world  became  a  favourite  topic  both  in  the  pulpit  and  in 
books,  one  on  which  the  preachers'  own  gloom  could  aptly 
find  vent.  The  end  of  all  was  thought  to  be  imminent. 
Such  forebodings  are  voiced,  for  instance,  in  the  following  : 
"  No  consolation  is  of  any  help  to  consciences  "  ;2  "  many 
pine  away  in  dejection  and  die  of  grief  "  ;3  "  in  these  latter 
days  the  wicked  one  by  his  tyranny  drives  men  into  fear 
and  fright  "  ;4  "  many  despair  for  very  dejection  and  sad 
ness  "  ;5  "  many  pious  hearts  wax  cowardly,  seeing  their 
sins  and  the  wickedness  of  the  world  "  ;6  "  the  people  hang 
their  heads  as  though  they  were  walking  corpses  and  live 
in  a  constant  dread  "  ;7  "  all  joy  is  dead  and  all  consola 
tion  from  God's  Word  has  become  as  weak  as  water  "  ;8 
the  number  of  those  "  possessed  of  the  devil  body  and  soul  " 
is  growing  beyond  all  measure.9 

1  "  Postilla  oder  Auslegung  dor  Sonntagsevangelien,"  Nuremberg, 
1565,  p.  14. 

2  Selnecker,  "  Trostliche  schone  Spriich  fur  die  engstigen  Gewissen," 
Leipzig,  1561,  Preface. 

3  Georg  Major   (a  Wittenberg  Professor),   "  Homilice  in  Evangelia 
dominicaUa,"     1,     Wittenbergse,     1562,     p.     38. — Johann     Pomarius, 
preacher    at    Magdeburg  :     "  People    are    growing    so    distressed    and 
afflicted  that  they  droop  and  languish,"  etc.,  the  Last  Day  is,  however, 
"  at  the  door."     "  Postilla,"  Bd.  1,  Magdeburg,  1587,  p.  6  f. 

4  Nikol.   Kramer,    "  Wiirtzgartlein   der   Seelen,"   Frankfurt   a.   M., 
1573,    Bl.   V.,    3'.      Still   more   emphatically   the   preacher   Sigismund 
Suevus  ("  Trewe  Warming  fur  der  leidigen  Verzweiffelung,"  Gorlitz, 
1572,  p.  A  3')  :    The  devil  raves  and  rages  in  these  latter  days  like  a 
mad  dog  and  tries  above  all  to  make  people  despair. 

6  Christoph  Ireiiseus,  preacher  at  Eisleben,  "  Prognosticon,"  1578, 
(s.l.),  Bl.  D  d  3. 

6  Joh.  Beltzius,  "  Vom  Jammer,"  etc.,  Bl.  B  3'. 

7  Ruprecht  Erythropilus,  preacher  at  Hanover,  "  Weckglock,"  etc., 
Frankfurt  a.  M.,  1595,  p.  181  f. 

8  Valerius  Herberger,  preacher  at  Fraustadt,  "  Herzpostilla,"  Bl.  1, 
Leipzig,  1614,  p.  16  ff. 

9  Andreas  Celichius,  "  Notwendige  Erinnerung,"  etc.,  Wittenberg, 
1595,  Bl.  A  3  ff.     He  enumerates  with  terror  thirty  possessed  persons 


CHRONIC   MELANCHOLY  225 

Though  the  special  advantage  claimed  for  the  new 
Evangel  lay  in  the  sure  comfort  it  afforded  troubled  con 
sciences,  many  found  themselves  unable  to  arouse  within 
them  the  necessary  faith  in  the  forgiveness  of  their  sins. 
Luther's  own  experience,  viz.  that  "faith  won't  come,"1 
was  also  that  of  many  of  the  preachers  in  the  case  of  their 
own  uneasy  and  tortured  parishioners  ;  their  complaints  of 
the  fruitlessness  of  their  labours  sound  almost  like  an  echo 
of  some  of  Luther's  own  utterances. 

"  There  are  many  pious  souls  in  our  churches,"  says  Simon 
Pauli,  of  Rostock,  "  who  are  much  troubled  because  they  cannot 
really  believe  what  they  say  they  do,  viz.  that  God  will  be 
gracious  to  them  and  will  justify  and  save  them."2 

The  widespread  melancholy  existing  among  the  parishioners 
quite  as  much  and  sometimes  more  so  than  among  the  pastors, 
explains  the  quantity  of  consolatory  booklets  which  appeared  on 
the  market  during  the  second  half  of  the  16th  century,  many  of 
which  were  expressly  designed  to  check  the  progress  of  this 
morbid  melancholy.3  Selnecker's  work,  mentioned  above,  is  a 
specimen  of  this  sort  of  literature.  The  Hamburg  preacher, 
J.  Magdeburgius,  wrote  :  "  Never  has  there  been  such  need  of 
encouragement  as  at  this  time."4  The  Superintendent,  Andreas 
Celichius,  laments  that  people  "are  quite  unable  to  find  comfort 
in  the  sanctuary  of  the  Evangel,  but,  like  the  heathen  who 
knew  not  God,  are  becoming  melancholy  and  desperate,"  and 
this  too  at  a  time  when  "  God,  by  means  of  the  evangelical 
preaching,  is  daily  dispensing  abundantly  all  manner  of  right 
excellent  and  efficacious  consolation,  by  the  shovelful  and  not 
merely  by  the  spoonful." 5 — It  was,  however,  a  vastly  more  difficult 

in  Mecklenburg  alone,  among  whom,  however,  he  probably  includes 
many  who  were  simply  mad.  "  Here,  in  the  immediate  vicinity,"  he 
says,  "  three  preachers  have  lost  their  minds,  and  would  even  appear 
to  be  bodily  possessed."  J.  Moehsen  ("  Gesch,  der  Wissenschaften  in 
der  Mark  Brandenburg,"  Berlin,  1781,  p.  500)  rightly  remarked  : 
"  The  plentiful  writings  and  sermons  on  the  devil's  power,  .  .  .  on 
the  portents  of  the  Last  Judgment,  such  as  comets,  meteors,  bloody 
rain,  etc.,  cost  many  their  reason  during  the  latter  half  of  the  16th 
century." 

1  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  452  :   "  '  Articulus  fidei  '  won't  go  home, 
'  ideo  tot  accidunt  tristitice.''  " 

2  "  Extract  oder  Ausszug  axis  der  Postill,"  Magdeburg,  1584,  p.  16  f. 

3  See  N.  Paulus,  "  Die  Melancholie  im  16  Jahrh."  ("  Wiss.  Beilage 
zur  Germania,"   1897,  No.   18),  p.   137  ff.  ;    on  p.  140  he  refers  to  G. 
Draudius,   "  Bibl.  libr.  germ.,"  for  the  titles  of  many  such  works  of 
consolation.     For  the  above  description  we  have  made  use  of  this 
rich  article  by  Paulus  and  of  his  other  one  :    "  Der  Selbstmord  im  16 
Jahrh.,"  ibid.,  1896,  No.  1. 

4  "  Eyne  schone  Artzney,   dadurch  der  leidenden  Christen  Sorge 
und  Betriibnus  gelindert  werden,"  Liibeck,  1555,  p.  145. 

5  Op.  cit.,  Bl.  A  3',  R  5. 

IV. — Q 


226          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

matter  to  find  comfort  in  the  bare  "  Sola  Fides  "  than  it  had  been 
for  the  ancestors  of  these  Evangelicals  to  find  it  in  the  Church's 
way.  Thanks  to  their  co-operation,  it  was  given  to  them  to 
experience  the  vivifying  and  saving  strength  of  the  Sacraments 
and  of  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice,  to  find  example  and  encourage 
ment  in  the  veneration  of  the  Saints  and  in  the  ritual,  to  be  led 
to  display  their  faith  by  the  performance  of  good  works  in  the 
hope  of  an  eternal  reward,  and  to  enjoy  in  all  the  guidance  and 
help  of  pastors  duly  called  and  ordained.  In  spite  of  all  the 
abuses  which  existed,  their  Catholic  forebears  had  never  been 
deprived  of  these  helps. 

Many  Protestants  were  driven  by  such  considerations  to  return 
to  the  Church.  Of  this  Nicholas  Amsdorf  complained.  Many, 
he  says,  "  have  fallen  away  from  Christ  to  Antichrist  in  conse 
quence  of  such  despair  and  doubts,"  and  the  uncertainty  in 
matters  of  faith  is  nourished  by  the  want  of  any  unity  in  teach 
ing,  so  that  the  people  "  do  not  know  whom  or  what  to  believe  "  j1 
this  was  also  one  of  the  reasons  alleged  by  Simon  Pauli  why 
"  many  in  the  Netherlands  and  in  Austria  are  now  relapsing  into 
Popery."2 

"  We  find  numerous  instances  in  our  day,"  Laurence  Albcrtus 
said  in  1574,  "  of  how,  in  many  places  where  Catholics  and 
sectarians  live  together,  no  one  was  able  to  help  a  poor,  deluded 
sectarian  in  spiritual  or  temporal  distress,  save  the  Catholic 
Christians,  and  especially  their  priests  ;  such  persons  who  have 
been  helped  admit  that  they  first  found  real  comfort  among  the 
Catholics,  and  now  refuse  to  be  disobedient  to  the  Church  any 
longer."  Albertus  wrote  a  "  Defence  "  of  such  converts.3 

Johann  Schlaginhaufen,  Luther's  pupil,  with  the  statements 
he  makes  concerning  his  own  sad  interior  experiences,  brings  us 
back  to  his  master. 4  Schlaginhaufen  himself,  even  more  than  the 
rest,  fell  a  prey  to  sadness,  fear  and  thoughts  of  despair  on 
account  of  his  sins.  Luther,  to  whom  he  freely  confided  this, 
told  him  it  was  "  false  that  God  hated  sinners,  otherwise  He 
would  not  have  sent  His  Son  "  ;  God  hated  only  the  self-righteous 
"  who  didn't  want  to  be  sinners."  If  Satan  had  not  tried  and 
persecuted  me  so  much,  "  I  should  not  now  be  so  hostile  to  him." 
Schlaginhaufen,  however,  was  unable  to  convince  himself  so 
readily  that  all  his  trouble  came  from  the  devil  and  not  from  his 
conscience.  He  said  to  Luther  :  "  Doctor,  I  can't  believe  that  it 
is  only  the  devil  who  causes  sadness,  for  the  Law  [the  conscious 
ness  of  having  infringed  it]  makes  the  conscience  sad  ;  but  the  Law 
is  good,  for  it  comes  from  God,  consequently  neither  is  the 
sadness  from  Satan."  Luther  was  only  able  to  give  an  evasive 
answer  and  fell  back  on  the  proximity  of  the  Last  Day  as  a 

1  "  Fiinff  fiirnemliche  Zeichen  .  .  .  vor  dem  jiingstcn  Tag,"  Jena, 
1554,  Bl.  B  4'. 

2  Op.  cit.,  Magdeburg,  1584,  p.  733. 

3  "  Verthadigung  deren,  so   sich  diser    Zeit  ...  in  den  Frid    der 
romischen  Kirchen  begeben,"  Dillingen,  1574,  p.  72  f. 

*  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichn.,"  pp.  9,  76,  88. 


CHRONIC   MELANCHOLY  227 

source  of  consolation  :  "In  short,  why  we  are  so  plagued,  vexed 
and  troubled  is  due  to  the  Last  Day.  .  .  .  The  devil  feels  his 
kingdom  is  coming  to  an  end,  hence  the  fuss  he  makes.  There 
fore,  my  dear  Turbicida  [i.e.  Schlaginhaufen],  be  comforted,  hold 
fast  to  the  Word  of  God,  let  us  pray."  Such  words,  however,  did 
not  suffice  to  calm  the  troubled  man,  who  only  became  ever  more 
dejected  ;  his  inference  appeared  to  him  only  too  well  founded  : 
"  The  Law  with  its  obligations  and  its  terrifying  menaces  is  just 
as  much  God's  as  the  Gospel." 

"  How  doleful  you  look,"  Luther  said  to  him  some  weeks  later. 
"  I  replied,"  so  Schlaginhaufen  relates  :  "  '  Ah,  dear  Doctor,  I 
was  brooding  ;  my  thoughts  worry  me  and  yet  I  can  do  nothing. 
I  am  unable  to  distinguish  between  the  Law  and  the  Gospel.'  The 
Doctor  replied  :  '  Yes,  dear  Master  Hans,  if  you  could  do  that 
then  you  would  be  indeed  a  Doctor  yourself,'  saying  which  he 
stood  up  and  doffed  his  cap.  .  .  .  '  Paul  and  I  have  never  been 
able  to  get  so  far  .  .  .  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  hold  fast  to  the 
man  Who  is  called  Christ.'  '  In  answer  to  a  new  objection 
Luther  referred  the  young  man  to  the  secret  counsels  of  God,  for, 
according  to  him,  there  was  a  hidden  God  Who  had  not  revealed 
Himself  and  of  Whom  men  "  were  unable  to  know  what  He 
secretly  planned,"1  and  a  revealed  God  Who  indeed  speaks  of  a 
Divine  Will  that  all  should  be  saved  ;  how,  however,  this  was  to 
afford  any  consolation  it  is  not  easy  to  see.1  On  other  occasions 
Luther  simply  ordered  Schlaginhaufen  to  rely  on  his  authority  ; 
God  Himself  was  speaking  through  him  words  of  command 
and  consolation.  "  You  are  to  believe  without  doubting  what 
God  Himself  has  spoken  to  you,  for  I  have  God's  authority  and 
commission  to  speak  to  and  to  comfort  you."2 

1  Luther  to  Count  Albert  of  Mansfeld,  Dec.  8,  1542,  "  Briefe,"  5, 
p.  514.     Cp.  vol.  ii.,  pp.  290  and  268  f. 

2  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichn.,"  p.  21. 


CHAPTER    XXV 

IN  THE  NARROWER  CIRCLE  OF  THE  PROFESSION  AND  FAMILY 
LUTHER'S  BETTER  FEATURES 

1.  The  University  Professor,  the  Preacher,  the  Pastor 

Relations  with  the  Wittenberg  Students. 

AMONG  the  pleasing  traits  in  Luther's  picture  a  prominent 
one  is  the  care  he  evinced  for  the  students  at  Wittenberg. 

The  disagreeable  impression  caused  by  the  decline  of  the 
University  town  is  to  some  extent  mitigated  by  the  efforts 
Luther  made  to  check  the  corruption  amongst  the  scholars  of 
the  University.  He  saw  that  they  were  supervised,  so  far 
as  academic  freedom  permitted,  and  never  hesitated  to 
blame  their  excesses  from  the  pulpit.  At  the  same  time,  in 
spite  of  the  growing  multiplicity  of  his  labours  and  cares,  he 
showed  himself  a  helpful  father  to  them  even  in  temporal 
matters,  for  instance,  Avhen  he  inveighed  in  a  sermon  against 
their  exploitation  at  the  hands  of  burghers  and  peasants  : 
They  were  being  sucked  dry  and  could  scarcely  be  treated 
worse  ;  this  he  had  heard  from  all  he  knew.1 

The  respect  he  enjoyed  and  the  example  of  his  own  simple 
life  lent  emphasis  to  his  moral  exhortations.  His  eloquent 
lectures  were  eagerly  listened  to  ;  his  delivery  was  vivid 
and  impressive.  People  knew  that  he  did  not  lecture  for 
the  sake  of  money  and,  even  at  the  height  of  his  fame, 
they  gladly  pointed  to  the  unassuming  life  he  led  at 
home.  He  did  not  expect  any  marks  of  respect  from  the 
students,  greatly  as  they,  and  not  only  those  of  the  theo 
logical  Faculty,  esteemed  him.  Melanchthon  had  intro 
duced  the  custom  of  making  the  students  stand  when  Luther 
entered  the  class-room  ;  Luther,  however,  was  not  at  all 
pleased  with  this  innovation  and  said  petulently  :  "  Doxa, 
doxa  est  magna  noxa  ;  who  runs  after  glory  never  gets  it."2 

J  l  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  418  f.,  in  the  sermons  of  1528,  recently 
published. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Historien,"  p.  154'  ;  Kroker,  "  Mathesius'  Tisch- 
reden,"  Einleitung,  p.  70. 

228 


Oldecop,  the  Catholic  chronicler  and  Luther's  former 
pupil,  who,  as  a  youth  and  before  the  apostasy,  had  listened 
to  him  at  Wittenberg,  remembered  in  his  old  age  how 
Luther,  without  setting  himself  in  opposition  to  their 
youthful  jollifications  had  known  how  to  restrain  them  ; 
just  as  he  "  reproved  sin  fearlessly  from  the  pulpit,"1  so  he 
earnestly  sought  to  banish  temptation  from  the  pleasures 
of  the  students. 

We  may  here  recall,  that,  as  early  as  1520,  Luther  had 
urged  that  all  bordels  should  be  done  away  with,  those 
"  public,  heathenish  haunts  of  sin,"  as  he  termed  them,  at 
the  same  time  using  their  existence  as  a  weapon  against  the 
Catholic  past.2  The  fact  that  many  such  houses  were 
closed  down  at  that  time  was,  however,  to  some  extent  due 
to  fear  of  the  prevalent  "  French  disease." 

When,  in  his  old  age,  in  1543,  the  arrival  of  certain  light 
women  threatened  new  danger  to  the  morals  of  the  Witten 
berg  students,  already  exposed  to  the  ordinary  temptations 
of  the  town,  Luther  decided  to  interfere  and  make  a  public 
onslaught  at  the  University.  This  attack  supplies  us  with 
a  striking  example  of  his  forcefulness,  whilst  also  showing 
us  what  curious  ideas  and  expressions  he  was  wont  to  inter 
mingle  with  his  well-meant  admonitions. 

"  The  devil,"  so  he  begins,  "  has,  by  means  of  the  gainsayers 
of  our  faith  and  our  chief  foes  [presumably  the  Catholics],  sent 
here  certain  prostitutes  to  seduce  and  ruin  our  young  men. 
Hence  I,  as  an  old  and  tried  preacher,  would  paternally  implore 
you,  my  dear  children,  to  believe  that  the  Wicked  One  has  sent 
these  prostitutes  hither,  who  are  itchy,  shabby,  stinking  and 
infected  with  the  French  disease  as,  alas,  experience  daily  proves. 
Let  one  good  comrade  warn  the  other,  for  one  such  infected 
strumpet  can  ruin  10,  20,  30,  or  even  100  sons  of  good  parents 
and  is  therefore  to  be  reckoned  a  murderess  and  much  worse 
than  a  poisoner.  Let  one  help  the  other  in  this  poisonous 
mess,  with  faithful  advice  and  warning,  as  each  one  would  himself 
wish  to  be  done  by  !  " 

He  then  threatens  them  with  the  penalties  of  the  Ruler,  which 
dissolute  students  had  to  fear,  "  in  order  that  they  may  take 
themselves  off,  and  the  sooner  the  better  "  ;  "  here  [at  Witten 
berg]  there  is  a  Christian  Church  and  University  to  which  people 
resort  to  learn  the  Word  of  God,  virtue  and  discipline.  Whoever 
wants  to  drab  had  better  go  elsewhere." 

Were  he  able,  he  would  have  such  women  "  bled  and  broken 

1  Oldecop,  "  Chronik,"  ed.  Euling,  p.  40. 

2  Kftstlin-Kawerau,  2,  pp.  687,  572,  n. 


230         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

on  the  wheel."  Young  people  ought,  however,  to  resist  con 
cupiscence  and  fight  against  "  their  heat  "  ;  it  was  not  to  no 
purpose  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had  said  :  "Go  not  after  thy 
lusts  "  (Eccl.  xviii.  30).  He  concludes  :  "  Pray  God  He  may 
send  you  a  pious  child  [in  marriage],  there  will  in  any  case  be 
trouble  enough."1 

Some  polemics  have  characterised  such  exhortations  of 
Luther's  as  mere  "  hypocrisy."  Whoever  knows  his  Luther,  knows, 
however,  how  unfounded  is  this  charge.  Nor  was  there  any 
hypocrisy  about  the  other  very  urgent  exhortation  which  Luther 
caused  to  be  read  from  the  pulpit  at  Wittenberg  in  1542,  when 
himself  unable  to  preach,  and  which  is  addressed  to  both  burghers 
and  students.  He  there  implores  "  the  town  and  the  University 
for  God's  sake  not  to  allow  it  to  be  said  of  them,  that,  after 
having  heard  God's  Word  so  abundantly  and  for  so  long,  they 
had  grown  worse  instead  of  better."  "  Ah,  brother  Studium,"  he 
says,  "  spare  me  and  let  it  not  come  to  this  that  I  be  obliged  like 
Polycarp  to  exclaim,  '  O  my  God,  why  hast  Thou  let  me  live  to 
see  this?''  He  points  to  his  "grizzly  head"  which  at  least 
should  inspire  respect.2 

The  Preacher  and  Catechist. 

As  a  preacher  Luther  was  hard-working,  nay,  indefatig 
able  ;  in  this  department  his  readiness  of  speech,  his 
familiarity  with  Holy  Scripture  and  above  all  his  popular 
ways  stood  him  in  good  stead.  At  first  he  preached  in  the 
church  attached  to  the  monastery  ;  later  on  his  sermons 
were  frequently  preached  in  the  parish  church,  and,  so  long 
as  his  health  stood  the  strain,  he  sometimes  even  delivered 
several  sermons  a  day.3  Even  when  not  feeling  well  he  took 
advantage  of  every  opportunity  to  mount  the  pulpit.  In 
1528  he  took  over  the  parochial  sermons  during  Bugen- 
hagen's  absence  from  Wittenberg,4  in  spite  of  being  already 
overworked  and  ill  in  body. 

All  were  loud  in  their  praise  of  the  power  and  vigour  of 
his  style.  Mathesius  in  his  "  Historien  "  records  a  remark 
to  this  effect  of  Melanchthon's.5  Luther  frequently  laid 
down,  after  his  own  fashion,  the  rules  which  should  guide 
those  who  preach  to  the  little  ones  and  the  poor  in  spirit  : 
"  Cursed  and  anathema  be  all  preachers  who  treat  of  high, 

1  May  13,  1543,  "  Briefe,"  5  (De  Wette  and  Seidemann),  p.  560. 

2  1542,  possibly  Feb.  or  Nov.    "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  302.    Cp.  the  Rector's 
exhortation  to   the  students  on  Feb.    18,    1542,   "  Corp.   ref.,"   4,    p. 
780  seq. 

"  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  178. 
4  Published  from  notes  taken  at  the  time. 
6   "  Historien,"  p.  216. 


THE   POPULAR   PREACHER         231 

difficult  and  subtle  matters  in  the  churches,  put  them  to  the 
people  and  preach  on  them,  seeking  their  own  glory  or  to 
please  one  or  two  ambitious  members  of  the  congregation. 
When  I  preach  here  I  make  myself  as  small  as  possible,  nor 
do  I  look  at  the  Doctors  and  Masters,  of  whom  perhaps 
forty  may  be  present,  but  at  the  throng  of  young  people, 
children  and  common  folk,  from  a  hundred  to  a  thousand 
strong  ;  it  is  to  them  that  I  preach,  of  them  that  I 
think,  for  it  is  they  who  stand  in  need."1  And  elsewhere  : 
"  Like  a  mother  who  quiets  her  babe,  dandles  it  and  plays 
with  it,  but  who  must  give  it  milk  from  her  breast,  and  on 
no  account  wine  or  Malmsey,  so  preachers  must  do  the  same  ; 
they  ought  so  to  preach  in  all  simplicity  that  even  the 
simple-minded  may  hear,  grasp  and  retain  their  words. 
But  when  they  come  to  me,  to  Master  Philip,  to  Dr.  Pommer, 
etc.,  then  they  may  show  off  their  learning — and  get  a  good 
drubbing  and  be  put  to  shame."  But  when  they  parade 
their  learning  in  the  pulpit  this  is  merely  done  "  to  impose 
on  and  earn  the  praise  of  the  poor,  simple  lay-folk.  Ah, 
they  say,  that  is  a  great  scholar  and  a  fine  speaker,  though, 
probably,  they  neither  understood  nor  learnt  anything."2 

"  Nor  should  a  preacher  consider  individual  members  of 
his  congregation  and  speak  to  them  words  of  comfort  or 
reproof  ;  what  he  must  seek  to  benefit  is  the  whole  congrega 
tion.  St.  Paul  teaches  this  important  doctrine  [2  Cor.  ii.  17] : 
'  We  speak  with  sincerity  in  Christ  as  from  God  and  before 
God.'  God,  Christ  and  the  angels  are  our  hearers,  and  if  we 
please  them  that  is  enough.  Let  us  not  trouble  ourselves 
about  the  world  and  about  private  persons  !  We  will  not 
speak  in  order  to  please  any  man  nor  allow  our  mouth  to  be 
made  the  '  Arschloch  '  of  another.  But  when  we  have 
certain  persons  up  before  us,  then  we  may  reprove  them 
privately  and  without  any  rancour."3 

As  a  preacher  he  was  able  often  enough  to  tell  the  various 
classes  quite  frankly  what  he  found  to  censure  in  them. 
At  the  Court,  for  instance,  he  could,  when  occasion  arose, 
reprove  the  nobles  for  their  drunkenness,  and  that  in 
language  not  of  the  choicest.4  He  was  not  the  man  to  wear 

1  He  says  this  to  Pastor  Bernard  of  Dolen,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  59, 
p.  272  f.     Cp.  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  140. 
•  "  Werke,"  ibid.,  p.  273. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  389 

4  See  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  309. 


232          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

kid  gloves,  or,  as  an  old  German  proverb  he  himself  quoted 
said,  to  let  a  spider  spin  its  web  over  his  mouth.  A  saying 
attributed  to  him  characterises  him  very  well,  save  perhaps 
in  its  latter  end  :  Come  up  bravely,  speak  out  boldly,  leave 
off  speedily.1  "  I  have  warned  you  often  enough,"  so  we 
read  in  the  notes  of  a  Wittenberg  sermon  of  Sep.  24,  1531,2 
"  to  flee  fornication,  and  yet  I  see  that  it  is  again  on  the 
increase.  It  is  getting  so  bad  that  I  shall  be  obliged  to  say  : 
Bistu  do  zurissen,  sso  lop  dich  der  Teuffl."3  The  preacher 
then  turns  to  the  older  hearers,  begging  them  to  use  their 
influence  with  the  younger  generation,  to  prevail  on  them 
to  abstain  from  this  vice. 

As  to  his  subject-matter,  he  was  fond  of  urging  Biblical 
texts  and  quotations,  wherein  he  displayed  great  skill  and 
dexterity.  In  general,  however,  his  attacks  on  Popery  are 
always  much  the  same  ;  he  dwells  with  tiresome  monotony 
on  the  holiness-by-works  and  the  moral  depravity  of  the 
Papists.  Though  his  theory  of  Justification  may  have 
proved  to  him  a  never-failing  source  of  delight,  yet  his 
hearers  were  inclined  to  grow  weary  of  it.  He  himself  says 
once  :  "  When  we  preach  the  '  articulum  justificationis  '  the 
people  sleep  or  cough  "  ;  and  before  this  :  "  No  one  in  the 
people's  opinion  is  eloquent  if  he  speaks  on  justification  ; 
then  they  simply  close  their  ears."  Had  it  been  a  question 
of  retailing  stories,  examples  and  allegories  he  could  have 
been  as  proficient  as  any  man.4 

Mathesius  has  incorporated  in  his  work  some  of  Luther's 
directions  on  preaching  Avhich  might  prove  a  good  guide  to 
any  pulpit  orator  desirous  of  being  of  practical  service  to 
his  hearers.5  Some  of  these  directions  and  hints  have 
recently  appeared  in  their  vigorous  original  in  the  Table-Talk 
edited  by  Kroker. 

It  was  his  wish  that  religious  addresses  in  the  shape  of 
simple,  hearty  instructions  on  the  Epistles  and  Gospels 
should  be  given  weekly  by  every  father  to  his  family.6  He 
himself,  in  his  private  capacity,  set  the  example  as  early 

1  Cp.  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  184:  "  Prcedicator  ascendat 
suggestum,  aperiat  os  et  desinat,"  etc.  See,  ibid.,  No.  316a,  also  pp.  139 
and  196.  2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  2,  p.  214. 

"  Luthers  Sprichwortersammlung,"  ed.  E.  Thiele,  Weimar,   1900, 
No.  483.  4   "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  113  seq. 

5  "  Historien,"  pp.  144,  148,  151,  etc. 

6  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  21,  p.  31. 


THE   CATECHIST  233 

as  1532  by  holding  forth  in  his  own  home  on  Sundays,  when 
unable  to  preach  in  the  church,  before  his  assembled  house 
hold  and  other  guests.  This  he  did,  so  he  said,  from  a 
sense  of  duty  towards  his  family,  because  it  was  as  necessary 
to  check  neglect  of  the  Divine  Word  in  the  home  as  in  the 
Church  at  large.1 

He  also  himself  catechised  the  children  at  home,  in  order, 
as  he  declared,  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  a  Christian  father  ; 
on  rising  in  the  morning  he  was  also  in  the  habit  of  reciting 
the  "  Ten  Commandments,  the  Creed,  the  Our  Father  and 
some  Psalm  as  well  "  with  the  children. 

He  even  expressed  the  opinion  that  catechetical  instruc 
tion  in  church  was  of  little  use  to  children,  but  that  in  the 
home  it  was  more  successful  and  was  therefore  not  to  be 
omitted,  however  much  trouble  it  might  give.  When, 
however,  he  adds,  that  the  Papists  had  neglected  such  home 
teaching  and  had  sacrificed  the  flock  of  Christ,2  he  is  quite 
wrong.  The  fact  is,  that,  before  his  day,  it  was  left  far  too 
much  to  the  family  to  give  religious  instruction  to  the 
children,  there  being  as  yet  no  properly  organised  Catechism 
in  schools  and  churches.  It  was  only  the  opposition  aroused 
among  Catholics  by  the  religious  changes  that  led  to  religious 
teaching  becoming  more  widespread  in  the  Catholic  schools, 
and  to  a  catechetical  system  being  organised  ;  a  fuller 
religious  education  then  served  to  check  the  falling  away.3 
How  highly,  in  spite  of  such  apparent  depreciation,  he  valued 
the  ministerial  teaching  of  the  Catechism  we  learn  from 
some  words  recorded  by  Mathesius  :  "  If  I  had  to  establish 
order,  I  should  see  that  no  preacher  was  nominated  who 
had  not  previously  taught  the  '  bonce  artes  '  and  the  Cate 
chism  in  the  schools  for  from  one  to  three  years.  Schools 
are  also  temples  of  God,  hence  the  olden  prophets  were  at  once 
pastors  and  schoolmasters."4  "  There  is  no  better  way,"  he 
writes,  "  of  keeping  people  devout  and  faithful  to  the 
Church  than  by  the  Catechism."5 

At  Wittenberg  an  arrangement  existed,  at  any  rate  as 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  265. 

2  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  82. 

3  The  lack  of  religious  instruction  in  the  schools  is  confirmed  by 
Falk,    "  Die   pfarramtlichen  Aufzeichnungen   des  Florentius  Diel  zu 
Mainz  (1491-1518),"  1904,  p.  17. 

4  "  Historien,"  12  Predigt. 

5  To  Margrave  George  of  Brandenburg,  Sep.   14,  1531,  "  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  54,  p.  253  ("  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  103). 


234         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

early  as  1528,1  by  which,  every  quarter,  certain  days  were 
set  apart  for  special  sermons  on  the  articles  of  the  Cate 
chism.2  The  Larger  and  the  Smaller  Catechism  published 
by  Luther  (see  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  2)  were  intended  to  form  the 
basis  of  the  verbal  teaching  everywhere.  The  three  courses 
of  sermons  preached  by  Luther  at  Wittenberg  in  May,  Sep. 
and  Nov.,  1528,  and  since  edited  by  George  Buchwald,  were 
arranged  to  suit  the  contents  of  the  Greater  Catechism  and 
to  some  extent  served  Luther  as  a  preparation  for  this 
publication.  Luther,  in  the  first  instance,  brought  out  the 
Smaller  Catechism,  as  we  see  from  certain  letters  given  by 
Buchwald,  not  in  book  form,  but,  agreeably  with  an  earlier 
ecclesiastical  practice,  on  separate  sheets  in  the  shape  of 
tablets  to  hang  upon  the  walls  ;  hence  what  he  said  on 
Dec.  18,  1537,  of  his  being  the  author  of  the  Catechism,  the 
"  tabula?  "  and  the  Confession  of  Augsburg.3 

He  displayed  great  talent  and  dexterity  in  choosing  the 
language  best  suited  to  his  subject.  We  hear  him  denounc 
ing  with  fire  and  power  the  vice  of  usury  which  was  on  the 
increase.4  He  knows  how  to  portray  the  past  and  future 
judgments  of  God  in  such  colours  as  to  arouse  the  luke 
warm.  When  treating  of  the  different  professions  and  ways 
of  ordinary  life  he  is  in  his  own  element  and  exhibits  a  rare 
gift  of  observation.  On  the  virtues  of  the  home,  the  educa 
tion  of  children,  obedience  towards  superiors,  patience  in 
bearing  crosses  and  any  similar  ethical  topics  which  pre 
sented  themselves  to  him,  his  language  is  as  a  rule 
sympathetic,  touching  and  impressive  ;  in  three  wedding 
sermons  which  we  have  of  him  he  speaks  in  fine  and  moving 
words  on  love  and  fidelity  in  the  married  state.5 

In  addition  to  his  printed  sermons,  which  were  polished 
and  amended  for  the  press  and  from  which  we  have  already 
given  many  quotations  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  the  hasty, 
abbreviated  notes  of  his  sermons,  made  by  zealous  pupils, 
give  us  an  insight  into  a  series  of  addresses  full  of  originality, 

1  See  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  2. 

2  Cp.  O.  Clemen,  "  Zeitschrift  fur  KG.,"  1909,  p.  382. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  352.     Agricola  had  excused  himself 
by  saying  he  had  not  attacked  Luther  but  Cruciger  and  Rorer.    Luther 
replied  :     "  Catechismus,   tabulae,   confcssio   Augustana,   etc.,   mca,   non 
Crucigeri  nee  Rcereri  sunt." 

4  See  vol.  vi.,  xxxv.,  6,  on  his  attitude  to  the  taking  of  interest. 

5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  182,  pp.  89  ff.,  105  ff. ;  192,  p.  243  ff.    Cp.  above, 
p.  142. 


ON  THE   BLESSED   VIRGIN         235 

outspokenness  and  striking  thoughts.  Indeed  these  notes, 
which  are  becoming  better  known  at  the  present  day, 
frequently  render  the  sermons  in  all  their  primitive  simplicity 
far  better  than  do  the  more  carefully  arranged  printed 
editions. 

Luther,  in  1524,  according  to  one  of  these  sets  of  notes,  spoke 
on  Good  Works  in  the  following  style  :  "  The  Word  is  given  in 
order  that  you  may  awaken  !  It  is  meant  to  spur  you  on  to  do 
what  is  good,  not  that  you  should  lull  yourself  in  security.  When 
fire  and  wood  [come  together  there  ensues  a  fire  ;  so  you.  in  like 
manner,  must  be  inflamed].  If,  however,  the  effect  of  the  sermon 
is,  that  you  do  not  act  towards  your  brother  as  Christ  does 
towards  you,  that  is  a  bad  sign,  not,  indeed,  that  you  must 
become  a  castaway,  but  that  you  may  go  so  far  as  one  day  to 
deny  the  Word."  "  The  devil  knows  that  sin  does  not  harm  you, 
but  his  aim  is  to  tear  Christ  out  of  your  heart,  to  make  you  self- 
confident  and  to  rob  you  of  the  Word.  Hence  beware  of  being 
idle  under  the  influence  of  Grace.  Christ  is  seen  with  you  when 
you  take  refuge  in  Him,  whether  you  be  in  sin  or  at  the  hour  of 
death,"  etc.  "  This  is  preached  to  you  daily,  but  we  produce  no 
effect.  Christ  has  bones  and  flesh,  strength  and  weakness.  Let 
each  one  see  to  it  that  above  all  he  possess  the  faith  .  .  .  the 
Gospel  is  preached  everywhere,  but  few  indeed  understand  it. 
Christ  bore  with  His  followers.  In  the  same  way  must  we  behave 
towards  the  weak.  And  the  day  will  come  when  at  last  they 
will  understand,  like  the  disciples.  But  that  will  never  be  unless 
persecution  comes."1 

Excerpts  from  Luther's  Sermons  on  Our  Lady. 
In  a  sermon  of  1524  on  the  Feast  of  the  Visitation,  taken  down 
in  Latin  by  the  same  reporter  and  recently  published,  Luther 
not  only  voices  the  olden  view  concerning  the  virtues  and 
privileges  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  but  also,  incidentally,  supplies  us 
with  a  sample  of  his  candour  in  speaking  of  the  faults  of  his 
hearers  :  "  You  are  surprised  that  now  I  preach  here  so  seldom, 
I,  on  the  other  hand,  ana  surprised  that  you  do  not  amend.  There 
may  possibly  be  a  few  to  whom  the  preaching  is  of  some  avail ; 
but  the  more  I  preach,  the  more  ungodliness  increases.  It  is  not 
my  fault,  for  I  know  that  I  have  told  you  all  what  God  gave  me 
[to  speak].  I  am  not  responsible  and  my  conscience  is  at  peace. 
I  have  forced  you  to  nothing.  We  have  introduced  two  collec 
tions.  If  they  are  not  to  your  taste,  do  away  with  them  again. 
We  shall  not  force  you  to  give  even  a  single  penny."2 — He  then 
deals  with  the  Gospel  of  the  Feast  which  records  Mary's  visit  to 
Elizabeth,  and  the  canticle  of  praise  with  which  she  greeted  her 
cousin.  He  draws  apt  lessons  from  it  and  praises  the  virtues  and 
the  dignity  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  in  a  way  that  does  him  honour  : 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  437. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  641  ff.,  "  Collections  "  is  our  amendment  for  "  Lections." 


236         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  First  of  all  you  see  how  Mary's  faith  finds  expression  in  a  work 
of  charity.  Her  faith  was  not  idle  but  was  proved  real  by  her 
acting  as  a  mere  maid,  seeking  out  Elizabeth  and  serving  her. 
Her  faith  was  immense,  as  we  also  learn  from  other  Gospel- 
readings.  That  is  why  Elizabeth  said  to  her  :  '  Blessed  art  thou 
that  hast  believed.'  .  .  .  This  is  a  true  work  of  faith  when 
impelled  thereby  we  abase  ourselves  and  serve  others.  We,  too, 
hear  all  this,  but  the  works  are  not  forthcoming.  .  .  .  Yet  where 
there  is  real  faith,  works  are  never  absent." 

"  When  Mary  was  magnified  by  Elizabeth  with  words  of  praise, 
it  was  as  though  she  did  not  hear  them,  for  she  paid  no  heed 
to  them.  Every  other  woman  would  have  succumbed  to  the 
temptation  of  vainglory,  but  she  gives  praise  to  Him  to  Whom 
alone  praise  is  due.  From  this  example  all  Christians,  but  par 
ticularly  all  preachers,  ought  to  learn.  You  know  that  God 
preserves  some  preachers  in  a  state  of  grace,  but  others  He 
permits  to  fall.  .  .  .  God  must  preserve  them  like  Mary  so  that 
they  do  not  grow  proud.  When  God  bestows  His  gifts  upon  us 
it  is  hard  not  to  become  presumptuous  and  self-confident.  If,  for 
instance,  I  am  well  acquainted  with  Scripture,  people  will  praise 
me  on  this  account,  and  when  I  am  praised,  I,  as  a  carnal  man, 
am  exposed  to  the  fire  ;  when  on  the  contrary  I  am  despised,  etc. 
[i.e.  this  is  helpful  for  my  salvation].  .  .  .  Mary  acted  as  though 
she  did  not  hear  it,  and  never  even  thanked  Elizabeth  for  her 
praise." 

Mary  said,  so  he  continues,  "  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord, 
not  myself  ;  I  am  a  mere  creature  of  God  ;  He  might  have  set 
another  in  my  place  ;  I  magnify  Him  Who  has  made  me  a 
Mother."  In  this  way  Mary  teaches  us  the  right  use  of  the  gifts 
bestowed  by  God,  for  she  rejoiced  only  in  God.  On  the  other 
hand,  any  woman  who  is  even  passably  pretty  becomes  vain  of 
herself,  and  any  man  who  has  riches,  boasts  of  his  possessions. 
Mary  is  merely  proud  that  God,  as  she  says,  has  regarded  her 
humility.  This  is  the  praise  which  we  too  must  pay  her.  We 
ought  to  extol  her  because  she  was  chosen  by  the  Divine  Majesty 
to  be  the  Mother  of  His  Son.  That,  she  says,  will  be  proclaimed 
to  the  end  of  the  world  ("  all  generations  shall  call  me  blessed  "), 
not  on  her  own  account,  but  because  God  has  done  this.  Concern 
ing  her  own  good  works  and  her  virginity  she  was  silent  and  simply 
said  :  "  He  has  done  great  things  in  me."  In  the  same  way  we 
ought  to  be  nothing  in  our  own  eyes  and  before  the  world,  but 
to  rejoice  simply  because  God  has  looked  down  on  us,  confessing 
that  all  we  have  comes  from  Him.  In  this  spirit  Mary  counted 
up  great  gifts  ;  though  she  could  have  said  :  All  that  you  have 
just  told  me  is  true.  "  Ah,  hers  was  a  fine  spirit ;  and  her 
example  will  assuredly  endure."  "  The  whole  world  will  never 
attain  to  it,  for  the  soul  that  is  not  exalted  by  God's  gifts  and 
depressed  by  poverty  is  indeed  hard  to  find."  By  her  words,  so 
the  speaker  continues,  Mary  condemned  the  world,  raised  her 
self  above  it  and  cast  it  aside  ;  her  language  was  not  human,  but 
came  to  her  from  God. 


ON   THE   BLESSED   VIRGIN          237 

Though  such  praise  of  Mary — from  which  at  a  later  date 
Luther  desisted — may  be  placed  to  his  credit,  yet  it  must  be 
pointed  out,  that  even  the  above  discourse  is  disfigured  by  bitter 
and  unwarrantable  attacks  on  Catholic  doctrine  and  practice. 
He  even  speaks  as  though  the  veneration  of  Mary  did  not  rest  on 
the  principles  we  have  just  heard  him  expound,  viz.  on  the 
dignity  bestowed  by  God  on  Mary  as  the  Mother  of  God,  and  on 
the  virtues  with  which  she  was  endowed  from  on  high,  such  as 
faith  and  humility.  The  Catholic  Church,  so  Luther  complains 
quite  unjustly  and  falsely,  had  made  of  Mary  a  goddess  ("  fecimus 
earn  Deam  ")  and  had  given  her  honour  and  praise  without 
referring  it  to  God.1 

1  Luther  must  have  known  that  in  Catholic  worship  the  Divine  Son 
is  more  honoured  by  the  veneration  of  Mary  than  she  herself.  That 
adoration  was  paid  to  God  alone  and  not  to  Mary  he  could  see  from 
the  text  of  the  prayers  of  the  ancient  Church.  Luther,  for  instance, 
was  acquainted  with  the  Invitatories  of  the  Office  for  the  Feasts  of 
Mary's  Nativity  and  Assumption,  the  first  of  which  commences  with 
the  words  :  "  Let  us  celebrate  the  birth  of  the  Virgin  Mary,"  and  then 
at  once  adds  :  "  Let  us  adore  her  Son  Christ  our  Lord  "  ;  while  the 
second  sets  Our  Lord  in  the  first  place  and  says  :  "  Come,  let  us  adore 
the  King  of  Kings  Whose  Virgin  Mother  was  to-day  assumed  into 
Heaven."  Thus  in  the  Liturgy  which  he  himself  had  celebrated,  the 
leading  thought,  that  Christ  was  honoured  in  Mary,  ran  through  the 
celebration  of  all  her  Feasts,  from  that  of  her  entrance  into  this  life  to 
that  of  her  exit.  The  Hymns  to  the  Mother  of  God  in  Luther's  day 
concluded  as  they  do  now  :  "  Jesu,  to  Thee  be  glory,  Who  wast  born 
of  a  virgin,"  etc.  Any  adoration  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  as  of  a  "  goddess  " 
was  so  alien  to  the  people  that  it  would  have  been  rejected  with 
indignation. 

In  the  same  way  that  the  Invitatories  just  quoted  expressly  reserve 
adoration  for  the  Divine  Son,  so  the  veneration  of  the  Mother  of  God 
in  the  Church's  Offices  is  justified  on  exactly  the  same  grounds  as  those 
which,  according  to  Luther,  result  from  the  mystery  of  the  Visitation 
and  from  the  Magnificat.  The  Church  has  always  extolled  Mary  simply 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Magnificat. — Luther  himself  had  published  a  printed 
exposition  of  the  Magnificat  in  1521.  There  he  still  speaks  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  in  the  usual  way  ("  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  545  f . ; 
Erl.  ed.,  45,  p.  214  f.).  At  the  commencement  of  the  work  he  invokes 
her  assistance  with  the  words  :  "  May  the  same  tender  Mother  of  God 
obtain  for  me  the  spirit  to  interpret  her  song  usefully  and  practically 
.  .  .  that  we  may  sing  and  chant  this  Magnificat  eternally  in  the  life 
to  come.  So  help  us  God.  Amen  "  (p.  546  =  214).  In  the  same  way, 
at  the  close,  he  expresses  his  hope  that  a  right  understanding  of  the 
Magnificat  "  may  not  only  illumine  and  teach,  but  burn  and  live  in 
body  and  soul  ;  may  Christ  grant  us  this  by  the  intercession  and 
assistance  of  His  dear  Mother  Mary.  Amen  "  (p.  601  =  287).  Thus  he 
was  then  still  in  favour  of  the  invocation  and  intercession  of  the  Holy 
Mother  of  God,  whereas  later  he  set  aside  the  invocation  of  any  Saint, 
and  declared  it  to  be  one  of  "  the  abuses  of  Antichrist."  (See  Kostlin, 
"  Luthers  Theologie,"  I2,  p.  370  ff.) — Luther  wrote  his  exposition  of 
the  Magnificat  in  the  spirit  which  must  inspire  every  theologian  who 
studies  the  canticle,  and  which  had  been  even  stronger  in  him  during 
his  Catholic  period.  At  the  same  time  he  obviously  wished  to  work 
upon  the  wavering  and  cautious  Court  of  the  Elector,  and  for  this 


238          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  supreme  distinction  which  the  Church  acknowledges  in 
Mary — viz.  her  immaculate  conception  and  exemption  from 
original  sin  from  the  first  moment  of  her  soul's  existence — 
Luther  himself  accepted  at  first  and  adhered  to  for  a  consider 
able  time,  following  in  this  the  tradition  of  his  Order.1 

All  honour  was  to  be  given  to  Christ  as  God  ;  this  right  and 
praiseworthy  view,  which  Luther  was  indefatigable  in  expressing, 
misled  him  in  the  matter  of  the  veneration  and  invocation  of 
Mary  and  the  Saints.  Of  this  he  would  not  hear,  though  such 
had  ever  been  the  practice  of  the  Church,  and  though  it  is  hard 
to  see  how  God's  glory  can  suffer  any  derogation  through  the 
honour  paid  to  His  servants.  In  this  Luther  went  astray  ;  the 
dogma  of  the  adorable  Divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  was,  however, 
always  to  remain  to  him  something  sacred  and  sublime. 

Statements  to  Luther's  advantage  from  various  Instructions. 
His  Language. 

In  his  sermons  Luther  was  so  firm  in  upholding  the 
Divinity  of  Christ,  in  opposition  to  the  scepticism  he 
thought  he  detected  in  other  circles,  that  one  cannot  but  be 
favourably  impressed.  He  was  filled  with  the  liveliest  sense 
of  man's  duty  of  submitting  his  reason  to  this  mystery  ;  he 
even  goes  too  far,  in  recommending  abdication  of  the 
intellect  and  in  his  disparagement  of  human  reason  ;  what 

reason  dedicated  this  work,  which,  though  peaceful  in  tone,  contained 
hidden  errors,  to  Prince  Johann  Frederick  in  a  submissive  letter.  It 
should  be  noted  that  Luther  wrote  this  dedication  soon  after  receiving 
his  summons  to  Worms.  It  is  dated  March  10,  1521  (ibid.,  p.  545  =  212. 
Cp.  "  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  109). 

1  He  admitted  this  belief  handed  down  in  the  Catholic  Schools, 
though  not  proclaimed  a  dogma  till  much  later,  in  the  sermon  he 
preached  in  1527  "  on  the  day  of  the  Conception  of  Mary  the  Mother 
of  God  "  :  "  It  is  a  sweet  and  pious  belief  that  the  infusion  of  Mary's 
soul  was  effected  without  original  sin  ;  so  that  in  the  very  infusion  of 
her  soul  she  was  also  purified  from  original  sin  and  adorned  with  God's 
gifts,  receiving  a  pure  soul  infused  by  God  ;  thus  from  the  first  moment 
she  began  to  live  she  was  free  from  all  sin  "  ("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  152, 
p.  58).  The  sermon  was  taken  down  in  notes  and  published  with 
Luther's  approval.  The  same  statements  concerning  the  Immaculate 
Conception  still  remain  in  a  printed  edition  published  in  1529,  but  in 
the  later  editions  which  appeared  during  Luther's  lifetime  they  dis 
appear.  (Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Lit.  Beil.  der  Koln.  Volksztng.,"  1904, 
No.  41.)  In  a  work  of  1521  he  says  :  Mary  not  only  kept  God's  com 
mandments  perfectly  but  also  "  received  so  much  grace  that  she  was 
quite  filled  with  it,  as  we  believe  "  ("  Rationis  Latomiance  confu- 
tatio"  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8.  p.  56  ;  ''  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  416). 
As  Luther's  intellectual  and  ethical  development  progressed  we  cannot 
naturally  expect  the  sublime  picture  of  the  pure  Mother  of  God,  the 
type  of  virginity,  of  the  spirit  of  sacrifice  and  of  sanctity  to  furnish 
any  great  attraction  for  him,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  such  statements 
as  the  above  are  no  longer  met  with  in  his  lat.er  works. 


HIS    ORTHODOX   SIDE  239 

he  is  anxious  to  do  is  to  make  all  his  religious  feeling 
culminate  in  a  trusting  faith  in  the  words  :  "  God  so  loved 
the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son  for  us." 

In  his  sermons  and  instructions  he  demands  a  similar 
yielding  of  reason  to  faith  with  regard  to  the  mystery  of 
Christ's  Presence  in  the  Sacrament,  though  in  this  case  ho 
had  not  shrunk  from  twisting  the  doctrine  to  suit  his  own 
ideas.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  maintain  more 
victoriously  against  all  gainsayers  the  need  of  standing  by 
the  literal  sense,  or  at  least  of  excluding  any  figurative 
interpretation  of,  the  \vords  of  institution  "  This  is  My 
Body,"  than  Luther  did  in  many  of  his  pronouncements 
against  the  Sacrameritarians.1 

With  advancing  years,  and  in  view  of  the  dissensions  and 
confusion  prevailing  in  the  Reformed  camp,  he  came  to 
insist  more  and  more  on  those  positive  elements,  which,  for 
all  his  aversion  for  the  ancient  Church,  he  had  never  ceased 
to  defend.  Of  this  we  have  a  monument  in  one  of  his  last 
works,  viz.  the  "  Kurtz  Bekentnis,"  to  which  we  shall  return 
later.  Embittered  by  the  scepticism  apparent  in  Zwinglian- 
ism  and  elsewhere,  which,  as  he  thought,  threatened  to  sap 
all  religion,  he  there  obeys  his  heart's  instincts  and  gives 
the  fullest  expression  to  his  faith  in  general  and  not  merely 
to  his  belief  in  Christ's  presence  in  the  Sacrament.2 

Concerning  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar  he  gave  the 
following  noteworthy  answer  to  a  question  put  to  him 
jointly,  in  1544,  by  the  three  princely  brothers  of  Anhalt, 
viz.  whether  they  should  do  away  with  the  Elevation  of  the 
Sacrament  in  the  liturgy.  "  By  no  means,"  he  replied, 
"  for  such  abrogation  would  tend  to  diminish  respect  for 
the  Sacrament  and  cause  it  to  be  undervalued.  When 
Dr.  Pommer  abolished  the  Elevation  [at  Wittenberg,  in 
1542]  during  my  absence,  I  did  not  approve  of  it,  and  now 
I  am  even  thinking  of  re-introducing  it.  For  the  Elevation 
is  one  thing,  the  carrying  about  of  the  Sacrament  in  pro 
cession  quite  another  [at  Wittenberg  Luther  would  not 
allow  such  processions  of  the  Sacrament].  If  Christ  is  truly 
present  in  the  Bread  ('  in  pane  '),  why  should  He  not  be 
treated  with  the  utmost  respect  and  even  be  adored  ?  " 
Joachim,  Prince  of  Anhalt,  added,  when  relating  this  ; 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  pp.  64-302  ;   Eil.  ed.,  30,  pp.  16-150, 

2  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  32,  pp.  397-425. 


240         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  We  saw  how  Luther  bowed  low  at  the  Elevation  with 
great  devotion  and  reverently  worshipped  Christ."1 

Certain  controversialists  have  undoubtedly  been  in  the  wrong 
in  making  out  Luther  to  have  been  sceptical  about,  or  even 
opposed  at  heart  to,  many  of  the  ancient  dogmas  which  he  never 
attacked,  for  instance,  the  Trinity,  or  the  Divinity  of  Christ.  A 
few  vague  and  incautious  statements  occasionally  let  slip  by  him 
are  more  than  counterbalanced  by  a  wealth  of  others  which  tell 
in  favour  of  his  faith,  and  he  himself  would  have  been  the  last  to 
admit  the  unfortunate  inferences  drawn  more  or  less  rightly  from 
certain  propositions  emitted  by  him.  It  is  a  lucky  thing,  that,  in 
actual  life,  error  almost  always  claims  the  right  of  not  being 
bound  down  too  tightly  in  the  chains  of  logic.  When  Luther,  for 
instance,  made  every  man  judge  of  the  meaning  of  the  Bible,  he 
was  setting  up  a  principle  which  must  have  dissolved  all  cohesion 
between  Christians,  and  thus,  of  necessity,  he  was  compelled  to 
limit,  somewhat  illogically,  the  application  of  the  principle. 

In  a  passage  frequently  cited  against  him,  where  he  shows 
himself  vexed  with  the  ancient  term  employed  by  the  Church 
to  express  the  Son's  being  of  the  same  substance  with  the  Father 
("  homoousios  "),  it  was  not  his  intention  to  rail  against  the 
doctrine  therein  expressed,  but  merely  to  take  exception  to  the 
word.  He  explicitly  distinguishes  between  the  word  and  the 
thing  ("  vocabulum  et  res  ").  He  says  that,  so  long  as  one  holds 
fast  to  the  doctrine  ("  modo  rem  teneam  ")  scripturally  defined  by 
the  Nicene  Council,  it  was  no  heresy  to  dislike  the  word  or  to 
refuse  to  employ  it.2  Hence  the  passage  affords  no  ground  for 
saying,  that  "  Luther  was  rash  enough  to  tamper  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ."  On  the  other  hand,  the  new 
doctrine  of  the  omnipresence  of  the  Body  of  Christ  evolved  by 
him  during  the  controversy  on  the  Sacrament,  can  scarcely  be 
considered  creditable.3  His  views  on  the  "  communicatio  idio- 
matum  "4  in  Christ,  and  particularly  on  the  Redemption,5  also 
contain  contradictions  not  to  be  explained  away. 

Contrariwise  we  must  dismiss  the  charge  based  on  his  repug 
nance  for  the  word  "  Threefoldhood,"  by  which  Germans 
designate  the  Trinity,  as  if  this  involved  antagonism  on  his  part 
to  the  mystery  itself.  He  was  referring  merely  to  the  term 
when  he  said  :  "  It  is  not  particularly  good  German  and  does  not 
sound  well,  but  since  it  cannot  be  improved  upon,  we  must  speak 
as  best  we  can."6  An  undeniable  confession  of  faith  in  the 
Trinity  is  contained  in  this  very  passage,  and  in  countless  others 
too. — When  abbreviating  the  Litany  he  indeed  omitted  the 
invocation  "  Sancta  Trinitas  unus  Deus,"  but  this  was  not  from 
any  hostility  to  the  doctrine  but  from  a  wish  not  to  have  "  too 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  341. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  117  f.  ;   "  Opp.  Jat.  var.,"  5,  p.  505  scq, 

3  Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theologie,"  22,  p.  145  f.          *  Ibid.,  p.  192  ff, 

5  Ibid,,  pp.  148-200. 

6  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  I2,  p.  1  f.  ;    122,  p.  408. 


HIS    ORTHODOX   SIDE  241 

many  words."  He  left  in  their  old  places  the  separate  invoca 
tions  of  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost,  and  deemed  this  quite 
sufficient. 

By  his  retention  of  the  belief  in  the  three  Divine  Persons 
and  in  the  Divinity  of  the  Redeemer,  Luther  was  instru 
mental  in  preserving  among  his  future  followers  a  treasure 
inherited  from  past  ages,  in  which  not  a  few  have  found 
their  consolation.  We  must  not  be  unmindful  of  how  he 
strove  to  defend  it  from  the  assaults  of  unbelief,  in  his  time 
still  personified  in  Judaism.  He  did  not  sin  by  debasing 
the  Second  Person  of  the  Trinity,  but  rather  by  foisting  on 
God  Incarnate  attributes  which  are  not  really  His  ;  for 
instance,  by  arguing  that,  owing  to  the  intimacy  of  the  two 
Natures,  Divine  and  Human,  in  Christ,  His  Human  Nature 
must  be  as  omnipresent  as  His  Divine  ;  or,  again,  by 
teaching  that  mere  belief  in  one's  redemption  and  sanctifica- 
tion  suffices  to  destroy  sin  ;  or,  again,  when  his  too  lively 
eschatological  fancy  led  him  to  see  Christ,  the  Almighty 
conqueror  of  the  devil  and  his  world,  already  on  the  point 
of  coming  to  the  Judgment.  And  just  as  Christ's  Godhead 
was  the  very  fulcrum  of  all  his  teaching,  so  he  defended 
likewise  the  other  Articles  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  with  such 
courage,  force  and  eloquence,  as,  since  his  death,  few  of  his 
followers  have  found  themselves  capable  of.  About  the 
Person  of  the  Redeemer  he  wove  all  the  usual  Christological 
doctrines,  His  Virgin  Birth,  His  truly  miraculous  Resurrec 
tion,  His  descent  into  Hell,  His  Ascension  and  Second 
Advent ;  finally,  also,  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  the 
future  Judgment,  and  the  everlasting  Heaven  and  ever 
lasting  Hell.  From  the  well-spring  of  the  ancient  creed, 
under  God's  Grace,  Lutherans  without  number  have  drawn 
and  still  continue  to  draw  motives  for  doing  what  is  good, 
consolation  amidst  affliction  and  strength  to  lead  pious  lives. 

"  What  holiness,  devotion  and  heroic  virtue  do  we  not 
find  among  non-Catholics.  God's  Grace  is  not  confined 
within  the  four  walls  of  the  Catholic  Church,  but  breathes 
even  in  the  hearts  of  outsiders,  working  in  them,  when 
opportunity  affords,  the  miracle  of  justification  and  adoption, 
and  thus  ensuring  the  eternal  salvation  of  countless  multi 
tudes  who  are  either  entirely  ignorant  of  the  true  Church, 
as  are  the  upright  heathen,  or  mistake  her  true  form  and 
nature  as  do  countless  Protestants,  brought  up  amidst  the 
iv. — R 


242          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

crassest  prejudice.    To  all  such  as  these  the  Church  does  not 
close  the  gates  of  Heaven  "  (J.  Pohle). 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  enumerate  amongst  Luther's 
favourable  traits  the  respect  he  always  paid  to  Holy 
Scripture  as  the  Word  of  God,  demanding  for  its  infallible 
revelations  a  willing  faith  and  the  sacrifice  of  one's  own 
whims. 

Greatly  as  he  erred,  in  wilfully  applying  his  new,  subjective 
principle  of  interpretation  and  in  excluding  certain  of  the  Sacred 
Books,  still  the  Bible  itself  he  always  declared  to  be  an  object  of 
the  highest  reverence.  Thanks  to  a  retentive  memory  he  made 
his  own  the  words  of  Scripture,  and  even  adopted  its  style.  His 
"  enthusiasm  for  the  inexhaustible  riches  and  Divine  character 
of  Holy  Scripture,"  of  which  the  earlier  Dollinger  speaks,1  has, 
and  with  some  reason,  been  held  up  by  Luther's  followers  as  the 
model,  nay,  the  palladium  of  Lutheranism  as  a  whole  ;  on  the 
other  hand,  however,  Dollinger's  accompanying  censure  on  Luther's 
"  arbitrary  misuse  "  of  the  Bible-text  must  also  commend  itself 
not  only  to  Catholics  but  to  every  serious  student  of  the  Bible. 
High  praise  for  Luther's  acquaintance  with  Scripture  combined 
with  severe  blame  for  his  deviation  from  tradition  are  forth 
coming  from  a  contemporary  of  the  early  years  of  Luther's  public 
career.  In  a  short,  imprinted  and  anonymous  work  entitled 
"  Urteil  iiber  Luther,"  now  in  the  Munich  State  Library,  we 
read  :  "In  the  fine  art  of  the  written  Word  of  God,  i.e.  the  Bible, 
I  hold  Martin  Luther  to  be  the  most  learned  of  men,  whether  of 
those  now  living  on  earth  or  of  those  who  have  departed  long 
since  ;  he  is,  moreover,  well  versed  in  the  two  languages,  both 
Latin  and  German.  I  do  not,  however,  regard  him  as  a  Christian 
— for  to  be  learned  and  eloquent  is  not  to  be  a  Christian — but  as  a 
heretic  and  schismatic  "  ;  he  was,  it  adds,  "  the  scourge  of  an 
angry  God."2 

In  the  field  of  scriptural  activity  his  German  translation 
of  the  whole  Bible  has  procured  for  him  enduring  fame. 
Since  the  birth  of  Humanism  not  a  few  scholars  had  drawn 
attention  to  the  languages  in  which  the  Bible  was  originally 
written  ;  Luther,  however,  was  the  first  who  ventured  to 
make  a  serious  attempt  to  produce  a  complete  translation 
of  all  the  Sacred  Books  on  the  basis  of  the  original  text. 

Thanks  to  his  German  version,  from  the  linguistic  point 
of  view  so  excellent,  Protestants  down  to  our  own  day  have 
been  familiar  with  the  Bible.  His  rendering  of  the  Bible 

1  Dollinger,  "  Luther,  eine  Skizze,"  p.  58  ;    "  KL.,"  82,  col.  343, 

2  "  Cod.  germ.  Monacensis,"  4842,  Bl.  1,  2'. 


MERITS   AS   TRANSLATOR  243 

stories  and  doctrines,  at  once  so  able  and  so  natural,  was 
a  gain  not  only  to  the  language  of  religion  but  even  to 
profane  literature,  just  as  his  writings  generally  have  with 
out  question  largely  contributed  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
German  tongue. 

The  scholarly  Caspar  Ulenberg,  writing  on  this  subject  from 
the  Catholic  side  in  the  16th  century,  expresses  himself  most 
favourably.  "  What  Luther,"  he  says,  "  after  consulting  the 
recognised  opinion  of  Hebrew  and  Greek  experts,  took  to  be  the 
true  meaning  of  the  text  under  discussion,  that  he  clothed  in  pure 
and  elegant  German,  on  the  cultivation  of  which  he  had  all  his 
life  bestowed  great  care.  He  had  made  such  progress  in  the  art 
of  writing,  teaching  and  expounding,  that,  if  we  take  into  con 
sideration  the  beauty  and  the  brilliance  of  his  language,  so  free 
from  artifice,  as  well  as  the  originality  of  his  expression,  we  must 
allow  that  he  excelled  all  in  the  use  of  the  German  tongue  so 
that  none  can  compare  with  him.  Thus  it  was  that  he  gained 
so  uncanny  an  influence  over  the  hearts  of  his  Germans,  that,  by 
caressing  and  flattering  and  using  the  allurements  of  the  Divine 
Word,  he  could  make  them  believe  whatever  he  pleased.  In  this 
translation  of  the  Bible  he  was,  above  all,  at  pains,  by  means  of  a 
certain  elegance  and  charm  of  speech,  to  entice  all  to  become  his 
readers,  and  thus  to  win  men's  hearts."1 

Luther  cannot  indeed  be  called  the  creator  of  New-High- 
German,  either  by  reason  of  his  translation  of  the  Bible  or  of  his 
other  German  writings.  Yet,  using  as  he  did  the  already  existing 
treasure  of  the  language  with  such  ability,  his  influence  on  the 
German  language  was  necessarily  very  great,  especially  as, 
owing  to  the  great  spread  of  his  writings  in  those  early  days  of 
printing,  his  works  were  practically  the  first  in  the  literary  field, 
and,  indeed,  in  many  places  excluded  all  others.  "  Luther's 
importance  as  regards  the  language,"  declares  one  of  the  most 
recent  students  of  this  matter,  "  is  less  apparent  in  the  details 
of  grammar,  in  which  he  is  sometimes  rather  backward,  than  in 
the  general  effect  of  his  exertions  on  behalf  of  New-High-German." 
It  is  of  small  importance,  the  same  writer  remarks,  "if  in  the 
mere  wealth  of  common  idioms  one  or  other  of  the  towns  even 
within  the  confines  of  his  native  Saxon  land — Grimma,  Leipzig, 
Dresden — were  in  advance  of  the  language  employed  by  Luther."2 

Luther's  translation  of  the  Bible  will  be  treated  of  more 
in  detail  elsewhere  (vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  3).  Here,  however, 
mention  may  be  made  of  the  fine  quality  of  the  German 
used  in  his  sermons,  his  theological  and  polemical  writings, 
as  well  as  in  his  popular  works  of  devotion. 

"  Gesch.  Luthers,"  German  edition,  Mayence,  1836,  p.  463  f. 
2  E.    Gutjahr,    "  Zur    Entstehung    der    neuhochdeutschen    Schrift- 
sprache  "  ;     "  Studien   zur    deutschen  Rechts-  und   Sprachgesch.,"  2, 
Leipzig,  1906. 


244         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  figures  and  comparisons  in  which  his  sparkling  fancy 
delights,  particularly  in  the  devotional  booklets  intended 
for  the  common  people,  his  popular,  sympathetic  and  often 
thoughtful  adaptation  of  his  language  to  the  subject  and  to 
the  personality  of  the  reader,  the  truly  German  stamp  of 
his  phraseology,  lending  to  the  most  difficult  as  well  as  to  the 
most  ordinary  subjects  just  the  clothing  they  require — all 
this  no  one  can  observe  and  enjoy  without  paying  tribute 
to  his  gift  of  description  and  language. 

"  His  vocabulary  was  strong  and  incisive,"  Johannes  Janssen 
truly  remarks,  "  his  style  full  of  life  and  movement,  his  similes,  in 
their  naked  plainness,  were  instinct  with  vigour  and  went  straight 
to  the  mark.  He  drew  from  the  rich  mines  of  the  vernacular 
tongue,  and  in  popular  eloquence  and  oratory  few  equalled  him. 
Where  he  still  spoke  in  the  spirit  of  the  Catholic  past  his  language 
was  often  truly  sublime.  In  his  works  of  instruction  and  edifica 
tion  he  more  than  once  reveals  a  depth  of  religious  grasp  which 
reminds  one  of  the  days  of  German  mysticism.1 

His  first  pupils  could  not  sufficiently  extol  his  gift  of  language. 
Justus  Jonas  in  his  panegyric  on  Luther  declares,  though  his 
words  are  far-fetched  :  "  Even  the  Chanceries  have  learnt  from 
him,  at  least  in  part,  to  speak  and  write  correct  German  ;  for  he 
revived  the  use  of  the  German  language  so  that  now  we  are  again 
able  to  speak  and  write  it  accurately,  as  many  a  person  of  degree 
must  testify  and  witness."2  And  of  the  influence  of  his  spoken 
words  on  people's  minds  Hieronymus  Weller  declares,  that  it  had 
been  said  of  him,  his  words  "  made  each  one  fancy  he  could  see 
into  the  very  hearts  of  those  troubled  or  tempted,  and  that  he 
could  heal  wounded  and  broken  spirits."3 

The  Spiritual  Guide. 

Not  merely  as  professor,  preacher  and  writer,  but  also  as 
spiritual  leader,  did  Luther  exhibit  many  qualities  which 
add  to  the  attraction  of  his  picture.  Whatever  may  be  the 
habits  of  polemical  writers,  the  historian  who  wishes  to 
acquit  himself  properly  of  his  task  must  not  in  so  momentous 

1  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  "  (Eng.  Trans.),  3,  p.  238. 

2  "  Leichenrede  "   of   Feb.    19,    1546,    commencement  ;     "  Luthers 
Werke,"  ed.  Walch,  21,  p.  362*  ff. 

3  "  Wellers  Deutsche  Schriften,"  Tl.  3,  p.  215.     Before  this  Weller 
remarks  :    "  For  he  was  equal  to  the  greatest  prophets  and  Apostles 
in  spirit,  strength,  wisdom,  ability  and  experience."     He  attributes 
to   him    "  a   prophetical   spirit,    notable   strength,    generosity   and    a 
power  of  faith  such  as  we  read  existed  in  the  prophet  Elias.  ..."  Great 
persecutions  and  temptations   had   been   his   masters   and    teachers  ; 
they  it  was  who  had  taught  him  the  art  of  speaking. 


THE   SPIRITUAL   GUIDE  245 

a  matter  evade  the  duty  of  depicting  the  favourable  as  well 
as  the  unfavourable  sides  of  Luther's  character. 

Though  Luther  did  not  regard  himself  as  the  pastor  of 
Wittenberg,  yet  as  much  depended  on  him  there  as  if  he 
had  actually  been  the  regular  minister  ;  moreover,  as  was 
only  to  be  expected,  throughout  the  Saxon  Electorate  as 
well  as  in  other  districts  won  over  to  him,  he  exercised  a 
certain  sway.  As  can  be  proved  from  his  letters  and  other 
documents,  he  freely  offered  his  best  services,  if  only  for  the 
good  repute  of  the  Evangel,  to  abolish  scandals,  to  punish 
preachers  who  led  bad  lives,  to  promote  attendance  at 
public  worship  and  the  reception  of  communion,  to  help  on 
the  cause  of  the  schools  and  the  education  of  the  young,  and 
in  every  other  way  to  amend  the  Christian  life. 

In  order  to  revive  discipline  at  Wittenberg,  he  tried  the 
effect  of  excommunication,  though  with  no  very  con 
spicuous  success.  He  took  the  brave  step  of  placing  the 
Town  Commandant,  Hans  Metzsch,  under  a  sort  of  ban 
for  his  notorious  disregard  of  the  Church.1  What  he  then 
told  the  congregation  was  calculated  to  inspire  a  wholesome 
dread,  and  to  recall  them  to  their  duties  towards  God  and 
their  neighbour.  The  incident  was  likely  to  prove  all  the 
more  effectual  seeing  that  Luther  had  on  his  side  both  Town 
Council  and  congregation,  Metzsch  having  previously  fallen 
out  with  them,  a  fact  which  undoubtedly  emboldened 
Luther.2 

When  Antinomianism,  with  its  perilous  teaching  against 
the  binding  character  of  the  Divine  Law,  strove  to  strike 
root  in  the  Saxon  Electorate,  he  set  himself  with  unusual 
vigour  to  combat  the  evil,  and  in  his  writings,  sermons  and 
letters  set  forth  principles  worthy  of  being  taken  to  heart 
concerning  the  importance  of  the  Commandments  and  the 
perils  of  self-will.  Similar  edifying  traits  are  apparent  in 
his  struggle  with  other  "  Rotters."  In  the  elimination  of 
the  sectarian  element  from  the  heart  of  the  new  faith  and  in 
instancing  its  dangers,  he  shows  himself  very  emphatic,  and, 
at  times,  the  force  of  his  reasoning  is  inimitable.  Neither 
was  he  slow  to  find  practical  measures  to  ensure  its  extirpa 
tion,  especially  when  it  threatened  the  good  name  and 
stability  of  his  work.3 

1  Above,  p.  210.  2  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  pp.  27,  37. 

3  On  the  inner  connection  between  his  own  teaching  and  Antinomi 
anism  and  on  his  controversy  with  Agricola,  see  vol.  v.,  xxix.,  2  and  3. 


246         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

He  exercised  many  of  the  other  labours  of  his  ministry  by 
means  of  his  writings  ;  with  the  help  of  his  pen  and  the 
press,  he,  in  his  quality  of  spiritual  guide,  attacked  all  the 
many-sided  questions  of  life,  seeking  to  impart  instruction 
to  his  followers  wherever  they  might  chance  to  be.  No  one 
so  far  had  made  such  use  of  the  newly  invented  art  of 
printing  for  the  purpose  of  exerting  religious  influence  and 
for  spiritual  government. 

He  despatched  a  vast  number  of  circular-letters  to  the 
congregations,  some  with  detailed  and  fervent  exhortations  ; 

O          O  7 

his  Postils  on  the  scriptural  Lessons  for  the  Sundays  and 
Feast  Days  he  scattered  far  and  wide  amongst  the  masses  ; 
he  was  also  interested  in  good  books  on  profane  subjects, 
and  exhorted  all  to  assist  in  the  suppression  of  obscene 
romances  and  tales;1  he  also  set  to  work  to  purify  ^Esop's 
Fables — which,  under  Humanist  influence,  had  become  a 
source  of  corruption — from  filthy  accretions  so  that  they 
might  be  of  use  in  the  education  of  the  young.2  The  collec 
tion  of  German  Proverbs  which  he  commenced  was  also 
intended  to  serve  for  the  instruction  of  youth.3 

He  justly  regretted  that  amongst  the  Legends  of  the 
Saints  current  amongst  the  people  there  were  many 
historical  untruths  and  impossibilities.  Many  of  his  remarks 
on  these  stories  do  credit  to  his  critical  sense,  particularly 
as  in  his  time  very  few  had  as  yet  concerned  themselves  with 
the  revision  of  these  legends.  It  was  far  from  advantageous 
to  ecclesiastical  literature,  that,  in  spite  of  the  well-grounded 
objections  raised  by  Luther  and  by  some  Catholic  scholars, 
deference  to  old-standing  tradition  allowed  such  fictions  to 
be  retained  and  even  further  enhanced.  "  It  is  the  devil's 
own  plague,"  Luther  groans,  "  that  we  have  no  reliable 
legends  of  the  Saints.  ...  To  correct  them  is  an  onerous 
task."  "  The  legend  of  St.  Catherine,"  he  says  on  the  same 
occasion  to  his  friends,  "  is  quite  at  variance  with  Roman 
history.  Whoever  concocted  such  a  tale  must  now  assuredly 
be  sitting  in  the  depths  of  hell."4  He  goes,  however,  too  far 
when  he  says  that  the  inaccuracies  were  intentional,  "  in 
famous  "  lies  devised  by  Popery,  and  adds  :  "  We  never 
dared  to  protest  against  them." — As  though  such  literary  and 

1  Cp.  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  504.  2  See  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  2. 

3  E.  Thiele,  "  Luthers  Sprichwortersamml.,"  Weimar,  1900. 

4  Mathesius,  "  ^    chreden,"  p.  346. 


THE   SPIRITUAL   GUIDE  247 

often  poetic  outgrowths  of  a  more  childlike  age  were  not  to 
be  regarded  as  merely  harmless,  and  as  though  criticism  had 
been  prohibited  by  the  Church.  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that 
criticism  had  not  been  sufficiently  exercised,  and  if  Luther's 
undertaking  and  the  controversies  of  the  16th  century 
helped  to  arouse  it,  or,  rather,  to  quicken  the  efforts  already 
made  in  this  direction,  first  in  the  field  of  Bible-study  and 
Church-history  and  then,  more  gradually,  in  that  of  popular 
legendary  and  devotional  literature,  no  wise  man  can  see 
therein  any  cause  for  grief. 

"  An  die  Radherrn  aller  Stedte  deutsches  Lands,  das  sie 
christliche  Schulen  auffrichten  und  halten  sollen  "  is  the 
title  of  one  of  Luther's  writings  of  1524,  in  which  he  urges 
the  erection  of  schools  with  such  vigour  that  the  circular  in 
question  must  be  assigned  a  high  place  among  his  hortatory 
works  :  "  Y\  ith  this  writing  Luther  will  recapture  the 
affection  of  many  of  his  opponents,"  wrote  a  Zwickau 
schoolmaster  after  reading  it.1  "  Ob  Kriegsleutte  auch 
ynn  seligem  Stande  seyn  kiinden  "  (1520)  is  the  heading  of 
another  broadsheet  of  his,  dealing  with  the  secular  sword, 
the  divinely  established  "  office  of  war  "  and  the  rights  of 
the  authorities.  For  this  Luther  made  use  of  Augustine's 
work  "  Contra  Fauslum  manichceum"2  It  is  said  that  part 
of  the  proofs,  without  any  author's  name,  was  put  into  the 
hands  of  Duke  George  of  Saxony ;  thereupon  he  remarked 
to  Lucas  Cranach  :  "  See,  I  have  here  a  booklet  which  is 
better  than  anything  Luther  could  do."3  At  a  later  date 
Luther  urged  the  people  in  eloquent  words  to  take  up  arms 
against  the  Turk,  though  he  had  at  first  been  opposed  to 
resistance  ;  nevertheless,  he  ever  maintained  his  unfavour 
able  attitude  towards  the  Empire,  already  described  in 
vol.  iii.,  even  on  this  question  of  such  vital  importance  to 
Germany.  He  was  relentless  in  his  criticism  of  German 
unpreparedness  for  war,  of  the  fatal  habit  of  disregarding 
danger  and  of  other  possible  sources  of  disaster  ;  he  also 
advanced  religious  motives  for  joining  in  the  war,  and 
exhorted  all  the  faithful  bravely  to  assist  by  their  prayers. 

Whilst    these    and    other    writings    deal    with    practical 

1  "  Briefe  an  Stephan  Roth,"  ed.  Buchwald  ("  Archiv  des  deutschen 
Buchhandels,"  16,  1893),  p.  37  ;    Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  548. 

2  L.  Cardauns,  "  Die  Lehre  vom  Widerstande  des  Volkes,"  Bonn, 
1903,  p.  125. 

3  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  10. 


248         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

questions  affecting  public  life  in  which  his  position  and 
religious  ideas  entitled  him  to  interfere,  a  large  number  of 
works  and  pamphlets  are  devoted  to  domestic  and  private 
needs.  In  his  "  Trost  fur  die  Weibern  welchen  es  ungerat 
gegangen  ist  mit  Kinder  Geberen  "  (1542)  he  even  has  a  kind 
word  for  such  wives  as  had  had  a  miscarriage,  and  consoles 
those  who  were  troubled  about  the  fate  of  their  unbaptised 
infants.  From  the  theological  point  of  view  this  subject 
had,  however,  been  treated  better  and  more  correctly  by 
others  before  his  day.  He  was  also  at  his  post  with  words 
of  direction  and  sympathy  when  pestilence  threatened,  as 
his  writing  "  Ob  man  fur  dem  Sterben  fliehen  muge  "  (1527) 
bears  witness.  He  frequently  composed  Prefaces  to  books 
written  by  others,  in  order  to  encourage  the  authors  and  to 
help  on  what  he  considered  useful  works  ;  thus,  for  instance, 
he  wrote  a  commendatory  Introduction  to  Justus  Menius's 
"  CEconomia  Christiana  "  (1529). 

The  New  Form  of  Confession, 

Luther's  pastoral  experience  convinced  him  that  Con 
fession  was  conducive  to  the  maintenance  and  furtherance 
of  religious  life.  He  accordingly  determined  to  re-introduce 
it  in  a  new  shape,  i.e.  without  invalidating  the  doctrines  he 
had  preached  concerning  faith  and  freedom.  Hence,  at  times 
we  find  him  speaking  almost  like  an  apologist  of  the  Church 
concerning  this  practice  of  earlier  ages  and  its  wholesome 
effects.  He  insists,  however,  that  no  confession  of  all 
mortal  sins  must  be  required,  nor  ought  Confession  to  be 
made  a  duty,  but  merely  counselled. 

In  his  work  "  Von  der  Beicht,  ob  der  Bapst  Macht  habe 
zu  gepieten  "  (1521)  he  begins  one  section  with  the  words  : 
;'  Two  reasons  ought  to  make  us  ready  and  willing  to 
confess,"  which  he  then  proceeds  to  expound  quite  in  the 
manner  of  the  olden  Catholic  works  of  instruction.1  Else 
where  he  expresses  his  joy  that  Confession  had  been  bestowed 
on  the  Church  of  Christ,  especially  for  the  relief  of  troubled 
consciences  ;  Confession  and  Absolution  must  not  be 
allowed  to  fall  into  disuse  ;  to  despise  so  costly  a  treasure 
would  be  criminal. 

Of  Luther  himself  it  is  related  again  and  again,  that,  after 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  176  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  307. 


THE   NEW  CONFESSION  249 

having  confessed,   he  received  "  Absolution,"  either  from 
Pastor  Bugenhagen  of  Wittenberg  or  from  someone  else. 

The  words  Absolution  and  Confession  must  not,  however, 
as  already  hinted,  be  allowed  to  mislead  those  accustomed 
to  their  Catholic  sense.  Sometimes  in  Catholic  works  we 
read  quotations  from  Luther  which  convey  the  wrong  im 
pression,  that  he  had  either  retained  the  older  doctrine 
practically  entire,  or  at  least  wished  to  do  so.  So  little  is 
this  the  case,  that,  on  the  contrary,  when  he  mentions 
Confession  it  is  usually  only  to  rail  at  the  "  slavery  "  of 
conscience  and  the  spiritual  tyranny  of  the  past.1  Absolu 
tion,  according  to  him,  could  be  received  "  from  the  lips  of 
the  pastor,  or  of  some  other  brother."2  Even  the  ordinary 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  to  the  faithful  he  considers  as 
"  fundamentally  and  at  bottom  an  '  absolutio  '  wherein 
forgiveness  of  sins  is  proclaimed."3  In  Confession  there 
was  no  "  Sacrament  "  in  the  sense  that  Baptism  and  the 
Supper  were  Sacraments,  but  merely  "  an  exercise  of  the 
virtue  of  Baptism,"  an  act  in  which  the  simple  Word 
became  a  means  of  grace.  The  Word  was  to  arouse  and 
awaken  in  the  heart  of  the  Christian  the  assurance  of 
forgiveness.  The  faith  of  the  penitent  is  the  sole  condition 
for  the  appropriation  of  the  Divine  promises.4  Of  the  way 
in  which  Luther  in  the  Smaller  Catechism  nevertheless 
emphasises  the  significance  of  the  Absolution  given  by  the 
confessor,5  Julius  Kostlin  says:  "These  statements  of 
Luther's  are  in  several  ways  lacking  in  clearness."6 

I  must,  in  my  trouble,  Luther  says  elsewhere  of  Confession, 
seek  for  comfort  from  my  brother  or  neighbour,  and  "  whatever 
consolation  he  gives  me  is  ratified  by  God  in  heaven  ['  erunt 
sohita  in  ccelo  '  (Mat.  xviii.  18)]"  ;  "He  consoles  me  in  God's 
stead  and  God  Himself  speaks  to  me  through  him."  "  When  I 
receive  absolution  or  seek  for  comfort  from  my  brother,"  then 
"  what  I  hear  is  the  voice  of  the  Holy  Ghost  Himself."  "  It  is  a 
wonderful  thing,  that  a  minister  of  the  Church  or  any  brother 

1  Cp.  vol.  i.,  pp.  290  ff.,  379  ff.,  384  f.  ;   vol.  ii.,  p.  59  ff. 

2  Kostlin,   "  Luthers  Theologie,"   22,   p.   251  ;    "  Opp.   lat.   exeg.," 
9,  p.  23  ;    "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  220  ;   Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  40  f.  ;   46, 
p.  123. 

3  "  An  den  Rat  zu  Nurnberg,   Gutachten  Luthers  und  Melanch- 
thons"  (April  18,  1533);    "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  8  ("  Brief wechsel" 
9,  p.  292). 

4  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  252  f.  5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  21,  p.  17  f. 
6  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  249. 


250         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

should  be  '  minister  regni  Dei  et  vitce  ceternce,  remissionis  pecca- 
torum.  .  .  ."l 

But  all  such  private  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  keys  not 
withstanding,  the  public  exercise  by  the  ordinary  ministers  of 
the  Church  was  also  to  be  held  in  honour  ;  it  was  to  take  place 
"  when  the  whole  body  of  the  Church  was  assembled."2  In  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  some  he  was  always  in  favour  of  the  general 
absolution  being  given  during  the  service.3  In  this  he  followed 
the  older  practice  which  still  exists,  according  to  which,  out  of 
devotion  and  not  with  any  idea  of  imparting  a  sacrament,  the 
"  Misereatur "  and  "  Indulgentiam "  were  said  over  the 
assembled  faithful  after  they  had  said  the  "  Confiteor."  He  also 
drew  up  a  special  form  for  this  general  confession  and  absolu 
tion.4 

But  even  such  public  Confession  was  not,  however,  to  be  made 
obligatory  ;  the  very  nature  of  Luther's  system  forbade  his 
setting  up  rules  and  obligations.  In  the  present  matter  Luther 
could  not  sufficiently  emphasise  the  Christian's  freedom,  although 
this  freedom,  as  man  is  constituted,  could  not  but  render  im 
possible  any  really  practical  results.  Hence  Confession,  private 
as  well  as  public,  was  not  to  be  prescribed,  so  much  so  that 
"  those  who  prefer  to  confess  to  God  alone  and  thereafter  receive 
the  Sacrament"  are  "quite  at  liberty  to  do  so."5  For  Con 
fession  was  after  all  merely  a  general  or  particular  confession 
of  trouble  of  conscience  or  sinfulness,  made  in  order  to  obtain 
an  assurance  that  the  sins  were  all  forgiven. 

It  was,  however,  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  penitents 
should  declare  whether  they  knew  all  that  was  necessary  about 
Christ  and  His  saving  Word,  and  that  otherwise  they  should  be 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  44,  p.  107  ff.  ;  46,  p.  292  ;  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.," 
11,  p.  136.  See  also  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  250.  Absolution  may  also  be  sent 
by  one  far  away,  as  Luther  wrote  to  Spalatin  :  "  Audi  et  crede  Us 
quce  Christus  per  me  tibi  loquitur.  Neque  enim  erro,  quod  scio,  aut 
satanica  loquor.  Christus  loquitur  per  me  et  iubet,  utfratri  tuo  in  communi 
fide  in  eum  credas.  Ipse  absolvit  te  ab  hoc  peccato  et  omnibus."  Aug. 
24,  1544,  "  Briefe,"  ed  De  Wette,  5,  p.  680.  2  Ibid.,  44,  p.  109. 

3  At  Nuremberg  Osiander  had  opposed  the  general  absolution,  and 
then,  in  spite  of  a   memorandum   from   Wittenberg   to  the   contrary 
(above,  p.  349,  n.  3),  persisted  in  his  opposition  so  that  the  magistrates 
made   another  application  to  Wittenberg  on  Sep.  27  ("  Brief wechsel," 
9,  p.  337)  and  again  got  a  similar  reply  ("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  27  ; 
"  Brief  wechsel,"  9,  p.  343).     In  the  new  "  memorandum  "  it  was  also 
stated  that  the  public  and  the  private  absolution  were  real  absolutions  ; 
but  Osiander  was  not  to  be  compelled  to  give  the  general  absolution. 

4  "  Brief  wechsel,"  12,  p.  398.     Form  of  Absolution  dated  Feb.  15, 
1540,  for  the  Nurembergers.      The  editor  remarks  :    "  The  question 
able  point  in  this  form,  viz.  that  the  Absolution  was  attached  to  an 
eventuality  ('  should  God  to-day  or  to-morrow  call  one  of  you  from 
this  vale  of  tears  '),  and  might  thus  be  regarded  as  valid  only  in  this 
event,  can  merely  be  hinted  at  here." 

6  These  words  were  added  by  Luther  in  1538  to  his  "  Unterricht  der 
Visitatorn"  (1528);  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  220;  Erl.  ed.,  23, 
p.  40  f.  ;  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  251. 


251 

instructed.  "  If  Christians  are  able  to  give  an  account  of  their 
faith,"  Luther  says  in  1540  of  the  practice  prevailing  at  Witten 
berg,  "  and  display  an  earnest  desire  to  receive  the  Sacrament, 
then  we  do  not  compel  them  to  make  a  private  Confession  or  to 
enumerate  their  sins."  For  instance,  nobody  thinks  of  compelling 
Master  Philip  (Melanchthon).  "  Our  main  reason  for  retaining 
Confession  is  for  the  private  rehearsal  of  the  Catechism."1 

In  1532,  amidst  the  disturbance  caused  by  Dionysius  Melander, 
the  Zwinglian  faction  gained  the  upper  hand  at  Frankfort  on  the 
Maine,  and  the  preachers,  supported  by  the  so-called  fanatics,  con 
demned  and  mocked  at  the  Confession,  which,  according  to  the 
Smaller  Catechism,  was  to  be  made  to  a  confessor,  to  be  duly 
addressed  as  "  Your  Reverence."  Luther,  in  his  "  Brieff  an  die 
zu  Franckfort  am  Meyn  "  (Dec.  1532),  accordingly  set  forth  his 
ideas  on  Confession,  in  what  manner  it  was  to  be  retained  and 
rendered  useful.2  "  We  do  not  force  anyone  to  go  to  Confession," 
he  there  writes,  "  as  all  our  writings  prove,  just  as  we  do  not 
enquire  who  rejects  our  Catechism  and  our  teaching."  He  had 
no  wish  to  drive  proud  spirits  "  into  Christ's  Kingdom  by  force." 
As  against  the  self-accusation  of  all  mortal  sins  required  in 
Popery  he  had  introduced  a  "  great  and  sublime  freedom  "  for 
the  quieting  of  "  agonised  consciences  "  ;  the  penitent  need  only 
confess  "  some  few  sins  which  oppress  him  most,"  even  this  is 
not  required  of  "  those  who  know  what  sin  really  is,"  "  like  our 
Pastor  [Bugenhagen]  and  our  Vicar,  Master  Philip."  "  But 
because  of  the  dear  young  people  who  are  daily  growing  up  and 
of  the  common  folk  who  understand  but  little,  we  retain  the 
usage  in  order  that  they  may  be  trained  in  Christian  discipline 
and  understanding.  For  the  object  of  such  Confession  is  not 
merely  that  we  may  hear  the  sins,  but  that  we  may  learn  whether 
they  are  acquainted  with  the  Our  Father,  the  Creed,  the  Ten 
Commandments  and  all  that  is  comprised  in  the  Catechism.  .  .  . 
Where  can  this  be  better  done,  and  when  is  it  more  necessary 
than  when  they  are  about  to  approach  the  Sacrament  ?  " 

"  Thus,  previously  [to  the  Supper],  the  common  people  are  to 
be  examined  and  made  to  say  whether  they  know  the  articles  of 
the  Catechism  and  understand  what  it  is  to  sin  against  them,  and 
if  they  will  for  the  future  learn  more  and  amend,  and  otherwise 
are  not  to  be  admitted  to  the  Sacrament."  "  But  if  a  pastor  who 
is  unable  at  all  times  and  places  to  preach  God's  Word  to  the 
people,  takes  advantage  of  such  time  and  place  as  offers  when 
they  come  to  Confession,  isn't  there  just  the  devil  of  a  row  !  As 
if,  forsooth,  he  were  acting  contrary  to  God's  command,  and  as  if 
those  fanatics  were  saints,  who  would  prevent  him  from  teaching 
God's  Word  at  such  a  time  and  place,  when  in  reality  we  are 
bound  to  teach  it  in  all  places  and  at  all  times  when  or  where 
soever  we  can."4 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  185. 

2  "Werke,"   Weim.   ed.,   30,   3,  p.   558  ff.  ;    Erl.   ed.,   262,  p.   372 
("  Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  251). 

3  P.  565  ff.  =  381  ff.  4  P.  567  f.  =  383,  385. 


252          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

This  instruction,  which  is  the  "  main  reason  "  for  retaining 
Confession,  is  to  be  followed,  according  to  the  same  letter,  by 
"  the  Absolutio  "  pronounced  by  the  preacher  in  God's  stead, 
i.e.  by  the  word  of  the  confessor  which  may  "  comfort  the  heart 
and  confirm  it  in  the  faith."  Of  this  same  word  Luther  says  : 
"  Who  is  there  who  has  climbed  so  high  as  to  be  able  to  dispense 
with  or  to  despise  God's  Word  ?  "* 

It  is  in  the  light  of  such  explanations  that  we  must 
appreciate  the  fine  things  in  praise  of  Confession,  so  fre 
quently  quoted,  which  Luther  says  in  his  letter  to  Frankfurt. 

Luther  goes  on  to  make  an  admission  which  certainly 
does  him  honour :  "  And  for  this  [the  consolation  and 
strength  it  affords]  I  myself  stand  most  in  need  of  Con 
fession,  and  neither  will  nor  can  do  without  it  ;  for  it 
has  given  me,  and  still  gives  me  daily,  great  comfort  when 
I  am  sad  and  in  trouble.  But  the  fanatics,  because  they 
trust  in  themselves  and  are  unacquainted  with  sadness,  are 
ready  to  despise  this  medicine  and  solace." 

He  had  already  said  :  "If  thousands  and  thousands  of 
worlds  were,  mine,  I  should  still  prefer  to  lose  everything 
rather  than  that  one  little  bit  of  this  Confessio'n  should  be 
lost  to  the  churches.  Nay,  I  would  prefer  the  Popish 
tyranny,  with  its  feasts,  fasts,  vestments,  holy  places, 
tonsures,  cowls  and  whatever  I  might  bear  without  damage 
to  the  faith,  rather  than  that  Christians  should  be  deprived 
of  Confession.  For  it  is  the  Christian's  first,  most  necessary 
and  useful  school,  where  he  learns  to  understand  and  to 
practise  God's  Word  and  his  faith,  which  cannot  be  so 
thoroughly  done  in  public  lectures  and  sermons."2 

"  Christians  are  not  to  be  deprived  of  Confession."  On 
this,  and  for  the  same  reasons,  Luther  had  already  insisted 
in  the  booklet  on  Confession  he  had  published  in  1529.  The 
booklet  first  appeared  as  an  appendix  to  an  edition  of  his 
Greater  Catechism  published  in  that  year,  and  is  little  more 
than  an  amended  version  of  Rorer's  notes  of  his  Palm 
Sunday  sermon  in  1529. 3 

In  this  booklet  on  Confession,  also  entitled  "  A  Short 
Exhortation  to  Confession,"4  he  says  of  the  "secret  Con 
fession  made  to  a  brother  alone  "  :  "  Where  there  is  some 
thing  special  that  oppresses  or  troubles  us,  worries  us  and 

1  P.  569  =  386.  2  P.  569  =  385. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  29,  p.  133  f. 

4  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  87  ff. 


THE   NEW   CONFESSION  253 

will  give  us  no  rest,  or  if  we  find  ourselves  halting  in  our 
faith,"  we  should  "  complain  of  this  to  a  brother  and  seek 
counsel,  consolation  and  strength."  "  Where  a  heart  feels 
its  sinfulness  and  is  desirous  of  comfort,  it  has  here  a  sure 
refuge  where  it  may  find  and  hear  God's  Word."  "  Who 
ever  is  a  Christian,  or  wishes  to  become  one,  is  hereby  given 
the  good  advice  to  go  and  fetch  the  precious  treasure." 
"  Thus  we  teach  now  what  an  excellent,  costly  and  consoling 
thing  Confession  is,  and  admonish  all  not  to  despise  so  fine 
a  possession."  As  the  "  parched  and  hunted  hart  "  panteth 
after  the  fountains,  so  ought  our  soul  to  pant  after  "  God's 
Word  or  Absolution." — The  zeal  expected  of  the  penitent  is 
well  described,  but  here,  as  is  so  often  the  case  with  Luther, 
we  again  find  the  mistake  resulting  from  his  false  idealism, 
viz.  that,  after  doing  away  with  all  obligation  properly  so 
called,  personal  fervour  and  the  faith  he  preached  would 
continue  to  supply  the  needful. 

Before  Luther's  day  Confession  had  been  extolled  on 
higher  grounds  than  merely  on  account  of  the  comfort  and 
instruction  it  afforded.  It  had  been  recognised  as  a  true 
Sacrament  instituted  by  Christ  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins, 
and  committed  by  Him  with  the  words  "  Whose  sins  you 
shall  forgive,"  etc.  (John  xx.  22  f.),  to  the  exercise  of  duly 
appointed  ministers.  Yet  the  earlier  religious  literature 
had  not  been  behindhand  in  pointing  out  how  great  a  boon 
it  was  for  the  human  heart  to  be  able  to  pour  its  troubles 
into  the  ears  of  a  wise  and  kindly  guide,  who  could  impart 
a  true  absolution  and  pour  the  balm  of  consolation  and  the 
light  of  instruction  into  the  soul  kneeling  humbly  before 
him  as  God's  own  representative. 

As  regards  the  instruction,  on  which  Luther  lays  such  stress  as 
the  "  main  reason  "  for  retaining  the  practice,  the  Catholic 
Confession  handbooks  of  that  period,  particularly  some  recently 
re-edited,  show  how  careful  the  Church  was  about  this  matter. 

Franz  Falk  has  recently  made  public  three  such  handbooks,  of 
which  very  few  copies  were  hitherto  known.1  One  of  these  is  the 
work  of  a  priest  of  Frankfurt  a.  M.,  Magister  Johann  Wolff  (Lupi), 
and  was  first  published  in  1478  ;  the  second  is  a  block-book 
containing  a  preparation  for  Confession,  probably  printed  at 
Nuremberg  in  1475  ;  the  third  an  Augsburg  manual  of  Con- 

1  "  Drei  Beichtbiichlein  nach  den  Zehngeboten  aus  der  Fruhzeit 
der  Buchdrackerkunst,"  Monster,  1907  ("  Reformationsgesch.  Studien 
und  Texte,"  Hft.  2). 


254         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

fession  printed  in  1504.  The  last  two  were  intended  more  for 
popular  use  and  give  the  sins  in  the  order  of  the  Decalogue. 
The  first,  by  Wolff,  pastor  of  St.  Peter's  at  Frankfurt,  consists  of 
two  parts,  one  for  children,  the  other  for  "  older  people,  learned 
or  unlearned,"  containing  examinations  of  conscience,  very 
detailed  and  explicit  in  some  parts,  into  the  sins  against  the  Ten 
Commandments,  the  seven  capital  sins,  and,  finally,  the  sins 
committed  with  "  the  five  outward  senses."  The  examina 
tion  of  conscience  for  children,  for  the  sake  of  instruction  also 
includes  the  Our  Father,  Hail  Mary,  Creed  and  Decalogue,  also 
the  list  of  capital  sins,  Sacraments  and  Eight  Beatitudes.  The 
copious  Latin  tags  from  Peter  Lombard,  Scotus,  Gerson,  etc., 
point  to  the  manual  having  been  meant  primarily  as  a  guide  for 
the  clergy,  on  whom  an  appendix  also  impresses  the  advantages 
of  a  frequent  explanation  of  the  Ten  Commandments  from  the 
pulpit.  Schoolmasters  too,  so  the  manual  says,  should  also  be 
urged  to  instruct  on  the  Commandments  those  committed  to 
their  care.  Luther's  manual  on  Confession  contains  so  many 
echoes  of  Wolff's  work  (or  of  other  Catholic  penitential  hand 
books)  that  one  of  Wolff's  Protestant  editors  remarks  :  "  Such 
agreement  is  certainly  more  than  a  mere  chance  coincidence," 
and,  further  :  "It  is  difficult  in  view  of  the  great  resemblance  of 
thought,  and  in  places  even  of  language,  not  to  assume  that  the 
younger  man  is  indebted  to  his  predecessor."1  However  this 
may  be,  Wolff's  work,  though-  holding  no  very  high  place  as 
regards  either  arrangement  or  style,  clearly  expresses  the  general 
trend  of  the  Catholic  teaching  on  morality  at  that  time,  and 
refutes  anew  the  unfounded  charge  that  religious  instruction  for 
the  people  was  entirely  absent. 

"We  see  how  mature  and  keen  in  many  particulars  was  the 
moral  sense  in  that  much-abused  period.  .  .  .  The  author  is 
not  satisfied  with  merely  an  outward,  pharisaical  righteousness, 
but  the  spirit  is  what  he  everywhere  insists  on.  .  .  .  He  also 
defines  righteousness  ...  as  absolute  uprightness  of  spirit,  thank 
ful,  devoted  love  of  God  and  pure  charity  towards  our  neigh 
bour,  free  from  all  ulterior  motive."  These  words,  of  the  "  Leip- 
ziger  Zeitung  "  ("  Wissenschaftliche  Beilage,"  No.  10,  1896), 
regarding  the  Leipzig  "  Beichtspiegel  "  of  1495,  Falk  applies 
equally  to  Wolff's  handbook  for  Confession.2 

This  latter  instruction  dwells  particularly  on  the  need  of 
"  contrition,  sorrow  and  grief  for  sin  "  on  the  part  of  the  penitent. 

1  F.   W.   Battenberg,   "  Beichtbiichlein  dcs  Mag.   Wolff,"   Giessen, 
1907,  pp.  189,  205. 

2  Falk,  ibid.,  p.  13.    Falk  also  quotes  (p.  14)  a  noteworthy  observa 
tion  of  Luthmer's  ("  Zeitschr.  fur  christl.  Kunst,"  9,  p.  5) :    "The  close 
of  the  15th  century  was  the  time  when  the  Decalogue,  as  the  starting- 
point  for  Confession,  was  most  frequently  commentated,  described  and 
depicted  pictorially.     For  those  unable  to  read,  tables  with  the  Com 
mandments  luridly  pictured   hung  in  the   churches,    schools  and  re 
ligious  institutions,  and   the   books  on  this   subject  were  abundantly 
illustrated  with  woodcuts." 


THE   NEW   CONFESSION  255 

N.  Paulus,  in  several  articles,  has  furnished  superabundant  proof, 
that  in  those  years,  which  some  would  have  us  believe  were 
addicted  to  the  crassest  externalism,  the  need  of  contrition  in 
Confession  was  earnestly  dwelt  upon  in  German  religious  writings. 1 

Luther,  however,  even  in  the  early  days  of  his  change, 
under  the  influence  of  a  certain  distaste  and  prejudice  in 
favour  of  his  own  pet  ideas,  had  conceived  an  aversion  for 
Confession.  Here  again  his  opposition  was  based  on  purely 
personal,  psychological  grounds.  The  terrors  he  had  en 
dured  in  Confession  owing  to  his  curious  mental  constitu 
tion,  his  enmity  to  all  so-called  holiness-by-works — leading 
him  to  undervalue  the  Church's  ancient  institution  of 
Confession — and  the  steadily  growing  influence  of  his 
prejudices  and  polemics,  alone  explain  how  he  descended 
so  often  to  the  most  odious  and  untrue  misrepresentations 
of  Confession  as  practised  by  the  Papists. 

What  in  the  depths  of  his  heart  he  really  desired,  and 
what  he  openly  called  for,  viz.  a  Confession  which  should 
heal  the  wounds  of  the  soul  and,  by  an  enlightened  faith, 
promote  moral  betterment — that,  alas,  he  himself  had 
destroyed  with  a  violent  hand. 

In  his  letter  to  Frankfurt  quoted  above  he  abuses  the 
Catholic  system  of  Confession  because  it  requires  the 
admission  of  all  mortal  sins,  and  calls  it  "  a  great  and  ever 
lasting  martyrdom,"  "  trumped  up  as  a  good  work  whereby 
God  may  be  placated."  He  calumniates  the  Catholic  past 
by  declaring  it  did  nothing  but  "  count  up  sins  "  and  that 
"  the  insufferable  burden,  and  the  impossibility  of  obeying 
the  Papal  law  caused  such  fear  and  distress  to  timorous  souls 
that  they  were  driven  to  despair."  And,  in  order  that  the 
most  odious  charge  may  not  be  wanting,  he  concludes  : 
"  This  brought  in  money  and  goods,  so  that  it  became  an 
idol  throughout  the  whole  world,  but  it  was  no  doctrine, 
examination  or  exercise  leading  to  the  confession  and 
acknowledgment  of  Christ."2  The  fables  which  he  bolstered 

"  Die  Reue  in  den  deutschen  Beichtschriften  des  ausgehenden 
MA.,"  in  "Zeitschr.  fur  kath.  Theol.,"  28,  1904,  pp.  1-36.  "  In  den 
deutschen  Erbauungsschriften  des  ausgehenden  MA.,"  ibid.,  pp.  440-485. 
"  In  den  deutschen  Sterbebtichlein  des  ausgehenden  MA.,"  ibid., 
pp.  682-698. — Cp.  also,  Luzian  Pfleger,  "  Die  Reue  in  der  deutschen 
Dichtung  des  MA."  ("  Wiss.  Beil.  zur  Germania,"  1910,  Nos.  45-47). 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  pp.  566,  568  f.  ;  Erl.  ed.,  262,  pp.  382, 
385. 


256          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

up  on  certain  abuses,  of  which  even  the  Papal  penitentiary 
was  guilty,  were  only  too  readily  believed  by  the  masses.1 

Church  Music. 

In  order  to  enliven  the  church  services  Luther  greatly 
favoured  congregational  singing.  Of  his  important  and 
successful  labours  in  this  direction  we  shall  merely  say  here, 
that  he  himself  composed  canticles  instinct  with  melody 
and  force,  which  were  either  set  to  music  by  others  or  sung 
to  olden  Catholic  tunes,  and  became  hugely  popular  among 
Protestants,  chiefly  because  their  wording  expresses  so  well 
the  feelings  of  the  assembled  congregation.  One  of  Luther's 
Hymnbooks,  with  twenty-four  hymns  composed  by  himself, 
appeared  in  1524.2 

Music,  particularly  religious  music,  he  loved  and  cherished, 
yielding  himself  entirely  to  the  enjoyment  of  its  inspiring 
and  ennobling  influence.  As  a  schoolboy  he  had  earned 
his  bread  by  singing ;  at  the  University  he  delighted  his 
comrades  by  his  playing  on  the  lute  ;  later  he  never  willingly 
relinquished  music,  and  took  care  that  the  hours  of  recrea 
tion  should  be  gladdened  by  the  singing  of  various  motets.3 
Music,  he  said,  dispelled  sad  thoughts  and  was  a  marvellous 
cure  for  melancholy.  In  his  Table-Talk  he  describes  the 
moral  influence  of  music  in  language  truly  striking.4  "  My 
heart  overflows  and  expands  to  music  ;  it  has  so  often 
refreshed  and  delivered  me  amidst  the  worst  troubles,"  thus 
to  the  musician  Senfl  at  Munich  \vhen  asking  him  to  com 
pose  a  motet.5  He  supplied  an  Introduction  in  the  shape  of 
a  poem  entitled  "  Dame  Music  "  to  Johann  Walther's  "  The 
Praise  and  Prize  of  the  lovely  art  of  Music  "  (1538).  It 
commences  :6  There  can  be  no  ill-will  here — Where  all  sing 
with  voices  clear — Hate  or  envy,  wrath  or  rage, — When 
sweet  strains  our  minds  engage.  Being  himself  conversant 
with  musical  composition,  he  took  pleasure  in  Walther's 

1  Cp.  on  the  abuses  of  the  Penitentiary  and  for  an  elucidation  of 
certain  misunderstandings,  E.  G  oiler,  "  Die  papstl.  Ponitentiaric  von 
ihrem  Ursprung  bis  .   .  .  Pius  V.,"  2  vols.,  Rome,  1907-1911. 

2  More  on  Luther  and  Hymnology  in  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  4. 

3  See    Mathesius,    "  Tischreden,"    pp.    Ill,    150,    389:     "  eyregias 
cantilenas  post  ccenam  cecinerunt."     He  himself  on  one  occasion  sung 
"  octavo  tono,"  ibid.,  p.  332  ;   cp.  p.  391. 

4  Cp.,  e.g.,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  307  ;    "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil, 
3,  p.  148  seq. 

5  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  171  f.      6  The  whole  in  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  503. 


A   MAN   OF   FEELING  257 

description  of  counterpoint  and  in  his  ingenious  comparison 
of  the  sequence  of  melodies  to  a  troop  of  boys  at  play. 

Grauert  admirably  groups  together  "  Luther's  poetic 
talent,  the  gift  of  language,  which  enabled  him  so  to  master 
German,  his  work  for  German  hymnology,  his  enthusiastic 
love  of  music,  of  which  he  well  knew  the  importance  as  a 
moral  factor,  and  his  familiarity  with  the  higher  forms  of 
polyphonic  composition."  He  also  remarks  quite  rightly 
that  these  favourable  traits  had  been  admitted  unreservedly 
by  Johannes  Janssen.1 

2.  Emotional  Character  and  Intellectual  Gifts 
The  traits  mentioned  above  could  hardly  be  duly  appreci 
ated    unless    we    also    took    into    account    certain    natural 
qualities  in  Luther  from  which  his  depth  of  feeling  sprang. 

A  Catholic  has  recently  called  him  an  "  emotional  man," 
and,  so  far  as  thereby  his  great  gifts  of  intellect  and  will  are 
not  called  into  question,  the  description  may  be  allowed  to 
stand.2  Especially  is  this  apparent  in  his  peculiar  humour, 
which  cannot  fail  to  charm  by  its  freshness  and  spontaneity 
all  who  know  his  writings  and  his  Table-Talk,  even  though 
his  witticisms  quite  clearly  often  served  to  screen  his  bitter 
vexation,  or  to  help  him  to  react  against  depression,  and  were 
frequently  disfigured  by  obscenity  and  malice.3  It  is  a  more 
grateful  task  to  observe  the  deep  feeling  expressed  in  his 
popular  treatment  of  religious  topics.  Johannes  Janssen 
declares  that  he  finds  in  him  "  more  than  once  a  depth  of 
religious  grasp  which  reminds  one  of  the  days  of  German 
mysticism,"4  while  George  Evers,  in  a  work  otherwise 
hostile  to  Luther,  admits  :  "  We  must  acknowledge  that  a 
truly  Christian  credulity  peeps  out  everywhere,  and,  par 
ticularly  in  the  Table-Talk,  is  so  simple  and  childlike  as  to 
appeal  to  every  heart."  Evers  even  adds  :  "  His  religious 
life  as  pictured  there  gives  the  impression  of  a  man  of 
prayer."5 

1  Grauert,  "  Heinrich  Denifle,"2  1906,  p.  7. 

2  "  He  possessed  all  the  gifts  which  go  to  make  an  emotional  man, 
as  is  apparent  everywhere  ;    depth,  however,  and  true  inwardness  were 
not  his."     A.  M.  Weiss,  "  Lutherpsychologie,"2  p.  223.     What  he  says 
of  Luther's  "  depth  "  must  be  read  in  the  light  of  what  is  said  in  the 
text  above. 

3  See  vol.  v.,  xxxi.,  5.  4  Above,  p.  244. 

5  Evers,  "  Martin  Luther,"  6,  p.  701.     Further  details  on  Luther's 
prayers  below,  p.  274  ff. 

IV.— S 


258          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  circumstantial  and  reliable  account  given  by  Johann 
Cochlacus  of  an  interview  which  he  had  with  Luther  at 
Worms  in  1521  gives  us  a  certain  glimpse  into  the  latter's 
feelings  at  that  critical  juncture.  After  holding  a  lengthy 
disputation  together,  the  pair  withdrew  into  another  room 
where  Cochlacus  implored  his  opponent  to  admit  his  errors 
and  to  make  an  end  of  the  scandal  he  was  giving  to  souls. 
Both  were  so  much  moved  that  the  tears  came  to  their  eyes. 
"  I  call  God  to  witness,"  writes  Cochlaeus,  "  that  I  spoke  to 
him  faithfully  and  with  absolute  conviction."  He  pointed 
out  to  him  as  a  friend  how  willing  the  Pope  and  all  his 
opponents  were  to  forgive  him  ;  he  was  perfectly  ready  to 
admit  and  condemn  the  abuses  in  connection  with  the 
indulgences  against  which  Luther  had  protested  ;  his 
religious  apostasy  and  the  revolt  of  the  peasants  whom  he 
was  leading  astray  were,  however,  a  different  matter.  The 
matter  was  frankly  discussed  between  the  two,  partly  in 
German,  partly  in  Latin.  Luther  finally  mastered  the 
storm  obviously  raging  within  and  brought  the  conversation 
to  an  end  by  stating  that  it  did  not  rest  with  him  to  undo 
what  had  been  done,  and  that  greater  and  more  learned  men 
than  he  were  behind  it.  On  bidding  him  farewell,  Cochkeus 
assured  him  with  honest  regret  that  he  would  continue  the 
literary  feud  ;  Luther,  for  his  part,  promised  to  answer  him 
vigorously.1 

Luther's  mental  endowments  were  great  and  unique. 

Nature  had  bestowed  on  him  such  mental  gifts  as  must 
astonish  all,  the  more  they  study  his  personality.  His 
extraordinary  success  was  due  in  great  part  to  these  rare 
qualities,  which  were  certainly  calculated  to  make  of  him  a 
man  truly  illustrious  had  he  not  abused  them.  His  lively 
reason,  quick  grasp  and  ready  tongue,  his  mind,  so  well 
stocked  with  ideas,  and,  particularly,  the  inexhaustible 
fertility  of  his  imagination,  allowing  him  to  express  himself 
with  such  ease  and  originality,  enchanted  all  who  came  into 
contact  with  him. 

Pollich  of  Mellerstadt,  one  of  the  most  highly  respected  Pro 
fessors  of  the  Wittenberg  University,  said  of  Luther,  when  as  yet 

1  The  account  by  Cochlseus,  taken  from  a  special  print  of  1540 
"of  which  sufficient  account  has  hardly  been  made,"  in  Enders, 
"  Luthers  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  174  ff.  New  edition  of  the  "  Colloqium 
Cochlcei,"  by  J.  Greving,  in  "  Flugschriften  aus  den  ersten  Jahren 
der  Reformation,"  4,  Hft.  3,  Leipzig,  1910. 


HIS   TALENTS  259 

the  latter  was  scarcely  known  :  "  Keep  an  eye  on  that  young 
monk,  Master  Martin  Luther,  he  has  a  reason  so  fine  and  keen 
as  I  have  not  come  across  in  all  my  life  ;  he  will  certainly  become 
a  man  of  eminence."1  Jonas,  his  friend,  assures  us  that  others 
too,  amongst  them  Lang  and  Staupitz,  admitted  they  had  never 
known  a  man  of  such  extraordinary  talent.2  Urban  Rhegius, 
who  visited  him  in  1534,  in  the  report  he  gives  shows  himself 
quite  overpowered  by  Luther's  mind  and  talent  :  "  He  is  a 
theologian  such  as  we  rarely  meet.  I  have  always  thought  much 
of  Luther,  but  now  I  think  of  him  more  highly  than  ever.  For 
now  I  have  seen  and  heard  what  cannot  be  explained  in  writing 
to  anyone  not  present.  ...  I  will  tell  you  how  I  feel.  It  is  true 
we  all  of  us  write  occasionally  and  expound  the  Scriptures,  but, 
compared  with  Luther,  we  are  children  and  mere  schoolboys."3 
His  friends  generally  stood  in  a  certain  awe  of  his  greatness, 
though,  in  their  case,  we  can  account  otherwise  for  their  admira 
tion.  Later  writers  too,  even  amongst  the  Catholics,  felt  in  the 
imposing  language  of  his  writings  the  working  of  a  powerful  mind, 
much  as  they  regretted  his  abuse  of  his  gifts.  "  His  mind  was 
both  sharp  and  active,"  such  was  the  opinion  of  Sforza  Pallavicini, 
the  Jesuit  author  of  a  famous  history  of  the  Council  of  Trent  ; 
"  he  was  made  for  learned  studies  and  pursued  them  without 
fatigue  to  either  mind  or  body.  His  learning  seemed  his  greatest 
possession,  and  this  he  was  wont  to  display  in  his  discourse.  In 
him  felicity  of  expression  was  united  with  a  stormy  energy. 
Thereby  he  won  the  applause  of  those  who  trust  more  to  appear 
ance  than  to  reality.  His  talents  filled  him  with  a  self-reliance 
which  the  respect  shown  him  by  the  masses  only  intensified."4 
"  Luther's  mind  was  a  fertile  one,"  he  writes  elsewhere,  "  but  its 
fruits  were  more  often  sour  than  ripe,  more  often  abortions  of  a 
giant  than  viable  offspring."5  His  alert  and  too-prolific  fancy 
even  endangered  his  other  gifts  by  putting  in  the  shade  his  real 
intellectual  endowments.  "  His  imagination,"  Albert  Weiss 
truly  says,  "  was,  next  to  his  will,  the  most  strongly  developed  of 
his  inner  faculties,  and  as  powerful  as  it  was  clear.  Herein 
chiefly  lies  the  secret  of  his  power  of  language."6 

To  his  temperamental  and  intellectual  qualities,  which 
undoubtedly  stamped  his  works  with  the  impress  of  a 
"  giant,"  we  must  add  his  obstinate  strength  of  will  and  his 
extraordinary  tenacity  of  purpose. 

1  So  Jonas  declares  in  his  funeral  address  on  Luther.     "  Luthers 
Werke,"  ed.  Walch,  21,  p.  362*  ff. 

2  Ibid.  3  In  Uhlhorn,  "  Urbanus  Rhegius,"  1861,  p.  159  f. 

*  "  Storia  del  Concilio  di  Trento,"  1,  4,  Roma,  1664,  1,  p.  58.  Hefe 
we  read  :  "  Non  essendo  povero  di  letteratura,  ne  pareva  ricchissimo, 
perche  portava  tutto  il  suo  capitale  nella  punta  della  lingua." 

5  6,  10  (i.,  p.  691);  Denifle  ("Luther  und  Luthertum,"  I2,  p.  24) 
calls  Luther  "  not  merely  talented,  but  in  many  points  very  much  so." 
Ibid.,  p.  xxv.,  he  enumerates  Luther's  "  good  natural  qualities,"  which 
ho  is  ready  to  prize.  6  "  Lutherpsychologie,"2  p.  225. 


260          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Were  it  possible  to  separate  his  will  from  his  aims  and 
means,  and  to  appreciate  it  apart,  then  one  could  scarcely 
rate  it  high  enough.  Thousands,  even  of  the  bravest,  would 
have  quailed  before  the  difficulties  he  had  to  face  both 
without  and  within  his  camp.  The  secret  of  his  success 
lay  simply  in  his  ability  to  rise  superior  to  every  difficulty, 
thanks  to  his  defiance  and  power  of  will.  Humanly  it  is 
hard  to  understand  how  all  attacks  and  defeats  only  served 
to  embolden  him.  Protestants  have  spoken  of  the  "  de 
moniacal  greatness  "  manifest  in  Luther,  have  called  him  a 
man  of  "  huge  proportions  and  power  "  in  whose  "  breast 
two  worlds  wrestled,"  and,  on  account  of  his  "  heroic 
character,"  have  even  claimed  that  history  should  overlook 
"  the  vices  proper  to  heroes."1 

Among  Catholic  writers  the  earlier  Dollinger,  for  all  his 
aversion  for  Luther's  purpose  and  the  weapons  he  employed, 
nevertheless  says  of  him  :  "If  such  a  one  is  justly  to  be 
styled  a  great  man,  who,  thanks  to  his  mighty  gifts  and 
powers,  accomplishes  great  things  and  brings  millions  of 
minds  under  his  sway — then  the  son  of  the  peasant  of  Mohra 
must  be  reckoned  among  the  great,  yea,  among  the  greatest 
of  men."2  Upon  the  disputed  definition  of  "  greatness  " 
we  cannot  enter  here.  (See  vol.  vi.,  xl.,  1.)  Yet,  in  view 
of  the  intellectual  gifts  lavished  on  Luther,  Dollinger's 
words  are  undoubtedly  not  far  away  from  the  mark,  par 
ticularly  when  we  consider  his  gigantic  .capacity  for  work 
and  the  amazing  extent  of  his  literary  labours,  distracted 
though  he  was  by  other  cares. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  give  the  long  list  of  the 
works  he  penned  in  1529  and  1530,3  and  we  may  add  some 
further  examples.  In  1521,  in  which  year  he  lost  over  five 
weeks  in  travelling,  not  to  speak  of  the  correspondence  and 
other  business  which  claimed  his  attention  in  that  exciting 
period  of  his  life,  he  still  found  time  to  write  more  than 
twenty  works  of  varying  length  which  in  the  Weimar 
edition  cover  985  large  octavo  pages  ;  he  also  translated  a 
book  by  Melanchthon  into  German,  commenced  his  transla 
tion  of  the  Bible  and  his  church  Postils.  In  1523  he  pro 
duced  no  less  than  twenty-four  books  and  pamphlets,  and, 

1  Seeberg,  "  Luther  und  Luthertum  in  der  neuesten  kath.  Beleuch- 
tung  "  (a  reply  to  Denifle),  1904. 

2  "  Luther,  eine  Skizze,"  p.  51  ;    "  KL."2  8,  col.  339. 

3  Vol.  iii.,  p.  298  f.  ;   and  vol.  ii.,  p.  160. 


ZEAL   FOR   WORK  261 

besides  this,  his  lectures  on  Deuteronomy  (247  pages  in  the 
Weimar  edition)  and  a  German  translation  of  the  whole 
Pentateuch.  He  also  preached  about  150  sermons,  planned 
other  works  and  wrote  the  usual  flood  of  letters,  of  which 
only  a  few,  viz.  112,  have  been  preserved,  amongst  them 
being  some  practically  treatises  in  themselves  and  which 
duly  appeared  in  print.  Even  in  1545,  when  already  quite 
broken  down  in  health  and  when  two  months  were  spent  in 
travelling,  he  managed  with  a  last  effort,  inspired  by  his 
deadly  hate,  to  compose  even  so  considerable  a  book  as  his 
"  Wider  das  Bapstum  zu  Rom  vom  Teuffel  gestifft,"  as  well 
as  other  smaller  writings  and  the  usual  number  of  private 
letters,  circulars,  and  memoranda."1  At  the  very  end  he 
told  his  friend,  the  preacher  Jacob  Probst,  that  he  meant  to 
work  without  intermission  though  old  and  weary,  with  a 
failing  eyesight  and  a  body  racked  with  pain. 

These  labours,  of  which  the  simple  enumeration  of  his 
books  gives  us  an  inkling,  even  the  most  fertile  mind  could 
have  performed  only  by  utilising  every  moment  of  his  time 
and  by  renouncing  all  the  allurements  to  distraction  and 
repose.  The  early  hours  of  the  morning  found  Luther 
regularly  in  his  study,  and,  in  the  evening,  after  his  conversa 
tion  with  his  friends,  he  was  wont  to  betake  himself  early 
to  bed  so  as  to  be  able  to  enjoy  that  good  sleep,  without 
which,  he  declared,  he  could  not  meet  the  demands  made 
upon  him. 

That,  however,  behind  all  his  fiery  zeal  for  work,  certain 
moral  influences  not  of  the  highest  also  had  a  share  is 
obvious  from  what  has  been  said  previously. 

3.  Intercourse  with  Friends.     The  Interior  of  the  former 

Augustinian  Monastery 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  the  favourable  traits 
in  Luther's  character  as  a  public  man  ;  turning  to  his 
quieter  life  at  Wittenberg,  we  shall  find  no  lack  of  similar 
evidences.2  We  must  begin  by  asking  impartially  whether 

1  Cp.  H.  Bohmer,   "Luther  im   Lichte   der  neueren   Forschung,"2 
p.  115. 

2  There   is  no  sufficient  ground  for  charging  the  earlier  Catholic 
accounts  of  Luther  with  having  said  nothing  of  his  better  side.      It  is 
true  that  in  self-defence,  and  following  the  usual  method  of  controversy, 
they  did  insist  rather  too  much  on  what  was  objectionable — the  Jesuits 
of  the  IGth  and  17th  centuries  being  no  exception  to  the  rule — without 


262          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

the  notorious  Table-Talk  does  not  reveal  a  better  side  of  his 
character. 

The  question  must  be  answered  in  the  affirmative  by  every 
unprejudiced  reader  of  those  notes.  Luther's  gifts  of  mind 
and  temperament,  his  versatility,  liveliness  of  imagination, 
easy  use  of  Scripture  and  insight  even  into  worldly  matters  ; 
further  his  rare  talent  of  simple  narration,  and  not  seldom 
the  very  subjects  he  chooses  give  a  real  worth  to  Luther's 
Table-Talk,  notwithstanding  all  that  may  be  urged  against 
it.  It  is  accordingly  the  historian's  duty  faithfully  to  portray 
its  better  side. 

The  more  favourable  side  of  the  Table-Talk. 

Any  comprehensive  judgment  on  the  Table-Talk  as  a 
whole  is  out  of  the  question  ;  with  its  changing  forms  and 
colours  and  its  treatment  of  the  subjects  it  is  altogether  too 

sufficiently  discriminating  between  what  was  true  and  what  was  false 
(B.  Duhr,  s.  j.,  "  Gesch.  der  Jesuiten  in  den  Landern  deutscher  Zunge," 
1907,  p.  681).  Luther  himself  was,  however,  partly  to  blame  for  this, 
owing  to  the  quantity  of  unfavourable  material  he  provided.  But, 
after  the  first  heat  of  battle  was  over,  even  in  the  days  of  Caspar 
Ulenberg,  the  Cologne  parish  priest,  who,  in  1589,  wrote  a  biography 
of  Luther,  there  have  always  been  numbers  of  Catholic  writers  ready 
to  admit  the  good  there  was  in  Luther.  At  the  present  day  appreciative 
passages  abound  both  in  general  encyclopaedias  and  in  handbooks 
written  for  students.  To  mention  some  examples,  H.  Briick  ("  Lehrb. 
der  KG.")  speaks  of  Luther's  "sparkling  imagination,  his  popular 
eloquence,  which  was  its  consequence,  and  of  his  indefatigable 
capacity  for  work";  also  of  his  "disinterestedness."  J.  Alzog  says 
("  Universalgesch.  der  christl.  Kirche  ")  :  "  He  did  not  lack  the  deeper 
religious  feeling  which  seeks  its  satisfaction."  J.  A.  Mohler  ("KG.") 
writes  :  "  He  may  be  compared  for  his  power  to  the  great  conquerors 
of  the  world  ;  like  them,  too,  he  knew  no  other  law  than  his  own  will." 
J.  v.  Dollinger  (as  yet  still  a  Catholic)  says  of  him  ("KL."  2),  that  he 
was  a  "  sympathetic  friend,  free  from  avarice  and  greed  of  money," 
and  ever  "  ready  to  assist  others  "  ;  "he  possessed  undeniably  great 
rhetorical  talent  in  dialectic  and  a  wonderful  gift  of  carrying  men 
away."  In  Herder's  "  Konvcrsationslexikon,"  53  (1905),  we  read  of 
Luther  :  "In  the  circle  of  his  friends  ...  he  knew  how  to  speak 
thoughtfully  of  matters  of  theology.  .  .  .  His  family  life  had  its  finer 
side  ...  he  was  a  staunch  advocate  of  conjugal  fidelity  in  his  sermons 
and  elsewhere.  .  .  .  What  he  taught  concerning  the  dignity  of  worldly 
callings  was  in  many  instances  quite  right  and  true.  ...  In  the  works 
he  intended  for  edification  he  gave  his  followers  stimulating  food  for 
thought,  drawn  from  the  treasure-house  of  the  truths  of  Christianity 
and  of  nature.  .  .  .  He  promoted  a  more  diligent  study  of  Holy 
Scripture  and  the  cause  of  positive  theology  to  much  effect.  His  art 
of  using  his  native  tongue  was  of  great  service  in  furthering  the 
language.  His  translation  of  the  whole  Bible  stands  as  a  linguistic 
monument  to  him.  .  .  .  The  powerful  hymns  he  composed  are  also 
treasured  by  the  whole  Protestant  world." 


BETTER   SIDE   OF   TABLE-TALK     263 

kaleidoscopic.  Again,  in  conjunction  with  what  is  good  and 
attractive,  frivolous,  nay,  even  offensive  and  objectionable 
subjects  are  dealt  with,  for  which  the  reader  is  in  no  wise 
prepared.1 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasise  the  fact — which  may  be  new 
to  some — that  to  regard  the  Table-Talk  as  a  hotch-potch  of 
foul  sayings  is  to  do  it  an  injustice.  Catholics,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  are  used  to  finding  in  anti-Lutheran  polemics 
plentiful  quotations  from  it  not  at  all  to  Luther's  credit ; 
of  its  better  contents,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  of  even 
greater  importance  in  forming  an  opinion  of  his  character, 
no  hint  is  contained  in  this  sort  of  literature.  Some  are  even 
ignorant  that  Protestant  writers  have  more  than  compen 
sated  for  this  undue  stress  on  the  unfavourable  side  of  the 
Table-Talk  by  the  attractive  selection  they  give  from  its 
finer  parts. 

In  point  of  fact  the  subject  of  Luther's  conversations  is, 
not  infrequently,  the  attributes  of  God ;  for  instance,  His 
mercy  and  love  ;  the  duties  of  the  faithful  towards  God  and 
their  moral  obligations  in  whatever  state  of  life  they  be 
placed  ;  hints  to  the  clergy  on  the  best  way  to  preach  or  to 
instruct  the  young;  not  to  speak  of  other  observations 
regarding  neighbourly  charity,  the  vices  of  the  age  and  the 
virtues  or  faults  of  great  personages  of  that  day,  or  of  the 
past.  Luther  was  fond  of  discoursing  on  subjects  which,  in 
his  opinion,  would  prove  profitable  to  those  present,  though 
often  his  object  was  merely  to  enliven  and  amuse  the 
company. 

The  tone  and  the  choice  of  his  more  serious  discourses  fre 
quently  show  us  that  he  was  not  unmindful  of  the  fact,  that 
his  words  would  be  heard  by  others  beyond  the  narrow  circle 
of  his  private  guests  ;  he  was  aware  that  what  he  said  was 
noted  down,  and  not  unfrequently  requested  the  reporters  to 
commit  this  or  that  to  writing,  knowing  very  well  that  such 
notes  would  circulate.2  At  times,  however,  he  seemed  to 
become  forgetful  of  this,  and  allowed  observations  to  escape 
him  wrhich  caused  many  of  his  oldest  admirers  to  regret  the 
publication  of  the  Table-Talk.  A  large  number  of  state 
ments  made  by  him  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  must, 
moreover,  not  be  taken  too  seriously,  for  they  are  either 

1  For  the  collections  of  the  Table-Talk  see  vol.  iii.,  p.  218  ff. 

2  See  vol.  iii.,  p.  223. 


264         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

in  contradiction  with    other  utterances   or   are  practically 
explained  away  elsewhere. 

Thus,  for  instance,  in  a  conversation  in  the  winter  of  1542-1543, 
occur  the  following  words  which  really  do  him  honour  :  "  God 
has  preserved  the  Church  by  means  of  the  schools  ;  they  it  is 
that  keep  the  Church  standing.  Schools  are  not  very  imposing 
as  to  their  exterior,  yet  they  are  of  the  greatest  use.  It  was  to 
the  schools  that  the  little  boys  owed  their  knowledge  of  the 
Paternoster  and  the  Creed,  and  the  Church  has  been  wonderfully 
preserved  by  means  of  the  small  schools."1 — Yet,  at  an  earlier 
date,  he  had  said  just  the  contrary,  viz.  that  before  his  day  the 
young  had  been  allowed  to  drift  to  wreck  and  ruin,  owing  to  entire 
lack  of  instruction. 

On  certain  religious  subjects  he  could  speak  with  deep  feeling.2 
Compare,  for  instance,  what  he  says  of  Christ's  intercourse  with 
His  disciples. 

"  In  what  a  friendly  way,"  Luther  remarks,  "  did  He  behave 
towards  His  disciples  !  How  charming  were  all  His  dealings  with 
them  !  I  quite  believe  what  is  related  of  Peter,  viz.  that,  after 
Christ's  Ascension,  he  was  always  weeping  and  wiping  his  eyes 
with  a  handkerchief  till  they  grew  quite  red  ;  when  asked  the 
cause  of  his  grief,  he  replied,  he  could  not  help  shedding  tears 
when  he  remembered  the  friendly  intercourse  they  had  had  with 
Christ  the  Lord.  Christ  indeed  treats  us  just  as  He  did  His 
disciples,  if  only  we  would  but  believe  it  ;  but  our  eyes  are  not 
open  to  the  fact.  It  was  a  real  wonder  how  they  [the  Apostles] 
were  so  altered  in  mind  at  Pentecost.  Ah,  the  disciples  must 
have  been  fine  fellows  to  have  been  witnesses  of  such  things  and 
to  have  had  such  fellowship  with  Christ  the  Lord  !  "3 

Immediately  after  this,  however,  we  hear  him  inveighing 
against  the  Pope  with  statements  incredibly  false,4  whilst,  just 
before,  in  another  conversation,  he  had  introduced  his  favourite 
error  concerning  Justification  by  Faith.5 

It  may  suffice  to  keep  to  the  dozen  pages  or  so6  from  which  the 
above  kindlier  samples  were  extracted,  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  wealth  of  good  interspersed  amongst  so  much  that  is 
worthless,  and  at  the  same  time  to  appreciate  how  lively  his 
mind  and  his  powers  of  observation  still  remained  even  when 
increasing  years  and  persistent  bad  health  were  becoming  a 
burden  to  him. 

As  to  the  way  in  which  his  then  sayings  were  handed  down,  we 
may  state,  that,  in  the  winter  of  1542-1543,  Caspar  Heydenreich, 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  311. 

2  Cp.    the    emotion    which    accompanied    another    fine    utterance 
spoken  "  ex  pleno  et  accenso  corde  "  (Cordatus,   "  Tagebuch,"   p.   23). 
There  Luther  was  speaking  of  the  profundity  of  the  Word  of  God  and 
of  reliance  on  His  Promises.    See  also  below,  p.  265. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  309. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  311,  with  the  heading      "  Papce  iyrannis." 
6  Ibid.,  p.  310.  •  Ibid.,  pp.  310-322. 


BETTER  SIDE   OF   TABLE-TALK     265 

who  had  already  officiated  as  pastor  of  Joachimstal,  was  present 
at  Luther's  table  and  wrote  down  these  and  other  remarks  as 
they  dropped  from  the  speaker's  lips  ;  they  were  afterwards 
incorporated  in  Mathesius'  collection.  In  the  original  they  are 
partly  in  Latin,  partly  in  German,  and  betray  not  the  slightest 
attempt  at  polish.  The  reason  that  we  thus  find  Latin  passages 
in  reports  of  German  conversations  is  that  the  reporter,  in  order 
to  take  down  more  rapidly  what  he  heard,  at  times  made  use  of 
shorthand,  then  only  employed  for  Latin.  Others  who  reported 
the  Table-Talk  had  recourse  to  the  same  device.  The  conse 
quence  is,  that,  in  the  recent  German  editions  of  the  Table- 
Talk,  we  find  in  one  and  the  same  conversation  some  sentences 
in  the  Old  German  Luther  actually  used,  and  others  in  present- 
day  German,  the  latter  being  merely  translations  from  the  Latin. 

After  discoursing  at  length  on  the  fact  that  schools  ought  to  be 
carefully  cherished  for  the  sake  of  the  coming  generation  of 
Church  teachers,  he  says  :  "  The  work  of  the  schools  is  not 
brilliant  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but  it  is  of  the  greatest  utility." 
(No.  609  ;  then  follows  the  praise  of  the  old  schools  already 
recorded.) — "Wealth  is  the  most  insignificant  thing  in  the 
world,  the  meanest  gift  in  God's  power  to  bestow  on  man.  What 
is  it  compared  with  the  Word  of  God  ?  Indeed,  what  is  it  com 
pared  with  bodily  endowments,  or  with  beauty,  or  with  the  gifts 
of  the  soul  ?  and  yet  people  fret  so  much  for  it.  Material,  formal, 
efficient  and  final  causes  here  fare  badly.  For  this  reason  the 
Almighty  usually  gives  riches  to  rude  donkeys  upon  whom  He 
bestows  nothing  else  "  (611). 

Luther  relates  incidentally  that  his  father  Hans,  who  died  at 
Mansfeld  in  1530,  when  asked  on  his  death-bed  whether  he 
believed  in  the  Apostles'  Creed,  replied  :  "  He  would  indeed  be  a 
scoundrel  who  refused  to  believe  that."  "  That,"  aptly  remarked 
Luther,  "  is  a  voice  from  the  old  world  "  ;  whereupon  Melanch- 
thon  chimed  in  :  "  Happy  those  who  die  in  the  knowledge  of 
Christ  as  did  your  [daughter]  Magdalene  [f  Sep.  20,  1542] ;  the 
older  we  grow  the  more  foolish  we  become.  .  .  .  When  we  grow 
up  we  begin  to  dispute  and  want  to  be  wise,  and  yet  we  are  the 
biggest  fools  "  (615). 

According  to  Luther,  God's  most  grievous  wrath  then  rested 
on  the  Jews.  They  are  blinded,  pray  fanatically  and  yet  are  not 
heard.  "  Oh,  dear  God,  rather  than  remain  silent  do  Thou 
punish  us  with  pestilence,  the  French  disease  and  whatever 
other  dreadful  maladies  the  soldiers  curse.  God  says  :  I  have 
stretched  out  My  hands  ;  come,  give  ear,  draw  nigh  to  Me  ! 
[The  Jews  reply]  :  We  won't.  [God  says]  :  You  have  Isaias  ; 
hear  him.  [They  scream]  :  Yah,  we  will  kill  him  !  [God  says]  : 
Here  is  My  Son  !  [They  reply]  :  Out  on  Him  !  Hence  Our  Lord 
God  now  treats  them  as  we  see.  That  is  how  abandoned  children 
fare,  who  refuse  to  obey  their  parents  and  are  therefore  deserted 
by  them.  No  one  has  ever  written  concerning  this  wrath  of  God, 
nor  is  anyone  able  to  do  so  ;  no  eloquence  can  plumb  the  depths 
of  this  wrath.  O  Heavenly  Father — [this  he  said  with  clasped 


266 

hands] — allow  us  to  enjoy  the  sunshine  and  permit  us  not  to  fall 
away  from  the  Word  !  Just  fancy,  for  fifteen  hundred  years  the 
Jews  have  groaned  under  His  Wrath  !  And  what  will  be  the  end 
of  it  all  ?  Alas,  there  will  be  a  dreadful  scene  in  hell  !  "  (608). 

Against  the  Jews  he  was  very  bitter.  It  was  related  at  table, 
that,  in  spite  of  the  two  books  Luther  had  recently  published,  the 
Hebrews  stood  in  favour  with  the  Counts  of  Mansfeld,  and,  from 
their  synagogue,  had  even  dared  to  hurl  at  an  Eisleben  preacher 
the  opprobrious  epithet  of  Goim.  Luther  replied  that  if  he  were 
pastor  and  Court  Chaplain  there  like  Coolius,  or  even  a  simple 
preacher,  he  would  at  once  resign  his  post.  When  it  was  re 
marked  that  the  Jews  knew  how  to  curry  favour  with  the  great, 
his  comment  was  :  "  The  devil  can  do  much."  On  being  asked 
whether  it  would  be  right  to  box  the  ears  of  a  Jew  who  uttered  a 
blasphemy,  he  replied,  "  Certainly  ;  I  for  one  would  smack  him 
on  the  jaw.  Were  I  able,  I  would  knock  him  down  and  stab  him 
in  my  anger.  If  it  is  lawful,  according  to  both  the  human  and  the 
Divine  law,  to  kill  a  robber,  then  it  is  surely  even  more  permissible 
to  slay  a  blasphemer."  To  the  observation  of  one  of  his  guests 
that  the  Jews  boasted,  that,  of  the  two,  the  Christians  were  the 
worse  usurers,  Luther  said  :  "  That  is  quite  true.  At  Leipzigk 
there  are  greater  usurers  than  the  Jews.  But  a  distinction  must 
be  drawn."  Among  the  Jews  usury  is  made  the  rule,  whereas 
amongst  the  Christians  it  is  repressed.  "  We  preach  against  it 
and  are  heartily  opposed  to  it  ;  with  them  this  is  not  the  case  " 
(628). 

In  a  similar  strain,  in  the  dozen  pages  under  consideration,  he 
touches  on  many  other  instructive  subjects,  whether  connected 
with  questions  of  the  day,  or  with  religion,  or  the  Bible.  He 
portrays  with  a  clear  hand  the  dominant  idea  of  the  Book  of  Job, 
in  comparison  with  which  all  the  dramatic  force  of  the  Greek 
plays  was  as  nothing  (616)  ;  he  expounds  the  narratives  of 
Christ's  Prayer  in  the  Garden  of  Olives,  where  He  suffered 
indescribable  pains  for  our  sins  (626)  ;  in  answer  to  a  query  he 
speaks  of  the  anointing  of  Our  Lord's  feet  by  Magdalene,  and 
observes,  referring  to  the  censure  drawn  from  Judas  by  his 
avarice  :  "  That  is  the  way  of  the  world  and  the  devil  ;  what 
should  be  blamed  is  praised,  and  what  should  be  praised  is 
blamed  "  (627).  "What  he  says  of  the  vast  number  of  the  slain, 
alluded  to  so  frequently  in  the  Old  Testament,  was  probably  also 
called  forth  by  some  questioner  (612).  Amidst  this  recur  new 
invectives  against  the  Jews  and  their  magic  ;  never  ought  we  to 
eat  or  drink  with  them  (619)  ;  also  against  the  Turks  and  their 
bigotry  and  unbelief  ;  the  latter  resembled  the  fanatics  in  that, 
like  them,  they  refused  to  doubt  their  revelations  ;  this  he  proved 
by  certain  instances  (620).  He  speaks  of  the  strong  faith  of 
simple  Christians  with  feeling  and  not  without  envy  (614).  He 
extols  the  power  of  prayer  for  others,  and  proves  it  not  merely 
from  Biblical  texts  and  examples,  but  also  from  his  own  experi 
ence  ;  "  we,  too,  prayed  Philip  back  to  life.  Verily  prayer  can 
do  much.  .  .  God  does  not  reward  it  with  a  certain,  fixed 


BETTER   SIDE   OF   TABLE-TALK     267 

measure,  but  with  a  measure  pressed  and  running  over,  as  He 
says.  ...  A  powerful  thing  is  prayer,  if  only  I  could  believe  it, 
for  God  has  bound  and  pledged  Himself  by  it  "  (617). 

Dealing  with  astrology,  he  demonstrates  its  folly  by  a  lengthy 
and  very  striking  argument  ;  when  it  was  objected  that  the 
reformation  he  was  carrying  out  had  also  been  predicted  by  the 
stars  at  the  time  of  his  birth,  he  replied  :  "  Oh  no,  that  is  another 
matter  !  That  is  purely  the  work  of  God.  You  will  never 
persuade  me  otherwise  !  "  (625). 

As  to  practical  questions,  he  speaks  of  the  doings  of  the 
Electoral  marriage  courts  in  certain  cases  (621) ;  of  severity  in  the 
up-bringing  of  children  (624);  of  the  choice  of  godparents  for 
Baptism  (620) ;  of  the  authority  of  guardians  in  the  marriage  of 
their  wards  (613)  ;  and  of  what  was  required  of  those  who  dispensed 
the  Supper  (618). 

On  one  occasion,  when  the  conversion  of  the  Jews  at  the  end  of 
the  world  was  being  discussed,  the  "  Doctoress  "  (Catherine) 
intervened  in  the  conversation  with  a  Biblical  quotation,  but  her 
contribution  (John  x.  16)  was  rejected  in  a  friendly  way  by 
Luther  as  mistaken. 

In  these  pages  of  the  Table-Talk  unseemly  speeches  or 
expressions  such  as  call  for  censure  elsewhere  do  not  occur, 
though  the  Pope  and  the  Papacy  are  rej^H.tedly  made  the 
butt  of  misrepresentation  and  abuse  (610,  616,  619) ;  as 
was  only  to  be  expected,  we  find  here  again  Luther's 
favourite  assertion  that  the  Roman  doctrine  of  works  is  a 
gross  error  very  harmful  to  souls  (623)  ;  in  support  of 
his  opinion  Luther  gives  a  long  string  of  Bible  texts. 

Apart  from  the  abuse  just  referred  to  and  some  other 
details  these  few  leaves,  taken  at  haphazard  from  the  Table- 
Talk,  are  certainly  not  discreditable  to  Luther.  Beside 
these  might  moreover  be  placed,  as  we  have  already  ad 
mitted  elsewhere,  many  other  pages  the  contents  of  which 
are  equally  unexceptionable. 

It  is  naturally  not  the  task  or  duty  of  Catholic  contro 
versialists  to  fill  their  works  with  statements  from  the  Table- 
Talk  such  as  the  above  ;  they  would  nevertheless  do  well 
always  to  bear  in  mind  that  many  such  favourable  utter 
ances  occur  in  Luther's  works  with  which  moreover  the 
Protestants  are  as  a  rule  perfectly  familiar.  The  latter, 
indeed,  who  often  are  acquainted  only  with  these  better 
excerpts  from  Luther's  books,  sermons,  letters  or  Table- 
Talk,  are  not  unnaturally  disposed  to  view  with  suspicion 
those  writers  who  bestow  undue  prominence  on  unfavourable 
portions  of  his  works,  torn  from  their  context. 


268         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Unless  Catholic  polemics  contrive  to  look  at  things  from 
their  opponents'  point  of  view,  their  success  must  always  be 
limited  ;  short  of  this  they  run  the  risk  of  being  accused  of 
being  ignorant  of  what  tells  in  Luther's  favour,  or  of  not 
giving  it  due  weight.  All  controversy  should  in  reality  be 
conducted  in  a  friendly  spirit,  and,  in  the  discussion  of 
Luther,  such  a  spirit  joined  with  a  broad-minded  apprecia 
tion  of  what  is  good  in  the  opposite  party  cannot  fail  to  be 
productive  of  happy  results.  How  far  Protestants  have 
acted  in  this  spirit  is,  alas,  plain  to  all  who  have  had  dealings 
with  them.  There  can  be  no  question  but  that  certain 
excesses  perpetrated  on  the  opposite  side  go  far  to  explain, 
if  not  to  excuse,  the  methods  adopted  by  some  of  the 
champions  of  Catholicism. 

Kindlier  Traits  Evinced  by  Luther. 

The  great  veneration  felt  for  Luther  by  most  of  his  pupils, 
particularly  by  those  who  were  intimate  with  him,  enables 
us  to  see  the  impression  his  talents  made  on  others.  It  is,  of 
course,  probabl:  lhat  their  mental  submission  to  him  was 
in  part  due  to  the  feeling,  that  it  was  an  exceptional  honour 
to  be  accounted  friends  of  a  man  famous  throughout  the 
world  and  so  distinguished  by  his  extraordinary  success  ;  yet 
it  is  equally  certain  that  it  was  his  own  peculiar  charm  which 
caused  not  merely  young  students,  such  as  those  who  noted 
down  the  Table-Talk,  but  even  mature  and  experienced 
men,  to  look  up  to  him  with  respect  and  affection  and 
voluntarily  to  subject  themselves  to  his  mind  and  his  will. , 
The  fact  is,  in  Luther  a  powerful  and  domineering  talent 
existed  side  by  side  with  great  familiarity  in  consorting  with 
others  and  a  natural  gift  of  making  himself  loved.  The 
unshakable  confidence  in  God  on  which  he  and  his  followers 
seemed  to  lean  in  every  reverse  they  met,  perhaps  impressed 
people  more  than  anything  else. 

"  His  earnestness,"  wrote  a  devoted  young  follower  of  his,  "  is 
so  tempered  with  gladness  and  friendliness  that  one  longs  to  live 
with  him  ;  it  seems  as  though  God  wished  to  demonstrate  how 
blissful  and  joyous  his  Evangel  is,  not  merely  by  his  teaching,  but 
even  by  his  conduct."  Thus  the  Swiss  student,  Johann  Kessler, 
who  became  acquainted  with  Luther  after  his  return  from  the 
Wartburg.1  Another  voice  from  the  same  period  enthusiastically 

1  In  his  "  Sabbata,"  ed.  Gotzinger  in  the  St.  Gallen  "  Mitteilungen 
zur  vaterland.  Gesch.,"  1869  ;  new  edition,  St.  Gallen,  1902,  p.  76  ff. 


HIS   FRIENDLINESS  269 

extols  his  friendly  ways  and  his  winning  speech  in  his  dealings 
with  his  pupils,  also  the  power  of  his  words  "  which  cast  such  a 
spell  over  the  hearts  of  his  hearers  that  anyone,  who  is  not  made 
of  stone,  having  once  heard  him,  yearns  to  hear  him  again." 
Thus  his  disciple  Albert  Burrer.1 

Mathesius,  one  of  his  busier  pupils,  declares  :  "  The  man  was 
full  of  grace  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  Hence  all  who  sought  counsel 
from  him  as  a  prophet  of  God,  found  what  they  desired." 2  Often, 
he  remarks,  difficult  questions  from  Scripture  were  submitted  to 
him  (in  conversation  at  table)  which  he  answered  both  plainly 
and  concisely.  And  if  anyone  contradicted  him  he  took  no 
offence  but  skilfully  put  his  gainsayer  in  the  wrong.  The  Doctor 
knew  so  well  how  to  bring  in  his  stories  and  sayings  and  apply 
them  at  the  proper  juncture  that  it  was  a  real  pleasure  and 
comfort  to  listen  to  him.3  "  Amongst  his  other  great  virtues  he 
was  very  easily  contented,  and  also  extremely  kind."4 

Spangenberg,  Aurifaber,  Cordatus  and  other  pupils  were,  so 
to  speak,  quite  under  his  spell.  Hieronymus  Weller,  whom 
Luther  frequently  sought  to  encourage  in  his  fits  of  depression, 
remarked  indeed  on  one  occasion  that  the  difference  in  age,  and 
his  reverence  for  Luther,  prevented  him  from  speaking  and 
chatting  as  confidentially  as  he  would  have  liked  with  the  great 
man. 6  On  the  other  hand,  the  Humanist,  Peter  Mosellanus,  who 
was  at  one  time  much  attached  to  him  and  never  altogether 
abandoned  his  cause,  says  :  "In  daily  life  and  in  his  intercourse 
with  others  he  is  polite  and  friendly  ;  there  is  nothing  stoical 
or  proud  about  him  ;  he  is  affable  to  everyone.  In  company  he 
converses  cheerfully  and  pleasantly,  is  lively  and  gay,  always 
looks  merry,  cheerful  and  amiable  however  hard  pressed  by  his 
opponents,  so  that  one  may  well  believe  he  does  not  act  in  such 
weighty  matters  without  God's  assistance."6 

Melanchthon,  particularly  in  his  early  days,  as  our  readers 
already  know,  expressed  great  reverence  and  devotion  for  Luther. 
"  You  know,"  he  wrote  to  Spalatin  during  his  friend's  stay  at  the 
Wartburg,  "  how  carefully  we  must  guard  this  earthen  vessel 
which  contains  so  great  a  treasure.  .  .  .  The  earth  holds  nothing 
more  divine  than  him."7  After  Luther's  death,  in  spite  of  the 
previous  misunderstandings,  he  said  of  him  in  a  panegyric 
addressed  to  the  students  :  "  Alas,  the  chariot  of  Israel  and  the 
horseman  thereof,  who  ruled  the  Church  in  these  latter  years  of 
her  existence,  has  departed."8 

Luther  was  often  to  prove  that  the  strong  impression 
made  by  his  personality  was  alone  able  to  gain  the  day  in 

1  Burrer's  letter,  in  Baum,  "  Capito,"  1860,  p.  83. 

2  "  Historien,"  p.  147.  3  Cp.  ibid.,  pp.  142,  143. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  153'.  5  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  510. 

6  In  F.  S.  Keil,   "  Luthers  Lebensumstande,"   1,   1764,  p.   2.     Cp. 
Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  243  f. 

7  Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  442.    Cp.  above,  vol.  Hi.,  p.  322. 

8  "  Vita  Lutheri,"  in  "  Vitce  quattuor  reformatorum,"  p.  14. 


270          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

cases  of  difficulty,  to  break  down  opposition  and  to  ensure 
the  successful  carrying  out  of  hardy  plans.  Seldom  indeed 
did  those  about  him  offer  any  objection,  for  he  possessed 
that  gift,  so  frequently  observed  in  men  of  strong  character, 
of  exercising,  in  every  matter  great  or  small,  a  kind  of 
suggestive  influence  over  those  who  approached  him.  He 
possessed  an  inner,  unseen  power  which  seemed  to  triumph 
over  all,  .  .  .  even  over  the  claims  of  truthfulness  and 
logic  ;x  besides  this,  he  was  gifted  with  an  imposing  presence 
and  an  uncanny  glance.  He  was  by  no  means  curt  in  his 
answers,  but  spoke  freely  to  everyone  in  a  manner  calculated 
to  awaken  the  confidence  and  unlock  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers.  Of  his  talkativeness  he  himself  once  said  :  "I 
don't  believe  the  Emperor  [Charles  V.]  says  so  much  in  a  year 
as  I  do  in  a  day."2 

His  "  disinterestedness  which  led  him  to  care  but  little 
about  money  and  worldly  goods  "3  increased  the  respect 
felt  for  him  and  his  work.  So  little  did  he  care  about  heap 
ing  up  riches,  that,  when  scolding  the  Wittenbergers  on 
account  of  their  avarice,  he  could  say  that  "  though  poor, 
he  found  more  pleasure  in  what  was  given  him  for  his  needs 
than  the  rich  and  opulent  amongst  them  did  in  their  own 
possessions."4  So  entirely  was  he  absorbed  in  his  public 
controversy  that  .he  paid  too  little  attention  to  his  own 
requirements,  particularly  in  his  bachelor  days  ;  he  even 
relates  how,  before  he  took  a  wife,  he  had  for  a  whole  year 
not  made  his  bed,  or  had  it  made  for  him,  so  that  his  sweat 
caused  it  to  rot.  "  I  was  so  weary,  overworked  all  the  day, 
that  I  threw  myself  on  the  bed  and  knew  nothing  about  it."5 
He  was  never  used  to  excessive  comfort  or  to  indulgence 
in  the  finer  pleasures  of  the  table.  In  every  respect,  in 
conversation  and  intercourse  with  others  and  in  domestic 
life,  he  was  a  lover  of  simplicity.  In  this  he  was  ever  anxious 
to  set  a  good  example  to  his  fellow-workers. 

Although  he  frequently  accepted  with  gratitude  presents 

1  See  our  remarks  above,  p.  112  ff.,  on  the  way  he  came  to  believe  in 
the  truth  of  the  falsehoods  he  so  often  repeated  and  even  to  convince 
his  pupils  of  it  too. 

2  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  283. 

3  Jos.   Hundhausen,    "  Kircho   oder   Protestantismus,"   a   Catholic 
work,  Mayence,  1883,  p.  225. 

4  In  a  sermon  of  1528,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27,  p.  408  f. 
6  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  510. 


HIS   GENEROSITY  271 

from  the  great,  yet  on  occasion  he  was  not  above  cautioning 
givers  of  the  danger  such  gifts  involved,  when  the  "  eyes  of 
the  whole  world  are  upon  us."1  In  1542,  when  there  was  a 
prospect  of  his  receiving  from  his  friend  Amsdorf,  the  new 
"  bishop  "  of  Naumburg,  presents  out  of  the  estates  of  the 
bishopric,  he  twice  wrote  to  him  to  refrain  from  sending  him 
anything,  even  a  single  hare,  because  "  our  courtly  centaurs 
[the  selfish  and  rapacious  nobles]  must  be  given  no  pretext 
for  venting  their  glowing  hate  against  us  on  the  trumped-up 
charge  that  we  were  desirous  of  securing  gain  through  you." 
"  They  have  gulped  down  everything  without  compunction, 
but  still  would  blame  us  were  we  to  accept  a  paltry  gift  of 
game.  Let  them  feed  in  God's  or  another's  [the  devil's] 
name,  so  long  as  we  are  not  accused  of  greed."2  Dollinger 
speaks  of  Luther  as  "a  sympathetic  friend,  devoid  of 
avarice  and  greed  of  money,  and  a  willing  helper  of  others."3 

He  was  always  ready  to  assist  the  poor  with  open-handed 
and  kindly  liberality,  and  his  friends  especially,  when  in 
trouble  or  distress,  could  reckon  on  his  charity. 

When  his  own  means  were  insufficient  he  sought  by 
word  of  mouth  or  by  letter  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of  others, 
of  friends  in  the  town,  or  even  of  the  Elector  himself,  in  the 
cause  of  the  indigent.  On  more  than  one  occasion  his  good 
nature  was  unfairly  taken  advantage  of.  This,  however, 
did  not  prevent  his  pleading  for  the  poor  who  flocked  to 
Wittenberg  from  all  quarters  and  were  wont  to  address 
themselves  to  him.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  1539  we  have  a 
note  in  which  he  appealed  to  certain  "  dear  gentlemen  "  to 
save  a  "  pious  and  scholarly  youth  "  from  the  "  pangs  of 
hunger  "  by  furnishing  him  with  30  Gulden  ;  he  himself  was 
no  longer  able  to  afford  the  gifts  he  had  daily  to  bestow, 
though  he  would  be  willing,  in  case  of  necessity,  to  con 
tribute  half  the  sum.4 

Many  of  the  feeble  and  oppressed  experienced  his  help  in 
the  law.  He  reminds  the  lawyers  how  hard  it  is  for  the 
poor  to  comply  with  the  legal  formalities  necessary  for 
their  protection.  On  one  occasion,  when  it  was  a  question  of 
the  defence  of  a  poor  woman,  he  says  :  "  You  know  Dr. 
Martin  is  not  only  a  theologian  and  the  champion  of  the 

1  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  133. 

2  To  Amsdorf,  Feb.  6  and  12,  1542,  "  Brief e,"  5,  pp.  432,  434, 
"  Luther,  eine  Skizze,"  p.  51  ;    "  KL.,"  82,  col.  339. 

4  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  495. 


272          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

faith,  but  also  an  advocate  of  the  poor,  who  troop  to  him 
from  every  place  and  corner  and  demand  his  aid  and  his 
intercession  with  the  authorities,  so  that  he  would  have 
enough  to  do  even  if  no  other  burden  rested  on  his  shoulders. 
But  Dr.  Martin  loves  to  serve  the  poor."1 

In  1527,  when  the  plague  reached  Wittenberg,  he  stayed 
on  in  the  town  with  Bugenhagen  in  order  at  least  to  comfort 
the  people  by  his  presence.  The  University  was  trans 
ferred  for  the  time  being  to  Jena  (and  then  to  Schlieben)  and 
the  Elector  accordingly  urged  him  to  migrate  to  Jena  with 
his  wife  and  family.  Luther  however  insisted  on  remain 
ing,  above  all  on  account  of  the  urgent  need  of  setting  an 
example  to  his  preachers,  who  were  too  much  preoccupied 
with  the  safety  of  their  own  families.  It  was  then  that  he 
wrote  the  tract  "  Ob  man  fur  dem  Sterben  fliehen  muge  " 
(Whether  one  may  flee  from  death),  answering  the  question 
in  the  negative  so  far  as  the  ministers  were  concerned.  In 
such  dire  trouble  the  flock  were  more  than  ever  in  need  of 
spiritual  help  ;  the  preachers  were  to  exhort  the  people  to 
learn  diligently  from  the  Word  of  God  how  to  live  and  how 
to  die,  also,  by  Confession,  reception  of  the  Supper,  recon 
ciliation  with  their  neighbours,  etc.,  to  "  prepare  them 
selves  in  advance  should  the  Lord  knock  speedily."2  He 
displayed  the  same  courage  during  the  epidemic  of  the 
so-called  "  English  sweat,"  a  fever  which,  in  1529,  broke 
out  at  Wittenberg,  and  in  other  German  towns,  and  carried 
off  many  victims.  Again  in  1538  and  in  1539  he  braved 
new  outbreaks  of  the  plague  at  Wittenberg.  His  wish  was, 
that,  in  such  cases,  one  or  two  preachers  should  be  specially 
appointed  to  look  after  those  stricken  with  the  malady. 
"  Should  the  lot  fall  on  me,"  he  says  in  1542,  "  I  should  not 
be  afraid.  I  have  now  been  through  three  pestilences  and 
mixed  with  some  who  suffered  from  it  ...  and  am  none 
the  worse."3  "  God  usually  protects  the  ministers  of  His 

1  To  Anton  Unruhe,  Judge   at   Torgau,  June   13,   1538,  "Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  205  ("  Briefwechsel,"  11,  p.  371). 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  323  ff.;    Erl.  ed.,  317  ff.     N.  Paulus 
("  Hist.-pol.  Bl.,"    133,   1904,  p.   201)  also  points  out  the  "  Courage 
which  Luther  showed  in  the  time  of  the  plague,"  also  his  "  liberality, 
his  cheerful,   sociable  ways,   how  easily  he  was  contented  and  how 
tirelessly  he  laboured."      George  Evers   ("  Martin  Luther,"   6,   p.   6) 
recognises,  amongst  many  other  good  qualities,  the  courage  he  showed 
during  the  plague. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  285. 


HUMBLE   ADMISSIONS  273 

Word,"  he  writes  in  1538,  "  if  one  does  not  run  in  and  out 
of  the  inns  and  lie  in  the  beds  ;  confessions  there  is  no  need 
to  hear,  for  we  bring  the  Word  of  Life."1  The  fact  that  he 
could  boast  of  having  braved  the  plague  and  remained  at 
his  post  naturally  tended  to  increase  his  influence  with  his 
congregation.2 

He  had  passed  through  a  severe  mental  struggle  previous 
to  the  epidemic  of  1529.  Only  by  dint  of  despairing  efforts 
was  he  able  to  overcome  his  terrors  of  conscience  concerning 
his  doctrine  and  his  own  personal  salvation.  This  inner 
combat  so  hardened  him  that  he  was  fearless  where  others 
were  terrified  and  fled.  Of  his  own  qualms  of  conscience  he 
wrote  to  a  friend  in  April,  1529  :  If  it  be  an  apostolic  gift 
to  fight  with  devils  and  to  lie  frequently  at  the  point  of 
death,  then  he  was  indeed  in  this  a  very  Peter  or  Paul, 
however  much  he  might  lack  the  other  apostolic  characters.3 
Here  we  have  the  idea  of  his  Divine  calling,  always  most 
to  the  front  in  times  of  danger,  which  both  strengthens 
him  and  enables  him  to  inspire  others  with  a  little  of  his 
own  confidence.  "  I  and  Bugcnhagen  alone  remain  here,"  he 
wrote  during  the  days  of  the  plague,  "  but  we  are  not  alone, 
for  Christ  is  with  us  and  will  triumph  in  us  and  shelter  us 
from  Satan,  as  we  hope  and  trust."4 

We  already  are  acquainted  with  some  of  his  admissions 
of  his  own  weakness  and  acknowledgments  of  the  greater 
gifts  and  achievements  of  others — confessions  which  have 
been  extolled  as  a  proof  of  his  real  humility. 

"  I  have  no  such  foolish  humility,"  so  he  says,  "  as  to  wish  to 
deny  the  gifts  God  has  bestowed  on  me.  In  myself  I  have  indeed 
enough  and  more  than  enough  to  humble  me  and  teach  me  that  I 
am  nothing.  In  God,  however,  we  may  well  pride  ourselves,  and 
rejoice  and  glory  in  His  gifts  and  extol  them,  as  I  myself  do  on 
account  of  my  German  Psalter  ;  for  I  studied  the  Psalter, 
thanks  be  to  God,  with  great  fruit  ;  but  all  to  the  honour  and 
glory  of  God  to  Whom  be  praise  for  ever  and  ever."  This  he  wrote 
to  Eobanus  Hessus,  the  poet,  in  a  high-flown  letter  thanking 
him  for  translating  the  German  Psalter  into  excellent  Latin.5 

1  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  188. 
'  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  31. 

3  To  Justus  Jonas,  April  19,  1529,  "  Briefwechsel,"  7,  p.  87. 

4  To    Nicholas    Hausmann,    Aug.    20,     1527,     "  Briefwechsel,"     6, 
p.  77. 

*  Aug.  1,  1537,  "  Briefwechsel,"  11,  p.  254, 

IV.—  T 


274 

Of  his  own  virtues  or  sinfulness  he  preferred  to  speak  humor 
ously,  as  his  manner  was.  Thus,  he  says,  for  instance,  in  1526, 
in  his  suppressed  "  Widder  den  Radschlag  der  Meintzischen 
Pfafferey,"  that  "  he  had  not  defiled  any  man's  wife  or  child," 
"  had  not  robbed  anyone  of  his  goods  .  .  .  nor  murdered  or 
assaulted  anyone  or  given  help  or  counsel  thereto  "  ;  his  sin 
consisted  in  "  not  pulling  a  long  face  but  in  insisting  on  being 
merry  "  ;  also  in  eating  meat  on  forbidden  days.  People  might 
defame  his  life,  but  he  was  not  going  to  heed  "  the  dirty  hog- 
snouts."1 

His  statements  belittling  his  own  powers  and  achieve 
ments,  coming  from  a  man  whose  apparently  overmastering 
self-confidence  had,  from  the  beginning,  prepossessed  so 
many  of  his  followers  in  his  favour,  afford  a  subject  for 
psychological  study.  He  seems  the  more  ready  to  give  full 
play  to  his  confidence  the  more  he  feels  his  weakness  face 
to  face  with  the  menace  of  danger,  and  the  more  he  experi 
ences  in  the  depths  of  his  soul  the  raging  of  doubts  which  he 
attributes  to  the  devil. 

In  the  humble  admissions  he  makes  he  never  conceals  how 
much  he  stands  in  need  of  assistance.  He  does  not  hide 
from  himself  the  fact  that  he  dreads  outward  troubles,  and 
is  deficient  in  strong  and  exalted  virtue.  But  side  by  side 
with  his  faults,  he  is  fond  of  gazing  on  and  extolling  God's 
gifts  in  his  person.  His  peculiar  form  of  humility,  his 
prayer  and  his  trust  in  God  find  expression  in  certain 
utterances  and  experiences,  on  which  no  judgment  can  be 
passed  until  we  have  before  us  a  larger  selection  of  them, 
particularly  of  such  as  seem  to  be  less  premeditated. 

Prayer  and  Confidence  in  God. 

Luther's  strangely  undaunted  confidence  and  the  personal 
nature  of  his  reliance  on  God's  help  form  part  of  his  mental 
physiognomy. 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  26.  It  may  be  remarked  incidentally 
that  possibly  Luther  was  not  aware,  that,  not  long  before,  the  people 
of  Wittenberg,  though  no  longer  Catholic,  had  been  shocked  at  his 
eating  meat  on  fast  days.  In  1523  the  people,  who  still  kept  the  old 
custom  of  the  Church,  as  a  traveller  remarks,  were  disposed  to  regard 
the  overflow  of  the  Elbe  as  Heaven's  judgment  on  Luther's  and  his 
preachers'  laxity  in  the  matter.  See  the  account  of  Bishop  Dantiscus,  of 
Ermeland,  who  visited  Wittenberg  in  that  year,  in  Hipler,  "  Kopernikus 
und  Luther,"  Braunsberg,  1868,  p.  72  :  "I  heard  from  the  country 
people  on  my  way  much  abuse  and  many  execrations  of  Luther  and 
his  co-religionists,"  etc. 


THE   POWER   OF   PRAYER  275 

He  sees  around  him  much  distress  and  corruption  and  exclaims  : 
"  Alas,  we  are  living  outwardly  under  the  empire  of  the  devil, 
hence  we  can  neither  see  nor  hear  anything  good  from  without." 
And  yet,  he  proceeds  in  his  usual  forced  tone,  "  inwardly  we  are 
living  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  where  we  behold  God's  glory  and 
His  grace  !  For  of  Christ  it  is  said  :  '  Rule  Thou  in  the  midst  of 
Thine  enemies.' '  "  Hatred  is  our  reward  in  this  world."  "Our 
reward  is  excessive  considering  the  insignificance  of  the  service 
we  render  Christ.  But  what  is  the  world,  its  anger,  or  its  prince  ? 
A  smoke  that  vanishes,  a  bubble  that  bursts,  such  is  everything 
that  is  opposed  to  the  Lord  Whom  we  serve  and  Who  works  in 
us."  With  these  words,  so  expressive  of  his  determination,  he 
directs  his  trusted  pupil,  Conrad  Cordatus,  to  enter  courageously 
upon  the  office  of  preacher  at  Stendal  in  the  March.1 

Again  and  again  he  seeks  to  reanimate  his  faith  and  confidence 
by  calling  to  mind  not  merely  God's  faithfulness  to  His  promises, 
but  also  his  own  personal  "  sufferings  "  and  "  temptations,"  the 
only  escape  from  which,  as  he  believed,  lay  in  the  most  obstinate 
and  presumptuous  belief  in  his  cause,  and  in  the  conviction  that 
God  was  constantly  intervening  in  his  favour. 

"  Not  only  from  Holy  Scripture,"  he  said  in  a  conversation  in 
1540,  "  but  also  from  my  violent  inner  combats  and  temptations 
have  I  learnt  that  Christ  is  God  incarnate,  and  that  there  is  a 
Trinity.  I  now  know  it  even  better  from  experience  than  by 
faith  that  these  articles  are  true.  For  in  our  greatest  temptations 
nothing  can  help  us  but  the  assurance  that  Christ  became  man 
and  is  now  our  intercessor  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Father.  There 
is  nothing  that  excites  our  confidence  to  such  a  degree.  .  .  .  God, 
too,  has  championed  this  article  from  the  beginning  of  the  world 
against  countless  heretics,  and  even  to-day  defends  it  against 
Turk  and  Pope  ;  He  incessantly  confirms  it  by  miracles  and 
permits  us  to  call  His  Son,  the  Son  of  God  and  true  God,  and 
grants  all  that  we  ask  in  Christ's  name. 'f  For  what  else  has  saved 
us  even  till  the  present  day  in  so  many  perils  but  prayer  to 
Christ  ?  Whoever  says  it  is  Master  Philip's  and  my  doing,  lies. 
It  is  God  Who  does  it  for  Christ's  sake.  .  .  .  Therefore  we  hold 
fast  to  these  articles  in  spite  of  the  objections  of  reason.  They 
have  remained  and  will  continue."2 

Luther  often  had  recourse  to  prayer,  especially  when  he 
found  himself  in  difficulty,  or  in  an  awkward  situation  from 
which  he  could  see  no  escape  ;  in  his  letters  he  also  as  a  rule 
asks  for  prayers  for  himself  and  for  the  common  cause  of 
the  new  Evangel.  It  is  impossible  to  take  such  requests  as 
a  mere  formality  ;  his  way  of  making  them  is  usually  so 
full  of  feeling  that  they  must  have  been  meant  in  earnest. 

In  1534  he  wrote  a  special  instruction  for  the  simple  and 

1  Letter  of  Dec.  3,  1544,  "  Briefe,"  p.  702. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  94. 


276          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

unlearned  on  the  way  to  pray.1  Many  parts  of  this  booklet 
recall  the  teaching  of  the  great  masters  of  prayer,  though 
unfortunately  it  is  imbued  with  his  peculiar  tenets. 

He  urges  people  to  pray  fervently  against  "  the  idolatry  of  the 
Turk,  of  the  Pope,  of  all  false  teachers  and  devil's  snares  "  ;  he 
also  mocks  at  the  prayers  of  the  "  parsons  and  monks,"2  unable 
to  refrain  from  his  bitter  polemics  even  in  an  otherwise  edifying 
work.  Yet  the  body  of  the  booklet  teaches  quite  accurately,  in  a 
fashion  recalling  the  directions  given  by  St.  Ignatius,  how  the 
Our  Father  and  other  daily  prayers  may  be  devoutly  recited,  with 
pauses  after  the  various  petitions  or  words,  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of 
meditation.  He  himself,  so  he  assures  his  readers,  was  in  the 
habit  of  "  sucking  "  in  this  way  at  the  Paternoster,  and  was  also 
fond  of  occupying  himself  with  a  similar  prayerful  analysis  of  the 
Psalter. 

His  regular  daily  prayer  he  says  elsewhere  was  the  Our  Father, 
the  Creed  and  the  other  usual  formulas.3  "  I  have  daily  to  do 
violence  to  myself  in  order  to  pray,"  he  remarked  to  his  friends, 
"  and  I  am  satisfied  to  repeat  when  I  go  to  bed  the  Ten  Com 
mandments,  the  Our  Father  and  then  a  verse  or  two  ;  thinking 
over  them  I  fall  asleep."4  "  The  Our  Father  is  my  prayer,  I  pray 
this  and  sometimes  intermingle  with  it  something  from  the 
Psalms,  so  as  to  put  to  shame  the  vain  scoffers  and  false  teachers." 

It  must  not  be  overlooked,  however,  that  on  extraordinary 
occasions,  when  his  hatred  of  the  Papacy  was  more  than  usually 
strong  or  when  troubles  pressed,  his  prayer  was  apt  to  assume 
strange  forms.  His  abomination  for  the  Pope  found  vent,  as  he 
repeatedly  tells  us,  in  his  maledictory  Paternoster.5  When  in 
great  fear  and  anxiety  concerning  Melanchthon,  who  lay  sick  at 
Weimar,  he,  to  use  his  own  quaint  phraseology,  "  threw  down  his 
tools  before  our  God,"  to  compel  Him,  as  it  were,  to  render 
assistance.  Another  such  attempt  to  do  violence  to  God  is  the 
purport  of  a  prayer  uttered  in  dejection  during  his  stay  in  the 
fortress  of  Coburg,  which  Veit  Dietrich,  who  overheard  it,  gives 
us  in  what  he  states  were  Luther's  own  words  :  "I  know  that 
Thou  art  Our  God  and  Father  ;  hence  I  am  certain  Thou  wilt 
put  to  shame  all  those  who  persecute  Thy  children.  Shouldst 
Thou  not  do  so,  there  will  be  as  much  danger  for  Thee  as  for  us. 
This  is  Thy  cause,  and  we  only  took  it  up  because  we  knew  Thou 
wouldst  defend  it,"  etc.6  This  intimate  friend  of  Luther's  also 

1  "  Einfoltige  Weise  zu  beten,"  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  215  ff. 

2  Pp.    217,    221    f.    The    booklet  was   dedicated    to    Master   Peter 
Balbier.     This  master,  after  having  stabbed  in  anger  a  foot-soldier,  was 
sentenced  to  death.     Luther's  intercession  procured  the  commutation 
of  the  sentence  into  one  of  banishment. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  59,  p.  (>,  "  Tischreden."     The  whole  section  in 
question,  "  Tischreden  vom  Gebete,"  really  belongs  here. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  28.  5  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  24,  and  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  437. 

6  Dietrich  to  Melanchthon,  June  30,  1530,  "  Corp.  ref.,"  2,  p.  159. 
Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  162,  his  prayer  for  F.  Myconius  who  was  sick,  which 
concludes  :  "  My  will  be  done.  Amen." 


277 

tells  us,  that,  in  those  anxious  days,  Luther's  conversations 
concerning  God  and  his  hopes  for  the  future  bore  an  even  deeper 
stamp  than  usual  of  sincerity  and  depth  of  feeling.  Dietrich  was 
one  of  Luther's  most  passionately  devoted  pupils. 

"  Ah,  prayer  can  do  much,"  such  are  Luther's  words  in  one  of 
the  numerous  passages  of  the  Table-Talk,  where  he  recommends 
its  use.  "  By  prayer  many  are  saved,  even  now,  just  as  we 
ourselves  prayed  Philip  back  to  life."1 

"  It  is  impossible,"  he  says,  "  that  God  should  not  answer  the 
prayer  of  faith  ;  that  He  does  not  always  do  so  is  another  matter. 
God  does  not  give  according  to  a  prescribed  measure,  but  heaped 
up  and  shaken  down,  as  He  says.  .  .  .  Hence  James  says  (v.  16)  : 
'  Pray  one  for  another,'  etc.  '  The  continual  prayer  of  a  just  man 
availeth  much.'  That  is  one  of  the  best  verses  in  his  Epistle. 
Prayer  is  a  powerful  thing."2 

Anyone  who  has  followed  Luther's  development  and 
understands  his  character  will  know  where  to  find  the  key 
to  these  remarkable,  and  at  first  sight  puzzling,  declarations 
of  trust  in  God  and  zeal  in  prayer. 

When  once  the  herald  of  the  new  religion  had  contrived 
to  persuade  himself  of  his  Divine  call,  such  blindly  confident 
prayer  and  trust  in  God  no  longer  involve  anything  wonder 
ful.  His  utterances,  undoubtedly,  have  a  good  side,  for 
instance,  his  frank  admission  of  his  weakness,  of  his  want  of 
virtue  and  of  the  parlous  condition  of  his  cause,  should  God 
forsake  it  All  his  difficulties  he  casts  into  the  lap  of  the 
Almighty  and  of  Christ,  in  the  true  Divine  sonship  of  whom 
he  declares  he  believes  firmly.  It  must,  however,  strike 
anyone  who  examines  his  prayers  that  he  never  once 
expresses  the  idea  which  should  accompany  all  true  prayer, 
viz.  resignation  into  the  hands  of  God  and  entire  willingness 
to  follow  Him,  to  go  forward,  or  turn  back  whithersoever 
God  wills  ;  never  do  we  find  him  imploring  light  so  as  to 
know  whether  the  course  he  is  pursuing  and  the  work  he 
has  undertaken  is  indeed  right  and  pleasing  to  God.  On  the 
contrary,  in  his  prayers,  in  his  thoughts  and  amidst  all  his 
inner  conflicts,  he  resolutely  sets  aside  as  out  of  the  question 
any  idea  of  changing  the  religious  attitude  he  has  once 
assumed.3  All  his  striving  is  directed  towards  this  one  end, 
viz.  that  God  will  vouchsafe  to  further  his  cause  and  grant 
him  victory.  He,  as  it  were,  foists  his  cause  on  Heaven. 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  315.  2  Ibid. 

3  For  more  on  this  subject  see  vol.  v.,  xxxii.,  5.  We  see  this  even  in 
his  prayers  at  the  Wartburg. 


278          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Hence  there  is  lacking  a  property  imperatively  demanded  by 
prayer,  viz.  that  holy  indifference  and  readiness  to  serve 
God  in  the  way  pleasing  to  Him  to  which  the  Psalmist 
alludes  when  he  says  :  "  Teach  me  to  do  Thy  Will,  O  Lord." 

The  dominating  idea  which  both  animates  his  confidence 
and  gives  it  its  peculiar  stamp,  also  furnishes  him  with  a 
sword  against  the  Papacy,  with  which  he  lays  about  him 
all  the  more  vigorously  the  more  fervently  he  prays.  In 
praying  he  blows  into  a  flame  his  hatred  of  all  who  stand  up 
for  the  ancient  Church  ;  in  his  prayers  he  seems  to  find  all 
the  monstrous  accusations  he  intends  to  hurl  against  her. 
Yet  he  himself  elsewhere  reminds  his  hearers,  that,  as  a 
preparation  for  prayer,  they  must  put  away  all  bad  feeling, 
since  our  Lord  warns  the  man  who  is  at  variance  with  his 
brother  first  to  be  reconciled  to  him  before  coming  with 
his  offering.  Luther  also  impresses  on  the  monks  and  clergy 
that  they  must  not  pray  for  what  is  displeasing  to  God  .  .  . 
for  instance,  for  strength  to  fulfil  their  obligation  of  celibacy 
or  their  vows. — Might  they  not  justly  have  retorted  that  he, 
too,  should  not  insist  so  blindly  that  God  should  establish 
his  work?  And  might  not  the  fanatics  and  Anabaptists 
have  urged  a  tu  quoque  against  him  when  he  accused 
them  of  spiritual  pride  and  blind  presumption  because  of 
their  fervent  prayers  ? 

We  shall  not  go  out  of  our  way  to  repeat  again  what  we 
have  already  said  of  his  pseudo-mysticism.  But  in  order 
to  understand  rightly  Luther's  prayers  and  trustfulness, 
so  frequently  reminiscent  of  the  best  men  of  the  Catholic 
past,  it  is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  his  peculiar  mystic 
leanings. 

Other  Personal  Traits.     His  Family  Life. 

Luther  was  able  to  combine  in  a  remarkable  manner  his 
pseudo-mysticism  with  practical  and  sober  common  sense. 

Where  it  is  not  a  question  of  his  Divine  mission,  of  the 
rights  of  the  new  Evangel  or  of  politics- — of  which  by  nature 
he  was  unfitted  to  judge — we  usually  find  him  eminently 
practical  in  his  views.  His  intercourse  with  others  was 
characterised  by  simplicity  and  directness,  and  the  tone  of 
his  conversation  was  both  vigorous  and  original.  It  was 
most  fortunate  for  him  that  his  practical  insight  into  things 
so  soon  enabled  him  to  detect  the  exaggeration  and  peril  of 


PRACTICAL   GIFTS  279 

the  movement  set  on  foot  by  the  fanatics.  Had  he  been  as 
incautious  as  they,  the  State  authorities  would  soon  have 
crushed  his  plans.  This  he  clearly  perceived  from  the  very 
outset  of  the  movement.  Something  similar,  though  on  a 
smaller  scale,  happened  later  in  the  case  of  the  Antinomians. 
Luther  was  opposed  to  such  extravagance,  and,  when  friendly 
admonition  proved  of  no  avail,  was  perfectly  ready  to  resort 
to  force.  Whether,  from  his  own  standpoint,  he  was  in  a 
position  to  set  matters  straight  in  the  case  of  either  of  the 
two  movements  is  another  question  ;  the  truth  is  that  his 
standpoint  had  suspiciously  much  in  common  with  both. 
At  any  rate  his  encounter  with  the  fanatics  taught  him  to 
lay  much  less  stress  than  formerly  on  the  "  Spirit,"  and  to 
insist  more  on  the  outward  Word  and  the  preaching  of  the 
"  Evangel." 

It  must  also  be  noted,  that,  though  accustomed  to  go 
forward  bravely  and  beat  down  all  difficulties  by  main 
strength,  yet  in  many  instances  he  was  quite  open  to 
accommodate  himself  to  circumstances,  and  to  yield  in  the 
interests  of  his  cause,  displaying  likewise  considerable 
ingenuity  in  the  choice  of  the  means  to  be  employed.  We 
have  already  had  occasion  more  than  once  to  see  that  he  was 
by  no  means  deficient  in  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent.  He 
knew  how  to  give  favourably  disposed  Princes  astute  advice, 
particularly  as  to  how  they  might  best  encourage  and 
promote  the  new  Church  system.  To  settle  their  quarrels 
and  to  restore  concord  among  them  he  had  recourse  some 
times  to  fiery  and  even  gross  language,  sometimes  to  more 
diplomatic  measures.  When  the  Elector  and  the  Duke  of 
Saxony  became  estranged  by  the  Wurzen  quarrel  Luther 
frankly  advised  the  former  to  give  way,  and  jestingly  added 
that  sometimes  there  might  be  good  reason  to  "  light  a 
couple  of  tapers  at  the  devil's  altar." 

He  did  not,  however,  possess  any  talent  as  an  organiser 
and  was,  generally  speaking,  a  very  imperfect  judge  of  the 
social  conditions  of  his  time.  (See  vol.  vi.,  xxxv.) 

Heinrich  Bohmer  remarks  justly  :  "  Luther  was  no 
organiser.  Not  that  he  was  devoid  of  interest  in  or  compre 
hension  for  the  practical  needs  of  life.  He  was  neither 
a  secluded  scholar  nor  a  stiff-necked  pedant.  .  .  .  His 
practical  vein,  though  strong  enough  to  enable  him  readily 
to  detect  the  weak  spot  in  the  proposals  and  creations  of 


280          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

others,  was,  however,  not  equal  to  any  independent,  creative 
and  efficient  action.  However  bold,  energetic  and  original 
as  a  thinker  and  writer,  as  an  organiser  he  was  clumsy, 
diffident  and  poor  in  ideas.  In  this  domain  he  is  entirely 
lacking  in  initiative,  decision  and,  above  all,  in  any  theory 
he  could  call  his  own."  "  His  regulations  for  public 
worsliip  are  no  new  creation  but,  more  often  than  not, 
merely  the  old,  Catholic  ones,  reduced  and  arranged  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  evangelical  congregation.  .  .  .  Where 
he  is  original  he  not  seldom  ceases  to  be  practical.  For 
instance,  his  extraordinary  proposal  that  the  Latin  service 
should  be  retained  for  the  benefit  and  edification  of  those 
familiar  with  the  language,  and  his  regret  that  it  was  no 
longer  possible  to  arrange  a  service  in  Greek  or  Hebrew,  can 
scarcely  be  characterised  as  anything  but  a  professor's 
whim."1 

His  domestic  life,  owing  to  the  simplicity,  frugality  and 
industry  which  reigned  there,  presents  the  picture  of  an 
unpretentious  family  home.2 

With  Catherine  Bora  and  the  children  she  bore  him,  he 

1  "  Luther  im  Lichte  der  neueren  Forschung,"1  p.   130  f.     In  the 
second  edition  the  closing  chapter  containing  these  passages  is  omitted. 
The  comparison  with  Calvin  made  by  Bohmer  in  this  same  chapter 
on  Luther's  talent  for  organisation,  is  also  worthy  of  notice.      "  At 
that  time  Luther  hardly  had  his  equal  as  pastor,  preacher  and  writer, 
but,  unlike  Calvin,  he  was  no  born  organiser  or  church-founder.   Hence, 
as  soon  as  he  was  confronted  with  the  great  problem  how  to  organise 
the  evangelical  movement  now  becoming  more  and  more  powerful,  he 
ceased  to  be  the  one  leader  and  commander  of  the  Reformation.     It  is 
true  he  always  remained  the  supreme  authority  to  his  own  followers  ; 
he  reigned  indeed,  but  did  not  govern  ;  he  no  longer  inspired,  instructed 
or  guided  his  fellow-workers  individually.     In  this  respect,  also,  Calvin 
was  his  exact  opposite.     His  position  at  the  outset  was  incomparably 
more  humble  than  that  of  Luther.    Yet  his  reputation  grew  constantly, 
till  Church  and  State  in  Geneva  unhesitatingly  obeyed  him,  whilst  his 
sphere  of  action  went  on  extending  till  his  very  death,  till  finally  it 
embraced  the  greater  part  of  Western  Europe  "  (p.   131  f.).     "  Down 
to  the  year  1689,  nay,  down  to  the  19th  century,  the  nations  of  the 
West  were  still  engaged  in  the  solution  of  the  political  problems  with 
which  Luther's  reform  had  confronted  them.     For  these  Luther  him 
self  had  but  slight  comprehension.      If  anything,   he  rendered  their 
solution  more  difficult.     He,  however,  took  more  interest  in  the  legal 
reforms  which  had  become  necessary  in  consequence  of  his  under 
taking  "  (p.  136). 

2  "  Luther's  domestic  life  displays,  as  a  whole,  a  not  unpleasant 
picture,  and  its  description  would  form  the  kindliest  portion  of  a  life 
which  really  does  not  offer  much  that  is  pleasing."    Thus  Georg  Evers, 
"  Martin  Luther,"  6,  p.  1. 


HIS   LOVE   FOR   HIS   WIFE  281 

led — apart  from  the  disturbances  arising  from  his  outward 
controversies  and  inward  combats — a  regular  life  conducive 
to  his  labours.  His  relations  with  his  life's  partner,  who  was 
absorbed  in  the  management  of  the  little  household,  were, 
so  it  would  appear,  never  seriously  disturbed  ;  he  was  as 
devoted  to  her  as  she  was  to  him,  striving  as  she  did  to  serve 
him  and  to  lighten  his  cares.  As  to  her  failings,  viz.  a 
certain  haughtiness  and  masterfulness,  he  winked  at  them. 

In  his  will  dated  Jan.  6,  1542,  he  gives,  as  follows,  his  reason 
for  leaving  everything  to  his  "  beloved  and  faithful  wife 
Catherine  "  :  "  I  do  this  first  because  she,  as  a  pious,  faithful  and 
honourable  wife,  has  always  held  me  dear  and  in  honour  and,  by 
God's  blessing,  bore  me  and  brought  up  five  children,  who  are 
still  alive  and  whom  may  God  long  preserve."1 

Incidentally  he  praises  her  complacency  and  says  that  she 
had  served  him  not  only  like  a  wife  but  like  a  maid.  It  is  true, 
however,  he  says  elsewhere  :  "  Had  I  to  marry  another,  I  should 
hew  myself  an  obedient  wife  out  of  stone,  for  I  despair  of  any 
woman's  obedience."2 

His  last  letters  to  Bora  attest  great  mutual  confidence,  even 
though  he  does  just  hint  in  his  usual  joking  way  at  their  common 
faults  :  "I  think,  that,  had  you  been  here,  you  would  also  have 
advised  us  to  do  this,  so  that  then  for  once  we  should  have 
followed  your  advice."  "  To  my  well-beloved  housewife 
Catherine  Lutheress,  Doctoress,  Zulsdorferess,  pork-butcheress 
and  whatever  else  she  may  be.  Grace  to  you  and  peace  in  Christ 
and  my  poor  old  love.  ...  I  commend  to  God's  keeping  you  and 
all  the  household ;  greet  all  the  guests.  [Signed]  M.  L.,  your  old 
sweetheart."  Writing  to  his  wife  who  was  so  anxious  about  him, 
he  says  :  "  You  want  to  undertake  the  care  of  your  God  just  as 
though  He  were  not  almighty  and  able  to  create  ten  Dr.  Martins. 
.  .  .  Let  Master  Philip  read  this  letter,  for  I  have  not  had  time 
to  write  to  him  ;  console  yourself  with  this,  that  I  would  be  with 
you  were  I  able,  as  you  know,  and  as  he  perhaps  also  knows  from 
experience  with  his  own  wife,  and  understands  it  all  perfectly." 
"  We  are  very  grateful  to  you  for  your  great  anxiety  that  pre 
vents  you  from  sleeping.  .  .  .  Do  you  pray  and  leave  the  rest  to 
God.  It  is  written  :  '  Cast  thy  care  upon  the  Lord,  and  He  shall 
sustain  thee  '  (Psalm  lv.)."3 

His  humour  helped  to  tide  him  over  any  minor  annoyances 
for  which  Catherine  and  the  inmates  of  his  house  were  respon 
sible.  He  preferred  to  oppose  the  shield  of  jest  to  Catherine's 
obstinacy,  to  her  feminine  desire  to  interfere  in  business  that  was 
not  hers,  as  well  as  to  her  jealous  rule  in  matters  pertaining  to  the 
management  of  the  household.  When  in  his  letters  he  addresses 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  56,  p.  2  f.          2  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  487. 
3  Letters   of  Jan.    25   to   Feb.    14,    1546,    "Werke,"   Erl.   ed.,    56, 
pp.  149,  151-154. 


282          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

her  as  "  Lord  Katey,"  and  so  forth,  his  object  was  to  reprove  her 
gently  for  that  imperiousness  under  which  he  himself  had  some 
times  to  smart.  We  learn  from  outside  sources  that  her  inter 
ference  was  particularly  troublesome  to  others  at  the  time  of 
Luther's  conflict  with  the  lawyers  on  the  validity  of  clandestine 
marriages,  when  his  wife's  friendly  interest  in  certain  couples 
concerned  displayed  itself  in  loud  and  over-zealous  advocacy  of 
Luther's  view  of  the  question.  It  was  then  that  Cruciger,  the 
Wittenberg  theologian,  described  her  as  the  "  firebrand  in 
Luther's  house."1 

He  was  not  merely  unable  to  accustom  himself  to  the  humdrum 
occupations  connected  with  household  management,  but  the 
annoyance  it  entailed  was  so  repugnant  to  him  that  in  1538  he 
dissuaded  a  preacher  who  wished  to  marry  a  second  time,  telling 
him  that  "  the  management  of  a  family  is  in  our  day  the  most 
troublesome  thing  on  earth,  so  that,  knowing  the  wickedness  of 
the  world,  were  I  a  young  man  I  would  rather  die  than  again 
become  a  married  man,  even  though,  after  my  Katey,  a  queen 
were  offered  me  in  marriage."2  Evidently  he  must  have  found 
something  to  regret. 

Both  took  their  share  in  the  troublesome  and  unpre 
tentious  work  of  educating  and  instructing  the  children. 
Luther  rightly  extols  such  labours  as  great  and  meritorious 
in  God's  sight,  just  as  he  frequently  describes  the  seemingly 
lowly  callings,  which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  are  of  no 
account,  e.g.  marriage,  as  ennobled  by  God  when  performed 
by  pious  Christians  in  accordance  with  His  Will  and  to  the 
benefit  of  body  and  soul.  (Above,  p.  142  f.) 

By  means  of  a  fairly  well-ordered  division  of  the  day  he 
found  time,  in  the  intervals  of  the  demands  made  by  his 
domestic  duties,  to  devote  long  hours  to  the  multifarious  and 
exhausting  labours  of  which  we  know  something.  Self- 
denial  in  the  interests  of  the  cause  he  had  espoused,  re 
nunciation  of  ease  and  enjoyment  so  as  better  to  serve  an 
end  for  which  he  was  impassioned,  disregard  even  of  the 
pressing  claims  of  health — all  this  is  not  easily  to  be  matched 
in  any  other  writer  of  eminence  and  talent  occupying  so 
historic  a  position  in  public  life.  Luther,  plagued  as  he  was 
by  extraneous  difficulties,  with  his  professorship,  his  pulpit 
and  his  care  for  souls,  seemed  to  revolve  the  wheel  of  time. 
Without  unheard-of  energy  and  a  fiery,  overmastering 

"  Corp.  ref.,"  5,  p.  314  :  "  Fax  domestica."  The  cause  of  Caspar 
Beier,  the  clandestinely  married  student,  with  regard  to  which  she 
fanned  the  flames  of  Luther's  anger,  was,  according  to  Cruciger,  "  none 
of  the  best,"  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  pp.  687,  571,  n.  1,  and  p.  569  f. 

2  To  Bernard  v.  Dolen,  Aug.  31,  1538,  "  Briefwechsel,"  11,  p.  398. 


MISSPENT   EXERTIONS  283 

enthusiasm  for  the  cause  his  achievements  would  indeed  be 
incomprehensible . 

The  Catholic,  however,  when  contemplating  these  traits 
so  far  as  they  redound  to  Luther's  credit  must  deeply 
regret,  that  such  energy  was  not  employed  in  a  well-ordered 
amelioration  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  on  the  basis  of  the 
true  Christian  doctrine  and  in  harmony  with  the  authority 
divinely  appointed.  If  he  considers  these  favourable  sides 
of  Luther's  character  with  befitting  broad-mindedness,  his 
grief  can  only  deepen  at  the  action,  characterised  by  such 
perversity  and  contradiction,  by  which  Luther  sought 
utterly  to  destroy  the  existing  Church  and  her  faith  as 
revealed  and  handed  down. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 

LUTHER'S  MODE  or  CONTROVERSY  A  COUNTERPART  OF 
ins  SOUL 

1.  Luther's  Anger.     His  Attitude  towards  the  Jews,  the 
Lawyers  and  the  Princes 

WHAT  above  all  strikes  one  in  Luther's  mode  of  controversy 
is  his  utter  unrestraint  in  his  scolding  and  abuse.  Particu 
larly  remarkable,  especially  in  his  later  years,  is  the  language 
which  he  has  in  readiness  for  two  groups  of  foes,  viz.  for 
Jews  and  Lawyers  ;  then,  again,  we  have  the  invective 
which,  throughout  his  career,  he  was  fond  of  hurling  at  such 
Princes  and  scholars  as  did  not  submit  to  his  teaching. 

As,  in  what  follows,  and  in  studying  the  psychology  of  his 
anti-Papal  abuse,  we  shall  have  again  occasion  to  encounter 
unpleasant  passages,  we  may  well  make  our  own  the  words 
of  Sir  Thomas  More  in  his  "  Responsio  ad  convitia  Lutheri," 
where  he  trounces  Luther  for  his  handling  of  Henry  VIII.  : 
"  The  gentle  reader  must  forgive  me  if  much  that  occurs 
offends  his  feelings.  Nothing  has  been  more  painful  to 'me 
than  to  be  compelled  to  pour  such  things  into  decent  ears. 
The  only  other  alternative  would,  however,  have  been  to 
leave  the  unclean  book  untouched."1 

The  Jews. 

In  his  earlier  days  Luther  had  been  more  friendly  towards 
the  Jews,  and  had  even  cherished  the  childish  hope  that 
many  of  them  would  embrace  the  new  Evangel  and  help 
him  in  his  warfare  against  the  Papal  Antichrist.  When  this 
failed  to  come  about  Luther  became  more  and  more  angered 
with  their  blasphemy  against  Christ,  their  art  of  seducing 
the  faithful  and  their  cunning  literary  attacks  on  Christian 
doctrine.  He  was  also  greatly  vexed  because  his  Elector,  in 
spite  of  having,  in  1536,  ordered  all  Jews  to  leave  the  country, 
1  "  Opp.,"  Lovanii,  1560,  f.  116'. 
284 


ON   THE   JEWS  285 

nevertheless,  in  1538,  granted  them  a  conditional  permit  to 
travel  through  it ;  he  was  still  more  exasperated  with 
Ferdinand  the  German  King  who  had  curtailed  the  dis 
abilities  of  the  Jews.  Luther's  opinion  was  that  the  only 
thing  to  do  was  to  break  their  pride  ;  he  now  relinquished 
all  hope  of  convincing  any  large  number  of  them  of  the 
truth  of  Christianity  ;  even  the  biblical  statements,  accord 
ing  to  which  the  Jews  were  to  be  converted  before  the  end 
of  the  world,  appeared  to  him  to  have  been  shorn  of  their 
value.1 

Hence  Luther  was,  above  all,  desirous  of  proving  to  the 
faithful  that  the  objections  brought  forward  by  the  Jews 
against  Christian  doctrine  and  their  interpretation  of  the 
Old  Testament  so  as  to  exclude  the  Christian  Messias  were 
all  wrong.  This  he  did  in  three  writings  which  followed  each 
other  at  short  intervals  :  "  Von  den  Jiiden  und  jren  Liigen," 
"  Vom  Schem  Hamphoras,"  both  dating  from  1542,  and 
"  Von  den  letzten  Worten  Davids  "  (1543).  Owing  to  his 
indignation  these  writings  are  no  mere  works  of  instruction, 
but  in  parts  are  crammed  with  libel  and  scurrilous  abuse.2 

In  the  first  of  these  tracts,  for  instance,  he  voices  as  follows 
his  opinion  of  the  religious  learning  of  the  Hebrews  :  "  This 
passage  [the  Ten  Commandments]  is  far  above  the  comprehension 
of  the  blind  and  hardened  Jews,  and  to  discourse  to  them  on  it 
would  be  as  useless  as  preaching  the  Gospel  to  a  pig.  They 
cannot  grasp  the  nature  of  God's  law,  much  less  do  they  know 
how  to  keep  it."  "  Their  boast  of  following  the  external  Mosaic 
ordinances  whilst  disobeying  the  Ten  Commandments,  fits  the 
Jews  just  as  well  as  ornaments  do  an  evil  woman  "  ;  "  yet  clothes, 
adornments,  garlands,  jewels  would  serve  far  better  to  deck 
the  sow  that  wallows  in  the  mire  than  a  strumpet."3 

One  point  which  well  illustrates  his  anti-Semitism  is  the 
Talmud-Bible  he  invents  as  best  suited  to  them  :  "  That  Bible 
only  should  you  explore  which  lies  concealed  beneath  the  sow's 
tail  ;  the  letters  that  drop  from  it  you  are  free  to  eat  and  drink  ; 
that  is  the  best  Bible  for  prophets  who  trample  under  foot  and 
rend  in  so  swinish  a  manner  the  Word  of  the  Divine  Majesty 
which  ought  to  be  listened  to  with  all  respect,  with  trembling 
and  with  joy."  "  Do  they  fancy  that  we  are  clods  and  wooden 
blocks  like  themselves,  the  rude,  ignorant  donkeys  ?  .  .  .  Hence, 
gentle  Christian,  beware  of  the  Jews,  for  this  book  will  show  you 
that  God's  anger  has  delivered  them  over  to  the  devil."4 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  316. 

2  Cp.   Reinhold   Lewin,    "  Luthers   Stellung  zu  den  Jiiden  "    ("  N. 
Stud,  zur  Gesch.  der  Theol.  und  Kirche,"  10),  1911. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  135.  4  Ibid.,  p.  177  f. 


286         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  figure  of  the  sow's  tail  pleased  him  so  well'  that  he  again 
used  it  later  in  the  same  year  in  his  "  Vom  Schem  Hamphoras." 
There  he  alludes  to  the  piece  of  sculpture  which  had  originally 
supplied  him  with  the  idea  :  "  Here,  at  Wittenberg,  outside  our 
parish  church  there  is  a  sow  chiselled  in  the  stone  ;  under  her 
are  piglets  and  little  Jews  all  sucking  ;  behind  the  sow  stands  a 
Rabbi,  who  lifts,  with  his  right  hand  the  sow's  hind  leg  and  with 
his  left  her  tail,  and  is  intently  engaged  poring  over  the  Talmud 
under  the  sow's  tail,  as  though  he  wished  to  read  and  bring  to 
light  something  especially  clever.  That  is  a  real  image  of  Schem 
Hamphoras.  .  .  .  For  of  the  sham  wise  man  we  Germans  say  : 
Where  did  he  read  that  ?  To  speak  coarsely,  in  the  rear  parts 
of  a  sow."1 

The  "  devil  "  also  is  drawn  into  the  fray  the  better  to  enable 
Luther  to  vent  his  ire  against  the  Jews.  At  the  end  of  the 
passage  just  quoted  he  says  :  "  For  the  devil  has  entered  into 
the  Jews  and  holds  them  captive  so  that  perforce  they  do  his  will, 
as  St.  Paul  says,  mocking,  defaming,  abusing  and  cursing  God 
and  everything  that  is  His.  .  .  .  The  devil  plays  with  them  to 
their  eternal  damnation."2 — And  elsewhere:  "Verily  a  hope 
less,  wicked,  venomous  and  devilish  thing  is  the  existence  of 
these  Jews,  who  for  fourteen  hundred  years  have  been,  and  still 
are,  our  pest,  torment  and  misfortune.  In  fine,  they  are  just 
devils  and  nothing  more,  with  no  feeling  of  humanity  for  us 
heathen.  This  they  learn  from  their  Rabbis  in  those  devils' 
aeries  which  are  their  schools."3 — "  They  are  a  brood  of  vipers 
and  the  children  of  the  devil,  and  are  as  kindly  disposed  to  us  as 
is  the  devil  their  father."4 — "  The  Turk  and  the  other  heathen  do 
not  suffer  from  them  what  we  Christians  do  from  these  malignant 
snakes  and  imps.  .  .  .  Whoever  would  like  to  cherish  such 
adders  and  puny  devils — who  are  the  worst  enemies  of  Christ  and 
of  us  all — to  befriend  them  and  do  them  honour  simply  in  order 
to  be  cheated,  plundered,  robbed,  disgraced  and  forced  to  howl 
and  curse  and  suffer  every  kind  of  evil,  to  him  I  would  commend 
these  Jews.  And  if  this  be  not  enough  let  him  tell  the  Jew  to  use 
his  mouth  as  a  privy,  or  else  crawl  into  the  Jew's  hind  parts  and 
there  worship  the  holy  thing,  so  as  afterwards  to  be  able  to  boast 
of  having  been  merciful,  and  of  having  helped  the  devil  and  his 
progeny  to  blaspheme  our  dear  Lord."5  The  last  clause  would 
appear  to  have  been  aimed  at  the  Counts  of  Mansfeld,  who  had 
allowed  a  large  number  of  Jews  to  settle  in  Eisleben,  Luther's 
birthplace. 

The  temporal  happiness  which  the  Jews  looked  for  under  the 
reign  of  their  Messias,  Luther  graphically  compares  to  the  felicity 
of  a  sow  :  "  For  the  sow  lies  as  it  were  on  a  feather-bed  whether 
in  the  street  or  on  the  manure-heap  ;  she  rests  secure,  grunts 
contentedly,  sleeps  soundly,  fears  neither  lord  nor  king,  neither 
death  nor  hell,  neither  devil  nor  Divine  anger.  .  .  .  She  has  no 
thought  of  death  until  it  is  upon  her.  ...  Of  what  use  would 

1   "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  298.  2  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  242.  *  Ibid.,  p.  244  f.  *  Ibid.,  p.  244  f. 


THE   METAPHOR   OF   THE   PIG       287 

the  Jews'  Messias  be  to  me  if  he  could  not  help  poor  me  against 
this  great  and  horrible  dread  and  misfortune  [the  fear  of  death], 
nor  make  my  life  a  tenth  part  as  happy  as  that  of  the  sow  ?  I 
would  much  rather  say  :  Dear  God  Almighty,  keep  Your  Messias 
for  Yourself,  or  give  him  to  those  who  want  him  ;  as  for  me, 
change  me  into  a  sow.  For  it  is  better  to  be  a  live  pig  than  a  man 
who  is  everlastingly  dying."1 

Such  passages  as  the  above  are  frequently  to  be  met  with 
in  Luther's  writings  against  the  Jews.  In  them  his  object 
plainly  was  to  confute  the  misinterpretation  of  the  Bible  and 
the  scoffing  objections  to  which  Jewish  scholars  were  given. 
Yet  so  utterly  ungovernable  was  the  author's  passion  that 
it  spoiled  the  execution  of  his  noble  task.  He  scarcely  knew 
how  to  conduct  a  controversy  without  introducing  sows, 
devils  and  such  like. 

Was  it  really  to  Luther's  credit  that  the  sty  should  loom 
so  large  in  his  struggle  with  his  foes  ? 

Duke  George  he  scolds  as  the  "  Dresden  pig,"  and  Dr.  Eck  as 
"  Pig-Eck  "  ;  the  latter  Luther  promises  to  answer  in  such  a 
way  "that  the  sow's  belly  shall  not  be  too  much  inflated."2 
The  Bishops  of  the  Council  of  Constance  who  burnt  Hus  are 
"  boars  "  ;  the  "  bristles  of  their  backs  rise  on  end  and  they 
whet  their  snouts."3  Erasmus  "carries  within  him  a  sow  from 
the  herd  of  Epicurus."4  The  learned  Catholics  of  the  Universities 
are  hogs  and  donkeys  decked  out  in  finery,  whom  God  has  sent 
to  punish  us  ;  these  "  devils'  masks,  the  monks  and  learned 
spectres,  from  the  Schools  we  have  endowed  with  such  huge 
wealth,  many  of  the  doctors,  preachers,  masters,  priests  and 
friars  are  big,  coarse,  corpulent  donkeys,  decked  out  with  hoods 
red  and  brown,  like  the  market  sow  in  her  glass  beads  and  tinsel 
chains."5 

The  same  simile  is,  of  course,  employed  even  more  frequently 
of  the  peasants.  "  To-day  the  peasants  are  the  merest  hogs, 
whilst  the  people  of  position,  who  once  prided  themselves  on 
being  bucks,  are  beginning  to  copy  them."6 — The  Papists  have 
"  stamped  the  married  state  under  foot  "  ;  their  clergy  are 
"  like  pigs  in  the  fattening-pen,"  "  they  wallow  in  filth  like  the 
pig  in  his  sty."7 — The  Papists  are  fed  up  by  their  literary  men, 
as  befits  such  pigs  as  they.  "  Eat,  piggies,  eat  !  This  is  good  for 
you."8 — We  Germans  are  "  hopeless  pigs."9 

1  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  261.     Cp.  vol.,  iii.,  p.  289  f. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  271  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  206. 

3  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  79.  4  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  280. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  50  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  22,  p.  196. 

6  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  137. 

7  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  19,  p.  306  ;   Erl.  ed.,  40,  p.  250  f. 

8  To  Caspar  Miiller,  March  18,  1535  ;    "  Brief wechsel,"   10,  p.   137. 

9  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  149  ;  Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  68.     See  above, 
vol.  iii.,  93  f. 


288          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Henry  of  Brunswick  is  "as  expert  in  Holy  Writ  as  a  sow  is  on 
the  harp."  Let  him  and  his  Papists  confess  that  they  are 
"verily  the  devil's  whore-church."1  "You  should  not  write  a 
book,"  Luther  tells  him,  "  until  you  have  heard  an  old  sow 

s ;  then  you  should  open  your  jaws  and  say  :  Thank  you, 

lovely  nightingale,  now  I  have  the  text  I  want.  Stick  to  it  ;  it 
will  look  fine  printed  in  a  book  against  the  Scripturists  and  the 
Elector  ;  but  have  it  done  at  Wolfenbiittel.  Oh,  how  they  will 
have  to  hold  their  noses  !  " 

Another  favourite  image,  which  usually  accompanies  the  sow, 
is  provided  by  the  donkey.  Of  Clement  VII.  and  one  of  his  Bulls 
Luther  says  :  "  The  donkey  pitched  his  bray  too  high  and 
thought  the  Germans  would  not  notice  it."3  Of  Emser  and  the 
Catholic  Professors  he  writes  :  "  Were  I  ignorant  of  logic  and 
philosophy  you  rude  asses  would  be  after  setting  yourselves  up 
as  logicians  and  philosophers,  though  you  know  as  much  about 
the  business  as  a  donkey  does  about  music."4  Of  Alveld  the 
Franciscan  he  says  :  "  The  donkey  does  not  understand  music, 
he  must  rather  be  given  thistles."5  The  fanatics  too,  naturally, 
could  not  expect  to  escape.  All  that  Luther  says  of  heavenly 
things  is  wasted  upon  them.  "  They  understand  it  as  little  as 
the  donkey  does  the  Psalter."6 

The  devil,  however,  plays  the  chief  part.  Luther's  con 
sidered  judgment  on  the  Zwinglians,  for  instance,  is,  that 
they  are  "  soul-cannibals  and  soul-assassins,"  are  "  en- 
deviled,  devilish,  yea,  ultra-devilish  and  possessed  of 
blasphemous  hearts  and  lying  lips." 7 

The  Lawyers. 

Luther's  aversion  for  the  "  Jurists "  grew  yearly  more 
intense.  His  chief  complaint  against  them  was  that  they 
kept  to  the  Canon  Law  and  put  hindrances  in  his  way. 
Their  standpoint,  however,  as  regards  Canon  Law  was  not 
without  justification.  "  Any  downright  abrogation  of  Canon 
Law  as  a  whole  was  out  of  the  question.  The  law  as  then 
practised,  not  only  in  the  ecclesiastical  but  even  in  the 
secular  courts,  was  too  much  bound  up  with  Canon  Law  ; 
when  it  was  discarded,  for  instance,  in  the  matrimonial 
cases,  dire  legal  complications  threatened  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  German  Empire."8  To  this  Luther's  eyes  were 
not  sufficiently  open. 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  56  f. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  86.  3  Ibid.,  251,  p.  192. 

4  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  676  ;    Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  292. 

5  Ibid.,  6,  p.  302  =  27,  p.  110.          6  Ibid.,  26,  p.  351  =  30,  p.  224. 
7  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  404.  8  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  469. 


THE    LAWYERS  289 

His  crusade  against  the  validity  of  clandestine  engage 
ments  which  he  entered  upon  in  opposition  to  his  friend 
and  co-religionist,  Hieronymus  Schurf,  his  colleague  in  the 
faculty  of  jurisprudence  at  the  University  of  Wittenberg, 
was  merely  one  episode  in  his  resistance  to  those  who 
represented  legalism  as  then  established. 

In  another  and  wider  sphere  his  relations  with  those 
lawyers,  who  were  the  advisers  at  the  Court  of  his  Elector 
and  the  other  Princes,  became  more  strained.  This  was 
as  a  result  of  their  having  a  hand  in  the  ordering  of 
Church  business.  Here  again  his  action  was  scarcely  logical, 
for  he  himself,  forced  by  circumstances,  had  handed  over  to 
the  State  the  outward  guidance  of  the  Church  ;  that  the 
statesmen  would  intervene  and  settle  matters  according  to 
their  own  ideas  was  but  natural  ;  and  if  their  way  of  looking 
at  things  failed  to  agree  with  Luther's,  this  was  only  what 
might  have  been  foreseen  all  along. 

In  a  conference  with  Melanchthon,  Amsdorf  and  others  in 
Dec.,  1538,  he  complained  bitterly  of  the  lawyers  and  of  the 
"  misery  of  the  theologians  who  were  attacked  on  all  sides, 
especially  by  the  mighty."  To  Melchior  Kling,  a  lawyer  who 
was  present,  he  said  :  "  You  jurists  have  a  finger  in  this  and  are 
playing  us  tricks  ;  I  advise  you  to  cease  and  come  to  the  assist 
ance  of  the  nobles.  If  the  theologians  fall,  that  will  be  the  end  of 
the  jurists  too."  "  Do  not  worry  us,"  he  repeated,  "  or  you  will 
be  paid  out."  "  Had  he  ten  sons,  he  would  take  mighty  good 
care  that  not  one  was  brought  up  to  be  a  lawyer."  "  You 
jurists  stand  as  much  in  need  of  a  Luther  as  the  theologians 
did."  "  The  lawyer  is  a  foe  of  Christ  ;  he  extols  the  righteous 
ness  of  works.  If  there  should  be  one  amongst  them  who  knows 
better,  he  is  a  wonder,  is  forced  to  beg  his  bread  and  is  shunned 
by  all  the  other  men  of  law."1 

On  questions  affecting  conscience  he  considered  that  he  alone, 
as  theologian  and  leader  of  the  others,  had  a  right  to  decide  ;  yet 
countless  cases  which  came  before  the  courts  touched  upon 
matters  of  conscience.  He  exclaims,  for  instance,  in  1531  :  Must 
not  the  lawyers  come  to  me  to  learn  what  is  really  lawful  ?  "I 
am  the  supreme  judge  of  what  is  lawful  in  the  domain  of 
conscience."  "  If  there  be  a  single  lawyer  in  Germany,  nay,  in 
the  whole  world,  who  understands  what  is  '  lawful  de  jure '  and 
'  lawful  de  facto  '  then  I  am  .  .  .surprised."  The  recorder  adds  : 
"  When  the  Doctor  swears  thus  he  means  it  very  seriously." 
Luther  proceeds  :  "In  fine,  if  the  jurists  don't  crave  forgiveness 

1  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  2,  p.  289  seq.  The  date,  Dec.  4,  1538, 
must  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth. 

IV. — U 


290          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

and  crawl  humbly  to  the  Evangel,  I  shall  give  them  such  a  doing 
that  they  will  not  know  how  to  escape."1 

Thus  we  can  understand  how,  in  that  same  year  (1531),  when 
representatives  of  the  secular  law  interfered  in  the  ecclesiastical 
affairs  at  Zwickau  against  his  wishes,  he  declared  :  "I  will 
never  have  any  more  dealings  with  those  Zwickau  people,  and  I 
shall  carry  my  resentment  with  me  to  the  grave."  "  If  the 
lawyers  touch  the  Canons  they  will  fly  in  splinters.  ...  I  will 
fling  the  Catechism  into  their  midst  and  so  upset  them  that  they 
won't  know  where  they  are."2  If  they  are  going  to  feed  on  the 
"  filth  of  the  Pope-Ass,"  and  "  to  put  on  their  horns,"  then  he, 
too,  will  put  on  his  and  "  toss  them  till  the  air  resounds  with 
their  howls."  This  from  the  pulpit  on  Feb.  23,  1539.3 

The  Princes. 

With  what  scant  respect  Luther  could  treat  the  Princes  is 
shown  in  his  work  "  Von  welltlicher  Uberkeytt,  wie  weyt 
man  yhr  Gehorsam  schuldig  sey  "  (1523). 4 

Here  he  is  not  attacking  individual  Princes  as  was  the 
case,  for  instance,  in  his  writings  against  King  Henry  of 
England,  Duke  George  of  Saxony  and  Duke  Henry  of 
Brunswick,  hence  there  was  here  no  occasion  for  the  abuse 
with  which  these  polemical  tracts  are  so  brimful.  Here 
Luther  is  dealing  theologically  with  the  relations  which 
should  obtain  between  Princes  and  subjects  and,  according 
to  the  title  and  the  dedicatory  note  to  Johann  of  Saxony, 
professes  to  discuss  calmly  and  judicially  the  respective 
duties  of  both.  Yet,  carried  away  by  vexation,  because  the 
Princes  and  the  nobles  had  not  complied  with  his  request 
in  his  "  An  den  christlichen  Adel  "  that  they  should  rise  in 
a  body  against  Rome,  and  reform  the  Church  as  he  desired, 
he  bitterly  assails  them  as  a  class. 

Even  in  the  opening  lines  all  the  Princes  who,  like  the  Emperor, 
held  fast  to  the  olden  faith  and  sought  to  preserve  their  subjects 
in  it,  were  put  on  a  par  with  "  hair-brained  fellows  "  and  loose 
"  rogues."  "  Now  that  they  want  to  fleece  the  poor  man  and 
wreak  their  wantonness  on  God's  Word,  they  call  it  obedience  to 
the  commands  of  the  Emperor.  .  .  .  Because  the  ravings  of 
such  fools  leads  to  the  destruction  of  the  Christian  faith,  the 
denial  of  God's  Word  and  blasphemy  of  the  Divine  Majesty,  I 
neither  can  nor  will  any  longer  look  on  calmly  at  the  doings  of 
my  ungracious  Lords  and  fretful  squires."5 

1  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  14.  2  Ibid.,  p.  8  f. 

3  On  Invocavit  Sunday,  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  471. 

«  See  vol.  ii.,  pp.  297,  305  ff. 

8  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  11,  p.  246  f.  ;   ErI.  ed.,  22,  p.  62  f. 


THE   PRINCES  291 

Of  the  Princes  in  general  he  says,  that  they  ought  "  to  rule  the 
country  and  the  people  outwardly ;  this,  however,  they  neglect. 
They  do  nothing  but  rend  and  fleece  the  people,  heaping  impost 
upon  impost  and  tax  upon  tax  ;  letting  out,  here,  a  bear,  and 
there,  a  wolf  ;  nor  is  there  any  law,  fidelity  or  truth  to  be  found 
in  them,  for  they  behave  in  such  a  fashion  that  to  call  them 
robbers  and  scoundrels  would  be  to  do  them  too  great  an  honour. 
...  So  well  are  they  earning  the  hatred  of  all  that  they  are 
doomed  to  perish  with  the  monks  and  parsons  whose  rascality 
they  share."1 

It  is  here  that  Luther  tells  the  people  that,  "  from  the  beginning 
a  wise  Prince  has  been  a  rare  find,  and  a  pious  Prince  something 
rarer  still.  Usually  they  are  the  biggest  fools  or  the  most  arrant 
knaves  on  earth  ;  hence  one  must  always  expect  the  worst  from 
them  and  little  good,  particularly  in  Divine  things  which  pertain 
to  the  salvation  of  souls.  For  they  are  God's  lictors  and  hang 
men."2  "  The  usual  thing  is  for  Isaias  iii.  4  to  be  verified  :  '  I 
will  give  children  to  be  their  princes,  and  the  effeminate  shall 
rule  over  them.'  "3 

We  have  to  look  on  while  "  secular  Princes  rule  in  spiritual 
matters  and  spiritual  Princes  in  secular  things."  In  what  else 
does  the  devil's  work  on  earth  consist  but  in  making  fun  of  the 
world  and  turning  it  into  a  pantomime." 

In  conclusion  he  hints  to  the  Princes  plainly  that  the  "  mob  and 
the  common  folk  are  beginning  to  see  through  it  all."4 

A  Protestant  writer,  in  extenuation  of  such  dangerous 
language  against  the  rulers,  recently  remarked  :  "It  never 
entered  Luther's  head  that  such  words  might  bring  the 
Princes  into  contempt  and  thus,  indirectly,  promote  re 
bellion.  ...  If  we  are  to  draw  a  just  conclusion  from  his 
blindness  to  the  obvious  psychological  consequences  of  his 
words,  it  can  only  be,  that  Luther  was  no  politician."5 

It  may,  indeed,  be  that  he  did  not  then  sufficiently  weigh 
the  consequences.  Nevertheless,  in  his  scurrilous  writings 
against  individual  Princes  he  was  perfectly  ready  to  brave 
every  possible  outcome  of  his  vituperation.  "  What  Luther 
wrote  against  the  German  Princes,"  justly  remarks  Dollinger, 
"  against  Albert,  Elector  of  Mayence,  against  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick  and  Duke  George  of  Saxony,  puts  into  the  shade 
all  the  libels  and  screeds  of  the  more  recent  European 
literature."6 

One  of  the  chief  targets  for  his  shafts  was  the  Archbishop 
of  Mayence. 

1  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  11,  p.  265  =  86.          2  Ibid.,  p.  267  f.  =  89. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  268  =  90.  4  Ibid.,  p.  270  =  92  f. 

6  E.  Brandenburg  ("  Schriften  des  Vereins  fur  RG.,"  No.' 70,  Halle, 
1901),  p.  21.  «  "  Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  265. 


292          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Albert,  Elector  of  Mayence,  "  is  a  plague  to  all  Germany;  the 
ghastly,  yellow,  earthen  hue  of  his  countenance — a  mixture  of  mud 
and  blood — exactly  fits  his  character  ;  ...  he  is  deserving  of  death 
under  the  First  Table  "  (viz.  because  of  his  transgression  of  the 
first  commandments  of  the  Decalogue  by  his  utter  godlessness).1 
It  was,  however,  not  so  much  on  account  of  his  moral  short 
comings,  notorious  though  they  were,  but  more  particularly 
because  he  did  not  take  his  side,  that  Luther  regarded  him  as  a 
"  most  perfidious  rogue  "  ("  nebulo  perfidissimus  ").  "If  thieves 
are  hanged,  then  surely  the  Bishop  of  Mayence  deserves  to  be 
hanged  as  one  of  the  first,  on  a  gallows  seven  times  as  high  as  the 
Giebenstein.  .  .  .  For  he  fears  neither  God  nor  man."  When 
Simon  Lemnius,  the  Humanist,  praised  Archbishop  Albert  in  a 
few  epigrams,  Luther's  anger  turned  against  the  poet,  whom  he 
soundly  rated  for  making  "  a  saint  out  of  a  devil."  He  issued 
a  sort  of  mandate  against  Lemnius  of  which  the  conclusion  was  : 
"  I  beg  our  people,  and  particularly  the  poets  or  his  [the  Arch 
bishop's]  sycophants,  in  future  not  publicly  to  praise  the  shameful 
merd-priest  "  ;  he  threatens  sharp  measures  should  anyone  at 
Wittenberg  dare  to  praise  "  the  self-condemned  lost  priest."3 

The  satirical  list  of  relics  which,  in  1542,  he  published  with  a 
preface  and  epilogue  against  the  same  Elector  amounted  practi 
cally  to  a  libel,  and  was  described  by  lawyers  as  a  lying  slander 
punishable  at  law.  As  a  "  libellus  famosus  "  against  a  reigning 
Prince  of  the  Empire  it  might  have  entailed  serious  consequences 
for  its  author. 

In  it  Luther  says  :  The  Elector,  as  we  learn,  is  offering  "  big 
pardons  for  many  sins,"  even  for  sins  to  be  committed  for  the 
next  ten  years,  to  all  who  "  help  in  decking  out  in  new  clothes 
the  poor,  naked  bones  "  ;  the  relics  in  question,  during  their 
translation  from  Halle  to  Mayence,  had,  so  Luther  tells  us,  been 
augmented  by  other  "particles,"  enriched  by  the  Pope  with 
Indulgences,  amongst  them,  "(1)  a  fine  piece  of  the  left  horn  of 
Moses  ;  (2)  three  flames  from  the  bush  of  Moses  on  Mount  Sinai  ; 
(3)  two  feathers  and  one  egg  of  the  Holy  Ghost,"  etc.,  in  all,  twelve 
articles,  specially  chosen  to  excite  derision. 

Justus  Jonas  appears  to  have  been  shocked  at  Luther's 
ribaldry  and  to  have  given  Luther  an  account  of  what  the  lawyers 
were  saying.  At  any  rate,  we  have  Luther's  reply  in  his  own 
handwriting,  though  the  top  part  of  the  letter  has  been  torn  away. 
In  the  bottom  fragment  we  read  :  "  [Were  it  really  a  libel]  which, 
however,  it  cannot  be,  yet  I  have  the  authority,  right  and  power 
[to  write  such  libels]  against  the  Cardinal,  Pope,  devil  and  all  their 
crew  ;  and  not  to  have  the  term  '  libellus  famosus  '  hurled  at  me. 
Or  have  the  '  asinists ' — I  beg  your  pardon,  jurists — studied  their 
jurisprudence  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  ignorant  of  what  '  subjectum  ' 

1  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  139  f.  2  Ibid. 

3  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  504  f.  ;  6,  p.  319  ff.  ;  "  Briefwechsel 
des  Justus  Jonas,"  ed.  G.  Kawerau,  2,  p.  84.  The  "  printed  Mandate  " 
was  affixed  to  the  church  door.  Cp.  E.  Michael  ("  Zeitschr.  f.  kath. 
Theol.,"  19,  1895),  p.  455  ff. 


THE   PRINCES  293 

and  '  finis  '  mean  in  secular  law  ?  [the  end  in  his  eyes  was  a  good 
one].  If  I  have  to  teach  them,  I  shall  exact  smaller  fees  and 
teach  them  unwashed.  How  has  the  beautiful  Moritzburgk 
[belonging  to  the  see  of  Mayence]  been  turned  into  a  donkey- 
stable  !  If  they  are  ready  to  pipe,  I  am  quite  willing  to  dance, 
and,  if  I  live,  I  hope  to  tread  yet  another  measure  with  the  bride 
of  Mayence."1  Thus  the  revolting  untruths  to  which  his  tactics 
led  him  to  have  recourse,  the  better  to  excite  the  minds  of  the 
people,  seemed  to  him  a  fit  subject  for  jest  ;  in  spite  of  the 
wounds  which  the  religious  warfare  was  inflicting  on  the  German 
Church  he  still  saw  nothing  unseemly  in  the  figure  of  the  dance 
and  the  bridal  festivity. 

An  incident  of  his  controversy  with  the  Duke  of  Brunswick 
may  serve  to  complete  the  picture.  In  1540,  during  the  hot 
summer,  numerous  fires  broke  out  in  North  and  Central 
Germany,  causing  widespread  alarm  ;  certain  alleged 
incendiaries  who  were  apprehended  were  reported  to  have 
confessed  under  torture  that  this  was  the  doing  of  Duke 
Henry  of  Brunswick  and  the  Pope.  Before  even  investiga 
tions  had  commenced  Luther  had  already  jumped  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  real  author  was  his  enemy,  the  Catholic 
Duke,  backed  up  by  Jhe  Pope  and  the  monks  ;  for  had  not 
the  Duke  (according  to  Luther)  explained  to  the  burghers  of 
Goslar  that  he  recognised  no  duties  with  regard  to  heretics  ?2 
The  Franciscans  had  been  expelled  and  were  now  in  disguise 
everywhere  "  plotting  vengeance  "  ;  they  it  was  who  had 
done  it  all  with  the  assistance  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  and 
the  Elector  of  Mayence,  who,  of  course,  remained  behind  the 
scenes.3  "  If  this  be  proved,  then  there  is  nothing  left  for  us 
but  to  take  up  arms  against  the  monks  and  priests  ;  and  I 
too  shall  go,  for  miscreants  must  be  slain  like  mad  dogs."4 
Hieronymus  Schurf,  as  the  cautious  lawyer  he  was,  ex 
pressed  himself  in  Luther's  presence  against  the  misuse  of 
torture  in  the  case  of  those  accused  and  against  their  being 
condemned  too  hastily.  Luther  interrupted  him  :  "  This  is 
no  time  for  mercy  but  for  rage  !  "  According  to  St.  Augustine 
many  must  suffer  in  order  that  many  may  be  at  peace  ;  so 
is  it  also  in  the  law  courts,  "  now  and  again  some  must  suffer 
injustice,  so  long  as  it  is  not  done  knowingly  and  intention 
ally  by  the  judge.  In  troublous  times  excessive  severity 

1  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette  &  Seidemann,  6,  p.  320  ff. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  179,  Aug.,  1540.          3  Ibid.,  p.  180. 
4  Ibid.,  p.    171.       Still  more  strongly   against   the   Franciscans  on 

p.  180. 


294          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

must  be  overlooked."1  He  became  little  by  little  so  con 
vinced  of  the  guilt  of  Henry  the  "  incendiary  "  and  his 
Papists,  that,  in  October,  1540,  he  refers  half -jestingly  to 
the  reputation  he  was  acquiring  as  "  prophet  and  apostle  " 
by  so  correctly  discerning  in  the  Papists  a  mere  band  of 
criminals.2  He  also  informed  other  Courts  of  the  supposed 
truth  of  his  surmise,  viz.  that  "  Harry  of  Brunswick  has 
now  been  convicted  as  an  arch-incendiary-assassin  and  the 
greatest  scoundrel  on  whom  the  sun  has  ever  shone.  May 
God  give  the  bloodhound  and  werewolf  his  reward.  Amen." 
Thus  to  Duke  Albert  of  Prussia  on  April  20,  1541. 3 

Considerably  before  this,  in  a  letter  to  the  same  princely 
patron,  he  expressly  implicates  in  these  absurd  charges  the 
Pope,  the  chief  object  of  his  hate  :  After  telling  Albert  of 
the  report,  that  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  "  had  sent  out 
many  hundred  incendiaries  against  the  Evangelical 
Estates  "  of  whom  more  than  300  had  been  "  brought 
to  justice,"  many  of  them  making  confessions  implicating 
the  Duke,  the  Bishop  of  Mayence  and  others,  Luther  goes 
on  to  say  that  the  business  must  necessarily  have  been 
set  on  foot  "  by  great  people,  for  there  is  plenty  of 
money." 

"  The  Pope  is  said  to  have  given  80,000  ducats  towards 
it.  This  is  the  sort  of  thing  we  are  compelled  to  hear  and 
endure  ;  but  God  will  repay  them  abundantly  ...  in  hell, 
in  the  fire  beneath  our  feet."4 

"The  Doctor  said,"  we  read  in  the  Table-Talk,  taken 
down  by  Mathesius  in  September  (2-17),  1540  :  "  The 
greatest  wonder  of  our  day  is  that  the  majesty  of  the  Pope 
— who  was  a  terror  to  all  monarchs  and  against  whom  they 
dared  not  move  a  muscle,  seeing  that  a  glance  from  him  or  a 
movement  of  his  finger  sufficed  to  keep  them  all  in  a  state  of 
fear  and  obedience— that  this  god  should  have  collapsed  so 
utterly  that  even  his  defenders  loathe  him.  Those  who  still 
take  his  part,  without  exception  do  this  simply  for  money's 
sake  and  their  own  advantage,  otherwise  they  would  treat 
him  even  worse  than  we  do.  His  malice  has  now  been 
thoroughly  exposed,  since  it  is  certain  that  he  sent  eighteen 

1  Mathesius,  "Tischreden,"  p.  222. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  226  f.  3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  301. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  292  f.  Letter  of  Oct.  10,  1540.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  308,  also 
has  80,000  ducats.  In  the  passage  that  follows  Luther  speaks  of 
18,000  crowns. 


THE   POPE-JUDAS  295 

thousand  crowns  for  the  hiring  of  incendiaries."1  The 
perfect  seriousness  with  which  he  relates  this  in  the  circle 
of  his  friends  furnishes  an  enigma. 

His  consciousness  of  all  that  he  had  accomplished  against 
the  Pope,  combined  with  his  hatred  of  Catholicism,  seems 
often  to  cloud  his  mind. 

2.  Luther's  Excuse  :  "  We  MUST  Curse  the  Pope  and 
His  Kingdom  " 2 

In  Luther's  polemics  against  the  Pope  and  the  Papists  it 
is  psychologically  of  importance  to  bear  in  mind  the  depth 
of  the  passion  which  underlies  his  furious  and  incessant 
abuse. 

The  further  we  sec  into  Luther's  soul,  thanks  especially 
to  his  familiar  utterances  recorded  in  the  Table-Talk,  the 
more  plainly  does  this  overwhelming  enmity  stand  revealed. 
In  what  he  said  privately  to  his  friends  we  find  his  un 
varnished  thought  and  real  feelings.  Far  from  being  in  any 
sense  artificial,  the  intense  annoyance  which  rings  through 
out  his  abuse  seems  to  rise  spontaneously  from  the  very 
bottom  of  his  soul.  That  he  should  have  pictured  to  himself 
the  Papacy  as  a  dragon  may  be  termed  a  piece  of  folly, 
nevertheless  it  was  thus  that  it  ever  hovered  before  his  mind, 
by  day  and  by  night,  whether  in  the  cheery  circle  of  his 
friends  or  in  his  solitary  study,  in  the  midst  of  ecclesiastical 
or  ccclesiastico-political  business,  when  engaged  in  quiet 
correspondence  with  admirers  and  even  when  he  sought  in 
prayer  help  and  comfort  in  his  troubles. 

In  Lauterbach's  Diary  we  find  Luther  describing  the  Pope  as 
the  "Beast,"3  the  "Dragon  of  Hell"  towards  whom  "one 
cannot  be  too  hostile,"4  as  the  "Dragon  and  Crocodile,"  whose 
whole  being  "  was,  and  still  is,  rascality  through  and  through."5 
"Even  were  the  Pope  St.  Peter,  he  would  still  be  godless."6 
"  Whoever  wishes  to  glorify  the  Blood  of  Christ  must  needs  rage 
against  the  Pope  who  blasphemes  it."7  "  The  Pope  has  sold 
Christ's  Blood  and  the  state  of  matrimony,  hence  the  money-bag 
[of  this  Judas]  is  chock-full  of  the  proceeds  of  robbery.  .  .  .  He 
has  banned  and  branded  me,  and  stuck  me  in  the  devil's  behind. 
Hence  I  am  going  to  hang  him  on  his  own  keys."8  This  he  said 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  213. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  28,  p.  762  ;   Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  410.     See  below, 
p.  304. 

3  Lauterbach,   "  Tagebuch,"  p.   171.          4  P.  64.          5  P.  25. 
6  P.  149.  7  P.  64.  8  P.  30. 


296         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

when  a  caricature  was  shown  him  representing  the  Pope  strung 
up  next  to  Judas,  with  the  latter's  money-bag. 

"  I  am  the  Pope's  devil,"  so  he  declared  to  his  companions, 
"  hence  it  is  that  he  hates  and  persecutes  me."1 

And  yet  the  chief  crime  of  this  execrated  Papacy  was  its  non- 
acceptance  of  Luther's  innovations.  The  legal  measures  taken 
against  him  agreeably  with  the  olden  law,  whether  of  the  State  or 
of  the  Church,  were  no  proof  of  "  hatred,"  however  much  they 
might  lame  his  own  pretensions. 

In  other  notes  of  his  conversations  we  read  :  "  Formerly  we 
looked  at  the  Pope's  face,  now  we  look  only  at  his  posterior,  in 
which  there  is  no  majesty."2  "The  city  of  Rome  now  lies 
mangled  and  the  devil  has  discharged  over  it  his  filth,  i.e.  the 
Pope."3  It  is  a  true  saying,  that,  "  if  there  be  a  hell,  Rome  is 
built  upon  it."4 

"  Almost  all  the  Romans  are  now  sunk  in  Epicurism  ;  they 
trouble  themselves  not  at  all  about  God  or  a  good  conscience. 
Alack  for  our  times  !  I  used  to  believe  that  the  Epicurean 
doctrine  was  dead  and  buried,  yet  here  it  is  still  flourishing."5 

At  the  very  commencement  of  the  Diary  of  Cordatus,  Luther 
is  recorded  as  saying  :  "  The  Pope  has  lost  his  cunning.  It  is 
stupid  of  him  still  to  seek  to  lead  people  astray  under  the  pre 
tence  of  religion,  now  that  mankind  has  seen  through  the  devil's 
trickery.  To  maintain  his  kingdom  by  force  is  equally  foolish 
because  it  is  impracticable."8— He  proceeds  in  a  similar  strain  : 
"  The  Papists,  like  the  Jews,  insist  that  everyone  who  wishes  to 
be  saved  must  observe  their  ceremonies,  hence  they  will  perish 
like  the  Jews."7 — He  maliciously  quotes  an  old  rhyme  in  con 
nection  with  the  Pope,  who  is  both  the  "  head  of  the  world  " 
and  "  the  beast  of  the  earth,"  and,  in  support  of  this,  adduces 
abundant  quotations  from  the  Apocalypse.8 — When  Daniel 
declared  that  Antichrist  would  trouble  neither  about  God  nor 
about  woman  (xi.  37),  this  meant  that  "  the  Pope  would  recog 
nise  neither  God  nor  lawful  wives,  that,  in  a  word,  he  would 
despise  religion  and  all  domestic  and  social  life,  which  all  turned 
on  womankind.  Thus  may  we  understand  what  was  foretold, 
viz.  that  Antichrist  would  despise  all  laws,  ordinances,  statutes, 
rights  and  every  good  usage,  contemn  kings,  princes,  empires 
and  everything  that  exists  in  heaven  or  on  earth  merely  the 
better  to  extol  his  fond  inventions."9 — It  is  difficult  to  assume 
that  all  this  was  mere  rhetoric,  for,  then,  why  was  it  persisted  in  ? 
Intentionally  hyperbolical  utterances  are  as  a  rule  brief.  In  these 
conversations,  however,  the  tone  never  changes,  but  merely 
becomes  at  times  even  more  emphatic. 

On  the  same  page  in  Cordatus  we  read  :    "  Children  are  lucky 
in  that  they  come  into  the  world  naked  and  penniless  ;    for  the 

1  P.  163.          2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  439,  "  Tischreden." 

3  Ibid. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  441,  and  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeiclmungen,"  p.  100. 

5  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  190.     Cp.  Schlaginhaufen,  p.  5. 

6  P.  2.  ">  P.  3.  8  P.  7.  9  P.  9. 


THE  LORD   OF  THE   WORLD       297 

Pope  levies  toll  on  everything  there  is  on  the  earth,  save  only 
upon  baptism,  because  he  can't  help  it."1  And  immediately 
after  :  "  The  Pope  has  ceased  to  be  a  teacher  and  has  become, 
as  his  Decretals  testify,  a  belly-server  and  speculator.  In  the 
Decretals  he  treats  not  at  all  of  theological  matters  but  merely 
pursues  three  self-seeking  ends  :  First,  he  does  everything  to 
strengthen  his  domination  ;  secondly,  he  does  his  best  to  set  the 
kings  and  princes  at  loggerheads  with  each  other  whenever  he 
wants  to  score  off  one  of  the  great,  in  doing  which  he  does  not 
scruple  to  show  openly  his  malice  ;  thirdly,  he  plays  the  devil 
most  cunningly,  when,  with  a  friendly  air,  he  allays  the  dissen 
sions  he  had  previously  stirred  up  among  the  sovereigns  ;  this, 
however,  he  only  does  when  his  own  ends  have  been  achieved. 
He  also  perverts  the  truth  of  God's  Word  [thus  invading  the 
theological  field].  This,  however,  he  does  not  do  as  Pope,  but  as 
Antichrist  and  God's  real  enemy."2 

The  whole  mountain  of  abuse  expressed  here  and  in  what 
follows  rests  on  this  last  assumption,  viz.  that  the  Pope  perverts 
"  the  truth  of  God's  Word  "  ;  thanks  to  this  the  Wittenberg 
Professor  fancied  he  could  overthrow  a  Church  which  had  fifteen 
centuries  behind  it.  His  hate  is  just  as  deeply  rooted  in  his  soul 
as  his  delusion  concerning  his  special  call. 

According  to  the  German  Colloquies  the  Pope,  like  Mohammed, 
"  began  under  the  Emperor  Phocas  "  :  "  The  prophecy  [of  the 
Apocalypse]  includes  both,  the  Pope  and  the  Turk."3  Still,  the 
Pope  is  the  "  best  ruler  "  for  the  world,  because  he  does  know 
how  to  govern  ;  "  he  is  lord  of  our  fields,  meadows,  money, 
houses  and  everything  else,  yea,  of  our  very  bodies  "  ;  for  this 
"  he  repays  the  world  in  everlasting  curses  and  maledictions  ; 
this  is  what  the  world  wants  and  it  duly  returns  thanks  and 
kisses  his  feet."4 — "He  is  rather  the  lawyers'  than  the  theo 
logians'  god."5 

He  is  determined  to  turn  me  "  straightway  into  a  slave  of  sin  " 
and  to  force  me  to  "  blaspheme,"  but  instead  of  "  denying  God  " 
I  shall  withstand  the  Pope  ;  "  otherwise  we  would  willingly  have 
borne  and  endured  the  Papal  rule."6 — "  No  words  are  bad  enough 
to  describe  the  Pope.  We  may  call  him  miserly,  godless  and 
idolatrous,  but  all  this  falls  far  short  of  the  mark.  It  is  im 
possible  to  grasp  and  put  into  words  his  great  infamies;"7  in 
short,  as  Christ  says,  "  he  is  the  abomination  of  desolation  stand 
ing  in  the  Holy  Place."8 

The  Pope  is  indeed  the  "  father  of  abominations  and  the 
poisoner  of  souls."  "  After  the  devil  the  Pope  is  a  real  devil."9 
"  After  the  devil  there  is  no  worse  man  than  the  Pope  with  his 
lies  and  his  man-made  ordinances  "  ;10  in  fact,  he  is  a  masked 
devil  incarnate.11  No  one  can  become  Pope  unless  he  be  a 
finished  and  consummate  knave  and  miscreant."12  The  Pope  is  a 

1  P.  9.      2  P.  10.       3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  391,  "  Tischreden." 

4  Ibid.,  60,  p.  227  f.,  in  chapter  xxvii.  of  the  Table-Talk. 

5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  68.  6  Ibid.,  57,  p.  80. 

7  Ibid.,  60,  p.  206.  8  Ibid.,  p.  183.  s  Ibid.,  p.  214. 

10  Ibid.,  62,  p.  222.  "  Ibid.,  60,  p.   180.          12  Ibid.,  p.  195. 


298         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  lion  "  in  strength  and  a  "  dragon  "  in  craft.1  He  is  "  an  out- 
and-out  Jew  who  extols  in  Christ  only  what  is  material  and 
temporal  "  ;2  needless  to  say,  he  is  "  far  worse  than  the  Turk,"3 
"  a  mere  idolater  and  slave  of  Satan,"4  "  a  painted  king  but  in 
reality  a  filthy  pretence,"5  his  kingdom  is  a  "  Carnival  show,"6 
and  lie  himself  "  Rat-King  of  the  monks  and  nuns."7  Popery  is 
full  of  murder  ;8  it  serves  Moloch,9  and  is  the  kingdom  of  all  who 
blaspheme  God. 

"  For  the  Pope  is,  not  the  shepherd,  but  the  devil  of  the 
Churches  ;  this  comforts  me  as  often  as  I  think  of  it."10 

"  Anno  1539,  on  May  9,"  we  read  in  these  Colloquies,  "  Dr. 
Martin  for  three  hours  held  a  severe  and  earnest  Disputation  in 
the  School  at  Wittenberg,  against  that  horrid  monster,  the  Pope, 
that  real  werewolf  who  excels  in  fury  all  the  tyrants,  who  alone 
wishes  to  be  above  all  law  and  to  act  as  he  pleases,  and  even  to 
be  worshipped,  to  the  loss  and  damnation  of  many  poor  souls. 
.  .  .  But  he  is  a  donkey-king  [he  said]  ...  I  hope  he  has  now 
done  his  worst  [now  that  I  have  broken  his  power]  ;  but  neither 
are  the  Papists  ever  to  be  trusted,  even  though  they  agree  to 
peace  and  bind  themselves  to  it  under  seal  and  sign-manual.  .  .  . 
Therefore  let  us  watch  and  pray  !  "11 

The  Disputation,  of  which  all  that  is  known  was  published  by 
Paul  Drews  in  1895,12  dealt  principally  with  the  question,  which 
had  become  a  vital  one,  of  armed  resistance  to  the  forces  of  the 
Empire  then  intent  on  vindicating  the  rights  of  the  Pope.  The 
Theses  solve  the  question  in  the  affirmative.  "  The  Pope  is  no 
'  authority '  ordained  by  God  ...  on  the  contrary  he  is  a 
robber,  a  '  Bearwolf  '  who  gulps  down  everything.  And  just  as 
everybody  rightly  seeks  to  destroy  this  monster,  so  also  it  is 
everyone's  duty  to  suppress  the  Pope  by  force,  indeed,  penance 
must  be  done  by  those  who  neglect  it.  If  anyone  is  killed  in 
defending  a  wild  beast  it  is  his  own  fault.  In  the  same  way  it  is 
not  wrong  to  offer  resistance  to  those  who  defend  the  Pope,  even 
should  they  be  Princes  or  Emperors."13 

A  German  version  of  the  chief  Theses  (51-70)  was  at  once 
printed.14 

1  P.  305.  2  Ibid.,  p.  200.  3  Ibid.,  61,  p.  149. 

4  Ibid.,  57,  p.  206.         5  Ibid.,  60,  p.  255.  6  Ibid. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  185.  8  Ibid.,  p.  291.  9  Ibid.,  57,  p.  367  f. 

10  Ibid.,  60,  p.  379,  chapter  xxvii.  "  Ibid.,  p.  184. 

12  "  Disputationen  Dr.  Martin  Luthers,  1535-1545,"  ed.  P.  Drews, 
pp.  532-584.    Cp.  the  Theses  already  published  in  Luther's  "  Opp.  lat. 
var.,"  4,  p.  442  seq. 

13  They  are  thus  summed  up  by  Drews  (p.  533). 

14  Thesis  56  :    "  Papa  est  illud  monslntm,  de  quo  Daniel  dicit,  quod 
adversatur  omni  Deo,  etiam  Deo  deorum."-— Thesis  58:  "  Nostri  Germani 
vacant    Beerwolf,    quod    Greed,    si  forte    notum    illis  fuisset,    dixissent 
dpKToXvKov  "   (i.e.    "  Bearwolf  ").— Thesis   59  :    "  Hoc  animal  lupus  est 
quidem,    sed   a   dcemone    arreptus,    lacerat   omnia    et    elabilur   omnibus 
venabulis  et  armis." — Thesis  60  :    "  Ad  quod  opprimendum  necessarius 
est  concursus  omnium  pagorum"  etc. — Thesis  61  :    "  Nee  est  hie  expec- 
tanda  iudicis  sententia  aut  consilii  aitctoritas,"  etc.— Thesis  66  :    "  Ita 


THE   DEVIL-INCARNATE  299 

Among  the  explanations  given  by  Luther  previous  to  the 
Disputation  ("  circulariter  disputabimus ")  the  following  are 
worthy  of  note  :  "  We  will  not  worship  the  Pope  any  longer  as 
has  been  done  heretofore.  .  .  .  Rather,  we  must  fight  against 
this  Satan."1  "The  Pope  is  such  a  monstrous  beast  that  no 
ruler  or  tyrant  can  equal  him.  .  .  .  He  requires  us  to  worship 
his  public  blasphemy  in  defiance  of  the  law  ;  it  is  as  though  he 
said  :  I  will  and  command  that  you  adore  the  devil.  It  is  not 
enough  for  him  to  strangle  me,  but  he  will  have  it  that  even  the 
soul  is  damned  at  his  word  of  command.  .  .  .  The  Pope  is  the 
devil.  Were  I  able  to  slay  the  devil,  why  should  I  not  risk  my 
life  in  doing  so  ?  Look  not  on  the  Pope  as  a  man  ;  his  very 
worshippers  declare  that  he  is  no  mere  man,  but  partly  man  and 
partly  God.  For  '  God  '  here  read  '  devil.'  Just  as  Christ  is 
God-made-flesh,  so  the  Popejis  the  devil  incarnate."2 — "Who 
would  not  lend  a  hand  against  this  arch-pestilential  monster  ? 
There  is  none  other  such  in  the  whole  world  as  he,  who  exalts  him 
self  far  above  God.  Other  wolves  there  are  indeed,  yet  none  so 
impudent  and  imperious  as  this  wolf  and  monster."3 

In  this  celebrated  Disputation  some  of  the  objections  are 
couched  in  scholastic  language.  Such  is  the  following  :  Accord 
ing  to  the  Bible,  Antichrist  is  to  be  destroyed  by  the  breath  of 
God's  mouth  and  not  by  the  sword  ;  therefore  armed  resistance 
to  the  Pope  and  the  Papists  is  not  allowed.  Luther  replies  : 
"  That  we  concede,  for  what  we  say  is  that  he  will  escape  and 
remain  with  us  till  the  end  of  the  world.  He  is  nevertheless  to 
be  resisted,  and  the  Emperor  too,  and  the  Princes  who  defend 
him,  not  on  the  Emperor's  account,  but  for  the  sake  of  this 
monstrous  beast."4 — Another  objection  runs:  "Christ  forbade 
Peter  to  make  use  of  his  sword  against  those  sent  out  by  the 
Pharisees  ;  therefore  neither  must  we  take  up  arms  against  the 
Pope."  The  reply  was  :  "  Negabitur  consequens,"  and  Luther 
goes  on  to  explain  :  "  The  Pope  is  no  authority  as  Caiphas  and 
Pilate  were.  He  is  the  devil's  servant,  possessed  of  the  devil,  a 
wolf  who  tyrannically  carries  off  souls  without  any  right  or 
mandate."  According  to  the  report  Luther  suddenly  relapsed 
into  German  :  "If  Peter  went  to  Rome  and  slew  him,  he  would 
be  acting  rightly,  '  quia  papa  non  habet  ordinationem,'  "  etc.6 
Justus  Jonas  and  Cruciger  also  took  a  part,  bringing  forward 
objections  in  order  to  exercise  others  in  refuting  them.  This 
theological  tournament,  with  its  crazy  ideas  couched  in  learned 
terminology,  might  well  cause  the  dispassionate  historian  to 
smile  were  it  not  for  the  sombre  background  and  the  vision  of 
the  religious  wars  for  which  ardent  young  students  were  being 
fitted  and  equipped. 

si  papa  helium  movcrit,  resistendum  est  ei  sicut  monstro  furioso  et  obsesso 
sen  vere  dp/croXtf/cy." — Thesis  68  :  "  Nee  curandum,  si  habeat  militantes 
sibi  principes,  reges  vel  ipsos  ccesares,  titulo  ecclesicc  incantatos." 

1  Drews,  p.  544. 

2  Ibid.,  p.   549.     Given  in  Luther's  German  Works,  Jena  ed.,   7, 
p.  285,  and  Halle  ed.  (Walch),  19,  p.  2438  f.  3  Ibid.,  p.  552. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  559,  Jena  ed.,  285',  Walch,  p.  2440.  6  Ibid.,  p.  566. 


300 

What  we  have  quoted  from  Luther's  familiar  talks  and 
from  his  disputations  affords  overwhelming  proof,  were  such 
wanting,  that  the  frenzied  outbursts  against  the  Pope  we 
find  even  in  his  public  writings,  were,  not  merely  assumed, 
but  really  sprang  from  the  depths  of  his  soul.  It  is  true 
that  at  times  they  were  regarded  as  rhetorical  effusions 
or  even  as  little  more  than  jokes,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  bear  the  clearest  stamp  of  his  glowing  hate.  They 
indicate  a  persistent  and  eminently  suspicious  frame  of 
mind,  which  deserves  to  be  considered  seriously  as  a  psycho 
logical,  if  not  pathological,  condition  ;  what  we  must  ask 
ourselves  is,  how  far  the  mere  hint  of  Popery  sufficed  to  call 
forth  in  him  a  delirium  of  abuse. 

In  his  tract  of  1531  against  Duke  George  he  boasted, 
that  people  would  in  future  say,  that  "  his  mouth  was 
full  of  angry  words,  vituperation  and  curses  on  the  Papists  "  ; 
that  "  he  intended  to  go  down  to  his  grave  cursing  and 
abusing  the  miscreants  "  j1  that  as  long  as  breath  remained 
in  him  he  would  "  pursue  them  to  their  grave  with  his 
thunders  and  lightnings  "  ;2  again,  he  says  he  will  take 
refuge  in  his  maledictory  prayer  against  the  Papists  in  order 
to  "  kindle  righteous  hatred  in  his  heart,"  and  even  expounds 
and  recommends  this  prayer  in  mockery  to  his  opponent3 — 
in  all  this  we  detect  an  abnormal  feature  which  characterises 
his  life  and  temper.  This  abnormity  is  apparent  not  only 
in  the  intense  seriousness  with  which  he  utters  the  most 
outrageous  things,  more  befitting  a  madman  than  a  reason 
able  being,  but  also  at  times  in  the  very  satires  to  which  he 
has  recourse.  That  the  Papacy  would  have  still  more  to 
suffer  from  him  after  he  was  dead,  is  a  prophecy  on  which 
he  is  ever  harping  :  "  When  I  die,"  he  remarks,  "  I  shall 
turn  into  a  spirit  that  will  so  plague  the  bishops,  parsons 
and  godless  monks,  that  one  dead  Luther  will  give  them 
more  trouble  than  a  thousand  living  Luthers."4 

No  theological  simile  is  too  strange  for  him  in  this  morbid 
state  of  mind  and  feeling.  As  in  the  case  of  those  obsessed 
by  a  fixed  idea  the  delusion  is  ever  obtruding  itself  under 
every  possible  shape,  so,  in  a  similar  way,  every  thought,  all 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  470;  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  127.      2  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.     See  above,  p.   208.     Cp.  Cordatus,   "  Tagebuch,"  p.   Ill  : 
"  Quandofrigeo  in  corde  .  .  .  oppono  contra  me  impictatem  papce,"  etc.; 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  107  f.  ;    "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  2,  p.  294. 

4  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  74. 


THE   PAPAL-ANTICHRIST  301 

his  studies,  his  practice,  learning,  theology  and  exegesis, 
even  when  its  bearing  seems  most  remote,  leads  up  to  this 
central  and  all-dominating  conviction  :  "I  believe  that  the 
Pope  is  a  devil  incarnate  in  disguise,  for  he  is  Endchrist. 
For  as  Christ  is  true  God  and  true  man,  so  also  is  Antichrist 
a  devil  incarnate."1  And  yet,  in  the  past,  so  he  adds  with  a 
deep  sigh,  "  we  worshipped  all  his  lies  and  idolatry." 

He  is  very  painstaking  in  his  anatomy  of  the  Pope- Antichrist. 

"  The  head  of  Antichrist,"  he  said,  "  is  both  the  Pope  and  the 
Turk  ;  a  living  creature  must  have  both  body  and  soul ;  the  Pope  is 
Antichrist's  soul  or  spirit,  but  the  Turk  is  his  flesh  or  body  ;  for 
the  latter  lays  waste,  destroys  and  persecutes  the  Church  of  God 
materially,  just  as  the  Pope  does  so  spiritually."  Considering, 
however,  that  he  had  unduly  exonerated  the  Pope,  he  corrects 
himself  and  adds  :  And  materially  also  ;  "  materially,  viz.  by 
laying  waste  with  fire  and  sword,  hanging,  murdering,  etc."  The 
Church,  however,  so  he  prophesies,  will  nevertheless  "  hold  the 
field  and  resist  the  Pope's  hypocrisy  and  idolatry."  He  then 
goes  on  to  make  a  fanciful  application  of  Daniel's  prophecy 
concerning  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  to  the  Pope's  downfall. 
"  The  text  compels  us  "  to  take  the  prophecy  (Apoc.  xiii.  7)  as 
also  referring  to  the  "  Papal  abomination."  "  The  Pope  shall 
be  broken  without  hands  and  perish  and  die  of  himself."2 

That  the  Pope  was  spiritually  destroying  the  Church  he  had 
already  asserted  as  early  as  1520  in  his  "  Von  dem  Bapstum  tzu 
Rome  "  :  "  Of  all  that  is  of  Divine  appointment  not  one  jot  is 
now  observed  at  Rome  ;  indeed,  if  anyone  thought  of  doing  what 
is  manifestly  such,  it  would  be  derided  as  folly.  They  let  the 
Gospel  and  the  Christian  faith  perish  everywhere  and  turn  never 
a  hair  ;  moreover,  every  bad  example  of  mischief,  spiritual  and 
secular,  flows  from  Rome  over  the  whole  world  as  from  an  ocean 
of  wickedness.  All  this  the  Romans  laugh  at,  and  whoever 
laments  it  is  looked  upon  as  a  '  bon  Christian  '  ['  cristiano  '],  i.e. 
a  fool."3 

The  strength  of  Luther's  delusion  that  the  Pope  was 
Antichrist  and  shared  the  diabolical  nature  furnishes  the 
chief  explanation  of  the  hopelessly  bitter  way  in  which  he 
deals  with  all  those  who  ventured  to  defend  the  Papacy.  On 
all  such  he  heaps  abuse  and  assails  them  with  that  worst 
of  the  weapons  at  his  command,  viz.  with  calumny,  calling 
into  question  their  good  faith  and  denying  to  them  the 
character  of  Christians. 

Johann  Eck,  so  he  assured  his  friends  in  1538,  "  when  at  Rome, 
profited  splendidly  by  the  example  of  Epicurus  ;  his  short  stay 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  180.  2  Ibid.,  p.  177  f. 

3  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  287  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  90. 


302          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

there  was  quite  sufficient  for  him.  No  doubt  he  possesses  great 
talent  and  a  good  memory,  but  he  is  impudence  itself,  and,  at 
the  bottom  of  his  heart,  cares  as  little  about  the  Pope  as  he  does 
about  the  Gospel.  Twenty  years  ago  I  should  never  have  thought 
it  possible  to  find  such  Epicureans  within  the  Church."1  Eck  is 
"a  bold-lipped  and  bloodthirsty  sophist."2  In  1532,  somewhat 
more  indulgently,  Luther  had  said  of  him  :  "  Eccius  is  no 
preacher.  .  .  .  He  can  indeed  talk  ad  lib.  of  drinking,  gambling, 
light  women  and  boon  companions  "  ;  what,  however,  he  says  in 
his  sermons  he  either  does  not  take  seriously  or  at  any  rate  his 
heart  is  not  in  it.3  In  1542,  nevertheless,  Luther  was  heard  to 
say  :  "I  believe  he  has  made  himself  over  to  the  devil  and 
entered  into  a  bargain  with  him  how  long  he  will  be  allowed  to 
live."4  As  was  but  natural,  the  man  who  had  "never  really 
taken  the  defence  of  the  Pope  seriously "  died  impenitent. 
According  to  Luther  he  passed  away  without  making  any  con 
fession,  without  even  saying,  "  God  be  gracious  to  me."5 

Could  we  trust  Luther,  Johannes  Fabri,  another  Catholic 
opponent,  "blasphemed  himself  to  death."  Surely,  thus  "to  sin 
deliberately  and  of  set  purpose,  exceeds  all  bounds."6 

Joachim  I.,  Elector  of  Brandenburg  (f  1535),  who  remained 
faithful  to  the  Church,  was  abused  by  Luther  as  a  "  liar,  mad 
bloodhound,  devilish  Papist,  murderer,  traitor,  desperate 
miscreant,  assassin  of  souls,  arch-knave,  dirty  pig  and  devil's 
child,  nay,  the  devil  himself." 

We  may  recall  the  epithets  he  bestowed  on  Henry  VIII.  for 
having  presumed  to  criticise  him  :  "  Crowned  donkey,  abandoned, 
senseless  man,  excrement  of  hogs  and  asses,  impudent  royal 
windbag,  mad  Harry,  arrant  fool."7 

Cardinal  Cajetan,  the  famous  theologian,  was,  according  to 
Luther,  "  an  ambiguous,  secretive,  incomprehensible,  mad 
theologian,  and  as  well  qualified  to  understand  and  judge  his 
cause  as  an  ass  would  be  to  play  upon  the  harp."8  Hoogstraaten, 
the  Cologne  Dominican,  "  does  not  know  the  difference  between 
what  is  in  agreement  with  and  what  contrary  to  Scripture  ;  he 
is  a  mad,  bloodthirsty  murderer,  a  blind  and  hardened  donkey, 
who  ought  to  be  put  to  scratch  for  dung-beetles  in  the  manure- 
heaps  of  the  Papists." 

Of  his  attacks  on  Duke  George  of  Saxony,  the  "  Dresden 
Assassin,"  we  need  only  mention  the  parting  shaft  he  flung  into 
his  opponent's  grave  :  "  Let  Pharao  perish  with  all  his  tribe  ; 
even  though  he  [the  Duke]  felt  the  prick  of  conscience  yet  he 
was  never  truly  contrite.  .  .  .  Now  he  has  been  rooted  out.  .  .  . 

1  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  190. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  286  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  16. 

3  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  118. 

4  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  ed.  Kroker,  p.  269. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  307.  6  Ibid.,  p.  249  ;    cp.  p.  115. 

7  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  153. 

8  Letter  to  Carlstadt,  Oct.   14,  1518,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  4 
("  Brief wechsel,"  1,  p.  249). 


HIS   MANIA  FOR   ABUSE  303 

God  sometimes  consents  to  look  on  for  a  while,  but  afterwards 
He  punishes  the  race  even  down  to  the  children."1 

No  one  who  in  any  way  stood  up  for  the  Papal  Decrees  was 
safe  from  Luther's  ungovernable  abuse,  not  even  those  states 
men  who  followed  them  from  necessity  rather  than  out  of  any 
respect  for  the  Church.  Luther  is  determined,  so  he  says,  "  not 
to  endure  the  excrement  and  filth  of  the  Pope-Ass.  .  .  .  For 
goodness'  sake  don't  come  stirring  up  the  donkey's  dung  and 
papal  filth  in  the  churches,  particularly  in  this  town  [Wittenberg]. 
.  .  .  The  Pope  defiles  the  whole  world  with  his  donkey's  dung, 
but  why  not  let  him  eat  it  himself  ?  .  .  .  Let  sleeping  dogs  lie, 
this  I  beg  of  you  [and  do  not  worry  me  with  the  Pope],  otherwise 
I  shall  have  to  give  you  what  for.  ...  I  must  desist,  otherwise  I 
shall  get  too  angry."2 

With  the  real  defenders  of  the  Papal  Decrees,  or  the  olden 
faith,  he  was,  however,  never  afraid  of  becoming  "  too  angry  "  ; 
the  only  redeeming  feature  being,  that,  at  times  the  overwhelming 
consciousness  of  his  fancied  superiority  brings  his  caustic  wit 
to  his  assistance  and  his  anger  dissolves  into  scorn.  Minus  this 
pungent  ingredient,  his  polemics  would  be  incomprehensible,  nor 
would  his  success  have  been  half  so  great. 

An  example  of  his  descriptions  of  such  Catholics  who  wrote  and 
spoke  against  him  is  to  be  found  in  his  preface  to  a  writing  of 
Klingeiibeyl's.  He  there  jokingly  congratulates  himself  on 
having  been  the  means  of  inducing  his  opponents  to  study  the 
Bible  in  order  to  refute  him  :  "  Luther  has  driven  these  block 
heads  to  Holy  Scripture,  just  as  though  a  man  were  to  bring  a  lot 
of  new  animals  to  a  menagerie.  Here  Dr.  Cockles  [Cochlseus] 
barks  like  a  dog  ;  there  Brand  of  Berne  [Johann  Mensing]  yelps 
like  a  fox  ;  the  Leipzig  preacher  of  blasphemy  [Johann  Koss] 
howls  like  a  wolf  ;  Dr.  Cunz  Wimpina  grunts  like  a  snorting  sow, 
and  there  is  so  much  noise  and  clamour  amongst  the  beasts  that 
really  I  am  quite  sorry  to  have  started  the  chase.  .  .  .  They  are 
supposed  to  be  conversant  with  Scripture,  and  yet  are  quite 
ignorant  of  how  to  handle  it."3 

In  a  more  serious  and  tragic  tone  he  points  out,  how 
many  of  his  foes  and  opponents  had  been  carried  off 
suddenly  by  a  Divine  judgment.  He  even  drafted  a  long 
list  of  such  instances,  supplied  with  hateful  glosses  of  his 

1  Lauterbach,   "  Tagebuch,"  p.   206.     Cp.   what  he  says  of  Duke 
George,  above,  p.  190. 

2  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  295. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  274.    On  Brand  of  Berne  cp.  N.  Paulus, 
"  Die  deutschen  Dominikaner  im  Kampfe  mit  Luther,"  1903,  pp.  16-45  ; 
on  p.  29  f.  there  is  a  remark  of  Luther's  on  the  "  poor  smoking  '  brand  ' 
which  escaped  the  fire  of  Berne,"  rightly  taken  by  Paulus  to  apply  to 
Mensing  (Seckendorf,  Walch,  De  Wette  and  Enders  were  of  a  different 
opinion).— J.  Koss,  the  Leipzig  preacher,  is  again  described  by  Luther 
in  a  letter  to  N.  Hausmann  (Jan.  2,   1533,   "  Briefwechsel,"  9,  p.  260) 
as  a  "  preacher  of  blasphemy." 


304          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

own,  which  he  alleged  as  a  proof  of  the  "  visible  action 
of  God  "  in  support  of  his  cause.1  Johann  Koss,  the 
"  preacher  of  blasphemy,"  mentioned  above,  was  given  a 
place  in  this  libellous  catalogue  after  he  had  been  seized 
with  a  stroke  of  apoplexy  in  the  pulpit  (Dec.  29,  1532).  At 
the  instance  of  Duke  George  he  had  been  appointed 
assistant  preacher  under  Hieronymus  Dungersheim,  that, 
by  means  of  his  elocutionary  talent,  he  might  defend  the 
town  of  Leipzig  against  the  inroads  of  the  new  teaching. 
What  particularly  incensed  Luther  was  the  use  this 
preacher  made  of  his  Postils  to  refute  him  by  his  own 
words.  The  stroke  came  on  him  while  he  was  vindicating 
the  Catholic  doctrine  of  good  works.  This  circumstance, 
taken  in  conjunction  with  the  "place,  time  and  individual," 
was  for  Luther  an  irrefutable  proof  of  the  intervention  of 
"  God's  anger."  "  Christ,"  he  says,  "  struck  down  His 
enemy,  the  Leipzig  shouter,  in  the  very  midst  of  his  blas 
phemy."2  The  zealous  preacher  died  about  a  month  later. 

"  None  are  more  pitiable,"  Luther  says  elsewhere  of  this 
incident,  "  than  the  presumptuous,  such  as  are  all  the 
Papists."3  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  inveigh  with 
sufficient  severity  against  the  presumption  which  threatened 
him  on  all  sides,  despite  the  excessive  kindliness  and  modera 
tion  with  which  he  occasionally  credits  himself ;  for  were  not 
those  who  confronted  him  "  the  devil  and  his  hirelings  "  ? 
He  was  forced  to  combat  the  frightful  presumption  of  these 
men  who  acted  as  though  they  were  "  steeped  in  holiness  "  ; 
for  in  reality  they  are  "  dirty  pig-snouts  "  ;  as  Papists  they 
are  "  at  the  very  least,  murderers,  thieves  and  persecutors  "  ; 
hence  let  all  rise  up  against  the  "  servers  of  idols."4 

"  We  must  curse  the  Pope  and  his  kingdom  and  revile  and 

k,1  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  158.  Under  the  heading  "  Mortes 
persecutorum,"  the  list  commences  with  the  words  :  "  Fauci  prcesentia 
Dei  miracula  observant."  It  contains  the  names  of  Richard  von 
Greifenklau,  Archbishop  of  Treves,  Ernest  Count  of  Mansfeld,  Count 
Wartenberg,  Dr.  Matthias  Henning,  son  of  Henning  the  lawyer, 
Caesar  Pflug,  Chancellor  of  Treves,  and,  besides,  a  Catholic  preacher 
at  Leipzig,  a  minister  who  had  fallen  away  from  Lutheranism  at 
Kunewalde,  a  monk  who  was  alleged  to  have  spoken  against  the 
Apostle  Paul,  and  a  Silesian  Doctor  of  Divinity.  Then  followed  various 
additions.  Cp.  N.  Paulus,  "  Luther  iiber  das  schlimme  Ende  seiner 
Gegner  "  ("  Katholik,"  1899,  2,  pp.  490-505). 

2  Letter  to  Nicholas  Hausmann,  Jan.  2,  1533,  "  Brief wechsel,"  9, 
p.  260.  3  Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  289. 

4  All  of  the  above  expressions  are  taken  from  the  first  pages  of 
"  Widder  den  Radschlag  der  Meintzischen  Pfafferey  "  (1526). 


HIS   MANIA   FOR  ABUSE  305 

abuse  it,  and  not  close  our  jaws  but  preach  against  it  with 
out  ceasing.  There  are  some  now  who  say  we  are  capable 
of  nothing  else  but  of  damning,  scolding  and  slandering  the 
Pope  and  his  followers."  "  Yes,  and  so  it  must  be."1 

Elsewhere  he  hints  which  vilely  vulgar  terms  of  oppro 
brium  were  to  be  applied  to  the  Pope,  and,  after  instancing 
them,  adds  :  "  It  is  thus  that  we  should  learn  to  make  use 
of  these  words."  The  Catholic  Princes  were  also  aimed  at 
in  this  instruction  which  occurs  in  one  of  his  sermons.  This 
discourse,  pronounced  on  Jan.  12,  1531,  at  a  time  when  the 
intervention  of  the  hostile  secular  powers  was  feared,  was 
printed  ten  years  later  under  the  title  "  Ein  trostlich 
Unterricht  wie  man  sich  gegen  den  Tyrannen,  so  Christum 
und  scin  Wort  verfolgen  halten  soil."2 

"  Our  mad  and  raving  Princes,"  he  says,  "  are  now 
raging  and  blustering  and  planning  to  root  out  this  teaching. 
Whoever  is  desirous  of  devoting  himself  to  Christ  must  daily 
be  ready  to  suffer  any  peril  to  life  and  limb."  Amongst  the 
grounds  for  encouragement  he  adduces  is  the  fact  that  even 
his  very  foes  admitted,  "  that  we  preach  and  teach  God's 
Word ;  the  only  thing  amiss  being,  that  it  was  not  done  at 
their  bidding,  but  that  we  at  Wittenberg  started  it  all 
unknown  to  them."  He  calls  the  angry  Princes  "  great 
merd-pots,"  who  are  "  kings  and  rulers  of  the  pig-sty  of 
the  earth  where  the  belly,  the  universal  cesspool,  reigns 
supreme."  "  But  we  will  be  of  good  cheer  and  put  our 
fingers  to  our  noses  at  them  "  ;  because  we  hold  fast  to 
Christ  therefore  we  suffer  persecution  from  the  world.  "  Who 
is  the  Pope,  that  he  should  be  angry  ?  .  .  .  A  sickly,  smelly 
scarecrow."  "  The  Pope  says  :  I  will  excommunicate  you, 
thrust  you  down  to  the  abyss  of  hell.  [I  tell  him]  Stick  your 
tongue  in  my  -  — .  I  am  holy,  am  baptised,  have  God's 
Word  and  His  Promises  to  proclaim,  but  you  are  a  sickly, 
syphilitic  sack  of  maggots.  It  is  thus  that  we  should  learn 
to  make  use  of  these  words."3 

1  Ibid.,    28,    p.     868  =  36,     p.     410.— For    the    tone     of    Luther's 
polemics  against  his  theological  opponents  among  both  the  Catholics 
and  the   Protestants,    cp.   vol.   ii.,   p.    153   f.,   where   the   opinions  of 
contemporaries,  and  friends   of  Luther's  immediate  circle  are  given. 
For  further  criticisms  of  Catholic  contemporaries  see  below,  p.  251  ff., 
also    vol.    v.,    xxxiii.,    on   the   extreme   tension   of   Luther's   polemics 
against  Popery  towards  the  end  of  his  life. 

2  "  Werke,'"  Weim.  ed.,  34,  1,  p.  83  ff. 

3  Cp.  below,  p.  320,  n.  15,  and  p.  323,  n.  2. 

IV.— X 


306          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

3.  The  Psychology  of  Luther's  Abusive  Language 
Various  Psychological  Factors. 

Psychologically  to  appreciate  the  phenomenon  in  question 
we  must  first  of  all  take  into  account  Luther's  temperament. 

To  every  unprejudiced  observer  it  must  be  clear,  that, 
without  the  unusual  excitability  natural  to  him,  many  of  his 
utterances  would  be  quite  inexplicable  ;  even  when  we  have 
given  due  weight  to  Luther's  ungovernable  temper  and  all 
too  powerful  imagination  they  still  present  many  difficult 
questions  to  the  observer.  Luther  himself,  as  early  as  1520, 
excuses  to  Spalatin  his  offensive  language  on  the  ground  of 
his  natural  "  hot-bloodedness  "  ;  as  everybody  knew  what 
his  temper  was,  his  opponents  ought  not  to  annoy  him  as 
they  did  ;  yet  these  "  monsters  "  only  provoked  him  the 
more,  and  made  him  "  overstep  the  bounds  of  modesty 
and  decency."1  It  is  perfectly  true  that  some  of  his  foes  did 
provoke  him  by  their  mode  of  attack,  yet  on  the  other 
hand  his  own  violence  usually  put  theirs  in  the  shade. 
(See  below,  xxvii.,  4.) 

In  addition  to  his  natural  impetuosity  which  furnishes 
the  chief  basis  of  the  phenomenon  under  consideration, 
several  other  factors  must  also  be  envisaged,  depending 
on  the  objects  or  persons  arousing  his  indignation. 

It  is  clear  that  he  was  within  his  rights  when  he  scourged 
the  anti-Christian  blasphemy  and  seductive  wiles  of  the 
Jews,  however  much  he  may  have  been  in  the  wrong  in 
allowing  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  fanaticism  so  far  as 
to  demand  their  actual  persecution.  The  same  holds  good 
of  many  of  the  instances  of  his  ungenerous  and  violent 
behaviour  towards  "  heretics  "  in  his  own  fold.  As  against 
the  many  and  oftentimes  very  palpable  defects  of  their 
position,  he  knew  how  to  stand  up  for  truth  and  logic, 
though  his  way  of  doing  so  was  not  always  happy,  nor  his 
strictures  untouched  by  his  own  theological  errors. 

Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  he  was  in  the  right  when  he 
assailed  the  real,  and,  alas,  all  too  many  abuses  of  the  olden 
Church.  The  lively  sense  that,  at  least  in  this  respect,  he 
was  in  the  right  may  quite  possibly  have  fed  the  inward 
fire  of  his  animosity  to  Catholics,  all  the  more  owing  to  his 

1  Letter  written  soon  after  Feb.  18,  1520,  "  Briefwechsel,"  2, 
p.  329  f. 


HIS   MANIA  FOR   ABUSE  307 

being  in  the  wrong  in  those  new  doctrines  which  were  his 
principal  concern.  To  the  assurance,  and  the  offensive 
manner  in  which  he  insisted  on  a  reform,  his  visit  to  Rome, 
a  distorted  recollection  of  which  ever  remained  with  him, 
no  doubt  contributed.  His  mind  was. ever  reverting  to  the 
dismal  picture — by  no  means  an  altogether  imaginary  one — 
of  the  immorality  prevailing  in  even  the  highest  ecclesi 
astical  circles  of  Rome. 

Rome's  unworthy  treatment  of  the  system  of  indulgences, 
which  had  afforded  the  occasion  of  his  action  in  1517, 
continued  to  supply  new  fuel  for  his  indignation  ;  to  it  he 
was  fond  of  tracing  back  his  whole  undertaking.  What 
increased  his  anger  was  the  thought  that  it  was  this  same 
Rome,  whose  ignoble  practices  both  in  the  matter  of 
indulgences  and  in  other  fields  was  notorious,  who  had  called 
him  to  judgment.  It  is  painful  to  the  Catholic  to  have  to 
confess  that  many  of  Luther's  complaints  were  by  no  means 
unfounded.  He  will,  however,  call  to  mind  the  better 
churchmen  of  those  days,  who,  though  indignant  at  the  sad 
corruption  then  prevalent,  never  dreamt  of  apostasy,  know 
ing  as  they  did,  that  even  far  worse  scandals  could  never 
justify  a  revolt  against  the  institution  appointed  by  Christ 
for  the  salvation  of  souls. 

Even  when  voicing  his  real  grievances  Luther  was  seldom 
either  prudent  or  moderate.  He  never  seems  to  have  quite 
taken  to  heart  the  scriptural  injunction  :  "  Let  every  man 
be  slow  to  speak,  slow  to  anger,  for  the  anger  of  man 
worketh  not  the  justice  of  God."  He  expounds  in  his 
Postils  the  Epistle  where  the  admonition  in  question  occurs, 1 
but  it  is  curious  to  note  how  cursorily  he  dismisses  the 
words,  with  which,  maybe,  he  felt  somewhat  out  of  sympathy, 
though  here,  as  elsewhere,  he  refers  to  the  evil  consequences 
of  any  proneness  to  anger.  On  the  other  hand,  he  insists, 
that  "  our  censures  and  rebukes  "  must  be  in  accordance 
with  the  "  right  and  true  Word,"  i.e.  with  theology  as  he 
understood  it.2  He  prefers  to  devote  far  the  greater  portion 
of  the  exposition  to  proving  his  favourite  thesis,  that,  thanks 
to  the  Evangel  now  proclaimed,  "  we  have  a  good  and 
cheerful  conscience,  stronger  than  all  fear,  sin  and  tempta 
tion,  and  containing  the  sure  hope  of  life  everlasting  "  ;3  "it 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  82,  p.  277  ff.,  on  the  Epistle  James  i.  16-21,  on 
the  4th  Sunday  after  Easter.  *  Ibid.,  p.  286.  3  P.  282. 


308          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

is  a  Word  that  has  power  to  save  your  souls  ;  what  more  can 
you  desire  ?  "x  He  seems  averse  to  inculcating  that  meek 
ness  which  the  text  requires. 

One  factor  which  frequently  fanned  the  flames  was 
jealousy,  when,  for  instance,  he  had  to  deal  with  theological 
opponents  who  appeared  to  be  making  too  small  account 
of  him.  The  new  Evangel,  he  said,  was  endangered  by  none 
more  than  by  the  "  fanatics  and  sacramentarians  "  ;  to 
defend  his  personal  position  against  them  had  cost  him  the 
hardest  struggle  of  his  .whole  life  ;  no  wonder  that  against 
them  he  opened  wide  the  sluice-gates  of  his  eloquence.  He 
was  keenly  sensitive  to  any  slight.  "  Things  are  going  all 
wrong  in  the  world,"  he  sighed  in  1532.  "  We  are  already 
looked  upon  with  contempt,  but  let  us  gather  up  the  frag 
ments  when  they  are  cheapest,  that  is  what  I  advise."2 
Of  Carlstadt  twelve  years  previous  he  had  written  :  "If 
he  has  no  respect  for  me,  which  of  us  then  will  he  respect  ? 
And  what  is  the  good  of  admonishing  him  ?  I  believe  he 
reckons  me  one  of  the  most  learned  men  in  Wittenberg,  and 
yet  he  actually  tells  me  to  my  very  face  that  I  am  nobody. 
.  .  .  He  writes  right  and  left  just  as  he  chooses  and  looks 
on  poor  Wittenberg  as  quite  beneath  his  notice."3  Luther's 
vexation  explains  his  language.  A  pity  one  of  the  Princes 
did  not  let  him  taste  cold  steel ;  if  Carlstadt  believed  in  a 
God  in  heaven,  then  might  Christ  never  more  be  gracious 
to  him  (Luther)  ;  he  was  no  man,  but  an  incarnation  of  the 
evil  spirit,  etc. 

Not  merely  his  former  friend  Carlstadt  but  others  too 
he  accused  of  inordinate  ambition  because  they  wished  to 
discredit  his  discoveries  and  his  position.  "  It  is  the  '  gloria  ' 
that  does  the  mischief,"  he  said  in  1540  in  his  Table-Talk, 
"  Zwingli  was  greedy  of  honour,  as  we  see  from  what  he 
wrote,  viz.  that  he  had  learnt  nothing  from  me.  I  should 
indeed  be  sorry  had  he  learnt  from  me,  for  he  went  astray. 
(Ecolampadius  thought  himself  too  learned  to  listen  to  me 
or  to  learn  from  me  ;  of  course,  he  too,  surpassed  me. 
Carlstadt  also  declares  :  '  I  care  nothing  for  you,'  and 
Munzer  actually  declaimed  against  two  Popes,  the  new  one 

1  P.  288. 

2  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  115  f. 

VWVerke,"  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  89  ;  Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  166,  "  Widder  die 
hymelischen  Propheten." 


HIS   MANIA   FOR   ABUSE  309 

[myself]  and  the  old.1  All  who  shun  us  and  attack  us 
secretly  have  departed  from  the  faith,  like  Jeckel  and 
Grickel  [Jakob  Schenk  and  Johann  Agricola]  ;  they  reached 
their  understanding  by  their  own  efforts  and  learnt 
nothing  from  us  !  Just  like  Zwingli."  Yet  twenty-five 
years  before  (i.e.  previous  to  his  great  discovery  in  1515) 
no  one  "knew  anything,"  and,  twenty-one  years  before, 
he,  all  alone,  under  the  Divine  guidance  had  put  the 
ball  in  motion.  "Ah,  Kevo&o^ia  [vainglory],  that's  the 
mischief."2 

Jealousy  played  its  part  also,  when,  in  1525,  he  rounded 
so  violently  upon  Zwingli  and  the  Zwinglians  at  Strasburg. 
Zwingli's  crime  in  his  eyes  lay  not  merely  in  his  having, 
like  GEcolampadius,  adopted  a  divergent  doctrine  on  the 
Eucharist,  but  in  his  claim  to  have  been  before  Luther  in 
preaching  the  Gospel  of  Christ  openly  according  to  its  true 
meaning.3  Both  circumstances  contributed  to  Luther's 
ire,  which,  after  finding  vent  in  many  angry  words,  culminated 
at  last  in  the  rudest  abuse  of  Zwingli  and  his  "  devilish  " 
crew.  Already  in  1525,  he  wrote  in  the  instruction  for  the 
people  of  Strasburg  which  he  gave  to  Gregory  Casel,  who 
had  come  to  Wittenberg  to  negotiate  :4  "  One  of  the  parties 
must  be  the  tool  of  Satan,  i.e.  either  they  or  we."5  "  Christ 
can  have  no  part  with  Belial."  And,  before  this  :  "  They 
[Zwingli  and  CEcolampadius]  disturb  our  Church  and 
weaken  our  repute.  Hence  we  cannot  remain  silent.  If 
they  would  be  vexed  to  see  their  own  reputation  suffer,  let 
them  also  think  of  ours."  "  They  ought  to  have  held  their 
tongues  long  ago  [on  the  question  of  the  Sacrament]  ;  now 
silence  comes  too  late."  He  concludes  with  the  assurance, 
that  their  error  was  refuted  by  "  the  Spirit,"  and  that  it  was 
impossible  they  could  have  any  certainty  concerning  their 
doctrine,  whereas  he  could  justly  boast,  that  he  had  the 
experience  of  the  faith  and  the  testimony  of  the  Spirit 
("  experimentum  fidei  et  spiritus  testlmonium  ").  "  They 
will  never  win  the  day.  It  pains  me  that  Zwingli  and  his 
followers  take  offence  at  my  saying  that  '  What  I  write 
must  be  true.'  ' 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  167. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  169.  3  See  vol.  iii.,  p.  379  f. 

4  Letter  of  Nov.   5,    1525,   to   Gregory  Casel,    "  Brief wechsel,"   5, 
p.  263  ff. 

5  "  Summa,  utros  oportet  esse  Sathance  ministros,  vel  ipsos,  vel  nos." 


310          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Apart  from  the  doctrine  on  the  Sacrament,  the  other 
thing  which  helped  to  annoy  him  stands  revealed  more 
plainly  in  the  letter  addressed  on  the  same  day  to  the 
Strasburg  preachers  :  "  We  dare  to  boast  that  Christ  was 
first  made  known  by  us,  and  now  Zwingli  actually  comes 
and  accuses  us  of  denying  Christ."1  Bossuet  was  quite 
right  in  arguing  that  such  petty  jealousy  on  Luther's  part 
is  scarcely  to  his  credit.2  He  quotes  a  criticism  on  Luther's 
behaviour  by  George  Calixt,  the  famous  Lutheran  professor 
of  theology  at  Helmstadt  :  "  The  sweetness  of  vainglory  is 
so  seductive  and  human  weakness  so  great,  that  even  those 
who  despise  all  things  and  risk  their  goods,  yea  life  itself, 
may  succumb  to  inordinate  ambition."  Luther,  too,  had 
high  aims ;  "  we  cannot  be  surprised  that,  even  a  man  so 
large-minded  as  Luther,  should  have  written  such  things  to 
the  people  of  Strasburg."3 

Offended  vanity  played  a  part  as  great  and  even  more 
obvious  in  Luther's  furious  polemics  against  the  literary 
defenders  of  the  Church.  One  cannot  help  noticing  how, 
especially  when  they  had  succeeded  in  making  out  a  clear 
case  against  him,  his  answer  was  a  torrent  of  most  unsparing 
abuse. 

The  eloquence  which  he  had  at  his  command  also  con 
stituted  a  temptation.  He  was  well  aware  of  the  force  with 
which  his  impassioned  language  carried  others  away.  Very 
little  was  thus  needed  to  induce  him  to  take  up  this  formidable 
weapon  wrhich  at  least  ensured  his  success  among  the  masses. 
He  himself  revelled  in  the  unquenchable  wealth  of  his 
vituperative  vocabulary,  and  with  it  he  caught  the  fancy 
of  thousands  who  loved  nothing  more  than  a  quarrel.  If  it 
be  true  that  all  popular  orators  are  exposed  to  the  tempta 
tion  to  exaggerate,  to  say  things  which  are  striking  rather 
than  correct,  and,  generally,  to  court  the  applause  of  the 
crowd,  this  danger  was  even  greater  in  Luther's  case  owing 
to  the  whole  character  of  the  controversy  he  had  stirred  up. 
In  the  midst  of  a  stormy  sea  one  does  not  speak  softly. 

1  *&>  tj.e  Strasburg  preachers,  Nov.   5,   1525:    *'  Christum  a  nobis 
primu  imlgatum  audemus  gloriari,  at  huius  negationi.%,  iam  traducit  nos 
Zwinglius."    Ibid.,  p.  262. 

2  "  Hist,  des  variations  des  eglises  protestantes,"  Paris,   1702,   1, 
p.  69. 

3  "  ludicium  de  controversiis  theol.  inter  Luther,  et  Ref.,"  1650,  c.  53. 


HIS   MANIA  FOR  ABUSE  311 

Luther's  abuse  was,  however,  powerful  enough  to  be  heard 
above  even  the  most  furious  tempest. 

For  his  work  Luther  required  an  extraordinary  stimulus. 
He  would  have  succumbed  under  the  countless  and  burden 
some  labours  which  devolved  on  him  had  he  not  constantly 
aroused  himself  anew  by  the  exercise  of  a  sort  of  violence. 
Vituperation  thus  became  to  him  a  real  need.  When  he 
had  succeeded  thereby  in  working  himself  up  into  a  passion 
his  mind  grew  clearer  and  his  imagination  more  vigorous, 
so  that  he  found  it  all  the  easier  to  borrow  from  the  lips  of 
the  mob  that  rude  language  of  which  he  makes  such  fell  use. 
He  kindles  his  animation  by  dwelling  on  the  "  vermin 
and  running  sores  of  Popery." 

In  the  same  way  from  time  to  time  he  found  the  need  of 
unburdening  himself  of  his  ill-humour.  The  small  success 
of  his  labours  for  the  reform  of  morals  and  his  other  annoy 
ing  experiences  gave  him  many  an  unhappy  hour.  His  bad 
humour  found  an  outlet  in  abuse  and  vituperation,  par 
ticularly  against  the  enemies  of  the  Evangel.  He  himself 
was  unable  to  conceal  the  real  grounds  of  the  vexation 
which  he  vented  on  the  Papacy,  for,  often  enough,  after 
storming  against  the  Papists,  he  complains  bitterly  of  his 
own  folloAvers'  contempt  for  the  "  Word  "  and  of  their  evil 
lives. 

After  the  utterance  already  recorded  :  "  We  must  curse  the 
Pope  and  his  kingdom,"  he  goes  on  to  levy  charges  of  the  worst 
character  against  those  of  his  own  party,  and  pours  forth  on 
them,  too,  all  the  vials  of  his  wrath  and  disappointment.  It  was 
in  this  connection  that  he  said,  that  the  Evangelicals  were  seven 
times  worse  than  before  ;  for  the  one  devil  that  had  been  expelled, 
seven  worse  had  entered  in,  so  horribly  did  they  lie,  cheat,  gorge 
and  swill  and  indulge  in  every  vice  ;  princes,  lords,  nobles, 
burghers  and  peasants  alike  had  lost  all  fear  of  God.1 

Another  example,  taken  this  time  from  the  year  1536.  Full  of 
anger  against  the  Pope  he  said  to  a  friend  who  held  a  high  post  : 
"  My  dear  fellow,  do  hurl  a  Paternoster  as  a  curse  against  the 
Papacy  that  it  may  be  smitten  with  the  Dance  of  St.  Vitus."  He 
adds  :  "  Don't  mind  my  way  of  speaking,  for  indeed  you  know 
it  well  ;  I  am  coarse  and  rough  ...  so  sore  beset,  oppressed 
and  overwhelmed  with  business  of  all  kinds,  that,  to  save  my 
poor  carcase  I  must  sometimes  indulge  in  a  little  pleasure,  for, 
after  all,  man  is  only  human"2 — an  utterance  psychologically 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  28,  p.  763  ;   Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  411. 

2  To  Caspar  Miiller,  Chancellor  at  Mansfeld,  Jan.  19,  1536,  "  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  55,  p.  119  ("  Brief ewechsel,"  10,  p.  290). 


312         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

valuable.  The  real  reason  for  the  depression  against  which  he 
was  struggling  is,  however,  clearer  in  other  letters  dating  from 
that  time.  In  them  we  get  a  glimpse  of  his  grievous  vexation 
and  annoyance  with  the  false  teachers  within  the  Evangelical 
fold  :  "  New  prophets  are  arising  one  after  the  other.  I  almost 
long  to  be  delivered  [by  death]  so  as  not  to  have  to  go  on  seeing 
so  much  mischief,  and  to  be  free  at  last  from  this  kingdom  of  the 
devil.  I  implore  you  to  pray  to  God  that  He  would  grant  me 
this."1 

Lastly,  his  outbursts  against  the  Papacy  served  to  cover 
his  own  anxiety  of  conscience. 

In  the  same  way  as  others  who  leave  their  Church,  fling  them 
selves  into  the  turmoil  and  distractions  of  the  world  in  order  to 
escape  their  scruples,  Luther  too,  allayed  the  reproach  of  his  con 
science  by  precipitating  himself  into  the  midst  of  the  storm  he 
had  evoked  ;  with  this  advantage,  that  the  sharp  weapons  of 
abuse  and  scorn  he  employed  could  be  turned  against  the  enemy 
both  without  and  within.  Accustomed  as  he  was  to  treat  the 
voice  of  conscience  as  the  voice  of  Satan,  he  willingly  clung  to 
the  doubtful  consolation  that  the  stronger  his  abuse  of  his 
opponents  the  greater  his  own  encouragement.  The  evil  which 
he  detected  in  Popery  seemed  to  him  to  load  the  scale  in  his  own 
favour.  He  even  admits  this  with  the  most  engaging  frankness. 

"  I  am  quite  ready  to  allow  that  the  Pope's  abomination  is, 
after  Christ,  my  greatest  consolation.  Hence  those  are  hopeless 
simpletons  who  say  we  should  not  abuse  the  Pope.  Don't  be 
slow  in  abuse,  particularly  when  the  devil  attacks  you  on  Justifica 
tion."  He  intends  "  to  infuse  courage  into  himself  by  con 
sidering  the  abomination  and  horror  "  of  the  Pope  ;  and  to 
"  hold  it  up  under  the  devil's  nose."2  Dollinger  remarks  justly  : 
"  Here  [in  these  anxieties  of  conscience]  is  to  be  found  at  least  a 
partial  psychological  explanation  of  that  wealth  of  bitter  abuse 
which  marks  off  Luther's  writings  from  all  other  literary  products, 
ancient  or  mediaeval.  .  .  .  Not  seldom  he  sought  to  deaden  the 
interior  terrors  of  a  reproving  conscience  with  the  noisy  clamour 
of  his  vituperation."3 

1  To  the  preacher,  Balthasar  Rhaide,  Jan.  17,  1536,  "  Brief  - 
wechsel,"  10,  p.  288.  Cp.  p.  293  :  "  Vides,  quantas  illi  nobis  faciant 
turbas,  qui  a  nobis  exierunt,"  and  before  this  :  "  Spero,  quod  non 
discedes  a  forma  doctrinal  quam  hie  hausisti." 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  129  ;  "  Tischreden,"  Dollinger.  "  Die 
Reformation,"  3,  p.  251,  erroneously  quotes  the  passage  as  being  in 
Walch  :  it  does,  however,  occur  in  Forstemann,  "  Tischreden,"  3, 
p.  136  f.  The  commencement  is  remarkable  :  "At  times  I  consider 
the  Pope  and  say  :  What  after  all  is  the  Pope  that  I  should  honour 
him,  even  though  you  [the  devil]  magnify  him  ?  See  what  an  abomina 
tion  he  has  wrought  and  works  even  to-day  !  Before  myself  I  set 
Christ  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  but  under  Satan's  nose  I  put  the 
abominations  of  the  Pope.  The  abomination  and  the  horror  is  so  great 
that  I  am  encouraged  and  am  quite  ready  to  allow  that,"  etc. 

3  "  Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  251. 


HIS   MANIA  FOR   ABUSE  313 

We  have  just  heard  Luther  promise  to  hold  up  the  Pope's 
abomination  to  the  devil's  nose.  This  saying  brings  us  to 
the  principal  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  under  con 
sideration. 


Connection  of  Luther's  Abuslveness  with  his  Mystic  Persuasion 
of  his  Special  Call. 

Luther  had  brought  himself  to  such  a  pitch  as  to  see  in  the 
existing  Church  the  devil's  kingdom,  to  overthrow  which, 
with  its  Antichrist,  was  his  own  sublime  mission.  This 
theological,  anti-diabolical  motive  for  his  anger  and  bound 
less  invective,  throws  all  others  into  the  shade. 

"  Even  were  I  not  carried  away  by  my  hot  temper  and  my 
style  of  writing,"  he  says,  "  I  should  still  be  obliged  to  take  the 
field,  as  I  do,  against  the  enemies  of  truth  "  ("children  of  the 
devil  "  he  calls  them  elsewhere).  "  I  am  hot-headed  enough,  nor 
is  my  pen  blunt."  But  these  foes  "  revel  in  the  most  horrible 
crimes  not  merely  against  me,  but  even  against  God's  Word." 
Did  not  Christ  Himself  have  recourse  to  abuse,  he  asks,  against 
the  "  wicked  and  adulterous  generation  of  the  Jews,  against  the 
brood  of  vipers,  the  hypocrites  and  children  of  the  devil  "  ? 
"  Whoever  is  strong  in  the  consciousness  of  the  truth,  can  display 
no  patience  towards  its  furious  and  ferocious  enemies."1 

The  more  vividly  he  persuaded  himself  of  his  mission,  the 
blacker  were  the  colours  in  which  he  painted  the  devil  of  Popery 
who  refused  to  believe  in  it,  and  the  more  strangely  did  there  surge 
up  from  the  sombre  depths  of  his  soul  and  permeate  his  whole 
being  a  hatred  the  like  of  which  no  mortal  man  had  ever  known 
before.  In  such  outbursts  Luther  thinks  he  is  "  raving  and 
raging  ['  debacchari  ']  against  Satan  "  ;  for  instance,  in  a  letter  to 
Melanchthon,  dated  from  the  fortress  of  Coburg,  "  from  the 
stronghold  full  of  devils  where  Christ  yet  reigns  in  the  midst  of 
His  foes."  Even  when  unable  from  bodily  weakness  to  write 
against  the  devil,  yet  he  could  at  least  rage  against  him  in 
thought  and  prayer;  "the  Pope's  enormities  ('  portenta ') 
against  God  and  against  the  common  weal  "  supplied  him  with 
material  in  abundance.2 

God  had  appointed  him,  so  we  read  elsewhere,  "  to  teach  and 
to  instruct,"  as  "an  Apostle  and  Evangelist  in  the  German 
lands  "  (were  it  his  intention  to  boast)  ;  for  he  knows  that  he 
teaches  "  by  the  Grace  of  God,  whose  name  Satan  shall  not 
destroy  nor  deprive  me  of  to  all  eternity  "  ;  therefore  I  must 
unsparingly  "  expose  my  back  parts  to  the  devil  ...  so  as  to 
enrage  him  still  more."  To  the  wrath  of  all  the  devils,  bishops, 

1  To  Spalatin,  soon  after  Feb.  18,  1520,  "  Brief wechsel,"  2,  p.  329  f. 

2  July  31,  1530,  ibid.,  8,  p.  157. 


314         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

and  princes  he  will  pay  as  little  heed  as  to  the  rustle  of  a  bat's 
wing,  nor  will  he  spare  the  "  traitors  and  murderers."1 

As  early  as  1520  he  revealed  to  an  intimate  friend  the  morbidly 
exaggerated  ideas  which  moved  him  :  As  an  excuse  for  his 
dreadful  vituperation  he  alleges  his  pseudo-mystic  conception  of 
the  life  and  death  struggle  he  was  to  engage  in  with  the  devil,  and 
his  sense  of  the  "  impetus  Spiritus  "  ;  this  he  pleads  in  extenuation 
to  his  friend,  who  would  appear  to  have  reminded  him  of  the 
dangers  of  pride.  "  All  condemn  my  sarcasm,"  he  admits,  but, 
now  that  the  Spirit  has  moved  him,  he  may  set  himself  on  a  line 
with  the  "  prophets  "  of  the  Old  Law  who  "  were  so  harsh  in 
their  invective,"  nay,  with  Paul  the  Apostle,  whose  severe 
censures  were  ever  present  in  his  mind.  In  fact,  God  Himself, 
according  to  Luther,  is  to  some  extent  present  in  these  utter 
ances  by  means  of  His  power  and  action,  and,  "sure  enough, 
intends  in  this  way  to  unmask  the  inventions  of  man.2 

As  compared  with  the  interior  force  with  which  the  idea 
of  his  mission  inspired  him,  all  his  violence,  particularly  in 
his  polemics  with  the  Catholic  theologians  and  statesmen, 
appeared  to  him  far  too  weak.  Thus  his  "  Wider  Hans 
Worst  "  against  the  Catholic  Duke  of  Brunswick,  though 
reeking  of  blood  and  hate,  seemed  to  him  to  fall  short  of  the 
mark  and  to  be  all  too  moderate,  so  at  least  he  told  Melanch- 
thon,  to  all  appearance  quite  seriously.3  His  inability  ever 
to  exhaust  his  indignation  goes  back  to  the  idea  expressed 
by  him  in  the  same  letter  with  such  startling  candour  and 
conviction  as  to  remind  one  of  the  ravings  of  a  man  possessed 
by  a  fixed  delusion  :  "  It  is  certain  that  it  is  God  Who  is 
fighting."  "  Our  cause  is  directed  by  the  hand  of  God,  not 
by  our  own  wisdom.  The  Word  makes  its  way  and  prayer 
glows  .  .  .  hence  we  might  well  sleep  in  peace  were  we 
not  mere  flesh."  His  hint  at  the  near  approach  of  the  Last 
Judgment,  the  many  signs  of  which  could  not  escape  notice, 
more  than  confirms  the  pseudo-mystic  character  both  of  his 
confidence  and  of  his  hate.4 

On  other  occasions  traces  of  his  pet  superstitions  are 
apparent,  and,  when  we  take  them  together,  prove  beyond  a 
doubt  the  unhealthy  state  of  the  mind  from  which  they 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  19,  p.  261  ;    Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  25  ;    "  Widder 
den  Radschlag,"  etc.,  1526. 

2  Aug.  19,  1520,  to  Wenceslaus  Link,  "  Briefwechsel,"  2,  p.  463. 

3  April  12,  1541,  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  342  :    "  Miror,  quid 
mihi  accident,  ut  tarn  moderatus  fuerim." 

*  Ibid.,  p.  341  :  "  Cerium  est  ipsum  [Christum']  pedetentim  descendere 
de  throno  ad  iudicium  illud  exspectatissimum  ;  multa  aunt  nimis  signa, 
quce  id  mihi  persuadent." 


HIS   MANIA  FOR   ABUSE  315 

sprang.  For  instance,  Luther  professes  to  know  particulars 
of  the  approaching  end  of  the  world  concerning  which  the 
Bible  says  nothing  ;  he  also  has  that  curious  list  of  oppo 
nents  miraculously  slain  by  the  Divine  hand,  and  even 
fancies  he  can  increase  it  by  praying  for  the  death  of  those 
who,  not  sharing  his  opinions,  stood  in  his  way  :  "  This  year 
we  must  pray  Duke  Maurice  to  death  ;  we  must  slay  him 
by  our  prayers,  for  he  is  likely  to  prove  a  wicked  man."  On 
the  same  occasion  he  also  attributes  to  himself  a  sort  of 
prophetic  gift  :  "I  am  a  prophet."1  The  foretelling  of 
future  events  and  the  fulfilment  in  his  own  person  of  olden 
prophecies  and  visions,  and  again  the  many  miracles  and 
expulsions  of  the  devil  which  accompany  the  spread  of  his 
teaching,  confirm  his  Evangel  and  impress  the  stamp  of 
Divine  approbation  on  his  hatred  of  Antichrist.2  Divine 
portents,  which,  however,  no  one  but  Luther  would  have 
recognised  as  such,  were  also  exploited  :  the  birth  of  the 
monstrous  Monk-Calf  ;  the  Pope-Ass  fished  from  the  Tiber  ; 
signs  in  the  heavens  and  on  the  earth.  The  Book  of  Daniel 
and  St.  John's  Apocalypse  supplied  him  when  necessary 
with  the  wished-for  interpretation,  though  his  far-fetched 
speculations  would  better  become  a  mystic  dreamer  than  a 
sober  theologian  and  spiritual  guide  of  thousands.  All  this 
was  crowned  by  the  diabolical  manifestations  which  he 
himself  experienced,  though  what  he  took  for  apparitions  of 
the  devil  was  merely  the  outcome  of  an  overwrought  mind.3 
This  enables  us  to  seize  that  second  nature  of  his,  made  up 
of  superhuman  storming  and  vituperation,  and  to  under 
stand,  how,  in  his  hands,  wild  abuse  of  the  Papacy  became 
quite  a  system. 

"  I  shall  put  on  my  horns,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  1522,  "  and 
vex  Satan  until  he  lies  stretched  out  on  the  ground.  Don't  be 
afraid,  but  neither  expect  me  to  spare  my  gainsay ers  ;  should 
they  be  hard  hit  by  the  new  movement,  that  is  not  our  fault,  but 
a  judgment  from  above  on  their  tyranny."4  Shortly  after  he 
wrote  in  a  similar  strain  to  reassure  some  unknown  correspon 
dent  concerning  his  unusual  methods  of  controversy  :  "  Hence, 
my  dear  friend,  do  not  wonder  that  many  take  offence  at  my 

1  Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  266,  from  the  notes  of  one  of 
his  table-companions  :    Cod.  Manh.,  355.     Coll.  Camerar.  v.  (Ms.  Bibl. 
Monac.),  fol.  148  a. 

2  Cp.  vol.  iii.,  148  f.     See  also  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  ed.  C.  A.  H. 
Burkhardt,  1866,  p.  357.  3  Cp.  our  vol.  vi.,  xxxvi.,  3. 

*  To  Spalatin,  July  26,  1522,  "  Briefwechsel,"  3,  p.  435. 


316         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

writings.  For  it  must  be  that  only  a  few  hold  fast  to  the  Gospel 
[the  friend  had  pointed  out  to  him  that  many  of  his  followers 
were  being  scared  away  by  his  abuse].  .  .  .  His  Highness  my 
master  has  admonished  me  in  writing,  and  many  other  friends 
have  done  the  same.  But  my  reply  is  ever  that  I  neither  can 
nor  will  refrain  from  it."1 

Abuse  becomes  almost  inseparable  from  his  teaching,  or  at 
least  seems  entailed  by  it.  "  Whoever  accepts  my  teaching  with 
a  right  heart,"  he  says,  "  will  not  be  scandalised  by  my  abuse." 
Indeed,  he  adds,  ermilating  Hus,  he  was  ready  "  to  risk  his  life 
should  persecution  or  the  needs  of  the  time  demand  it."  Nor 
have  we  any  reason  to  doubt  that  his  misguided  enthusiasm 
would  have  rendered  him  capable  of  such  a  sacrifice.2 

In  1531  the  Elector  Johann  sent  him  a  reprimand  through 
Chancellor  Briick  on  account  of  the  two  violent  tracts,  "  Warnunge 
an  seine  lieben  Deudschen  "  and  "  Auff  das  vermeint  keiserlich 
Edict."  George  of  Saxony  had,  it  appears,  complained  to  the 
Elector,  that  these  writings  "  served  in  no  small  measure  to  incite 
to  rebellion,  and  also  contained  much  abuse  both  of  high  and 
low."3  Hereupon  Luther,  with  the  utmost  impudence,  vindi 
cated  his  cause  to  his  sovereign  :  "  That  certain  persons  may  have 
informed  your  Electoral  Highness  that  the  two  writings  were 
sharp  and  hasty,  this  is  indeed  true  ;  I  never  meant  them  to  be 
blunt  and  kind,  and  only  regret  that  they  were  not  more  severe 
and  violent  "  ;  for  all  he  had  said  of  such  "  lying,  blasphemous, 
asinine  "  opponents — especially  considering  the  danger  in  which 
the  Electoral  house  stood — fell  short  of  the  mark  ;  the  Prince 
should  bear  in  mind  that  he  [Luther]  had  been  "  far  too  mild  and 
soft  in  dealing  with  such  evil  knots  and  boughs."4 

But  "  the  knots  and  boughs  "  of  his  literary  opponents  did 
not  consist  entirely  in  coarse  insults,  but  largely  in  the  well- 
grounded  vindication  against  his  unwarranted  attacks  of  the 
religion  of  their  fathers,  in  which  they  saw  the  true  basis  of  the 
common  weal.  His  opponents  had  necessarily  to  take  the  de 
fensive  ;  Luther,  with  his  furious  wrords  and  actions,  was  in 
almost  every  case  the  aggressor,  and  forestalled  their  writings. 

It  is  plain  that,  at  the  very  time  when  he  thus  explained  his 
position  to  the  Elector  Johann,  i.e.  about  the  time  of  the  Diet  of 
Augsburg,  in  1530,  he  was  under  the  influence  of  that  inner 
power  of  which  he  had  said  :  "I  am  carried  away  I  know  not 
by  what  spirit  "  ;  "I  am  not  master  of  myself."  He  exclaims  : 
"  In  God's  name  and  at  His  command  I  will  tread  upon  the  lion 
and  adder  and  trample  under  foot  the  lion  and  dragon  [it  is  thus 

1  Aug.  28,  1522,  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  349  ("  Brief wechsel,"  3, 
p.  447).     Cp.  the  letter  to  Spalatin  of  Nov.  11,  1521,  "  Briefwechsel," 
3,  p.  246  f. 

2  Cp.  letters  of  Nov.  11,  1517,  and  Feb.,  1520,   "Briefwechsel,"  1, 
p.  126,  and  2,  p.  345. 

3  April    13,    1531,   in   Seidemann,    "  Beitr.    zur   RG.,"    1.    p.    207; 
Enders,  "  Luthers  Briefwechsel,"  8,  p.  389,  n.  1. 

4  April  16,  1531,  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  54,  p.  225  ("Briefwechsel,"  8, 
p.  388). 


HIS   MANIA   FOR  ABUSE  317 

that  he  applies  the  Messianic  prophecy  in  Ps.  xc.  13]  ;  this  shall 
commence  during  my  lifetime  and  be  accomplished  after  my 
death.  St.  John  Hus  prophesied  of  me,"  etc.1  More  than  ever 
he  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that  he  has  a  "  Divine  mission,"  and 
was  "  called  by  God  to  a  work,"  not  commenced  "  of  his  own 
initiative  "  ;  for  which  cause  also  "  God  was  with  him  and 
assisted  him."2  He  means  to  realise  his  earlier  threat  (1521)  : 
"  If  I  live  I  shall  never  make  peace  with  the  Papacy  ;  if  you  kill 
me  you  shall  have  twice  as  little  peace.  Do  your  worst,  you 
swine  and  Thomists.  Luther  will  be  to  you  a  bear  in  the  road 
and  a  lion  in  the  path  [as  Osee  says].  He  will  meet  you  every 
where  and  not  leave  you  in  peace  until  your  brazen  front  and 
stiff  neck  be  broken,  either  by  gentleness  or  by  force.  I  have 
lost  enough  patience  already ;  if  you  will  not  amend  you  may 
continue  to  rage  against  me  and  I  to  despise  you,  you  abandoned 
monsters."3 

He  is  now  determined  to  carry  out  his  threat  of  1527  even  at 
the  cost  of  his  life  :  "  My  teaching  shall  cry  aloud  and  smite  right 
and  left  ;  may  God  deny  me  the  gifts  of  patience  and  meekness. 
My  cry  is  :  No,  No,  No,  so  long  as  I  can  move  a  muscle,  let  it 
vex  King,  Emperor,  Princes,  the  devil,  or  whom  it  may.  .  .  . 
Bishops,  priests,  monks,  great  Johnnies,  scholars  and  the  whole 
world  are  all  thirsting  for  the  gore  of  Luther,  whose  executioners 
they  would  gladly  be,  and  the  devil  likewise  and  his  crew.  .  .  . 
My  teaching  is  the  main  thing  by  which  I  defy  not  only  princes 
and  kings  but  even  all  the  devils.  I  am  and  remain  a  mere 
sheep.  .  .  .  Not  following  my  own  conceit,  I  may  have  attacked 
a  tyrant  or  great  scholar  and  given  him  a  cut  and  made  him  angry, 
but  let  him  be  ready  for  thirty  more.  .  .  .  Let  no  one,  least  of 
all  the  tyrants  and  persecutors  of  the  Evangel,  expect  any 
patience  or  humility  from  me.  .  .  .  What  must  not  my  wrath  be 
with  the  Papists  who  are  my  avowed  enemies  ?  .  .  .  Come  on, 
all  together,  since  you  all  belong  to  one  batch,  devils,  Papists, 
fanatics,  fall  upon  Luther  !  Papists  from  the  front,  fanatics  from 
the  rear,  devils  from  every  side  !  Chase  him,  hunt  him  down 
gaily,  you  have  found  the  right  quarry.  Once  Luther  is  down 
you  are  saved  and  have  won  the  day.  But  I  see  plainly  that 
words  are  of  no  avail  ;  no  abuse,  no  teaching,  no  exhortation, 
no  menaces,  no  promises,  no  beseeching  serve  our  purpose.  .  .  . 
Well,  then,  in  God's  name,  let  us  try  defiance.  Whoever  relents, 
let  him  go  ;  whoever  is  afraid,  let  him  flee ;  I  have  at  my  back 
a  strong  Defender.  ...  I  have  well  served  the  world  and 
brought  Holy  Scripture  and  the  Word  of  God  to  light  in  a  way 
unheard  of  for  a  thousand  years.  I  have  done  my  part  ;  your 
blood  be  upon  your  own  head  and  not  on  my  hands  !  "4 

1  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  387;    Erl.   ed.,  252,  p.  87,  at  the 
end  of  "  Auff  das  vermeint  Edict." 

2  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  386=: 86  f. 

3  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  10,   2,  p.  188;  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"   6,  p.  397,  in 
"Contra  Henricum  regem  Anc/lice,"  1522. 

4  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  27  ff. ;  Erl.  ed.,   30,  p.  3  ff.  in  '.'Auff 
des  Konigs  zu  Engelland  Lesterschrift,"  1527. 


318          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Nevertheless,  at  times  he  appears  to  have  had  some  slight 
qualms.  Yet  after  having  described  the  Papists  as  "  Pope- 
Asses,  slaves  of  the  Mass,  blasphemers,  miscreants  and 
murderers  of  souls,"1  he  continues  :  "  Should  anyone  here 
say  that  I  confine  myself  to  flinging  coarse  epithets  about 
me  and  can  do  nothing  but  slander  and  abuse,  I  would  reply, 
firstly,  that  such  abuse  is  nothing  compared  with  the  un 
speakable  wickedness.  For  what  is  it  if  I  abuse  the  devil  as 
a  murderer,  miscreant,  traitor,  blasphemer  and  liar  ?  To 
him  all  this  is  but  a  gentle  breeze  !  But  what  else  are  the 
Pope-Asses  but  devils  incarnate,  who  know  not  penance, 
whose  hearts  are  hardened  and  who  knowingly  defend  their 
palpable  blasphemy.  .  .  .  Hence  my  abuse  is  not  abuse  at 
all,  but  just  the  same  as  were  I  to  call  a  turnip  a  turnip,  an 
apple  an  apple,  or  a  pear  a  pear."2 

A  psychological  explanation  of  Luther's  mania  for 
invective  is  also  to  be  looked  for  in  the  admixture  of  vile 
ingredients  which  went  to  make  up  his  abuse.  So  frequently 
had  he  recourse  to  such  when  in  a  state  of  excitement  that 
they  must  be  familiar  to  every  observer  of  Luther's  develop 
ment  and  general  behaviour  ;  it  is,  however,  our  duty  here 
to  incorporate  this  element,  so  characteristic  of  his  polemics, 
in  our  sketch  of  the  angry  Luther. 

The  Unpleasant  Seasoning  of  Luther's  Abuse. 

The  filthy  expressions,  to  which  Luther  was  so  prone 
when  angry,  are  psychologically  interesting,  throwing  light 
as  they  do  on  the  depth  of  his  passion  and  on  the  all  too 
earthly  atmosphere  which  pervades  his  abuse.  Had 
Luther's  one  object,  as  writer  and  teacher,  been  to  vindicate 
spiritual  treasures  he  would  surely  have  scorned  to  make 
use  of  such  adjuncts  as  these  in  his  teaching  or  his  polemics. 
Even  when  desirous  of  speaking  forcibly,  as  beseemed  a 
man  of  his  stamp,  he  would  have  done  so  without  intro 
ducing  these  disreputable  and  often  repulsive  elements  of 
speech.  He  was,  however,  carried  away  by  an  imagination 
only  too  familiar  with  such  vulgar  imagery,  and  a  tongue 
and  pen  much  too  ready  to  speak  or  write  of  things  of  that 
sort.  Unless  he  places  pressure  on  himself  a  man's  writings 

1  "Werko,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  311;  Erl.  ed.,  259,  p.  38,   "War- 
nunge  an  seine  lieben  Deudschen,"  1531. 

2  Ibid. 


HIS   MANIA   FOR  ABUSE  319 

give  a  true  picture  of  his  inner  standards,  and  pressure  was 
something  which  Luther's  genius  could  never  endure. 

Luther  had,  moreover,  a  special  motive  for  drawing  his 
creations  from  this  polluted  well.  He  wished  to  arouse  the 
lower  classes  and  to  ingratiate  himself  with  those  who,  the 
less  capable  they  were  of  thinking  for  themselves  or  of 
forming  a  true  judgment,  were  all  the  readier  to  welcome 
coarseness,  banter  and  the  tone  of  the  gutter.  Amidst  their 
derisive  laughter  he  flings  his  filth  in  the  face  of  his  oppo 
nents,  of  the  Catholics  throughout  the  world,  the  Pope,  the 
hierarchy  and  the  German  past. 

If  at  Rome  they  had  to  prove  that  the  Keys  had  been  given  to 
St.  Peter  "  the  Pope's  nether  garments  would  fare  badly."1  Of 
the  Papal  dispensation  for  the  clergy  to  marry,  which  many 
confidently  expected,  Luther  says,  that  it  would  be  just  the 
thing  for  the  devil  ;  "let  him  open  his  bowels  over  his  dispensa 
tion  and  sling  it  about  his  neck."2 — The  Princes  and  nobles 
(those  who  were  on  the  other  side)  "  soiled  their  breeches  so 
shamefully  in  the  Peasant  War  that  even  now  they  can  be  smelt 
afar  off."3 — He  declares  of  the  head  of  the  Church  of  Rome  : 
"  Among  real  Christians  no  one  is  more  utterly  despicable  than 
the  Pope  ...  he  stinks  like  a  hoopoe's  nest."4  Of  those 
generally  who  opposed  the  Divine  Word  he  says  :  "  No  smell 
is  worse  than  yours."5 — "  Good-bye,  beloved  Rome  ;  let  what 
stinks  go  on  stinking."6 

"It  is  stupid  of  the  Papists  to  wear  breeches.  How  if  they 
were  to  get  drunk  and  let  slip  a  motion  ?  "7  This  concern  we 
find  expressed  in  Luther's  "  Etliche  Spriiche  wider  das  Concilium 
Obstantiense  "  (1535).  And  it  is  quite  in  keeping  with  other 
utterances  in  the  same  writing.  He  there  speaks  of  the  "  dragons' 
heads  that  peep  and  spew  out  of  the  hind-quarters  of  the  Pope- 
Ass,"8  and  on  the  same  page  ventures  to  address  our  Saviour  as 
follows  :  "  Beloved  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  it  is  high  time  that  Thou 
shouldst  lay  bare,  back  and  front,  the  shame  of  the  furious, 
bloodthirsty,  purple-clad  harridan  and  reveal  it  to  the  whole 
world  in  preparation  for  the  dawn  of  Thy  bright  Coming." 

Naturally  he  is  no  less  unrestrained  in  his  attacks  on  all  who 
defended  Popery.  Of  Eck's  ideas  on  chastity  he  remarks  : 
"  Your  he-goat  to  your  nostrils  smells  like  balsam."9  Of  Cardinal 
Albert  of  Mayence  and  his  party  he  wrote,  during  the  Schonitz 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  175. 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  486  ;   Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  154. 

3  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  41,  p.  17. 

4  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  16,  p.  469  ;   Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  81. 
6  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  38,  p.  176. 

6  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  7  ;   Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  46. 

7  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  404.  8  Ibid.,  p.  393. 
9  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  674  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  290. 


320          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

controversy  :  These  "  knaves  and  liars  "  "  bring  out  foul  rags 
fit  only  for  devils  and  men  to  use  in  the  closet."1  The  epithet, 
merd-priest,  merd-bishop,  is  several  times  applied  by  him  to 
members  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy.2  "The  poor  merd-priest 
wanted  to  ease  himself,  but,  alas,  there  was  nothing  in  his 
bowels."3 

The  Jurists  who  still  clung  to  Canon  Law  he  declares 
"  invade  the  churches  with  their  Pope  like  so  many  swine  ; 
yet  there  is  another  place  whither  they  might  more  seemingly 
betake  themselves  if  they  wish  to  wipe  the  fundament  of  their 
Pope."4  The  Italians  think  that  "whatever  a  Cardinal  gives 
vent  to,  however  vile  it  be,  is  a  new  article  of  faith  promulgated 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Germans."5  To  the  Papists  who  threaten 
him  with  a  Council  he  says  :  "If  they  are  angry  let  them  ease 
themselves  into  their  breeches  and  sling  it  round  their  neck  ; 
that  will  be  real  balsam  and  pax  for  such  thin-skinned  saints." 6 — 
The  fanatics  who  opposed  his  teaching  on  the  Sacrament  were 
also  twitted  on  the  score  that  "  they  would  surely  ease  them 
selves  on  it  and  make  use  of  it  in  the  privy."7  The  Princes  and 
scoundrel  nobles  faithfully  followed  the  devil's  lead,  who  cannot 
bear  to  listen  to  God's  Word  "  but  shows  it  his  backside."8  How 
are  we  best  to  answer  an  opponent,  even  the  Pope  ?  As  though 
he  were  a  "  despicable  drunkard."  "  Give  them  the  fig  "  (i.e. 
make  a  certain  obscene  gesture  with  the  fist).9 — Such  is  his  own 
remedy  in  all  hostility  and  every  misfortune  :  "I  give  them  the 
fig."10  His  usual  counsel  is,  however,  to  turn  one's  "  posterior  " 
on  them. 

The  Pope  is  the  "  filth  which  the  devil  has  dropped  in  the 
Church  "  ;  he  is  the  "  devil's  bishop  and  the  devil  himself."11 — 
Commenting  on  the  Papal  formula  "  districte  mandantes,"  he 
adds:  "  Ja,  in  Ars."12  They  want  "  me  to  run  to  Rome  and 
fetch  forgiveness  of  sins.  Yes,  forsooth,  an  evacuation  !  "13 

Of  the  Pope's  Bull  of  excommunication  he  says  "  they  ought 
to  order  his  horrid  ban  to  be  taken  to  the  back  quarters  where 
children  of  Adam  go  to  stool  ;  it  might  then  be  used  as  a  pocket- 
handkerchief."14 — We  must  seize  hold  of  the  "  vices  "  of  the  Pope 
and  his  clergy  and  show  them  up  as  real  lechers  ;  thus  should  all 
those  who  hold  the  office  of  preacher  "set  their  droppings  under 
the  very  noses  of  the  Pope  and  the  bishops."15  "  The  spirit  of 
the  Pope,  the  father  of  lies,"  wishes  to  display  his  wisdom  by  so 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  29.  2  Cp.  ibid.,  64,  p.  324. 

3  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  373.  4  Ibid.,  5,  p.  622. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed,  30,  2,  p.  485  ;   Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  154. 

6  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  148. 

7  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  149  ;   Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  68. 

8  Ibid.,  33,  p.  673  =  48,  p.  407. 

9  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  42,  p.  67. 

10  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  19,  p.  400  ;   Erl.  ed.,  41,  p.  30. 

11  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  44,  p.  296.  12  Ibid.,  45,  p.  153. 

13  Ibid.,  44,  p.  257. 

14  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.  495  ;   Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  167. 

15  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  44,  p.  321. 


HIS   MANIA   FOR  ABUSE  321 

altering  the  Word  of  God,  that  it  "reeks  of  his  stale  filth."1 — 
These  people,  who,  like  the  Pope,  are  so  learned  in  the  Scripture, 
are  "clever  sophists,"  experts  in  equine  anal  functions.2  They 
have  "  taken  it  upon  themselves  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the 
whole  world  with  their  chastity  and  good  works,  but,  in  reality, 
they  merely  "  stuff  our  mouths  with  horse-dung."3 

Of  the  alleged  Papal  usurpations  he  exclaims  :  "  Were  such 
muck  as  this  stirred  up  in  a  free  Council,  what  a  stench  there  would 
be  !  "4 — The  same  favourite  figure  of  speech  helps  him  against 
the  Sacramentarians  :  "  What  useful  purpose  can  be  served  by 
my  raking  up  all  the  devil's  filth  ?  "5 — This  phrase  was  at  least 
more  in  place  when  Luther,  referring  to  Philip  of  Hesse's  bigamy, 
said,  that  he  "  was  not  going  to  stir  up  the  filth  under  the  public 
nose."6 — After  their  defeat  he  refused  to  comply  with  the 
demand  of  the  peasants,  that  he  should  support  them  in  the;:r 
lawlessness:  They  want  us  to  lend  them  a  hand  in  "stirring  up 
thoroughly  the  filth  that  is  so  eager  to  stink,  till  their  mouths  and 
noses  are  choked  with  it."7  But  it  is  to  the  Pope  and  his  followers 
that,  by  preference,  he  applies  such  imagery.  "  They  have 
forsaken  the  stool  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  and  now  parade 
their  filth  [concerning  original  sin]  ;  to  such  a  pass  have  they  come 
that  they  no  longer  believe  anything,  whether  concerning  the 
Gospel,  or  Christ,  or  even  their  own  teaching."8 — "  This  is  the 
filth  they  now  purvey,  viz.  that  we  are  saved  by  our  works  ; 
this  is  the  devil's  own  poisonous  tail."9 — Of  those  who  awaited 
the  decision  of  a  Council  he  writes  :  "  Let  the  devil  wait  if  he 
chooses.  .  .  .  The  members  of  the  body  must  not  wait  till  the 
filth  says  and  decrees  whether  the  body  is  healthy  or  not.  We 
are  determined  to  learn  this  from  the  members  themselves  and 
not  from  the  urine,  excrement  and  filth.  In  the  same  way  we  shall 
not  wait  for  the  Pope  and  bishops  in  Council  to  say  :  This  is 
right.  For  they  are  no  part  of  the  body,  or  clean  and  healthy 
members,  but  merely  the  filth  of  squiredom,  merd  spattered  on 
the  sleeve  and  veritable  ordure,  for  they  persecute  the  true 
Evangel,  well  knowing  it  to  be  the  Word  of  God.  Therefore  we 
can  see  they  are  but  filth,  stench  and  limbs  of  Satan."10 

At  the  time  of  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  in  1530,  he  informed  the 
delegates  of  his  party  :  "  You  are  treating,  not  with  men,  but 
with  the  very  gates  of  hell.  .  .  .  But  they  have  fallen  foul  of 
the  wisdom  of  God  and  [the  final  sentence  of  this  Latin  epistle  is 
in  German]  soil  themselves  with  their  own  filthy  wisdom.  Amen, 
Amen."11 — The  words  "  bescheissen  "  and  "  beschmeissen  "  (cp. 
popular  French  :  "  emmerder  ")  flow  naturally  from  Luther's 

1  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  30,  pp.  3,  335  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  52. 

2  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  202,  2,  p.  562.  3  Ibid.,  202,  1,  p.  19. 

4  Ibid.,  252,  p.  253. 

5  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  429  ;   Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  282. 

6  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  296. 

7  "  Wcrke,"  Weim.  ed.,  19,  p.  43  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  378. 

8  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  44,  p.  318.  »  Ibid.,  p.  316. 

10  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  33,  p.  458  ;    Erl.  ed.,  48,  p.  222. 

11  On  June  30,  1530,  to  Johann  Agricola,  "  Briefweclisel,"  8,  p.  57.] 

IV.— Y 


322          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

pen.  Neobulus,  the  Hessian  defender  of  the  bigamy,  he  describes 
as  "  a  prince  of  darkness,"  who  "  has  '  defiled  '  himself  with  his 
wisdom  "  ;l  the  papal  "  Jackanapes  "  who  "  declare  that  the 
Lutherans  have  risen  in  revolt,"  have  likewise  "'defiled'  them 
selves  with  their  sophistry."2 

He  asserts  he  can  say  "  with  a  clear  conscience  that  the  Pope 
is  a  merd-ass  and  the  foe  of  God."3  "  The  Pope- Ass  has  emitted 
a  great  and  horrible  ordure  here.  ...  A  wonder  it  did  not 
tear  his  anus  or  burst  his  belly."  "  There  lies  the  Pope  in 
his  own  dung."4  "The  Popes  are  so  fond  of  lies  arid  scur 
rilities  that  their  paunch  waxes  fat  on  them  "  ;  they  are 
waiting  to  see  "  whether  the  Pope's  motions  will  not  ulti 
mately  scare  the  kings.  ".  .  .  The  Papal  hypocrites — I  had 
almost  said  the  devil's  excrements— boast  of  being  masters  over 
the  whole  world."6 

Amidst  these  unavoidable  quotations  from  Luther's 
unpleasant  vocabulary  of  abuse  the  historian  is  confronted 
again  and  again  with  the  question  :  What  relation  does 
this  coarser  side  of  Luther's  style  bear  to  the  manners  of 
his  times  ?  We  have  already  pointed  out  how  great  the 
distance  is  between  him  and  all  other  writers,  particularly 
such  as  treat  of  religious  subjects  in  a  popular  or  polemical 
vein  ;  obviously  it  is  with  the  latter  category  of  writings 
that  his  should  be  compared,  rather  than  with  the  isolated 
aberrations  of  certain  writers  of  romance  or  the  lascivious 
works  produced  by  the  Humanists.6  Various  quotations 
from  contemporaries  of  Luther's,  even  from  friends  of  the 
innovations,  have  shown  that  his  language  both  astonished 
and  shocked  them.7  It  was  felt  that  none  other  could 
pretend  to  measure  himself  beside  this  giant  of  invective. 

Duke  George  of  Saxony  on  one  occasion  told  Luther  in 
no  kindly  way  that  he  knew  peasants  who  spoke  just  the 
same,  "  particularly  when  the  worse  for  drink  "  ;  indeed 
they  went  one  better  and  "  knew  how  to  use  their  fists  "  ; 
among  them  Luther  would  be  taken  for  a  swine-herd.8 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  207. 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  468  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  125. 

3  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  216.         4  Ibid,,  p.  216  f.         5  Ibid.,  p.  205. 
6  Calvin  also  suffered,  though  in  a  less  degree,  from  this  mania  for 

invective  ;  of  him  and  of  the  excuse  some  have  sought  in  the  tone  and 
habits  of  the  age  a  recent  French  historian  says  :  Even  though  such 
abuse  was  not  entirely  unparalleled,  "  yet  it  cannot  but  surprise  and 
grieve  us  in  the  case  of  a  religious  reformer."  H.  Lemonnier,  "Histoire 
de  France,"  ed.  E.  Lavisse,  5,  2,  1904,  p.  230,  dealing  with  French 
Calvinism.  7  See  our  vol.  ii.,  p.  153  ff. 

8  In  the  reply  "  Auf  das  Schmahbuchlein,"  usw.,  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed., 
252,  p.  143,  published  under  Arnold's  name. 


HIS   MANIA   FOR   ABUSE  323 

"  Their  inexhaustible  passion  for  abuse,"  wrote  a  Catholic 
contemporary  in  1526,  "  makes  me  not  a  little  suspicious 
of  the  teaching  of  this  sect.  No  one  is  accounted  a  good 
pupil  of  Luther's  who  is  not  an  adept  in  abusive  language  ; 
Luther's  own  abuse  knows  no  bounds.  .  .  .  Who  can  put 
up  with  such  vituperation  the  like  of  which  has  not  been 
heard  for  ages  ?  .  .  .  Read  all  this  man's  writings  and 
you  will  hardly  find  a  page  that  is  not  sullied  with  vile 
abuse."1 

It  is  true  that  the  lowest  classes,  particularly  in  Saxony, 
as  it  would  appear,  were  addicted  to  the  use  of  smutty 
language  in  which  they  couched  their  resentment  or  their 
wit ;  this,  however,  was  among  themselves.  In  the  writings 
of  the  Wittenberg  professor  of  theology,  on  the  other  hand, 
this  native  failing  emerges  unabashed  into  the  light  of  day, 
and  the  foul  sayings  which  Luther — in  his  anxiety  to 
achieve  popularity — gathered  from  the  lips  of  the  rabble 
swept  like  a  flood  over  the  whole  of  the  German  literary 
field.  Foul  language  became  habitual,  and,  during  the 
polemics  subsequent  on  Luther's  death,  whether  against  the 
Catholics  or  among  the  members  of  the  Protestant  fold,  was 
a  favourite  weapon  of  attack  with  those  who  admired 
Luther's  drastic  ways. 

As  early  as  1522  Thomas  Blaurer,  a  youthful  student  at 
Wittenberg,  wrote  :  "  No  abuse,  however  low  and  shame 
ful,"  must  be  spared  until  Popery  is  loathed  by  all.2  Thus 
the  object  in  view  was  to  besmirch  the  Papacy  by  pelting 
it  with  mire.  When,  in  1558,  Tilman  Hesshusen,  an  old 
Wittenberg  student,  became  Professor  of  Theology  and 
General  Superintendent  at  Heidelberg  and  thundered  with 
much  invective  against  his  opponents  and  in  favour  of  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg,  even  his  friends  asked  the  question, 
"  whether  the  thousand  devils  he  was  wont  to  purvey  from 
the  pulpit  helped  to  promote  the  pure  cause  of  the  Lutheran 
Evangel  ?  "  At  Bremen,  preaching  against  Hardenberg, 
a  follower  of  Melanchthon's,  he  declared,  that  he  had 
turned  the  Cathedral  into  a  den  of  murderers.3  In  1593 

1  Thus    F.    Polygranus,    O.S.F.,    in    his    "  Asscrtiones    quorundam 
ecclesice  dogmatum,"  printed  at  Cologne  in  1571,  Bl.  10  :    "  insatiabilis 
maledicendi  libido  ...  a  seculis  inauditce  conviciorum  voces." 

2  To  Ulrich  Zasius,  Oct.  8,  1522,  "  Briefwechsel  der  Briider  Blaurer," 
1,  1908,  p.  66. 

3  Cp.  "  KL.,"  52,  col.  1958  f. 


324  LUTHER   THE    REFORMER 

Nigrinus  incited  the  people  to  abuse  the  Papists  with  the 
words  :  "  Up  against  them  boldly  and  fan  the  flames  so 
that  things  may  be  made  right  warm  for  them  !  "  George 
Steinhausen  remarks  in  this  connection  in  his  History  of 
German  Civilisation  :  "  Luther  became  quite  a  pattern  of 
violent  abuse  and  set  the  tone  for  the  anti-popish  ranters, 
who,  most  of  them,  belonged  to  the  lowest  class.  On  their 
side  the  Catholics,  for  instance,  Hans  Salat  of  Lucern 
or  the  convert  Johann  Engerd,  were  also  not  behindhand 
in  this  respect.  .  .  .  The  preachers,  however,  were  always 
intent  on  egging  them  on  to  yet  worse  attacks."1 

The  manner  in  which  Luther  in  his  polemics  treated  his 
opponents,  wrote  Dollinger  in  his  "Sketch  of  Luther,"  "is 
really  quite  unparalleled.  He  never  displays  any  of  that 
kindly  charity,  which,  while  hating  the  error,  seeks  to  win 
over  those  who  err  ;  on  the  contrary,  with  him  all  is  abuse 
and  anger,  defiance  and  contemptuous  scorn  voiced  in  a 
tempest  of  invective,  often  of  a  most  personal  and  vulgar 
kind.  ...  It  is  quite  wrong  to  say  that  Luther  in  this 
respect  merely  followed  in  the  wake  of  his  contemporaries  ; 
this  is  clear  enough  to  everyone  familiar  with  the  literature 
of  that  age  and  the  one  which  preceded  it ;  the  virulence  of 
Luther's  writings  astonished  everybody  ;  those  who  did 
not  owe  him  allegiance  were  not  slow  to  express  their 
amazement,  to  blame  him  and  to  emphasise  the  harmful 
effects  of  these  outbursts  of  abuse,  whilst  his  disciples  and 
admirers  were  wont  to  appeal  to  Luther's  '  heroic  spirit  ' 
which  lifted  him  above  the  common  herd  and,  as  it  were, 
dispensed  him  from  the  observance  of  the  moral  law  and 
allowed  him  to  say  things  that  would  have  been  immoral  and 
criminal  in  others."2 

Especially  his  obscene  abuse  of  the  Pope  did  those  of 
Luther's  contemporaries  who  remained  faithful  to  the 
Church  brand  as  wicked,  immoral  and  altogether  un 
christian.  "  What  ears  can  listen  to  these  words  without 
being  offended  ?  "  wrote  Emser,  "  or  who  is  the  pious 
Christian  who  is  not  cut  to  the  quick  by  this  cruel  insult 
and  blasphemy  offered  to  the  vicar  of  Christ  ?  Is  this  sort 
of  thing  Christian  or  Evangelical  ?  "3 

1   "  Gesch.  der  dentschen  Kultur,"  p.  514. 

"  Luther,  cine  Skizze,"  p.  57  f.;    "  KL.,"  82,  p.  343. 
3  "  Wider  das  unchristeiiliche   Buch  M.   Luthers,"   ed.   Endtrs  in 
"  Neudrucke  deutscher  Literaturwerke,"  vol.  i.,  1889,  p.  132. 


HIS   MANIA   FOR   ABUSE  325 

Protestant  Opinions  Old  and  New. 

Erasmus's  complaints  concerning  Luther's  abusiveness 
were  re-echoed,  though  with  bated  breath,  by  those  of 
the  new  faith  whose  passion  had  not  entirely  carried  them 
away.  The  great  scholar,  speaking  of  Luther's  slanders  on 
him  and  his  faith,  had  even  said  that  they  were  such  as  to 
compel  a  reasonable  reader  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  was  either  completely  blinded  by  hate,  or  suffering  from 
some  mental  malady,  or  else  possessed  by  the  devil.1 
Many  of  Luther's  own  party  agreed  with  Erasmus,  at  any 
rate  when  he  wrote  :  "  This  unbridled  abuse  showered  upon 
all,  poisons  the  reader's  mind,  particularly  in  the  case  of 
the  uneducated,  and  can  promote  only  anger  and  dis 
sension."2 

The  Protestant  theologians  of  Switzerland  were  much  shocked 
by  Luther's  ways.  To  the  complaints  already  quoted  from  their 
letters  and  writings  may  be  added  the  following  utterances  of 
Zwingli's  successor,  Heinrich  Bullinger,  who  likewise  judged 
Luther's  offensive  tone  to  be  quite  without  parallel  :  Most  of 
Luther's  books  "  are  cast  in  such  a  mould  as  to  give  grievous 
scandal  to  many  simple  folk,  so  that  they  become  suspicious  of 
the  Evangelical  cause  as  a  whole.  .  .  .  His  writings  are  for  the 
most  part  nothing  but  invective  and  abuse.  .  .  .  He  sends  to 
the  devil  all  who  do  not  at  once  side  with  him.  Thus  all  his 
censure  is  imbued  with  hostility  and  contains  little  that  is  friendly 
or  fatherly."  Seeing  that  the  world  already  teems  with  abuse  and 
curses,  Bullinger  thinks  that  it  would  better  befit  Luther  "to  be 
the  salt  "  and  to  strive  to  mend  matters,  instead  of  which  he 
only  makes  bad  worse  and  incites  his  preachers  to  "  abuse  and 
blaspheme."  "  For  there  are  far  too  many  preachers  who  have 
sought  and  found  in  Luther's  books  a  load  of  bad  words.  .  .  . 
From  them  we  hear  of  nothing  but  of  fanatics,  rotters,  Sacra- 
mentarians,  foes  of  the  Sacrament,  blasphemers,  scoundrels, 
hypocrites,  rebels,  devils,  heretics  and  endless  things  of  the  like, 
.  .  .  And  this,  too,  is  praised  by  many  [who  say]  :  Why,  even 
Luther,  the  Prophet  and  Apostle  of  the  Germans,  does  the 
same  !  "3 

Of  Luther's  "  Schem  Hamphoras  "  Bullinger  wrote  :  "  Were 
it  written,  not  by  a  famous  pastor  of  souls,  but  by  a  swine 
herd,"  it  would  stilt  be  hard  to  excuse.4  In  a  writing  to  Bucer, 
Bullinger  also  protested  against  endangering  the  Evangel  by  such 
unexampled  abuse  and  invective.  If  no  one  could  stop  Luther 

1  "  Opp.,"  10,  col.  1557. 

2  Ibid.,  col.  1155  :    "  isia  tarn  effrenis  in  omncs  ma.ledice.nlia,"  etc. 

3  "  Wahrhaffte    Bekanntnuss    tier    Dieneren    an    der    Kilchen    zu 
Ziirych,"  Ziirych,  1545,  Bl.  130  f. 

*  Ibid.,  Bl.  10. 


326 

then  the  Papists  were  right  when  they  said  of  him,  and  the 
preachers  who  followed  in  his  footsteps,  that  they  were  no 
"  Evangelists,  but  rather  scolding,  foul-mouthed  buffoons."1 

In  answer  to  such  complaints  Martin  Bucer  wrote  to  Bullinger 
admitting  the  existence  of  grievous  shortcomings,  but  setting 
against  it  Luther's  greatness  as  evinced  in  the  admiration  he 
called  forth.  The  party  interests  of  the  Evangel  and  his  hatred 
of  the  Papal  Antichrist  made  him  to  regard  as  merely  human 
in  Luther,  frailties  which  to  others  were  a  clear  proof  of  his  lack 
of  a  Divine  mission.  As  Bucer  puts  it  :  "I  am  willing  to  admit 
what  you  say  of  Luther's  venomous  discourses  and  writings. 
Oh,  that  I  could  only  change  his  ways.  .  .  .  But  the  fellow 
allows  himself  to  be  carried  away  by  the  storm  that  rages  within 
him  so  that  no  one  can  stop  him.  It  is  God,  however,  Who 
makes  use  of  him  to  proclaim  His  Evangel  and  to  overthrow 
Antichrist.  .  .  .  He  has  made  Luther  to  be  so  greatly  respected 
in  so  many  Churches  that  no  one  thinks  of  opposing  him,  still 
less  of  removing  him  from  his  position.  Most  people  are  proud 
of  him,  even  those  whom  he  does  not  acknowledge  as  his 
followers  ;  many  admire  and  copy  his  faults  rather  than  his 
virtues  ;  but  huge  indeed  is  the  multitude  of  faithful  who  revere 
him  as  the  Apostle  of  Christ.  ...  I  too  give  him  the  first  place 
in  the  sacred  ministry.  It  is  true  there  is  much  about  him  that  is 
human,  but  who  is  there  who  displays  nothing  but  what  is 
Divine  ?  "  In  spite  of  all  he  was  a  great  tool  of  God  ("  admir- 
andum  organum  Dei  pro  salute  populi  Dei  ")  ;  such  was  the 
opinion  of  all  pious  and  learned  men  who  really  knew  him.2 

Yet  Bucer  had  some  strong  things  to  say  to  Landgrave  Philip 
of  Hesse,  regarding  Luther's  addiction  to  abuse.  To  try  and 
persuade  him  to  deal  courteously  with  his  foes,  particularly  with 
the  Ziirichers  after  their  "  mistaken  booklet,"  so  Bucer  writes 
to  the  Prince,  "  would  be  like  trying  to  put  out  a  fire  with  oil.  If 
Master  Philip  and  I — who  have  kept  rigidly  and  loyally  to  the 
Concord — succeed  in  turning  away  the  man's  wrath  from  our 
selves,  then  we  shall  esteem  ourselves  lucky."  The  "  foolhardi- 
ness  "  of  the  Ziirichers  has  "  so  enraged  him,  that  even  Emperors, 
though  they  should  be  good  Evangelicals,  would  find  it  hard  to 
pacify  him."  "  No  one  has  ever  got  the  better  of  Dr.  Luther  in 
invective."3 

Fresh  light  is  thrown  on  the  psychological  side  of  Luther's 
controversial  methods  when  we  bring  together  those  utter 
ances  in  which  his  sense  of  his  own  greatness  finds  expres 
sion.  We  must  observe  a  little  more  closely  Luther's  inner 
thoughts  and  feelings  from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  ideal. 

1  To  Bucer,  1543,  Lenz,  "  Briefwechsel  Philipps,"  2,  p.  224.  Another 
remark  of  Bullinger's  is  given  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  417. 

2  To  Bullinger,  1543,  Lenz,  ibid.,  p.  226.     Cp.  what  Bucer  said,  in 
our  vol.  ii.,  p.  155. 

3  On  May  19,  1545,  Lenz,  ibid.,  p.  343. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      327 


4.  Luther  on  his  own  Greatness  and  Superiority  to  Criticism 
The  art  of  "Rhetoric" 

Characteristic  utterances  of  Luther's  regarding  his  own 
gifts  and  excellencies,  the  wisdom  and  courage  displayed  in 
his  undertaking  and  the  important  place  he  would  occupy 
in  history  as  the  discoverer  and  proclaimer  of  the  Evan 
gelical  truth,  are  to  be  met  with  in  such  plenty,  both  in  his 
works  and  in  the  authentic  notes  of  his  conversations,  that 
we  have  merely  to  select  some  of  the  most  striking  and 
bring  them  together.  They  form  a  link  connecting  his  whole 
public  career  ;  he  never  ceased  to  regard  all  his  labours  from 
the  point  of  view  of  his  Divine  mission,  and  what  he  says 
merely  varies  in  tone  and  colour  with  the  progress  which 
took  place  in  his  work  as  time  went  on. 

It  is  true  that  he  knew  perfectly  well  that  it  was  im 
possible  to  figure  a  Divine  mission  without  the  pediment 
and  shield  of  humility.  How  indeed  could  those  words  of 
profound  humility,  so  frequent  with  St.  Paul,  have  rung  in 
Luther's  ears  without  finding  some  echo  ?  Hence  we  find 
Luther,  too,  from  time  to  time  making  such  his  own  ;  and 
this  he  did,  not  out  of  mere  hypocrisy,  but  from  a  real  wish  to 
identify  his  feelings  with  those  of  the  Apostle  ;  in  almost 
every  instance,  however,  his  egotism  destroys  any  good 
impulse  and  drives  him  in  the  opposite  direction. 

Luther's  confessions  of  his  faults  and  general  unworthiness  are 
often  quite  impressive.  We  may  notice  that  such  were  not 
unfrequently  made  to  persons  of  influence,  to  Princes  and 
exalted  patrons  on  whom  his  success  depended,  and  whom  he 
hoped  thereby  to  dispose  favourably  ;  others,  however,  are  the 
natural,  communicative  outpourings  of  that  "  colossal  frank 
ness  " — as  it  has  been  termed — which  posterity  has  to  thank 
for  its  knowledge  of  so  many  of  Luther's  foibles.  In  his  conversa 
tions  we  sometimes  find  him  speaking  slightingly  of  himself,  for 
instance,  when  he  says  :  "  Philip  is  of  a  better  brand  than  I. 
He  fights  and  teaches  ;  I  am  more  of  a  rhetorician  or  gossip."1 

A  passage  frequently  quoted  by  Luther's  admirers  in  proof  of 
his  humility  is  that  which  occurs  in  his  preface  to  the  "  Psalter  " 
published  by  Eobanus  Hessus.  The  Psalms,  he  says,  had  been 
his  school  from  his  youth  upwards.  "  While  unwilling  to  put 
my  gifts  before  those  of  others,  I  may  yet  boast  with  a  holy 
presumption,  that  I  would  not,  as  they  say,  for  all  the  thrones 
and  kingdoms  of  the  world,  forgo  the  benefits,  that,  by  the 
blessing  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  I  have  derived  from  lingering  and 

1     "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  59,  p.  279,  Table-Talk. 


328         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

meditating  on  the  Psalms."  He  was  not  going  to  hide  the  gifts 
he  had  received  from  God,  and  in  Him  he  would  be  proud,  albeit 
in  himself  he  found  reasons  enough  to  make  him  humble  ;  he 
took  less  pleasure  in  his  own  German  Psalter  than  in  that  of 
Eobanus,  "  but  all  to  the  honour  and  glory  of  God,  to  Whom  be 
praise  for  ever  and  ever."1 

In  order  to  know  Luther  as  he  really  was  we  should 
observe  him  amongst  his  pupils  at  Wittenberg,  for  instance, 
as  he  left  the  Schlosskirehc  after  one  of  his  powerful  sermons 
to  the  people,  and  familiarly  addressed  those  who  pressed 
about  him  on  the  steps  of  the  church.  There  were  the 
burghers  and  students  wrhose  faults  he  had  just  been  scourg 
ing  ;  the  theologians  of  his  circle  crowding  with  pride  around 
their  master ;  the  lawyers,  privy  councillors  and  Court 
officials  in  the  background,  probably  grumbling  under  their 
breath  at  Luther's  peculiarities  and  harsh  words.  His 
friends  wish  him  many  years  of  health  and  strength  that 
he  may  continue  his  great  work  in  the  pulpit  and  press  ; 
he,  on  the  other  hand,  thinks  only  of  death  ;  he  insists  on 
speaking  of  his  Last  Will  and  Testament,  of  the  chances  of 
his  cause,  of  his  enemies  and  of  the  threatened  Council  which 
he  so  dreaded.2 

1  On  Aug.  1,  1537,  "  Brief wechsel,"  11,  p.  255,  printed  in  the  2nd 
edition  of  the  Psalter  of  Hessus  of  1538.— The  following  remark  of 
Luther's  on  those  who  wanted  to  call  themselves  after  him  has  also 
been  quoted  :    "  Fool  that  you  are,  just  listen  :   First  of  all  I  beg  people 
to  leave  my  name  out  and  to  call  themselves,   not  Lutherans,   but 
Christians.    What  has  Luther  to  do  with  it  ?    The  doctrine  is  not  mine, 
nor  was  I  ever  crucified  for  anyone.     St.  Paul,  1  Cor.  iii.  [4,  5],  would 
not  hear  of  Christians  being  called   Pauline   or  Petrine,   but  simply 
Christians.    How  then  should  I,  poor  smelly  sack  of  maggots  that  I  am, 
suffer  the  children  of  Christ  to  be  called  by  my  unholy  name  ?    Hence, 
dear  friend,  let  us  do  away  with  party  names  and  be  called  after  Christ, 
Whose  teaching  we  follow.     It  is  only  right  that  the  Papists  should 
have  a  party  name,  because  they  are  not  content  with  Christ's  teach 
ing  and  name,  but  insist  on  being  Popish  ;   let  them  then  be  the  Pope's, 
since  he  is  their  master.     As  for  me,  I  neither  am  nor  wish  to  be  any 
one's  master.    I  share  with  the  congregation  the  teaching  of  Christ  Who 
alone  is  our  Master.     Mt.  xxiii.  [8]."     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  685  ; 
Erl.  ed.,  22,  p.  55  f.,  "  Vormanung  sich  zu  vorhuten  fur  Auffruhr,"  1522. 
He  blames  those  who,  by  their  stupid  zeal,   "  cause  calumny  and  a 
falling  away  from  the  holy  Evangel,"  and  "  affright  "  the  people  and 
prevent  their  accepting  it.    Just  then  it  was  to  his  interest  to  represent 
his  teaching  as  peaceable  and  his  action  as  moderate.     Cp.  pp.  677, 
682f.  =  46,  51,  53. 

2  We  have  chosen  this  somewhat  unusual  setting  for  the  following 
collection  of  Luther's  sayings  in  order  to  prevent  monotony.    The  texts, 
indeed,    belong   to   various   times,  but   there   are   periods   in   Luther's 
history,  for  instance,  about  the  time  of  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  and  in 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      329 

"  Let  me  be,"  Luther  cries,  turning  to  the  lawyers,  "  even 
in  my  Last  Will,  the  man  I  really  am,  one  well  known  both 
in  heaven  and  on  earth,  and  not  unknown  in  hell,  standing 
in  sufficient  esteem  and  authority  to  be  trusted  and  believed 
in  more  than  any  notary  ;  for  God,  the  Father  of  Mercies, 
has  entrusted  to  me,  poor,  unworthy,  wretched  sinner  that 
I  am,  the  Gospel  of  His  Dear  Son  and  has  made  and  hitherto 
kept  me  faithful  and  true  to  it,  so  that  many  in  the  world 
have  accepted  it  through  me,  and  consider  me  a  teacher  of 
the  truth  in  spite  of  the  Pope's  ban  and  the  wrath  of 
Emperors,  Kings,  Princes,  priests  and  all  the  devils.  .  .  . 
Dr.  Martin  Luther,  God's  own  notary  and  the  witness  of 
His  Gospel."1 

I  am  "  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  unworthy  evangelist."2 

I  am  "  the  Prophet  of  the  Germans,  for  such  is  the 
haughty  title  I  must  henceforth  assume."3 

"  I  am  Ecclesiastes  by  the  Grace  of  God  "  ;  "  Evangelist 
by  the  Grace  of  God."4 

"  I  must  not  deny  the  gifts  of  Jesus  Christ,  viz.  that, 
however  small  be  my  acquaintance  with  Holy  Scripture,  I 
understand  it  a  great  deal  better  than  the  Pope  and  all  his 
people."5 

"  I  believe  that  we  arc  the  last  trump  that  sounds  before 
Christ's  coming."6 

Many  arise  against  me,  but  with  "  a  breath  of  my  mouth  " 
I  blow  them  over. — All  their  prints  are  mere  "  autumn 
leaves."7 

"  One  only  of  my  opponents,  viz.  Latomus,  is  worth  his 
salt,  he  is  the  scribe  who  writes  best  against  me.  Latomus 
alone  has  really  written  against  Luther,  make  a  note  of  that  ! 
All  the  others,  like  Erasmus,  were  but  frogs.  Not  one  of 
them  really  meant  it  seriously.  Yes  indeed  all,  Erasmus 
included,  were  just  croaking  frogs."8 

1540  and  1541,  when,  within  a  short  chronological  space,  he  contrived 
to  make  a  vast  number  of  statements  regarding  his  greatness  ;  for  this 
reason  the  above  arrangement  is  not  altogether  untrue  to  the  reality. 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  56,  p.  2,  and  "  Briefe,"  eel.  De  Wette,  5.  p.  422. 
Words  taken  from  his  Will  of  Jan.  G,  1542,  by  which  he  intended  to 
show  the  lawyers  (who  questioned  his  power  to  make  a  valid  Will  on 
account  of  his  marriage)  that  he  was  not  bound  by  the  formalities  on 
which  they  insisted. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  366  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  75. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  290  =  22.  4  Ibid.,  10,  2,  p.  105  =  28,   p.  143. 

6  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  262,  p.  124.  6  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  754. 

7  Ibid.,  ],  p.  101.  8  Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"   p.   70. 


330 

I  have  been  tried  in  the  school  of  temptations  ;  "  these 
are  the  exalted  temptations  which  no  Pope  has  ever  under 
stood,"  I  mean,  "  being  tempted  to  blasphemy  and  to 
question  God's  Judgments  when  we  know  nothing  either  of 
sin  or  of  the  remedy."1 

Because  I  have  destroyed  the  devil's  kingdom  "  many 
say  I  was  the  man  foretold  by  the  Prophet  of  Lichtenbcrg  ; 
for  in  their  opinion  I  must  be  he.  This  was  a  prophecy  of 
the  devil,  who  well  saw  that  the  kingdom  he  had  founded 
on  lies  must  fall.  Hence  he  beheld  a  monk,  though  he  could 
not  tell  to  which  Order  he  belonged."2 

"  Be  assured  of  this,  that  no  one  will  give  you  a  Doctor  of 
Holy  Scripture  save  only  the  Holy  Ghost  who  is  in  heaven. 
.  .  .  He  indeed  testified  aforctimes  against  the  prophet  by 
the  mouth  of  the  she-ass  on  which  the  prophet  rode.  Would 
to  God  we  were  worthy  to  have  such  doctors  sent  us  !  "3 

"  I  have  become  a  great  Doctor,  this  I  am  justified  in 
saying  ;  I  would  not  have  thought  this  possible  in  the  days 
of  my  temptations  "  when  Staupitz  comforted  me  with  the 
assurance,  "  that  God  would  make  use  of  me  as  His  assistant 
in  mighty  things."4 

"  St.  John  Hus  "  was  not  alone  in  prophesying  of  me 
that  ..."  they  will  perforce  have  to  listen  to  the  singing 
of  a  swan,"  but  likewise  the  prophet  at  Rome  foretold  "  the 
coming  hermit  who  would  lay  waste  the  Papacy."5 

When  I  was  a  young  monk  and  lay  sick  at  Erfurt  they 
said  to  me  :  "  Be  consoled,  good  bachelor  .  .  .  our  God 
will  still  make  a  great  man  of  you.  This  has  been  fulfilled."6 

"  On  one  occasion  when  I  was  consoling  a  man  on  the  loss 
of  his  son  he,  too,  said  to  me  :  '  You  will  see,  Martin,  you 
will  become  a  great  man  ! '  I  often  call  this  to  mind,  for 
such  words  have  something  of  the  omen  or  oracle  about 
them."7 

"  Small  and  insignificant  as  they  [Luther's  and  the 
preachers'  reforms]  are,  they  have  done  more  good  in  the 

1  Ibid.,  p.  73. 

2  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch,"  p.  143.     Cp.  "Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1, 
p.  442.    See  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  165  f. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  460  ;    Erl.  ed.,  21,  p.  349.     "  An  den 
christl.  Adel,"  1520. 

4  "  Briefwechsel,"  8,  p.  159. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  387  ;    Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  87.     See 
above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  165.  6  Mathesius,  "Historien,"  p.  4. 

7   "  Briefwechsel,"  8,  p.  160. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      331 

Churches  than  all  the  Popes  and  lawyers  with  all  their 
decrees."1 

"  No  one  has  expounded  St.  Paul  better "  than  you, 
Philip  (Melanchthon).  "  The  commentaries  of  St.  Jerome 
and  Origen  are  the  merest  trash  in  comparison  with  your 
annotations  "  (on  Romans  and  Corinthians).  "  Be  humble 
if  you  like,  but  at  least  let  me  be  proud  of  you."  "  Be 
content  that  you  come  so  near  to  St.  Paul  himself."2 

"  In  Popery  such  darkness  prevailed  that  they  taught 
neither  the  Ten  Commandments,  nor  the  Creed,  nor  the 
Our  Father  ;  such  knowledge  was  considered  quite  super 
fluous."3 

''  The  blindness  was  excessive,  and  unless  those  days  had 
been  shortened  we  should  all  have  grown  into  beasts  !  I 
fear,  however,  that  after  us  it  will  be  still  worse,  owing  to 
the  dreadful  contempt  for  the  Word."4 

"  Before  my  day  nothing  was  known,"  not  even  "  what 
parents  or  children  were,  or  what  wife  or  maid."5 

"  Such  was  then  the  state  of  things  :  No  one  taught,  or 
had  heard  or  knew  what  secular  authority  was,  whence  it 
came,  or  what  its  office  and  task  was,  or  how  it  must  serve 
God." — •"  But  I  wrote  so  usefully  and  splendidly  concern 
ing  the  secular  authorities  as  no  teacher  has  ever  done  since 
Apostolic  times,  save  perhaps  St.  Augustine  ;  of  this  I  may 
boast  with  a  good  conscience,  relying  on  the  testimony  of 
the  whole  world."6 

Similarly,  "  we  could  prove  before  the  whole  world  that 
we  have  preached  much  more  grandly  and  powerfully  of 
good  works  than  those  very  people  who  abuse  us."7 

"  Not  one  of  the  Fathers  ever  wrote  anything  remark 
able  or  particularly  good  concerning  matrimony.  ...  In 
marriage  they  saw  only  evil  luxury.  .  .  .  They  fell  into  the 
ocean  of  sensuality  and  evil  lusts."  "  But  [by  my  preach 
ing]  God  with  His  Word  and  by  His  peculiar  Grace  has 
restored,  before  the  Last  Day,  matrimony,  secular  authority 
and  the  preaching  office  to  their  rightful  position,  as  He 

1  "  Briefe,"  ed.  De  Wette,  5,  p.  716. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2.  p.  309  f.;   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  491  ; 
"  Briefe,"  2,  p.  238  ("  Brief  ewechsel,"  3,  p.  438). 

3  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.   151.          *  Ibid.,  p.   193. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  317  ;    Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  46  f. 

6  Ibid.,  30,   2,  p.   109  f.  =  31,  p.   34  f.     "  Vom  Kriege  widder  die 
Turcken,"  1529. 

7  Ibid.,  36,  p.  447  =  182,  p.  334.     Sermon  of  1532. 


332 

instituted  and  ordained  them,  in  order  that  we  might 
behold  His  own  institutions  in  what  hitherto  had  been 
but  shams."1 

The  Papists  "  know  nothing  about  Holy  Scripture,  or 
what  God  is  ...  or  what  Baptism  or  the  Sacrament."2 
But  thanks  to  me  "  we  now  have  the  Gospel  almost  as  pure 
and  undefilcd  as  the  Apostles  had  it."3 

"  Not  for  a  thousand  years  has  God  bestowed  such  great 
gifts  on  any  bishop  as  He  has  on  me  ;  for  it  is  our  duty  to 
extol  God's  gifts."4 

It  is  easy  to  understand  what  an  impression  such  assurances 
and  such  appeals  to  the  heavenly  origin  of  his  gifts  must  have 
made  on  enthusiastic  pupils.  Before  allowing  the  speaker  to 
continue  we  may  perhaps  set  on  record  what  one  of  his  defenders 
alleges  in  Luther's  favour.5  "  An  energetic  character  to  whom 
all  pretence  is  hateful  may  surely  speak  quite  freely  and  openly 
of  his  own  merits  and  capabilities."  "  Why  should  such  a  thing 
seem  strange  ?  Because  now,  among  well-bred  people,  conven 
tions  demand  that,  even  should  we  be  conscious  of  good  deeds 
and  qualities  in  ourselves,  we  should  nevertheless  speak  as  though 
unaware  of  them."  Luther,  however,  was  "  certain  that  he 
had  found  the  centre  of  all  truth,  and  that  he  possessed  it  as 
his  very  own  ;  he  knew  that  by  his  '  faith  '  he  had  become  some 
thing,  viz.  that  which  every  man  ought  to  become  according  to 
the  will  of  God.  This  explains  that  self-reliance  whereby  he  felt 
himself  raised  above  those  who  either  continued  to  withstand  the 
truth,  or  else  had  not  yet  discovered  it."  By  such  utterances  he 
"  only  wished  to  explain  why  he  feared  nothing  for  his  cause." 
"  Arrogance  and  self-conceit  are  sinful,  but  he  who  by  God's 
grace  really  is  something  must  feel  proud  and  self-reliant." 
"  The  only  question  is  whether  it  is  a  proof  of  pride  that  he  was 
not  altogether  oblivious  of  this,  and  that  he  himself  occasionally 
spoke  of  it."  "  Christ  and  Paul  knew  what  they  were  and 
openly  proclaimed  it.  Just  as  Christ  found  Himself  accused  of 
arrogance,  so  Paul,  too,  felt  that  his  boasting  would  be  mis 
understood."  Besides,  "  Luther,  because  the  title  prophet 
[which  he  had  applied  to  himself]  was  open  to  misconstruction, 
writes  elsewhere  :  '  I  do  not  say  that  I  am  a  prophet.'  "6 

1  Ibid.,  Erl.  eel.,  01,  p.  178,  Table-Talk. 

2  Cp.  vol.  iii.,  p.  131  f.,  and  above,  p.  102. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  cd.,  15,  p.  39  ;    Erl.  ed.,  22,  p.  184. 

4  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  422. 

5  \V.  Walther,  "  Fur  Luther,  wider  Rom,"  pp.  526-543. 

6  Other  Protestant  writers   are  of  a  different   opinion.      Fricdrich 
Paulson  says  in  his  "  Gesch.  des  Uiiterrichts,"  I2,  1890,  p.  178  :    "  It  is 
certain  that  humility  towards  men,  respect  for  human  wisdom  and 
human   laws,   did   not  enter  into   Luther's  make.      He   is   altogether 
deficient   in   that   humility   towards   the   actual    Church    which   is   so 
characteristic  of  St.  Augustine,  Luther's  great  predecessor  in  theology. 


SOME  TYPICAL   UTTERANCES       333 

The  comparison  between  Christ's  sayings  and  Luther's  had 
best  be  quietly  dropped.  As  to  the  parallel  with  the  Apostle  of 
the  Gentiles — his  so-called  boasting  (2  Cor.  xi.  16  ;  xii.  1  ff.) 
and  his  frequent  and  humble  admissions  of  frailty — St.  Paul 
certainly  has  no  need  to  fear  comparison  with  Luther.  He  could 
have  set  before  the  world  other  proofs  of  his  Divine  mission,  and 
yet  he  preferred  to  make  the  most  humble  confessions  : 

"  But  for  myself  I  will  glory  in  nothing  but  in  my  infirmities," 
says  Paul  ..."  gladly  therefore  will  I  glory  in  my  infirmities 
that  the  power  of  Christ  may  dwell  in  me  ;  for  which  cause  I 
please  myself  in  my  infirmities,  in  reproaches,  necessities,  in 
persecutions,  in  distresses,  for  Christ.  For  when  I  am  weak  then 
am  I  powerful  .  .  .  although  I  be  nothing,  yet  the  signs  of  my 
apostleship  have  been  wrought  in  you  in  all  patience,  in  signs  and 
wonders  and  mighty  deeds."  "  For  I  am  the  least  of  the  Apostles, 
who  am  not  worthy  to  be  called  an  Apostle  because  I  persecuted 
the  Church  of  God.  But  by  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what  I  am 
and  His  grace  hath  not  been  void,  but  I  have  laboured  more 
abundantly  than  they  all  :  yet  not  I  but  the  grace  of  God  with 
me."  "  But  we  became  little  ones  in  the  midst  of  you,  as  if  a 
nurse  should  cherish  her  children  :  so  desirous  of  you,  we  would 
gladly  impart  unto  you  not  only  the  Gospel  of  God  but  also  our 
own  souls  because  you  were  become  most  dear  to  us.  .  .  . 
You  are  our  glory  and  joy"  (2  Cor.  xii.  5  ff .  ;  1  Cor.  xv.  9; 
1  Thess.  ii.  7  ff.). 

"  God  has  appointed  me  for  the  whole  of  the  German 
land,"  Luther  continues,  "  and  I  boldly  vouch  and  declare 
that  when  you  obey  me  in  this  [the  founding  of  Evangelical 
schools]  you  are  without  a  doubt  obeying  not  me  but  Christ, 
and  that,  whoever  obeys  me  not,  despises,  not  me,  but  Christ 
[Luke  xx.  16].  For  I  know  well  and  am  certain  of  what 
and  whereto  I  speak  and  teach."1 

"  And  now,  dear  Germans,  I  have  told  you  enough  ;  you 
have  heard  your  prophet  ;  God  grant  we  may  obey  His 
words."2 

As  Germany  docs  not  obey  "  misery  "  must  needs  over 
take  it ;  "  when  I  pray  for  my  beloved  Germany  I  feel 
that  my  prayer  recoils  on  me  and  will  not  ascend  upwards 
as  it  docs  when  I  pray  for  other  things.  .  .  .  God  grant  that 
I  be  wrong  and  a  false  prophet  in  this  matter."3 

The  more  Luther,  during  the  course  of  his  life,  passes  from  the  position 
of  a  mere  heretic  to  that  of  head  of  a  new  Church,  the  more  does  that 
formula  [My  cause  is  God's  own]  become  tinged  with  bitterness,  with 
obstinacy  and  with  pride." 

1  "  Werke,"  Woim.  ed.,  15,  p.  27  f.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  22,  p.  171.     "  An  die 
Raclherrn,"  etc.,  1524. 

2  Ibid.,  30,  2,  p.  588=  172,  p.  421.     "  Das  man  Kinder  zur  Schulen 
halten  solle,"  1530.  3  Ibid.,  p.  585  f.  =  420. 


334         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

"  Our  Lord  God  had  to  summon  Moses  six  times ;  me,  too, 
He  has  led  in  the  same  way.  .  .  .  Others  who  lived  before 
me  attacked  the  wicked  and  scandalous  life  of  the  Pope  ; 
but  I  assailed  his  very  doctrine  and  stormed  in  upon  the 
monkery  and  the  Mass,  on  which  two  pillars  the  whole 
Papacy  rests.  I  could  never  have  foreseen  that  these  two 
pillars  would  fall,  for  it  was  almost  like  declaring  war  on 
God  and  all  creation."1 

"  I  picked  the  first  fruits  of  the  knowledge  and  faith  of 
Christ,  viz.  that  we  are  justified  by  faith  in  Christ  and  not 
by  works."  2 

"  I  am  he  to  whom  God  first  revealed  it."3 

"  Show  me  a  single  passage  on  justification  by  faith  in 
the  Decrees,  Decretals,  Clementines,  "  Liber  Sextus "  or 
"  Extravagantes,"  in  any  of  the  Summas,  books  of  Sentences, 
monkish  sermons,  synodal  definitions,  collegial  or  monastic 
Rules,  in  any  Postils,  in  any  work  of  Jerome  and  Gregory, 
in  any  decisions  of  the  Councils,  in  any  disputations  of  the 
theologians,  in  any  lectures  of  any  University,  in  any  Mass 
or  Vigil  of  any  Church,  in  any  "  Cccremoniale  Episcoporum," 
in  the  institutes  of  any  monastery,  in  any  manual  of  any 
confraternity  or  guild,  in  any  pilgrims'  book  anywhere,  in 
the  pious  exercises  of  any  Saint,  in  any  Indulgence,  Bull, 
anywhere  in  the  Papal  Chancery  or  the  Roman  Curia  or  in 
the  Curia  of  any  bishop.  And  yet  it  was  there  that  the 
doctrine  of  faith  should  have  been  expressed  in  all  its 
fulness."4 

"  My  Evangel,"  that  was  what  was  wanting.  "  I  have, 
praise  be  to  God,  achieved  more  reformation  by  my  Evangel 
than  they  probably  would  have  done  even  by  five  Councils. 
.  .  .  Here  comes  our  Evangel  .  .  .  and  works  wonders, 
which  they  themselves  accept  and  make  use  of,  but  which 
they  could  not  have  secured  by  any  Councils."5 

"  I  believe  I  have  summoned  such  a  Council  and  effected 
such  a  reformation  as  will  make  the  ears  of  the  Papists 
tingle  and  their  heart  burst  with  malice.  ...  In  brief  :  It 
is  Luther's  own  Reformation."6 

1  Ibid.,  62,  p.  443  f.,  Table-Talk. 

2  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  20.     Preface  to  the  edition  of  the  Latin 
works  (1545). 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  3,  p.  8  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28,  p.  212. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  61,  p.  445  f.,  Table-Talk  (in  Latin). 

5  Ibid.,  31,  p.  389  f.     "  Ein  Brieff  von  seinem  Buch  der  Winckel- 
messen,"  1534.  6  Ibid.,  63,  pp.  271,  274,  Table-Talk. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      335 

"  I,  who  am  nothing,  may  say  with  truth  that  during  the 
[twenty]  years  that  I  have  served  my  dear  Lord  Christ  in 
the  preaching  office,  I  have  had  more  than  twenty  factions 
opposing  me  "  ;  but  now  they  are,  some  of  them,  extirpated, 
others,  "  like  worms  with  their  heads  trodden  off."1 

"  I  have  now  become  a  wonderful  monk,  who,  by  God's 
grace,  has  deposed  the  Roman  devil,  viz.  the  Pope  ;  yet 
not  I,  but  God  through  me,  His  poor,  weak  instrument ; 
no  emperor  or  potentate  could  have  done  that."2 

In  point  of  fact  "  the  devil  is  not  angry  with  me  without 
good  reason,  for  I  have  rent  his  kingdom  asunder.  What 
not  one  of  the  kings  and  princes  was  able  to  do,  that  God 
has  effected,  through  me,  a  poor  beggar  and  lonely  monk."3 

How  poor  are  the  ancient  Fathers  in  comparison  ! 
"  Chrysostom  was  a  mere  gossip.  Jerome,  the  good  Father, 
and  lauder  of  nuns,  understood  precious  little  of  Chris 
tianity.  Ambrose  has  indeed  some  good  sayings.  If  Peter 
Lombard  had  only  happened  upon  the  Bible  he  would  have 
excelled  all  the  Fathers."4 

"  See  what  darkness  prevailed  among  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  concerning  faith  !  Once  the  article  concerning 
justification  was  obscured  it  became  impossible  to  stem  the 
course  of  error.  St.  Jerome  writes  on  Matthew,  on  Galatians 
and  on  Titus,  but  how  paltry  it  all  is  !  Ambrose  wrote  six 
books  on  Genesis,  but  what  poor  stuff  they  are  !  Augustine 
never  writes  powerfully  on  faith  except  when  assailing  the 
Pelagians.  .  .  .  They  left  not  a  single  commentary  on 
Romans  and  Galatians  that  is  worth  anything.  Oh,  how 
great,  on  the  other  hand,  is  our  age  in  purity  of  doctrine, 
and  yet,  alas,  we  despise  it  !  The  holy  Fathers  taught 
better  than  they  wrote  ;  we,  God  be  praised,  write  better 
than  we  live."  Had  Gregory  the  Great  at  least  refrained 
from  spoiling  what  remained  !  "He  broke  in  with  his 
pestilent  traditions,  bound  men  down  to  observances 
concerning  flesh-meat,  cowls  and  Masses,  and  imposed  on 
them  his  filthy,  merdiferous  law.  And  in  the  event  this 
dreadful  state  of  things  grew  from  day  to  day  worse."5 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  plain  that  I  may  venture  to 

1  Preface  to  his  Commentary  on  Galatians,  Irmischer,  1,  p.  9. 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  58,  p.  243. 

3  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  143. 

4  Mathesius,  "Historien,"  p.  153. 

5  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch,"  p.  123. 


336          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

boast  in  God,  without  arrogance  or  untruth,  that,  when  it 
comes  to  the  writing  of  books  I  am  not  far  behind  many  of 
the  Fathers."1 

"  In  short  the  fault  lay  in  this,  that  [before  I  came],  even 
in  the  Universities  the  Bible  was  not  read  ;  when  it  was 
read  at  all  it  had  to  be  interpreted  in  accordance  with 
Aristotle.  What  blindness  that  was  !  " 

But  then  my  translation  of  Holy  Scripture  appeared. 
Whereas  the  Schoolmen  never  were  acquainted  with 
Scripture,  indeed  "never  were  at  home  even  in  the  Cate 
chism,"3  all  admit  my  Bible  scholarship.  On  one  occasion 
"  Carlstadt  said  to  the  Doctors  at  Wittenberg  :  My  dear 
sirs,  Dr.  Martin  is  far  too  learned  for  us  ;  he  read  the  Bible 
ten  years  ago  and  now  if  we  read  it  for  ten  years,  he  will 
then  have  read  it  for  twenty  ;  in  any  case,  therefore,  we  are 
lost."  "  Don't  start  disputing  with  him."4 

"  Nevertheless  I  never  should  have  attained  to  the  great 
abundance  of  Divine  gifts,  which  I  am  forced  to  confess 
and  admit,  unless  Satan  had  tried  me  with  temptations  ; 
without  these  temptations  pride  would  have  cast  me  into 
the  abyss  of  hell."5 

"  The  Papists  are  blind  to  the  clear  light  of  truth  because 
it  was  revealed  by  a  man.  As  though  Elias,  who  wrought 
such  great  things  against  the  servants  of  Baal,  was  not  like 
wise  a  man  and  a  beggar.  As  though  John  the  Baptist,  who 
so  brilliantly  put  to  flight  the  Pharisees,  was  not  a  man  too. 
One's  being  a  man  does  not  matter  provided  one  be  a  man  of 
God.  For  heroes  are  not  merely  men."6 

Certain  statements  of  contemporaries,  both  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  sound  like  interjections  in  the  midst  of  Luther's 
discourse.  They  point  out  how  unheard-of  was  his  demand  that 
faith  should  ba  placed  in  him  alone  to  the  exclusion  of  all  Christian 
authorities  past  and  present.  "  What  unexampled  pride  is  this," 
exclaims  the  learned  Ulrich  Zasius,  who  in  earlier  days  had 
favoured  Luther's  more  moderate  plans  of  reform,  "  when  a  man 
demands  that  his  interpretation  of  the  Bible  should  be  given 
precedence  over  that  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  herself,  and  of 
the  whole  of  Christendom!"7  "He  has  stuck  himself  in  the 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  403,  Preface,  1539. 

2  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Aufzeichmmgen,"  p.  121.  3  Ibid.,  p.  41. 
*  Ibid.,  from  Veit  Dietrich's  "  Aufzeichnungen."        5  Ibid.,  p.  9. 

6  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  123. 

7  To  Ambros.  Blaurcr,  Dec.   21,   1521,   "  Briefweehsel  der  Briider 
Blaurer,"    1,   p.   42   if.      K.   Stintzing,    "  Ulr.   Zasius,"    1857,   p.   231, 
Cp.  p.  371. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      337 

Pope's  place,"  cries  Thomas  Miinzer,  and  does  the  grand  as 
though,  forsooth,  he  had  not  come  into  the  world  in  the  ordinary 
way,  but  "  had  sprung  from  the  brain."  "  Make  yourself  cosy 
in  the  Papal  chair,"  is  Valentine  Ickelsamer's  comment,  since 
you  are  determined  to  "  listen  only  to  your  own  song."1 

Luther  concludes  his  address  to  his  followers  by  replying 
first  of  all  to  the  frequent  objection  we  have  just  heard 
Zasius  bring  forward  : 

"  I,  Dr.  Martin  Luther  by  name,  have  taken  it  upon  me 
to  prove  for  further  instruction  each  and  every  article  in 
a  well-grounded  work.  .  .  .  But  first  I  must  answer  certain 
imputations  made  by  some  against  me."  "  They  twit  me 
with  coming  forward  all  alone  and  seeking  to  teach  every 
body.  To  this  I  reply  that  I  have  never  put  myself  forward 
and  would  have  been  glad  to  creep  into  a  corner  ;  they  it  is 
who  dragged  me  out  by  force  and  cunning."2 

"  But  who  knows  whether  God  has  not  raised  me  up  and 
called  me  to  this,  and  whether  they  have  not  cause  to  fear 
that  they  are  contemning  God  in  me  ?  Do  we  not  read  in 
the  Old  Testament  that  God,  as  a  rule,  raised  up  only  one 
prophet  at  a  time  ?  Moses  was  alone  when  he  led  the  people 
out  of  Egypt ;  Helias  was  alone  in  the  time  of  King  Achab  ; 
later  on  Helisaeus  was  also  alone  ;  Isaias  was  alone  in 
Jerusalem,  Oseas  in  Israel,  Hieremias  in  Judea,  Ezechiel 
in  Babylon,  and  so  on."3 

"  The  dear  Saints  have  always  had  to  preach  against  and 
reprove  the  great  ones,  the  kings,  princes,  priests  and 
scholars."4 

"  I  do  not  say  that  I  am  a  prophet,  but  I  do  say  that  the 
Papists  have  the  more  reason  to  fear  I  am  one,  the  more 
they  despise  me  and  esteem  themselves.  God  is  wonderful 
in  His  works  and  judgments.  ...  If  I  am  not  a  prophet 
yet  I  am  certain  within  myself  that  the  Word  of  God  is 
with  me  and  not  with  them  ;  for  I  have  Scripture  on  my 
side,  but  they,  only  their  own  doctrine."5 

"  There  were  plenty  donkeys  in  the  world  in  Balaam's 
time,  yet  God  did  not  speak  through  all  of  them,  but  only 
through  Balaam's  ass."6  "They  also  say  that  I  bring 
forward  new  things,  and  that  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 

1  Miinzer  and  Ickelsamer  in  our  vol.  ii.,  p.  377. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  310  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  242,  p.  57.      "  Grund 
und  Ursach  aller  Artickel,"  1521.  3  Ibid.,  p.  311  =  58. 

4  Ibid.  s  jbid.,  p.  313  =  59.  «  Ibid. 

IV. — Z 


338          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

all  others  were  in  the  wrong  for  so  long.  To  this  reproof 
the  ancient  prophets  also  had  to  listen.  .  .  .  Christ's 
teaching  was  different  from  what  the  Jews  had  heard  for 
a  thousand  years.  On  the  strength  of  this  objection  the 
heathen,  too,  might  well  have  despised  the  Apostles,  seeing 
that  their  ancestors  had  believed  otherwise  for  more  than 
three  thousand  years."1 

"I  say  that  all  Christian  truth  had  perished  amongst 
those  who  ought  to  have  been  its  upholders,  viz.  the  bishops 
and  learned  men.  Yet  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  truth  has 
survived  in  some  hearts,  even  though  only  in  those  of  babes 
in  the  cradle."2 

"  I  do  not  reject  them  [all  the  Doctors  of  the  Church]  .  .  . 
but  I  refuse  to  believe  them  except  in  so  far  as  they  prove 
their  contentions  from  that  Scripture  which  has  never 
erred.  .  .  .  Necessity  forces  us  to  test  every  Doctor's 
writings  by  the  Bible  and  to  judge  and  decide  upon  them. 
The  standing  as  well  as  the  number  of  my  foes  is  to  me  a 
proof  that  I  am  in  the  right."3 

"  Were  I  opposed  only  by  a  few  insignificant  men  I 
should  know  that  what  I  wrote  and  taught  was  not  from 
God.  .  .  .  Truth  has  ever  caused  disturbance,  and  false 
teachers  have  ever  cried  '  Peace,  peace.'  ' 

"  They  say  they  don't  want  to  be  reformed  by  such  a 
beggar.  .  .  ."  "  Daniel  has  arisen  in  his  place  and  is 
determined  to  perform  what  the  angel  Gabriel  has  pointed 
out  to  him  ;  for  the  same  prophet  told  us  how  he  would 
rise  up  at  the  end  of  the  world.  That  he  is  now  doing." 
"  God  has  made  Luther  a  Samson  over  them  ;  He  is  God 
and  His  ways  are  wonderful.  .  .  .  Let  good  people  say  the 
best  they  can  of  me  and  let  the  Papists  talk  and  lie  to  their 
hearts'  content."5 

Neither  councils  nor  reformations  will  help  them.  "  They 
wish  to  reform  and  govern  the  Church  according  to  their 
own  lights  and  by  human  wisdom  ;  but  that  is  something 
that  lies  far  above  the  counsel  of  men.  When  our  Lord 
God  wished  to  reform  His  Church  He  did  so  '  divinitus,'  not 
by  human  methods  ;  thus  it  was  at  the  time  of  Josue,  of  the 
Judges,  Samuel,  the  Apostles  and  also  in  my  own  time."6 

i  Ibid.  2  Ibid.  3  Ibid.,  p.  315  =  61. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  317  =  61  f.  5  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  389  f. 

6  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  186. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      339 

Even  should  our  work  be  frustrated,  yet  the  "power  of 
the  Almighty  could  make  a  new  Luther  out  of  nothing." 
In  this  wise  "  God  raised  up  Noe  when  He  was  obliged  to 
destroy  the  world  by  the  deluge.  And,  in  Abraham's  time, 
when  the  whole  world  was  plunged  in  darkness  and  under 
the  empire  of  Satan,  Abraham  and  his  seed  came  as  a  great 
light ;  and  He  drowned  King  Pharao  and  slew  seven  great 
nations  in  Canaan.  And  again  when  Caiphas  crucified  the 
Son  of  God  .  N.  .  He  rose  again  from  the  dead  and  Caiphas 
was  brought  to  nought."1 

"  Christ  was  not  so  greatly  considered,  nor  had  He  ever  such 
a  number  of  hearers  as  the  Apostles  had  and  we  now  have  ; 
Christ  Himself  said  to  His  disciples  :  '  You  will  do  greater 
works  than  I,'  and,  truly  enough,  at  the  time  of  the  Apostles, 
and  now  amongst  us,  the  Gospel  and  the  Divine  Word  is 
preached  much  more  powerfully  and  is  more  widely  spread 
than  at  the  time  of  Christ."2 

It  is  true  that  "my  conviction  is,  that,  for  a  thousand 
years,  the  world  has  never  loathed  anyone  so  much  as  me. 
I  return  its  hatred."3 

It  "  is  probable  that  my  name  stinks  in  the  nostrils  of 
many  who  wish  to  belong  to  us,  but  you  [Bugenhagen]  will 
put  things  right  without  my  troubling."  Formerly  the 
decisions  of  the  Councils  ranked  above  God's  Word,  "  but 
now,  thank  God,  this  would  not  be  believed  among  us  even 
by  ducks  or  geese,  mice  or  lice."  "  God  has  110  liking  for 
the  '  expectants  '  [those  who  looked  for  a  Council],  for  He 
will  have  His  Word  honoured  above  all  angels,  let  alone  men 
or  Councils,  and  will  have  no  waiting  or  expectancy.  Our 
best  plan  will  be  to  send  them  to  the  devil  in  the  abyss  of 
hell,  to  do  their  waiting  there."4 

"  So  the  Council  is  going  to  be  held  at  Trent.  Tridentum, 
however,  signifies  in  German,  '  divided,  torn  asunder, 
dissolved,'  for  God  will  scatter  it  and  its  Legates.  I  believe 
they  do  not  know  what  they  are  doing  or  what  they  mean 
to  do.  God  has  cursed  them  with  blindness."5  "  Nay, 
under  Satan's  rule  they  have  all  gone  mad  ;  they  condemn 
us  and  then  want  our  approval."6  "  The  Council  is  worthy 
of  its  monsters.  May  misfortune  fall  upon  them  ;  the  wrath 
1  "  Briefo,"  6,  p.  402. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  57,  p.  94. 

3  Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichnutigen,"  p.  113. 

4  "  Brief e,"  5,  p.  418  f.  5  Ibid.,  p.  743.  6  Ibid.,  p.  74f. 


340          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

of  God  is  verily  at  their  heels."1  '  They  look  upon  us  as 
donkeys,  and  yet  do  not  realise  their  own  dense  stupidity 
and  malice."2 

"  Should  we  fall,  then  Christ  will  fall  with  us,  the  ruler  of 
the  world.  Granted,  however,  that  He  is  to  fall,  I  would 
rather  fall  with  Christ  than  stand  with  the  Emperor."  "  Put 
your  trust  in  your  Emperor  and  we  will  put  our  trust  in 
ours  [in  Christ],  and  wait  and  see  who  holds  the  field.  Let 
them  do  their  best,  they  have  not  yet  got  their  way."  They 
shall  perish.  "  I  fear  they  wish  to  hear  those  words  of 
Julius  Cscsar  :  '  They  themselves  have  willed  it  !  '  "3 

Should  I  be  carried  to  the  grave,  for  instance,  as  a  victim 
of  the  religious  war,  people  will  say  at  the  sight  of  the  Popish 
rout  that  will  ensue  :  "  Dr.  Martin  was  escorted  to  his  grave 
by  a  great  procession.  For  he  was  a  great  Doctor,  above  all 
bishops,  monks  and  parsons,  therefore  it  was  fitting  that 
they  should  all  follow  him  into  the  grave,  and  furnish  a 
subject  for  talk  and  song.  And  to  end  up,  we  shall  all 
make  a  little  pilgrimage  together  ;  they,  the  Papists,  to 
the  bottomless  pit  to  their  god  of  lying  and  murder,  whom 
they  have  served  with  lies  and  murders  ;  I  to  my  Lord, 
Jesus  Christ,  Whom  I  have  served  in  truth  and  peace  ;  .  .  . 
they  to  hell  in  the  name  of  all  the  devils,  I  to  heaven  in 
God's  name."4 

No  mortal  ever  spoke  of  himself  as  Luther  did.  He 
reveals  himself  as  a  man  immeasurably  different  from  that 
insipid  portrait  which  depicts  him  as  one  who  made  no 
claim  on  people's  submission  to  his  higher  light  and  higher 
authority,  but  who  humbly  advanced  what  he  fancied  he 
had  discovered,  an  ordinary  human  being,  even  though  a 
great  one,  who  was  only  at  pains  to  convince  others  by  the 
usual  means  in  all  wisdom  and  charity.  Everyday  psy 
chology  does  not  avail  to  explain  the  language  Luther  used, 
and  we  are  faced  by  the  graver  question  of  the  actual 
condition  of  such  a  mind,  raised  so  far  above  the  normal 
level.  "  We  have,"  says  Adolf  Harnack,  "  to  choose 
between  two  alternatives  :  Either  he  suffered  from  the 

1  Ibid.,  p.  750.  2  Ibid.,  p.  777. 

3  To  Melanchthon,  June  30,  1530,  "  Brief wechsel,"  8,  p.  51  f., 
during  the  Diet  of  Augsburg. 

*  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  279  ;   Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  8. 


SOME   TYPICAL   UTTERANCES      341 

mania  of  greatness,  or  his  self-reliance  really  corresponded 
with  his  task  and  achievements."1 

Luther,  at  the  very  commencement  of  the  tract  which  he 
published  soon  after  leaving  the  Wartburg,  and  in  which  he 
describes  himself  as  "  Ecclesiastes  by  the  grace  of  God," 
says  :  "  Should  you,  dear  Sirs,  look  upon  me  as  a  fool  for 
my  assumption  of  so  haughty  a  title,"  I  should  not  be  in  the 
least  surprised  ;  he  adds,  however  :  "I  am  convinced  of 
this,  that  Christ  Himself,  Who  is  the  Master  of  my  teaching, 
calls  me  thus  and  regards  me  as  such  "  ;  his  "  Word,  office 
and  work  "  had  come  to  him  "  from  God,"  and  his  "  judgment 
was  God's  own  "  no  less  than  his  doctrine.2  The  bishops 
of  the  Catholic  world  may  well  have  raised  their  eyebrows 
at  the  tone  of  this  work,  couched  in  the  form  of  a  Bull  and 
addressed  to  all  the  "  Popish  bishops  "  ;  the  following  year 
it  was  even  reprinted  in  Latin  at  Wittenberg  in  order  to 
make  it  known  throughout  the  world.  Bossuet's  words  on 
the  opening  lines  of  the  tract  well  render  the  feeling  of 
apprehension  they  must  have  created  :  "  Hence  Luther's 
is  the  same  call  as  St.  Paul's,  no  less  direct  and  no  less 
extraordinary  !  .  .  .  And  on  the  strength  of  this  Divine 
mission  Luther  proceeds  to  reform  the  Church  !  "3 — We 
should,  however,  note  that  Luther,  in  his  extraordinary 
demands,  goes  far  beyond  any  mere  claim  to  a  Divine  call. 
A  heavenly  vocation  might  perfectly  well  have  been  present 
without  any  such  haughty  treading  under  foot  of  the  past, 
without  any  such  conceit  as  to  his  own  and  his  fellow- 
workers'  achievements,  and  without  all  this  boasting  of 
prophecies,  of  victories  over  fanatics  and  devils,  and  of 
world-wide  fame,  rather,  a  true  vocation  would  dread  any 
thing  of  the  kind.  Hence,  in  the  whole  series  of  statements 
we  have  quoted,  commencing  with  the  title  of  Ecclesiastes 
by  the  Grace  of  God,  which  he  adopted  soon  after  his  Wart- 

1  "  Theol.  Literaturztng.,"  1911,  No.  10,  col.  304.     Harnack  adds  : 
"  Towards  God    he  remained  humble  ;    this  humility  was,  however, 
couched    in    a   language    which   must   have    affrighted    the   monkish 
devotees." 

2  "  Wyder  den  falsch  genantten  Standt  des  Bapst  und  der  Bisch- 
offen,"  with  the  sub-title  :   "  Martin  Luther,  by  God's  grace  Ecclesiastes 
at  Wittenberg,  to  the  Popish  Bishops  my  service  and  to  them  know 
ledge  in  Christ,"     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  105  ff.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  28, 
p.  142  ff.     The  book  was  partly  written  at  the  Wartburg  (see  Introd.  in 
the  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  93  f.),  and  was  published  in  1522,  probably  in 
Aug. 

3  Bossuet,  "  Hist,  des  variations,"  Paris  ed.,  1702,  1,  p.  26. 


342          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

burg  "  baptism,"  we  find  not  only  the  consciousness  of  a 
mission  conferred  on  him  at  the  Wartburg,  but  also  an 
altogether  unique  idea  of  his  own  greatness  which  no  one 
who  wishes  to  study  Luther's  character  must  lose  sight  of. 
We  shall  have,  later  on,  to  ask  ourselves  whether  those  were 
in  the  right  who  looked  upon  this  manifestation  as  a  sign 
of  disease. 

Luther's  language  would  be  even  more  puzzling  were  it 
not  certain  that  much  that  he  said  was  not  really  meant 
seriously.  With  him  rhetoric  plays  a  greater  role  than  is 
commonly  admitted,  and  even  some  of  his  utterances 
regarding  his  own  greatness  are  clearly  flowers  of  rhetoric 
written  half  in  jest. 

Luther  himself  ingenuously  called  his  art  of  abusing  all 
opponents  with  the  utmost  vigour,  "  rhetorica  mea."  This 
he  did  in  those  difficult  days  when  it  was  a  question  of 
finding  some  means  of  escape  in  connection  with  the 
threatening  Diet  of  Augsburg  :  "  By  my  rhetoric  I  will 
show  the  Papists  that  they,  who  pretend  to  be  the  champions 
of  the  faith  and  the  Gospel,  have  there  [at  Augsburg]  made 
demands  of  us  which  are  contrary  to  the  Gospel ;  verily  I 
shall  fall  upon  them  tooth  and  nail.  .  .  .  Come,  Luther 
most  certainly  will,  and  with  great  pomp  set  free  the  eagle 
[the  Evangel]  now  held  caught  in  the  snare  ('  aquilam 
liberaturus  magnifice  ')."1  So  much  did  he  trust  his  rhetorical 
talent  that  on  another  occasion  he  told  the  lawyers  :  "  If 
I  have  painted  you  white,  then  I  can  equally  well  paint  you 
black  again  and  make  you  look  like  regular  devils."2  Amidst 
the  embarrassments  subsequent  on  Landgrave  Philip's 
bigamy  Luther's  one  ray  of  hope  was  in  his  consciousness, 
that  he  could  easily  manage  to  "  extricate  "  himself  with 
the  help  of  his  pen  ;  at  the  same  time,  when  confiding  this 
to  the  Landgrave,  he  also  told  him  quite  openly,  that, 
should  he,  the  Landgrave,  "  start  a  literary  feud  "  with  him, 
Luther  would  soon  "  leave  him  sticking  in  the  mud."3 

We  have  already  heard  him  say  plainly  :  "I  have  more  in  me 
of  the  rhetorician  or  the  gossip  "  ;4  he  adds  that  his  only  writings 
which  were  strictly  doctrinal  were  his  commentaries  on  Galatians 

1  To  Spalatin,  Aug.  28,  1530,  "  Briefwechsel,"  8,  p.  232. 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  26,  p.  275. 

3  Above,  p.  58.  4  Above,  p.  327. 


HIS   RHETORIC  343 

and  on  Deuteronomy  and  his  sermons  on  four  chapters  of  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  ;  all  the  rest  the  printers  might  well  pass  over, 
for  they  merely  traced  the  history  of  his  conflict  ;  the  truth  being 
that  his  doctrine  "  had  not  been  so  clear  at  first  as  it  is  now." 
And  yet  he  had  formerly  written  much  on  doctrine  ;  as  he  once 
said  in  a  conversation  recorded  in  Schlaginhaufen's  notes  of 
1532  :  "  I  don't  care  for  my  Psalter,  it  is  long  and  garrulous. 
Formerly  I  was  so  eloquent  that  I  wanted  to  talk  the  whole 
world  to  death.  Now  I  can  do  this  no  longer,  for  the  thoughts 
won't  come.  Once  upon  a  time  I  could  talk  more  about  a  little 
flower  than  I  now  could  about  a  whole  meadow.  I  am  not  fond 
of  any  superfluity  of  words.  Jonas  replied  :  The  Psalter  [you 
wrote]  is,  however,  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  pleases  me  well."1 

That  he  avoided  "  any  superfluity  of  words  "  later  in  life  is  net 
apparent.  What  he  says  of  himself  in  the  Table-Talk,  viz.  that 
he  resembled  an  Italian  in  liveliness  and  wealth  of  language, 
holds  good  of  him  equally  at  a  later  date  ;  on  the  other  hand,  his 
remark,  that  Erasmus  purveyed  "  words  withoiit  content  "  and 
he  content  without  words,2  is  not  true  of  the  facts. 

An  example  of  his  rhetorical  ability  to  enlarge  upon  a  thought 
is  found  in  the  continuation  of  the  sentence  already  mentioned 
(p.  331)  :  "  Before  my  day  nothing  was  known." 

"  Formerly  no  one  knew  what  the  Gospel  was,  what  Christ,  or 
baptism,  or  confession,  or  the  Sacrament  was,  what  faith,  what  spirit, 
what  flesh,  what  good  works,  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Our  Father, 
prayer,  suffering,  consolation,  secular  authority,. matrimony,  parents  or 
children  were,  what  master,  servant,  wife,  maid,  devils,  angels,  world, 
life,  death,  sin,  law,  forgiveness,  God,  bishop,  pastor,  or  Church  was, 
or  what  was  a  Christian,  or  what  the  cross  ;  in  fine,  we  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  all  a  Christian  ought  to  know.  Everything  was  hidden 
and  overborne  by  the  Pope-Ass.  For  they  are  donkeys,  great,  rude, 
unlettered  donkeys  in  Christian  things.  .  .  .  But  now,  thank  God, 
things  are  better  and  male  and  female,  young  and  old,  know  the 
Catechism.  .  .  .  The  things  mentioned  above  have  again  emerged  into 
the  light."  The  Papists,  however,  "  will  not  suffer  any  one  of  these 
things.  .  .  .  You  must  help  us  [so  they  say]  to  prevent  anyone  from 
learning  the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Our  Father  and  Creed  ;  or 
about  baptism,  the  Sacrament,  faith,  authority,  matrimony  or  the 
Gospel.  .  .  .  You  must  lend  us  a  hand  so  that,  in  place  of  marriage, 
Christendom  may  again  be  filled  with  fornication,  adultery  and  other 
unnatural  and  shameful  vices."3 

A.  particular  quality  of  Luther's  "  rhetoric  "  was  its 
exaggeration.  By  his  exaggeration  his  controversy  becomes 
a  strangely  glaring  picture  of  his  mind  ;  nor  was  it  merely 
in  controversy  that  his  boundless  exaggeration  shows  itself. 

1  P.    28.      Cp.    Lauterbach,    "  Tagebuch  "    (Khummer),    p.     141  ; 
Cordatus,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  118. 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  346  f.     Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  90 
and  427. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.  317  ff. ;    Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  4fi  f.,  in 
the  "  Warnunge  an  seine  lieben  Deudschen,"  1530. 


344         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

Sometimes,  apparently,  without  his  being  aware  of  it,  but 
likewise  even  in  the  course  of  his  literary  labours  and  his 
preaching,  things  had  a  tendency  to  assume  gigantic  pro 
portions  and  fantastic  shapes  in  his  eyes.  Among  his 
friends  the  aberrations  into  which  his  fondness  for  vigorous 
and  far-fetched  language  led  him  were  well  known.  It  was 
certain  of  his  own  followers  who  dubbed  him  "  Doctor 
Hyperbolicus  "  and  declared  that  "  he  made  a  camel  of  a 
flea,  and  said  a  thousand  when  he  meant  less  than  five." 
This  is  related  by  the  Lutheran  zealot,  Cyriacus  Spangen- 
berg,  who  dutifully  seeks  to  refute  the  "  many,  who,  though 
disciples  of  his,"  were  in  the  habit  of  making  such  com 
plaints.1 

His  "  rhetoric,"  in  spite  of  a  literary  style  in  many 
respects  excellent,  occasionally  becomes  grotesque  and 
insipid  owing  to  the  utter  want  of  taste  he  shows  in  his 
choice  of  expressions.  This  was  particularly  the  case  in  his 
old  age,  when  he  no  longer  had  at  his  command  the  figures 
of  speech  in  which  to  clothe  decently  those  all  too  vigorous 
words  to  which,  as  the  years  went  by,  he  became  more  and 
more  addicted.  In  the  last  year  of  his  life,  for  instance, 
writing  to  his  Elector  and  the  Hessian  Landgrave  concerning 
the  "  Defensive  league  "  of  those  who  stood  up  for  "  the 
old  religion,"  he  says  :  God  Himself  has  intervened  to 
oppose  this  league,  not  being  unaware  of  its  aims  ;  "  God 
and  all  His  angels  must  indeed  have  had  a  terrible  cold  in 
the-  head  not  to  have  been  able  to  smell,  even  until  this 
21st  day  of  October,  the  savoury  dish  that  goes  by  the 
name  of  Defensive  league ;  but  then  He  took  some  sneeze- 
wort  and  cleared  His  brain  and  gave  them  to  understand 
pretty  plainly  that  His  catarrh  was  gone  and  that  He  now 
knew  very  well  what  Defensive  league  was."2  Luther  does 
not  seem  to  feel  how  much  out  of  place  such  buffoonery 
was  in  a  theologian,  let  alone  in  the  founder  of  a  new 
religion.  Even  in  some  of  his  earlier  writings  and  in  those 
which  he  prized  the  most,  e.g.  in  the  Commentary  on 
Galatians,  a  similar  want  of  taste  is  noticeable.  It  is  also 
unnecessary  to  repeat  that  even  his  "  best  "  writings,  among 
them  the  work  on  Galatians,  are  frequently  rendered  highly 

1  Spangenberg,    "  Theander    Lutherus,    Von    des    werthen    Gottes 
Marines  Doctor  Martin  Luther  21  Predigten  "  (preached  after  1502), 
Ursel,  s.  a.  Bl.  12'. 

2  Letter  written  after  Oct.  24,  1545,  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  392. 


HIS   RHETORIC  345 

unpalatable  by  an  excess  of  useless  repetitions.  Every 
body  can  see  that  the  monotony  of  Luther's  works  is 
chiefly  due  to  the  haste  and  carelessness  with  which  they 
were  written  and  then  rushed  through  the  press. 

In  considering  Luther's  "  rhetoric,"  however,  our  atten 
tion  perforce  wanders  from  the  form  to  the  matter,  for 
Luther  based  his  claim  to  originality  on  his  art  of  bringing 
forward  striking  and  effective  thoughts  and  thus  charming 
and  captivating  the  reader.  In  his  thoughts  the  same 
glaring,  grotesque  and  contradictory  element  is  apparent  as 
in  his  literary  style  and  outward  conduct.  Much  is  mere 
impressionism,  useful  indeed  for  his  present  purposes,  but 
contradicted  or  modified  by  statements  elsewhere.  What 
ever  comes  to  his  pen  must  needs  be  put  on  paper  and 
worked  for  all  it  is  worth.  Thus  in  many  instances  his 
thoughts  stray  into  the  region  of  paradox.  Thereby  he 
seemed  indeed  to  be  rendering  easier  the  task  of  opponents 
who  wished  to  refute  him,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  only 
increased  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  him  owing  to  his 
elusiveness. 

Even  down  to  the  present  day  the  incautious  reader  or 
historian  is  all  too  frequently  exposed  to  the  temptation  of 
taking  Luther  at  his  word  in  passages  where  in  point  of 
fact  his  thoughts  arc  the  plaything  of  his  "  rhetoric." 
Anybody  seeking  to  portray  Luther's  train  of  thought  is 
liable  to  be  confronted  with  passages,  whether  from  the 
same  writing  or  from  another  composed  under  different 
influences,  where  statements  to  an  entirely  different  effect 
occur.  Hence,  when  attempting  to  describe  his  views,  it  is 
essential  to  lay  stress  only  on  statements  that  are  clear, 
devoid  of  any  hyperbolical  vesture  and  frequently  reiterated. 

He  was  not,  of  course,  serious  and  meant  to  introduce  no  new 
rule  for  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  when  he  pronounced  the 
words  so  often  brought  up  against  him  ("  sic  volo,  sic  iubeo  ") 
in  connection  with  his  interpolation  of  the  term  "  alone  "  in 
Rom.  iii.  28  j1  yet  this  sentence  occupies  such  a  position  in  a 
famous  passage  of  his  works  that  it  will  repay  us  to  give  it  with 
its  context  as  a  typical  instance  : 

"  If  your  Papist  insists  on  making  much  needless  ado  about 
the  word  '  alone,'  tell  him  smartly  :  Dr.  Martin  Luther  will 
have  it  so  and  says  :  Papist  and  donkey  is  one  and  the  same. 

1  "  For  we  account  a  man  to  be  justified  by  faith  alone  without  the 
works  of  the  law."  Cp.  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.  3. 


346         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

'  Sic  volo,  sic  iubeo ;  sit  pro  ratione  voluntas.  '  For  we  will  not 
be  the  Papists'  pupils  or  disciples,  but  their  masters  and  judges, 
and,  for  once  in  a  way,  we  shall  strut,  and  rap  these  asses'  heads  ; 
and  as  Paul  boasted  to  his  crazy  saints,  so  I  too  will  boast  to 
these  my  donkeys.  They  are  Doctors  ?  So  am  I.  They  are 
learned  ?  So  am  I.  They  are  preachers  ?  So  am  I.  They  are 
theologians  ?  So  am  I.  They  are  disputants  ?  So  am  I.  They 
are  philosophers  ?  So  am  I.  They  are  dialecticians  ?  So  am  1. 
They  are  lecturers  ?  So  am  I.  They  write  books  ?  So  do  I. 
And  I  will  boast  still  further  :  I  can  expound  the  Psalms  and 
the  Prophets  ;  this  they  can't  do.  I  can  interpret  ;  they,  they 
can't." 

He  proceeds  in  the  same  vein  and  finally  concludes  :  "  And 
if  there  is  one  amongst  them  who  rightly  understands  a  single 
preface  or  chapter  of  Aristotle,  then  I  will  allow  myself  to  be 
tossed.  Here  I  am  not  too  generous  with  my  words." — And  yet 
there  is  still  more  to  follow  that  does  not  belong  to  the  subject  ! 
Having  had  his  say  he  begins  again  :  "  Give  no  further  answer 
to  these  donkeys  when  they  idly  bray  about  the  word  '  sola,' 
but  merely  tell  them  :  '  Luther  will  have  it  so  and  says  he  is  a 
Doctor  above  all  the  Doctors  of  the  Papacy.'  There  it  shall 
remain  ;  in  future  I  will  despise  them  utterly  and  have  them 
despised,  so  long  as  they  continue  to  be  such  people,  I  mean, 
donkeys.  For  there  are  unblushing  scoundrels  amongst  them 
who  have  never  even  learnt  their  own,  viz.  the  sophists',  art, 
for  instance,  Dr.  Schmidt,  Dr.  Dirty  Spoon  [Cochlseus]  and  their 
ilk.  And  yet  they  dare  to  stand  in  my  way." 

He  nevertheless  seeks  to  give  a  more  satisfactory  answer,  and 
admits,  "  that  the  word  '  alone  '  is  not  found  in  either  Latin  or 
Greek  text,  ...  at  the  letters  of  which  our  donkeys  stare  like 
cows  at  a  new  gate.  They  don't  see  that  the  meaning  of  the  text 
requires  it."1 — The  last  assertion  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is 
worth.  The  principal  thing,  however,  is  that  he  introduced  the 
interpolation  with  a  meaning  of  his  own,  though  he  could  not 
have  held  that  his  doctrine  of  a  dead  faith  (for  this  was  what  his 
"  faith  alone  "  amounted  to)  really  tallied  with  the  Apostle's 
teaching.  On  this  point  he  is  quite  silent  in  his  strange  answers. 
He  is  far  more  concerned  in  parrying  the  blows  with  his  rhetorical 
artifice.  His  appeal  to  the  will  of  Dr.  Martin  Luther  may  be 
termed  the  feint  of  a  skilful  swordsman  ;  his  whole  treatment  of 
the  matter  is  designed  to  surprise,  to  puzzle  and  amuse,  and,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  could  impress  only  the  populace.  It  is  not 
without  reason  that  Adolf  Harnack  speaks  of  the  "  strange  logic 
of  his  arguments,  the  faults  of  his  exegesis  and  the  injustice  and 
barbarity  of  his  polemics."2 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.  635  f.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.   107  (cp. 
"  Brief wechsel,"   8,   p.   249),  in  the   "  Sendbrieff  von  Dolmetzschen," 
which  is  in  fact  no  "  letter  "  but  a  polemical  treatise  in  the  form  of  a 
letter,  published  by  Wenceslaus  Link  in  September,    1530,  at  Luther's 
instance. 

2  "  Dogmengesch.,"  34,  p.  817. 


HIS   RHETORIC  347 

The  strange  controversial  methods  of  his  rhetoric  give, 
however,  a  true  picture  of  his  soul. 

All  this  inconstancy  and  self-contradiction,  this  restless 
upheaval  of  assertions,  now  rendered  doubtful  by  their 
palpable  exaggeration,  now  uncertain  owing  to  the  ad 
mixture  of  humour  they  contain,  now  questionable  because 
already  rejected  elsewhere  by  their  author,  all  this  mirrors 
the  unrest  of  his  soul,  the  zigzag  course  of  his  thought,  in 
short  a  mind  unenlightened  by  the  truth,  which  thrives 
only  amidst  the  excitement  of  conflict  and  contradiction. 
Moderation  in  resolve  and  deed  is  as  little  to  his  taste  as  any 
consistent  submission  of  his  word  to  the  yoke  of  reflection 
and  truthfulness.  He  abandons  his  actions  as  well  as  his 
most  powerful  organ,  his  voice,  to  the  impulse  and  the  aims 
of  the  moment.  He  finds  no  difficulty,  for  instance,  even 
in  his  early  days,  in  soundly  rating  his  fellow-monks  even 
in  the  most  insulting  and  haughty  manner,  and  in  assuring 
them  in  the  same  breath  of  his  "  peaceable  heart "  and  his 
"  perfect  calm,"  or  in  shifting  the  responsibility  for  his 
earlier  outbursts  of  anger  on  God,  Who  so  willed  it  and 
Whose  action  cannot  be  withstood.  All  this  we  find  in  his 
letter  in  1514  to  the  Erfurt  Augustinians,  where  his 
singular  disposition  already  reveals  itself.1  No  less  easy 
was  it  to  him  at  the  commencement  of  his  struggle  to 
protest  most  extravagant  humility  towards  both  Pope  and 
Emperor,  to  liken  himself  to  a  "  flea,"  and  yet  to  promise 
resistance  to  the  uttermost.  He  was  guilty  of  exaggeration 
in  his  championship  of  the  downtrodden  peasants  before 
the  war,  and,  when  it  was  over,  was  again  extravagant  in 
his  demand  for  their  punishment.  With  an  all  too  lavish 
hand  he  abandons  Holy  Scripture  to  each  one's  private 
interpretation,  even  to  the  "  miller's  maid,"  and  yet,  as 
soon  as  anyone,  without  the  support  of  "  miracles," 
attempted  to  bring  forward  some  new  doctrine  differing 
from  his  own,  he  withdrew  it  with  the  utmost  imperious- 
ness  as  a  treasure  reserved. 

As  in  style,  so  in  deed,  he  was  a  chameleon.  This  he  was 
in  his  inmost  feelings,  and  not  less  in  his  theology.2 

In  one  matter  only  did  he  remain  always  the  same,  on 

1  Letter  of  Jan.  16,  1514,  "  Briefwechscl,"  1,  p.  17  f. 

2  On  his  theology  cp.   the   numerous    instances  given  in    Denifle, 
e.g.,    I2,  pp.   467,   469,   657.      P.   466  :     "  He  is  always  playing  with 
grotesque  ideas."     Cp.  also,  ibid.,  p.  454  f. 


348          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

one  point  only  is  his  language  always  consistent  and  clear, 
viz.  in  his  hatred  and  defiance  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
Some  have  praised  his  straightforwardness,  and  it  must  be 
admitted,  that,  in  this  particular,  he  certainly  always 
shows  his  true  character  with  entire  unrestraint.  This  hate 
permeates  all  his  thoughts,  his  prayer,  all  his  exalted 
reflections,  his  good  wishes  for  others,  his  sighs  at  the 
approach  of  death.  Even  in  his  serious  illness  in  1527 
he  was,  at  least  according  to  the  account  of  his  friend  Jonas, 
principally  concerned  that  God  should  not  magnify  his 
enemies,  the  Papists,  but  exalt  His  name  "  against  the 
enemies  of  His  most  holy  Word  "  ;  he  recalls  to  mind  that 
John  the  Evangelist,  too,  "  had  written  a  good,  strong 
book  against  the  Pope  "  (the  Apocalypse) ;  as  John  did  not 
die  a  martyr,  he  also  would  be  content  without  martyrdom. 
Above  all,  he  was  not  in  the  least  contrite  for  what  he  had 
printed  against  the  doctrines  of  the  Pope,  "  even  though 
some  thought  he  had  been  too  outspoken  and  bitter."1 
In  his  second  dangerous  illness,  i-n  1537,  Luther  de 
clared  even  more  emphatically,  that  he  had  "done  right  " 
in  "  storming  the  Papacy,"  and  that  if  he  could  live  longer 
he  would  undertake  still  "  worse  things  against  that  beast."2 

Luther's  overestimation  of  himself  was  partly  due  to  the 
seductive  effect  of  the  exaggerated  praise  and  admiration 
of  his  friends,  amongst  whom  Jonas  must  also  be  reckoned. 
They,  like  Jonas,  could  see  in  him  nothing  but  the  "  inspira 
tion  of  the  Holy  Ghost."3  Luther's  responsibility  must 
appear  less  to  those  who  lay  due  stress  on  the  surroundings 
amidst  which  he  lived.  He  was  good-natured  enough  to 
give  credence  to  such  eulogies.  Just  as,  moved  by  sympathy, 
he  was  prone  to  lavish  alms  on  the  undeserving,  so  he  was 
too  apt  to  be  influenced  by  the  exaggerations  of  his  admirers 
and  the  applause  of  the  masses,  though,  occasionally,  he  did 
not  fail  to  protest. 

This  veneration  went  so  far  that  many,  in  spite  of  his  remon 
strances,  placed  him  not  only  on  a  level  with  but  even  above  the 
Apostles.4  His  devoted  pupils  usually  called  him  Elias.  He 
himself  was  not  averse  to  the  thought  that  he  had  something 

1   "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  162. 

"  Briefe,"  6,  p.  185  f.,  in  the  so-called  "  first  Will." 

3  Jonas,  in  his  panegyric  on  Luther. 

4  Cp.  e.g.  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  pp.  83  and  126. 


HIS   RHETORIC  349 

in  common  with  the  fiery  prophet.  As  early  as  1522  Wolfgang 
Rychard,  his  zealous  assistant  at  Ulm,  greets  him  in  his  letters 
as  the  risen  Elias,  and  actually  dates  a  new  era  from  his  coming. 
In  this  the  physician  Magenbuch  imitated  him,  and  the  title 
was  as  well  received  by  Melanchthon  and  the  other  Wittenbergers 
as  it  was  by  outsiders.1  In  the  Preface  which  Luther  wrote  in 
1530  to  a  work  by  the  theologian  Johann  Brenz,  he  contrasts 
the  comparative  calmness  of  the  preacher  to  his  own  ways,  and 
remarks  that  his  own  uncouth  style  vomited  forth  a  chaos  and 
torrent  of  words,  and  was  stormy  and  fierce,  because  he  was  ever 
battling  with  countless  hordes  of  monsters  ;  he  had  received  as 
his  share  of  the  fourfold  spirit  of  Elias  (4  Kings  xix.),  the  "  whirl 
wind  and  the  fire  "  which  "  overthrew  mountains  and  uprooted 
rocks  "  ;  the  Heavenly  Father  had  bestowed  this  upon  him  to 
use  against  the  thick  heads,  and  had  made  him  a  "  strong  wedge 
wherewith  to  split  asunder  hard  blocks."2 

When,  in  1532,  his  great  victory  over  the  Sacramentarians 
was  discussed  in  the  circle  of  his  friends,  the  words  of  the  Magde 
burg  Chancellor,  Laurentius  Zoch,  recurred  to  him  :  "  After 
reading  my  books  against  the  Sacramentarians  he  said  of  me  : 
'  Now  I  see  that  this  man  is  enlightened  by  the  Holy  Ghost  ; 
such  a  thing  as  this  no  Papist  could  ever  have  achieved,'  "  and  so, 
Luther  adds  in  corroboration,"  he  was  won  over  to  the  Evangel  ; 
what  I  say  is,  that  all  the  Papists  together,  with  all  their  strength, 
would  not  have  been  able  to  refute  the  Sacramentarians,  either 
by  authority  [the  Fathers]  or  from  Scripture.  Yet  I  get  no 
thanks ! "3 

Not  his  admirers  only,  but  even  his  literary  opponents 
contributed,  at  least  indirectly,  to  inflate  his  rhetoric  and 
his  assurance  ;  his  sense  of  his  own  superiority  grew  in  the 
measure  that  he  saw  his  foes  lagging  far  behind  him  both  in 
language  and  in  vigour. 

Amongst  the  Catholic  theologians  of  Germany  there  were 
too  few  able  to  compete  with  him  in  point  of  literary 
dexterity.  Luther  stood  on  a  pinnacle  and  carried  away 
the  multitude  by  the  war-cry  he  hurled  over  the  heads  of 
the  Catholic  polemists  and  apologists  who  bore  witness  to 
the  ancient  truths,  some  well  and  creditably,  others  more 
humbly  and  awkwardly.  The  apparent  disadvantage  under 
which  the  Catholic  writers  laboured,  was,  that  they  were 
not  so  relentless  in  treading  under  foot  considerations  of 
charity  and  decency  ;  unlike  him,  they  could  not  address 
fiery  appeals  to  the  passions  in  order  to  enlist  them  as  their 

1  For  proofs  see  Enders,  "  Luthers  Brief wechsel,"  4,  p.  89,  n.  3. 
Cp.  vol.  ii.,  p.  162  f.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  322,  and  above,  p.  269. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.  650  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  512. 
3  Schlaginhaufen,  "  Anfzeichnungen,"  p.  31. 


350          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

allies,  though  traces  far  too  many  of  the  violence  of  the 
conflict  are  found  even  in  their  polemics.  Amongst  them 
were  men  of  high  culture  and  refinement,  who  stood  far 
above  the  turmoils  of  the  day  and  knew  how  to  estimate 
them  at  their  true  worth.  They  felt  themselves  supported 
by  the  Catholics  throughout  the  world,  whose  most  sacred 
possessions  were  being  so  unjustly  attacked. 


CHAPTER    XXVII 

VOICES  FROM  THE  CAMP  OF  THE  DEFENDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

1.  Luther's  "demoniacal"  storming.     A  man  "possessed" 

WE  have  plenty  descriptions  of  Luther  from  the  pen  of 
literary  opponents,  and  they  have  a  perfect  right  to  be 
taken  into  account,  for  they  are  so  many  voices  courageously 
raised  in  defence  of  the  heirloom  of  the  faith.  What  has 
led  to  this  being  so  often  passed  over  is  the  fear  lest  their 
censure  should  be  taken  as  prejudice,  and,  needless  to  say, 
what  they  tell  us  must  be  carefully  weighed.  Much  depends 
on  the  circumstances  in  which  they  wrote,  011  the  character 
of  the  writers,  on  the  content  of  their  statements  and  on 
how  far  they  differ  from  or  agree  with  other  witnesses  and 
the  known  facts.  Several  striking  passages  from  their  writings, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  confirmed  either  by  Luther  himself  or  by 
his  followers,  have  already  been  utilised  in  the  present  work 
and  have  served  to  complete  our  picture  of  Luther's 
mind. 

Catholic  polemists  all  agree  on  one  point,  viz.  that  the 
bitter  and  unkindly  \vays  of  their  adversary  were  a  clear 
proof  that  he  had  no  Divine  call.  Like  Erasmus,  they  too 
contend  that  no  man  who  excited  such  great  commotion 
and  was  so  insatiable  in  abuse  and  vituperation  could  be 
honestly  furthering  God's  cause.  Like  Erasmus,  they  too 
question  whether  such  unheard-of  presumption  could  "  be 
combined  with  an  apostolic  spirit  or  did  not  rather  denote 
madness."  They  compare  his  inconstancy,  his  passion  and 
his  fickleness  to  a  "  restless,  stormy  sea."  His  slanderous 
tongue,  which  so  unsparingly  lashed  the  olden  Church  and 
its  doctrines,  reminds  them  of  the  "  roaring  lion,"  who, 
according  to  St.  Peter,  "  goeth  about  seeking  whom  he  may 
devour,"  or  of  the  "  fiery  darts  "  of  the  wicked  one  against 
whom  St.  Paul  utters  a  warning.  With  pain  and  horror 
they  call  to  mind  the  seven-headed  beast  of  the  Apocalypse, 


352         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

that  rises  out  of  the  deep,  bearing  names  of  blasphemy  and 
with  a  "  mouth  that  speaks  great  things  and  profanities." 

Their  strictures  cannot  be  examined  in  detail  here,  but  we 
may  instance  a  trait  which  is  common  to  many  of  these 
writers  and  which,  though  kept  in  the  background  as  not 
altogether  relevant  to  the  discussion,  yet  deserves  con 
sideration  as  a  proof  of  the  effect  that  Luther's  unbounded 
hate,  his  abuse  and  his  arrogance  had  on  the  feelings  and 
judgment  of  contemporaries.  Their  keen  sense  of  religion 
made  them  ascribe  his  behaviour  to  the  devil,  and  to 
assume,  or  at  least  to  suspect,  that  he  was  in  some  way 
possessed.  It  is  curious  to  note  how  many  unhesitatingly 
have  recourse  to  this  explanation. 

"  We  must  regard  it  as  a  sure  sign  of  demoniacal  possession," 
wrote  Johann  Hoffmeister,  Prior  of  the  Colmar  Augustinians, 
"  that  Luther  should  thus  persistently  enjoin  on  preachers  as  a 
duty  to  go  on  cursing  and  denouncing  from  the  pulpit,  though  he 
himself  sees  and  bewails  the  fact,  that  contempt  for  religion, 
godlessness  and  every  vice  is  steadily  gaining  ground  in  Germany. 
What  can  we  expect  unfortunate  youths  to  learn  from  such  abuse 
and  reviling  in  the  churches  ?  "l 

"  Luther  is  the  devil's  own  bellows,"  wrote  Paul  Bachmann, 
Abbot  of  Altzelle,  in  1534,  "  with  which  the  devil  blows  up  a 
whirlwind  of  error,  scandal  and  heresy."2  He  goes  even  further 
and  appeals  to  what  he  had  heard  from  Luther's  brother  monks 
concerning  the  scene  in  choir,  when,  falling  into  a  fit,  Luther  had 
frantically  protested  that  he  was  not  the  man  possessed  (vol.  i., 
p.  17).3 

Bachmann  adds  :    "  Luther  is  the  cruel  monster  that  John  the 

1  "  Dicta  memorabilia,"    Colonise,   1543,   p.    13'.      Cp.    N.    Paulus, 
"  Hoffmeister,"  p.  53,  n.  4. 

2  "  Lobgesang  auff  des  Luthers  Winckelmesse,"  Leipzig,  1534,  Bl. 
D  2'.     The  author  says,  that  Luther  himself  admits  in  his  "  Von  der 
Winckelmesse  "  that  he  had  received  his  ideas  on  the  Mass  "  through 
the  disputation  and  revelation  of  the  devil  "  (Bl.  A  2). 

3  "  Czu      Errettung      den      schwachen      Ordenspersonen  .   .   .  eyn 
trostlich  Rede,"  Dresden,  1534,  Bl.  C  3'  :    "  His  brother  monks  who 
were  with  him  in  the  Convent  at  Erfurt,  say,  that  once,   when  the 
Gospel  '  Jesus  was  casting  out  a  devil  and  it  was  dumb  '  was  being 
read,  Luther  fell  down  and  lay  for  some  time  screaming,  '  I  am  not 
dumb,  I  am  not  dumb.'  "    Bachmann  also  mentions  the  same  incident 
in    "  Ein   Maulstreich   dem   Lutherischen  .  .  .  Rachen,    das    Closter- 
leben  zu  lestern  "  (Dresden,   1534),  Bl.  B  2.      Cp.  O.  Clemen,  "  Paul 
Bachmann  "  ("  N.  Archiv  f.  sachs.  Gesch.,"  26,  1905,  p.  30).    In  "  Ein 
Maulstreich  "  he  also  says  :    "  What  sort  of  an  attack  would  that  be, 
Luther,  were  I  to  write  or  relate  what  some  say,  viz.  that  the  devil 
Incubus  was  your  father  !    I  will,  however,  refrain  from  doing  so  and 
not  bring  this  charge  against  you."  (Bl.  B  1').    He  thinks  he  has  stronger 
evidence  for  Luther's  possession  than  for  this  legend. 


A   MAN    "POSSESSED"  353 

Apostle  saw  rising  out  of  the  deep,  with  open  jaws  to  utter 
abuse  and  blasphemy."  "  This  is  no  mere  mistaken  man,  but 
the  wicked  devil  himself  to  whom  no  lying,  deceit  or  falsehood  is 
too  much."1 

Even  from  men  who  had  long  sided  with  Luther  we  hear 
similar  things  ;  for  instance,  Willibald  Pirkheimer  of  Nuremberg 
says  bluntly  :  "  Luther,  with  his  impudent  and  defiant  tongue, 
betrays  plainly  enough  what  is  in  his  heart  ;  he  seems  to  have 
gone  quite  mad,  or  to  be  agitated  by  some  wicked  demon."2 

Erasmus  declared  that  people,  rather  than  credit  his  calumnies, 
would  say  that  he  was  steeped  in  vengefulness,  mentally  deranged, 
or  possessed  by  some  sinister  spirit.3 

1  Cp.  above,  p.  101. 

2  Letter  of   1529  to  Prior  Kilian  Leib  of  Rebdorf,   in  D6llinger, 
"  Reformation,"  1,  p.  533,  and  J.  Schlecht,  "  Leibs  Brief wechsel,"  p.  12, 
from  Leib,   "  Verantwortung  des  Klosterstandes,"  Bl.    170'  :    "  vel  a 
malo  dcemonio  agitari." 

3  In  his   "  Purgatio  adv.   epistolam  non  sobriam  Lutheri,"   1534, 
"  Opp.,"   10,  col.   1557  :    "  a  sinistro  quopiam  agitari  genio  "  (for  the 
whole  passage  see  vol.  iii.,  p.  136,  n.  2).    It  is  worth  while  to  select  from 
this  reply  of  Erasmus,  and  from  his  "  Hyperaspistes  "  against  Luther, 
some  passages  in  which  he  expresses  doubts  as  to  Luther's  mental 
equilibrium,  or  as  to  his  sobriety.    In  his  "  Purgatio  "  (c.  1548)  Erasmus 
says  of  certain  propositions  of  Luther's  :  "  Num  hcec  tarn  delira  videntur 
esse  mentis  sobrice  ?  "     And  before  this  :    "  Sed  longe  perniciosior  est 
philautice   et   odii   temulentia   quam   vini"    (c.    1546).      "  Demiror,    si 
Martinus  febri    caruit,    quum    hcec    deliramenta    inauspicatis  illineret 
chartis  "  (c.  1545).     "  Ipsa  febris  non  posset  loqui  febrilius  "  (c.  1546). 
"  Arbitror,  Orestem  olim  dixisse  saniora,  etiam  extra  lucida  intervalla  " 
(c.  1547).     "  Hie  nihil  crepat  nisi  Satanas,  Diabolos,  Larvas,  Lamias, 
Megceras,  aliasque  voces  plus  quam  tragicas.     Fortassis  ex  abundantia 
cordis  os  loquitur  ;    certe  hcec  esse  solent  ventures  insanice  prcesagia  " 
(c.  1542).     "  Quce  cum  scribit,  videtur  sibi  mire  5eiv6s ;  verum  hcec  Selvucris 
sobriis  videtur  esse  mera  insania  "  (c.  1543).    Martin  may  wish  to  make 
him  out  an  unbeliever,  but  his  readers  were  more  likely  to  look  upon 
him  himself  as  mad  ("  citius  lymphatum,"  etc.,  c.   1557,  first  passage 
given  above). — In  the  first  book  of  his  "  Hyperaspistes  "  (ib.)  he  writes  : 
"  Hcec  enim  tarn  stulta  aut  alius  addidit  tuo  libra,  aut  non  eras  sobrius, 
quum  scriberes  "  (c.  1281).     "  Totus  enim  hie  sensus  sapit  culinam,  in 
qua  non  sobrius  videtur  hcec  scripsisse  "  (c.  1367).     "  Si  qui  hcec  scribit, 
sobrius  est,  ego  nunquam  vidi  temulentem  "  (c.  1371).     "  Quis  non  videt 
hcec  sine  mente  scribi,  nee  agere  Lutherum,  quum  hcec  scribit,  sed  agi 
spiritu  quodam  maledicentice  "    (c.    1394).      "  An  hie  Lutherus  videtur 
fuisse  sobrius?"      (c.    1411;    in    connection   with   Luther's    assertion 
that  God  had  wrought  the  evil  in  Pharaoh).      "  Non  est  sobrius,  ut 
paucis  dicam,  non  vino  fortassis  aut  cerevisia,  sed  philautia  et  dulcedine 
quadam  maledicendi,  qua  nunquam  satiatur,  quantumvis  sese   ingurgi- 
taverit "    (c.    1477).      "  Quam  multa  hie  delirat  Lutherus,   sine  mente 
fundens  verba  "  (c.  1472). — Luther's  contemporary,  Caspar  Schatzgeyer, 
a    Fransiscan    of    kindly    ways,    speaks    like    Erasmus    and    describes 
Luther's  "  De  votis  monasticis  "  as  the  work  either  of  a  drunken  man 
or  of  one  possessed  ("Replica,"  s.  1.  et.  a.,  Augsb.,  1522,  f.  E  1),  the 
Paris  theologian,  Jodocus  Clichtovaeus  ("  Antilutherus,"  Paris.,   1524, 
f.  124'),  speaks  of  it  in  the  same  way. — All  these  statements,  with  those 
already  given,  are  worth  the  consideration  of  pathologists  ;    though 
emanating  from  opponents,  their  number  gives  them  importance. 

IV.— 2  A 


354          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Even  Luther's  brother  monk  at  Erfurt,  Johann  Nathin,  who 
had  been  struck  with  wonder  at  the  young  monk's  sudden 
conversion,  remarked  later,  when  the  two  had  gone  different  ways, 
that  "  a  spirit  of  apostasy  had  entered  him,"  which  was  corrupt 
ing  all  the  clergy.1 

Johann  Cochlaeus  thinks  that  Luther's  unholy  doctrine  re 
sembles  a  dragon  with  seven  heads  ;  such  a  monster  hailed,  not 
from  God,  but  from  the  devil. 2  He  allows  himself  to  be  carried 
so  far  away  by  his  conviction  that  Luther  was  possessed,  as  to 
scorn  all  caution  and  to  take  literally  a  certain  rhetorical  state 
ment  of  Luther's,  where  he  tells  us  that  he  had  eaten  more  than 
a  bushel  of  salt  with  the  devil,  and  that  he  had  held  a  disputation 
with  him  on  the  Mass.3  Cochlsous  here  lays  great  stress  on 
the  views  and  reports  of  Luther's  former  associates  in  the 
monastery. 4 

Under  the  impression  made  on  him  by  the  vehemence  of 
Luther's  language  and  his  whole  conduct,  Hieronymus  Eraser 
declared  subsequently  to  Luther's  so-called  "  great  Reformation 
Writings  "  :  "  This  monk  who  has  gone  astray  differs  from  the 
devil  only  in  that  he  carries  out  what  the  wicked  one  inspires 
him  with."5  Emser,  too,  appeals  to  Luther's  former  associates  in 
the  monastery  :  Luther  "  was  possessed  by  the  evil  spirit  from 
his  youth  upwards,"  he  says,  "  as  is  well  known  in  his  monastery 
at  Erfurt,  where  he  made  his  profession."6 

Kilian  Leib,  a  contemporary  defender  of  the  Church  in  the 
Eichstatt  district,  tells  in  his  Annals  of  the  impression  made  upon 
those  present  by  Luther's  behaviour  at  the  Diet  of  Worms  :  He 
displayed  such  pride  in  his  manner  and  conduct  that  we  seemed 
to  have  before  us  the  image  of  the  enemy  of  mankind.  The 
latter  must  have  dwelt  within  him  and  instructed  him,  if  indeed 
he  does  not  still  do  so.7  He  quotes  with  approval  Eraser's  first 
statement,  and,  from  Cochlseus,  the  passage  where  Luther  speaks 
of  his  eating  salt  with  the  devil.8 

1  Dungersheim,  "  Erzeigung,"  p.  15.     His  authority  is  a  statement 
twice  made  by  Nathin,  first  (see  above,  p.  352,  n.  3),  that  Luther  as  a 
young  monk  fell  into  a  fit  in  choir  during  the  reading  of  the  Gospel 
on  the  man  possessed,  "  and  had  raved  like  one  possessed,"  and  then 
a  later  more  detailed  explanation  of  the  same  incident. 

2  "  Septiceps  Lutherus  ubique  sibi  suis  scriptis  contrarius,"  Dresdae, 
1529  (dedication). 

3  "  Commentaria  de  actis  et  scriptis  M.   Lutheri  "    (ed.    Mogunt., 
1549),  p.  1. 

4  Ibid. 

5  "  Auff  des  Stieres  tzu  Wiettenberg  wiettende  Replica,"  end.     In 
Enders,  "  Luther  und  Emser,"  2,  p.  25  f. 

6  "  Auss    was    Grund    und    Ursach    Luthers    Dolmetschung  .   .   . 
verbotten  worden  sey,"   1523.     In  "  Zu  Luthers  Vorred  zum  Romer- 
brief,"  Bl.  65'. 

7  "  Historiasui  temporis,"  ed.  Aretin  ("  Beitr.  zur  Gesch.  und  Lit.," 
7,  Munich,  1806,  p.  535  ff.),  p.  666  :    "  Quam  elata  cervice  tumidisque 
moribus    expresserit    prodideritque    superbiam,    ut    sathance    veteris    vel 
etiam  prcesentanei  hospitis  illius  et  prceceptoris  qucedam  in  eo  imago 
spcctaretur.'"  8  Ibid.,  p.  663. 


A   MAN    "POSSESSED"  355 

Hieronymus  Dungersheim,  the  opponent  to  whom  we  owe 
Nathin's  remark,  given  above,  upbraids  Luther,  the  "  child  of 
Belial,"  for  his  "  devilish  writings  "  "  whereby  he,  and  Satan 
through  him,  blasphemes  Christ."1 

Aleander  the  Nuncio  reported  on  April  17,  1521,  from 
the  Diet  of  Worms,  that  some  regarded  Luther  as  mad,  others 
as  "  possessed  "  ;  he  also  mentions  on  the  testimony  of  others 
how  Luther,  on  his  arrival,  "  had  gazed  about  him  with  the  eyes 
of  a  demon."2 

The  Reichstagsabschied  of  Worms  speaks  of  Luther  as  "  led 
by  the  evil  spirit,"  nay,  "  as  the  wicked  enemy  himself  clad  in 
human  form."3 

In  the  tract  against  a  pamphlet  of  Luther's  published  by 
Duke  George  of  Saxony,  in  1531  under  Franz  Arnoldi's  name, 
we  read  at  the  very  commencement,  that  Luther  was  losing 
many  of  his  adherents  because  he  showed  his  hand  "  so  clearly  and 
plainly  in  his  writings,  that,  as  they  said,  Luther  must  certainly 
be  possessed  of  the  devil,  indeed  of  the  whole  legion  that  Christ 
drove  out  of  the  man  possessed  and  into  the  herd  of  swine  who 
forthwith  went  raving  mad  and  ran  headlong  into  the  sea  "  : 
"  By  the  fruits  [of  his  words]  we  may  recognise  the  spirit."4 

Johann  Dietenberger,  as  early  as  1524,  in  his  "  Against  the 
unchristian  book  of  Martin  Luther  on  the  abuse  of  the  Mass," 
says  :  "  There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  horrid,  damnable 
Lutheran  doctrine  has  been  brought  into  the  world  by  the  devil, 
otherwise  it  would  not  be  so  utterly  beastly  and  contentious, 
quarrelsome  and  fickle,  and  so  fitted  for  everything  evil."  "  These 
are  all  manifest  lies,  nothing  but  abuse,  slander  and  blasphemy, 
devilish  lies  and  works  by  which  Luther  the  arch-liar  has  driven 
the  world  to  the  devil."  He  calls  Luther  "  the  devil's  hired 
messenger  "  and  says  of  his  manner  of  writing  :  "  Here  every 
thing  reeks  of  devils  ;  nothing  that  the  devilish  man  writes  can 
stand  without  the  devil  who  endevils  all  his  products."5 

The  Ratisbon  Benedictine,  Christopher  Hoffmann  (f  1534), 
in  his  sermons  to  the  Chapter  preached  before  1525  represents 
Luther  as  an  apostate  and  as  "  dcemone  plenus."6 

The  anonymous  "  Indicium  de  Luther o  "  included  in  a  German 
codex  at  Munich  and  dating  from  the  early  years  of  the  contro 
versy,  also  deserves  to  be  mentioned.  The  author  indeed 
praises  Luther's  learning  all  too  generously,  but  then  goes  on  to 

1  "  Dadelung,"  p.  14. 

2  Brieger,  "  Aleander  und  Luther,"  pp.   147,   143.     Kalkoff,  "  Die 
Depeschen  Aleanders  vom  Wormser  Reichstage  "2,  1897,  p.  171. 

3  "  Reichstagsakten  unter  Kaiser  Karl  V,"  1,  p.  718  ff. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  129  f. 

5  Quoted  by  W.  Walther,  "  Fur  Luther,"  p.  213.     Ibid.,  214,  from 
Dietenberger's  work  against  Luther's  doctrine  of  auricular  Confession  : 
To  speak  and  teach  as  Luther  did  was  to  have  "  a  compact  and  alliance 
with  the  poison  of  the  devil  and  with  eternal  death."     Ibid.,  similar 
statements  from  Emser  and  others. 

6  O.    Kronseder,    "  Christophorus    Hoffmann,"    1898,    p.    57,    with 
reference  to  Cod.  Monac.  lat.  14626,  p.  326. 


356         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

say,  that  he  looked  on  him  as  "no  Christian,"  and  to  speak  of 
the  "  devil's  brood  "  by  whom  Martin  Luther  is  possessed.1 

Berthold  of  Chiemsee  in  his  "  Tewtsche  Theologey  "  considers 
that  in  his  day  false  teaching  has  been  spread  abroad  "  by  a 
horrid  devil,"  who  makes  use  of  wicked  men  ;  the  "  devil,  with  his 
wicked  company,  has  stirred  up  heresy."2 

Petrus  Sylvius,  in  1534,  after  a  lengthy  discourse  on  Luther's 
"seductive  and  damnable"  manner  of  "slandering  and  blas 
pheming,"  says,  that  he  was  "  in  very  truth  a  possessed  and 
devilish  man."3 

In  order  the  better  to  explain  how  these  and  many  other  of 
Luther's  contemporaries  came  to  see  a  diabolical  influence  in  his 
work,  we  may  quote  a  few  words  from  Johann  Adam  Mohler's 
lectures  on  Church  History  (published  posthumously)  :  "  We 
find  Luther  in  1520  and  1521  displaying  a  feverish  literary 
activity  that  arouses  in  the  reader  a  horrible  misgiving.  An 
uneasy  sense  of  discomfort  oppresses  us,  and  a  secret  shudder 
runs  through  our  frame  when  we  think  of  the  boundless  selfish 
ness  and  presumption  which  holds  sway  in  this  man  ;  we  seem 
to  be  standing  within  the  inner  circle  where  that  sinister  power 
rules,  which,  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  has  ever  been 
seeking  to  taint  the  history  of  our  race."4 

Luther  himself,  as  early  as  1518,  alludes  to  opponents  of  his 
who  descried  in  him  the  influence  of  the  devil.  In  a  letter 
to  Trutfetter,  his  old  master,  he  says  :  "  They  speak  of  me  from 
the  pulpit  as  a  heretic,  a  madman,  a  tempter  and  one  possessed 
by  I  know  not  how  many  devils  "  ;  but  "  let  people  say,  hearken 
to  and  believe  what,  where  and  as  much  as  they  will,  I  shall  do 
what  God  inspires  me  to  do."5 

Paolo  Vergerio,  the  Nuncio,  whose  detailed  account  of  his 
interview  with  Luther  has  already  been  related  (vol.  hi.,  p.  426  ff.), 
speaks,  like  Aleander,  of  his  "  strange  look,"  which,  the  longer  he 
observed  it,  the  more  it  reminded  him  of  persons  he  had  formerly 
seen  whom  some  regarded  as  possessed  ;  his  eyes  were  restless 
and  uncanny,  and  bore  the  stamp  of  rage  and  anger.  "  Whether 
he  be  possessed  or  not,"  he  says,  "  in  his  behaviour  he  is  the 
personification  of  presumption,  wickedness  and  indiscretion."6 

1  Cod.  Monac.  germ.,  4842,  Bl.  2.     Cp.  above,  p.  242. 

2  Ed.  Reithmeier,  p.  2,  165. 

3  N.    Paulus,    "  Die   deutschen   Dominikaner,"   p.    63. — What   the 
Catholics  thought  will  be  better  understood  when  we  remember  that 
even  H.  Bullinger,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Reformation  "  (ed.  Hottinger 
and  Vcegeli,   2,   Frauenfeld,    1838,  p.  239),  says  of  Luther's   "  Kurtz 
Bekentnis  "  of  1544  :    "  Although  he  had  previously  written  much  that 
was  illogical,  insulting  and  even  blasphemous,  yet  he  outdoes  himself 
in  the  shameful,  wanton  and  offensive  words  he  uses  in  this  booklet. 
He  bursts  for  very  devils  .  .  .  and  acts  like  a  man  possessed." 

4  "  KG.,"  ed.  Gams,  3,  1868,  p.  105  f. 

5  Letter  of  May  9,  1518,  "  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  188. 

6  Ed.  Friedensburg  ( "  Nuntiaturberichte  aus  Deutschland,"  1533- 
1559,  vol.  i.),  p.  541,  report  on  Nov.  13,  1535. 


A  MAN    -POSSESSED"  357 

The  statements  regarding  Luther's  eyes  made  by  various 
persons  who  knew  him  would  appear  to  have  furnished  many 
with  a  ground  for  thinking  him  under  some  diabolical  spell. 
"  Luther's  dark  and  sparkling  eyes,  deep-set  and  keen  .  .  . 
must  indeed  have  made  an  even  greater  impression  than  the 
best  of  Cranach's  portraits."1 

While  his  friends,  Melanchthon  for  instance,  saw  in  them  the 
expression  of  a  high-minded  and  noble  nature  and  a  "  leonine 
glance,"2  many  Catholics,  like  Vergerio,  saw  the  reflection  of  a 
spirit  hostile  to  God.  At  Worms,  as  already  related,  Aleander 
had  said,  though  only  on  the  strength  of  hearsay,  that  Luther 
had  "  the  eyes  of  a  demon,"  and  a  Spanish  account  from  Worms 
also  remarks  :  "his  eyes  forebode  no  good."3  Cardinal  Cajetan, 
in  his  examination  of  Luther  at  Augsburg,  stated,  that  he  would 
confer  no  more  with  him  ;  "he  has  deep-set  eyes  and  strange 
fancies  in  his  head."4  The  University  Professor,  Martin  Pollich, 
of  Melrichstatt  (Mellerstadt),  seems  to  have  let  fall  a  similar 
remark  during  Luther's  early  years  at  Wittenberg  ;  he  too 
mentioned  his  "deep-set  eyes"  and  "strange  fancies."  It  may 
be,  however,  that  Luther,  who  tells  us  this,  erroneously  puts 
into  Pollich's  mouth  the  remark  actually  made  by  Cajetan.5  It 
was  Pollich  also  who  often  declared,  that  this  monk  would  one 
day  overthrow  the  system  of  teaching  which  had  hitherto  pre 
vailed  in  all  the  Universities.6  Johannes  Dantiscus,  a  Pole,  who 
visited  Luther  during  a  journey  through  Germany  and  who 
subsequently  became  Bishop  of  Culm  and  Ermeland,  expresses 
himself  very  frankly.  He  says  :  His  eyes  were  keen  and  sparkled 
strangely,  as  is  sometimes  the  case  with  those  possessed. 7 
Luther's  own  pupil,  Johann  Kessler,  also  found  something 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  518. 

2  "  Melanchthoniana,"  ed.  O.  Waltz  ("  Zeitschr.  f.  KG.,"  4,  1880, 
p.  324  ff.;   see  also  above,  vol.  i.,  p.  279,  n.  2.     According  to  Erasmus 
Alber,  a  personal  acquaintance,  friend  and  admirer  of  Luther's,  the 
latter  had  a  "  fine,  open  and  brave  countenance  and  hawk's  eyes." 
Cp.  Alber,  "  Wider  die  verfluchte  Lehre  der  Carlstadter,"  Bl.  f.  3  ff.  ; 
see  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  518. 

3  "  Reichstagsakten  unter  Kaiser  Karl  V,"  2,  p.  632  :    "  en  los  ojos 
no  ben  senalado." 

4  According    to    Myconius,    "  Historia  Reformationis,"    p.    30    sq. 
(written   after    1541).      Cordatus,    "  Tagebuch,"   p.    97  :     "  Cardinalis 
Augustce  dixit  de  me  :  istefrater  habel  profundos  oculos,  ideo  et  mirabiles 
phanlasias  in  capite  liabet." 

5  Pollich's  remark  ("Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  3,  p.  154,  from  Reben- 
stock)  has  been  characterised  quite  wrongly  by  O.  Waltz  ("  Zeitschr. 
f.  KG.,"  2,  1878,  p.  627)  as  spurious  and  a  late  interpellation.     As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  had  merely  been  excluded  from  the  Table-Talk  by 
Aurifaber  ;    see  Seidemann  in   "Zeitschr.   f.   KG.,"   3,    1879,  p.   305. 
Cp.  vol.  i.,  p.  86,  n.  5. 

6  Above,  vol.  i.,  p.  86. 

7  Letter  of  Aug.   8,   1523,  in  Hipler,   "  Nikolaus  Kopernikus  und 
Luther,"   1868,  p.  73.     Hofler,   "Adrian  VI,"  p.  320,  n.  2,  quotes  a 
remark  of  Dantiscus  on  Luther  :    "  affirmans  einn  esse  dcemoniacum," 
Janssen-Pastor,  "  Gesch.  des  deutschen  Volkes,"  218,  p.  194,  n.  3. 


358         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

uncomfortable  about  his  glance  :  He  had  "  jet-black  brows  and 
eyes  that  sparkled  and  twinkled  like  stars,  so  that  it  was  no 
easy  thing  to  fix  them."1 

In  the  above  statement  concerning  Luther's  look  and  the 
likelihood  of  his  being  possessed,  Vergerio  also  has  a  passing 
allusion  to  a  certain  crude  tale  then  current  which  quite  befitted 
the  taste  of  the  age  and  which  he  gives  for  what  it  may  be  worth 
in  his  official  report,  viz.  that  Luther  was  begotten  of  the  devil.2 
This  tale  also  found  its  way  into  several  Catholic  works  written 
in  that  credulous  and  deeply  agitated  period. 

It  was  not  the  first  time  such  things  had  been  invented  con 
cerning  a  person  who  was  an  object  of  ill-will  in  that  age  when 
prejudice  told  so  strongly. 

Luther  himself  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  the  actual 
occurrence  of  diabolical  births  and  of  the  "  diabolus  incubus  ";3  he 
not  only  did  not  rise  above  the  vulgar  beliefs  handed  down  by 
a  credulous  past,  but  even  imparted  to  them,  at  least  so  far  as 
the  power  of  the  devil  went,  a  still  worse  shape.  He  never  tired 
of  filling  the  imagination  of  the  reader  with  diabolical  images 
(vol.  v.,  xxxi.,  4) ;  and  he  spoke  of  persons  possessed  as  though 
the  world  were  replete  with  them. 

If  we  could  trust  Cochlaeus,  Luther's  brother  monks  would 
seem  to  have  partly  been  responsible  for  the  report  not  merely  of 
a  diabolical  possession  ("  dbsessio,  circumsessio  "),  but  also  of  a 
certain  wilful  league  with  the  devil  entered  into  by  the  young 
Augustinian.  They  could  not  forget  the  "  singularity  "  of  the 
young  monk,  particularly  that  once,  during  his  fit  in  choir  whilst 
the  Gospel  of  the  man  possessed  was  being  read,  he  had  cried  out, 

1  "  Sabbata,"  St.  Gallen,  1902,  p.  Go. 

2  He  refers  simply  to  what  he  knew  from  some  of  Luther's  intimate 
friends  "  concerning  his  birth  and  past  life  up  to  the  time  of  his  becom 
ing  a  monk." 

3  In  his  Exposition  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  published  in  1518 
and  frequently  reprinted  during  his  lifetime.  "  Werke,"  "VVeim.  ed.,  1, 
p.  407  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  12,  p.  18  :    "  Among  the  devils  there  are 
'  incubi  '  and  '  succubi,'  of  which  I  shall  speak  more  fully  immediately," 
which  he  then  proceeds  to  do.     The  children  are,  according  to  him, 
abortions.    According  to  a  statement  in  the  Table-Talk,  however,  they 
were  "  devils  with  bodies  like  the  mother's,"   or  stolen  children,  or 
changelings,  like  one  he  wished  to  have  drowned  because  the  devil 
constituted  the  soul  in  its  body  ("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  pp.  37-42). 
In  his  exposition  of  Genesis  (cap.  vi.)  Luther  admits  the  existence  and 
activity  of  the  said  "  incubi,"     He  declares  he  had  heard  from  many 
persons  credible  instances  and  had  himself  met  with  such  (  !  ),  and 
even  appeals  to    St.   Augustine    ("  Hoc  negare  impudentice  videtur," 
"  De  civ.  Dei,"  15,  c.  23)  ;   he  remarks,  however,  that  it  was  altogether 
false  to  believe  that  "  anything  could  be  born  of  a  union  of  devil  and 
man  "  ;  on  the  contrary,  those  taken  for  the  devil's  offspring,  some  of 
whom  he  had  seen,  had  either  been  distorted  by  the  devil  though  not 
actually  begotten  by  him,  or  were  real  devils  who  had  either  assumed 
flesh  in   appearance  or  borrowed   it  elsewhere  with  the  devil's  help. 
"  Opp.   lat.   exeg.,"    2,   p.    127.      Cp.   N.    Paulus,    "  Hexenwahn   und 
Hexenprozess  vornehmlich  im  16.  Jahrh.,"  Freiburg,  1910,  p.  35  f. 


A   MAN  ''POSSESSED"  359 

"I  am  not  he."  Cochlaeus,  who  had  some  intercourse  with  the 
Augustinians  at  Nuremberg,  hints  in  his  Commentaries  at  the 
"  secret  intercourse  with  the  demon  "  of  which  Luther  was 
suspected,  and  immediately  afterwards  refers,  though  under  a 
misapprehension,  to  Luther's  own  remark  about  eating  salt 
with  the  devil,  and  holding  a  disputation  with  him.1  The 
passage  frequently  attributed  to  Cochlaeus,  viz.  that  it  was 
notorious  "  the  devil  Incubus  was  Luther's  father,"  and  son  of 
the  devil  his  "  real  name,  therefore  remain  the  devil's  son  as  long 
as  you  live,"2  was,  however,  never  penned  by  him.  But  he  was 
aware  of  the  reports  on  this  subject  already  in  circulation  and 
never  saw  fit  to  treat  them  with  the  contempt  they  deserved. 

All  the  passages  quoted  above  regarding  Luther's  being 
possessed  of  the  devil  are  in  every  instance  quite  independent  of 
this  stupid  tale  :  they  are  based  throughout  on  the  character  of 
Luther's  writings  and  on  his  public  behaviour. 

The  first  to  relate  anything  concerning  Luther's  diabolical 
parentage  was,  according  to  N.  Paulus,  Petrus  Sylvius  in  his 
polemics  of  1531-1534. 3  He  recounts  with  perfect  seriousness 
the  information  which  he  says  he  had  from  an  "  honest,  god 
fearing  woman,"  who  had  heard  it  from  some  former  female 
friends  of  Luther's  mother  to  whom  the  latter  had  herself  dis 
closed  the  fact  :  "At  night  time,  when  the  doors  were  locked,  a 
beautiful  youth  dressed  in  red  had  frequently  visited  her  before 
the  Carnival,"  etc.  Some  such  idle  tale  may  have  reached  the 
ears  of  the  Legate  Vergerio  during  his  travels  through  Germany 
in  that  same  decade.  Possibly  he  may  have  expressed  himself  in 
private  with  greater  credulity  concerning  this  story  than  in  his 
official  report,  for  Contarini  goes  so  far  as  to  write  that  Vergerio 
"  had  found  that  Martin  was  begotten  of  the  devil."4 

The  silly  story  ought  to  have  made  all  Luther's  later  critics 
more  cautious,  even  with  regard  to  the  statements  regard 
ing  Luther's  obsession  by  the  Evil  One.  The  few  Catholic 
writers,  who  have  ventured  even  in  our  own  day  to  assert 
that  Luther  was  possessed,  should  have  been  deterred  from 
entering  a  region  so  obscure  and  where  the  danger  of  missing 
one's  way  is  so  great.  Even  in  the  case  of  persons  still 
living  it  is  rash  and  often  morally  impossible  to  diagnose  a 
case  of  possession  ;  much  more  is  this  the  case  when  the 
person  in  question  has  so  long  been  dead. 

1  "  Commcntaria,"    p.    2  :     "  sive    ex    occulto  aliquo   cum    dcemone 
commercio." 

2  The   writing   in   question,    "  Ein   Maulstreich,"    etc.,    is   not   by 
Cochlaeus  but  by  Paul  Bachmann.    See  above,  p.  352,  n.  3. 

3  Paulus  (p.  356,  n.  3),  p.  63  f.,  from  Sylvius,  "  Z\vei  neugedruckte 
Biichlein,"  1533,  p.  3',  and  "  Die  letzten  zwei  Biichlein,"  1534.    Cp.  also 
his  work  of  1531,  "  Ein  besonder  nutzKches.   .   .   .   Biichlein/' 

4  Friedensburg  (above,  p.  356,  n.  6),  p.  554. 


360         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

2.   Voices  of  Converts 

Of  the  Catholic  writers,  those  in  particular  were  sure  of 
a  hearing  amongst  the  educated,  who  for  a  long  while  and 
until  it  revealed  itself  in  its  true  colours,  had  been  inclined 
to  Lutheranism.  Such  was,  for  instance,  the  case  with 
several  of  the  pupils  and  admirers  of  Erasmus.  Among  these 
were  Ulrich  Zasius  and  Silvius  Egranus,  Avho,  though  ready 
to  criticise  Luther  severely,  were  not  wanting  in  words  of 
praise.  The  latter  was  a  good  type  of  the  half-Hedged  convert. 

Silvius  Egranus  (see  vol.  iii.,  p.  402),  for  instance,  wrote  : 
"  I  do  not  deny  that  Luther  has  spirit  and  inventive  genius, 
but  I  find  him  utterly  wanting  in  judgment,  learning  and 
prudence.  .  .  .  Luther's  foolhardy  abuse,  his  defiance  and 
violence,  breed  nothing  but  unutterable  confusion.  Nowhere 
do  I  see  Christian  godliness  flourishing  in  the  hearts  of  men, 
nay,  owing  to  Luther,  it  is  not  safe  even  to  speak  of  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  or  of  Paul."1  "  I  declare  that  Luther's 
doctrine  is  a  web  of  sophisms,  is  neither  ecclesiastical  nor 
Apostolic,  but  closely  related  to  that  sophistical  buffoonery 
and  strong  language  to  which  he  is  ever  having  recourse."2 
— Ulrich  Zasius,  a  Humanist,  and  at  the  same  time  learned 
in  the  la\v,  after  changing  his  views,  publicly  took  the  field 
against  Luther  even  in  official  academical  discourses  ; 
he  maintained  nevertheless  that  he  had  been  led  by  Luther 
to  a  deeper  knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  Christ ;  his  skill  and 
talent  he  never  even  questioned  ;  he  declared  :  "  There  is 
something  in  Luther's  spirit  that  meets  with  my  approval."3 
What  alienated  him  from  Luther  was  not  only  his  attack 
on  the  authority  of  the  Pope — with  the  grounds  of  which 
Zasius  was  well  acquainted  from  his  study  of  Canon  Law — 
but  his  denial  of  the  merit  of  good  \vorks.  This  contention 
seemed  to  him  diametrically  opposed  to  Holy  Scripture. 
'  You  reject  [meritorious]  good  works,"  he  says  to  Luther's 
followers,  "  and  yet  I  know  One  Who  says  :  Their  works 
shall  follow  them."4  He  finds  it  necessary  to  reprove  Luther 

1  Letter  to   Bartholomew  Golsibius,   in  Weller,    "  Altes  aus  alien 
Theilen  der  Gesch.,"  1,  p.  178.     Dollinger,  "  Reformation,"  1,  p.  133. 

2  Letter  to  Nicholas  (Ecander  ;  Weller,  ibid.,  2.  p.  780  f.  ;  Dollinger, 
ibid.,  135. 

3  "  Epistolse,"  ed.   Riegger,  Ulmse,   1774,  p.   72.     Dollinger,  ibid., 
p.  178. 

4  R.  Stintzing,  "  Ulrich  Zasius,"  Basle,  1857,  p.  230,  from  the  letter 
of   Zasius   to   Thomas   Blaurer,    Dec.    21,    1521.      "  Brief wechsel   der 
Briider  Blaurer,"  1,  1908,  p.  42  fi. 


WICEL  ON  LUTHER  361 

sharply  for  his  unmeasured,  nay,  shameless  boasting  of  his 
gifts,  for  exciting  enmity,  strife,  dissension  and  factions, 
and  for  inciting  to  ill-will  and  murder.  "  What  shall  I 
say,"  he  exclaims,  "  of  the  boldness  and  impudence  with 
which  Luther  interprets  the  Testaments,  both  Old  and  New, 
from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  to  the  very  end,  as  a  tissue 
of  menaces  and  imprecations  against  Popes,  bishops  and 
priests,  as  though  through  all  the  ages  God  had  had  nothing 
to  do  but  to  thunder  at  the  priesthood."1  Elsewhere  he 
bewails  with  noble  indignation  the  fate  of  his  beloved 
fatherland  :  "  Luther,  the  foe  of  peace,  and  the  most  worth 
less  of  men,  has  let  loose  the  furies  over  Germany  so  that  we 
must  regard  it  as  a  real  mercy  if  speedy  destruction  does 
not  ensue.  I  should  have  much  to  write  upon  the  subject 
if  only  my  grief  allowed  me."2 

Zasius  and  Egranus,  ho\vever,  like  others  in  a  similar 
walk  of  life  and  who  were  disposed  to  seek  a  compromise, 
never  attacked  the  new  teachers,  their  reputation  and  their 
supposed  wisdom  as  decidedly  as  did  those  wrhose  deeper 
knowledge  of  theology  taught  them  how  dangerous  the 
errors  were. 

One  well  equipped  for  the  literary  struggle  with  Luther 
was  the  convert  George  Wicel,  a  priest  who  had  married 
and  settled  down  as  a  Lutheran  pastor  and  then,  after  a 
thorough  study  of  holy  Scripture  and  the  Fathers,  had 
resigned  his  post  and  published  an  "  Apologia  "  at  Leipzig 
in  1533  to  justify  his  return  to  the  Church  of  his  Fathers. 

In  a  multitude  of  polemical  treatises,  often  couched  in  caustic 
language,  he  exposed  the  untenability  and  the  innate  contra 
dictions  of  the  Wittenberg  doctrines.  Of  this  hated  "  apostate  " 
Luther  speaks  in  a  characteristic  letter  of  1535.3  He  writes  to 
the  Mansfeld  Chancellor,  Caspar  Miiller,  about  a  new  work  of 
Wicel's  :  This  Master  let,  as  he  hears— for  he  himself  "read  none 
of  their  books  " — has  again  been  throwing  sweetmeats  to  his  swine, 
the  Catholics.  "  Such  guests  are  well  served  by  such  a  cook." 

Owing  to  his  stay  at  Wittenberg  and  Eisleben,  Wicel  was 
well  fitted  to  paint  a  reliable  picture  of  the  morals  there  prevail 
ing.  He  utilised  his  experiences  in  his  "  Retectio  Lutheranismi  " 
(1538),  and  summed  up  his  case  against  Luther  as  follows  : 
"  The  life  of  the  great  mass  of  Evangelicals  is  so  little  Evangelical 

1  Stintzing,  ibid. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  97.    Dollinger,  ibid.,  p.  179. 

3  On  March  18,  1535,  "  Brief wechsel,"  10,  p.  137. 


362          LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

that  I  have  thousands  and  thousands  of  times  felt  most  heartily 
ashamed  of  it.  ...  Only  too  quickly  have  most  of  them  sucked 
in  the  poisonous  doctrine,  that  works  are  of  no  avail  and  that  sin 
is  not  imputed  to  the  believer."1  Concerning  one  phenomenon, 
which  Luther  himself  bewails  as  a  very  pest,  viz.  the  fear  of  death, 
which  had  become  the  rule  since  the  prevalence  of  the  new  teach 
ing,  Wicel  had  some  severe  things  to  say  ;  this  was  strangely  at 
variance  with  the  confidence  which  Luther's  Evangel  was 
supposed  to  impart.  "  Is  it  not  a  deep  disgrace,"  he  says,  "  that 
those  who,  formerly,  when  they  were  the  followers  of  Anti 
christ,  to  use  their  own  Lutheran  phrase,  did  not  fear  the  plague 
at  all,  or  at  any  rate  not  much,  now,  as  '  Christians,'  display  such 
abject  terror  when  it  comes  ?  Hardly  anyone  visits  the  sick  and 
no  one  dares  to  assist  those  stricken  with  the  plague.  No  one 
will  even  look  at  them  from  a  distance,  and  all  are  seized  with  a 
strange  panic.  Where  is  that  all-prevailing  faith  that  is  now  so 
often  extolled,  where  is  their  love  for  their  neighbour  ?  Tell  me, 
I  adjure  you  in  the  name  of  Christ,  whether  there  has  ever  been 
less  trust  or  less  charity  amongst  Christians  ?  " 

In  the  conversations  held  in  that  same  year  in  the  intimate 
circle  at  Wittenberg,  and  preserved  for  us  by  Lauterbach 
the  Deacon,  Luther  frequently  alluded  to  Wicel  ;  at  that 
time  the  latter  was  in  the  midst  of  his  successful  literary 
labours  against  the  Lutherans,  and  his  proposals  for  reunion, 
though  by  no  means  wholly  satisfactory,  had  even  led  Duke 
George  of  Saxony  to  summon  him  to  his  Court.  Luther,  with  a 
hatred  quite  comprehensible  under  the  circumstances,  calls  him, 
according  to  Lauterbach,  "  the  most  treacherous  of  men,  insati 
able  in  his  jealousy,  a  scoundrel  who  does  not  even  deserve  an 
answer  ";  Wicel  himself,  he  tells  us,  was  well  aware  he  was  defend 
ing,  against  his  better  feelings,  a  cause  altogether  wrong  ;  the 
ungrateful  slanderer  richly  deserved  death  ;  only  thanks  to 
Luther's  kindness,  had  he  found  a  decent  means  of  livelihood. 
"  Let  us  despise  him  !  We  must  be  silent,  pray  and  bless,"  so  he 
concludes,  "  and  not  bring  new  faggots  to  feed  the  flames."3 
Luther  knew  perfectly  well  that  any  "  new  faggots  "  he  might 
have  brought  would  have  burst  into  flame  under  Wicel's  ardent 
pen,  to  his  own  disadvantage.  He  does  not  shrink  from  in 
dignantly  describing  Wicel  elsewhere  as  a  "  sycophant  and 
venomous  traitor,"*  and  as  "a  man  full  of  malice  and  pre 
sumption."5  He  comes  along  and  "  boasts  of  the  Fathers.  I  do 
not  even  read  his  works,  for  I  know  his  Fathers  well ;  but  we 
have  one  only  Father,  Who  is  in  Heaven  and  Who  is  over  all 
Fathers."6  Particularly  sensitive  was  he  to  Wicel's  strictures  on 

1  "  Retectio,"  Hb  se.q.     Dollinger,  "  Reformation,"  1,  p.  57  f. 

2  Ibid.,  G  2b  :    "  cepit  omnium  animos  minis  pavor,"  etc.    Dollinger, 
ibid.,  p.  61. 

3  Lauterbach,   "  Tagebuch,"  p.    159.     Cp.   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60, 
p.  323. 

4  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  159. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  161  f.  6  Ibid.,  p.  147. 


WICEL  ON   LUTHER  363 

his  doctrine  of  good  works,  that  heel  of  Achilles  of  the  new 
Evangel.  Wicel,  "  with  scorn  and  mockery,"  says,  "  that  we 
have  taught  that,  '  whoever  has  once  been  converted  can  sin  no 
more,  and  whatever  he  does  is  right  and  good.'  But  the  same 
thing  happened  to  St.  Paul  and  he  too  had  to  listen  to  slanderers, 
who,  because  he  taught  that  people  might  be  saved  without  the 
works  of  the  law  and  merely  by  faith  in  Christ,  said  :  '  Then  let 
us  do  what  is  evil  and  sin  lustily  that  good  may  come  of  it,'  etc. 
Let  us  pray  against  such  blasphemy."1 

Of  the  consequences  of  the  new  teaching  levelled  at  the  meri 
torious  nature  of  good  works,  Wicel  had  said  at  the  end  of  his 
"  Apologia  "  :  "  The  Lutheran  sect  has  opened  wide  the  flood 
gates  to  immorality  and  disorder,  so  that  everybody  laments  and 
sighs  over  it.  If  there  be  anything  godfearing,  good,  moral  or 
right  to  be  found  in  this  sect,  then  it  was  there  before,  and  did 
not  originate  with  it.  For,  show  me  seven  men  in  seven  thousand, 
who,  having  been  formerly  godless  and  wicked,  have  now, 
because  they  are  Lutherans,  become  good  and  full  of  the  fear  of 
God.  I  could,  however,  point  out  some,  such  as  had  previously 
led  a  devout,  peaceable,  inward  and  harmless  life,  who  are  now 
quite  changed  by  this  Evangel.  May  but  the  Lord  grant  them 
to  see  and  acknowledge  what  misery  they  have  excited  within  the 
German  nation.  Amen."2 

Among  Wicel's  "  blasphemies,"  as  Luther  calls  them,  were 
some  that  traversed  the  latter's  assertions  that  the  holy 
works  of  penitents  and  ascetics  were  utterly  worthless,  and  that 
the  business  of  a  house-agent  or  tax-collector,  provided  one  went 
about  it  in  faith,  ranked  higher  than  all  the  pious  works  of  any 
monk  or  hermit.3  "  The  wrretched  man,"  exclaims  Luther, 
angry  because  of  his  inability  to  answer  the  objection,  "  most 
idly  attacks  us  ;  he  has  no  respect  for  the  labours  of  their  calling 
which  God  has  commanded  each  man  to  perform  in  his  state  of 
life  ;  all  this  he  disregards  and  merely  gapes  at  superstitious, 
grand  and  showy  works  "  ;4  "  and  yet  Paul  extols  the  ordinary 
works  of  the  faithful  and  lays  great  stress  on  them."5  This  was 
one  of  his  habitual  falsehoods,  viz.  to  make  out  that  Wicel  and 
his  other  opponents  looked  down  on  lowly  and  commonplace 
works  and  the  unobtrusive  performance  of  the  duties  of  one's 
calling,  more  particularly  in  the  life  of  the  world.  In  reality, 
however,  they  recognised  in  the  most  large-minded  way  the  high 
value  of  the  duties  of  any  worldly  calling  when  done  in  a  religious 
spirit,  and  repudiated  with  perfect  justice  the  charge  brought 
against  Catholicism  of  undervaluing  the  ordinary  virtues  of  the 
good  citizen. 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  60,  p.  323. 

2  See  A.  Rass,  "Die  Convertiten  seit  der  Reformation,"   1,   1866, 
where   the   "Apologia"   is  reprinted,   p.    184.      Cp.   Wicel's   remarks 
above,  p.  165  f. 

3  Lauterbach,    "  Tagebuch,"    p.     117;      "Werke,"    Erl.    ed.,    58, 
p.  420  f. 

4  "Werke/'  ibid.  5  Lauterbach,  "Tagebuch,"  p.  118. 


364         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  zealous  Wicel  was  not  perturbed  by  Luther's  attacks.  He 
continued  to  damage  the  Lutheran  cause  by  his  writings,  though 
the  position  he  took  up  in  ecclesiastical  matters  was  not  always 
well  advised. 

Another  convert,  Veit  Amerbach  (Amorbach),  one  of  the 
most  capable  Humanists  of  the  day,  after  abandoning  the 
Catholic  communion  lectured  first  at  Eisleben  and  then  in 
the  philosophical  faculty  at  Wittenberg,  till,  owing  to  his 
patristic  studies  and  after  personal  conferences  with  Luther 
and  Melanchthon,  he  returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church 
in  1543,  and  at  once  found  a  post  as  lecturer  at  the 
University  of  Ingolstadt.  As  he  declared  in  a  written,  state 
ment  handed  to  Melanchthon,  it  was  particularly  the 
doctrines  of  Justification  and  of  the  Primacy  of  the  Bishop 
of  Rome  that  compelled  him  to  side  with  antiquity  and  to 
oppose  the  innovations. 

Too  high-minded  to  abuse  his  former  associates  (he  even 
refrained  from  writing  against  them),  Luther  nevertheless, 
on  hearing  of  his  conversion,  declared  that  he  would  surely 
turn  out  later  a  blasphemer. 

"  You  know,"  Luther  wrote  to  Lauterbach,  "  Vitus  Amerbach, 
who  left  us  to  go  to  Ingolstadt,  was  a  man  who  was  never  really  one 
of  us  (1  John  ii.  19)  ;  he  will  imitate  Eck  in  his  blasphemy  of 
our  Word,  and  perhaps  do  even  worse  things."1  Amerbach 
having  pointed  out  that  the  greatest  authorities  both  of  East  and 
West  had  acknowledged  the  Pope's  leadership  in  the  Church, 
Luther  replies  in  Table-Talk  in  1544  :  "  Whence  do  they  get 
the  rotten  argument,  that  the  Church  must  have  Rome  for  its 
outward  head  ?  All  history  is  against  anything  of  the  kind.  The 
whole  of  the  West  was  never  under  the  Pope,  nor  the  whole  of  the 
East.  It  is  mere  pride  on  Amerbach's  part  !  O  God,  this  is  indeed 
a  fall  beyond  all  other  falls  !  I  am  sorry  about  him,  for  he  will 
occasion  great  scandal.  Poor  people,  they  think  not  of  their  last 
hour."2  "  Ah,  it  is  said  of  them  :  They  went  out  from  us,  from 
the  Apostles.  But  whence  came  the  devil  ?  From  the  angels 
surely.  Whence  the  prostitutes  if  not  from  virgins  ?  Whence 
the  knaves  if  not  from  the  ranks  of  the  pious  ?  Evil  must  needs 
come  from  good."3 

Amerbach's  opinion  of  the  innovations  and  of  the  work  of  the 
devil  was  a  different  one. 

In  the  Preface  to  his  collection  of  the  Capitularies  of  Charles  the 
Great  and  Lothair, — the  solitary  passage  in  which  he  alludes  to 
the  upheaval  he  had  witnessed,  though  he  refrains  from  any 
reference  to  his  former  colleagues — he  expresses  his  cherished  hope 

1  On  Feb.  3,  1544,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  629. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  342.  3  Ibid. 


CATHOLIC   COMPLAINTS  365 

that  the  Church  will  ultimately  be  restored  to  unity  under  .the 
successor  of  Peter  ;  the  most  pressing  thing  was  to  set  some 
bounds  to  the  extraordinary  and  utterly  unrestrained  abuse  and 
vituperation,  which  was  not  a  little  promoted  by  the  avarice 
and  filthy  venality  of  the  printers,  but  which  the  authorities  did 
nothing  to  prevent.  "  At  times,  when  I  reflect  on  this  disorder," 
he  says,  "  it  seems  to  me  that  men  are  not  filled  merely  with  gall 
and  wormwood,  but  are  verily  led  and  set  in  motion  by  devils 
incarnate.  But  otherwise  it  cannot  be,  so  long  as,  within  the 
Church,  the  faithful  are  split  up  into  opposing  factions.  And 
would  that  the  populace  alone  were  to  blame  !  I  am  very  much 
deceived  if  in  any  of  the  books  of  history  even  one  other  example 
is  to  be  met  with  of  such  madness,  such  furious,  poisonous  railing 
and  drunken  invective."1 

3.  Lamentations  over  the  Wounds  of  the  Church  and 
over  Her  Persecutions 

With  the  defenders  of  the  Church  the  depravity  of 
Luther's  teaching,  and  the  immense  injury  which  his  work 
of  apostasy  was  doing  to  souls,  weighed  far  more  heavily 
than  any  of  the  charges  we  have  heard  advanced  against  his 
person. 

In  the  beginning,  it  is  true,  they  were  chiefly  concerned 
in  refuting  his  new  and  daring  propositions.  But,  as  the 
years  passed  and  the  ruin  increased,  startling  accounts  of 
the  sad  state  of  religion  more  and  more  often  find  a  place  in 
their  polemics,  the  writers  urging  against  Lutheranism  the 
decay  of  faith  and  morals  which  had  followed  in  its  train. 
In  their  words  we  can  feel  even  to-day  the  fervour  and  the 
profound  anxiety  with  which  they  sought  to  admonish  their 
contemporaries  against  the  destroyer  of  the  Sanctuary  and 
his  seductive  ways. 

When  Johann  Cochlseus  composed  the  Preface  to  his  "  Com- 
mentaria  de  actis  et  scriptis  Martini  Lutheri,"  he  could  not 
refrain,  at  the  sight  of  the  state  of  Germany,  from  giving  lively 
expression  to  his  grief. 

To  him  "  the  greatest  misfortune,  which  no  tears  can  suffi 
ciently  deplore,"  is  "  the  fall  of  so  many  immortal  souls,  destined 
by  the  grace  of  baptism  for  life  everlasting."  "  This  unhappy 
strife  regarding  belief,"  he  writes  at  the  commencement,  "  has 
torn  them  from  the  bosom  and  the  unity  of  the  Church  and  will 
bring  them  to  eternal  destruction  !  "  In  addition  to  this  there  is 
"  a  frightful  subversion  of  all  things  such  as  no  previous  heresy 
had  ever  brought  about."  The  bond  of  charity  and  concord 

1  "  Prsecipuse  constitutiones  Caroli  M.,"  etc.,  Ingolst.,  1545,  praef. 
f.  A  3a,  A  8a  ;  Dollinger,  ibid.,  I,  p.  160. 


366          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

which  unites  Christian  people  has  been  loosened,  discipline 
undermined,  reverence  for  God  destroyed,  wholesome  fear  ex 
tinguished,  obedience  cast  aside,  and  in  their  lieu  prevails  sin- 
fulness  and  a  freedom  that  is  alien  to  God."1  In  the  body  of  the 
work  he  describes  with  pain  and  indignation  how  the  uncalled 
preachers  behaved.  "  They  come,"  so  he  says  in  one  passage, 
"  and  prate  of  that  false  freedom  which  is  to  set  us  free  from  all 
laws  of  Church,  Pope,  bishops  and  Councils.  With  a  cloud  of 
Scriptural  texts  they  undertake  to  prove,  that  fasting,  prayers, 
vigils  and  other  penitential  works  are  no  good  whatever,  that 
Christ  has  sufficiently  atoned  for  our  sins,  that  faith  alone  suffices, 
that  our  good  works,  far  from  being  deserving,  are  really  sinful, 
and  so  forth.  In  glibness  of  tongue  and  in  energy  they  are  not 
to  be  outdone."2 

Johann  Wild,  Cathedral  preacher  at  Mayence,  also  describes 
in  moving  words  the  grievous  wounds  that  were  being  inflicted 
on  the  Church.  He  was  a  Franciscan  Observantine  and  was 
distinguished  in  his  Order  for  his  learning  and  success.  After 
having  been  from  1528  preacher  at  the  friary  church  at 
Mayence,  he  was  appointed  in  1539  to  the  pulpit  of  the 
Cathedral,  which  he  retained  till  his  death  in  1554.  To  him  it 
was  in  part  due  that  what  was  then  the  ecclesiastical  metropolis 
of  the  Rhine  Province  was  preserved  in  the  Catholic  faith.  He 
was  a  type  of  those  men  who  attempted  to  meet  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  day,  not  by  loud-voiced  polemics,  but  in  a  concili 
atory  and  peaceable  fashion,  and  who  insisted  that  the  first 
requirement  was  to  instruct  the  people  thoroughly  in  the  faith, 
and  to  raise  the  moral  tone  of  the  faithful.  Luther's  name  he 
does  not  mention  once  in  the  many  volumes  of  his  sermons,  but 
the  complaints  are  none  the  less  heartfelt  that  he  pours  forth 
concerning  the  devastation  wrought  in  the  Lord's  vineyard, 
warning  his  hearers  and  exhorting  them  to  pity,  labour  and 
prayer  in  the  interests  of  Catholicism,  now  in  such  dire  straits. 

"  Woe  to  all  those,"  he  cries,  "  who  by  their  preaching  have 
made  the  world  so  frivolous  and  fearless  of  God  !  Our  forefathers 
were  better  advised  in  this  matter.  They  too  preached  grace, 
but  they  did  not  forget  penance."3  "  But  now  we  see,  how,  by 
dint  of  sermons  lacking  all  sense  of  modesty  and  urging  faith 
alone,  all  fear  of  God  is  driven  out  of  the  hearts  of  men."4  "  One 
thing,  viz.  faith,  has  been  extolled  to  the  skies,  the  other,  viz. 
good  works,  has  been  trodden  in  the  mire.  The  result  is  that  we 
are  now  for  the  most  part  merely  Christians  in  name,  but,  so  far 
as  works  are  concerned,  more  depraved  and  wicked  than  even 
Jews  or  Turks.  Yet  they  expect  it  to  be  said  of  them  :  These  are 
Evangelical  preachers,  comforting  folk,  who  know  how  to  quiet 
people's  consciences."5  "  All  sorts  of  wickedness,  injustice  and 
frivolity  increase  from  day  to  day."  "  Since  ever  there  were 

1   "  Comment.,"  p.  1.  2  Ibid.,  p.  56. 

3  N.  Paulus,  "  Johann  Wild  "  (3.  "  Vereinsschr.  der  Gorres-Ges.," 
1893),  p.  15. 

<  Ibid.  5  Ibid.,  p.  34. 


CATHOLIC  COMPLAINTS  367 

Christians  in  the  world  a  godly  life  has  never  been  so  little 
esteemed  as  now."1  This,  according  to  him,  is  the  chief  cause 
of  all  the  "  very  grievous  sufferings  of  the  Church,"  in  com 
parison  with  which  the  spoliation  of  the  clergy  was  nothing,  of  the 
loss  of  souls,  and  ruin  of  religious  life.  "  The  cause  of  the  Church's 
pain  is  that  her  children  have  been  and  are  so  lamentably  led 
astray,  that  they  refuse  any  longer  to  acknowledge  their  own 
mother,  but  avoid  and  flee  from  her,  despise  her  old  age,  mock 
at  her  wrinkles,  laugh  at  her  feebleness,  pay  no  heed  to  her 
admonitions,  transgress  her  laws,  forsake  her  doctrine,  reject 
her  commands,  despise  her  sacraments,  cling  to  her  enemies, 
wallow  in  every  sort  of  sin  and  defile  themselves  with  all  kinds 
of  errors.  Who  can  tell  all  the  misery  which  is  now  to  be  met 
with  among  Christians  by  reason  of  their  sins  and  errors  ?  " 
How  should  this  not  cause  pain  to  the  Church,  our  loving 
Mother  ?2 — When  the  discord  was  on  the  point  of  breaking  out 
into  an  armed  conflict,  this  patriot,  deeply  moved  at  the  sight 
of  the  dissensions  that  ravaged  the  Fatherland,  exclaimed  : 
Germany  has  become  a  byword  to  her  neighbours.  "  Every 
body  wants  a  bit  of  us."  We  have  to  submit  to  bitter  scorn. 
They  say  :  "  Ha,  these  are  the  haughty  Germans  who  help  to 
destroy  all  other  countries  and  have  a  finger  in  every  war  ;  now 
they  are  going  to  set  to  on  each  other.  .  .  .  Is  it  not  a  lamentable 
thing  that  foreigners  and  aliens  should  speak  thus  derisively  of 
us  ?  ...  We  must  lay  it  before  God  and  beg  Him  to  forgive 
those  whose  fault  it  is  that  we  cannot  reach  any  agreement.  I 
have  always  feared  this  outcome,  yet  I  ever  furthered  and 
counselled  peace  and  unity."3 

In  a  writing  presented  at  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon  in  1541  by 
Duke  William  of  Bavaria,  the  acts  of  violence  committed  by  the 
protesting  Estates  for  years  past  were  thus  summarised  :  "  The 
Protestants  clamour  for  peace  and  justice,  but  in  their  actions 
they  violate  both."  The  Catholic  Estates  "  are  continually 
molested  on  account  of  their  religion,  and  great  loss  and  injury 
are  inflicted  on  them.  Contrary  to  the  commandment  of  God, 
in  defiance  of  law  and  Christian  usages,  the  Protestants  forbid 
them  to  preach  the  Gospel  and  the  Word  of  God  openly  ;  their 
churches  and  monasteries  are  seized  by  force,  their  subjects 
enticed  away  from  them  by  all  manner  of  devices  and  taken 
under  the  shelter  of  the  Protestants  ;  their  religious  foundations 
and  property  are  torn  from  them  mercilessly  and  used  for  alien 
purposes,  the  graves  and  monuments  of  the  pious  dead,  both 
high  and  low,  are  desecrated  and  destroyed  ;  the  pictures  and 
images  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  of  the  chaste  Virgin  Mary 
and  the  dear  Saints  are  pitifully  damaged  and  smashed  to 
pieces."  "  The  Catholics  have  no  dearer  wish  than  for  peace  and 
order  and  justice  ;  they  too  were  clamouring  for  these,  and  not 
like  the  Protestants,  trying  at  the  same  time  to  upset  them. 
All  they  asked  was  to  be  left  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  holy 
Christian  faith  and  the  ordinances  of  the  Christian  Church,  and. 

i  Ibid.,  p.  35.  2  Ibid.,  p.  40.  3  Ibid.,  p.  13  f, 


368          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

not  to  have  their  goods  violently  taken  from  them."1 — These 
complaints  were,  however,  ineffective,  as  the  Protestant  party 
had  already  the  upper  hand  in  the  College  of  Electors. 

At  the  Diet  of  Worms  in  1545  the  complaints  were  renewed 
on  the  Catholic  side  :  "  The  Protestants  have  made  themselves 
masters  of  churches  and  monasteries  and  have  driven  into  misery 
all  who  wished  to  abide  by  the  old  faith.  They  have  invaded 
bishoprics  and  have  been  reckless  of  justice  and  peace  ;  have 
constrained  the  poor  inhabitants  to  embrace  their  religion,  as, 
for  instance,  in  the  land  of  Brunswick,  where  they  had  no  other 
right  than  the  might  of  the  sword.  They  trample  under  foot 
and  oppress  everything,  and  then  complain  of  being  themselves 
oppressed."  "  They  are  insatiable  in  their  demands  and  are  for 
ever  producing  fresh  cards  to  play,  at  every  Diet  putting  forward 
fresh  claims  which  they  insist  on  having  conceded  to  them 
before  they  will  take  part  in  the  transactions  or  vote  supplies."2 
The  Catholics  further  declared  in  the  sittings  of  a  committee  at 
Worms,  in  answer  to  the  charges  of  their  opponents  concerning 
the  real  abuses  which  prevailed  among  the  bishops  and  elsewhere  : 
"  Scandals  and  abuses  innumerable  certainly  existed  and  were 
openly  flaunted,  and  were  growing  worse  and  worse  nowadays, 
because,  owing  to  the  perilous  times  and  the  teaching  of  novel 
sects  and  preachers,  all  good  works  were  being  abandoned,  and 
unbelief  and  contempt  for  religion  was  becoming  the  custom 
among  high  and  low.  Many  thousand  livings  stood  vacant  and 
the  people  were  without  helm  or  rudder."  "  Where  were  the 
schools  and  the  Divine  worship  ?  Where  the  foundations  and 
endowments  for  the  poor  which  had  been  so  numerous  twenty  or 
thirty  years  ago  ?  "  "  What  the  Protestants  call  proclaiming  the 
Word  of  God  is  for  the  most  part,  as  they  themselves  complain, 
mere  slander  and  abuse  of  the  Pope  and  the  clergy  and  a  general 
reviling  of  mankind."  The  pulpit  has  "  degenerated  into  a  chair 
of  scurrility  at  which  foreign  nations  are  shuddering."  Not 
many  years  before  Luther  had  openly  exhorted  the  preachers  to 
"  denounce  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  in  their  sermons  as  a  servant 
of  the  devil,  likewise  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence  and  all  followers 
of  the  Pope."3 

"  If  we  wish  to  discover  the  causes  of  the  war  which  is  un 
doubtedly  at  hand,"  so  the  Cologne  doctor,  Carl  van  der  Plassen, 
who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  conditions  in  Germany,  wrote 
from  the  Diet  of  Worms,  "  we  must  bear  in  mind  all  that  has 
happened  in  Germany  since  the  subjugation  of  the  peasants  by 
the  Princes  and  municipal  authorities,  all  the  countless  violations 
of  human  and  Divine  law,  of  the  public  peace,  of  property,  civic 
rights,  conscience  and  honour.  Let  us  but  reckon  up  the  number 

1  "Corp.  ref.,"   4,   pp.   450—455;  Jaiissen,    "Hist,  of  the  German 
People"  (Engl.  Trans.),  6,  p.  152  f. 

2  Janssen,  ibid.,  p.  264  f. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  264  f.     Passages  taken  from  Luther's  writing,  "An  die 
Pfarherrn  wider  den  Wucher  zu  predigen,"   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,   23, 
p.  282  ff. 


CATHOLIC  COMPLAINTS  369 

of  churches  and  monasteries  which  have  been  destroyed  and 
pillaged  during  these  twenty  years,  and  all  the  accompanying 
crime  and  iniquity.  And  to  what  purpose  have  these  stolen  goods 
been  applied  ?  What  has  become  of  all  the  Church  property,  all 
the  treasures  ?  .  .  .  A  new  religion  has  been  forced  upon  the 
people  by  might  and  by  stratagem,  and  they  have  been  forbidden 
under  threat  of  punishment  to  carry  on  the  old  service  of  God, 
with  its  rites  and  Christian  usages.  Is  this  the  vaunted  freedom 
of  the  Gospel,  to  persecute  and  coerce  others,  to  imprison  them 
or  drive  them  into  exile  ?  Everything  that  was  formerly 
reverenced  has  now  fallen  into  contempt,  with  the  result  that 
right  and  property  are  no  longer  respected  ;  the  endless  dis 
turbances  in  matters  of  religion  have  upset  the  whole  national 
equilibrium  ;  discipline,  loyalty  and  respectability  have  vanished. 
.  .  .  What  misery  results  from  want  of  clergy  and  schools  even 
in  the  lands  which  have  remained  Catholic  !  Princes  and  towns, 
making  their  boast  of  the  Gospel,  have  not  been  satisfied  with 
introducing  the  new  Church  system  into  their  own  territories,  but 
have  invaded  the  Catholic  bishoprics  and  secular  dominions  and 
turned  everything  topsy-turvy  in  order  to  set  up  their  own 
institutions.  The  Schmalkalden  confederates  extend  their  opera 
tions  from  year  to  year  and  grow  more  and  more  audacious. 
At  this  moment  they  are  actually  preaching  a  war  of  extermina 
tion  against  the  Pope  and  his  adherents.  There  will  be  no 
checking  them  if  the  sword  of  the  Emperor  is  not  used  to  restrain 
them,  as  it  ought  to  have  been  long  ago."1 

Another  Catholic  contemporary  complains  in  similar  fashion  : 
"  Religion  is  perverted,  all  obedience  to  the  Emperor  destroyed, 
justice  set  aside  and  insolence  of  all  sorts  everywhere  encouraged." 
The  Emperor  "  has  tried  many  and  various  means  of  putting  a 
stop  to  this  insubordination,  but  all  measures  have  been  fruit 
less  and  he  must  now  wield  in  earnest  the  sword  that  God  put 
into  his  hands  to  bring  back  his  and  our  fatherland  to  peace, 
order  and  unity."2  In  the  Emperor's  own  circle  the  conviction 
Had  ripened  that  so  much  injustice  had  been  done  to  Catholics  and 
so  much  detriment  to  the  Church,  that  armed  intervention  was 
the  only  course  that  remained.  "  Things  had  come  to  such  a 
pass  in  Germany,"  said  the  Imperial  Chancellor  Gran  veil  to 
Farnese,  the  Papal  Legate,  about  the  time  of  the  Diet  of  Worms, 
"  that  neither  the  Emperor's  nor  the  Pope's  name  any  longer 
carried  any  weight  ;  indeed,  it  was  to  be  feared  that  the  Protes 
tants  looked  upon  the  opening  of  the  Council  as  a  signal  for  war, 
and  that  they  would  at  once  begin  to  equip  themselves  not 
merely  for  the  sake  of  being  ready  for  any  emergency,  but  rather 
in  order  to  suppress  the  Catholics  and  to  make  an  attack  on  Italy, 
the  object  of  their  bitter  hatred."3 

1  On  May  29,  1545.     Janssen,  ibid.,  p.  286  f. 

2  Hortleder,  "  Von  Rechtmassigkeit  usw.  Karls  V.,"  1G45,  p.  480  ff. 
Janssen,  ibid.,  p.  288. 

3  M.  J.  Schmidt,  "  Neuere  Gesch,  der  Deutschen/'  1,  1785,  p.  23  f. 
Janssen,  ibid. 

IV.— 2  B 


370         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

4.  The  Literary  Opposition 

Most  of  those  who  opposed  Luther  in  the  literary  field 
have  already  made  their  appearance  in  the  various  episodes 
narrated  in  the  foregoing  pages.  In  the  present  section; 
which  is  in  the  nature  of  a  retrospect  and  amplification  of 
certain  points,  we  must  first  touch  on  the  charge  frequently 
put  forward  by  Luther,  viz.  that  it  was  the  furious  polemics 
of  his  foes  which  drew  from  him  his  violent  rejoinders,  and, 
particularly  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  drove  him  to 
take  the  field  against  Rome. 

We  have  already  repeatedly  admitted  the  too  great 
acrimony  of  some  of  the  writings  against  Luther,  the 
exasperation  they  frequently  ill  conceal  and  their  needlessly 
strong  and  insulting  language  ;  of  this  we  saw  instances  in 
the  case  of  Tetzel,  Eck,  Prierias,  Emser  and  many  others.1 

It  can,  however,  readily  be  proved  by  a  comparison  with 
Luther's  own  writings,  that  the  champions  of  the  Church 
fell  far  short  of  their  opponent,  generally  speaking,  in  the 
matter  of  violence  and  contemptuous  satire.  Luther  not 
only  maintained  in  this  respect  his  supremacy  as  a  speaker, 
but  the  small  account  he  made  of  truth2  lent  an  immense 
advantage  to  his  overwhelming  invective.  It  is  also  easy 
to  discern  a  difference  in  the  writings  directed  against  his 
revolutionary  movement,  according  as  they  were  written 
earlier  or  later.  At  first,  when  it  was  merely  a  question  of 
exposing  his  theological  errors,  his  opponents  were  com 
paratively  calm ;  the  first  counter  theses  and  the  dis 
cussions  to  which  they  led  are  replete  with  the  ponderous 
learning  of  the  Schoolmen,  though,  even  there,  we  find 
occasional  traces  of  the  indignation  felt  that  the  sanctuary 
of  the  faith  should  have  been  attacked  in  so  wanton  a 
fashion.  But  after  the  actual  subversion  of  the  Church 
had  begun  and  the  social  peril  of  the  radical  innovations 
had  revealed  itself,  the  voices  of  Luther's  opponents  grow 
much  harsher.  Many,  in  their  anguish  at  the  growing  evil, 
do  not  spare  the  person  of  the  man  responsible  for  it  all, 
whose  own  methods  of  controversy,  unfortunately,  became 
a  pattern  even  to  his  foes.  At  no  time,  not  even  in  a  war 
fare  such  as  that  then  going  on,  can  all  the  things  be  justified 
which  were  said  by  Augustine  Alveld,  Franz  Arnoldi,  Johann 

1  See  above,  passim. 

z  See,  for  instance,  above,  pp.  96  ff.,  102  ff. 


THE  CATHOLIC  OPPOSITION        371 

Cochlaeus,  Paul  Bachmann,  Duke  George,  King  Henry  VIII 
and  even,  occasionally,  by  Sir  Thomas  More. 

What  helped  to  poison  the  language  was,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  coarse  tone  then  generally  prevalent  amongst  the 
German  people,  which  contrived  to  find  its  way  into  the 
literary  treatment  of  theological  questions  to  an  extent 
never  heard  of  before,  and,  on  the  other,  the  love  of  the 
Humanists  for  mockery  and  satire,  to  which  end  they 
ransacked  the  storehouse  of  antiquity,  classical  or  other 
wise.  Among  earnest  Catholics  the  most  powerful  factor 
was  overpowering  indignation  at  the  sight  of  such  ruthless 
trampling  under  foot  of  the  religion  of  their  forefathers  and 
of  a  faith  so  closely  bound  up  with  the  greatness  of  the 
fatherland  and  with  every  phase  of  life.  Their  indignation 
led  them  to  utter  things  that  were  less  praiseworthy  than 
the  feeling  which  inspired  them. 

Besides  this,  there  was  a  great  temptation  to  use,  as  the 
best  way  of  testifying  to  their  abhorrence  for  the  opponent 
of  religious  truth,  that  drastic  language  handed  down  by 
past  ages,  indeed  largely  borrowed  from  the  Bible,  par 
ticularly  from  the  Prophets  of  the  Old  Testament.  Of  this, 
not  theological  writers  only,  but  even  official  ecclesiastical 
documents,  had  made  such  liberal  use,  that  scholars  had 
it  at  their  finger-tips.  Even  in  our  own  day  such 
mediaeval  thunders  are  still  sometimes  heard  rumbling, 
particularly  among  the  Latin  races.  When  dealing  with 
the  Bull  of  Excommunication  against  Luther,  we  already  had 
occasion  to  remark  that  much  in  it  was  due  to  the  after 
effects  of  the  older  habits  of  speech  usual  in  earlier  condemna 
tions.1  It  may  be  mentioned  of  Hadrian  VI  that  in  a  stern 
missive  addressed  in  1522  to  Frederick  the  Elector  of  Saxony, 
he  denounced  Luther  as  a  "  serpent  "  infecting  heaven  and 
earth  with  the  venom  of  its  tongue,  as  a  "  boar  "  laying 
waste  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  as  a  "  thief  "  who  broke 
in  pieces  the  cross  of  Christ,  as  a  man  with  "  diabolical, 
impious  and  pestilential  lips."  He  also,  in  the  words  of 
Scripture,  tells  the  Prince  that  Luther,  whom  he  was 
protecting,  is  a  devil  who  has  assumed  the  appearance  of 
an  angel  of  light.2 

1  Vol.  ii.,  p.  48. 

"  Transfiguratur  coram  te  satanas  ille  in  angelum  lucis"    The  text 
in  Raynaldus,  "  Annales  eccles.,"  ann.  1522,  n.  72. 


372          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

As  regards  the  beginnings  of  the  controversy,  both  series 
of  Theses  advanced  by  Johann  Tetzel  in  1517  against 
Luther's  attack  on  the  system  of  indulgences,  are  exclusively 
of  a  technical  nature  and  never  even  mention  by  name  the 
originator  of  the  controversy.1 

Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  after  the  publication  of  the 
ninety-five  Theses,  in  his  German  sermon  on  Indulgences 
and  Grace,2  addressed  himself  directly  to  the  populace.  He 
poured  out  his  scorn  on  the  school-opinions  of  the  theo 
logians  and  the  "bawling"  of  the  envious;  they  seek,  he 
says,  your  "  pennies,"  not  your  souls,  and  preach  for  the 
sake  of  their  "  money-box."  He  appealed  very  cleverly  to 
their  more  sordid  instincts,  hinting  that  the  money  might  be 
better  spent  on  the  poor  in  their  own  neighbourhood  than 
on  the  building  of  St.  Peter's  ;  at  the  end,  sure  of  his  success 
with  the  multitude,  he  abused  those  who  called  him  a 
heretic,  as  "  darkened  intellects  who  had  never  even  sniffed 
a  Bible  .  .  .  and  had  never  grasped  their  own  teaching." 

What  was  the  nature  of  Tetzel's  reply  ?  His  "  Vorle- 
gung  "  of  the  Sermon,3  being  intended  for  the  people,  was 
naturally  written  in  German,  but  in  the  wearisome  style  of 
the  Latin  theology  of  the  Schools.  In  point  of  matter  and 
logical  accuracy  it  was  indeed  far  superior  to  Luther's 
superficialities,  but  the  clumsy  German  in  which  it  was 
couched  and  the  number  of  quotations  it  borrowed  from 
the  Fathers  could  only  make  it  distasteful  to  the  reader.  It 
is  hardly  possible  to  recognise  in  its  language  the  popular 
orator  who  was  such  a  favourite  with  the  people.  The 
seriousness  of  his  tone  contrasts  strangely  with  Luther's 
airy  style.  It  is  easy  to  believe  his  honest  assurance,  that 
he  was  ready  to  submit  his  views  to  the  judgment  of  the 
learned  and  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  to  risk  even 
life  itself  for  the  holy  Faith  of  the  Catholic  past.  Only 
towards  the  end  of  the  short  work,  when  refuting  Luther's 
twentieth  proposition,  does  Tetzel,  not  very  skilfully, 
retaliate  upon  his  opponent— though  even  here  he  does  not 
name  him — for  the  coarse  and  abusive  language  he  had  used 

1  At  the  end  of  the  second  series  of  Theses  ("  Luthers  Werke,"  Erl. 
ed.,  "  Opp.  lat  var.,"  1,  p.  312)  occur  the  words,  "  bestia,  quas,  montem 
tetigerit,"    the    sole    quotation    from    that    sort    of    biblical    language 
mentioned  above. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  239  ff.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  4  if. 

3  Loscher,  "  Reformationsacta,"  1,  p.  484  ff. 


TETZEL  AND  PRIERIAS  373 

in  this  thesis.  Tetzel  says,  it  would  be  seen  from  a  con 
sideration  of  their  reasons  which  of  the  two  it  was  who  had 
"  never  sniffed  a  Bible,"  never  grasped  his  own  teaching 
and  applied  to  the  study  of  theology  "  a  brain  like  a  sieve  "  ; 
which  of  the  two  was  the  schismatic,  heretic,  etc. 

In  his  reply  to  the  "  Vorlegung,"  which  he  published  in 
his  own  name  under  the  title  "  Eyn  Freiheyt  dess  Sermons 
Bebstlichcn  Ablass,"1  Luther  spared  no  venom  :  Sun  and 
moon  might  well  wonder  at  the  light  of  wisdom  displayed 
by  such  a  poetaster  ;  evidently  he  had  a  superabundance 
of  paper  and  leisure  ;  but  his  artificial  flowers  and  withered 
leaves  must  be  scattered  to  the  winds  ;  he  had  dared  to 
treat  "  the  scriptural  text,  which  is  our  comfort  (Rom.  xv. 
4),  as  a  sow  would  treat  a  sack  of  oats."  His  opponent's 
offer  to  risk  a  trial  by  fire  or  water  for  the  Faith,  he  treats 
with  the  utmost  scorn  and  derision  :  "  My  honest  advice 
to  him  would  be,  modestly  to  restrict  himself  to  the  juice  of 
the  grape  and  to  the  steam  that  arises  from  the  roast 
goose  to  which  he  is  so  partial." — Some  Protestants  have 
urged  that  Luther's  rudeness  of  tone,  here  displayed  for  the 
first  time,  may  be  explained  by  his  opponent's  example. 
How  little  this  defence  of  Luther  accords  with  the  true 
state  of  the  case  is  plain  from  the  above. 

As  regards  Silvester  Prierias  the  matter  stands  some 
what  differently.  The  "  Dialogus,"  composed  by  the 
Master  of  the  Palace  in  hot  haste  in  reply  to  Luther's 
"  arrogant  Theses  on  the  power  of  the  Pope  "  (the  ninety-five 
Indulgence  Theses  he  had  nailed  to  the  door  of  the  Castle 
Church  at  Wittenberg),  a  work  written  with  all  the  weighty 
scholarship  of  the  Schoolmen  and  criticising  each  thesis  in 
detail,  contained  in  its  thirty-three  octavo  pages  a  number 
of  exaggerations  and  words  calculated  to  offend. 

The  lively  Southerner  was  not  content  with  proving  that  much 
in  Luther's  Theses  was  provocative,  contrary  to  dogma,  criminal, 
seductive,  sarcastic,  etc.,  but,  even  in  the  Dedication  to  Leo  X, 
he  starts  off  by  saying  that  :  Luther  had  dared  to  rise  up  against 
the  truth  and  the  Holy  See,  but  that  he,  the  writer,  would  see 
whether  "  his  iron  nose  and  brazen  neck  were  really  unbreakable." 2 
Luther  preferred  to  "  snap  secretly  "  rather  than  to  put  forward 
plain  doctrines.3  "  If  it  is  in  the  nature  of  dogs  to  snap,  then 
I  feel  sure  you  must  have  had  a  dog  for  your  father,  for  you  are 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  380  ff.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  10  ff. 

2  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  345.  3  Ibid.,  p.  368. 


374          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

ever  ready  to  bite."1  Luther  having  in  one  passage  put  forward 
a  statement  that  was  true,  Prierias  tells  him  :  "  You  mix  a  little 
truth^with  much  that  is  false,  and  thus  you  are  a  spiritual  leper, 
for  you  have  a  spotted  skin  that  shines  partly  with  true,  partly 
with  false  colours."2  Referring  to  the  building  of  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome,  he  says  to  Luther  rather  maliciously  :  "  You  blame  in 
the  case  of  the  first  church  of  Christendom  what  was  extolled 
when  other  churches  were  being  built.  Had  you  received  a  fat 
bishopric  from  the  Pope  with  a  plenary  indulgence  for  the 
erection  of  your  church,  then,  perhaps,  you  would  have  found 
friendly  words  in  plenty  and  have  belauded  the  Indulgences  on 
which  now  you  pour  contempt."3 

These  are  lapses  in  style  which  a  high  official  of  the  Pope 
should  have  known  better  than  to  commit. 

Yet  it  is  clear  from  Luther's  reply  that  they  did  not  exasperate 
him  nearly  so  much  as  did  Prierias's  energetic  repudiation  of  his 
teaching  and  his  calm  exposure  of  the  untenable  nature  of  his 
assertions.  What  alarmed  him  was  the  fact  that  a  highly  placed 
Papal  dignitary  should  have  shown  the  contrast  between  his 
innovations  and  the  theology  and  practice  of  the  Church  ;  he 
now  perceived  clearly  the  practical  consequences  of  his  under 
taking  and  the  direct  entanglement  it  would  involve  with  Rome. 
Hence  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  he  composed  his  "  Responsio 
ad  Dialogum,"  etc.  (1518), 4  was  not  due  so  much  to  his 
opponent's  personalities  as  to  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs,  to  the 
shakiness  of  his  own  position  and  to  his  fierce  determination  to 
win  respect  for  and  to  further  at  the  expense  of  Rome  the  new 
doctrine  which  he  now  had  ready-made  in  his  mind.  Whoever 
recalls  the  spirit  which  breathes  in  his  Commentary  on  Romans 
and  the  violent  language  found  in  his  sermons  and  letters  even 
before  1518,  will  readily  estimate  at  its  true  worth  the  state 
ment,  that  what  drove  him  onwards  was  the  insolence  of  Prierias. 
Unfortunately,  Prierias's  "  Dialogue  "  shares  the  fate  of  the 
Latin  works  which  appeared  in  Germany  in  defence  of  Catholi 
cism  in  the  early  days  of  the  struggle  with  Luther  :  Save  by  a  few 
theologians,  they  are  never  read,  and,  indeed,  even  were  they 
read,  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  would  be  rightly,  understood 
except  by  those  familiar  with  Scholasticism ;  hence  discretion  in 
passing  judgment  is  doubly  necessary. 

In  the  Reply  of  1518  now  under  consideration,  Luther, 
in  view  of  the  person  and  position  of  his  opponent,  and  of 
the  possible  consequences,  is  more  restrained  in  his  abuse 
than  in  other  writings  soon  to  follow.  Yet,  anxious  as  he 
was  to  furnish  a  real  answer  to  the  criticisms  of  an  author 
so  weighty,  we  find  irony,  rudeness  and  attempts  to  render 
ridiculous  the  "  senile  "  objections  of  the  "  Thomaster," 

1  Ibid.,  p.  370.  2  Ibid.,  p.  351. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  365.  4  Ibid.,  2,  p.  1  seq. } 


SILVESTER  PRIERIAS  875 

the  "  sophist  "  and  all  his  "  taratantara,"  intermingled  with 
unwarrantable  attacks  on  "  Thomistic  "  theology,  that 
storehouse  whence  his  opponent  purloined  "  his  phrases  and 
his  shouting."  The  reply  opens  with  the  words  :  "  Your 
Dialogue,  Reverend  Father,  has  reached  me  ;  it  is  a  rather 
high-flown  writing,  quite  Italian  and  Thomistic."  It  also 
ends  in  the  same  vein.  "  If  for  the  future  you  don't  bring 
into  the  arena  a  Thomas  armed  with  better  weapons,  then 
don't  expect  to  find  again  such  consideration  as  I  have  just 
shown  you.  I  have  bridled  myself  so  as  not  to  return  evil 
for  evil.  Good-bye." 

When,  in  1519,  the  Dominican  whom  he  had  thus 
insulted  published,  first  a  "  Replica  "  in  the  form  of  a  short 
letter  addressed  to  Luther,  and  then  the  "  Epitome  "  (an 
abstract  of  his  investigations  into  the  theological  questions 
then  under  discussion),  it  was  impossible  for  Luther  to 
complain  of  any  too  harsh  treatment  ;  the  tone  of  the 
"  Replica,"  although  dealing  with  Luther's  attacks  on  the 
person  of  the  Roman  scholar,  falls  immeasurably  short  of 
his  assailant's  in  point  of  bitterness.  It  is  conciliatory,  indeed 
proffers  an  olive-branch,  should  the  Wittenberg  professor 
retract  the  new  doctrines  which  Rome  was  determined  to 
condemn.1  As  for  the  "  Epitome,"  it  is  merely  a  theo 
logical  revie\v  of  the  doctrines  involved,  which  it  clearly 
states  and  establishes  whilst  vigorously  refuting  all 
opinions  to  the  contrary.  It  is  accompanied  by  a  grave 
warning  to  Luther  not  to  impugn  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  Church.2 

This  was,  however,  sufficient  to  let  loose  the  anger  of  the 
German  Reformer,  who  meanwhile  had  advanced  con 
siderably,  and  whose  wrath  now  manifested  itself  in  his 
rejoinders.  Such  was  his  presumption  that  he  actually 
reprinted  in  Germany  both  works  of  Prierias  as  soon  as  they 
had  been  published  ;  the  "  Replica  "  he  introduced  with  the 
derisive  remark,  that,  as  the  author  had  threatened  to  give 
birth  to  more,  they  must  pray  that  he  might  suffer  no 
abortions.3  His  reprint  of  the  "  Epitome  "  in  1520  was 
accompanied  by  contemptuous  and  satirical  annotations, 
and  by  a  preface  and  postscript  where  he  breaks  out  into 
the  language  already  described,  about  Antichrist  seated  in 

1  Ibid.,  p.  68  scq.  2  Ibid.,  p.  81  seq. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  50  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  2,  p.  68. 


376          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

the  Temple  of  God  in  the  Roman  Babylon,  about  the 
happiness  of  the  separated  Greeks  and  Bohemians  and  about 
the  washing  of  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  Popish  Sodom.1 
It  was  the  seething  ferment  in  Luther's  own  mind,  not 
anything  that  Prierias  had  said,  that  was  really  responsible 
for  such  outbursts.  The  flood-gates  had  now  been  thrown 
open,  and  even  from  the  Catholic  side  came  many  a  wave 
of  indignation  to  lend  acrimony  to  the  contest. 

Referring  to  Luther's  words  on  bloodshed,  we  hear,  for 
instance,  Thomas  Murner  speaking  of  "  the  furious  blood 
hound,  Martin  Luther  of  execrable  memory,  the  blasphemous, 
runaway  monk  and  murderous  bloodhound,  who  wants  to 
wash  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  the  priests  !  " 

How  far  Hieronymus  Emser  allowed  himself  to  go  in  his 
hostility  to  Luther  is  plain  from  his  first  tract,  "  A  venatione 
Luteriana  JEgocerotis  assertio,"  of  Nov.,  1519,  in  which  he 
replies  to  an  attack  of  Luther's  on  an  epistle  he  (Emser) 
had  sent  to  Provost  Johann  Zack.  Luther,  in  the  title, 
had  addressed  him  as  the  "  he-goat  "  ("  ad  Mgocerotem  ")  on 
account  of  the  goat's  head  figuring  in  his  coat  of  arms. 
Emser  retorts  :  "  It  is  plainly  beyond  your  ability  to  send 
out  into  the  world  any  writing  of  yours  that  is  not  replete 
with  houndish  fury  and  bristles,  as  it  were,  with  canine 
fangs.  Your  father  is  Belial,  the  ancestor  of  all  insolent 
monks."  He  paints  a  frightful  picture  of  Luther's  career 
and  character  the  better  to  prove  that  such  a  man  had  no 
right  to  sit  in  judgment  on  him. 

Luther's  "  An  den  Bock  zu  Leyptzck,"  dating  from  the 
beginning  of  1520,  was  replied  to  by  Emser  in  his  "  An  den 
Stier  zu  Wittenberg,"  whereupon  Luther  retorted  with 
"  Auff  des  Bocks  zu  Leypczick  Antwort,"  to  which  Emser 
replied  in  his  pamphlet  :  "  Auff  des  Stieres  tzu  Wiettenberg 
wiettende  Replica,"  and  his  larger  work  "  Against  the 
Unchristian  book  of  M.  Luther  to  the  German  Nobility  "  ; 
this  Luther  countered  by  his  "  Auff  das  ubirchristlich  .  .  . 
Buch  Bocks  Emssers." 

During  the  years  1521-1222  Emser  wrote  no  less  than  eight 
tracts  against  the  Wittenberg  Professor.  The  Humanist 
and  clever  man  of  letters  has  left  therein  many  a  witty 

1  Ibid.,  6,  pp.  328-348  =  2,  pp.  79-108.     See  the  actual  words  in  our 
vol.  ii.,  p.  12  f.    Cp.  vol.  i.,  p.  338  f.,  for  the  first  interchange  of  amenities 
between  the  two  champions. 

2  In  W.  Walther,  "  Fur  Luther,"  p.  215. 


JOHANN  ECK  377 

page  ;  a  refreshing  sincerity  is  one  of  his  characteristics.1 
On  the  whole,  however,  what  F.  A.  Scharpff  says  applies 
to  these  and  the  later  polemics  of  this  zealous  champion 
of  the  Church  :  They  "  are  composed  in  a  tone  of  violent 
personality,  nor  does  either  combatant  seek  any  longer  to 
restrain  the  '  Old  Adam,'  as  both  at  the  outset  had  pledged 
themselves  to  do."2 

Another  of  Luther's  earliest  literary  opponents  was  Johann 
Eck,  the  author  of  the  "  Obelisks,"  on  the  Indulgence 
Theses.  Like  the  works  of  Tetzel  and  Prierias,  this  tract  is 
chiefly  concerned  in  a  calm  discussion  of  the  matter  in 
dispute,  though  it  does  not  refrain  from  occasionally 
describing  this  or  that  opinion  of  Luther's  as  a  "  rash, 
corrupt,  impudent  assertion,"  as  an  insipid,  unblushing 
error,  a  ridiculous  mistake,  etc.  The  severest  remark, 
however,  and  that  which  incensed  Luther  beyond  all  the 
rest  was,  that  certain  passages  in  the  Indulgence  Theses, 
owing  to  a  confusion  of  ideas,  made  admissions  "  contain 
ing  Bohemian  poison,"  i.e.  savouring  of  the  errors  of  Hus.3 
Subsequent  to  this  Eck,  however,  wrote  to  Carlstadt  a 
letter  which  was  intended  for  Luther,  where  he  says  in  a 
conciliatory  tone  :  "  To  offend  Martin  was  never  my 
intention."4  Nor  did  he  at  first  print  his  "  Obelisks,"  but 
merely  sent  the  tract  to  his  bishop  and  his  friends.  Luther, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  the  work  printed  in  August,  1518, 
together  with  his  own  "  Asterisks,"  and,  after  circulating 
them  privately  among  his  acquaintances,  finally  published 
them  together.  In  the  "  Asterisci "  he  speaks  of  the 
behaviour  of  Eck,  his  quondam  "  friend,"  as  most  insidious 
and  iniquitous  ("  insidiossissimum  iniquissimum"),  and 
mocks  at  his  "  grand,  not  to  say  high-flown,"  preface.  He 
says  :  "Hardly  was  I  able  to  refrain  from  laughter  "  ;  Eck 
must  have  written  his  "  Obelisks  "  during  the  Carnival  ; 
wearing  the  mask  of  genius  he  had  produced  a  chaos.  His 

1  G.  Kawerau  ("  Hieronymus  Emser,"  1898,  p.  2)  remarks  that  it 
must  be  admitted  of  Emser,   "  that  he  was  an  honest  curmudgeon, 
averse  to  all  subterfuge  and  pretence,  amazingly  frank  in  his  admissions 
concerning  himself,  and,  in  controversy,  very  rude.     Only  rarely  do  we 
see  him  departing  from  this  frankness." 

2  "  KL.,"  42,  col.  483. 

3  "  Lutheri  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  410. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  408,  in  the  editor's  Introduction  to  the  "  Asterisks  "  and 
"  Obelisks." 


378         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

writing  adduced  nothing  concerning  the  Bible,  the  Fathers 
and  the  Canons,  but  was  all  arch-scholastic ;  had  he, 
Luther,  wished  to  peripateticise  he  could,  with  one  puff, 
have  blown  away  all  these  musty  cobwebs,  etc.1 

Johann  Eck,  who  was  professor  of  theology  at  the 
University  of  Ingolstadt  and  at  the  same  time  parish-priest 
and  preacher,  enjoyed  a  great  reputation  among  the 
Catholics  on  account  of  his  works  against  Luther,  particu 
larly  those  on  the  Primacy,  on  Purgatory,  the  Mass  and 
other  Catholic  doctrines  and  practices,  no  less  than  on 
account  of  his  printed  sermons  and  his  general  activity  on 
behalf  of  the  Church. 

The  indefatigable  defender  of  the  Church  composed 
amongst  other  writings  the  "  Enchiridion  locorum  com- 
munium  adv.  Lutherum  et  alias  liostes  ecclesice  "  (1525).  The 
work  was  of  great  service  and  formed  an  excellent  guide 
to  many. 

In  this  well-arranged  and  eminently  practical  book  the 
questions  then  under  debate  are  dealt  with  for  the  instruction  of 
Catholics  and  the  confutation  of  heretics ;  excerpts  from  Scrip 
ture  and  from  the  Fathers  are  in  each  instance  quoted  in  support 
of  the  Catholic  teaching,  and  then  the  objections  of  opponents 
are  set  forth  and  answered.  Not  only  were  the  Church,  the  Papal 
Primacy,  Holy  Scripture,  Faith  and  Works,  the  Sacraments,  the 
Veneration  of  the  Saints,  Indulgences,  Purgatory  and  other 
similar  points  of  doctrine  examined  in  this  way,  but  even  certain 
matters  of  discipline  and  the  ecclesiastico-political  questions  of 
the  day,  such  as  payments  to  Rome,  the  ornaments  of  the 
churches  and  the  ceremonies  of  Divine  Worship,  the  use  of  Latin 
in  the  Mass,  the  disadvantage  of  holding  disputations  with 
heretics,  and  even  the  question  of  the  Turkish  war.  Hence  the 
work  amounted  to  a  small  arsenal  of  weapons  for  use  in  the 
controversial  field.  The  tone  is,  however,  not  always  moderate 
and  dispassionate.  The  author  was  clear-sighted  enough  to 
avoid  the  pitfall  into  which  other  writers  lapsed  who  cherished 
undue  hopes  of  a  settlement  by  give  and  take.  In  much  that  he 
says  he  still  speaks  from  the  mediaeval  standpoint,  for  instance, 
concerning  the  death  penalty  due  to  heretics  ;  this  he  defends 
on  the  strength  of  the  identical  passages  from  the  Old  Testament 
to  which  Luther  and  his  followers  appealed  for  the  putting  to 
death  of  blasphemers  and  apostates  from  the  true  faith. 

Eck  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  his  "  Enchiridion,"  within 
four  years,  reprinted  four  times  in  Bavaria,  twice  at  Tubingen, 
and  at  Cologne,  Paris  and  Lyons.  Before  1576  it  had  been  re- 
impressed  forty-five  times.  In  the  midst  of  his  other  literary 

1   "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  281  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  411. 


JOHANN  ECK  379 

works  and  his  fatiguing  labours  as  preacher  and  professor  at  the 
University  of  Ingolstadt,  the  scholar  never  forgot  his  useful 
"  Enchiridion,"  but  amended  it  and  added  to  it  as  occasion 
demanded.  In  1529,  in  a  new  edition  which  he  dedicated  to 
Conrad  von  Thuengen,  bishop  of  Wiirzburg,  he  looks  back  in 
the  dedicatory  preface  on  the  ten  years  that  had  passed  since  his 
disputation  at  Leipzig,  and  voices  his  grief  at  the  immense 
advance  the  apostasy  had  made  with  the  course  of  time. 

"  People  have  outgrown  themselves,"  Eck  exclaims,  "  they 
exalt  themselves  against  God  just  as  Lucifer  once  did,  but  like 
him  too  they  fall  into  the  abyss  and  come  to  despise  the  teach 
ing  of  God."  "  Whoever  does  not  hold  fast  to  the  tradition  of 
the  Church  and  to  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Fathers  and  the 
Councils  must  fall  into  the  cesspool  of  the  worst  errors."  These 
words  are  characteristic  of  Eck's  unwavering  adherence  to 
authority. 

He  goes  on  to  apply  this  to  Luther  :  "  Luther  and  those  who 
follow  him  prefer  to  rise  up  in  their  foolish  daring  rather  than 
bow  to  the  rule  of  faith  ;  they  open  their  offensive  mouth  against 
the  holy  Fathers  and  the  whole  Church  ;  they  exalt  their  own 
judgment  with  momentous  and  arrogant  blindness  above  that 
of  the  most  august  representatives  of  the  teaching  office."  True 
enough  Luther  had  begun  softly  by  merely  publishing  some 
theses  against  the  system  of  indulgences  with  which  many  might 
still  agree  ;  but  then  he  had  {gone  on  step  by  step  and  had 
increased  his  partisans  by  proclaiming  a  Christian  freedom 
which  in  reality  savoured  more  of  Mohammed.  It  is  our  sins, 
Eck  admits,  that  are  the  cause  of  the  unhappy  success  of  his 
work.  "  From  the  poisoned  root  new  and  corrupt  shoots  are 
constantly  springing  up,  and  of  their  new  sects  we  see  no  end. 
In  our  unhappy  days  we  have  experienced  the  fury  of  the  icono 
clasts  ;  Capharnaites  have  arisen  to  whom  Christ's  presence  in  the 
Sacrament  is  a  hard  saying  ;  Anabaptists,  who  refuse  baptism 
to  children  but  bestow  it  on  adults,  and,  amongst  these  teachers, 
every  day  fresh  divisions  arise  so  that  the  heretics  are  even  more 
prolific  than  rabbits.  Yes,  God  is  angry  with  us  and  allows  this 
because  we  do  not  turn  to  Him  with  powerful  and  fervent 
prayer." 

He  then  goes  on  to  encourage  the  Bishop  of  Wiirzburg  to  offer 
vigorous  resistance  and  points  modestly  to  his  own  self-sacrificing 
labours. 

"  However  much  heresy  may  gain  the  upper  hand,  the  watch 
men  of  Sion  must  not  keep  silence  ;  their  voice  must  ring  out 
like  a  clarion  against  the  Philistines  who  scoff  at  the  hosts  of  the 
Lord.  We  must  oppose  them  with  all  the  powers  of  our  mind 
and  defend  the  Tower  of  David,  guarded,  as  Scripture  says,  with 
a  thousand  shields.  This,  zealous  men,  equipped  with  holy 
learning,  have  already  done.  I  myself,  as  the  least  of  all,  have 
also  entered  the  arena  and  expose  d  myself  to  the  teeth  of  the 
wild  beasts.  At  Leipzig  I  stood  up  and  disputed  for  twenty  days 
with  Luther,  the  Prince  of  Dragons,  and  with  Carlstadt ;  at 
Baden  [in  Switzerland,  in  1526]  too,  I  had  to  sustain  a  combat 


380          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

for  several  days  with  (Ecolampadius  the  Capharnaite,  and  his 
comrades.  I  have  also  wrestled  with  them  from  a  distance  in 
several  little  works  which  I  published  in  Germany  and  Italy." 

Again,  in  1541,  in  the  evening  of  his  days  (f  1543),  in  an 
eighth  edition  of  the  "  Enchiridion  "  dedicated  to  Cardinal 
Alexander  Farnese,  while  urging  him  to  increased  efforts  for  the 
bringing  about  of  a  Council,  he  could  point  to  his  own  three-and- 
twenty  years  of  incessant  conflict  with  heresy.  "  O  God,"  he 
cries  at  the  sight  of  the  extent  to  which  the  evil  had  grown, 
"  what  times  are  ours  !  "  "  Every  bulwark  against  arbitrary 
private  judgment  has  been  torn  down  ;  Luther  has  taught  all 
how  to  dare  all  things.  Since  he  has  overthrown  the  authority 
of  the  Councils,  the  Popes,  the  Holy  Fathers  and  all  the  Christian 
Universities,  every  man,  no  matter  how  mad  or  hair-brained  he 
may  be,  is  free  to  teach  his  new  fancies  to  mankind."1 

Yet  the  author  seeks  to  revive  hope  and  confidence  in  his  own 
mind  and  in  that  of  his  Catholic  readers,  and,  to  this  end,  quotes 
on  the  last  page  the  saying  of  St.  Jerome,  which  he  applies  to  the 
misfortunes  of  his  own  day  :  "  During  the  years  of  persecution 
the  priests  of  the  Church  must  tell  the  faithful  boldly  and  con 
fidently  :  Your  churches  will  be  rebuilt  ;  have  no  fear,  peace 
and  unity  will  once  more  enter  in. — Yes  truly,  by  God's  Mercy 
there  will  come  an  end  to  the  heresies  of  Luther,  Zwingli,  CEco- 
lampadius,  Blaurer,  Osiander,  Schnepf  and  all  their  ilk,  and  the 
olden  truth  of  faith  will  flourish  again.  Grant  this,  Good  Jesus, 
and  grant  it  speedily  !  "  Invocations  such  as  these  accord  well 
with  the  exhortations  to  pray  for  the  erring  which  Eck  was  fond 
of  introducing  in  this  as  well  as  in  his  other  books. 

Eck's  writings  in  defence  of  the  faith  include  learned  as 
well  as  popular  works,  and  he  was  also  indefatigable  in  his 
labours  in  the  ministry.2 

Johann   Cochlseus,   who  like  Eck  was   one   of  the   more 

1  "  Enchiridion,"   Ingolst.,    1556,  f.    167,   167'.      In    the   prefatory 
letter  of  dedication  to  Cardinal  Farnese,  Eck  expresses  himself  in  his 
usual  manner  against  the  ill-advised  attempts  of  Catholics  at  media 
tion  :    "  Hinc  parum  profecit  conventus  Ratisponensis  (1541)  in  causa 
fidei  et  plurimorum  fidelium  exspectationem  fefellit.'" — In  the  matter  of 
religious  conferences  and  disputations  Eck  had  ripe  experience  on  his 
side.      Though  once  very  ready  to  accept  a  challenge  to  dispute,  he 
nevertheless   wrote  later    in  the    "  Enchiridion "    concerning   contro 
versies    with    heretics  :     "  Hceretici    non    qucerunt    disputationem   nisi 
multis  malitiis  involutam.  .  .  .  Fraudulenter  obtendunt  disputare  non 
coram  doclis  et  literatis  ac  in  theologia  excrcitatis,  sed  coram  indoctis, 
vulgaribus  laicis  "  ;    the  learned  men  at  the  Universities  would  other 
wise  have  already  tackled  Luther.     After  mentioning  the  other  dis 
advantages  of  the  disputations  he  concludes  :    "  Catholici  ergo  debent 
vitare  disputationem  cum  huiusmodi  "  (ibid.,  p.  163  seq.). 

2  The  state   of  his   Ingolstadt  parish   and   Eck's  pastoral   labours 
have  recently  been  placed  in  a  clear  and  favourable  light  by  J.  Greving 
in  his   "  Johann  Ecks  Pfarrbuch,"    1908   ("  RG1.   Stud,  und  Texte," 
Hft.  4-5). 


JOHANN  COCHL^EUS  381 

famous  of  Luther's  opponents,  had  a  keen  and  versatile 
mind  (|  1552).  He  first  made  Luther's  personal  acquaint 
ance  at  Worms,1  and  entered  the  lists  against  him  in  1522 
with  his  "  De  gratia  sacramentorum "  ;  from  that  time 
forward  he  kept  a  watch  on  all  that  Luther  wrote,  so  as  to 
be  in  readiness  to  reply  to  or  refute  it  as  occasion  arose. 
He  himself  gives  us  the  long  list  of  his  publications  against 
Luther,  in  his  "  Commentaria  de  actis  .  .  .  Lutheri,"  the 
work  in  which  he  sums  up  his  recollections  of  the  struggles 
of  his  time. 

From  these  "  Commentaria "  of  Cochlseus,  despite  the 
disparaging  treatment  accorded  them  by  Sleidanus,  "  more 
is  to  be  gleaned  concerning  the  history  of  the  Reformation 
than  from  many  bungling  Protestant  eulogies."  Such,  at 
least,  is  the  opinion  of  C.  Krafft,  himself  a  Protestant.2 

The  writer  sought  after  the  truth  and  wrote  with  honest 
indignation.  In  spite  of  disappointments,  and  even  priva 
tions,  he  remained  faithful  to  the  Church,  making  during 
his  career  many  a  sacrifice  for  his  cherished  convictions  ; 
he  himself  relates  how  he  could  not  find  a  printer  for  his 
works  against  Luther  and  was  forced  himself  to  defray  a 
part  of  the  expense  of  publication,  whereas  every  press  was 
eager  to  print  Luther's  books  owing  to  the  demand  antici 
pated. 

If,  in  Cochlacus's  writings,  too  great  passion  is  often 
apparent,  this  may  well  have  been  due  to  that  depraved 
humanism  and  neo-classicism  under  the  influence  of  which, 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  Catholic  man  of  letters,  he 
stood.  We  have  an  instance  of  this  in  his  "  Seven-headed 
Luther,"  which  he  composed  in  1529  at  Dresden,  whither 
he  had  been  summoned  on  Emser's  death.3  This  book, 
like  his  later  "  Commentaries,"  denotes  the  climax  of  his 
polemics.  In  the  dedication  he  says  that  the  seven-headed 
monster  could  not  have  been  born  either  of  God  or  of 
Nature,  since  neither  God  nor  Nature  was  capable  of  such 
an  abortion  ;  rather,  it  must  be  an  offspring  of  the  evil  one, 
who  had  deceived  man  and  worked  him  harm,  in  Paradise 
under  the  guise  of  a  serpent,  and,  often  later,  under  the  form 

1  See  above,  p.  258. 

2  "  Z.  f.  preuss.  Gesch.,"  5,  p.  481. 

3  "  Septiceps    Lutherus,    ubique    sibi    suis    scriptis    contrarius,    in 
visitationem  Saxonicam  editus,"  Dresdse,  1529  ;  in  part  repeated  in  the 
"  Commentaria,"  1549,  F.  196  C, 


382          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

of  fauns,  satyrs,  Sileni  and  various  enchantments.  In 
Africa,  according  to  the  ancients,  there  had  been  a  dragon 
with  three  or  four  heads,  and  Geryon,  whom  Hercules  slew, 
had  also  had  three  heads.  But  a  monster  with  seven  heads, 
such  as  was  Luther  with  his  sevenfold  doctrine,  had  never 
been  ushered  into  the  world  by  any  country,  but  must  be 
a  creation  of  the  devil.  The  wicked,  perverse,  insane 
apostate  monk,  long  since  destined  to  damnation,  had  no 
scruple  in  deceiving  and  assailing  every  upright  man  with 
lies,  mockery,  blasphemy  and  every  kind  of  nastiness,  or  in 
pouring  forth  seditious  falsehoods  and  insults  like  an 
infuriated  lioness.  The  seven-headed  hoodman,  or  hooded 
dragon,  was  causing  all  too  much  confusion  in  Germany 
with  his  seven  heads  and  was  polluting  it  all  with  his  deadly 
poison.  King  Saul,  he  continues,  had  sinned  in  not  rooting 
out  the  people  of  Amalek.  But  to  whom  did  the  name  of 
Amalek  apply  more  aptly  than  to  the  Lutherans  ?  For 
Amalek's  was  a  bestial  nation,  living  bestially  according  to 
the  flesh,  just  as  the  Lutherans — particularly  their  idol,  viz. 
this  monk  with  his  nun — were  now  doing.  In  this  mad  devil's 
minister  not  one  crumb  of  any  kind  of  virtue  remained,  etc.1 
Apart  from  his  too  rhetorical  and  acrimonious  tone  other 
unsympathetic  features  met  with  in  Cochlseus  are  his 
frequent  petitions  to  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  in 
Germany  and  even  in  Rome,  for  material  assistance  ;  his 
complaints  that  he  was  not  taken  seriously  enough  ;  his 
too  great  eagerness,  during  the  first  years  of  the  struggle, 
to  hold  a  disputation  with  Luther  ;  too  much  pushfulness 
and  sometimes  a  certain  credulity,  not  to  speak  of  occasional 
lapses  into  a  frivolity  which,  like  his  rhetoric,  recalls  the 
more  blatant  faults  of  Humanism  and  ill  beseemed  a  man 
anxious  to  censure  the  morals  of  his  opponents.  He  deemed 
it  right  and  proper,  for  instance,  to  write  under  an  assumed 
name  a  work  against  the  Reformers'  wives  and  matrimonial 
relationships,  where,  in  colloquial  form  and  in  a  manner 
highly  offensive,  he  introduces  much  that  was  mere  tittle- 
tattle  and  quite  without  foundation.  His  authorship  of  this 
"  Private  Conversation  "  has  been  proved  up  to  the  hilt  in 
recent  times.2 

1  Cp.  ibid.,  F.  Ill'  seq.  :    "  Non  ex  Deo  sed  ex  diabolo  esse  tantam  in 
doctrina    dissensionem.  .  .  .  Cucullatus    draco    iste    nostcr,"    etc. — M. 
Spahn,  "  Job.  Cochlaus,"  Berlin,  1898. 

2  N.  Paulus,  "  Katholik,"  1894,  2,  p.  571  ff. 


THE  GERMAN  DOMINICANS        383 

Among  the  ranks  of  the  opponents  of  Lutheranism  Johann 
Faber  and  Frederick  Nausea,  both  of  them  bishops  of 
Vienna,  hold  a  high  place.  The  efforts  of  these  two  theo 
logians  to  elucidate  controverted  points  and  to  refute 
Luther  were  much  appreciated  in  the  Catholic  circles  of 
that  day. 

In  the  more  popular  field  quite  a  number  of  good  speakers 
and  writers  belonging  to  various  Religious  Orders,  par 
ticularly  the  German  Dominicans,  distinguished  themselves 
for  their  zeal  in  the  campaign  against  Lutheranism.  Johann 
Mensing,  who  became  a  licentiate  at  Wittenberg  in  1517 
and  was  Luther's  best-hated  opponent,  was  a  member  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Dominic  ;  so  also  was  Augustine  von  Getelen, 
of  whose  sermons  the  Lutheran  preacher  Martin  Under- 
mark  admitted,  that,  "  with  his  tongue  he  was  able  to  sway 
the  people  as  he  pleased  "  ;l  Matthias  Sittardus,  Johann 
Dietenbcrger  and  Ambrosius  Pelargus  were  also  all  Domini 
cans,  nor  did  they  confine  themselves  to  preaching,  but 
were  all  of  them  authors  of  publications  suited  to  the  times. 
Michael  Vehe,  another  Dominican,  was  renowned  for  his 
ability  to  wield  the  pen  in  German  not  less  than  for  his 
Latin  discourses  from  the  pulpit.  His  brother  friar,  Johann 
Fabri,  earned  praise  as  a  preacher  and  as  a  clever  popular 
writer.  The  Protestant  preacher  H.  Rocholl  wrote  of 
him  :  "  The  turn  of  what  he  writes  gives  proof  of  great 
eloquence  and  his  language  is  oratorically  fine ;  his  exhor 
tations  are  also  from  an  homiletic  point  of  view  quite 
excellent."2  Antonius  Pirata  of  the  Dominican  friary  at 
Constance  received  the  following  encomium  from  Erasmus 
in  a  letter  to  Laurinus  :  "  He  is  a  respected  man  of 
good  morals  and  profound  learning,  who  displays  in  his 
sermons  an  eloquence  truly  wonderful."3  Conrad  Kollin 
and  Jacob  Hoogstraaten  also  adorned  the  Dominican  Order 
in  Germany  at  that  time  with  their  learning,  though  their 
interest  lay  more  in  scholastic  theology  than  in  popular 
works. 

All  the  above  belonged  to  the  German  province  of  a  single 
Order,  and,  altogether,  quite  thirty  Dominicans  might  be 
enumerated  who  engaged  in  controversy  with  Luther. 
Amongst  the  polemists  hailing  from  other  Orders  and 

1  N.  Paulus,  "  Die  deutschen  Dominikaner,"  etc.,  p.  78, 

2  Ibid.,  p.  258.  3  Ibid.,  p.  315. 


384          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

deserving  honourable  mention  was  the  zealous  and  scholarly 
Franciscan  Caspar  Schatzgeyer,  also  another  Franciscan, 
Thomas  Murner,  to  whom  we  shall  return  immediately,  the 
Augustinian  Johann  Hoffmeister  and  the  Carmelite  Eber- 
hard  Billick.1 

The  reason  that  the  old  Orders,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Dominicans,  did  not  furnish  more  controversialists  was 
in  great  part  due  to  the  disastrous  effect  of  the  apostasy 
on  their  houses.  Many  of  their  subjects,  deluded  by 
Lutheranism,  forsook  their  cells,  and  those  who  remained 
were  frequently  exposed  to  severe  persecution.  Many 
monasteries  were  not  only  deprived  of  their  means  of 
subsistence,  but,  owing  to  the  new  spirit  of  the  age  and  the 
material  difficulties  of  the  monastic  life,  the  supply  of 
novices  began  to  run  short. 

During  this  period  of  the  German  Church's  distress  the 
secular  clergy  were  not  behindhand  in  furnishing  tried 
combatants,  though  the  influence  of  the  new  ideas  and  the 
decline  in  morals,  particularly  during  the  preceding  thirty 
or  forty  years,  had  brought  ecclesiastical  life  and  learning 
to  an  even  lower  level  than  before.  There  were,  however, 
still  some  cheering  examples  to  be  met  with.  Conspicuous 
amongst  the  veterans  who  opposed  Luther's  teaching  and 
innovations,  were,  in  addition  to  those  already  mentioned, 
Michael  Helding,  auxiliary  bishop  and  preacher  at  Mayence 
(later  bishop  of  Merseburg),  and  Conrad  Wimpina  of  Leipzig 
and  Frankfurt-on-the-Oder,  the  author  of  a  good  Latin 
collection  of  works  against  Luther  entitled  "  On  the  sects  and 
errors,"  etc.  (1528). 2  The  Lutheran  cause  suffered  con 
siderably  at  the  hands  of  these  writers. 

Thomas  Murner,  the  famous  Alsatian  preacher  and  writer, 
a  new  Sebastian  Brant  even  mightier  than  the  former, 
entered  the  lists  against  Luther  and  made  full  use  of  the 
satirical  style  he  had  cultivated  even  earlier.  Even  Protes 
tants  have  admitted  his  principal  work  against  Luther 
(1522)  to  be  a  highly  incisive  and  significant  production, 
whilst  a  recent  editor  of  his  works  describes  him  as  the 
most  weighty  of  Luther's  literary  opponents  in  Germany.3 

1  N.    Paulus,    "Schatzgeyer,"    1898  ;      "Hoffmeister,"    1891;     A. 
Postina,  "Billick,"  1901. 

2  J.  Negwer,  "  Conrad  Wimpina,"  Breslau,  1909  (in  "  KG1.  Abh." 

3  Karl    Goedeke,    Introd.    to    his    edition    of    Murner's    "  Narren- 
beschworung,"  Leipzig,  1879.    Janssen,  "  Hist,  of  the  German  People  " 
(Engl.  Trans.),  11,  p.  333. 


PIERRE    FAVRE  385 

There  is  certainly  no  question  of  his  "  wanton,  cheerful, 
nay,  bacchantic  humour,"  and  of  his  wealth  of  caustic  irony  ; 
he  enters  into  Luther's  arguments  and  proofs,  and  refutes 
them,  more  particularly  those  taken  from  the  Bible.  Murner 
speaks  a  very  simple  and  pithy  language,  though  not  loath 
to  have  recourse  occasionally  to  coarse  words,  of  which  an 
example  has  been  given  above  (p.  376).  Luther  paid  him 
out  by  "  amusing  his  readers  with  an  account  of  the  lice  on 
Murner's  cowl,  and  by  circulating  a  lampoon  alleged  to  have 
been  sent  him  from  the  Rhine,  but,  at  any  rate,  printed  at 
Luther's  own  instance."1 

Not  one  of  those  who  took  the  field  against  Luther  and 
pitted  their  strength  against  his  was  really  a  match  for  him 
in  energy,  in  ability  to  handle  the  language,  in  wealth  of 
fancy  or  in  power  over  the  people.  To  every  clear-sighted 
observer  it  must  have  been  apparent  that  truth  and  logic 
were  on  the  side  of  the  Catholic  controversialists,  but, 
unfortunately,  not  one  of  them  was  able  to  rival  in  effective 
ness  the  writings  of  the  Wittenberg  Professor. 

Here  and  there,  in  certain  ruder  passages,  we  can  easily 
see  how  his  opponents  are  clumsily  endeavouring  to  retort 
upon  their  readier  and  more  inventive  foe  in  language 
almost  identical  with  his  own.  Luther,  however,  stands 
alone  in  the  originality  of  his  abuse.  But  if  his  adversaries, 
as  was  too  often  the  case,  overstepped  the  bounds  of  modera 
tion  of  language,  we  must  bear  in  mind  their  pain  and 
indignation  at  the  unspeakable  injustice  done  to  the  Church 
of  their  fathers.  In  those  rude  encounters  people  were  only 
too  apt  to  forget  that,  according  to  Christ's  command, 
charity  must  be  displayed  even  towards  those  who  err. 
Yet  the  Church  had  received  as  part  of  her  heirloom  the 
injunction  set  by  her  Founder  against  the  practice  of  the 
Jewish  synagogue  and  its  saying,  "  Hate  thy  enemy " 
(Mt.  v.  42).  "  But  I  say  to  you  :  Love  your  enemies,  do 
good  to  them  that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  that  persecute 
and  calumniate  you." 

It  was  on  principles  such  as  these  that,  for  all  his  glowing 
zeal  for  the  glory  of  God,  Bl.  Pierre  Favre  (Faber)  acted, 
that  gentle  and  enlightened  preacher  of  the  true  Catholic 
reformation,  who,  since  1540,  had  been  labouring  in  the 

1  Goedeke,  ibid. 
IV. — 2   C 


386         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

dioceses  of  Spires,  of  Maycnce  and  of  Cologne.  It  was  on 
these  principles  that  he  formed  his  gifted  pupil  131.  Peter 
Canisius,  the  first  German  Jesuit,  who  completed  the 
Exercises  under  him  at  Mayence,  and,  three  years  before 
Luther's  death,  on  May  8,  1543,  joined  the  Society  which 
had  now  been  approved  by  the  Church.  Of  the  followers  of  the 
the  new  religion,  Favre  expresses  himself  as  follows  :  "  May 
Jesus  Christ,  the  Saviour  of  all  men,  Who  knows  that  His 
written  Word  does  not  suffice  to  touch  the  human  mind, 
soften  and  move  their  hearts  by  His  divine  Grace."  "  No 
other  arguments  promote  their  conversion  better  than  good 
works  and  self-sacrifice,  even  to  laying  down  one's  life."1 
"  I  never  cease  grieving,"  so  he  wrote  to  Ignatius,  the 
General  of  the  Order,  "  at  the  fall  of  the  noble  German 
nation,  once  the  incomparable  pearl  of  the  Church  and  the 
glory  of  Christendom."  Through  the  head  of  the  Society 
he  sought  to  convince  its  members  that  his  own  way  of 
dealing  with  the  apostasy  was  the  best.  "  Those  who  wish 
to  be  of  service  to  the  false  teachers  of  to-day,"  he  writes, 
"  must  above  all  be  distinguished  by  charity  and  real  esteem 
for  their  opponents,  and  banish  from  their  minds  every 
thought  that  might  in  any  way  lessen  their  regard  for 
them."2 

When  Pierre  Favre  set  about  his  work  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  German  Church,  Luther  was  already  at  the  hey 
day  of  his  success.  Favre  accompanied  the  Spanish 
ambassador  Ortiz  to  the  religious  Conference  at  Worms 
in  1540,  and  to  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon  in  1541.  Those  two 
years  bore  convincing  witness  to  the  fact,  that  the  progress 
of  the  innovations  could  no  longer  be  checked  by  the 
authority  either  of  Church  or  State. 

But,  before  proceeding  to  examine  Luther's  work  at  its 
zenith,  we  must  scrutinise  his  doctrine  a  little  more  closely. 

1  "  Memoriale    B.    Petri    Faber,"    ed.    Marc.    Bouix,    Paris,    1873, 
pp.  378,  370 

2  Dan.  Bartoli,   "  Opere,"  5,  Torino,   1825,  pp.   110,   116.     Cp.  B. 
Duhr,  "  Gesch.  der  Jesuiten,"  etc.,  1,  1907,  3  ff.    Not  all  the  members 
of  the  Order  to  which  Favre  and  Canisius  belonged  were  faithful  to 
Favre's  principles  in  the  controversy  against  Luther  and  his  teaching, 
particularly  during  the  excited  polemics  of  the  1 7th  century.    Many,  at 
their  own  costs,  disregarded  those  laws  of  urbanity  which  Bellarmine, 
for  instance,  ever  respected  in  his  controversial  writings.     Such  was 
the  case,  for  instance,  with  Conrad  Vetter,  f  1622  (K.  A.  J.  Andreas). 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 

THE    NEW    DOGMAS    IN    AN    HISTORICAL   AND    PSYCHOLOGICAL 

LIGHT 

1.  The  Bible  text  and  the  Spirit  as  the  "  True  Tests 

of  Doctrine  " 

LUTHER'S  theological  opinions  present  an  attractive  field 
to  the  psychologist  desirous  of  studying  his  character.  They 
are  in  great  part,  as  has  been  several  times  shown,  the 
result  of  his  experiences,  inward  or  outward,  and  appear 
peculiarly  suited  to  meet  his  own  case.  Hence  an  examina 
tion  of  his  doctrines  will  be  of  great  value,  particularly 
towards  an  understanding  of  his  inner  history. 

The  specifically  Lutheran  doctrine  of  the  Bible  as  sole 
judge  in  matters  of  faith,  i.e.  the  old,  so-called  "  formal 
principle  "  of  Protestantism,  deserves  to  be  considered  first, 
though,  in  point  of  time,  it  was  not  the  first  to  be  reached 
by  Luther.  Actually  it  was  first  broached  by  the  author 
of  the  schism  only  when  the  opposition  between  his  newly 
discovered  views  and  the  Church's  teaching  determined  him 
to  set  aside  both  her  claim  to  act  as  judge,  and  all  other 
outward  authority  on  doctrine.  Refusing  to  be  bound  by 
the  Church,  in  place  of  the  teaching  office  with  its  gift  of 
infallibility,  which,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  ancient 
Church,  guards  the  treasure  of  revelation  and  therefore 
also  decides  on  the  sense  of  Holy  Scripture,  Luther  set  up 
as  supreme  arbiter  the  letter  of  the  Bible.  From  this 
source,  so  he  teaches,  the  faithful  draw  the  doctrines  of  the 
faith,  each  one  according  to  his  ability  and  enlightenment. 

The  interpretation  of  the  Sacred  Books,  in  his  view,  takes 
place  under  the  illumination  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  such 
an  illumination  he  claimed  first  and  foremost  for  himself. 
"  Any  believer  who  has  better  grounds  and  authority  from 
Scripture  on  his  side,  is  more  to  be  believed  than  the  Pope 
or  a  whole  Council."1 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  404  ;  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  3,  p.  247.  He 
refers  to  Panormitanus,  "  De  elect.,"  c.  Siptnificasti. 

387 


388          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Liberty  for  the  Examination  of  Scripture  and  Luther's 
Autonomy. 

Luther  only  gradually  reached  his  teaching  concerning 
the  supremacy  of  Holy  Scripture. 

His  examination  at  Augsburg  drew  forth  from  him  his  first 
statements  on  this  subject.  In  the  postscript  to  his  own  report 
of  the  interview  he  places  Holy  Scripture  first  amongst  the  theo 
logical  sources,  adding  that  it  was  merely  being  corrupted  by  the 
so-called  sacred  Decrees  of  the  Church  j1  in  his  appeal  to  the 
Council  he  also  places  the  Bible  and  its  decision  (i.e.  his  interpreta 
tion)  above  the  Pope.  Even  then,  however,  he  admitted  the 
authority  of  the  Council  side  by  side  with  that  of  the  Bible  only 
in  so  far  as  he  confidently  looked  to  the  Council  for  a  decision  in 
his  favour.  The  fact  that  about  this  time  he  fancied  he  could 
descry  Antichrist  in  the  Pope  reveals  at  once  the  wide  gulf  he 
was  about  to  create  between  all  ecclesiastical  authority  and 
Scripture  privately  interpreted. — Without  having  as  yet  formally 
proclaimed  the  new  principle  on  Holy  Scripture,  he  nevertheless 
declared  at  the  Leipzig  Disputation,  that  Scripture  ranked 
above  a  Council,2  and  that  (Ecumenical  Councils  had  already 
erred  in  matters  of  faith.  Only  when  driven  into  a  corner  by  his 
defence  of  the  heresy  of  Hus,  and  after  fruitless  evasions,  were 
these  admissions  wrung  from  him  by  Eck.  Any  light  thus  thrown 
on  the  matter  by  the  Catholic  speaker  was,  however,  at  once 
obscured  by  the  following  ambiguous  clause  added  by  Luther  : 
"  Councils  have  erred,  and  may  err,  particularly  on  points  which 
do  not  appertain  to  faith."3 

Immediately  after  the  Leipzig  Disputation,  in  a  letter 
addressed  by  himself  and  Carlstadt  to  the  Elector,  Luther  lays 
it  down  that  "  a  layman  with  the  Scripture  on  his  side  is  more 
to  be  believed  in  than  the  Pope  and  a  Council  without  Scrip 
ture.4  Then,  in  the  "  Resolutiones  super  propositionibus  Lipsice 
disputatis,"  he  gives  utterance  to  an  assertion  behind  which  he 
seeks  to  shelter  his  views  :  "  Faith  does  not  originate  in  authority 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  18  ff.  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  2,  p.  385  seq. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  288  =  p.  75. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  303  =  p.  97  seq.  :   "  Concilium  aliquando  errasse,  prcesertim 
in  Us  quce  non  sunt  fidei."       Cp.  the  following  :    "  conciliorum  statida  in 
Us  quce  sunt  fidei,  sunt  omnimodo  ampleclenda.'" 

4  Letter  of  Aug.  18,  1519,  "  Briefe,"  ],  p.  315  ;    "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed., 
53,  p.  19  ("  Briefwechsel,"  2,  p.  12).    At  Worms  in  1521  he  had  declared 
in  this  same  sense,  that  he  would  not  submit,   "  nisi  convictus  Juero 
testimoniis  scripturarum  aut  ratione  evidente  ;    nam  neque  papce  neque 
conciliis  solis  credo,  cum  constet  eos  et  errasse  scepius  et  sibi  ipsis  contra- 
dixisse  ;  victus  sum  scripturis  a  me  adductis  et  capta  conscientia  in  verbis 
Dei."     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  883  ;    cp.  p.  853. — He  writes  em 
phatically  in  reply  to   King  Henry  VIII   (see  p.    391):     "  Ego  vero 
adversus    dicta    patrum,    hominum,    angelorum,    dcemonum    pono    non 
antiquum    usum,    non    multitudinem    hominum,    sed    unius    maiestatis 
ceternce     verbum,     evangelium.  .  .  .  Dei     verbum     cst    super    omnia." 
"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  214  f.  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  437. 


BIBLE   TEXT   AND  THE   SPIRIT    389 

but  is  produced  in  the  heart  only  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  though  man 
is  indeed  moved  to  faith  by  word  and  example."1 

Yet,  as  though  he  himself  wished  to  demonstrate  the  perils  his 
new  principle  involved,  not  merely  for  the  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  but  even  for  the  integrity  of  the  Sacred  Books,  he  makes 
in  the  very  same  writing,  on  ostensibly  intrinsic  grounds,  his 
famous  onslaught  on  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  which  had  been 
urged  against  him.  Because  this  canonical  Epistle  tells  against 
his  doctrine  of  Justification,  he  will  have  it  that,  "  its  style  is 
far  beneath  the  dignity  of  an  Apostle  and  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  that  of  Paul."2  Already  at  the  Leipzig  Disputation  he  had 
attacked  the  second  Book  of  the  Machabees,  which  did  not  suit 
his  views,  again  for  intrinsic  reasons  and  because  it  ran  counter 
to  true  doctrine  ;  the  Church  had  indeed  admitted  it  into  the 
Canon,  but  "  she  could  not  raise  the  status  of  a  book  nor  impart 
to  it  a  higher  value  than  it  actually  possessed."3 

From  that  time  forward  Luther  gives  the  most  varied  ex 
pression  to  the  principle  of  the  free  interpretation  of  Scrip 
ture  :  He  declares,  that  the  Bible  may  be  interpreted  by 
everyone,  even  by  the  "  humble  miller's  maid,  nay,  by  a  child 
of  nine  if  it  has  the  faith."4  "  The  sheep  must  judge  whether 
the  pastors  teach  in  Christ's  own  tone."5  "  Christ  alone, 
and  none  other  than  the  Crucified,  do  we  acknowledge  as 
our  Master.  Paul  will  not  have  us  believe  him  or  an  angel 
(Gal.  i.  8,  12)  unless  Christ  lives  and  speaks  in  him."  He  is 
at  pains  to  inform  "  the  senseless  Sophists,  the  unlearned 
bishops,  monks  and  priests,  the  Pope  and  all  his  Gomorrhas  " 
that  we  were  baptised,  not  in  the  name  of  any  Father  of  the 
Church,  "  but  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ."6 

"  That  a  Christian  assembly  or  congregation  has  the  right 
and  the  power  to  judge  of  doctrine  and  to  appoint  and 
dismiss  preachers  "  is  the  title  of  one  of  Luther's  writings  of 
1523.7  Later  we  meet  the  downright  declaration  :  "  Neither 
Church,  nor  Fathers,  nor  Apostles,  nor  angels  are  to  be 
listened  to  except  so  far  as  they  teach  the  pure  WTord  of 
God  ('  nisi  afferant  et  doceant  purum  verbum  Dei  ')."8 

In  his  bias  against  his  foes  he  does  not  pause  to  consider 
that  the  very  point  at  issue  is  to  discern  what  the  "  pure 
Word  of  God  "  is,  for,  where  it  exists,  any  opposition  on  the 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  429  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  3,  p.  287. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  425  =  p.  278.  3  Ibid.,  p.  324  =  p.  131. 
"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  3,  p.  359  ;    Erl.  ed.,  162,  p.  446. 
Ibid.,  11,  p.  409  =  22,  p.  143. 

Ibid.,  8,  p.  484  f.  =  28,  p.  32. 

Ibid,,  11,  p.  408  ff.  =  22,  p.  141  ff. 

In  his  "  Com.  in  Ep.  ad.  Galatas,"  1.  p.  104. 


390         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

part  of  "  Church,  Fathers  and  Apostles  "  is  surely  in 
conceivable.  It  is  merely  an  echo  of  his  early  mystic  theories 
when,  in  a  dreamy  sort  of  way,  he  hints,  that  the  pure 
Word  manifests  itself  to  each  believer  and  reveals  itself  to 
the  world  without  the  intervention  of  any  outward  authority. 
It  was  clearly  mere  prejudice  in  his  own  favour  which  led 
him  to  be  ruled  by  the  one  idea  that  the  "  pure  Word  of  God  " 
was  to  be  found  nowhere  but  in  his  own  reading  of  the  Bible. 

How  greatly  he  allowed  himself  to  be  deceived  by  such 
fancies  is  already  apparent  in  Luther's  earliest  known 
statements  on  Scripture  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  public 
controversy.  His  devotion  to  Biblical  study  from  his  youth, 
and  the  academic  laurels  he  had  won  in  this  branch  of 
learning,  led  him,  consciously  or  not,  to  find  in  himself  an 
embodiment  of  Holy  Scripture.  Only  in  this  way  can  we 
explain  his  strange  language  concerning  the  Bible  in  his 
"  Eyn  Freiheyt  dess  Sermons  "  against  Tetzel.  Here,  at 
the  very  commencement,  instead  of  setting  quietly  about 
his  task,  which  \vas  to  defend  his  new  interpretation 
against  the  tradition,  objected  by  his  opponent,  he  sings 
a  paean  in  praise  of  the  unassailable  Divine  Word.  "  All 
who  blaspheme  Scripture  with  their  false  glosses,"  he 
writes,  "  shall  perish  by  their  own  sword,  like  Goliath 
(1  Kings  xvii.  51).  .  .  .  Christ's  doctrine  is  His  Divine 
Word.  Whence  it  is  forbidden,  not  only  to  this  blas 
phemer  [Tetzel],  but  to  any  angel  in  heaven,  to  change 
one  letter  of  it.  For  it  is  written  :  '  God  does  not  deny 
what  He  has  once  said,'  Job  xiii.  [xiv.],  and  in  the 
Psalter  [cxviii.  89] :  '  For  ever,  O  Lord,  Thy  word  standeth 
firm.'  Not  a  jot  or  tittle  of  the  most  insignificant  letter  of 
the  law  of  God  shall  pass;  everything  must  be  fulfilled."1 
Here  Tetzel  becomes  a  rude  ass,  "  who  brays  at  Luther," 
reminding  the  latter  of  a  "  sow  "  that  defiles  the  venerable 
Scripture.2 

How  uncalled  for  his  emphatic  words  quoted  above  on 
the  value  of  the  Bible  really  were  can  be  more  readily 
perceived  now  from  a  distance  ;  for  his  opponents'  esteem 
and  that  of  the  Church  generally  for  the  Word  of  God  was 
certainly  not  behind  his,  whilst  the  Church  provided  a 
safeguard  for  Holy  Scripture  which  Luther  was  unwilling 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  383  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  11. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  385  =  13. 


BIBLE   TEXT  AND  THE   SPIRIT    391 

to  admit.  But  in  those  days,  in  the  midst  of  the  struggle, 
such  praises  showered  by  Luther  on  Holy  Writ  served  to 
make  people  think — not  at  all  to  his  disadvantage — that  he 
was  the  herald  and  champion  of  the  Bible,  which  the  Popish 
Church  did  not  reckon  at  its  true  worth,  whereas,  all  the 
while,  he  should  have  been  striving  to  show  that  his  con 
tentions  really  had  the  support  of  Scripture.  Even  later 
his  misleading  cry  was  ever  :  Back  to  the  sacred  strong 
hold  of  the  Bible  !  Back  to  the  "  true,  pure  and  undefiled 
Word  of  God  !  " 

"  Thy  Word  is  the  Truth  "  was  his  habitual  battle-shout, 
though  about  this  there  had  never  been  the  least  dispute. 

"  Against  all  the  sayings  of  the  Fathers,"  he  says  in  1522 
in  his  reply  to  King  Henry  VIII,  "  against  all  the  arts  and 
words  of  angels,  men  and  devils  I  set  the  Scriptures  and 
the  Gospel.  .  .  .  Here  I  stand  and  here  I  defy  them.  .  .  . 
The  Word  of  God  I  count  above  all  else  and  the  Divine 
Majesty  supports  me  ;  hence  I  should  not  turn  a  hair 
were  a  thousand  Augustines  against  me,  and  am  certain 
that  the  true  Church  adheres  with  me  to  God's  Word." 
"  Here  Harry  of  England  must  hold  his  tongue."  Harry 
would  see  how  Luther  "  stood  upon  his  rock "  and  that 
he,  Harry,  "  twaddled  "  like  a  "  silly  fool."1 

Experience  given  by  the  Spirit. 

The  "  rock "  on  which  Luther's  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  rests  is  a  certain  inward  feeling  and  perception  by  the 
individual  of  the  Bible's  teaching. 

In  the  last  resort  it  is  on  an  inward  experience  of  having 
been  taught  by  the  Spirit  the  truth  and  meaning  of  the 
Divine  words  that  the  Christian  must  firmly  take  his  stand. 
Just  as  Luther  believed  himself  to  have  passed  through 
such  an  experience,  so,  according  to  him,  all  others  must 
first  reach  it  and  then  make  it  their  starting-point. 

This  is  the  Spirit  from  on  High  that  co-operates  with  the 
Word  of  Scripture. 

"  Each  man  must  believe  solely  because  it  is  the  Word  of  God 
and  because  he  feels  within  that  it  is  true,  even  though  an  angel 
from  heaven  and  all  the  world  should  preach  against  it."2  We 
must  not  regard  the  "  opinion  of  all  Christendom  "  but  "  each 

1  Ibid.,  10,  2,  p.  256  f.  =  28,  p.  379  f. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  90  =  340.     "  Von  Menschen  leren  tzu  meyden,"  1522. 


392         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

one  for  himself  alone  "  must  believe  the  Scriptures.1  "  The  Word 
itself  must  content  the  heart  and  embrace  and  seize  a  man  and, 
as  it  were,  hold  him  captive  till  he  feels  how  true  and  right  it  is." 

"  Hence  every  Christian  can  learn  the  truth  from  Scripture," 
so  a  present-day  Protestant  theologian  describes  Luther's  then 
teaching  ;2  "he  is  bound  by  no  human  school  of  interpretation, 
but  the  plain  sense  of  Scripture  and  the  experience  of  his  heart 
suffice."  He  adds  :  "  This  might  of  course  draw  down  upon 
Luther  the  charge  of  subjectivism."  "  What  Luther  said  of  the 
'  whisper  '  of  the  word  of  forgiveness  is  well  known.  Thus 
[according  to  Luther]  God  can,  when  necessary,  work  without 
the  use  of  any  means."  Thanks  to  the  "whisper"  the  Bible 
becomes  a  sure  guide,  "  for  [according  to  him]  the  Holy  Ghost 
always  works  in  the  heart  the  selfsame  truth."  "  From  the 
peculiar  religious  standpoint  of  his  own  experience  of  salvation," 
Luther,  so  the  same  theologian  admits,  determined  his  "  atti 
tude  towards  Scripture."  In  this  we  have  one  of  the  results  of 
his  "  personal  experience." 

"  How  it  comes  to  pass,"  says  Luther,  "  that  Christ  thus  enters 
the  heart  you  cannot  tell  ;  but  your  heart  feels  plainly,  by  the 
experience  of  faith,  that  He  is  there  indeed."3  "  When  the  Holy 
Ghost  performs  His  office  then  it  proceeds."4  "No  one  can 
rightly  understand  God  or  the  Word  of  God  unless  he  receives  it 
directly  from  the  Holy  Ghost." 

When  his  friend  Carlstadt,  together  with  whom  Luther 
had  at  first  insisted  on  Scripture  only,  later  struck  out  a 
path  of  his  own  in  doctrine  and  ecclesiastical  practice  while 
continuing  to  appeal  to  Scripture  and  to  his  own  enlighten 
ment,  even  the  controversy  with  him  and  the  "  fanatics  " 
failed  to  make  Luther  relinquish  in  theory  his  standpoint 
concerning  the  Bible  and  the  Spirit  as  the  one  source  and 
rule  of  faith.  He  became,  however,  more  cautious  in 
formulating  it  and  endeavoured  at  least  to  leave  a  back  door 
open.  He  was  less  insistent  in  his  assertion  that  the  Spirit 
instructed,  by  the  inward  Word,  each  one  who  read  the 

1  Ibid.,  p.  90  =  341.     See  below,  Luther's  denial  of  the  Augustinian 
"  Non  crederem  evangclio,"  etc. 

2  Otto  Scheel,  "  Luthers  Stellung  zur  Heiligen  Schrift,"  Tubingen, 
1902  ("  Sammlung  gemeinverstandl.  Vortrage  und  Schriften  aus  dem 
Gebiet  der  Theol.  und  RG.,"  No.  29),  p.  38  (on  p.  37  the  last  quotation 
is  also  given  with  an  incorrect  reference)  and  p.  41  f. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  19,  p.  489  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29.  p.  334.     "  Sermon 
von  dem  Sacrament,"  1526. 

4  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  565  :    "Quod  est  eius  opus?     Quod 
drive  into  the  heart  prcedicationem  Christi,  qui  non  fails.     Christ  failed, 
quia  multis  prcedicaverit  et  nihil  effecit  ;    Spiritus  sanctus  presses  the 
word  in  cor.   .   .   .  Si  etiam  a  hundred  thousand  verbum  prcedicatur, 
nihil  facit  ;   cum  Spiritus  sanctus  hoc  suum  officium  facit,  turn  it  makes 
its  way." 


BIBLE   TEXT   AND   THE  SPIRIT    393 

Scriptures  ;  so  much  the  more  did  he  emphasise  the  sup 
posed  "  clearness  of  the  outward  Word,"  viz.  the  Bible,  and 
deprecate  any  wanton  treatment  of  it  (by  anyone  save  him 
self)  ;  at  the  same  time  he  began  to  lay  stress  on  the  out 
ward  side  of  the  Church,  on  the  preaching  office  and  the 
administration  of  the  Sacraments.1  The  fanatics  he  reproves 
for  "  merely  gaping  at  the  Spirit  in  their  hearts,"  whereas 
the  outward  articles  must  necessarily  precede  this.2  At 
times  what  he  says  almost  looks  like  a  repudiation  of  his 
earlier  theory  of  enlightenment  through  the  Spirit ;  for 
instance,  when  he  describes  how  the  fanatics  wait  "  till  the 
heavenly  voice  comes  and  God  speaks  to  them."3  Now,  the 
outward  Word  of  the  Gospel,  proclaimed  by  men  truly 
"  called,"  is  to  be  the  guiding  star  amidst  the  mischief 
wrought  by  the  sectarians  ;  this  outward  Word,  so  he  now 
fancies,  will  surely  avail  to  decide  every  issue,  seeing  that  it 
is  so  clear  ;  only  by  dint  of  juggling  could  the  sense  of  the 
Bible,  as  manifest  in  the  outward  Word,  be  distorted  ; 
looked  at  fairly  it  at  once  settled  every  question — needless 
to  say  in  Luther's  favour  ;  to  understand  it,  all  that  was 
needed  was  the  "  natural  language,"  the  "  Lady  Empress 
who  far  excels  all  subtle  inventions."4 

As  to  the  alleged  clearness  of  the  word  of  Scripture  it  is 
sufficient  to  recall  that  he  himself  indirectly  challenged  it 
by  accusing  the  whole  Church  of  having  misunderstood  the 
Bible,  and  to  consider  the  abyss  that  separated  his  interpre 
tation,  even  of  the  most  vital  texts,  from  that  of  the 
scholars  of  the  past.  "  Though  we  had  the  Bible  and  read 
it,"  he  says,  "yet  we  understood  nothing  of  it."5 — Never 
theless  he  fancied  he  could  save  his  theory  by  appealing  to 
the  clearness  of  the  text  and  the  assistance  rendered  by  a 
knowledge  of  languages.  "  St.  Paul  wills  "  (1  Cor.  xiv.  29), 
so  Luther  says,  in  a  writing  on  the  schools,  "  that  Christians 
should  judge  all  doctrine,  though  for  this  we  must  needs  be 
acquainted  with  the  language.  For  the  preacher  or  teacher 
may  indeed  read  the  Bible  through  and  through  as  much  as 
he  chooses,  but  he  will  sometimes  be  right  and  sometimes 

1  Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  12  fT.,  398. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  181  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  260. 
3  Ibid.,    p.    137  =  209    ("  Widder    die    hymelischen    Propheten  ")  : 
"  Do  you  see  how  the  devil,  the  enemy  of  divine  order,  opens  his  mouth 
at  you  with  the  words,  '  spirit,  spirit,  spirit  '  ?  "  etc. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  180  =  258.  6  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  50,  p.  85. 


394         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

wrong,  if  there  be  no  one  there  to  judge  whether  he  is  doing 
it  well  or  ill.  Thus  in  order  to  judge  there  must  be  skill 
or  a  knowledge  of  tongues,  otherwise  it  is  all  to  no 
purpose."1 

But  above  all,  as  he  impresses  on  the  reader  in  the  same 
tract,  he  himself  had  thrown  light  on  the  Bible  by  his  know 
ledge  of  languages ;  his  interpretation,  thanks  to  the 
"  light  "  of  the  languages,  had  effected  "  such  great  things 
that  all  the  world  marvels  and  must  confess  that  now  we 
have  the  Gospel  almost  as  pure  and  undefiled  as  the 
Apostles  had  it,  that  it  is  restored  to  its  pristine  purity,  and 
is  even  more  undefiled  than  at  the  time  of  St.  Jerome  or 
Augustine."2  His  willingness,  expressed  from  time  to  time, 
to  submit  himself  or  any  other  teacher  to  the  judgment  of 
anyone  possessed  of  greater  learning  and  a  more  profound 
spiritual  sense,  attracted  many  enlightened  minds  to  his 
party. 3 

Luther's  self-contradiction  in  speaking,  first,  of  the  great 
clearness  of  the  Bible,  and  then  of  its  great  obscurity,  cannot 
fail  to  strike  one. 

1  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  42  ;  Erl.  ed.,  22,  p.  187.    "  An  die  Radherrn 
aller '  Stedte  deutsches  Lands,  das   sie  christliche  Schulen  auffrichten 
und  halten  sollen,"  1524. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  39  =  184. 

3  At  the  German  Protestant  Congress  at  Berlin  in   1904,  Dr.  Max 
Fischer  of  Berlin  appealed  to  the  above  writing  of  Luther's  as  a  proof 
that  the  latter  had  relinquished  his  idea  of  the  Bible  being  in  the  hands 
of  each  individual  the  sole  source  of  doctrine.     "  That  this,  as  a  founda 
tion  of  all  doctrine,  is  impossible  in  Protestantism,"  he  said,  speaking 
from  his  standpoint,  "  has  long  been  admitted,  and  we  have  simply  to 
bear  in  mind  how  Protestant  theology  has  come  to  examine  freely,  not 
only  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  but  the  Bible  itself.     Theology  has  no 
rights  other  than  those  enjoyed  by  any  other  branch  of  worldly  learning." 
In  the  sequel  the  writer  declared  himself  against  the  Divinity  of  Christ 
and  any  set  system  of  doctrine.    According  to  him  particular  doctrines, 
even  those  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  were  of  no  importance.     "  He  has  all 
the    faith    required    who    makes    his    faith    for    himself."      (See    the 
report  of  the  discourse   in  the    "Koln.  Volksztng.,"    1904,  No.  834.) 
We  may  compare  this  principle  with  Luther's  own  on  freedom.     The 
same  principles  were  recently  invoked  in  the  case  of  the  Protestant 
Pastor  Jatho  of  Cologne,  when  he  was  charged  with  being  an  un 
believer.     On  his  dismissal  from  office  his  friends  declared  that   "  a 
chain  had  been  riveted  on  free  and  unbiassed  research  in  Prussian 
Protestantism,   and  that  the  official  representatives  of  Protestantism 
had  banned  that  spirit  of  personal  Christianity  which  once  had  im 
pelled  Luther  to  nail  up  his  Theses  to  the  door  of  the  Castle-church  at 
Wittenberg."     ("Koln.  Ztng.,"  1911,  No.  712;  cp.  "Koln.  Volksztng.," 
1911,   No.    545.)    During   the  trial   Jatho,   too,  had   appealed   to   his 
"  inward  experience  "  and  personal  knowledge.      ("  Koln.  Volksztng.," 
1911,  No.  592.) 


BIBLE   TEXT   AND   THE   SPIRIT    395 

"  Whoever  now  wants  to  become  a  theologian,"  he  says, 
for  instance,  "  enjoys  a  great  advantage.  For,  first,  he  has 
the  Bible  which  is  now  so  clear  that  he  can  read  it  without 
any  difficulty."  "  Should  anyone  say  that  it  is  necessary 
to  have  the  interpretation  of  the  Fathers  and  that  Scripture 
is  obscure,  you  must  reply,  that  that  is  untrue.  There  is  no 
book  on  earth  more  plainly  written  than  Holy  Scripture  ;  in 
comparison  with  all  other  books  it  is  as  the  sun  to  any  other 
light."1  Elsewhere  he  says  :  "  The  ungodly  sophists  [the 
Schoolmen]  have  asserted,  that  in  Holy  Scripture  there  is 
much  that  is  obscure  and  not  yet  clearly  explained,"  but 
according  to  him  they  were  not  able  to  bring  forward  one 
vestige  of  proof  ;  "if  the  words  are  obscure  in  one  passage, 
they  are  clear  in  another,"  and  a  comparison  makes  every 
thing  plain,  particularly  to  one  who  is  learned  in  languages.2 
—Thus  the  Bible,  according  to  a  further  statement,  is 
"  clearer,  easier  and  more  certain  than  any  other  writing."3 
"  It  is  in  itself  quite  certain,  quite  easy  and  quite  plain  ;  it 
is  its  own  explanation  ;  it  is  the  universal  argument,  judge 
and  enlightener,  and  makes  all  clear  to  all."4 

Later,  however,  the  idea  that  Holy  Scripture  was  obscure 
preponderated  with  him.  Two  days  before  his  death  Luther 
wrote  in  Latin  on  a  piece  of  paper,  which  was  subsequently 
found  on  his  table,  his  thoughts  on  the  difficulty  of  under 
standing  Scripture  :  "  No  one  can  understand  the  Bucolics 
of  Virgil  who  has  not  been  a  herdsman  for  five  years  ;  nor 
his  Georgics  unless  he  has  laboured  five  years  in  the  fields. 
In  order  to  understand  aright  the  epistles  of  Cicero  a  man 
must  have  been  full  twenty  years  in  the  public  service  of  a 
great  State.  No  one  need  fancy  he  has  tasted  Holy  Scrip 
ture  who  has  not  ruled  Churches  for  a  hundred  years  with 
prophets  like  Elias  and  Eliseus,  with  John  the  Baptist, 
Christ  and  the  Apostles."5  In  all  likelihood  his  experiences 
with  the  sectarians  in  his  own  camp  led  him  towards  the  end 
of  his  life  to  lay  more  stress  on  the  difficulty  of  understanding 
the  Bible. 

Even  with  the  "  plain,  arid  Scripture  "  and  a  clear  brain 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  236  ;   Erl.  ed.,  39,  p.  133. 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  606  =  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  7,  p.  124.     "  De 
servo  arbitrio." 

3  Ibid.,  1,  p.  317  =  24,  p.  58. 

4  Ibid.,  1,  p.  97  =  "  Opp.  lat.  var,"  5,  p.  161. 

5  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  57,  p.  16,  Table-Talk. 


396         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

it  may  easily  happen,  as  he  says,  to  a  man  to  fall  into 
danger  through  the  Bible,  by  looking  at  it  from  "  his  own 
conceit,"  as  "  through  a  painted  glass,"  and  "  seeing  no 
other  colour  than  that  of  the  glass."1  Such  people  cannot 
then  be  set  right,  but  become  "  masters  of  heresy."2  All 
heresy  seems  to  him  to  come  from  Scripture  and  to  be  based 
on  it.  There  is  no  heretic,  he  says  in  a  sermon  in  1528,  who 
does  not  appeal  to  Scripture  ;  hence  it  came  about  that 
people  called  the  Bible  a  heresy-book.3  The  "  heresy-book  " 
was  a  favourite  topic  with  him.  Two  years  earlier  he  had 
used  the  expression  twice  on  one  day,4  and  in  1525,  when 
complaining  in  a  sermon  that  the  fanatics  decked  them 
selves  out  with  Scripture,  he  said  :  "  Thus  it  is  true  wrhat 
people  say,  viz.  that  Holy  Scripture  is  a  heresy-book,  i.e.  a 
book  that  the  heretics  claim  for  themselves  ;  there  is  no 
other  book  that  they  misuse  so  much  as  this  book,  and  there 
has  never  been  a  heresy  so  bad  or  so  gross  that  it  has  not 
sheltered  itself  behind  Scripture."5  These  preachers  from 
among  the  fanatics,  he  says,  boast  of  the  voice  of  God  and 
of  the  Spirit,  but  they  were  never  sent ;  let  them  prove  by 
miracles  their  Divine  mission  !6 

Thus  he  had  retracted  nothing  of  his  strange  doctrine 
concerning  private  enlightenment ;  on  the  contrary,  when 
not  actually  dealing  with  the  sectarians,  he  still  declared 
with  that  persistence  of  which  he  was  such  a  master  and 
which  shrank  from  no  self-contradictions,  that  the  Spirit 
alone  taught  man  how  to  understand  the  Scriptures,  now 
that  man,  owing  to  original  sin,  was  quite  unable  to  grasp 
even  the  plainest  passages.  "  In  it  [the  Bible]  not  one  word 
is  of  so  small  account  as  to  allow  of  our  understanding  it 
by  reason."7  Only  by  virtue  of  the  higher  light  by  which 
he  understood  Scripture  could  a  man  "  impartially  prove 
and  judge  the  different  spirits  and  their  doctrines."  This 
he  wrote  in  his  "  De  servo  arbitrio  "  at  a  time  when  he  had 
already  engaged  upon  the  struggle  with  the  "  Heavenly 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  75  ;   Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  22. 

2  Ibid. 

3  Sermon  of  Aug.  2,  1528.     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  27.  p.  287. 

4  On  Dec.  23,  1526,  he  said  in  his  afternoon  sermon,  speaking  of  the 
sermon  that   morning  :     "  Hodie    dixi,    biblia  ease   hceresium    librum" 
"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  16,  p.  624.     And  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  notes 
contain  the  passage,  ibid.,  20,  p.  588. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  17,  1,  p.  362.          «  Ibid.,  p.  360. 
7  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  152,  p.  144. 


BIBLE   TEXT   AND    THE   SPIRIT    397 

Prophets."1  And  to  these  principles  he  remained  faithful 
till  death  without,  however,  as  a  Protestant  scholar 
repeatedly  points  out  of  the  several  sides  of  Luther's 
theology,  "  explaining  more  clearly  "  their  relation  to  the 
difficulties  involved. 

Concerning  the  inward  Word  or  the  enlightenment  by  the 
Spirit  some  words  of  Luther's  in  1531  may  be  given  here. 

In  that  year  he  preached  on  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  He  dwelt 
at  some  length  on  his  favourite  passage  :  "  Whoever  believeth 
in  Me  hath  everlasting  life,"  and  its  context.  Here,  speaking 
repeatedly  of  the  outward  and  the  inward  Word,  he  insists 
especially  on  the  former  and  particularly  on  the  hearing  of 
sermons  with  faith,  though  so  far  was  he  from  relinquishing  the 
inward  Word  that  he  combines  it  in  a  strange  way  with  the  out 
ward,  and  finally  arrives  once  more  at  his  earlier  pet  idea  : 
Whoever  is  taught  inwardly  by  the  Spirit  is  free  to  judge  and 
decide  on  all  things. 

"  The  Lord  Christ  intends,"  so  he  explains,  "  that  we  should 
hold  fast  and  remain  by  the  outward,  spoken  Word,  and  thereby 
He  has  put  down  reason  from  its  seat,"  i.e.  has  repudiated  the 
objections  of  the  fanatics  who  differed  from  him.  Christ,  accord 
ing  to  Luther,  exhorts  us  "  diligently  to  listen  to  and  learn  tbe 
Word."2  The  beginning  of  Justification  is  in  this,  that  "God 
proclaims  to  you  the  spoken,  outward  Word."3  To  this  end 
God  has  His  messengers  and  vicars.  "  When  you  hear  a  sermon 
from  St.  Paul  or  from  me,  you  hear  God  the  Father  Himself  ;  yet 
both  of  us,  you  and  I,  have  one  schoolmaster  and  doctor,  viz. 
the  Father  .  .  .  only  that  God  speaks  to  you  through  me."4 
Here  he  does  not  enter  into  the  question  of  his  mission,  though  he 
shows  plainly  enough  that  he  was  not  going  to  be  set  aside. 
"  God  must  give  the  spoken  Word,"  "  otherwise  it  does  not  make 
its  way.  But  if  you  are  set  on  helping  yourselves,  why  then 
should  I  preach  ?  In  that  case  you  have  no  need  of  me.  .  .  .  We 

1  "With  reference  to  this  Luther  declares  ('  De  servo  arbitrio'): 
In  the  words  of  Scripture  which  lie  open  to  us  and  all  the  world,  no  one, 
owing  to  the  darkening  of  the  mind,  is  able  to  discern  the  smallest  iota 
so  long  as  he  has  not  the  Spirit  of  God  ;    no  one  possesses  the  inner 
sense  or  the  true  knowledge  requisite — '  nihil  horum  sentiunt  aut  vere 
cognoscunt ' — no    one   believes   that   God   exists   and    that   he   is   His 
creature.     For  him  the  '  indicium  interius,'  in  the  Christian  who  has 
attained  to  the  true  light  and  his  salvation  through  the  Spirit  of  God, 
consists  in  being  able  to  test  with  certainty  all  doctrines  and  beliefs 
(1  Cor.  ii.  15).     This  individual  judgment  is  essential  for  every  Chris 
tian  and  for  his  faith  ;    it  does  not,  however,  profit  others  :    For  them 
the  '  exterius  indicium  '  is  intended,  which  is  exercised  by  the  preacher 
of  the  Word."     Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.,"  I2,  p.  380. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  33,  p.   145  ;    Erl.  ed.,  47,  p.  353.     From 
Notes  of  the  Sermon  published  in  1564. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  161  =  367;   cp.  p.  165  =  371.  *  P.  148  =  356. 


398          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

may  be  angered  and  stupefied  over  it  "  (viz.  at  the  apparent 
divergence  between  the  Word  of  God  and  reason),  yet  we  must 
listen  and  weigh  "  the  Word  that  is  preached  by  the  lips  of 
Christ."1 

Excellent  as  this  exhortation  may  be  so  far  as  St.  Paul  was 
concerned,  the  speaker  is  at  no  pains  to  supply  his  hearer  with 
any  proof  of  his  own  saying,  viz.  "  that  God  speaks  to  you  through 
me."  He  insists  upon  it,  however,  and  now  comes  the  inter 
vention  of  the  Spirit  :  God  must  "  inspire  the  conviction  that  it 
is  His  Word  "2  which  has  been  heard.  "  Without  the  Word  we 
must  not  do  anything,  but  must  be  taught  by  God."3  "  When 
the  heart  can  feel  assured  that  God  the  Father  Himself  is  speak 
ing  to  us  [when  we  listen  to  a  sermon],  then  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
the  light  enters  in  ;  then  man  is  enlightened  and  becomes  a 
happy  master,  and  is  able  to  decide  and  judge  of  all  doctrine,  for 
he  has  the  light,  and  faith  in  the  Divine  Word,  and  feels  certain 
within  his  breast  that  his  doctrine  is  the  very  Word  of  God."4 
When  you  "feel  this  in  your  heart,  then  account  yourself  one  of 
the  disciples  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  you  will  allow  Him 
to  be  Master  and  surrender  yourself  to  Him.  In  this  way  will 
you  be  saved."5 

The  real  breathing  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  however,  confirms  the 
utterances  only  of  the  "  preaching  office,"  viz.  Luther's  and  the 
Lutherans'.  This  he  proclaims  in  the  following  words  :  "  The 
true  breathing  and  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  that  which 
is  wafted  through  the  preaching  office  and  the  outward  Word."6 

In  what  follows,  for  the  better  understanding  of  Luther's 
attitude  towards  the  Bible,  we  shall  examine  two  con 
sequences  of  his  subjective  ways,  viz.  their  effect  on  the 
inspiration  and  the  Canon  of  Scripture,  and  the  exegetical 
disagreement  which  was  the  result  of  the  principle  of 
inward  experience,  also  the  means  he  chose  to  remedy  it. 

Inspiration  and  the  Canon  of  Scripture. 

In  the  matter  of  the  inspiration  of  Scripture  Luther 
never  went  so  far  as  the  fanatical  enthusiasts  of  later 
Lutheranism,  who,  in  their  systems,  taught  an  actual 
verbal  inspiration,  according  to  which  the  writers  of  the 
Bible  had  not  merely  been  impelled,  enlightened,  and 
infallibly  preserved  from  error,  but  had  received  every  word 
from  God.  On  the  contrary,  owing  to  his  wanton  handling 
of  the  Bible,  he  takes  the  inspiration  of  its  writers  so  widely 
and  vaguely  that  the  very  idea  of  inspiration  is  practically 

1  P.  152  =  360.  2  P.   150  =  358.  3  P.   152  =  359. 

4  P.  146  =  354.  5  P.  148  =  356. 

6  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  52,  p.  251,  Hauspostille.     Sermon  of  1533. 


INSPIRATION   OF   SCRIPTURE      399 

evaporated.  The  Bible  is  indeed,  according  to  him,  an  out 
come  of  the  inspiration  of  God  and  is  the  writing  and  Word 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  ("  Spiritus  auctor  est  libri  "),*  and  may 
accordingly  be  described  as  "  the  Holy  Ghost's  own  especial 
book,  writing  and  Word  " — which  he  sometimes  explains 
almost  as  though  he  had  been  a  believer  in  verbal  inspira 
tion.2 

The  fact  is,  however,  that  he  sees  "  in  the  sacred  writers 
no  other  form  of  spiritual  illumination  than  that  displayed 
in  the  verbal  preaching  of  the  Divine  witnesses."3  "  More 
over  we  occasionally  find  him  questioning  whether  in  certain 
passages  the  Holy  Ghost  ...  is  really  so  unquestionably 
present  as  in  other  parts  of  Scripture."  The  truth  is  "  he 
never  formulated  any  detailed  theory  of  Scriptural  inspira 
tion.  With  Luther  the  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  on  the 
witnesses  of  both  Old  Testament  and  New,  is  always  one 
and  the  same,  whether  they  proclaim  the  Word  verbally 
or  by  writing  ;  nowhere  do  we  meet  with  the  thought  that 
they  were  under  the  influence  of  any  other  inspiration  when 
they  wrote."4 

The  freedom  he  allowed  himself,  no  less  in  the  matter  of 
inspiration  than  in  the  principle  of  the  Bible  only,  explains 
the  distinction  he  so  often  makes  between  the  character  and 
importance  of  the  various  parts  of  the  "  Word  of  God," 
which  he  will  have  one  keep  in  view  when  searching  in 
Scripture  for  the  truths  of  faith.  In  passages  where  religion 
is  not  concerned,  particularly  in  historical  statements,  he 
believes  that  the  tools  of  the  Holy  Ghost  both  could  and  did 
err.5  He  thinks  that  "  the  predictions  of  the  prophets 
concerning  the  Kings  and  secular  affairs  often  turned  out 
wrong."6  The  inspiration  of  the  Apostles  (and  Evangelists) 
in  the  New-Testament  writings  was  merely  a  part  of  their 
general  "  office,"  not  a  "  special  inspiration  "  in  the  nature 

1  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  7,  p.  313,  "  Enarr.  in  Genes." 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  415,  in  the  Preface  to  the  second  part 
of  the  first  complete  edition  of  his  works  (compiled  from  his  writings). 

3  Kostlin,  ibid.,  22,  p.  36. 

4  Kostlin,  ibid.,  and  p.  15,  30.  5  Ibid.,  p.  35. 

6  Cp.  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  82,  p.  23  f.,  where  Luther  says,  the  pre 
dictions  of  the  prophets  (or  of  the  Apocalypse)  concerning  wars,  the 
Kings,  etc.,  were  "  things  pleasing  to  the  inquisitive  .  .  .  but  were 
unnecessary  prophecies,  for  they  neither  taught  nor  furthered  the 
Christian  faith";  in  those  prophecies  "concerning  Kings  and  worldly 
events  "  the  Prophets  had  "  often  been  wrong." 


400          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

of  a  "  second  power  added  to  and  independent  of  it."  "  The 
predominant  importance  of  the  Apostles  he  traces  back  to 
their  general  inspiration  in  the  sense  described  above."1 

Catholic  doctors  before  Luther's  day  had  showed  them 
selves  far  more  jealous  of  the  sacredness  of  the  Bible,  as 
regards  both  the  idea  of  inspiration  and  the  equal  value  of 
all  the  books,  and  their  every  part.  In  spite  of  this  Luther 
would  have  it  that  he  had  been  the  first  to  make  the  Bible 
respected. 

One  point  deserving  of  consideration  as  an  instance  of 
Luther's  wantonness  is  his  attitude  towards  the  Canon  of 
the  Sacred  Books. 

How  was  he  to  prove  that  this  or  that  book  was  to  be 
included  amongst  the  writings  which  constituted  the  Word 
of  God,  now  that  he  had  rejected  the  testimony  of  ecclesi 
astical  tradition  ?  According  to  the  teaching  of  the  ancient 
Church,  it  was  tradition  and  the  authority  of  the  Church 
\vhich  vouched  for  the  canonical  character  of  the  books  of 
the  Bible.  Luther  was  confronted  with  this  objection  by 
Johann  Eck  at  the  Leipzig  Disputation,  who  quoted  the 
well-known  words  of  St.  Augustine,  that  he  was  compelled 
"  to  believe  the  Gospel  only  on  the  authority  of  the  Catholic 
Church."2  No  longer  recognising  the  authority  of  the 
Church,  Luther  met  the  objection  by  some  strange  evasions.3 
When  at  last  he  saw  that  no  other  meaning  could  be  read 
into  the  passage  he  threw  it  overboard  and  wrote  :  "  If  this 
meaning  be  not  in  St.  Augustine's  words  then  it  were  better 
to  repudiate  his  saying.  For  it  is  contrary  to  Scripture,  to 
the  Spirit  and  to  all  experience."4  Even  for  the  inspired 
value  of  the  books  included  in  the  Canon  he  appealed  in  his 
arbitrary  fashion,  not  to  the  infallible  Church,  but  to  the 
"  inward  testimony  of  the  Spirit." 

He  could  hardly  escape  being  thus  thrown  back  on  this 
inward,  mystical  attestation,  seeing  that,  according  to  him, 
human  reason  is  of  little  assistance  in  the  matter.  Here  the 
"  inner  sense  "  has  to  come  in  and,  just  as  under  the 

1  Thus  O.  Scheel  (above,  p.  392,  n.  2),  p.  07  f. 

2  "  Ego  vero  evangelio  non  crederem,  nisi  me  catholicce  ecclesice  com- 
moveret  auctoritas  .  .  .  qua  inftrmata  iam  nee  evangelio  credere  potero." 
"  Contra  epistolam  fundamenti  Manichaeorum,"  c.  5. 

3  "  Werke,"    Weim.    ed.,    2,    pp.    429-432  ;     "  Opp.    lat.    var,,"    3, 
pp.  284-288.     "  Resol.  super  propos.  Lipsienses." 

4  "  Werkc,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  90  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28,  p.  341. 


CANON    OF    SCRIPTURE  401 

illumination  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  it  imparts  certainty  con 
cerning  the  meaning  of  the  Bible,  so  also  it  discerns  the 
dignity  and  godly  value  of  Scripture.  For  obvious  reasons, 
here  again,  he  fails  to  favour  us  with  any  "  clearer  explana 
tion  "  of  his  theory.  One  thing,  however,  emerges  clearly, 
viz.  that  the  feeling  of  certainty  regarding  both  the  meaning 
and  the  contents  is  practically  identical  with  the  feeling 
that  the  writing  in  question  is  Divine  ;  since  the  Spirit 
from  on  High  teaches  me  the  truth  which  lies  in  the  sense 
of  Scripture,  so  also  it  must  teach  me  that  it  is  Scripture  ; 
the  apprehension  of  the  sense  and  of  the  Divine  character  of 
the  sacred  pages  is  one  and  the  same.1 

It  is  thus  that  Luther  clothes  in  intangible,  mystical 
language  the  vital  question  of  religion  here  involved  ;  at 
the  Leipzig  Disputation  he  had  used  terms  no  less  elusive  : 
Every  book  that  really  belongs  to  the  Canon  has  authority 
and  certainty  "  per  se  ipsum."2  His  mystical  words  were 
the  outcome  of  deep-seated  tendencies  within  him  ;  Tauler's 
language,  which  Luther  had  so  skilfully  made  his  own,  was 
to  assist  him  in  concealing  the  obscurity  and  lack  of  logic 
inherent  in  his  views. 

In  reality,  nevertheless,  like  the  Catholics,  he  accepted 
the  Canon  of  Holy  Scripture  as  handed  down  by  antiquity  ; 
only  that  he  granted  to  the  subjective  influence  of  the 
"  testimony  of  the  Spirit  "  a  far-reaching  and  destructive 
force.  He  arbitrarily  struck  out  of  the  Canon  quite  a 
number  of  authentic  writings,3  which  will  be  enumerated 
elsewhere4  together  with  his  statements  concerning  them. 

1  According  to  Kostlin  ("  Luthers  Theol.,"  22,  p.  10  ff.,  it  was  only 
the  orthodox  Lutherans  after  his  day  who  developed  this  into  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  testimonium  Spiritus  Sancti,"  which  assures  every 
reader  of  the  canonicity  of  the  books  of  the  Bible.  In  reality,  however, 
Luther  himself  already  stood  for  this  "  testimonium."  Thanks  to  it  he 
judged  of  the  relative  importance  of  the  Sacred  Books  and  only 
"  allowed  himself  to  be  determined  by  the  spirit  speaking  to  him  out 
of  them."  Thus  Kostlin  himself,  I2,  p.  319. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  325  ;  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  3,  p.  131  : 
"  Non  potest  ecclesia  plus  tribuere  auctoritatis  aut  firmitatis  libro,  quam 
per  se  ipsum  habeat."  The  question,  however,  was  who  was  to  attest 
this  authority. 

3  See  our  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  3. 

4  O.   Scheel   (above,   p.    392,   n.    2),   p.   47,   after  having  instanced 
Luther's  adverse  criticism  of  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  and  the  pro 
phetical  books,  remarks  :    "  He  took  exception  to  the  Epistle  of  Jude, 
to  Hebrews  and  to  the  Apocalypse.     The  Book  of  Esther  deserved 
no  place  in  the  Canon  any  more  than  the  second  Book  of  Machabees, 
though  the  first  was  worthy  of  canonisation.     [It  was,  as  Luther  says 

IV. — 7.    D 


402          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

His  literary  opponents  had  a  right  to  represent  to  him  that 
so  "  strange  and  arbitrary  5)1  a  proceeding  was  merely  a 
result  of  his  theory  that  the  sacred  books  must  prove  their 

in  the  Preface  to  his  German  translation  of  it  (Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  104),  'not 
unworthy  of  being  included  amongst  the  sacred  writings  of  the 
Hebrews,'  because  in  the  history  of  Antiochus  it  gives  us  a  picture  of 
the  fall  of  the  real  Antichrist,  viz.  Popery  !]  Luther  makes  a  dis 
tinction  even  between  the  books  he  does  not  impugn.  Of  the  Pauline 
writings  he  gives  the  first  place  to  Romans,  just  as  he  places  St.  John's 
first  among  the  Gospels.  Ho  esteems  the  synoptics  less  highly  because 
they  record  the  works  and  deeds  of  Christ  and  not  the  message  of 
righteousness  by  grace."  Scheel  notes  (p.  49  f.),  that  Luther's  criticism 
was  based,  not  on  learned  historical  arguments,  but  on  the  "  religious 
stimulus  "  these  writings  supplied,  viz.  on  the  extent  to  which  they 
might  prove  of  service  to  his  doctrine,  i.e.  on  "  inward  considera 
tions."  "  The  fact  that  the  Epistle  of  James  says  nothing  of  Christ 
and  Justification  by  grace  was  ground  enough  for  Luther  to  reject  it. 
Analogous  is  the  case  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  .  .  .  From  all 
this  it  is  evident  how  much  Luther  placed  religious  criticism  in  the 
foreground  and  what  secondary  importance  he  attached  to  historical 
criticism."  He  cares  little  whether  a  writing  is  apostolic  or  not ;  what 
he  wants  to  know  is  whether  its  contents  agree  with  what  he  has 
perceived  to  be  the  kernel  of  Scripture.  "  He  did  not  even  shrink 
from  impugning  the  authority  of  the  Apostles  in  favour  of  a  higher 
standard  "  (p.  52).  Scheel  then  deals  with  the  statements  more  favour 
able  to  Luther  made  by  J.  Kunze  ("  Glaubensregel,  heil.  Schrift  und 
Taufbekenntnis,"  Leipzig,  1899,  pp.  509,  521)  and  H.  Preuss  ("Die 
Entwicklung  des  Schriftprinzips  bei  Luther  bis  zur  Leipziger  Disputa 
tion,"  Leipzig,  1901,  p.  99).  "  With  Luther's  independent  criticism  of 
Scripture,"  he  says  (p.  64  f.),  "  the  assumption  of  the  inspiration  of 
Scripture  hardly  agrees.  .  .  .  Kunze  also  denies  that  the  effect  of  the 
mediaeval  doctrine  of  inspiration  appears  at  all  in  Luther  ;  the  belief 
that  the  Apostles  spoke  by  the  Holy  Ghost  should  not  be  identified 
with  the  doctrine  of  inspiration  in  its  concrete  and  historical  shape." 
True  enough  Kunze  admits  (p.  504,  11.  1)  "some  after-effects"  of 
that  doctrine  upon  Luther,  but  the  question  is  "  how  such  after-effects 
were  compatible  with  the  uniform  theory  of  Scripture,"  which  he 
finds  in  Luther.  On  the  consistency  of  Luther's  theory,  see  Scheel's 
remarks  below,  p.  407. — Adolf  Harnack  repeatedly  declares,  that 
Luther's  attitude  towards  the  Bible  was  characterised  by  "flagrant 
contradictions"  ("  Dogmengesch.,"  34,  pp.  868,  878;  cp.  pp.  771  f., 
791  f.),  because  his  criticism  "  demolished  the  external  authority  of 
the  written  Word." — Of  Luther's  treatment  of  the  Apocalypse,  G. 
Arnold,  the  spokesman  and  historian  of  the  Pietists,  complains  in  his 
Church  History  (Frankfurt  edition,  vol.  ii.,  1699,  p.  39)  ;  he  said  of  it 
"  very  much  what  all  the  fanatics  said,  viz.  that  each  one  might  believe 
concerning  it  what  his  Spirit  inspired  him  with  ;  his  [Luther's]  Spirit 
could  not  agree  with  the  book,  arid  the  fact  that  Christ  was  neither 
taught  nor  recognised  in  it  was  sufficient  for  him  not  to  esteem  it 
highly."  Arnold  also  complains  that,  in  the  Preface  to  the  Apocalypse 
("  now  usually  omitted  "),  Luther  says,  "  that  it  was  too  bad  of  John 
to  command  and  threaten  about  this  book,"  etc.  ;  the  book,  according 
to  Luther,  was  neither  apostolic  nor  prophetical,  indeed  not  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  at  all,  seeing  that  it  did  not  treat  of  faith  or  Christian 
doctrine  but  merely  of  history. 
1  Kostlin,  ibid.,  22,  p.  29. 


FRUIT   OF  PRIVATE   JUDGMENT   403 

character  and  value  to  each  man  individually.  At  any  rate, 
his  attitude  towards  the  Bible  cannot  be  regarded  as  at  all 
logical.1 

Inward  Assurance  and  Disagreements  Without. 

The  second  consequence  of  Luther's  biblical  subjectivism 
which  we  have  to  consider  lies  outside  him.  It  is  the 
disconcerting  divergence  in  interpretation  which  was  the 
immediate  result  of  his  doctrine  of  "  inward  experience," 
to  correct  which  he  had  recourse  to  some  curious  remedies. 

First  of  all  we  may  append  some  further  quotations  from 
his  writings  to  those  already  adduced.  The  significance  of 
this  remarkable  side  of  the  psychology  of  his  doctrine  is 
often  not  fully  appreciated,  because  it  seems  scarcely 
believable  that  Luther  should  have  ventured  so  far  into  the 
airy  region  of  idealism.  And  yet,  ori  the  other  hand,  we 
have  here  the  principal  reason  for  describing  the  new 
doctrine  as  something  interior,  and  as  one  doing  better 
justice  to  our  feelings  and  personality,  which  was  Luther's 
own  claim  and,  after  him,  that  of  Protestants  generally. 
The  difficulty,  however,  is  that  almost  every  sentence  of 
Luther's  regarding  the  part  played  by  "  inward  assurance  " 
in  respect  of  the  Bible,  raises  the  question  how  that  oneness 
of  interpretation  which  he  ever  presupposes,  is  to  escape 
shipwreck,  even  in  the  case  of  essential  doctrines. 

As  early  as  Jan.  18,  1518,  in  his  advice  to  Spalatin  on  the  read 
ing  of  Scripture,  Luther  had  appealed  to  the  mystic  "  influ 
ence,"  telling  him  to  distrust  himself  and  to  rely  solely  on  the 
"  influxus  Spiritus  "  ;  this  appeal  he  supports  on  his  own  inward 
experience.2  In  this  case  his  experience,  however,  mainly 
concerned  the  confirmation  of  his  chief  doctrine  ;  for  it  was 
under  an  inspiration  from  on  High  that  he  had  begun  to  feel  his 
way  to  the  new  Evangel  of  Justification  (see  vol.  iii.,  p.  HOff.). 
But  what  was  to  be  done  when  others,  too,  laid  claim  to  a  similar 
experience  and  inspiration  ? 

At  a  later  date  he  described  to  his  friends  how  he  had  learnt 
to  understand  Scripture  "  in  maximis  agonibus  et  tentationibus  "  ; 
it  was  thus  he  had  found  in  the  Bible  the  Divinity  of  Christ  and 
the  articles  on  the  Trinity  ;  even  now  he  was  more  certain  of 

1  F.  Loofs   ("  Dogmengesch.,"4  p.    747)  says  that  Luther  reintro- 
duced  the  Catholic  ideas  he  had  "  vanquished,"  and  made  this  "  burden 
in  Protestantism  heavier  than  it  had  ever  been  before."     Cp.  above, 
p.  398  f. 

2  Jan.  18,  1518,  "  Briefwechsel,"  1,  p.  142. 


404          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

these  truths  by  experience  than  by  faith.1  Even  the  absolute  pre 
destination  of  the  damned  to  hell,  the  entire  absence  of  free-will 
for  doing  what  is  good  and  other  extravagant  opinions  questioned 
even  by  his  own  followers,  he  declares  he  had  learned  directly 
from  the  Bible.  In  1534  he  places  Scripture  side  by  side  with 
inward  experience  (or  the  Spirit),  as  the  warrant — even  in  the 
case  of  others — for  all  knowledge  of  things  Divine. 

This  he  likewise  applies  to  the  Apostles'  Creed.2  In  1537 
he  said  in  a  sermon  at  Schmalkalden,  "  not  only  did  all  this 
[what  is  professed  in  the  Creed]  take  place  as  we  read  in  the  Word 
of  the  Gospel,  but  the  Holy  Ghost  also  writes  it  inwardly  in  our 
heart."3  He  accepts  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  because 
he  has  convinced  himself  that  it  is  based  on  Holy  Writ.4  But 
how  if  others  are  not  thus  convinced  ?  Were  they  too  to  be 
fastened  to  the  dogma  ? 

R.  Seeberg  gives  a  good  account  of  Luther's  views  on  the 
character  of  the  dogmas  of  the  ancient  Church.5  "  He  treats  the 
symbols  of  the  ancient  Church  with  great  respect,  particularly 
the  Apostles'  Creed  wrhich  contains  all  the  chief  articles  of  faith.6 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  he  believes  in  each  creed  or  Council 
as  such."  "  In  his  work  '  Von  den  Conciliis  '  with  masterly 
historical  criticism  [?]  he  denies  all  binding  authority  even  to 
the  ancient  Councils  "  ;  even  the  Council  of  the  Apostles  passed 
resolutions  which  were  afterwards  rescinded,  and  so  did  the 
Nicene  Council.  "  Dogma  is  true,"  so  runs  Luther's  teaching  as 
given  by  Seeberg,  "  only  so  far  as  it  agrees  with  Scripture  ;  in 
itself  it  is  of  no  authority.  But  the  truth  of  Scripture  is  one  that 

1  Mathesius,  "  Aufzeichnungen,"  p.  52. 

2  In  this  remarkable  passage  of  his  exposition  of  1  Cor.  xv.  (1534, 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  51,  pp.  102-104),  he  exhorts  all  to  "  hold  fast  to  the 
doctrine  and  preaching  for  which  we  have  both  sure  Scripture  and  also 
inward  experience.     These  should  be  the  two  witnesses  and  the  two  test- 
stones  of  true  doctrine."    He  here  inveighs  against  the  fanatics  because 
they  taught,  "  what  not  one  of  them  had  experienced,"  "  an  uncertain 
delusion  of  which  riot  one  of  them  had  had  any  experience."     "  None 
of  the  fanatics  are  able  to  prove  their  contention  either  by  their  own 
experience  or  by  that  of  others."     Of  himself,  however,  he  could  say  : 
"  I  have  experienced  it ;   for  I  too  was  once  a  pious  monk,"  etc.  ;   then 
follows  the  legend  of  his  life  in  the  monastery  and  of  how,  before  his 
discovery  of  the  sense  of  the  text  on  which  his  new  teaching  rested,  he 
had  never  known  what  it  was  to  have  a  "  gracious  God."     "  Hence, 
whoever  wishes  not  to  err,  let  him  look  to  these  two  points,  whether  he 
is  able  to  bear  witness  to  his  doctrine  out  of  Scripture  and  a  sure  inward 
experience,  as  we  can  to  our  doctrine  and  preaching." 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  250.     "  An  Exposition  of  the  Christian 
Faith,"  1537.    Before  this  :    "  This  is  to  have  the  Holy  Ghost,  when  we 
experience  in  our  hearts  the  Creation  and  Redemption."     "  The  Pope 
and  his  people  do  not  feel  this  in  their  hearts." 

4  "  All  the  articles  which  he  believed  he  had  repeatedly  drawn  from 
Scripture."     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  500  ;    Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  363. 
"  Vom  Abendmal  Christi  Bekentnis,"  1528. 

5  "  Lehrb.  der  DG.,"  part  2,  Erlangen,  1898,  p.  289  f. 

8  Seeberg  refers  to  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  28,  pp.   413  f.,  346  f.  ;    91, 
p.  29  ff.  ;    131,  p.  221  f.  ;   201,  p.  297  f. 


FRUIT   OF  PRIVATE  JUDGMENT    405 

is  attested  interiorly.  Hence  we  can  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
produces  in  us  the  assurance  of  the  true  doctrine  [of  the  Apostles' 
Creed]."1 — The  page-heading  where  these  words  occur  runs  : 
"  Luther's  independence  of  dogma." 

A  highly  important  statement  on  the  interior  instruction  that 
goes  on  when  we  read  Scripture  is  contained  in  Luther's  quite 
early  work  "  De  Captivitate  Babylonica  "  (1520)  :  The  soul,  he 
says  there,  referring  to  a  misunderstood  passage  of  St.  Augus 
tine's  on  a  well-known  fact  in  the  natural  order,  is  so 
affected  by  the  truth,  that,  thanks  to  it,  it  is  able  to  judge  rightly 
and  surely  of  all  things ;  it  is  forced  to  confess  with  unfailing 
certitude  that  this  is  the  truth,  just  as  reason  affirms  with 
unfailing  certitude  that  three  and  seven  make  ten  ;  the  same 
is  the  case  with  all  real  Christians  and  their  spiritual  sense 
which,  according  to  1  Cor.  ii.  15,  judges  all  things  and  is 
judged  of  no  man.2 — The  last  words  of  the  Apostle  refer,  however, 
to  the  extraordinary  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  bestowed  for  a  while  by 
God  on  some  few  Christians  in  the  early  days  of  the  Church,  and 
cannot  apply  to  the  ordinary  conditions  of  later  times. 

Luther  simply  ignores  the  objection,  that,  if  every  man  is 
judge,  unutterable  discord  must  ensue.  The  way  in  which  he 
contrived  so  long  to  conceal  this  from  himself  is  psychologically 
remarkable.  For  instance,  in  one  of  the  principal  passages 
where  this  objection  should  have  been  faced,  viz.  in  his  work 
against  King  Henry  VIII,  he  glosses  over  the  difficulty  with  the 
assertion  that,  even  under  the  Pope,  there  was  also  no  unity  of 
doctrine  ;  he  then  consoles  himself  with  the  words  of  Christ 
(John  vi.),  that  all  true  Christians  "  shall  be  taught  of  God  " 
and  that  every  one  that  hath  heard  the  Father  cometh  to  the 
Saviour  ;  the  Spirit  of  God  makes  all  to  be  one  and  effects  an 
"  idem  docere,  idem  confiteri,  idem  sequi." — We  can  only  wonder 
at  the  idealism  that  could  expect  such  results  in  a  world  in 
habited  by  human  beings. — In  the  end,  however,  since  this  was 
scarcely  to  be  looked  for,  "  external  unity  would  be  sufficiently 
safeguarded  by  the  one  Baptism  and  one  Supper,"  whereby  all 
"  testify  to  the  oneness  of  their  faith  and  spirit."3  At  any  rate, 
he  is  confident  that  the  true  explanation  (viz.  his  own)  of  the 
truths  of  salvation  will  gain  the  upper  hand.  For  the  Church 
cannot  perish. 

In  point  of  fact  Luther  really  fancies  himself  justified  in  appeal 
ing  to  this  entirely  new  meaning  put  by  him  on  the  promise  to 
the  Church  that  she  shall  never  perish  ;  she  is  indestructible 
because  true  believers  will  always  be  there  to  maintain  Luther's 
interpretation  of  revelation  and  of  the  imputed  righteousness  of 
Christ,  and  because  any  general  falling  away  from  the  truth  is 

1  Reference  to  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  23,  pp.  249,  267  ;   201,  p.  148. 

2  Weim.  ed.,   6,  p.   561  ;     "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"   5,  p.   102.     Kostlin, 
"  Luthers  Theol.,"  I2,  p.  302. 

3  Ibid.,  10,  2,  p.  219  =  6,  p.  444  :  "  Hie  dicent :  Si  singirtorum  est  ius 
iudicandi  et  probandi,  quis  erit  modus,  si  indices  dissenserint  etunusquis- 
que  secundum  suum  caput  iudicarit  ?  "  etc. 


406         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

not  to  be  thought  of.  Even  though  very  many,  indeed  the 
greater  number,  deny  the  true  Scripture  teaching,  still,  many 
others  remain,  as,  of  yore,  the  seven  thousand  when  Israel  fell 
away  from  God.  According  to  him  even  these  may  he  held 
captive  all  their  life  in  some  error  concerning  the  faith  and  reach 
the  right  road  and  faith  in  the  grace  of  Christ  only  on  their  death 
bed,  according  to  the  promise  in  John  x.  28. 1  In  view  of  the 
darkness  prevalent  in  former  ages  this  appears  to  him  to  suffice 
in  order  to  enable  us  to  say  that  the  Church  has  not  really 
perished,2  and  to  save  the  cause  of  private  enlightenment  on  the 
Bible.  For  this  must  stand  fast,  viz.  that  the  Spirit  of  God  most 
surely  bears  witness  to  the  contents  of  the  Divine  Word  in  the 
hearts  of  the  hearers  and  readers.  "  Luther,"  says  a  Protestant 
exponent  of  his  theology,  "  laid  this  down  time  after  time." 
"  His  statements  on  this  subject  cannot  fail,  however,  to  raise 
certain  questions  in  our  minds."3 

They  gave  rise  to  questions  in  his  own  day,  and  to  something 
more  than  mere  questions.  The  bitter  theological  dissensions 
already  hinted  at  were  the  result.  The  inevitable  divergency  in 
the  interpretation  of  the  Bible  was  seen  everywhere,  and  a 
hundred  different  opinions,  some  based  on  the  inward  assurance 
given  by  the  "  Spirit  of  God,"  some  on  the  reflections  of  reason, 
took  the  field.  We  know  to  what  an  extent  Luther  had  to  suffer 
from  the  discord  born  of  his  principle,  not  merely  from  such 
comparatively  unimportant  persons  as  Jacob  Schenk4  and  his 
"  disgracefully  arrogant  "  colleague,  Johann  Agricola,  not  merely 
from  the  fanatics  and  Anabaptists  who  found  in  the  Bible  a 
different  teaching  on  Baptism,  divine  worship  and  morality, 
or  from  the  Zwinglia.ns  with  their  divergent  biblical  interpreta 
tion  of  the  Eucharist,  but  even,  so  to  speak,  in  his  own  family, 
from  Melanchthon,  who  was  rash  enough  to  incline  to  the  Swiss 
reformed  doctrines  and  to  fight  shy  of  the  stricter  Lutheranism. 
"  The  presumption,"  Luther  declares,  strangely  enough,  "  is 
really  unbearable,  that  people  should  rise  up  against  the  authority 
of  the  Church,"  despise  the  teaching  of  the  best  and  ablest,  and 
only  worship  their  own  views  in  Holy  Scripture.  "  The  name  of 
the  Church  should  be  held  in  high  honour."6  He  forbore,  how 
ever,  to  specify  which  Church  he  meant,  and  moreover  he  had 
set  himself  above  every  Church.  "  All  other  forms  of  arrogance," 
he  declares,  "  can  be  endured  and  allow  of  improvement,  as  in 
the  healing  art,  in  philosophy,  in  poetry,  in  mechanics  and  in 
the  case  of  the  young.  .  .  .  But  that  shocking  '  arrogantia 
theologice  '  is  the  source  of  all  evil,  and  a  consuming  fire."6 

So  little  did  he  succeed  in  repressing  "  theological  arrogance," 
but  rather,  by  his  action,  threw  open  the  doors  to  it,  that  in 

1  Ibid.,  18,  p.  649  f.  =  7,  p.  171.    "  Deserve  arbitrio."    Kostlin,  ibid., 
I2,  p.  381. 

2  Hence  his  confession  :     "  Credo  ecdesiam  sanctam  cathohcam,  ut 
impossibile  %Lt,  illam  errare  etiam  in  minima  articulo."     "  Werke,"  ibid. 

3  Kostlifr,  ibid.,  22,  p.  39. 

4  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  401.  6  Vol.  iii.,  p.  400. 
6  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  193. 


FRUIT  OF   PRIVATE   JUDGMENT    407 

1525  he  was  forced  to  lament  i1  "  There  are  as  many  sects 
and  beliefs  as  there  are  heads.  This  fellow  will  have  nothing  to 
do  with  baptism,  another  denies  the  Sacrament,  a  third  believes 
that  there  is  another  world  between  this  and  the  Last  Day. 
Some  teach  that  Christ  is  not  God,  some  say  this,  some  that.  .  .  . 
There  is  now  no  rustic  so  rude  but  that,  if  he  dreams  or  fancies 
anything,  it  must  be  the  whisper  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  he  him 
self  a  prophet.  .  .  .  There  is  no  one  who  does  not  wish  to  be 
cleverer  than  Luther  ;  they  all  want  to  try  their  steel  on  me. 
.  .  .  They  speak  like  madmen  ;  I  have  during  the  year  to  listen 
to  many  such  wretched  folk.  In  no  other  way  can  the  devil  come 
so  close  to  me,  that  I  must  admit.  Formerly  the  world  was  full 
of  noisy,  disembodied  spirits  giving  themselves  out  to  be  the 
souls  of  men  ;  now  it  is  full  of  uproarious  spirits  with  bodies, 
who  all  declare  that  they  are  real  angels."2 

He  has  this  crumb  of  comfort  :  The  world  is  the  devil's  play 
ground  ;  and  uproars  there  must  be.3 

"  This  is  all  due,"  he  says  finally,  truly  and  aptly,  "  to  their 
bringing  their  conceit  with  them  to  the  study  of  Scripture,  which 
has  to  submit  to  being  judged,  moulded  and  led  by  their  head 
and  reason,"4 — surely  a  bitter  punishment  for  throwing  over  the 
divinely  appointed  authority  of  the  Church,  which  decides  on  the 
sense  of  the  Bible. 

"  By  thus  making  individual  experience  the  test,"  remarks  a 
Protestant  theologian,  "  the  door  seemed  opened  wide  to  never- 
ending  dissension.  .  .  .  Luther  did  not  succeed  in  carrying  his 
theory  to  its  right  conclusion.  Indeed  we  even  find  him  formu 
lating  thoughts  which  seem  to  tend  back  to  the  old,  mechanical 
authority  of  Scripture."  According  to  this  writer,  Luther's 
conception  of  Scripture  presented  certain  "  imperfections  " 
which,  "  even  in  principle,  were  practically  at  variance  with  it  ; 
these,  however,  disappeared  as  the  fanatic  movement  taught 
Luther  their  disastrous  effects."  The  same  \vriter  asks  finally  : 
"  But  was  it  really  a  question  merely  of  '  imperfections  '  which 
did  not  endanger  the  very  essence  of  his  views  ?  "B 

"  What  did  Luther  set  up,  instead  of  tradition,  as  a  principle 
of  interpretation  ?  "  another  Protestant  theologian  recently 
queried.  He  answers  :  "In  theory,  that  Scripture  interprets 
itself  ;  in  practice  however,  as  it  doesn't,  his  own  theology."6 

Remedies  against  Disagreement.     The  Outward  Word. 

Since  the  harmony  of  the  "  Spirit,"  which  Luther  had  so 
confidently  looked  for,  failed  to  show  itself  in  people's  minds 

1  Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  389. 

2  "  To  the  Christians  at  Antwerp  "  early  in  April,  1525.     "  Werke," 
Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  342  ;    "  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  151. 

3  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  53,  p.  343. 

4  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  20,  p.  571  ;   Erl.  ed.,  41,  p.  210. 

5  O.  Scheel,  ibid.,  pp.  38,  55.    Cp.  F.  Loofs,  above,  p.  403,  n.  1. 

6  W.  Kohler,   "  Theol.  Literaturztng. ,"  1002,  No.  21,  p.  576,  review 
of  H.  Preuss,  "  Die  Entwicklung  des  Schriftprinzips  bei  Luther." 


408         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

and  not  a  glimmer  of  hope  of  any  future  agreement  was 
visible,  he  found  it  necessary  to  insist  far  more  strongly  than 
heretofore  on  the  outward  Word ; l  this  was  to  check  un 
welcome  inward  revelations,  to  put  everything  in  order  and 
to  be  a  bulwark  against  unusual  views.  "  Now  that  the 
Apostles  have  preached  the  Word,"  so  runs  one  of  his  most 
interesting  pronouncements  on  this  subject,2  "  and  left 
us  their  writings,  so  that  there  is  nothing  more  to  reveal 
than  what  they  have  written,  there  is  no  need  of  any  special 
new  revelation,  or  miracles.  This  we  know  from  the  writings 
of  the  Apostles."  It  would  be  a  different  matter  if  all  were 
filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  His  gifts  ;  "  were  this  so  it 
would  be  an  easy  thing  to  preach  and  to  govern  and  all 
would  go  on  quite  smoothly  and  well,  as  indeed  it  ought.  But 
unfortunately  this  is  not  the  case,  and  those  who  have  the 
Holy  Ghost  and  a  right  understanding  are  not  so  common," 
but  "  there  are  plenty  who  fancy  they  have  mastered 
Scripture  and  have  the  Holy  Ghost  without  measure."  These 
want  to  be  thought  "  far  more  deeply  and  profoundly 
initiated  "  than  Luther  himself,  and  "  much  more  learned 
than  we  are."  This  he  is  not  unwilling  to  allow,  but  on  one 
thing  he  must  insist,  viz.  on  the  "  Word  !  "  "  This  old  and 
tried  doctrine  of  the  Apostles  "  he  has  "  again  brought  to 
light,"  having  found  "  all  this  darkened  by  the  Pope  and  his 
human  teaching  "  ;  "by  the  Grace  of  God  we  have  brought 
it  to  light  once  more  "  ;  "  it  is  the  very  same  as  the  Apostles 
first  taught.  But  it  has  not  been  brought  to  light  again 
without  a  revelation  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  .  .  .  He  had  to 
illumine  our  minds  that  Holy  Scripture  might  be  rightly 
viewed  and  understood  "  ;  hence  "  no  other  word  or 
revelation  is  to  be  expected  "  "  contrary  to  this  doctrine, 
even  were  an  angel  from  heaven  visibly  to  bring  "  a  new 
doctrine.  Everyone  can  see  "  that  God  is  tempting  the 
people,  particularly  in  these  latter  days  of  which  it  is  said, 
that  the  devil  shall  rule  mightily  over  Christendom  by  means 
of  Antichrist." — Here,  consequently,  his  teaching  is  put  on 
a  level  with  the  "  outward  Word." 

The  outward  Word,  according  to  other  passages  where 
Luther  is  rather  more  reticent  concerning  the  "  revelation  " 
he  had  received,  was  that  plain  and  unassailable  Bible 


1  Above,  passim. 
"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  50,  pp.  85-88. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  "OUTWARD  WORD"    409 

teaching  on  which  all  "  Spirits  "  must  agree  without  any 
danger  of  divergency.  This  Word  he  now  identifies  with 
preaching.  Preaching,  however,  is  part  of  the  office,  and 
both  office  and  preaching  were  controlled  by  Luther ; 
indeed  the  office  had  been  instituted  chiefly  by  him  and  his 
sovereign.  Hence,  in  effect,  the  outward  Word  is  still 
Luther's  word. 

"  Faith,"  we  read  of  the  outward  WTord,  seemingly 
contradicting  the  freedom  Luther  had  formerly  proclaimed, 
"  comes  of  hearing,  i.e.  from  preaching,  or  from  the  out 
ward  Word.  This  is  the  order  established  by  God  and  He 
will  not  derogate  from  it.  Hence  contempt  for  the  outward 
Word  and  for  Scripture  is  rank  blasphemy,  which  the 
secular  authorities  are  bound  to  punish,  according  to  the 
second  Commandment  which  enjoins  the  punishment  of 
blasphemy."  This  occurs  in  the  booklet  officially  circulated 
in  1536  among  the  pastors  of  the  Saxon  Electorate.1  A 
Protestant  researcher  who  has  recently  made  a  special  study 
of  the  "  Inquisition  "  in  the  Saxon  Electorate  has  the 
following  remark  concerning  this  statement,  which  is  by  no 
means  without  a  parallel  in  Luther's  works  :  "  Thus  even 
contempt  for  Scripture — here  meaning  contempt  for  Luther's 
interpretation  of  the  Bible  text — was  already  regarded  as 
'  rank  blasphemy  '  which  it  was  the  duty  of  the  authorities 
to  punish.  To  such  a  pass  had  Evangelical  freedom  already 
come."2 

In  order  to  uphold  his  own  reading  of  the  Bible  against 
others  which  differed  from  his,  Luther  incidentally  appealed 
with  the  utmost  vigour,  as  the  above  examples  show,  to  the 
Church,  to  tradition  and  to  the  Fathers,  whose  authority 
he  had  nevertheless  solemnly  renounced. 

This  was  the  case  especially  in  the  controversies  on  the 
Zwinglian  doctrine  of  the  Supper.  In  defending  the  Real 
Presence  and  the  literal  sense  of  the  words  of  consecration,  Luther 
was  in  the  right.  He  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  adduce 
the  convincing  testimony  of  tradition,  the  voice  of  the  "  Church  " 
from  the  earliest  ages,  which  spoke  so  loudly  in  defence  of  the 
truth.  It  was  then  that  he  wrote  the  oft-quoted  words  to  Albert 
of  Brandenburg,  in  order  to  retain  him  on  his  side  and  to  preserve 

1  P.   Wappler,    "  Inquisition  und   Ketzerprozesse  in  Zwickau  zur 
Reformat! onszeit,"  Leipzig,  1908,  p.  69.     The  booklet  was  written  by 
Melanchthon  but  was  certainly  circulated  with  Luther's  approval. 
^2  Wappler,  ibid. 


410         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

him  from  Zwinglian  contamination  :  "  That  Christ  is  present  in 
the  Sacrament  is  proved  by  the  books  and  writings,  both  Greek 
and  Latin,  of  the  dear  Fathers,  also  by  the  daily  usage  and  our 
experience  till  this  very  hour  ;  which  testimony  of  all  the  holy 
Christian  Churches,  even  had  we  no  other,  should  suffice  to  make 
us  remain  by  this  article."1  It  is  true  that  elsewhere  we  find  him 
saying  of  the  tradition  of  the  Fathers  :  "  When  the  Word  of  God 
comes  down  to  us  through  the  Fathers  it  seems  to  me  like  milk 
strained  through  a  coal-sack,  when  the  milk  must  needs  be  black 
and  nasty."  This  meant,  he  says,  "  that  the  Word  of  God  was  in 
itself  pure  and  true,  bright  and  clear,  but  by  the  teaching  of  the 
Fathers,  by  their  books  and  their  writings,  it  was  much  darkened 
and  corrupted."2  "  And  even  if  the  Fathers  agreed  with  you," 
he  says  elsewhere,  "  that  is  not  enough.  I  want  Holy  Writ, 
because  I  too  am  fighting  you  in  writing."3 

In  his  controversy  with  Zwingli,  Luther  even  came  to  plead 
the  cause  of  the  Catholic  principle  of  authority.  In  his  tract  of 
1527,  "  Das  diese  Wort  Christi,  '  Das  ist  mein  Leib  '  noch 
fest  stehen,"  he  declared  that  Zwingli's  interpretation  of  the 
Bible  had  already  given  rise  to  "  many  opinions,  many  factions 
and  much  dissension."  Such  arbitrary  exegesis  neither  can  nor 
may  go  any  further.  "  And  if  the  world  is  to  last  much  longer, 
we  shall  on  account  of  such  dissensions  again  be  obliged,  like  the 
ancients,  to  seek  for  human  contrivances  and  to  set  up  new  laws 
and  ordinances  in  order  to  preserve  the  people  in  the  unity  of  the 
faith.  This  will  succeed  as  it  succeeded  before.  In  fine,  the  devil 
is  too  clever  and  powerful  for  us.  He  hinders  us  and  stops  the 
way  everywhere.  If  we  wish  to  study  Scripture  he  raises  up  so 
much  strife  and  dissension  that  we  tire  of  it.  ...  He  is,  and  is 
called,  Satan,  i.e.  an  adversary."  He  here  attributes  to  the 
devil  the  defects  of  his  own  Scriptural  system,  and  puts  away  as 
something  wrong  even  the  very  thought  that  it  contained  faults, 
another  trait  to  his  psychological  picture  :  "  The  devil  is  a 
conjurer."  "  Unless  God  assists  us,  our  work  and  counsel  is  of 
no  avail.  We  may  think  of  it  as  we  like,  he  still  remains  the 
Prince  of  this  world.  Whoever  does  not  believe  this,  let  him 
simply  try  and  see.  Of  this  I  have  experienced  something.  But 
let  no  one  believe  me  until  he  has  himself  experienced  it."4  There 
is  no  doubt,  that,  in  1527,  Luther  did  have  to  go  through 
some  severe  struggles  of  conscience. 

The  Swiss  held  fast  to  "  Scripture  "  and  to  their  own  "  Spirit." 
H.  Bullinger,  the  leader  of  the  Zwinglians,  proved  more  logical 
than  Luther  in  his  interpretation  of  the  new  principle  of  Scrip 
ture.     In  his  book  on  the  difference  between  the  Evangelical  and 

1  Letter  of  Feb.  or  beginning  of  March,  1532,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed., 
30,  3,  p.  552  ;   Erl.  ed.,  54,  p.  288  ("  Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  157). 

2  "  Werke,"   Erl.   ed.,   62,  p.   50,   Table-Talk,   in  connection  with 
some  words  reported  to  have  been  uttered  by  Andreas  Proles,  which, 
however,  were  certainly  meant  by  him  in  a  different  sense. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  632  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  235. 

4  Ibid.,  23,  p.  69  =  30,  p.  19  f. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  "OUTWARD  WORD"    411 

Roman  doctrines  (Zurich,  1551)  he  deliberately  rejected  quite  a 
number  of  traditional,  Catholic  practices  which  Luther  had 
spared ;  for  instance,  the  use  of  religious  pictures  in  the  churches, 
ceremonies,  the  liturgical  chants,  confession,  etc.  With  this 
same  weapon  he  attacked  not  only  Catholicism,  but  also  Luther's 
doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  and  the 
whole  Church  system  as  introduced  by  the  Wittenbergers. 

Luther,  for  his  part,  in  order  to  retain  the  Bible  on  his  side, 
used  a  very  arbitrary  method  of  Scripture  interpretation  both 
against  the  Swiss  theologians  and  against  Catholicism  and  its 
defenders.  In  many  cases  it  was  only  his  peculiar  exegesis 
(to  be  considered  below,  xxviii.,  2)  that  furnished  him  with  the 
Scriptural  arguments  he  needed. 

Thus,  in  his  attitude  towards  Scripture,  the  Wittenberg 
Professor  wavers  between  tradition,  to  which  he  frequently 
appeals  almost  against  his  will,  and  that  principle  of 
independent  study  of  the  Bible  under  enlightenment  from 
on  high,  which  is  ever  obtruding  itself  on  him.  The  latter 
principle  he  never  denied,  in  spite  of  his  sad  experiences  with 
the  doctrine  that  everyone  who  is  taught  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  can  draw  from  Scripture  his  own  belief,  and,  accord 
ing  to  St.  Paul,  with  the  help  of  this  light,  test  the  teaching 
and  opinions  of  all.1  Yet — strange  as  it  may  seem  on  the 
part  of  an  assailant  of  authority — the  last  word  on  matters 
of  faith  belongs,  according  to  him,  to  authority.  This  is  his 
opinion  for  practical  reasons,  because  not  everyone  can  be 
expected,  and  but  fewr  are  able,  to  undertake  the  task  of 
finding  their  belief  for  themselves  in  the  Bible.  Moreover, 
what  one  may  possibly  have  learnt  from  Scripture  at  the 
cost  of  toil  and  with  the  help  of  inspiration,  cannot  so 
readily  become  the  common  property  of  all.  On  the  other 
hand,  according  to  Luther,  the  "  exterius  indicium  "  which 
is  supported  by  the  "  externa  daritas  "  of  Scripture,  as 
interpreted  by  himself  and  proclaimed  with  authority  by 
the  preachers,  was  intended  for  all.2 

1  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  441.     Here  he  says  in  his  "  Contra  regem 
Anglise  "  :     "  De   doctrina  cognoscere  et  iudicare  perlinet  ad  omnes  et 
singulos  Christianas  et  ita  pcrtinet,  ut  anathema  sit,  qui  hoc  ius  uno  pilo 
Iceserit.   .   .   .  Nunc   autem   (Christus)   non   solum   ills,   sed   prceceptum, 
iudicandi  statuit,  ut  hcec  sola  auctoritas  satis  esse  queat  adversus  omnium 
pontificum,  omnium  patrum,  omnium  conciliorum,  omnium  scholarum 
sententias.  .  .  .  Huic   subscribunt  ferme   omnes   omnium  prophetarum 
syllabce.  .  .  .  Habet  hie  Henricus  nosier  out  ullus  impurus  Thomista, 
quod  istis  obganniat  ?    Nonne  obstruximus  os  loquentium  iniqua  ?  " 

2  Kostlin,  "Luthers  Theol.,"  I2,  p.  379. 


412          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

The  Way  of  Settling  Doubts  Concerning  Faith.     Assurance 
of  Salvation  and  Belief  in  Dogma. 

When  we  come  to  examine  Luther's  teaching  on  the 
nature  of  the  faith  which  is  based  on  the  Bible  and  to 
enquire  how  doubts  regarding  this  Bible  teaching  were  to 
be  quieted,  we  are  again  faced  by  the  utmost  waywardness. 

In  his  "Von  beider  Gestallt  des  Saeramentes"  (1522), 
Luther  says  of  belief  in  the  truths  of  revelation  generally  :  "  And 
it  is  not  enough  for  you  to  say  :  Luther,  Peter  or  Paul  has  said 
it,  but  you  must  feel  Christ  Himself  in  your  own  conscience  and 
be  assured  beyond  all  doubt  that  it  is  really  the  Word  of  God, 
even  though  all  the  world  should  be  against  it.  So  long  as  you 
have  not  this  feeling  it  is  certain  that  you  have  not  tasted  the 
Word  of  God,  but  are  still  hanging  by  your  ears  on  the  lips  or  the 
pen  of  man  and  not  clinging  with  all  your  heart  to  the  Word." 
Since  Christ  is  the  one  and  only  teacher  it  is  plain  "  what  horrid 
murderers  of  souls  those  are  [viz.  the  Papists]  who  preach  to 
souls  the  doctrines  of  men."1 

The  whole  passage  is  of  the  utmost  practical  importance, 
because  in  it  Luther  seeks  to  solve  the  question  anxiously  asked 
by  so  many  :  Who  will  assure  us  that  all  that  we  are  now  told  that 
we  must  believe  if  we  do  not  wish  to  lose  our  souls,  is  really  the 
teaching  of  Christ  ?  To  this  he  here  gives  an  answer  which  is 
intended  to  satisfy  even  one  in  danger  of  death  and  to  instruct 
him  fully  on  the  matter  of  his  salvation. 

The  olden  Church  had  given  her  faithful  a  clear  answer  which 
set  every  doubt  at  rest  :  The  warrant  for  our  belief  is  the 
authority  of  the  Church  instituted  by  Christ  and  endowed  by 
God  with  infallibility.  In  effect  the  voice  of  the  General  Councils, 
the  decisions  of  an  unbroken  line  of  vicars  of  Christ  on  the  Papal 
throne,  the  teaching  of  the  hierarchy  everywhere  and  at  every 
time,  the  consensus  of  the  faithful,  in  brief,  the  outward  testi 
mony  of  Christ's  whole  Church,  aroused  in  all  hearts  the  happy 
certainty  that  the  faith  offered  was  indeed  the  revelation  of  God  ; 
people,  indeed,  believed  in  God  and  in  His  Word,  but  what  they 
believed  was  what  the  Church  proposed  for  belief.  The  Church 
also  declared,  though  not  in  the  same  sense  as  Luther,  "  Fides 
non  ullorum  auctoritate  sed  Spiritu  solo  Dei  oritur  in  corde."z 
The  Church  taught,  what  the  Council  of  Trent  emphasised  anew, 
viz.  that,  by  the  action  of  the  Holy  Ghost  alone,  i.e.  by  the  super 
natural  Grace  of  God  which  exalts  the  powers  of  man,  faith 
attains  to  what  is  requisite  for  salvation. 

Luther,  who  overthrew  the  authority  of  the  Church's  teaching 
office,  was  unable  to  provide  the  soul  in  its  struggle  after  faith 
with  any  guarantee  beyond  his  own  authority  to  take  the  Church's 
place.  In  his  "  Von  beider  Gestallt  des  Saeramentes  "  he  refers 
to  Christ  Himself  the  man  oppressed  by  doubt  and  fear,  viz.  to  a 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  23  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28.  p.  298. 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  429  f.  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  3,  p.  287. 


EXPERIENCE  VERSUS  AUTHORITY    413 

court  of  appeal  inaccessible  to  the  seeker,  and  this  he  did  at  a 
time  when  he  himself  had  started  all  kinds  of  discussions  on  the 
sense  of  the  Gospel,  and  when  Christ  was  being  claimed  in  support 
of  the  most  widely  divergent  views.  He  refers  the  enquirer  to 
Christ,  because  here  he  deems  it  better  not  to  say  plainly  "  hold 
fast  to  me,"  though  elsewhere  such  an  admonition  was  not  too 
bold  a  one  for  him  to  give.  "Think  rather  for  yourself,"  such 
is  his  advice,  "  you  have  death  or  persecution  in  front  of  you,  and 
I  cannot  be  with  you  then  nor  you  with  me.  Each  one  must 
fight  for  himself  and  overcome  the  devil,  death  and  the  world. 
Were  you  at  such  a  time  to  be  looking  round  to  see  where  I  was, 
or  I  to  see  where  you  were,  or  were  you  disturbed  because  I  or 
anyone  else  on  earth  asserted  differently,  you  would  be  lost 
already  and  have  let  the  Word  slip  from  your  heart,  for  you  would 
be  clinging,  not  to  the  Word,  but  to  me  or  to  some  other  ;  in 
that  case  there  is  no  help."1 

He  thus  leaves  the  anxious  man  "  to  himself  "  at  the  most 
awful  of  moments  ;  elsewhere,  too,  he  does  the  same.  When 
he  invites  every  man  to  "  taste  the  Word  of  God  "  betimes 
and  to  "  feel  "  how  directly  "  the  Master  speaks  within  his 
heart,"  this  is  merely  a  roundabout  way  of  repeating  the 
comfortless  warning  that  "  each  one  must  fight  for  himself." 
In  other  words,  what  he  means  is  :  I  have  no  sure  warrant 
to  give  in  the  stead  of  the  Church's  authority  ;  you  must 
find  out  for  yourself  whether  you  have  received  the  true 
Wrord  of  Christ  by  consulting  your  own  feelings. 

In  addition  to  this,  in  the  opinion  of  many  Protestant 
theologians,  the  faith  to  be  derived  from  the  Bible  which 
everyone  must  necessarily  arrive  at  was  very  much  circum 
scribed  by  Luther.  "  Man's  attitude  towards  Christ  and 
His  saving  Grace  "  loomed  so  large  with  him,  that  it  "  decided 
the  question  whether  a  man  was,  or  was  not,  a  believer." 
If,  in  the  Protestantism  of  to-day,  Luther's  "  idea  of  faith  " 
is  frequently  taken  rather  narrowly,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  in  many  of  his  statements  and  demands  he  himself 
goes  even  further.  We  have  here  to  do  with  that  "  two- 
sidedness  in  his  attitude  towards  Scripture,"  which  "  is 
apparent  at  every  period  of  his  life."2  If  we  keep  to  the 
earlier  and  more  "  liberal  "  side  of  his  "  Evangelical  con 
ception  of  faith,"  then  indeed  the  trusting  and  confident 
assumption  of  such  a  relationship  with  Christ  would 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,   10,  2,  p.  23  ;    Erl.  ed.,  28,  pp.  298,  299. 
Cp.    above,   p.  397,  n.   1,  also  pp.    398  and   400,   on  the    "  indicium 
inter  ius." 

2  The  last  words  are  from  Scheel.    See  above,  p.  392,  n.  2,  p.  76. 


414          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

certainly  be  "  decisive  in  the  question  whether  a  man  was  a 
believer  or  not,  and  Luther  himself  frequently  used  this 
criterion,  for  instance,  when  he  answers  as  follows  the 
question  :  Who  is  a  member  of  the  Church  and  whom 
must  one  regard  as  a  dear  brother  in  Christ :  '  All  who  confess 
Christ  as  sent  by  God  the  Father  in  order  to  reconcile  us 
by  His  death  and  to  obtain  grace  for  us  '  ;  or  again  else 
where  :  '  All  those  who  cling  to  Christ  alone  and  confess 
Him  in  faith,'  or,  yet  again  :  All  those  '  who  seek  the 
Lord  with  all  their  heart  and  soul,  and  trust  only  in  God's 
mercy.'1  In  such  utterances  we  have  the  purely  religious 
conception  of  Evangelical  faith  clearly  summarised."  (Cp. 
above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  13.) 

Agreeably  with  this  conception  of  faith,  some  Protestants 
have  contended  that  Luther  should  have  been  much  more 
broad-minded  with  regard  to  doubts  and  to  doctrines  which 
differed  from  his  own ;  his  opposition  to  other  views, 
notably  to  those  of  the  Zwinglians,  brought  him,  however, 
to  another  conception  of  faith,  to  one  more  closely  related 
to  the  Catholic  theory.  According  to  Catholic  doctrine, 
faith  is  a  firm  assent  to  all  that  God  has  revealed  and  the 
Church  proposes  for  belief.  It  is  made  up  of  many  articles, 
not  one  of  which  can  be  set  aside  without  injury  to  the 
whole.  Luther,  so  we  are  told,  "  owing  to  his  controversy 
with  Zwingli,  ran  the  risk  of  exchanging  his  conception  of 
faith  for  this  one  [the  Catholic  one],  according  to  which 
faith  is  the  acceptance  of  a  whole  series  of  articles  of  faith." 

In  reality  he  did  not  merely  "  run  the  risk  "  of  reaching 
such  a  doctrine  ;  he  had,  all  along,  even  in  earlier  days,  been 
moving  on  these  same  lines,  albeit  in  contradiction  with 
himself.  It  was  in  fact  nothing  altogether  new  when  he 
wrote  in  the  Articles  of  Schwabach  :  "  Such  a  Church  is 
nothing  else  than  the  faithful  in  Christ,  who  believe,  hold 
and  teach  the  above  Articles."2  The  faith  for  which  he 

1  Cp.  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  28,  p.  580  ff.  ;  Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  234  f.  ;   52, 
p.  392. 

2  Article  12.     "Werke,"  Wcim.  ed.,  30,  3,  p.   181  ;    Erl.  ed.,  242, 
p.  343.    G.  Kawerau  adds,  when  quoting  this  passage  (Moller's  "  Lehrb. 
der  KG.,"  33,  p.  104),  "  It  is  here,  therefore,  that  the  '  Communion  of 
Saints  '  begins  to  become  Luther's  confessional  Church." — The  Articles 
of  Schwabach,  which  were  sent  by  Luther  to  the  Elector  after  the 
Conference  of  Marburg  (above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  381),  probably  on  Oct.  7, 
1529,  were  mainly  intended   to   oppose  the   Zwinglians.      It   is   when 
repudiating  them,   as  non-Christians,   that  Luther  puts  forward  the 
above  conception  of  the  Church. 


PROTESTANT   STRICTURES          415 

wishes  to  stand  always  comprised  the  contents  of  the  oldest 
Creeds,  and  he  prefers  to  close  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  they 
were  really  undermined  by  his  other  propositions.  By  these 
articles  he  is  determined  to  abide.  Hence  it  is  hardly  fair 
to  appeal  to  him  in  favour  of  their  abrogation,  and  any  such 
appeal  would  only  serve  to  emphasise  his  self-contradiction. 
Luther  himself,  when  dealing  with  opponents,  frequently 
speaks  of  the  breaking  of  a  single  link  as  being  sufficient  to 
make  the  whole  chain  fall  apart.  "  All  or  nothing  "  was 
his  cry,  viz.  the  very  same  as  Catholics  had  used  against  his 
own  innovations.  In  short,  in  his  "  two-sidedness,"  he, 
quite  generally,  seeks  a  sure  foothold  against  difficulties 
from  within  and  from  without  in  the  principle  of  authority 
in  its  widest  meaning,  and,  when  trying  to  safeguard  the 
Apostles'  Creed  and  the  "  oecumenical  symbols,"  he  appeals 
expressly  to  the  Catholic  past.  He  says  that  by  thus 
vindicating  the  Apostles'  Creed  and  that  of  Nicaea  he  Avished 
to  show  that  he  "  was  true  to  the  rightful,  Christian  Church, 
which  had  retained  them  till  that  day."1  The  Fathers  pre 
served  them  and,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Athanasian  Creed, 
supplemented  and  enlarged  the  traditional  formulas,  the 
better  to  counter  heretics  ;  Luther  is  even  willing  to  accept 
new  terms  not  found  in  Scripture,  but  coined  by  the 
Church,  such  as  "  peccatum  originale"  or  "  consul)  stantialis  " 
(o/u.oov<no$),2  since  they  might  profitably  be  employed 
against  false  teachers. 

Protestant  Objections  to  Luther's  so-called  "  Formal  Principle." 

"It  is  not  for  us  to  tone  down  or  conceal  the  contra 
dictions  which  present  themselves,"  writes  a  Protestant 
theologian  who  has  made  Luther's  attitude  towards  Scrip 
ture  the  subject  of  particular  study.  "...  Even  judged 
by  the  standard  of  his  own  day  Luther  does  not  display 
that  uniformity  which  we  are  entitled  to  expect.  .  .  .  The 
psychological  motives  in  particular  are  very  involved  and 
spring  from  different  sources.  The  very  fact  that  through 
out  his  life  he  exhibited  a  certain  obstinacy  and  violence 
towards  both  himself  and  others,  must  render  doubtful  any 
attempt  to  trace  everything  back  to  a  single  source. 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  23,  p.  252  ft.,  in  the  preface  to  his  edition  of 
these  Creeds,  and  the  "  Te  Deum,"  1538. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  117  ;   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  5,  p.  505. 


416         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Obstinacy  always  points  to  contradictions."  This  author 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  :  "  We  might  almost  give  vent  to  the 
paradox,  that  only  in  these  contradictions  is  uniformity 
apparent ;  such  a  proposition  would,  however,  hold  good 
only  before  the  court  of  psychology."  "  To-day  it  is  not 
possible  to  embrace  Luther's  view  in  its  entirety."1 

In  an  historical  account  of  Luther's  teaching  (and  it  is  in 
this  that  most  Protestant  scholars  arc  interested)  we  must, 
as  we  advance,  ever  keep  in  view  Luther's  whole  individu 
ality  with  all  its  warring  elements.  The  difficulty  thus 
presented  to  our  becoming  better  acquainted  with  his 
views  is,  however,  apparent  from  the  words  already  quoted 
from  one  of  Luther's  biographers  concerning  Luther's 
wealth  of  ideas,  which  also,  to  some  extent,  apply  even  to 
his  statements  on  dogma  :  "  Every  word  Luther  utters 
plays  in  a  hundred  lights  and  every  eye  meets  with  a 
different  radiance  which  it  would  gladly  fix."2 

In  spite  of  the  difficulties  arising  from  this  character  of 
the  Wittenberg  Doctor,  early  orthodox  Lutheranism  taught 
that  he  had  set  up  the  "  sola  scriptura  "  as  the  "  formal 
principle  "  of  the  new  doctrine.  According  to  eminent 
authorities  in  modem  Protestantism,  however,  this  formal 
principle  was  stillborn  ;  it  was  never  capable  in  practice  of 
supporting  an  edifice  of  doctrine,  still  less  of  forming  a 
community  of  believers.  Hence  the  tendency  has  been  to 
make  it  subservient  to  the  "  Evangelical  "  understanding 
of  the  Bible. 

Thus  F.  Kropatscheck,  the  author  of  the  learned  work  "  Das 
Schriftprinzip  der  lutherischen  Kirche  "  (1904),  says  candidly, 
"  that  the  formal  principle  of  Protestantism  [Scripture  only]  does 
not  suffice  in  itself  as  a  foundation  for  the  true  Christian  life 
whether  of  the  individual  or  of  a  community."  "  Where  the 
Evangelical  content  is  lacking,  the  formal  principle  does  not  rise 
above  sterile  criticism."3 

Kropatscheck's  examination  of  the  mediaeval  views  on  Scrip 
ture  led  him  moreover  to  recognise,  that,  in  theory  at  least,  the 
Bible  always  occupied  its  due  place  of  honour  ;  its  content  was, 
however,  so  he  fancies,  not  understood  until  Luther  rediscovered 
it  as  the  Gospel  of  the  "  forgiveness  of  sins  through  Christ."4  So 
far,  according  to  him,  did  esteem  for  Scripture  as  the  Word  of 
God  go  in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  he  even  ventures  to  characterise 
the  formula  "sola  scriptura"  as  "Catholic  commonplace";5 

1  Scheel,  ibid.,  p.  75.          2  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  21. 
3  Vol.  i.,  p.  58.  4  P.  459.  5  P.  440. 


PROTESTANT  STRICTURES          417 

this,  however,  he  can  only  have  intended  in  the  sense  in  which  it 
was  read  and  supplemented  by  another  Protestant  theologian  : 
"  In  practice  this  did  not  exclude  the  interpretation  of  Scripture 
on  the  lines  of  tradition."1  "The  so-called  formal  principle," 
the  above  work  goes  on  to  say,  with  quite  remarkable  fairness 
to  the  past,  "  was  much  more  utilised  in  the  Middle  Ages  than 
popular  accounts  would  lead  us  to  suppose.  To  the  Reformation 
we  owe  neither  the  formula  ('  sola  scriptura  ')  nor  the  insisting 
on  the  literal  sense,  nor  the  theory  of  inspiration,  nor  scarcely 
anything  else  demanded  on  the  score  of  pure  scriptural  teaching."2 
"  Almost  all  "  the  qualities  attributed  to  Holy  Scripture  in  the 
early,  orthodox  days  of  Protestantism  "  are  already  to  be  met  with 
in  the  Middle  Ages."3 

In  the  same  work  Kropatscheck  rightly  sums  up  the  teaching 

1  W.  Kohler  in  his  review  of  Kropatscheck  ("  Theol.  Literaturztng.," 
1905,  col.  453  ff.). 

2  P.  459.     For  proofs  that,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Bible  occupied 
its  due  position  in  the  faith  and  life  of  Christians,  cp.  K.  Holzhey,  "  Die 
Inspiration  der  hi.  Schrift  in  den  Anschauungen  des  MA.,"  1895. 

3  Instructive  indeed  are  the  detailed  proofs  given  in  Kropatscheck's 
work  of  how  the  heretical  Waldenses,  and,  after  them,  Wiclif  and  Hus, 
used  the  "  sola  scriptura  "  against  tradition  and  the  authority  of  the 
Church.     The  example  of  the  Waldenses  had  already  shown  that  it 
was  quite  impossible  to  use  the  principle  without  accepting  at  the 
same  time  certain  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  (p.    17  ff.).     With 
Hus  "  the  formula  '  sola  scriptura  '  rings  again  and  again  in  his  writings 
as  a  battle-cry  "  (p.  76).     He  wants  the  "  lex  Christi  "  and  no  "  leges 
novae,"  hence,  no  Decretals,  indulgences,  Crusade-Bulls,  priesthood  or 
celibacy.     The  revolutionary  force  of  the  formula  is  noticeable  in  Hus 
and  still  more  in  the  later  Hussites  ;  they  declared  the  "  Law  of  Grace  " 
to  be  sufficient  even  for  civil  life,  and,  as  "  avengers  of  Scripture," 
proclaimed  war  on  those  lords  who  thought  differently,  the  Princes 
and  the  monasteries.    Wiclif,  "  a  Bible  theologian  from  head  to  foot," 
who  even  finds  in  Scripture  all  the  wisdom  and  learning  of  the  world, 
and   describes  it  as  a  book  everyone   can  understand,   registered   a 
success  which  was   "  great  "   only  in  the  revolutionary  sense.     The 
Bible    standpoint    of    Occam,    to    which    Kropatscheck   also    devotes 
attention,  has  something  in  common  with  that  of  Luther  (cp.  Kropat 
scheck,   "  Occam  und  Luther,"  in  "  Beitrage  zur  Forderung  christl. 
Theol.,"    1900,   p.   49  ff.).      Kropatscheck  emphasises  the  fact,   that 
Occam,  in  his  opposition  to  the  Pope,  had  conceded  to  "  the  whole 
Church  "   the  right  of  interpretation,   and,   like  Marsilius   of  Padua, 
wished  to   set   aside   rnan-made   laws   for   the  Bible  and   the   law  of 
nature.    The  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  "  apocalyptic,  political 
and  social  "  trends  connected  with  Holy  Scripture  show  how  dangerous 
and  subversive  any  arbitrary  treatment  of  the  Bible  could  be.     The 
written  Word  of  God  becomes  a  weapon  wherewith  to  rouse  the  passions 
against  the  highest  powers,  an  excuse  for  gross  millenarianism  and 
libertinism,   and  a  veritable  mine  to  be  exploited  by  stupid,   crazy 
fanatics. — Cp.,  on  Kropatscheck,  M.  Buchberger,  in  "  Theol.  Revue," 
1906,   p.   118  ff . ;    his   review  concludes  as  follows:    "that  no   solid 
foundation    can    be    won,    but    that   everything    totters   without    an 
authoritative,  and,  in  the  last  instance,  infallible,  exponent  of  Holy 
Scripture.      The   call   for   such   an  exponent   is  the  final   conclusion 
powerfully  borne  in  on  the  mind." 

IV. — 2  E 


418          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

on  the  inspiration  of  the  canonical  books,  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
the  principal  exponent  of  the  mediaeval  biblical  teaching,  doing 
so  in  a  couple  of  sentences  the  clearness  and  collusiveness  of 
which  contrast  strangely  with  the  new  doctrine  :  "  The  effect  of 
inspiration,"  according  to  this  Doctor  of  the  Church,  implies, 
negatively,  preservation  from  error,  positively,  an  enlightenment, 
both  for  the  perception  of  supernatural  truth  and  for  the  right 
judging  of  natural  verities.  Beyond  this,  a  certain  impulse  from 
on  high  was  needed  to  move  the  sacred  scribes  to  write  the  burden 
of  their  message.1 

That  in  the  past  the  doctrine  of  interpretation  was  bound  up 
with  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  is,  according  to  the  statements 
of  another  Protestant  writer,  P.  Drews,2  expressed  as  follows  by 
the  Catholic  voice  of  Willibald  Pirkheimer  :  "  We  should  have 
to  look  on  ourselves  as  reprobate  were  we  to  despise  even  one 
syllable  of  Holy  Scripture,  for  we  know  and  firmly  believe  that 
our  salvation  rests  solely  and  entirely  on  the  Gospel.  Hence  we 
have  it  daily  in  our  hands  and  read  it  and  regard  it  as  the  guide 
of  our  lives.  But  no  one  can  blame  us  if  we  place  greater  reliance 
on  the  interpretation  of  the  holy,  ancient  Fathers  than  on  some 
garbled  account  of  Holy  Scripture,  since  it  is,  alas,  daily  evident 
that  there  are  as  many  different  readings  of  the  Word  of  God  as 
there  are  men.  Herein  lies  the  source  of  all  the  evils  and  dis 
orders,  viz.  that  every  fool  would  expound  Scripture,  needless  to 
say,  to  his  own  advantage."3 

Protestant  theologians  have  recently  been  diligent  in  studying 
Luther's  teaching  on  the  Bible.  The  conclusions  arrived  at  by 
O.  Scheel,  who  severely  criticises  Luther,  have  several  times  been 
quoted  in  this  work.  K.  Thimme,  in  a  scholarly  work  entitled 
"  Luthers  Stellung  zur  Heiligen  Schrift,"4  has  pointed  out  that 
Luther,  who  "  affirms  the  existence  of  real  inaccuracies  in  Holy 
Scripture,"  nevertheless,  in  the  very  year  that  he  expressed 
contempt  for  certain  books  of  the  New  Testament,  loudly 
demanded  "the  firmest  belief  ('  firmissime  credatur'),  that 
nothing  erroneous  is  contained  in  the  canonical  books."5 

A.  Galley,  a  theologian  to  whom  it  fell  to  review  the  book, 
declared,  that,  unfortunately,  in  spite  of  this  and  other  essays 
on  the  subject,  no  sure  and  decisive  judgment  on  Luther's  atti 
tude  towards  Holy  Scripture  had  yet  been  arrived  at.6 — Does 
this  not,  perhaps,  amount  to  saying  that  any  ultimate  verdict 
of  harmony,  truth  and  absence  of  contradictions  is  out  of  the 
question  ? 

R.  Seeberg  in  one  work  emphasises  "  Luther's  independent 
and  critical  attitude  towards  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New 

1  Ibid.,  p.  433. 

2  "  W.  Pirkheimers  Stellung  zur  Reformation,"  1887,  p.  117. 

3  From  Pirkheimer's  "  Oratio  apolog.,"  for  the  Convent  of  St.  Clare 
at  Nuremberg,  in  "  Opp.,"  ed.  M.  Goldast,  1G10,  p.  375  seq. 

4  Giitersloh,  1903,  p.  84  ff. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  195  ;    "  Opp.  lat,  var.,"  6,  p.  408. 

6  "  Theol.  Literaturblatt,"  1905,  col.  41. 


419 

Testament  Canon."  "  Scripture  is  to  be  believed  not  on  the 
external  authority  of  the  Church  but  because  it  is  revelation 
tested  by  experience.  .  .  .  Scripture  was  to  him  the  standard, 
test  and  measure  of  all  ecclesiastical  doctrine,  but  this  it  was  as 
the  expression  of  the  experienced  revelation  of  God."1 

This  statement  Seeberg  further  explains  elsewhere  :  "  Though, 
in  his  controversies,  Luther  pits  Scripture  as  the  '  Divine  law  ' 
against  all  mere  ecclesiastical  law  [viz.  the  Church's  dogma],  yet 
he  regarded  it  as  authoritative  simply  in  so  far  as  it  was  the 
original,  vigorous  witness  to  Christ  and  His  salvation.  Con 
sidered  in  this  light,  Scripture,  however,  cannot  be  put  side  by 
side  with  justifying  faith  as  the  second  principle  of  Protestant 
ism.  The  essential  and  fundamental  thought  is  faith." — What 
Seeberg  here  says  is  quietly  aimed  at  the  later,  orthodox,  Lutheran 
theologians  who  took  from  Luther  the  so-called  formal  principle 
of  Protestantism,  viz.  the  doctrine  of  the  verbal  inspiration  of 
the  Bible.  "  How  is  it  possible,  in  view  of  Luther's  reprobation 
of  certain  things  in  the  Bible  .  .  .  and  his  admission  that  it 
contained  mistakes,  to  imagine  any  verbal  inspiration  ?  "2 

Seeberg  has  also  a  remarkable  account  of  Luther's  views  on 
the  relation  to  Scripture  of  that  faith  which  in  reality  is  based  on 
inward  experience  :  "  The  specific  content  of  Scripture  "  is 
"  Christ,  His  office  and  kingdom."  To  this  content  it  is  that 
faith  bears  witness  by  inward  experience  (see  above,  p.  404  f.). 
For  faith  is  "  the  recognition  by  the  heart  of  the  Almighty  love 
revealed  to  us  in  God.  .  .  .  This  recognition  involves  also  the 
certainty  that  I  am  in  the  Grace  of  God."  "  The  truth  of  Scrip 
ture  is  something  demonstrated  inwardly,"  etc.  "  The  external, 
legal  founding  of  doctrine  upon  dogma  is  thus  set  aside,  and  an 
end  is  made  of  the  ancient  canon  of  Vincent  of  Lerins.  Even  the 
legal  [dogmatic]  application  of  Scripture  is  in  principle  done 
away  with."  Of  the  extent  to  which  Luther  carried  out  these 
principles  the  author  says  in  conclusion  :  "  That  his  practice  was 
not  always  exemplary  and  devoid  of  contradiction  can  merely 
be  hinted  at  here."3 

It  would  have  been  better  to  say  straight  away  that  no  non- 
contradictory  use  of  contradictory  principles  was  possible. 

Dealing  with  a  work  by  K.  Eger  ( ' '  Luthers  Auslegung  des  Alten 
Testamentes  "),  W.  Kohler  said  :  "  Any  interpretation  not 
limited  by  practical  considerations  .  .  .  was  quite  unknown 
to  Luther,  hence  we  must  not  seek  such  a  thing  in  him.  .  .  .  Our 
best  plan  is  to  break  with  Luther's  principle  of  interpretation." 
And,  before  this  :  "  Luther's  principle  of  interpretation  is  every 
where  the  '  fides,'  and  what  Luther  has  to  offer  in  the  way  of 
sober,  '  historical  '  interpretation  is  no  growth  of  his  own  garden 
but  a  fruit  of  Humanism.  .  .  .  Just  as  the  Schoolmen  found 
their  theology  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  he  did  his."4 

1  "  Grundriss  der  DG.,"  etc.3,  Leipzig,  1910,  p.  130. 

2  "  Lehrbuch  der  DG.,"  2nd  part,  Erl.,  1898,  p.  289. 

3  Pp.  288,  283,  290  f. 

4  "Theol.  Literaturztng.,"  1901,  col.  272.     O.  Ritschl  ("  DC.,"   1, 
1908,  p.  69  ff.)  judges  more  favourably. 


420         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Luther's  method  of  interpretation,  however,  presents  much 
that  calls  for  closer  examination. 

2.  Luther  as  a  Bible-Expositor 

"  Luther  in  his  quality  of  Bible-expositor  is  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  and  puzzling  figures  in  the  domain  of 
religious  psychology."1 

Some  Characteristics  of  Luther's  Exegesis. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  Luther's  principles  of  exegesis  are 
excellent,  and  that  he  has  a  better  perception  than  many  of 
his  predecessors  of  the  need  of  first  ascertaining  the  literal 
sense,  and,  for  this  purpose,  of  studying  languages.  He  is 
aware  that  the  fourfold  sense  of  Holy  Scripture,  so  often 
wrongly  appealed  to,  must  retire  before  the  literal  meaning, 
and  that  we  must  ever  seek  what  the  sacred  writer  really 
and  obviously  meant,  in  whatever  dress  we  find  his  ideas 
clothed.  Some  quite  excellent  observations  occur  in  his 
works  on  the  danger  of  having  recourse  to  allegorical  inter 
pretations  and  of  not  taking  the  text  literally. 

Luther  himself,  it  is  true,  in  his  earlier  postils,  frequently 
makes  use  of  the  allegory  so  dear  to  mediaeval  writers,  often 
investing  what  he  says  in  poetic  and  fantastic  forms. 
Later  on,  however,  he  grew  more  cautious.  Here  again  the 
abuse  of  allegory  by  the  fanatics  had  its  effect.  In  addition 
to  this  his  constant  efforts  to  prove  his  doctrine  against 
theological  gainsayers  within  and  without  his  camp,  forced 
him  in  his  arguments  to  use  the  literal  sense  of  the  Bible,  or 
at  least  what  he  considered  such.  The  advantages  of  his 
German  translation  of  the  Bible  will  be  spoken  of  elsewhere 
(see  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  3). 

Yet  he  lacked  one  thing  essentially  required  of  an  exposi 
tor,  viz.  theological  impartiality,  nor  was  he  fair  to  those 
means  by  which  the  Church's  interpreters  were  guided  in 
determining  the  sense  of  Scripture. 

Concerning  the  latter,  it  is  enough  to  remember  how 
lightheartedly  he  threw  overboard  the  interpretation  of  the 
whole  of  the  Christian  past.  His  wantonness,  which  led  him 
to  esteem  as  of  no  account  all  the  expositions  and  teachings 
of  previous  ages,  deprived  his  exegesis  of  much  help  and 

1  Dollinger,  '   Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  156. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  HIS  EXEGESIS  421 

also  of  any  stable  foundation.  Even  considered  from  the 
merely  natural  standpoint,  real  progress  in  religious  know 
ledge  must  surely  be  made  quietly  and  without  any  sudden 
break  with  what  has  already  been  won  by  the  best  minds 
by  dint  of  diligent  labour. 

The  rock  on  which  Luther  suffered  shipwreck  was  how 
ever  above  all  his  complete  lack  of  impartiality.  In  his  work 
as  expositor  his  concern  was  not  to  do  homage  to  the  truth 
in  whatever  shape  he  might  encounter  it  in  the  texts  he  was 
interpreting,  but  to  introduce  into  the  texts  his  own  ideas. 
Bearing  in  mind  his  controversy  and  his  natural  tempera 
ment,  this  cannot,  however,  surprise  us.  Hence  it  is  not 
necessary  to  take  too  tragically  the  tricks  he  occasionally 
plays  with  Bible  texts.  Some  of  these  have  been  most 
painstakingly  examined,1  and,  indeed,  it  was  not  without 
its  advantages  to  have  the  general  complaints  raised  thus 
verified  in  individual  instances.  Thanks  to  his  investigations 
Dollinger  was  able  to  write  :  "  False  interpretations  of  the 
most  obvious  and  arbitrary  kind  are  quite  the  usual  thing 
in  his  polemics.  It  would  hardly  be  possible  to  carry  this 
further  than  he  did  in  his  writings  against  Erasmus  in  the 
instances  quoted  even  by  Planck.  Indeed,  examples  of 
utter  wilfulness  and  violence  to  the  text  can  be  adduced 
in  great  number  from  his  writings."  Most  frequently,  as 
Dollinger  points  out,  "  his  interpretation  is  false,  because  he 
foists  his  own  peculiar  ideas  on  the  biblical  passages,  ideas 
which  on  his  own  admission  he  reached  not  by  a  calm  and  dis 
passionate  study  of  the  Bible,  but  under  conditions  of  painful 
mental  disturbance  and  anxiety  of  conscience."  To  this 
he  was  urged  by  the  unrest  certain  Bible-sayings  excited  in 
him  ;  in  such  cases,  as  Dollinger  remarks,  he  knew  how  "  to 
pacify  his  exegetical  conscience  by  telling  himself,  that  all 
this  disquiet  was  merely  a  temptation  of  the  devil,  who 
wanted  to  puzzle  him  with  passages  from  Scripture  and 
thus  drive  him  to  despair."2 

The  whole  of  his  exegesis  is  pervaded  by  his  doctrine  of 
Justification.  In  this  sense  he  says  in  the  preface  to 
Galatians,  the  largest  of  his  exegetico-dogmatic  works  : 
"  Within  me  this  one  article  of  faith  in  Christ  reigns 

1  Dollinger,  ibid.,  pp.  156-173.     Denifle,  "  Luther  und  Luthertum," 
I2,  pp.  80  f.,  668  fL,  675,  688,  716,  and  passim. 

2  "  Luther,  eine  Skizze,"  p.  59  ;    "  KL.,"  82,  p.  344. 


422         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

supreme.     Day  and  night  all  my  ideas  on  theology  spring 
from  it  and  return  thereto."1 

"  The  article  of  Justification,"  he  declares,  in  a  disputation 
in  1537,  "  is  the  master  and  prince,  the  lord,  regent  and 
judge  of  every  form  of  doctrine,  which  preserves  and  rules  all 
ecclesiastical  knowledge  and  exalts  our  consciousness  before 
God."2 

Two  years  before  this  (1535)  he  expressed  himself  still 
more  strongly  in  a  disputation  :  "  Scripture  is  not  to  be  under 
stood  against,  but  for,  Christ.  Hence  it  must  either  be  made  to 
apply  to  Him — or  not  be  regarded  as  true  Scripture  at  all."3 

His  highly  vaunted  idea  of  Justification  he  sought  to  apply 
first  and  foremost  to  those  books  or  passages  of  the  Bible  which, 
as  he  expressed  it,  "  preach  Christ."  Though  giving  the  first 
place  in  the  canonical  regard  to  those  writings  where  Christ  is 
most  strongly  and  fully  preached  and  but  scant  favour  (when  he 
does  not  reject  them  entirely)  to  those  where  this  is  not  the  case, 
he  yet  contrives  to  introduce  his  own  particular  Christ  into 
many  parts  of  Scripture  which  really  say  nothing  about  Him. 
Everything  that  redounds  to  the  honour  of  Christ,  i.e.  to  the 
exaltation  of  His  work  of  grace  in  man,  as  Luther  understood  it, 
must  be  forced  into  Scripture,  while  everything  that  tends  to 
assert  man's  powers  and  the  need  of  his  co-operation  must  be 
expunged,  since  Christ  cannot  arrive  at  His  right  which  He  has 
from  the  Father  except  through  the  utter  helplessness  of  man. 
The  Bible  must  nowrhere  know  of  any  inner  righteousness  on 
man's  part  that  is  of  any  value  in  God's  sight  ;  it  must  never 
place  on  the  lips  of  Christ  any  demand,  any  praise  or  reward 
for  human  effort.  All  sacred  utterances  which  contradict  this 
are,  so  he  says,  in  spite  of  his  preference  for  the  literal  sense,  not 
to  be  taken  literally.  Thus,  when  the  Bible  says  man  shall,  it  does 
not  follow  that  he  can  ;  God  rather  wishes  thereby  to  convince 
man  of  his  helplessness  ;  nay,  what  is  said  in  this  connection  of 
man  and  his  works  really  applies  to  Christ,  Who  has  done  every 
thing  for  us  and  makes  it  all  ours  by  faith.4 

"  There  were  times  in  his  life  when  the  antithesis  between  faith 
and  works  so  dominated  him  and  filled  his  mind,  that  the  whole 
Bible  seemed  to  him  to  have  been  written  simply  to  illustrate 
and  emphasise  this  doctrine  of  Justification."5 

Two  portions  of  Holy  Scripture,  viz.  the  Epistles  to  the 
Romans  and  to  the  Galatians,  according  to  him,  hold  the  first 
place  in  their  eulogy  of  Christ,  by  their  recommendation  of 

1  "  Comm.  in  Gal.,"  1,  p.  3,  Irmischer. 

2  "  Disputationes,"  eel.  Drews,  p.  119:    "  Articulus  iustificationis  est 
mayister  et  princeps,  dominus,  rector  et  iudex  super  omnia  genera  doctri- 
narum,    qui   conservat   et   gubernat   omnem   doctrinam   ecclesiasticam   et 
erifjit  conscientiam  nostram  coram  Deo." 

3  "  Disputationes,"  p.  11,  n.  41. 

4  Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  158.  6  Ibid. 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  HIS  EXEGESIS  423 

faith  in  Him  alone.  Hence  "  all  questions  and  all  the  more 
obscure  passages  of  Scripture  are  to  be  solved  and  explained  by 
these  two  epistles."1  If,  in  the  Bible,  good  works  are  extolled 
or  almsgiving  praised,  the  word  "fide"  must  always  be  under 
stood,  since  the  meaning  cannot  but  be  that  such  works  are 
profitable  by  faith.2 

In  the  case  of  the  Evangelists,  Matthew  and  Luke  in  particular, 
we  must  expound  their  writings  in  accordance  with  the  doctrine 
of  Justification  through  Christ  and  man's  own  helplessness. 
"  Scripture  must  be  interpreted  according  to  this  article.  .  .  . 
When  Matthew  and  Luke  speak  of  good  works,  they  are  to  be 
understood  and  judged  according  to  this  rule.3 

Thus,  in  all  questions  of  exegesis  the  "  preaching  of 
Christ  "  is  conclusive.  We  must,  first  of  all,  see  whether 
each  book  commonly  reckoned  to  form  part  of  the  Bible 
really  "  preaches  Christ,"  and,  where  this  is  so,  the  same 
thoughts  will  control  everything  else.4 

In  the  question  of  the  relation  of  faith  to  the  interpreta 
tion  of  Scripture,  Luther  hobbles  strangely.  On  the  one 
hand  the  Bible  is  to  be  interpreted  strictly  according  to 
faith,  on  the  other,  faith  is  to  be  won  solely  from  the  Bible. 
The  former  proposition  he  thus  explains  in  a  sermon  :  It 
is  a  command  that  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  must 
"  rhyme  with  faith  and  not  teach  anything  contrary  to  or 
differing  from  what  faith  teaches."  True  faith,  however,  is 
that  which  is  directed  against  the  power  of  works,  so  that 
any  interpretation  of  the  Bible  which  contradicts  this  is 
wrong.  Whatever  teaches  us  "to  have  a  good  conscience 
towards  God,  except  by  faith  alone  and  without  any  works, 
neither  resembles  nor  rhymes  with  faith."5  Of  the  content 
of  faith  we  are  assured  above  all  by  inward  experience  and 
the  Spirit.  It  is  indeed  on  the  "  feeling  and  sentiment  " 
that,  in  the  case  of  faith,  i.e.  the  acceptance  of  the  Gospel 

1  "  Briefe,"  6,  p.  424,  undated,  and  to  a  person  unnamed  :    "  Ex  his 
duabus  epistolis  omnes,  quce  incident,  quce.iliones,  vel  alioqui  scripturce 
loca  obscuriora  interpretator" 

2  Ibid.,  p.  434.     Written  in  a  Bible  :    "  Ad  omnia  dicta  scripturce, 
quibus  videtur  iustitia  operum  statui,  rcspondebis  ex  Ebre.  11,  hac  voce  : 
Fide,"  etc. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  33,  p.  165  f.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  47,  p.  371.     In  the 
Exposition  of  John  vi.-viii.  (1530-1532). 

4  Cp.  ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  157. 

5  Ibid.,  82,  p.  23.     Cp.  p.  24  :    "  But  know  that  Pope,  Councils  and 
the  whole  world  in  all  their  teaching  are  subject  to  the  meanest  Chris 
tian,  even  to  a  child  of  seven  who  has  the  faith,  and  that  they  must 
accept  his  opinion." 


424         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

message  of  salvation,  Luther  lays  the  chief  stress.1  "  If 
you  feel  it  not,  you  have  not  the  faith,  the  Word  merely  rings 
in  your  ears  and  hovers  on  your  lips  like  foam  on  water."2 

Luther  is  just  as  determined  in  proving  faith  from  Scrip 
ture  as  he  is  in  making  Scripture  subservient  to  and 
dependent  on  faith.  "  Without  Scripture  faith  soon  goes," 
he  exclaims  after  labouring  to  bring  forward  arguments 
from  the  Bible  in  support  of  the  new  faith  in  Christ.3 
"  Whatever  is  advanced  without  being  attested  by  Scripture 
or  a  revelation  need  not  be  believed."4  "  To  this  wine  no 
water  must  be  added";5  to  this  sun  no  lantern  must  be 
held  up  ! 6  "  You  must  take  your  stand  on  a  plain,  clear  and 
strong  word  of  Scripture,  which  will  then  be  your  support."  7 

The  worst  of  it  is,  as  O.  Schecl  aptly  remarks,  that  Luther 
pits  his  Christ  against  Scripture  and  thus  makes  the  latter 
void. 8 

On  the  one  hand,  according  to  Adolf  Harnack,  Luther, 
when  making  faith  the  rule  of  Bible  interpretation,  becomes 
a  "  mediaeval  exegete  "  and  borrows  from  the  past  even  his 
types  and  allegories.  Yet  he  cuts  himself  adrift  in  the  most 
decided  fashion  from  the  mediaeval  exegesis,  "  not  merely 
when  it  is  a  question  of  Justification,"  but  even  "  in 

1  "  Werke,"    Weim.    ed.,    8,    p.    357  ;    Erl.    ed.,    H2,    p.    47  ;     cp. 
p.  379  =  78. 

2  Ibid.,    132,   p.    231  ;    cp.  Weim.  ed.,   10,  2,  p.  23  ;    Erl.  ed.,  28, 
p.  298. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  152,  p.  145  f. 

4  "  Quod  sine  scripturis  asscritur  aut  revelationc  probata,   opinari 
licet,  credi  non  est  necesse."     "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  (5,  p.  508  ;   "  Opp. 
lat  var.,"  5,  p.  30.      Cp.,  ibid.,  2,  pp.  297,  279,  309-15  ==3,  pp.  89,  62, 
106-15. 

5  Ibid.,  8,  p.  141  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  323  f.  ;   cp.  p.  143  f.  =  325  f. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  235  =  39,  p.  132. 

7  Ibid.,  10,  3,  p.  22  f.  =  28,  p.  223.     Cp.  R.  Seeberg.  "  Lehrb.  der 
DG.,"  p.  285  f. 

8  Scheel  gives  Luther's  views  on  p.  45  as  follows  :    "  What  is  not 
taught  by  Christ  is  not  apostolic  even  should  Peter  and  Paul  teach  it. 
But  all  that  preaches  Christ  is  apostolic  even  should  Judas,  Annas, 
Pilate  or  Herod  teach  it.     ("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  63,  p.  157.)  .   .   .  Hence 
Luther  replies   to  his   opponent,    '  You  appeal   to   the  slave,   i.e.   to 
Scripture,  and  not  even  to  the  whole  or  the  most  excellent  part  of  it. 
This  slave  I  leave  for  you  ;    as  for  me,  I  appeal  to  the  Lord,  Who  is 
King  of  Scripture.'  "    ("  Comm.  in  Gal.,"  1,  p.  387,  Irmischer.)    Scheel 
quotes  the  "  Comm.  in  Gen.,"   1,  p.  539  :    "  Si  adversarii  scripturam 
urserint  contra  Christum,   urgcmus  Christum  contra  scripttiras."     He 
says  finally,  p.   74  :    "  Luther  found  himself  in  Scripture  just  as  the 
simple  man  finds  in  the  outward  world  the  answer  to  his  own  world  of 
sense  ;    with  the  unerring  instinct  of  genius  he  found  the  essence  of 
Scripture  which  was  at  the  same  time  the  essence  of  his  own  being." 


CHARACTERISTICS  OF  HIS  EXEGESIS  425 

regard  to  such  Scripture  passages  as  contain  nothing  what 
ever  about  the  doctrine  of  Justification  and  faith,  or  only 
alien  matter."1 

For  instance,  he  finds  righteousness  by  works  condemned 
and  faith  exalted  in  the  very  first  pages  of  the  Bible  ;  for 
Cain,  his  brother's  murderer,  "  clung  to  works  and  lost  the 
faith,"  that  was  his  misfortune  ;  whereas  Abel  held  aloof 
"  from  free-will  and  the  merit  of  works  "  and  "  kept  the 
faith  in  a  pure  conscience."  "  The  same  thing  happened 
later  with  Isaac  and  Ismael,  Jacob  and  Esau,  and  others." 
—Yet,  in  spite  of  such  condemnation  of  works,  many 
passages,  particularly  in  the  New  Testament,  seem  to  tell 
in  favour  of  works.  This,  however,  is  only  due  to  the  fact 
that  at  the  time  of  the  New  Testament  writers  it  wras 
desirable  to  raise  up  a  bulwark  against  any  too  great  esteem 
for  faith.  Thus  it  was  really  not  meant  quite  seriously  ; 
in  the  same  way  even  he  himself,  so  he  says,  had  been 
obliged  to  oppose  this  excessive  esteem  for  faith,  because, 
in  his  day,  and  owing  to  his  preaching,  the  people  "  wanted 
merely  to  believe,  to  the  neglect  of  the  power  and  fruit  of 
faith  "  (in  good  actions).2 

Owing  to  his  habit  of  ever  reading  the  Bible  through  the 
glass  of  his  doctrine  of  Justification,  his  handling  of  Rom. 
xi.  32  (in  the  Vulgate  :  "  Conclusit  Deus  omnia  in  increduli- 
tate  ut  omnium  misereatur  ")  was  such  that  Dollinger  found 
in  it  no  less  than  "  three  falsifications  of  the  words  of 
Paul."3 

Luther's  marginal  glosses  to  his  translation  of  the  Bible 
arc  open  to  plentiful  objections,  for  their  purpose  is  to 
recall  the  reader  as  often  as  possible  to  the  basic  theories  of 
his  doctrine.4 

Some  Protestants  have  been  exceedingly  frank  in 
characterising  the  strained  relations  often  noticeable 
between  Luther's  exegesis  and  true  scholarship. 

Friedrich  Paulsen,  in  his  "  Geschichte  des  gelehrten  Unter- 
richts,"  when  dealing  with  the  demand  made  by  the  "  exegesis  of 
the  Reformation,"  viz.  that  the  reader  must  cling  to  the  plain 
text  and  letter  of  Scripture,  says  :  "  Luther  by  no  means 

1  "  Lehrb.  d.  DG.,"  3",  p.  867. 

2  Dollinger,  "Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  158. 

3 -Ibid.,  p.  160.     For  the  liberty  which  Luther  permitted  himself  in 
his  translation  of  the  sacred  text,  see  vol.  v.,  xxxiv.,  3. 
*  Cp.  Dollinger,  ibid.,  pp.  151-156. 


426 

considered  himself  bound  to  the  letter  and  the  grammatical 
sense  of  the  text  of  Scripture.  Where  the  letter  was  in  his  favour, 
he  indeed  used  it  against  others,  the  Swiss,  for  instance,  but, 
where  it  was  not,  he  nevertheless  stands  by  his  guns  and  knows 
what  Scripture  ought  to  have  said.  Everybody  knows  with  what 
scant  regard  he  handled  certain  books  of  Scripture,  estimating 
their  value  according  as  they  agreed  more  or  less  with  his  teach 
ing,  and  even  amending  them  a  little  when  they  failed  to  reach 
his  standard  or  to  present  the  pure  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith  '  alone  '  in  a  light  siifficiently  strong.  ...  In  order  to 
understand  Scripture  it  is  necessary  [according  to  Luther]  to 
know  beforehand  what  it  teaches  ;  Scripture  is  indeed  the  rule 
of  doctrine,  but,  vice  versa,  doctrine  is  also  the  rule  of  Scripture 
which  must  be  interpreted  '  ex  analogia  fidei.'  "l 

Referring  to  Luther's  interpretation  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  Adolf  Hausrath  pithily  observes  :  "  Luther  read  this 
Epistle  to  the  Romans  into  everything  and  found  it  everywhere." 
Though  Hausrath  makes  haste  to  add  that  this  \vas  because 
"  his  personal  experiences  agreed  with  those  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,"  still,  his  reference  to  the  psychological  basis  of  the 
phenomenon  is  quite  in  place.  "  He  had  been  led  to  draw  from 
Scripture  one  basic  principle  which  to  him  was  the  embodiment 
of  truth,  viz.  Justification  by  Faith.  That  only  which  ran  counter 
to  this  '  faith  alone  '  was  to  be  set  aside."2 

Luther's  Exegesis  in  the  Light  of  His  Early  Development. 

With  the  help  of  the  newly  published  Commentary  on 
Romans,  written  by  Luther  in  his  youth  (vol.  i.,  p.  184  ff.), 
we  can  trace  the  beginnings  of  his  curious  exegesis  more 
easily  than  was  possible  before. 

What  we  want  first  of  all  is  a  key  to  that  more  than 
human  confidence  which  prompts  the  new  teacher  to 
blend  in  one  his  own  interpretation  and  the  actual  text  of 
the  Bible  and  to  say,  "  My  word  is  the  truth."  This  key  is 
to  be  found  in  his  early  history.  It  was  then,  in  those 
youthful  days  when  he  began  morbidly  to  brood  over  the 
mysteries  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  all  unable  to  grasp 
the  profound  thoughts  it  contained,  that  the  phenomenon 
in  question  made  its  first  appearance. 

We  must  call  to  mind  that  the  young  and  ardent  University 
professor,  though  deficient  in  humility  and  in  the  capacity  to 
assimilate  the  sublime  teachings  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
stood  all  the  more  under  the  spell  of  two  misleading  ideas  which 
had  long  dominated  him,  viz.  on  the  one  hand,  the  supposed 

1  "  Gesch.,"  etc.,  I2,  1896,  p.  199. 

2  "  Luthers  Leben,"  2,  p.  190  f. 


HIS   EXEGETICAL  BEGINNINGS     427 

depth  and  transforming  power  of  the  knowledge  of  Scripture  he 
had  already  acquired  and,  on  the  other,  the  need  of  assailing 
the  self-righteous  and  hypocritical  Little  Saints  and  all  excessive 
esteem  for  good  works.  In  the  latter  respect  the  passages  in 
Romans  on  works,  faith  and  merit — of  which  he  failed  to  see 
the  real  meaning — became  dangerous  rocks  on  which  Luther's 
earlier  religious  convictions  suffered  hopeless  shipwreck.  So 
greatly  was  he  attracted  and,  as  it  were,  fascinated  by  the  light 
that  seemed  to  him  to  stream  in  on  his  soul  from  this  Epistle, 
that  he  came  to  see  the  same  thing  everywhere.  Its  suggestive 
power  over  him  was  all  the  greater  because  in  his  then  pseudo- 
mystical  train  of  thought  he  was  fond  of  comparing  himself  to 
the  Apostle  and  of  fancying,  that,  as  in  that  case  so  in  his,  inner 
self-annihilation  would  lead  to  his  receiving  similar  favours  from 
God.  This  self-annihilation  in  Luther's  case  was,  however,  a 
morbid  one. 

Luther,  in  his  younger  days,  had  also  been  grievously  tormented 
with  thoughts  on  predestination.  He  now  fancied,  according  to 
what  he  supposed  was  Paul's  teaching,  that  to  abandon  oneself 
in  the  hands  of  God,  without  will,  strength  or  wish,  was  the  sole 
means  by  which  he  and  all  other  men  could  find  tranquillity. 
Thus,  on  the  strength  of  misunderstood  inward  experiences,  he 
hailed  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and,  a  little  later,  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians,  as  the  only  guide  along  the  strange  paths  of  his 
future  exegesis. 

His  supposed  "  experiences  of  God  "  became  the  ruling  power 
by  which,  thanks  to  an  exegesis  entirely  new,  he  was  to  bring 
salvation  to  the  whole  of  mankind. 

Hitherto,  in  spite  of  all  his  diligence  in  the  study  of  the  Bible, 
any  idea  of  upholding  his  own  new  interpretation  against  the 
existing  doctrines  of  the  Church  had  been  altogether  foreign  to 
him.  In  his  first  manuscript  notes  and  in  the  Commentary  on 
the  Psalms  which  has  only  recently  come  to  light,  likewise  in  his 
earlier  sermons,  he  still  looks  at  everything  from  the  Catholic 
standpoint  ;  the  Church's  authority  is  still  the  appointed 
guardian  and  interpreter  of  Holy  Scripture.  There  the  Bible  is 
to  him  unquestionably  the  divinely  inspired  book  and  the  true 
Word  of  God,  though  it  is,  not  the  individual's,  but  the  Church's 
duty  to  draw  from  its  inexhaustible  treasures  arguments  in  her 
own  defence  and  in  refutation  of  the  teaching  of  the  heretics. 
To  the  teaching  of  Scripture  and  to  the  infallible  interpretation 
of  the  Church  based  on  the  tradition  of  the  Fathers,  everyone, 
so  he  then  held,  must  submit  as  Christ  Himself  had  ordained. 

Even  then,  however,  he  was  already  convinced  that  he  had 
received  an  extraordinary  call  to  deal  with  Holy  Scripture.  The 
very  admiration  of  his  fellow-monks  for  his  familiarity  with  his 
red  leather  copy  of  the  Bible,  fostered  the  self-love  of  the  youthful 
student  of  the  Scriptures.  This  Staupitz  increased  by  his  in 
cautious  reference  to  the  future  "  great  Doctor,"  and  by  his 
general  treatment  of  Luther.  The  written  Word  of  God  in 
which  the  wide-awake  and  quick-witted  monk  felt  himself  at 


428         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

home  more  than  any  of  his  fellows  quite  evidently  became  so 
much  his  own  peculiar  domain,  that,  in  his  opinion,  Bible  scholar 
ship  was  the  only  worthy  form  of  theological  learning  and  ruled 
every  branch  of  Divine  knowledge.  He  even  went  further, 
attributing  all  the  corruption  in  the  Church  to  "  neglect  of  the 
Word,"  i.e.  to  ignorance  of  and  want  of  compliance  with  the 
Bible  Word.  On  the  strength  of  his  accounted  profounder 
knowledge  of  the  "  Word,"  he  also  reproves  the  "  holy-by- 
works."  Even  previous  to  the  lectures  on  Romans,  his  con 
viction  of  the  antithesis  between  human  works  and  Christ's  grace 
made  him  read  everywhere  Christ  into  Scripture  ;  the  Bible, 
so  he  says,  must  be  taken  to  the  well-spring,  i.e.  to  the  Cross  of 
Christ,  having  done  which  we  may  then  be  "  quite  certain  to 
catch  "  its  true  meaning.  Before  Luther's  day  others  in  the 
Church  had  done  the  same,  though  within  lawful  limits.  Among 
contemporary  Humanists  even  Erasmus  had  insisted  on  Christ's 
being  made  the  centre  of  Scripture.1 

Widely  as  Luther,  in  his  Commentary  on  Romans,  already 
diverges  from  the  Church's  interpretation  of  St.  Paul  regarding 
the  doctrine  of  Justification,  yet  he  still  admits,  at  least  in  theory, 
the  principle  of  authority  both  in  the  interpretation  of  the  Bible 
and  in  general.2  He  rejects  without  compunction  all  those 
heresies  which  deviate  from  the  Church's  guidance.  In  practice, 
however,  he  sets  himself  above  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers  where- 
ever  this  runs  counter  to  his  views  ;  St.  Augustine  is  forced  to 
witness  in  his  favour  even  at  the  expense  of  the  other  repre 
sentatives  of  tradition,  and,  as  for  mediaeval  scholasticism,  it  is 
treated  as  though  it  were  not  at  all  one  of  the  links  in  the  vener 
able  chain  of  tradition.  On  the  other  hand,  Luther  allows  his 
exegesis  to  be  influenced  by  those  later  and  less  reputable 
exponents  of  scholasticism  with  whom  alone  he  was  acquainted. 

On  such  lines  as  these  did  his  exegesis  of  the  Bible  proceed  ; 
on  the  one  hand  there  was  his  excessive  regard  for  his  own 
acquaintance  with  Scripture,  and,  on  the  other,  his  pseudo- 
mysticism  leaning  for  its  support  on  misunderstood  interior 
revelations  and  illuminations.  A  certain  sense  of  his  vocation  as 
the  Columbus  of  the  Bible  ever  accompanies  him  from  that 
time  forward. 

This  psychological  condition  manifests  itself  in  utterances 
contained  in  the  lectures  on  Romans  and  in  later  works. 

"  Here,"  so  he  writes  in  the  lectures,  "  a  great  stride  has  been 
made  towards  the  right  interpretation  of  Holy  Scripture,  by 
understanding  it  all  as  bearing  on  Christ  .  .  .  even  when  the 
surface-sense  of  the  letter  does  not  require  it."3  "  All  Scripture 

1  On  the  strength  of  the  biblical  labours  of  Erasmus  and  of  Reuchlin, 
Zwingli  did  not  scruple  to  call  into  question  Luther's  assertion  that  it 
was  he  who  drew  "  the  Bible  out  from  under  the  bench."     "  Zwinglis 
Werke"  (1828ff.),  2,  2,  p.  21. 

2  See  our  vol.  i..  p.  224  f. 

3  Lectures  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  1515-1510,  ed.  J.  Ficker, 
1908,  Glosses,  p.  4. 


HIS  EXEGETICAL  BEGINNINGS     429 

deals  everywhere  with  Christ  alone."1  "  All  this  is  said,  written 
or  done  that  human  presumption  may  be  humbled  and  the 
grace  of  God  exalted."2  He  is  ever  reading  his  own  thoughts  into 
the  oftentimes  obscure  words  of  St.  Paul,  though,  that  he  is  so 
doing  is  evident  neither  to  his  hearers  nor  to  himself.  That 
same  eloquence  and  wealth  of  imagery  are  to  be  found  here  which 
are  to  characterise  his  later  expositions.  "  Quite  unmistakably  his 
language,  thought  and  imagery  throughout  the  work  is  that  of 
the  mystic,"  remarks  the  editor  of  the  Commentary.  "  How 
much  Tauler — whom  Luther  extols  so  highly,  even  when  as  yet 
he  was  so  little  acquainted  with  him — has  taken  possession  of 
Luther's  mind  and  influences  his  language,  would  be  clear  from 
the  Commentary  on  Romans,  even  were  Tauler's  name  not 
mentioned  in  it."3 

With  the  mental  attitude  assumed  quite  early  in  his  career 
the  scant  regard  for  Humanism  and  philosophy  he  evinces  in  this 
Commentary  well  agrees  ;  further,  his  use  of  the  Bible  as  a 
whip  with  which  to  lash  unsparingly  the  abuses  rampant 
in  the  Church,  another  peculiarity  which  was  to  remain  in  his 
treatment  of  Scripture.  The  better  to  appreciate  his  first 
attempts  at  exegesis  we  may  recall,  that,  even  then,  he  was 
concerned  for  the  text  and  its  purity,  and  that,  no  sooner  was 
Erasmus's  Greek  edition  of  the  New  Testament  published,  than 
Luther,  who  had  now  reached  chapter  ix.  of  the  Epistle,  began  to 
use  it  for  his  lectures.4 

That  Luther's  first  attempts  in  the  exegetical  field  were  so 
successful  was  in  great  part  due  to  his  personal  gifts,  to  his 
eloquence  and  to  his  frankness.  Oldecop,  a  pupil  of  his,  who 
remained  true  to  the  Church,  wrote  as  an  old  man,  that,  being  as 
he  was  then  twenty-two  years  of  age,  he  "  had  taken  pleasure  in 
attending  Martin's  lectures."5  The  lectures  on  Romans  com 
menced  immediately  after  Oldecop 's  matriculation.  Christopher 
Scheurl,  the  Humanist  Professor  of  Law,  reckoned  the  new 
exegete  among  the  best  of  the  Wittenberg  theologians  and  said  : 
"  Martin  Luther,  the  Augustinian,  expounds  St.  Paul's  Epistles 
with  marvellous  talent."6 

In  the  matter  of  private  interpretation  as  against  the 
Church's,  in  these  earliest  exegetical  efforts,  he  remained, 
outwardly  at  least,  true  to  the  traditional  standpoint,  until, 
little  by  little,  he  forsook  it,  as  already  described  (above, 
p.  387  ff.).  Even  his  academic  Theses  of  Sept.,  1517("  Against 
the  Theology  of  the  Schools"),  based  though  they  were 
on  a  misapprehension  of  Scripture,  conclude  with  the 

1  Ibid.,   Scholia,   p.   240  :     "  Universa  scriptura  de  solo  Christo  est 
ubique." 

2  Ibid.,  p.  253.  3  Ibid.,  Introduction,  p.  Ixii. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  lv.,  and  vol.  i.,  p.  242  f.  5  Quoted  by  Ficker,  p.  Ivii. 

6  "Scheurls  Briefbuch,"  ed.  Soden  and  Knaake,  2,  p.  2 ;  Ticker, 
ibid.,  p.  Ixv. 


430         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

assurance,  that,  "  throughout,  he  neither  intended  nor  had 
said  anything  contrary  to  the  Church  or  at  variance  with 
her  doctrines."1 — Then,  however,  with  startling  suddenness 
the  change  set  in. 

When,  after  the  storm  aroused  by  the  publication  of  the 
Indulgence  Theses,  he  wrote  his  German  "  Sermon  von  dem 
Ablass  und  Gnade,"2  he  appealed  in  it  repeatedly  to  the 
Bible  as  against  the  "  new  teachers,"  i.e.  the  Schoolmen, 
and  indeed  in  as  confident  a  manner  as  though  he  alone  \vere 
learned  in  Scripture.  He  says  on  the  first  page  :  "  This 
I  say  :  That  it  cannot  be  proved  from  any  Scripture,  etc. 
Much  should  I  like  to  hear  anyone  Avho  can  testify  to  the 
contrary  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  some  doctors  have  thought 
so."  And  at  the  end  he  sums  up  as  follows  :  "  On  these 
points  I  have  no  doubt,  and  they  have  sufficient  warrant  in 
Scripture.  Therefore  you  too  should  have  no  doubt  and 
send  the  Scholastic  doctors  about  their  business  !  "  Shortly 
before  this,  in  a  letter  about  the  Scholastic  theologians  of 
his  day,  particularly  those  of  Leipzig,  he  declares  :  "I 
could  almost  swear  that  they  understand  not  a  single 
chapter  of  the  Gospel  or  Bible."3  He  wras,  however,  greatly 
cheered  to  hear  that,  thanks  to  his  new  interpretation  of 
the  Bible,  prelates,  as  \vell  as  the  burghers  of  Wittenberg, 
were  all  saying  "  that  formerly  they  had  neither  known 
nor  heard  anything  of  Christ  or  of  His  Gospel."4 

After  Tetzel  had  attacked  his  Sermon  and  accused  Luther 
of  falsifying  the  sacred  text,  and  of  cherishing  heretical 
opinions,  the  latter  indited  his  "  Eyn  Freiheyt  dess  Sermons 
Bcpstlichen  Ablass  und  Gnad  belangend,"  where  he  empha 
sises  even  more  strongly  and  pathetically  the  supremacy 
of  Holy  Scripture  over  all  outward  authority :  "  Even 
though  all  these  and  a  thousand  others  of  the  holiest  of 
doctors  had  held  this  or  that,  yet  their  opinion  is  of  no 
account  compared  with  a  single  verse  of  Holy  Writ.  .  .  . 
They  are  not  in  the  least  to  be  believed,  because  the  Scrip 
ture  says  :  The  Word  of  God  no  one  may  set  aside  or  alter."5 

Carlstadt,   whom  Luther  himself  had  instructed,  outdid 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  228  ;    "  Opp.  lat  var.,"  1,  p.  321. 

2  Ibid.,p.  239  ff.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  4  ff. 

3  To  Johann  Sylvius  Egranus,  Marcli  24,  1518,   "  Brief wechsel,"   1, 
p.  174. 

4  To  Jodocus  Trutvetter,  May  9,  1518,  ibid.,  p.  186. 

5  "  Werke,"  Weim  ed.,  1,  p.  384  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  12  f. 


HIS   EXEGETICAL  BEGINNINGS     431 

his  master  and  advocated  entire  freedom  for  the  private 
interpretation  of  Scripture  before  Luther  could  make  up 
his  mind  to  do  this.  He  did  not  shrink  from  making  his 
own  the  following  defiant  Thesis  :  "  The  text  of  the  Bible 
does  not  take  precedence  merely  of  one  or  several  Doctors 
of  the  Church,  but  even  of  the  authority  of  the  whole 
Church."1  It  was  only  after  Luther,  thanks  to  his  obstinacy 
and  curious  methods  of  reasoning,  had  extricated  himself 
from  his  examination  at  Augsburg,  and  fled,  that  he  ad 
mitted  in  the  statements  already  given  (p.  388)  that  the 
word  of  Scripture  was  to  be  set  in  the  first  place,  and,  that, 
in  its  interpretation,  no  account  need  be  made  of  ecclesi 
astical  authority.2  This  prelude  to  Luther's  new  exegetical 
standpoint,  more  particularly  towards  the  end,  was  marked 
by  much  fear,  doubt  and  anxiety  of  conscience.  He  was 
worried,  to  such  an  extent  that  his  "  heart  quaked  for 
fear,"  by  a  number  of  Scripture  passages  and  still  more  by 
the  question  :  Could  the  Author  of  Scripture  hitherto  have 
really  left  His  work  open  to  such  dire  misunderstanding  ? 

While  his  powerful  rhetoric,  particularly  when  it  came  to 
polemics,  was  able  to  conceal  all  the  failings  of  his  expo 
sition  of  the  Bible,  his  real  eloquence,  his  fervour  and  his 
popular  ways  of  dealing  with  non-controversial  things 
imparted  to  his  pulpit-commentaries  no.  less  than  to  his 
written  ones  a  freshness  of  tone  which  improved,  stimulated 
and  inspired  his  followers  with  love  for  Holy  Scripture  and 
also  brought  them  Bible  consolation  amidst  the  trials  of 
life. 

3.  The  Sola  Fides.    Justification  and  Assurance  of  Salvation 

The  two  propositions  considered  above,  fundamental 
though  they  are,  of  the  Bible  being  under  the  enlightenment 
of  the  Spirit  the  sole  rule  of  faith,  and  of  the  untrustworthi- 
ness  of  ecclesiastical  authority  and  tradition,  far  from 
having  been  the  first  elements  to  find  their  place  in  Luther's 
scheme,  were  only  advanced  by  him  at  a  later  date  and  in 
order  to  protect  his  pet  dogma. 

His  doctrine  of  Justification  was  the  outcome  of  his 
dislike  for  "  holiness-by-works,"  which  led  him  to  the 

1  Loscher,  "  Reformationsacta,"  2,  p.  80. 

2  In  the  postscript  to  the  "  Acta  Augustana,"  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed,, 
2,  pp.  18,  21  f.  ;   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  2,  pp.  385  seq.,  391  seq. 


432          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

theory  of  salvation  by  faith  alone,  through  the  imputation 
of  the  merits  of  Christ  without  any  co-operation  on  man's 
part,  or  any  human  works  of  merit.  This  doctrine,  from 
the  very  first  as  well  as  later,  was  everything  to  him.  This  it 
was  which  he  made  it  his  earliest  task  to  elaborate,  and 
about  it  he  then  proceeded  to  hang  the  other  theories  into 
which  he  was  forced  by  his  conflict  with  the  Church  and 
her  teaching,  some  of  which  were  logically  connected  with 
his  main  article,  whilst,  in  the  case  of  others,  the  connection 
was  only  artificial.  Later  exponents  of  Lutheranism  termed 
his  doctrine  of  Justification  the  material  principle  of  his 
theology,  no  doubt  in  the  same  sense  as  he  himself  reckons 
it,  in  a  sermon  of  1530  in  his  postils,  as  :  "  the  only  element, 
article  or  doctrine  by  which  we  become  Christians  and  are 
called  such." 

This  Evangel,  Luther's  consoling  doctrine,  as  a  matter  of 
fact  was  simply  the  record  of  his  own  inner  past,  the  most 
subjective  doctrine  assuredly  that  ever  sought  to  enlist 
followers.  As  we  know,  it  is  already  found  entire  in  his 
Commentary  on  Romans  of  1515-1516. 

In  order  to  strengthen,  in  himself  first  and  then  in  others, 
the  assurance  of  salvation  it  comprised,  he  amplified  it  by 
asserting  the  believer's  absolute  certainty  of  salvation ; 
this  was  lacking,  in  his  Commentary  on  Romans,  though 
even  then  he  was  drifting  towards  it.  It  was  only  in 
1518-1519  that  he  developed  the  doctrine  of  the  so-called 
"  special  faith,"  by  which  the  individual  assures  himself  of 
pardon  and  secures  salvation.  Thereby  he  transformed  faith 
into  trust,  for  what  he  termed  fiducial  faith  partook  more  of 
the  nature  of  a  strong,  artificially  stimulated  hope  ;  it  really 
amounted  to  an  intense  confidence  that  the  merits  of  Christ 
obliterated  every  sin. 

Of  faith  in  this  new  sense  he  says  that  it  is  the  faith. 
"  To  have  the  Faith  is  assentingly  to  accept  the  promises  of 
God,  laying  hold  on  God's  gracious  disposition  towards  us 
and  trusting  in  it."1  In  spite  of  this  he  continues  in  the  old 
style  to  define  faith  as  the  submission  of  reason  to  all 
the  truths  revealed,  and  even  to  make  it  the  practical  basis 
of  all  his  religious  demands  :  Whoever  throws  overboard 

1  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindse:l,  1,  p.  54.  Cp.  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  152, 
p.  542,  and  "  Disputationes,"  ed.  Drews,  p.  640.  Denifle-Weiss,  I2, 
pp.  672,  675,  727  ff. 


FAITH  AS   AN  ASSENT  433 

even  one  single  article  of  faith  will  be  damned  ;  faith  being 
one  whole,  every  article  must  be  believed.1  We  can  under 
stand  how  opponents  within  his  own  camp,  of  whom  he 
demanded  faith  in  the  doctrines  he  had  discovered  in  the 
Bible,  when  they  themselves  failed  to  find  them  there, 
ventured  to  remind  him  of  his  first  definition  of  faith,  viz. 
the  fiducial,  and  to  ask  him  whether  a  trustful  appropriation 
of  the  merits  of  Christ  did  not  really  meet  all  the  demands  of 
"  faith."  Recent  Protestant  biographers  of  Luther  point 
out  that  Zwingli  was  quite  justified  in  urging  this  against 
Luther.  Attacked  by  Luther  on  account  of  his  discordant 
teaching  on  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  that  on  the  score  of 
faith,  Zwingli  rudely  retorted  :  "  It  is  a  pestilential  doctrine, 
by  a  perversion  of  the  wTord  faith  which  really  means  trust 
in  Christ,  to  lower  it  to  the  level  of  an  opinion  "  ;  with  this 
behaviour  on  Luther's  part  went  "  hand  in  hand  a  similar 
change  in  his  conception  of  the  Church  founded  on  faith."2 

Some  Characteristics  of  the  New  Doctrine  of  Justification. 

If  we  take  Luther's  saving  faith  we  find  that,  according 
to  him,  it  produces  justification  without  the  help  of  any 
other  work  or  act  on  man's  part,  and  without  contrition 
or  charity  contributing  anything  to  the  appropriation  of 
righteousness  on  the  part  of  the  man  to  be  justified. 

Any  contrition  proceeding  from  the  love  of  God,  or  at 
least  from  that  incipient  love  of  God  such  as  Catholicism 
required  agreeably  with  both  revelation  and  human  psy 
chology,  appeared  to  Luther  superfluous  ;  in  view  of  the 
power  of  man's  ingrained  concupiscence  it  amounted  almost 
to  a  contradiction ;  only  the  fear  of  God's  Judgments 
("  timor  servilis"),  so  he  declares  (vol.  i.,  p.  291),  with 
palpable  exaggeration,  had  ruled  his  own  confessions  made 
in  the  monastery.  At  any  rate,  he  was  in  error  when  he 

1  Cp.,  in   "  Luthers  Werke  in  Auswahl,"  ed.   Buchwald,   2  suppl., 
1905,  p.  43,  O.  Scheel's  remarks  on  the  writing  "  De  votis  monasticis  " 
(Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  583  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  252),  where  Luther  says 
that  whoever  denies  the  virginity  of  Mary  plays  havoc  with  the  whole 
faith. 

2  Thus  A.  Berger,  "  M.  Luther,"  Tl.  2,  pp.  98,  100.    Cp.  this  author's 
view  (on  p.  100)  :   "  This  means  an  obscuring  arid  impoverishing  of  the 
faith  as  discovered  and  laid  down  by  himself. ' '  The  following  observation 
of  Berger's  is  remarkable  :     "  Luther,  as  theologian,  was  merely  the 
restorer  of  primaeval  Christianity,  such  as  he  understood  it ;  Zwingli, 
however,  understood  it  otherwise  "  (p.  102). 

IV.— 2   F 


434         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

declared  that  this  same  fear  had  been  the  motive  in  the  case 
of  Catholics  generally.  He  persuaded  himself  that  this 
fear  must  be  overcome  by  the  Evangel  of  the  imputed 
merits  of  Christ,  because  otherwise  man  can  find  no  peace. 
The  part  played  by  the  law  is,  according  to  him,  almost 
confined  to  threatening  and  reducing  man  to  despair,  just 
as  he  himself  had  so  often  verged  on  hopelessness  through 
thinking  of  his  own  inevitable  reprobation  ;  the  assurance 
of  salvation  by  faith,  however,  appears  to  every  Christian 
as  an  angel  of  help  and  consolation  even  minus  any  re 
pudiation  of  sin  on  the  part  of  man's  will,  for,  owing  to  the 
Fall,  sin  cannot  but  persist. 

When  he  attempts  to  prove  this  by  his  "  experiences,"  we 
must  remind  the  reader  how  uncertain  his  statements  are, 
concerning  his  own  "  inward  feelings  "  during  his  monastic 
days.  It  will  be  pointed  out  elsewhere  (vol.  vi.,  xxxvii.)  that 
these  "  recollections,"  with  their  polemical  animus,  \vere  of 
comparatively  late  growth,  though  they  would  have  been 
of  far  greater  service  at  the  outset  when  still  quite  fresh. 

A  more  solid  basis  for  estimating  the  value  of  his  doctrine 
of  Justification  is  afforded  by  its  connection  with  his  other 
theological  views.  As  we  know,  he  regarded  original  sin 
and  the  concupiscence  resulting  from  it  as  actual  sin,  still 
persisting  in  spite  of  baptism ;  he  exaggerated  beyond 
measure  man's  powerlessness  to  withstand  the  concupis 
cence  which  remains  with  him  to  the  end.  Owing  to  the 
unfreedom  of  the  will,  the  devil,  according  to  Luther,  holds 
the  field  in  man's  heart  and  rules  over  all  his  spiritual 
faculties.  The  Divine  Omnipotence  alone  is  able  to  vanquish 
this  redoubtable  master  by  bestowing  on  the  unhappy  soul 
pardon  and  salvation  ;  yet  sin  still  reigns  in  the  depths  of  the 
heart.  No  act  of  man  has  any  part  in  the  work  of  salvation. 
Actual  grace  is  no  less  unknown  to  him  than  sanctifying 
grace.  Good  works  are  of  no  avail  for  salvation  and  of  no 
importance  for  heaven,  though,  accidentally,  they  may 
accompany  the  state  of  grace,  God  working  them  in  the  man 
on  whom  He  has  cast  His  eye  by  choosing  him  to  be  a 
recipient  of  faith  and  salvation.  Such  election  and  pre 
destination  is,  however,  purely  God's  work  which  man  him 
self  can  do  absolutely  nothing  to  deserve. — Thanks  to  these 
errors,  the  "  sola  fides "  and  assurance  of  salvation  stand 
bereft  of  their  theological  support. 


UNFREEDOM  AND   IMPUTATION    435 

We  must,  however,  revert  to  one  point  again  and 
examine  it  more  closely  on  account  of  its  historical  and 
psychological  importance.  This  is  Luther's  doctrine  of 
the  slavery  of  the  will,  and  of  God's  being  the  sole  agent 
in  man. 

This  doctrine,  already  expressed  in  his  Commentary  on 
Romans  in  connection  with  his  opinion  on  unconditional  pre 
destination,1  he  was  afterwards  to  expound  with  increasing 
vehemence.2  He  was  delighted  to  find  his  rigid  views  expressed 
in  the  Notes  of  the  lectures  on  Romans  and  1  Corinthians,  which 
Melanchthon  delivered  in  1521  and  1522.  These  Notes  he  caused 
to  be  printed,  and  sent  them  to  the  author  with  a  preface  cast  in 
the  form  of  a  letter. 3 

In  this  letter  he  assumes  the  whole  responsibility  for  the 
publication,  and  assures  Melanchthon  that  "  no  one  has  written 
better  than  you  on  Paul."  "  I  hold  that  the  Commentaries  of 
Jerome  and  Origen  are  the  merest  nonsense  and  rubbish  com 
pared  with  your  exposition.  .  .  .  They,  and  Thomas  too,  wrote 
commentaries  that  are  filled  with  their  own  conceits  rather  than 
with  that  which  is  Paul's  or  Christ's,  whereas  on  the  contrary 
yours  teaches  us  how  to  read  Scripture  and  to  know  Christ,  and 
thus  excels  any  mere  commentary,  which  is  more  than  one  can 
say  of  the  others  hitherto  in  vogue." 

Such  praise  for  Melanchthon's  work,  indirectly  intended  to 
recoil  upon  his  own  doctrine,  caused  Erasmus  to  remark  of  the 
Preface  :  "  How  full  of  pride  it  is  !  "4 

The  doctrine  of  the  unfreedom  of  the  will  as  here  expressed  by 
Melanchthon  who  then  was  still  the  true  mouthpiece  of  Luther, 
though  free  from  Luther's  rhetorical  exaggerations,  remains 
extremely  harsh. 

It  contains,  for  instance,  the  following  propositions :  "  Every 
thing  in  every  creature  occurs  of  necessity.  ...  It  must  be 
firmly  held  that  everything,  both  good  and  bad,  is  done  by  God." 
"  God  does  not  merely  allow  His  creatures  to  act,  but  it  is  He 
Himself  Who  acts."  As  He  does  what  is  good,  so  also  He  does 
what  is  indifferent  in  man,  such  as  eating  and  drinking  and  the 
other  animal  functions,  and  also  what  is  evil,  "  such  as  David's 
adultery  and  Manlius's  execution  of  his  son."  The  treason  of 
Judas  was  not  merely  permitted  of  God,  but,  as  Augustine  says, 
was  the  effect  of  His  power.  "  It  is  a  huge  blasphemy  to  deny 

1  See  vol.  i.,  p.  193.  2  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  223  ff. 

3  "  Ph.  Melanchthonis  Annotationes  in  Epistolas  Pauli  ad  Rhomanos 
et  Corinthios,"  Norimbergse,   1522.     The  later  editions  are  quoted  in 
"  Corp.  ref.,"  15,  p.  441.     In  this  volume  Bindseil  has  not  reprinted 
the  writing  owing  to  Melanchthon's  retractation  of  it  (see  next  page). 
It  should,  however,  have  been  printed  as  an  historical  document. — 
The  introductory  preface,  in  "  Briefe,"  2,  p.  239,  dated  July  29,  1522 
("  Brief wechsel,"  2,  p.  438). 

4  Letter  of  March  12,  1523.     Cp.  "  Zeitschr.  fur  KG.,"  2,  p.  131, 


436         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

predestination,  the  actuality  of  which  we  have  briefly  proved 
above."1 

Ten  years  later  Melanchthon  had  grown  shy  of  views  so 
monstrous  ;  he  thought  it  advisable  to  repudiate  this  book,  and, 
in  1532,  he  dedicated  a  new  Commentary  on  Romans  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Mayence,  whom  he  was  anxious  to  win  over.  In 
the  preface  he  says,  that  he  no  longer  acknowledged  ("  plane  non 
agnosco  ")2  the  earlier  work  which  had  appeared  under  his  name. 
Later,  after  Luther's  death,  he  went  so  far  as  to  demand  the 
severe  punishment  of  those  who  denied  free-will  and  questioned 
the  need  of  good  works  for  salvation.3 

Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we  know,  never  relinquished 
his  standpoint  on  the  doctrine  of  free-will.  Beside  his  statements 
already  quoted  may  be  put  the  following  :  The  will  is  not  only 
unfree  "  in  everything,"4  but  is  so  greatly  depraved  by  original 
sin,  that,  not  content  with  being  entirely  passive  in  the  matter  of 
Justification,  it  actually  resists  God  like  the  devil.  "  What  I  say 
is,  that  the  spiritual  powers  are  not  merely  depraved,  but  alto 
gether  annihilated  by  sin,  not  less  in  man  than  in  the  devils.  .  .  . 
Their  reason  and  their  will  seek  those  things  alone  which  are 
opposed  to  God.  Whatever  is  in  our  will  is  evil  and  whatever 
is  in  our  reason  is  mere  error  and  blindness.  Thus,  in  things 
Divine,  man  is  nothing  but  darkness,  error  and  depravity,  his  will  is 
evil  and  his  understanding  nowhere."5 

1  Owing  to  the  rarity  of  the  work,  to  which  even  the  editor  of  the 
"  Brief wechsel  "  had  not  access,  we  give  in  Latin  the  passages  referred 
to  from  the  copy  contained  in  the  Munich   State  Library  :    HI': 
"  Necessario  omnia  eveniunt  in  omnibus  creaturis.  .  .  .  Itaque  sit  hcec 
certa  sententia,  a  Deo  fieri  omnia  tarn  bona  quam  mala."    H  2'  :    "  Nos 
vero  dicemus,  non  solum  permittere  Deum  creaturis  ut  operentur,  sed 
ipsum  omnia  proprie  agere,  ut,  sicut  fatentur,  proprium  Dei  opus  esse 
Pauli  vocationem  ita  fateantur,  opera  Dei  propria  esse  sive  guce  media 
vocantur,  ut  comedere,  bibere,  communia  cum  brutis,  sive  quce  mala  sunt, 
ut  Davidis  adulterium,  Manlii  severitatem  animadvertentis  in  filium.  .  .  . 
lam  cum  constet,  Deum  omnia  facere,  non  permissive,  sed  potenter,  ut 
Augustini  verbo  utamur,  ita  ut  sit  eius  proprium  opus  ludce  proditio  sicut 
Pauli  vocatio,"  etc. — For  Melanchthon's  statement  in  his  "  Loci  "  of 
the  Lutheran  denial  of  free-will,  see  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  346. 

2  "  Corp.  ref.,"  15,  p.  441. 

3  Melanchthon  in  his  letter  to  the  Elector  August  of  Saxony,  April, 
1559.     N.  Paulus,  "  Luther  und  die  Gewissensfreiheit,"  Munich,  1905, 
p.  52  f.    Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  347. 

*  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  265. 

5  "  Comm.  in  Ep.  ad.  Gal.,"  1535,  vol.  i.,  p.  255.  Denifle-Weiss, 
I2,  p.  514.  Cp.  Luther's  Sermon  of  1523  on  the  Feast  of  the  Circum 
cision,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  1,  1,  p.  508;  Erl.  ed.,  15",  p.  199  : 
It  had  been  shown  long  before  by  the  institution  of  circumcision  "  that 
no  one  could  reach  God  and  be  saved  by  works,  but  only  by  faith. 
This  is  insisted  upon  throughout  the  whole  of  Scripture  by  teaching 
and  example.  Sin  in  us  is  not  merely  a  work  or  deed,  but  our  real 
nature  and  essence  ;  for  this  reason  does  God  circumcise  that  member 
which  pertains  to  birth  and  by  which  human  nature  is  perpetuated." 
On  the  same  page  we  find  the  following  :  "  Nature  is  depraved  through 
and  through  so  that  no  will  is  left  for  what  is  good  "  ;  "  our  nature  is 


UNFREEDOM   AND   IMPUTATION    437 

From  such  a  standpoint  all  that  was  possible  was  a  mere 
outward  imputation  of  the  merits  of  Christ,  no  Justification 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  was  taken  by  the  ancient  Church, 
viz.  as  a  supernatural  regeneration  by  means  ofjsanctifying 
grace. 

Any  reliable  proofs,  theological  or  biblical,  in  support  of 
this  altogether  novel  view  of  Justification  will  be  sought  for 
in  vain  in  the  works  of  Melanchthon  and  Luther.  When 
Luther  speaks  of  the  power  of  faith  in  the  merits  of  Christ 
and  of  the  promises  of  faith  concerning  eternal  life,  as.  he 
does,  for  instance,  in  the  written  defence  which  he  handed 
to  Cardinal  Cajetan  at  Augsburg,  his  words  and  the  Bible 
passages  he  quotes  merely  express  what  the  Church  had 
always  taught  concerning  the  necessity  and  efficacy  of 
faith  as  the  condition  of  the  supernatural  life  to  be  further 
developed  in  the  soul  by  God's  Grace  and  man's  co-opera 
tion.1  In  spite  of  this,  in  that  very  writing  he  alleges  that 
he  has  satisfactorily  proved  that  Justification  is  effected  by 
fiducial  faith. 

"  No  one  can  be  justified,"  he  there  writes,  "  but  by  faith, 
in  the  sense  that  he  must  needs  believe  with  a  firm  faith 
('  certa  fide  credere  ')  that  he  is  justified,  and  not  doubt  in 
any  way  that  he  is  to  attain  to  grace  ;  for  if  he  doubts  and 
is  uncertain,  he  will  not  be  justified,  rather  he  spits  out 
the  grace."2 

His  doctrine  of  faith  alone  and  of  the  imputed  merits  of 
Christ,  was,  of  all  his  theological  opinions,  the  one  which 
underwent  the  least  change  during  his  lifetime.3  Until  old 
age  he  continued  to  lay  great  stress  on  it  both  in  the 
University  Disputations  and  in  his  sermons  and  writings.4 
Even  the  inferences  drawn  from  it  by  Johann  Agricola  in 
his  Antinomian  theses  did  not  cause  Luther  to  waver  in 
the  least. 

all  poisoned  and  crammed  with  sin,"  etc. — The  sermon  in  which  the 
singularly  outspoken  statement  concerning  circumcision  occurs  is 
also  found  in  the  postils.  Some  unbecoming  language  is  also  met  at 
the  commencement  of  the  passage  in  question  where  Luther  says  :  "It 
is  quite  true  that  God's  works  and  commandments  are  folly  to  nature 
and  reason  ;  God's  way  of  acting  is  mad  enough  "  ;  Luther,  however, 
hastens  to  add,  "  but  if  we  keep  our  heads  and  look  into  it  attentively, 
we  shall  soon  see  that  all  is  done  in  the  wisest  manner."  t  i 

1  Document  of  Oct.  14,  1518,  "  Brief wechsel,"  1  (p.  250  ff.),  p.  256  ff. 

2  Cp.  our  vol.  i.,  p.  384. 

3  Cp.   Kostlin,   "  Luthers  Theol.,"   22,  p.   175,  on  passages  dating 
from  1532  and  1539.  4  "  Disputationes,"  pp.  429,  431  (of  1538). 


438         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

In  the  Schmalkalden  Articles  he  declares  explicitly  that 
Justification  consists  merely  in  God's  "  looking  upon  "  the 
sinner  "  as  righteous  and  holy."1  According  to  one  bf  his 
sermons  our  righteousness  comes  "  altogether  from  without 
and  rests  solely  on  Christ  and  His  work  " ; 2  elsewhere  he 
says,  with  the  utmost  assurance  :  The  Christian  is 
"  righteous  and  holy  by  virtue  of  a  foreign  or  outward 
holiness."3 

In  view  of  such  statements  undue  stress  must  not  be 
laid  on  that  Luther  says  in  another  passage,  which  recalls 
the  teaching  of  the  olden  Church,  viz.  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  dwells  in  the  righteous,  and  fills  him  with  His  gifts, 
nay,  with  His  very  "  substance,"4  and  that  it  was  this 
Spirit  which  gave  him  the  "  feeling  and  the  certainty  "  of 
being  in  a  state  of  grace.5  This  is  much  the  same  as  when 
Luther  describes  man's  active  love  of  God  whereby  he 
becomes  united  and  "  one  kitchen  "  with  God,6  whilst, 
nevertheless,  insisting  that  the  strength  of  the  sola  fides 
must  never  be  the  least  diminished  by  work.  "  No  work 
must  be  added  to  this  "  (to  faith),  he  says  in  his  postils,  "  for 
whoever  preaches  that  guilt  and  penalty  can  be  atoned  for 
by  works  has  already  denied  the  Evangel."7  Only  at  times 
does  he  allow  himself  to  follow  the  voice  of  nature  speaking 
on  behalf  of  man's  co-operation  ;  this  he  does,  for  instance, 
in  the  passage  just  referred  to,  where  he  admits  that  human 
reason  is  ever  inviting  man  to  take  a  share  in  working  out  his 
salvation  by  means  of  his  own  works.8 

The  forgiveness  which  God  offers  "  must  be  seized  and 
believed.  If  you  believe  it  you  are  rid  of  sin  and  all  is 
right."  "This  all  the  Gospels  teach."9  Unfortunately 
there  are  "  many  abandoned  people  who  misuse  the  Gospel 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252,  p.  202. 

2  Ibid.,  22,  p.  257. 

3  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  19,  p.  43  seq.  :    "  iustus  et  sanctus  aliena  sen 
extrinseca  sanctitate." 

4  Ibid.,  10,  p.  110  :    "  non  tantum  per  dona,  sed  quoad  substantiam." 
6  Cp.  the  passages  in  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  201  f. 

6  "  Werke,"  Er.  ed.,  182,  p.  312. 

7  Ibid.,  142,  p.  287.     In  the  light  of  this  we  can  better  understand 
the  words  which  occur  quite  early  in  a  writing  of  Luther's  :    "  Non 
iusta   agenda   iusti  efficimur,  as  Aristotle  taught,   but  iusti  fiendo   et 
essendo  operamur  iusta,"     To  Spalatin,  Oct.   19,  1516,  "  Brief wechsel," 
1,  p.  64.    See  below,  xxviii.,  4. 

8  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  142,  p.  285  f. 

»  Ibid., 'p.  282.  Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  226  f.,  also  pp.  181  ff.,  186 
f.,  194. 


AUGUSTINE'S  "LACK  OF  CLEARNESS"  439 

.  .  .  who  think  that  no  one  must  punish  them  because  the 
Gospel  preaches  nothing  but  forgiveness  of  sins.  To  such 
the  Gospel  is  not  preached.  .  .  .  To  whom  is  it  preached  ? 
To  those  who  feel  their  misery,"  i.e.  to  those  who  are  sunk 
in  remorse  of  conscience  and  in  fears,  similar  to,  or  at  least 
faintly  resembling,  those  he  had  himself  once  endured. 
When  he  applies  the  words  of  Psalm  50  to  the  yearning, 
the  prayers  and  the  struggles  of  those  who  thirst  for  salva 
tion  :  "A"  contrite  and  humbled  heart,  O  God,  Thou  wilt  not 
despise,"  he  finds  himself  again,  all  unconsciously,  on  the 
road  to  the  Church's  olden  view  on  man's  share  in  repent 
ance. 

What  we  read  in  the  important  notes  "  De  iustificatione," 
written  during  Luther's  stay  in  the  fortress  of  Coburg  and 
only  recently  published,  differs  not  at  all  from  his  ordinary, 
purely  mechanical  view  of  Justification.1  These  notes  are 
from  Luther's  amanuensis,  Veit  Dietrich,  and  record  some 
conversations  concerning  a  work  Luther  had  planned  in 
reply  to  the  objections  against  the  new  doctrine  of  Justifica 
tion.  Dietrich  entitled  the  collection  "  Rhapsodia."2 

It  is  not  surprising  that  at  a  later  date  Luther  hesitated  to 
appeal  to  St.  Augustine  in  support  of  his  doctrine  so  confidently 
as  he  once  had  done.  Augustine  and  all  the  Doctors  of  the 
Church  are  decidedly  against  him.  On  the  publication  of  the 
complete  edition  of  his  works  in  Latin  Luther  expressed  him 
self  in  the  preface  very  diplomatically  concerning  Augustine  : 
"  In  the  matter  of  imputation  he  does  not  explain  everything 
clearly."3  Naturally  the  greatest  teacher  on  grace,  who  lays 
such  stress  on  its  supernatural  character  and  its  gifts  in  the  soul 
of  the  righteous,  could  not  fail  to  disagree  with  him,  seeing  that 
Luther's  system  culminates  in  the  assurance,  that  grace  is  the 
merest  imputation  in  which  man  has  no  active  share,  a  mere 
favour  on  God's  part,  "favor  Dei."* 

Augustine's  views  of  the  powers  and  the  end  of  man  in  the 
natural  as  well  as  the  supernatural  order  have  been  clearly  set 
forth  in  their  connection  with  the  trend  of  present-day  scholar- 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.  652.    First  published  by  G.  Berbig, 
"  Der  Veit-Dietrich-Codex  in  der  Niirnb.  Stadtbibliothek,"  1907. 

2  Cp.   Th.   Kolde  in  the   "  Beitr.  z.   Bayerischen  KG.,"    14,    1908, 
p.   139  ff.     Kolde  rightly  refers  Luther's  words  to  Melanchthon,  viz. 
that  he  would  send  him  a  writing,  "  si  volet  Christus,  de  iustificationis 
loco  "  (Aug.  24,  1530,  from  the  fortress  of  Coburg,  "  Briefwechsel,"  8, 
p.  204),  to  the  above  work,  and  disagrees  with  Enders'  remark  on  the 
subject. 

3  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"   1,  p.   23:     "  De  imputatione  non  dare  omnia 
explicate 

4  Cp.  Denifle- Weiss,  I2,  p.  521. 


440         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

ship  by  an  eminent  Catholic  researcher.  The  latter  points  out 
that  a  strong  revulsion  against  Luther's  idea  of  outward  imputa 
tion  has  shown  itself  in  Protestantism,  and  that  the  "  historical 
theology  "  of  our  day  largely  acknowledges  the  existence  of  the 
Catholic  doctrine  "  in  the  olden  ecclesiastical  and,  indeed,  even 
in  the  New-Testament  world."  The  same  holds  good  of  Augustine 
as  of  Paul.  "Not  the  'sola  fides,'  but  the  renewal  of  the  interior 
man,  a  '  true  and  real  new  creation,'  was  the  essence  of  Paul's 
doctrine  of  justification."1 

The  Striving  after  Absolute  Certainty  of  Salvation. 

Luther  was  chiefly  concerned  in  emphasising  the  in 
dispensable  necessity  of  particular  faith  in  personal  justifica 
tion  and  personal  salvation. 

Whereas  the  Church  had  required  faith  in  our  real, 
objective  redemption  by  Christ,  Luther  demanded  over  and 
above  a  further  faith  in  one's  subjective  redemption,  in 
spite  of  the  difficulty  which  circumstances  might  present 
to  the  attaining  of  this  assurance.  It  was  something  very 
different  when  the  olden  theologians  taught  that  there  were 
signs  from  which  the  good  man's  state  of  grace  might  be 
inferred  with  moral  certainty,  and  that  such  signs  were,  for 
instance,  the  determination  to  commit  no  grievous  sin,  the 
desire  to  perform  good  works  more  especially  such  as  were 
difficult,  joy  and  peace  of  soul  in  God,  and,  above  all,  the 
consciousness  of  having  done  everything  that  was  necessary 
for  reconciliation  with  God.  That,  by  such  marks,  it  was 
"  possible  to  arrive  at  the  practical  certainty  of  being  in  a 
state  of  grace  "  had  been  taught  by  Gabriel  Biel,  with  whom 
Luther  was  acquainted.2  Later  on,  the  Council  of  Trent 
laid  down  as  the  Catholic  doctrine,  against  the  Lutheran 
theory  of  absolute  faith  in  personal  justification,  "  that  no 
good  Christian  may  doubt  of  the  mercy  of  God,  of  the  merits 
of  Christ  or  the  efficacy  of  grace,"  but  that  at  the  same  time 
"  no  one  can  know  with  the  certainty  of  faith  which  pre 
cludes  all  possibility  of  error  that  he  has  attained  to  God's 
grace."3 

Luther's  teaching  was  quite  different. 

He  writes,  for  instance,  in  the  larger  Commentary  on  Galatians, 
which,  as  we  know,  he  regarded  next  to  his  work  "  De  servo 
arbitrio  "  as  his  principal  legacy  to  posterity  :  "  We  must 

1  J.  Mausbach,  "  Die  Ethik  des  hi.  Augustinus,"  2,  1909,  p.  98. 

2  Cp.  Denifle-Weiss,  ibid.,  p.  742,  n.  3.  3  Sess.  VI.  c.  9. 


THE   STRIVING   AFTER    CERTAINTY    441 

perceive  and  recognise  it  as  certain  that  we  are  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."1  "  The  heart  must  be  quite  certain  that  it  is  in  a 
state  of  grace  and  that  it  has  the  Holy  Ghost."2  It  is  true,  he 
says,  that,  "  because  we  feel  the  opposite  sentiments  of  fear, 
doubt,  sadness,  etc.,  we  fail  to  regard  this  as  certain."3  Yet  do 
this  we  must :  "  We  must  day  by  day  struggle  ('  luctari  ')*  towards 
greater  and  greater  certainty."  We  should  exercise  ourselves  in 
the  feeling  of  certainty,  risk  something  to  secure  it  ;  for  it  rests 
with  our  own  self-acquired  ability  to  believe  ever  firmly  and 
steadfastly,  even  as  we  believe  the  truths  of  faith,  that  we  are 
really  justified.  All  depends  on  the  practice  and  experience  just 
referred  to.  "  This  matter,  if  it  is  to  be  achieved,  cannot  be 
learnt  without  experience.  Everyone  should  therefore  accustom 
himself  resolutely  to  the  persuasion  that  he  is  in  a  state  of  grace 
and  that  his  person  and  deeds  are  pleasing  [to  God].  Should  he 
feel  a  doubt,  then  let  him  exercise  faith  ;  he  must  beat  down  his 
doubts  and  acquire  certainty,  so  as  to  be  able  to  say  :  I  know 
that  I  am  pleasing  [to  God]  and  have  the  Holy  Ghost,  not  on 
account  of  any  worth  or  merits  of  my  own,  but  on  account  of 
Christ,  Who  for  our  sakes  submitted  Himself  to  the  law  and  took 
away  the  sins  of  the  world.  In  Him  I  believe."5  "  The  greatest 
art  consists  in  this,  that,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  we  commit 
sin,  we  can  yet  say  to  the  law  :  I  am  sinless."6 

"  And  even  when  we  have  fought  very  hard  for  this,  it  will 
still  cost  us  much  sweat." 

It  is  thus  that  Luther  was  led  to  speak  from  his  own  inner 
experience,  of  which  we  have  plentiful  corroboration.  In  the 
passage  last  quoted,  he  proceeds  :  "  The  matter  of  justification 
is  difficult  and  delicate  ('  causa  iustificationis  lubrica  est '),  not 
indeed  in  itself,  for  in  itself  it  is  as  certain  as  can  be,  but  in  our 
regard  ;  of  this  I  have  frequent  experience."7 

We  are  already  acquainted  to  some  extent  with  the 
struggle  against  himself,  and  the  better  voices  within  him, 
which  the  unhappy  man  had  to  wage  ;  this  distress  of  soul 
remains  to  be  treated  of  more  in  detail  later  (vol.  v.,  xxxii.). 
It  may,  however,  be  pointed  out  here  that  he  knew  how  to 
make  this  struggle  part  of  his  system ;  even  when  depressed 
by  one's  painful  inability  to  reach  this  unshaken  conscious 
ness  of  salvation  he  still  insists  that  one  must  feel  certain  ; 
faced  by  doubts  and  fears  on  account  of  his  sins,  man  must 
summon  defiance  to  his  aid,  then,  finally,  he  will  come  to 
rest  secure  of  his  personal  salvation. 

1  "  In  Ep.  ad.  Gal.,"  2,  p.  161.        2  Ibid.,  p.  164.       3  Ibid.,  p.  165. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  166.     Cp.  above,  p.  437,  and  vol.  i.,  p.  385  ff.    on  this 
certaintv  of  faith. 

5  "In  Ep.  ad.  Gal.,"  2,  p.  166. 

6  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  201. 

7  "  In  Ep.  ad.  Gal.,"  1,  p.  101. 


442         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

"  We  must  cling  with  all  sureness  to  the  belief  that  not  merely 
our  office  but  also  our  person  is  well-pleasing  to  God."1  It  is 
true  that  men  see,  "  how  weak  is  the  faith  even  of  the  pious.  We 
would  assuredly  joyfully  give  thanks  to  God  for  His  unspeak 
able  gift  could  we  but  say  with  entire  certainty  :  Yes,  indeed,  I 
am  in  a  state  of  grace,  my  sin  is  forgiven  me,  I  have  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  and  I  am  the  son  of  God.  We  feel,  however,  in  ourselves 
emotions  quite  contrary,  viz.  fear,  doubt,  sadness,  etc.,  hence  we 
do  not  venture  to  make  the  assertion."2  Others  might  infer  from 
this  the  uselessness  of  all  such  vain  efforts.  Luther,  however, 
would  not  be  the  man  he  is  were  he  not  to  declare  :  On  the 
contrary,  "  we  must  daily  struggle  more  and  more  from  un 
certainty  to  certainty  !  "  "  Christ  Himself,"  so  he  argues,  "  is 
quite  certain  in  His  Spirit  that  He  is  pleasing  to  God.  .  .  .  Hence 
we  too,  seeing  that  we  have  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  must  be  certain 
that  we  too  stand  in  grace  ...  on  account  of  Him  Who  is 
certain."3 

The  last  argument  is  the  more  noteworthy  in  that  it  demon 
strates  so  well  the  vicious  circle  involved  in  Luther's  conclusion. 

It  amounts  to  this  :  In  order  to  possess  grace  and  reconcilia 
tion  you  must  believe  that  you  have  grace  and  reconciliation. 
What  guarantee  has  one  of  the  certainty  of  this  belief  ?  Nothing 
but  the  inward  consciousness  to  be  evolved  in  the  soul  that  it  has 
indeed  the  grace  of  Christ  which  covers  over  all  that  is  evil  in  it. 

As  Luther  says,  "  If  you  are  to  be  saved  you  must  be  so  sure 
within  yourself  of  the  Word  of  grace,  that  even  were  all  men  to 
say  the  contrary,  yea  all  the  angels  to  deny  it,  you  could  yet 
stand  alone  and  say  :  I  know  this  Word  is  true."4 

In  practice,  nevertheless,  Luther  was  content  with  very  little 
in  the  matter  of  this  strength  of  certitude  :  "  If  I  have  Him 
[Christ],  I  am  sure  that  I  have  everything.  .  .  .  WTiat  is  still 
wanting  in  me  is,  that  I  cannot  yet  grasp  it  or  believe  it  perfectly. 
So  far  as  I  am  able  now  to  grasp  it  and  believe  it,  so  far  do  I 
possess  it,  and  if  I  stick  to  it  this  will  go  on  increasing."  But 
"  still  there  remains  an  outward  feeling  of  death,  of  hell,  of  the 
devil,  of  sin  and  of  the  law.  Even  though  you  feel  this,  it  is 
merely  a  warfare  that  seeks  to  hinder  you  from  attaining  to  life 
everlasting.  .  .  .  We  should  say  :  I  believe  in  Christ  Jesus,  He 
is  mine,  and  so  far  as  I  have  Him  and  believe  in  Him,  thus  far  am 
I  pious."5 — "  Yet  believe  it  I  cannot."6 

Luther,  according  to  the  legend  which  he  evolved  later 
when  defending  his  doctrine  of  faith  alone  and  Justification, 
had  started  from  the  intense  inward  need  he  felt  of  certainty 
of  salvation,  and  with  the  object,  as  he  says,  of  "  finding 
a  Gracious  God."  By  his  discovery  regarding  Justification, 

1  Ibid.,  2,  p.  164.  2  Ibid.,  p.  165. 

3  Ibid.  4  "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  172,  p.  230. 

6  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  33,  p.  163  ;   Erl.  ed.,  47,  p.  369. 
6  Above,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  202  ff.,  226. 


THE  STRIVING  AFTER  CERTAINTY     443 

so  his  admirers  say,  he  at  last  found  and  retained  for  the  rest 
of  his  life  the  sense  of  a  merciful  God.  The  strange  thing  is, 
however,  that  in  his  severe  and  protracted  struggles  of 
conscience  he  should,  at  a  later  date,  have  again  arrived  at 
this  very  question  :  "  How  can  I  find  a  Gracious  God  ?  " 

He  writes  in  1527  to  Melanchthon  :  "  Like  a  wretched, 
reprobate  worm  I  am  molested  by  the  spirit  of  sadness.  ...  I 
desire  nothing  and  thirst  after  nothing  but  a  Gracious  God." 
So  greatly  was  he  involved  in  inward  contests  that  he  says  :  "I 
am  scarce  able  to  drag  on  my  existence  ;  of  working  or  writing 
I  dare  not  think."1  "  Satan  is  busy,"  he  exclaims  to  his  friend 
Wenceslaus  Link  during  these  storms,  "  and  would  fain  make  it 
impossible  for  me  to  write  ;  he  wants  to  drag  me  down  to  him  in 
hell.  May  God  tread  him  under  foot.  Amen  !  "2 

With  very  many  of  his  followers  the  assurance  of  salvation 
failed  to  hold  good  in  the  presence  of  death.  "  We  not  only  do 
not  feel  it  [this  assurance],"  so  he  makes  them  say,  "  but  rather 
the  contrary."  He  admits  the  phenomenon  and  seeks  to  account 
for  it ;  nay,  in  his  usual  way,  he  makes  capital  out  of  it.  "  In 
God's  sight,"  he  says,  "  the  matter  is  indeed  so  [i.e.  as  promised  by 
his  doctrine  of  Justification],  but  not  yet  in  our  eyes  and  in  those 
of  the  world  ;  hence  our  fears  still  persist  until  we  are  released 
by  death."3  "  Whoever  feels  weak  let  him  console  himself  with 
this,  that  no  one  succeeds  perfectly  in  this  [in  the  attainment  of 
certainty]."  "  That  is  one  of  the  advantages  enjoyed  by 
heretics,"  he  cries,  "  to  lull  themselves  in  security.  .  .  .  Nothing 
is  more  pestilential  than  security.  Hence,  when  you  feel  weak 
in  the  faith  you  must  rouse  yourself  ;  it  is  a  sign  of  a  good  dis 
position  and  of  the  fear  of  God."4 — Readers  of  Luther  must  be 
prepared  for  surprising  statements. 

It  is  true  that  he  laments  bitterly  the  increase  of  the  fear  of 
death  among  the  new  believers.  In  the  case  of  epidemics  he  sees 
to  his  regret  that  everybody  is  "  scared  and  takes  to  flight."  Far 
greater  than  ever  under  Popery,  so  he  says,  "is  now,  under  the 
strong  light  of  the  Evangel,  men's  fear  of  losing  their  life."5  For 
this  again  he  has  an  explanation  to  hand.  When,  for  instance, 
the  plague  spread  to  Wittenberg  in  1538  he  wrote:  Whence 
comes  all  this  fear  ?  "  Formerly,  under  Popery,  the  people  were 
not  so  much  afraid.  The  reason  is  this  :  In  Popery  we  trusted 
in  the  merits  of  the  monks  and  of  others,  but  now  each  one  has 
to  trust  to  and  depend  on  himself."6  Elsewhere,  with  the  same 
object  of  reassuring  himself  and  others,  he  says  :  The  Evangel 

1  Oct.  27,  1527,  "  Briefwechsel,"  6,  p.  109. 

2  Nov.  22,  1527,  "  Briefwechsel,"  6,  p.'  121. 

3  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  23,  p.  264  seq.,  in  the  exposition  of  Isaias,  1532, 
Denifle-Weiss,  ibid.,  p.  738,  n.  1. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  143.    Denifle-Weiss,  ibid.,  n.  2. 

5  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  188. 

6  To  Wenceslaus  Link,  Oct.  26,  1539,  "  Briefe,"  5,  p.  219. 


444         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

with  its  clear  light  of  truth  causes  the  holiness  of  God  to  be  better 
perceived  and  thus  leaves  more  room  for  the  sense  of  fear.  This 
he  here  reckons  as  an  advantage  over  Popery,  though,  as  a  rule, 
his  grievance  against  Catholicism  had  been  that  it  excited 
fearsomeness  by  the  gloomy  legal  spirit  which  prevailed  in  it 
and  by  its  ignoring  of  God's  mercy. — We  shall  not  be  far  wrong  if 
we  regard  such  statements  as  dictated  more  by  psychological 
than  by  theological  considerations. 

"  It  is  a  great  thing,"  says  Luther,  referring  to  his  doctrine  of 
faith  alone,  "  to  lay  claim  to  righteousness ;  then  man  dares 
to  say  :  I  am  a  son  of  God ;  whereas  the  state  of  grace  affrights 
him.  .  .  .  Without  practice  ('sine  practica')  no  one  is  able  to 
repudiate  righteousness-by-works  and  to  preach  faith  alone."1 
He  bewails  "  that  we  are  too  blind  to  be  able  to  seize  upon  the 
treasure  of  grace.  .  .  .  We  refuse  to  call  ourselves  holy,"  in 
spite  of  the  certainty  which  faith  brings  us.  Here  our  opponents, 
the  Papists  and  the  Sacramentarians,  are  not  nearly  so  well  off  ; 
at  least  they  could  not  "  quiet  their  conscience  "  as  he  could  do 
by  his  method,  because,  owing  to  their  works,  they  were  always 
in  doubt  as  to  their  own  salvation.  (At  any  rate,  they  were  in  no 
state  of  "  pestilential  security.")  "  They  are  always  in  doubt 
and  wondering  :  Who  knows  whether  it  is  really  pleasing  to 
God  ?  "  Yet  they  cling  to  works  and  "  say  Anathema  to  Jesus."2 

"  I  have  to  labour  daily,"  he  says,  "  before  I  can  lay  hold  on 
Christ  "  ;  he  adds  :  "  That  is  due  to  force  of  habit,  because  for  so 
many  years  [in  Popery]  I  looked  upon  Christ  as  a  mere  judge. 
It  is  an  old,  rotten  tree  that  is  rooted  in  me.  .  .  .  We  have,  how 
ever,  now  again  reached  the  light ;  in  my  case  this  occurred 
when  I  was  made  a  Doctor.  .  .  .  But  know  this,  that  Christ  is 
not  sent  to  judge  and  to  punish,  not  to  bite  and  to  slay  sinners 
as  I  used  to  fancy  and  as  some  still  think."3 

His  extraordinary  esteem  for  the  new  doctrine  of  the  power  of 
faith  alone  and  the  assurance  of  salvation,  would  furnish  quite 
a  riddle  to  one  not  aware  of  the  constitution  of  his  mind. 

So  greatly  did  he  prize  this  doctrine,  that,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Melanchthon,  he  referred  to  it  all  other  articles  of 
faith,  even  that  of  creation.  "  The  article  of  the  forgiveness  of 
sins,"  he  says,  "  is  the  foundation  on  which  the  article  of  the 
creation  of  the  world  rests."4  "  If  we  drop  this  article  then  we 
may  well  despair.  The  reason  why  heretics  and  fanatics 
[Papists  and  sectarians]  go  astray  is  simply  their  ignorance  of 
this  doctrine.  Without  it  it  is  impossible  to  contend  with  Satan 
and  with  Popery,  still  less  to  be  victorious."5 — Thanks  to  such 
statements  as  these  Luther's  article  of  Justification  came  to  be 
termed  the  article  on  which  the  Church  stands  or  falls. 

1  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  53. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  57  seq. 

3  "  Luthers  ungedruckte  Predigten,"  ed.  G.  Buchwald,  3,  Leipzig, 
1885,  p.  50. 

4  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  201. 
8  "  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  54. 


PROTESTANT   OBJECTIONS         445 

The  "  Article  on  which  the  Church  Stands  or  Falls  "  : 
According  to  Modern  Protestants. 

Protestant  scholars  are  far  from  sharing  Luther's  high 
regard  for  his  dogma  of  Justification,  and  what  they  say 
throws  a  curious  light  on  the  fashion  in  which  he  deceived 
himself. 

Amongst  the  Protestant  voices  raised  in  protest  against  this 
doctrine,  the  following  deserve  to  be  set  on  record.  It  is  clear, 
says  K.  Hase,  that  the  Catholic  doctrine  is  more  closely  related 
to  the  "  Protestant  view  now  prevailing  "  ;  he  avers,  that  the 
"  Protestant  theologians  of  our  day,  even  those  who  are  sticklers 
for  the  purity  of  Lutheranism,  have  described  saving  faith  as 
that  which  works  by  love,  quite  agreeably  to  the  scholastic  con 
ception  of  the  '  fides  for mata,'  and  have  opposed  to  it  a  pretended 
Catholic  dogma  of  Justification  by  good  works."1 

This  well-known  controversial  writer  when  expressing  it  as  his 
opinion  that  Luther's  doctrine  of  Justification  is  now  practically 
discarded,  was  not  even  at  pains  to  exclude  the  conservative 
theologians  of  his  party  :  "  Dollinger2  is  quite  right  in  charging 
the  so-called  '  old  believers  '  amongst  us  with  having  fallen  away 
from  the  Reformer's  dogma  of  Justification  as  strictly  and 
theologically  defined."3 

Thus  oblivion  seems  to  be  the  tragic  fate  of  Luther's  great 
theological  discovery,  which,  if  we  are  to  believe  what  he  says, 
was  to  him  the  light  of  his  existence  and  his  most  powerful 
incentive  in  his  whole  work,  and  which  figured  so  prominently 
in  all  his  attacks  on  Rome.  Was  it  not  this  doctrine  which 
played  the  chief  part  in  his  belief  in  the  utter  corruption  of  the 
Church  of  earlier  days,  when,  instead  of  prizing  the  grace  of 
Christ,  everything  was  made  to  depend  on  works,  which  had  led 
to  the  ruin  of  Christendom,  to  the  debasement  of  the  clergy  and 
to  the  transformation  of  the  Pope  into  Antichrist  ? 

The  sole  authority  of  Scripture,  Luther's  other  palladium,  had 
already  suffered  sadly  since  the  Revolution  period,  and  now  the 
doctrine  of  Justification  seems  destined  to  a  like  fate.  Albert 
Ritschl  was  pronouncing  a  severe  censure  when  he  declared, 
"  that,  amongst  the  differences  of  opinion  prevalent  in  the  ranks 
of  the  evangelical  theologians,  the  recognition  of  two  pro 
positions  [the  sole  authority  of  Scripture  and  Justification  by 
imputation]  was  the  minimum  that  could  be  expected  of  anyone 
who  wished  to  be  considered  Evangelical."4  For  the  fact  is  that 
the  minimum  required  by  Ritschl,  is,  according  to  the  admission 
of  Protestant  critics  themselves,  frequently  no  longer  held  by 
these  theologians. 

Of  the  Lutheran  doctrine   of   Justification   here   in   question, 

1  K.  Hase,  "  Hdbch.  der  prot.  Polemik,"4  p.  264. 

2  "  Kirche  und  Kirchen,"  p.  428  f.  3  Ibid.,  p.  269. 
4  "  Gesch.  des  Pietismus,"  1,  Bonn,  1880,  p.  38. 


446         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

P.  Genrich,  a  theologian,  in  his  work  on  the.  idea  of  regeneration, 
says  :  "If  we  glance  at  the  process  of  salvation  as  described  in 
the  evangelical  theological  handbooks  of  the  19th  century,  we 
may  well  be  astonished  at  the  extraordinary  divergencies  exist 
ing  as  regards  both  the  conception  of  regeneration,  and  the 
place  it  is  to  occupy  in  the  system  of  doctrine.  There  are  hardly 
two  theologians  who  entirely  agree  on  the  point."1 — Of  the 
practical  side  of  the  Lutheran  doctrine  in  question  the  same 
writer  states  :  "  It  is  an  almost  universal  complaint  that  this 
chief  article  of  Evangelical  faith  is  not  of  much  use  when  it  is  a 
question  of  implanting  and  fostering  piety,  in  the  school,  the 
church  or  in  parish-work.  Perhaps  the  preacher  says  a  few 
words  about  it  ...  the  teacher,  too,  feels  it  his  duty  to  deal  with 
it  in  his  catechetical  instructions.  .  .  .  Justification  by  faith 
is  extolled  in  more  or  less  eloquent  words  as  the  treasure  of  the 
Reformation,  because  Church  history  and  theology  have  taught 
us  so  to  regard  it.  But  at  heart  one  is  glad  to  be  finished  with  it 
and  vaguely  conscious  that  all  one  said  was  in  vain,  and  that, 
to  the  children  or  congregation  Justification  still  remains  some 
thing  foreign  and  scarcely  understood."2  Genrich  himself  lays 
the  blame  on  the  later  formularies  of  Lutheranism  for  the  mistaken 
notion  of  a  righteousness  coming  from  without ;  yet  the  formu 
laries  of  Concord  surely  voiced  Luther's  teaching  better  than  the 
new  exponents  who  are  so  disposed  to  tone  it  down. 3 

Of  the  actual  theory  of  Luther,  de  Lagarde  wrote  some  fifty 
years  ago  :  "  The  doctrine  of  Justification  [Luther's]  is  not  the 
Evangel.  ...  It  was  not  the  basic  principle  of  the  Reformation, 
and  to-day  in  the  Protestant  Churches  it  is  quite  dead."  De 
Lagarde  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  misled  by  the  flowery 
language  concerning  personal  religious  experience  which  is  all 
that  remains  of  Luther's  doctrine  in  many  modern  expositions 
of  it.4 

"  Research  in  the  domain  of  New-Testament  history  and  in 

1  "  Die  Lehre  von  der  Wiedergeburt,  die  christl.  Centrallehre,  in 
dogmengeschichtl.  und  religionsgeschichtl.  Beleuchtung,"  Leipzig, 
1907,  p.  229.  2  P.  120  f. 

3  On  the  Confession  of  Augsburg  and  Melanchthon's  alterations  in 
Luther's  teaching,   and  on  Melanchthon's  own  change  of  views,  cp. 
O.  Ritschl,  "  Der  doppelte  Rechtfertigungsbegriff  in  der  Apologie  der 
Augsburgischen  Konfession  "  ("  Zeitschr.  f.  Theol.  u.  Kirche,"   1910, 
pp.  292-338). 

4  On  de  Lagarde  see  "  Theol.  Revue,"  1908,  col.  345.     G.  Esser,  in 
his  review  there  of  Genrich's  work,  remarks  of  the  alleged  "  religious 
experiences  "  :    "  We  hear  the  familiar  rhapsodies  concerning  personal 
experience,  religion  that  has  to  be  lived  and  cannot  be  reduced  to  any 
formulas,  and  then  again,  experiences  are  discussed  which  have  to  be 
differentiated  from  others,  vital  experiences  which  must  be  accurately 
formulated,  in  short,  a  constant  revolving  in  a  circle,  and  a  language 
that  is  always  vague."     Before  this  Esser  had  said  :    "  What  can  the 
word  Justification  mean  to  those  who  have  lost  all  idea  of  the  super 
natural  and  of  grace,  and  have  so  changed  the  idea  of  '  faith  '  that 
nothing  remains  but  a  vague  religious  sentiment,  a  venture  of  the  will 
to  affirm  the  value  of  a  higher  world  in  the  face  of  worldly  wisdom." 


PROTESTANT   OBJECTIONS          447 

that  of  the  Reformation,"  says  K.  Holl,  "  has  arrived  at  con 
clusions  closely  akin  to  de  Lagarde's.  ...  It  has  been  made 
impossible  simply  to  set  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  Justification 
on  the  same  level  with  the  Pauline  and  with  that  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus."  Amongst  the  Protestant  objections  to  the  doctrine, 
he  instances  "  its  narrowness,  which  constitutes  a  limitation  of 
the  ethical  insupportable  to  present-day  tastes."  He  attempts 
to  explain,  or  rather  to  amend,  Luther's  theory,  so  as  to  give 
ethics  its  due  and  to  evade  Luther's  "  paradox  of  a  God,"  Who, 
though  inexorable  in  His  moral  demands,  Himself  procures  for 
the  offender  salvation  and  life.  As  the  new  dogma  originally 
stood  "  both  its  Catholic  opponents  and  the  Anabaptists  were  at 
one  in  contending  that  Luther's  doctrine  of  Justification  could 
not  fail  to  lead  to  moral  laxity.  Protestant  theologians  were  not 
able  to  deny  the  weight  of  this  objection."  In  point  of  fact  it 
involves  an  "  antinomy,  for  which  there  is  no  logical  solution."1 

The  same  author  writes  elsewhere  concerning  the  assurance  of 
salvation  which,  according  to  Luther,  accompanies  justifying 
faith  :  Luther,  standing  as  he  did  for  predestinarianism,  "  clearly 
abolished  thereby  the  possibility  of  attaining  to  any  certainty  of 
salvation.  All  his  life  Luther  allowed  this  remarkable  contradic 
tion  to  remain,  not  because  it  escaped  his  notice,  but  because  he 
had  no  wish  to  remove  it."  Holl  finds,  moreover,  in  Luther's 
opinions  on  Predestination  "  the  climax  of  the  thoughts  under 
lying  his  doctrine  of  Justification  "  ;  "  the  strength  of  [justifying] 
faith  has  to  be  tested  by  one's  readiness  to  submit  even  to  the 
sentence  [of  damnation]."2 

In  conclusion  we  may  cite  what  W.  Kohler  says  of  the  un 
reasonableness  of  Luther's  denial  of  free-will,  according  to  which 
either  God  or  the  devil  sits  astride  man's  back. 

"  With  the  rejection  of  man's  pure  passivity,  or,  as  Luther 
says,  of  his  being  ridden  by  the  Lord  God,  Luther's  theology 
suffers  a  set-back,  and  the  Catholic  polemics  of  the  16th  century 
receive  a  tardy  vindication."  Only  owing  to  his  "  lucky  lack  of 
logic  "  did  Luther  steer  clear  of  the  disastrous  moral  consequences 
of  such  a  view  ;  "in  practice  "  he  still  laid  stress  on  good  works 
in  spite  of  the  danger  that  the  "  feeling  of  security  "  and  the  idea 
of  "  sinlessness  "  might  lead  people  "  to  sink  into  the  mire."  His 
doctrine,  however,  in  itself  leads  "  either  to  his  usual  thought  : 
We  are  sinners  after  all,  or  to  extravagant  praise  of  the  Divine 
mercy  which  flings  'black  sheep '  into  the  'kingdom  of  grace.'  "3 

1  "  Die    Rechtfertigungslehre    im   Lichte   der   Gesch.    des   Protes- 
tantismus,"  1906  ("  Sammlung  .   .   .  Vortrage  und  Schriften  aus  dem 
Gebiet  der  Theol.,"  No.  45),  pp.  2,  3,  42,  10,  16. 

2  "  Die    Rechtfertigungslehre    in    Luthers    Vorlesungen    uber    den 
Romerbrief  mit  bes.   Riicksicht    auf  die  Frage  der  Heilsgewissheit  " 
("  Zeitschr.  f.  Theol.  und  Kirche,"  1910,  p.  245  ff.),  PP-  287,  289. 

3  W.  Kohler,   "  Katholizismus  und  Reformation,"  pp.   54-58.     Of 
this  description  O.  Clemen  remarks  in  the  "  Zeitschr.  f.  KG.,"  1909, 
p.  380  :    "  Those  pages  have  attracted  special  attention  where  Kohler 
shows  that,  in  the  Catholic  criticism  of  Luther's  doctrine  of  salvation, 
as  unfair  to  ethical  requirements,  there  lies  a  grain  of  truth." 


448          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Evangelical  theologians  generally  are,  however,  full  of  admira 
tion  for  the  spirit  in  which  Luther,  thanks  to  his  "  inward 
experiences,"  convinced  both  himself  and  others  of  the  certainty 
of  Justification.  His  "  experience  of  God  "  had  at  any  rate 
made  him  capable  of  an  "  heroic  faith  "  and,  by  his  "  risking  all 
for  God,"  he  pointed  out  to  the  religion  of  the  heart  the  true  road 
to  contentment  for  all  future  time.  Luther's  doctrine  of  Justifica 
tion  was  the  "  final  deepening  of  the  sense  of  personal  religion  " 
(K.  Holl). 

The  objections  on  this  point,  raised  against  Luther  in  his 
own  camp,  are  all  the  more  significant  seeing  he  made  all 
religion  to  consist  in  the  cloaking  of  sin  and  the  pacifying 
assurance  of  forgiveness ;  his  Evangel  had  come  as  a 
"  solace  for  troubled  consciences  "  ;  it  is  "  nothing  else  but 
forgiveness,  and  is  concerned  only  with  sin,  which  it  blots 
out,  covers  over,  sweeps  away  and  cleanses  so  long  as  we 
live."1  Thanks  to  it  the  long-forgotten  true  conception  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  had  at  last  been  happily  brought  again 
to  lig-ht. 

The  title  of  a  sermon  of  Luther's  printed  in  1525  expresses 
this  idea  as  follows :  "A  Sermon  on  the  Kingdom  of  Christ, 
which  consists  in  the  Forgiveness  of  Sins,"  etc.  The  words 
of  Christ  to  the  man  sick  of  the  palsy  (Mat.  ix.  2)  form  the 
subject  :  "  Be  of  good  heart,  son,  thy  sins  are  forgiven 
thee."  "  These  words,"  the  preacher  says,  "  indicate  and 
sum  up  shortly  what  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  is."  Since  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  must  be  defined  in  relation  to  the  question : 
"  How  must  we  behave  with  regard  to  God?  "  it  cannot  and 
must  "  not  be  regarded  otherwise  "  than  according  to  these 
words:  "Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee";  for  "this  is  the 
chief  thing,  viz.  that  which  can  quiet  the  conscience." 
"  Whence  it  follows  that  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  is  so 
constituted  that  it  contains  nothing  but  comfort  and  for 
giveness  of  sins."  The  chief  fault  of  our  reason  is  its 
"  inclination,  everywhere  manifest,  to  forsake  this  faith  and 
knowledge  and  to  fall  back  upon  works." 

In  Holy  Scripture  the  object  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  is 
differently  given.  There  it  culminates  in  the  glory  of  God. 
God's  glorification  is  the  real  aim  of  Christ's  coming,  and 
must  also  be  the  supreme  object  of  every  believer.  This 
does  not  in  the  least  tally  with  that  trumped-up  holiness- 

1  "Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  24,  p.  355;  cp.  Erl.  ed.,  142,  pp.  191,  195, 
198  £.,  205,  211  f. 


ON   GOOD   WORKS  449 

by-works  which  Luther  saw  in  Catholicism.  This  far  higher, 
general,  Catholic  thought  of  God's  glory  pervades  the  first 
petitions  of  the  prayer  taught  by  our  Saviour  Himself  in  the 
Our  Father  :  "  Hallowed  be  Thy  Name,"  etc.  ;  only  in  the 
fifth  petition  do  we  hear  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  for  which, 
indeed,  every  human  creature  must  implore.  In  the  Our 
Father  we  acknowledge  first  of  all  our  obligation  to  serve 
God  with  all  our  powers  and  strive  to  comply  with  our 
duty  of  glorifying  His  name.  Hence  Catholic  religious 
instructions  have  never  commenced  with  "  the  simple 
forgiveness  of  sin,"  with  attempts  to  cloak  it  and  to  induce 
a  fancied  security  in  the  sinner  ;  their  purpose  has  ever 
been  to  show  that  man  is  created  to  serve  God  and  to 
honour  Him,  and  that  he  can  best  do  so  by  imitation  and 
love  of  Christ. 

This  high  object,  the  only  one  worthy  of  man  and  his 
spiritual  powers,  leads  us  to  consider  the  doctrine  of  good 
works. 

4.  Good  Works  in  Theory  and  Practice 

Man  is  naturally  disposed  to  believe  that,  built  as  he  is, 
he  must  take  his  share  in  working  out  his  salvation,  if  he  be 
in  sin,  by  preparing  himself  with  God's  help  to  enter  the 
state  of  grace  and  then  by  seeking  to  retain  it  by  means 
of  good  works. 

The  Church  before  Luther  had  taught,  as  she  still  does, 
and  that  on  the  strength  of  Holy  Writ,  that  such  co 
operation  on  man's  part,  under  God's  assistance,  is  quite 
essential.  Though  the  attaining  to  and  the  perseverance 
in  the  Divine  sonship  is  chiefly  the  work  of  God,  yet  it  is 
also  man's,  carried  out  with  the  aid  of  grace.  She  assured 
the  faithful,  that,  according  to  the  order  graciously  estab 
lished  by  God  and  warranted  by  Scripture,  all  good  works 
have  their  value  for  temporal  and  eternal  reward.  She 
sought  indeed  to  kindle  religious  fervour  by  pointing  to  the 
promises  held  out,  yet  she  had  no  wish  to  see  man  stop 
short  at  the  thought  of  his  reward,  but  rather  expected  him 
to  rise  to  a  more  perfect  love.  Generosity,  so  she  taught, 
was  in  no  way  impaired  by  the  prospect  of  reward,  on  the 
contrary  such  hopes  served  as  stepping-stones  to  facilitate 
the  ascent.1 

1  On  the  teaching  of  antiquity  see  Bellarmin,  "  De  iustificatione," 
5,  n.  10  seq. 

IV.— 2  G 


450          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Luther,  owing  to  his  implacable,  personal  aversion  to  any 
good  works  or  human  co-operation,  laid  violent  hands  on 
this  so  reasonable  scheme  of  salvation. 

Nature  and  Origin  of  the  New  Doctrine  of  Works. 

Luther  demanded  that  no  importance  should  be  set  on 
co-operation  by  means  of  works  in  the  business  of  Justifica 
tion,  because  salvation  was  to  be  looked  for  from  on  high 
with  simple  faith  and  blind  confidence.  After  reconciliation, 
too,  man  must  not  vainly  fancy  that  he  is  capable  of  deserv 
ing  anything  by  good  works  even  by  the  greatest  penances, 
sacrifices  or  deeds  of  love,  but  the  doing  of  good  must  be 
allowed  to  follow  simply  as  the  effect  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
now  received,  in  those  feelings  towards  God  which  Christ 
produces  in  us  and  in  that  love  of  our  neighbour  which  is 
indispensable  to  human  society. 

Further  light  may  be  thrown  on  this  standpoint  of 
Luther's  by  some  traits  from  his  inward  history  and  writings. 

Here  we  cannot  fail  to  notice  echoes  of  his  transition 
period,  of  his  conflict  with  his  brother-monks  and  those 
pious  folk  who  were  intent  on  good  works  and  the  heaping 
up  of  merits  ;  of  his  subsequent  remissness  in  his  vocation 
and  in  the  performance  of  his  duties  as  a  monk  ;  finally  of 
his  later  prejudice,  largely  a  result  of  his  polemics,  against  so 
many  of  the  Church's  public  and  private  practices,  of 
penance,  of  devotion  and  of  the  love  of  God.  He  closed  his 
eyes  to  the  fact,  that  he  could  have  found  no  more  effectual 
means  of  increasing  amongst  his  followers  the  growing 
contempt  for  moral  effort,  neglect  of  good  works  and  the 
gradual  decline  in  religious  feeling. 

His  estrangement  from  what  he  was  pleased  to  call 
"  holiness-by-works  "  always  remained  Luther's  principal, 
ruling  idea,  just  as  it  had  been  the  starting-point  of  his 
change  of  mind  in  his  monastic  days.1 

His  chief  discovery,  viz.  the  doctrine  of  Justification,  he 
was  fond  of  parading  as  an  attack  upon  works.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  observe  how  persistently,  how  eagerly  and 
instinctively  he  seizes  the  smallest  pretext  to  launch  in  his 
sermons  and  writings  a  torrent  of  abuse  on  the  Catholic 
works.  It  is  as  though  some  unseen  hand  were  ever  ready 
to  open  the  sluice-gates,  that,  whether  relevant  or  not  to 
1  See  vol.  i.,  p.  118ff. 


ON  GOOD  WORKS  451 

the  matter  on  hand,  his  anger  might  pour  forth  against 
fasting,  and  the  ancient  works  of  penance,  against  "  cowls 
and  tonsures,"  against  the  recitation  of  the  Office  in  choir, 
rules,  collections,  pilgrimages  and  Jubilees,  against  taking 
the  discipline,  vows,  veneration  of  the  Saints  and  so  many 
other  religious  practices.1  In  his  habitual  slanders  on 
works,  found  on  his  lips  from  the  beginning2  to  within  a 
few  weeks  of  his  death,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  see  the  real 
link  which  binds  together  his  whole  activity.  As  against 
the  Popish  doctrine  of  works  he  is  never  weary  of  pointing 
out  that  his  own  doctrine  of  works  is  based  on  Christ ;  "it 
allows  God  to  be  our  Lord  God  and  gives  Him  the  glory," 
a  thought  that  pleased  him  all  the  more  because  it  concealed 
the  error  under  a  mantle  of  piety  ;  this  deceptive  idea 
already  casts  its  shadow  over  the  very  first  letter  in  his 
correspondence  which  touches  on  the  new  doctrine.3 

Johann  Eck  could  well  answer  :  "  Luther  is  doing  us  an 
injustice  when  he  declares  that  we  by  our  works  exclude 
Christ  as  Mediator.  .  .  .  On  the  contrary,  we  teach,  that, 
without  Christ,  works  are  nothing.  .  .  .  Therefore  let  him 
keep  his  lies  to  himself  ;  the  works  that  are  done  without 
faith,  he  may  indeed  talk  of  as  he  likes,  but,  as  for  ours, 
they  proceed  from  the  bottom  rock  of  faith  and  are  per 
formed  with  the  aid  of  Divine  grace."4 

Equally  deceptive  was  the  idea,  so  alluring  in  itself,  that 

1  Cp.  e.g.,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  6,  p.  683  f.  ;   10,  2,  p.  126  ;  Erl.  ed., 
22,  p.  54  ;    28,  p.  164  ;    53,  p.  288.     Vol.  152,  p.  282,  he  speaks  of  the 
"  lousy  works,"  and,  pointing  out  that  Christ  had  become  the  fulfiller 
of  the  Law,  says  :  "  They  [the  Papists]  boast  of  their  works." — This  is  for 
him  the  real  object  of  attack  ;   he  is  determined  to  inveigh  against  the 
"  unus  furor,  velle  per  opera  cor  am  Deo  agere,"  and  says  of  the  Catholics  : 
"  opera  quibus  erga  homines  utendum  est,  offerunt  Deo."      "  Werke," 
Weim.  ed.,  10,  2,  p.  187  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  6,  p.  396. 

2  "  My  struggle  has  been  first  of  all  against  all  trust  in  works,  on 
which  the  world  insists  and  struts."   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  58,  p.  382, 
Table-Talk. 

3  To  George  Spenlein,  the  Memmingen  Augustinian,  April  8,  1516, 
"  Briefwechsel,"    1,   p.    29  :    against   the   "  tentatio  prcesumptionis  in 
multis  et  iis  prcecipye  qui  iusti  et  boni  esse  omnibus  viribus  student  ; 
ignorantes  iustitiam  Dei,  quce  in  Christo  est  nobis  effusissime  et  gratis 
donala,  qucerunt  in  se  ipsis  tamdiu  operari  bene,  donee  habeant  fiduciam 
standi  coram  Deo,  veluti  virtutibus  et  meritis  ornati  ;  quod  est  impossibile 
fieri."    Cp.  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  347  ;   "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  236,  where  he 
speaks  against  the  "  affectus  proprice  iustitice  "  and  declares  that  the 
sense  of  good  works  performed  led  men  to  fall.      P.   347  =  237  :   the 
wish  to  have  remained  always  pure  was  simply  foolish,  etc. 

4  "  Opera,"    Pars    IT.    Ingolstadtii,    1531,    p.     95  :     "  Calumniatur 
Ludderus.  quod  per  opera  sua  Christum  excludant  mediatorcm,"  etc. 


452          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Luther's  doctrine  of  works  bore  the  stamp  of  true  freedom, 
viz.  the  freedom  of  the  Gospel.  Here,  again,  we  can  only 
see  a  new  expression  of  his  profound  alienation  from  works 
and  from  the  sacrifice  entailed  by  self-conquest.  He  is 
desirous,  so  he  says,  of  hoisting  on  the  shield  the  freedom 
of  the  man  who  is  guided  solely  by  God's  Spirit.  But  will 
this  not  serve  as  an  excuse  for  weakness  ?  Here  we  seem 
to  find  an  after-effect  of  that  late-mediaeval  pseudo-mysti 
cism  which  had  once  been  a  danger  to  him,  which  went  so  far 
as  to  demand  of  the  righteous  complete  indifference  to 
works,  and,  that,  in  language  apparently  most  affecting 
and  sublime. 

These  two  thoughts,  that  Christ  would  thus  be  restored 
to  His  place  of  honour  and  man  secure  evangelical  freedom, 
were  a  great  temptation  to  many  hearers  of  Luther's  call  to 
leave  the  Catholic  Church.  In  all  great  intellectual  revolu 
tions  there  are  always  at  work  certain  impelling  ideas, 
either  true  ones  which  rightly  prove  attractive,  or  false  ones 
which  yet  assume  the  appearance  of  truth  and  thus  move 
people's  minds.  Without  the  intervention  of  the  two 
thoughts  just  referred  to,  the  spread  of  the  religious  move 
ment  in  the  16th  century  is  not  fully  to  be  explained. 

How  many  of  the  apostles  and  followers  of  the  new 
preaching  were  really  moved  by  these  two  thoughts  must 
even  then  have  been  difficult  to  determine.  Noble  and 
privileged  souls  may  not  have  been  wanting  amongst  them. 
The  masses,  however,  introduced  so  earthly  an  element  into 
these  better  and  pious  ideals  that  the  ideals  only  remained 
as  a  pretext,  a  very  effective  pretext  indeed,  to  allege  for  their 
own  pacification  and  in  extenuation  of  their  other  aims. 
Great  watchwords,  once  put  forward,  often  serve  as  a 
useful  cloak  for  other  things.  In  this  respect  the  demand 
for  the  freedom  of  the  Gospel  proved  very  popular.  The 
age  clamoured  to  be  set  free  from  bonds  which  were  proving 
irksome,  for  instance,  to  mention  but  one  point,  from 
exorbitant  ecclesiastical  dues  and  spiritual  penalties.  Hence 
evangelical  freedom  was  readily  accepted  as  synonymous 
with  deliverance,  and,  in  time,  ceased  to  be  "  evangelical  " 
at  all. 

That  Luther's  doctrine  of  works  and  of  the  freedom 
bestowed  by  Christ  the  fulfiller  of  the  Law,  embodied  a 
great  moral  danger,  is  now  recognised  even  by  Protestants. 


ON  GOOD  WORKS  453 

"  How  terribly  dangerous,"  a  Protestant  Church-historian 
says,  "  is  that  '  To  be  for  ever  and  ever  secure  of  life  in  Christ  ' 
in  the  sense  in  which  Luther  understands  it  !  We  Protestants 
are  merely  toning  it  down  when  we  find  in  it  simply  the  con 
sciousness  of  being  supported  by  God  ;  to  Luther  it  is  much  more 
...  it  is  a  feeling  of  spiritual  mastery."  The  author  quotes  as 
descriptive  of  Luther's  attitude  the  characteristic  watchword 
from  his  writing  "  Von  der  Freyheyt  eynes  Christen  Menschen  "  : 
"  The  Christian  is  so  far  exalted  above  everything  by  faith  that 
he  becomes  spiritually  lord  over  all,  for  there  is  nothing  that  can 
endanger  his  salvation."  To  these  we  may  append  Luther's 
spoken  words  :  "  This  is  Christian  freedom  ...  to  have  no  need 
of  any  work  in  order  to  attain  to  piety  and  salvation  "  ;  a 
Christian  may  say  :  I  possess  "  such  a  Saviour  that  I  need  have 
no  fear  of  death,  and  am  certain  of  life  for  ever  and  ever  ;  I  can 
snap  my  fingers  at  the  devil  and  his  hell,  and  am  no  longer  called 
upon  to  tremble  before  the  wrath  of  God."1  The  same  writer 
also  points  out,  that,  according  to  Luther,  this  happy  believer 
"remains  for  all  this  inwardly  ('  intrinsece  ' )  a  sinner  and  is 
righteous  only  outwardly  ('  extrinsc.ee  ')."  From  such  teaching  as 
this  respect  for  works  was  bound  to  suffer :  the  question  of  "religion 
and  morality,"  whether  from  the  point  of  view  of  religion  in  the 
process  of  salvation  or  from  the  point  of  view  of  morals  in  social 
action,  could  not  be  satisfactorily  solved  thereby.  "  In  both 
cases  morality  comes  short.  Theologically  no  sufficient  bulwark 
is  erected  against  misinterpretation."  "  Luther  had  trouble 
enough,  and  through  his  own  fault,  in  stemming  the  incroachments 
of  immorality." 

More  strongly,  and  with  the  frankness  usual  in  the  polemics  of 
his  day,  Willibald  Pirkheimer,  Luther's  former  friend,  voices  the 
same  thought  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  not  evangelical,  but  rather 
devilish  freedom  "  which,  owing  to  the  preaching  of  the  new 
"  evangelical  truth,"  had  made  itself  so  "  shockingly  "  felt 
amongst  so  many  apostates,  both  male  and  female,  and  had 
induced  him,  after  long  hesitation,  to  betake  himself  back  to  the 
Catholic  fold.2 

Before  quoting  the  opinion  of  other  critics  of  the  preach 
ing  against  works  in  his  own  time,  we  may  give  Luther  the 
chance  to  describe  the  extent  of  his  opposition  to  the  olden 
doctrine. 

He  is  determined,  as  he  says  as  early  as  1516,  c'  to  root  out 
utterly  the  stupid,  fleshly  affectation  that  trusts  in  such  works."3 
"  Many  graces  and  merits,"  so  he  taught  even  then,  "  lead  man 
from  God  ;  we  are  so  ready  to  rely  on  good  works,  more  than  on 

1  W.  Kohler,  "  Denifles  Luther,"  p.  42,  referring  to  Luther's  Works, 
Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  261. 

2  From  Kilian  Leib,  "  Verantwortung  des  Klosterstandes,"  fol.  170'. 
Cp.  Dollinger,  "  Reformation,"  1,  p.  5,  33  ;   2nd  ed.,  p.  587. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  349  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  239. 


454         LUTHER   THE  REFORMER 

God  Himself  "  ;  yet  we  should  rather,  "  in  absolute  nakedness, 
pay  homage  to  God's  mercy  from  the  bottom  of  our  heart."1 
"  The  multitude  of  our  sins  must  not  arouse  despair,  what  should 
make  us  distrustful  is  any  striving  after  good  works  "  ;  we  "  ought 
rather  to  take  refuge  in  the  mercy  of  God."  The  sense  of  good 
works  is  our  ruin,  for  it  induces  in  us  "a  feeling  of  self-righteous 
ness."2  The  latter  words  portray  his  own  psychological  state  at 
that  time.  It  was  these  lax  ideas  that  led  to  his  quarrel  with  the 
Observantines  amongst  his  brethren  and  with  the  so-called 
"  Little  Saints."  Here  also  we  have  an  echo  from  the  world  of 
thought  already  described  as  the  real  starting-point  of  his  sad 
development. 

During  this  crucial  period  of  his  mental  growth  he  preached  in 
1515  on  the  glad  tidings  of  the  Gospel  ;  it  was  "  glad  "  because 
it  taught  us  "  that  the  law  had  already  been  fulfilled  by  Christ, 
so  that  it  was  no  longer  necessary  for  us  to  fulfil  it,  but  only,  by 
faith,  to  hang  it  about  the  Man  who  had  fulfilled  it  and  become 
conformed  to  Him,  because  Christ  is  our  Righteousness,  Holiness 
and  Redemption."3 

Later  he  comes  to  speak  still  more  strongly.  He  fully  admitted 
it  was  natural  to  all  men,  himself  included,  to  turn  to  good  works 
in  trouble  of  conscience  ;  it  was  beyond  reason  not  to  rest  on 
them,4  yet,  according  to  him,  in  solacing  our  conscience  we 
must  pay  no  heed  either  to  sin  or  to  works,  but  put  our  whole 
trust  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ  ;  we  must,  to  quote  him 
literally,  "  set  up  grace  and  forgiveness,  not  only  against  sin,  but 
also  against  good  works."5  It  is  true  that  he  protests  that  he  has 
no  intention  to  exclude  works  (other  statements  of  his  in  favour 
of  good  works  will  be  quoted  in  due  time),  yet  he  abases  them  to 
a  level  which  fails  to  explain  why  Christ  and  the  Apostles  so 
earnestly  recommended  them  and  promised  an  eternal  reward 
for  their  performance.  Luther  assures  us  that  good  works  form 
"  worldly  righteousness  "  ;  that  love  of  our  neighbour  is  enjoined 
for  the  welfare  of  society  and  because  we  live  together ;  yet  he 
steadfastly  condemns  as  a  "  shameful  delusion,"  the  view  "  that 
works  are  of  any  value  to  righteousness  in  the  sight  of  God."6 

Who  of  his  contemporaries  could  deny  that  Luther  preached 
a  wonderfully  simple  and  easy  road  to  "life  everlasting"?  If 
this  and  the  "forgiveness  of  sins"  wrere  to  cost  no  more  than  he 
insists  upon  elsewhere,  viz.  "  that  you  hear  the  Word  and  believe 
it  when  you  have  heard  it  ;  if  you  believe  it,  then  you  have  it 
without  any  trouble,  expense,  delay  or  pains ;  thus  does  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  and  the  Christian  teaching  do  everything  with  a 
few  short  words,  for  it  is  God's  own  Word."7 

Worthy  of  notice  in  connection  with  his  ideas  of  evangelical 
freedom  (see  above,  p.  453,  and  vol.  ii.,  p.  27  ff.)  is  the  significant 

1  Ibid.,  p.  348  =  238.  2  Ibid.,  p.  347  =  236. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  105. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  142,  p.  212  f. 

5  Ibid.,  p.  213.  e  Ibid.,  p.  221. 

7  Ibid.,  62,  p.  157,  Hauspostille.     Gp.  above,  p.  438,  n.  9. 


ON  GOOD  WORKS  455 

use  he  makes  of  the  term  applied  in  the  New  Testament  to  all 
Christians,  viz.  members  of  a  "  royal  priesthood,"  which  Luther 
takes  as  meaning  that  all  believers  have  a  certain  supremacy 
over  sin. 

As  every  Christian,  so  he  teaches,  by  virtue  of  the  universal 
priesthood  possesses  authority  to  "  proclaim  the  Gospel,"  as 
everyone,  "  man,  woman  or  maid,"  is  qualified  to  "  teach  "  who 
"  knows  how  to  and  is  able,"  so  the  "  Spirit  of  Christ  encourages  " 
all  without  exception  and  makes  of  each  one  "  a  great  Lord  and 
King  of  all."  But,  "  where  works  are  preached,  there  the  right  of 
primogeniture  is  taken  from  us,"  and  this  privilege  of  "  royal 
and  priestly  dignity  disappears  completely."  Sometimes  the 
devil  tries  to  force  us  to  sin,  for  "  he  is  a  servant  and  has  his  own 
way.  If  he  forces  me  to  sin  then  I  run  to  Christ  and  invoke 
His  help  ;  then  he  is  ashamed.  The  more  he  does,  the  greater 
his  shame.  Thus  this  power  is  omnipotent.  '  Thou  hast  set  all 
things  under  his  feet '  [Ps.  viii.  8],  we  are  told.  '  We  shall  judge 
the  angels,'  says  St.  Paul  [1  Cor.  vi.  3].  That  is  our  right  of 
primogeniture  which  we  must  ascribe,  not  to  ourselves,  but  to 
Christ.  But  when  Christ  has  cleansed  you,  then  you  do  what  is 
good,  not  for  yourself  [by  gaining  merit],  but  for  others." — Such 
a  doctrine  he  could  truly  say  the  Papists  failed  to  understand. 
But  he  adds  further  :  They  cannot  even  pray  ;  "  with  their 
prayers  they  merely  mock  God."1 

If  all  the  faithful  are,  as  the  new  Evangel  teaches,  by 
virtue  of  their  right  of  primogeniture  great  Lords  and  Kings, 
then  that  fear  of  God's  chastisements  is  no  longer  justified 
which  the  ancient  Church  had  always  put  forward  as  one  of 
the  motives  for  performing  good  works  and  leading  a  moral 
life.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  not  to  open  our  hearts  too 
readily  to  such  fear.  Luther's  injunctions  concerning  fear 
of  the  Judge  go  to  form  a  further  chapter  in  the  psycho 
logical  and  historical  criticism  of  his  doctrine  of  works. 
Here  we  see  plainly  his  instinctive  aversion  to  the  views  and 
practice  of  the  olden  Church. 

The  Catholic  doctrine  of  fear  had  been  expressed  with  wonder 
ful  simplicity  in  the  "  Imitation  of  Christ,"  already  widely  read 
in  the  years  previous  to  the  Reformation:  "It  is  well,  my  son, 
that  so  long  as  love  avails  not  to  restrain  thee,  fear  of  eternal 
punishment  should  at  least  affright  thee  from  evil.  Whoever 
disregards  fear  will  not  long  be  able  to  persevere  in  good."- 
"  Consider  how  thou  mayest  answer  for  thyself  before  the  stern 
judge  "  :  "  Now  thy  labour  is  still  fruitful,  now  thy  contrition 
still  cleanses  and  makes  satisfaction."  "  At  the  day  of  judgment 

1   "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  432,  in  the  notes  taken  of  a  sermon 
of  1524. 


456         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

the  man  who  has  mortified  his  flesh  here  below  will  rejoice  more 
than  he  who  has  indulged  it  in  luxury." — The  "  Imitation  " 
desires,  however,  that  fear  should  be  allied  with  confidence  and 
love.  "  Look  on  Me,"  it  makes  Christ  say,  "  let  not  thy  heart  be 
troubled  nor  afraid.  Believe  in  Me  and  trust  in  My  mercy.  When 
thou  thinkest  thou  art  far  from  Me,  I  am  often  closest  to  thee." 
"  If  thou  but  trust  in  the  Lord,"  it  says  again,  "  strength  will  be 
given  thee  from  above."  "  Thou  hast  no  need  to  fear  the  devil 
if  thou  art  armed  with  the  cross  of  Christ."  Nor  do  we  meet  in 
this  book  with  any  trace  of  that  frozen  fear  which  Luther  repre 
sented  as  prevalent  in  the  monasteries,  on  the  contrary  it  insists 
no  less  on  love  :  "In  the  cloister  no  one  can  persevere  unless  he 
be  ready  for  the  love  of  God  to  humble  himself  from  the  bottom 
of  his  heart." 

In  order  to  supply  a  suitable  background  for  his  new  doctrine, 
Luther  made  out  Catholic  antiquity  to  have  fostered  both  in 
theory  and  in  practice  a  craven  fear,  of  which  in  reality  it  knew 
nothing  at  all.  By  excluding  the  elements  of  trust  and  love,  he 
reduced  Catholic  life  to  the  merest  state  of  fear,  as  though  this 
had  actually  been  the  sphere  in  which  it  moved  ;  he  charges  it 
with  having  cultivated  that  servile  fear  which  would  at  once 
commit  sin  were  there  no  penalty  attached  ;  he  also  finds  in 
monastic  life  an  element  of  excitement  and  confusion  which,  as 
our  readers  already  know,  was  really  peculiar  to  his  own  personal 
temperament  at  one  time. 

Far  more  characteristic  than  such  calumnies  is  his  own  attitude 
to  that  fear  of  God's  judgments  which  is  just  and  indispensable. 
Not  as  though,  generally,  he  did  not  recommend  and  praise 
the  "  fear  of  God."  This,  however,  falls  beside  the  mark  since 
such  a  fear  may  exist  without  any  adverting  to  the  punishments 
of  the  judge,  and,  as  Luther  himself  puts  it,  not  altogether  in 
correctly,  is  more  "  an  awe  that  holds  God  in  honour  and  which 
is  always  expected  of  the  Christian,  just  as  a  good  child  should 
fear  his  father."1  This  is  the  "  timor  reverentialis,"  to  use  the 
earlier  theological  term.  But  to  the  actual  fear  of  the  Divine 
judgments  as  an  expiatory  and  saving  motive,  Luther  gives  no 
place  whatever  ;  neither  in  the  justification  of  the  sinner,  seeing 
that  he  makes  faith  the  one  condition  for  its  attainment,  or 
subsequent  to  justification  and  in  the  state  of  grace,  because 
there  all  that  obtains  is  confidence  in  the  covering  over  of  sin  by 
grace,  while  the  state  of  grace,  in  his  opinion,  of  its  own  nature 
necessarily  works  what  is  good.  The  Law  and  its  threats,  is,  in 
his  opinion,  useful  "  for  revealing  sin  "  in  order  that,  knowing 
this,  "  grace  may  be  sought  and  obtained  "  ;  "  thus  the  Law 
works  fear  and  wrath,  whereas  grace  works  hope  and  mercy."2 

Fear,  in  reality,  is  contemptible  ;  it  "  is  there  because  sin 
prevails,"  hence  it  is  not  found  in  the  pious,  not  even  in  Old- 
Testament  times.3  "  Let  us,"  he  cries,  "  cast  at  our  feet  all  free- 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  182,  p.  349. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  3G9,  Thesis  16. 
3  Cp.  "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  9,  p.  360  ;    10,  p.  159  ;    1 1,  p.  121. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE   ON  WORKS       457 

will.  .  .  .  Nature  and  free-will  cannot  stand  before  God,  for  they 
fear  lest  He  should  fall  upon  them  with  His  club.  .  .  .  Where 
the  Holy  Spirit  does  not  whisper  to  the  heart  the  Evangelical 
promises,  man  looks  upon  God  as  a  devil,  executioner,  task 
master  and  judge.  .  .  .  To  the  devil  with  such  holiness  !  " 
The  above  is  no  mere  momentary  outburst ;  it  is  a  theological 
system  and  the  expression  of  his  deep  psychological  prejudice. 
We  are  carried  back  to  his  monastic  days  and  to  the  theory  which 
fear  led  him  to  invent  to  allay  his  own  personal  agitation,  but  to 
which  he  could  hold  fast  only  by  dint  of  doing  violence  to  himself. 
When  he  came  to  see,  that,  to  preserve  the  people  from  moral 
degradation,  fear  of  the  Judgments  of  God  had  to  be  preached,  he 
urged  that  it  should  be  emphasised  and  declared  it  quite  essential. 
This  he  did  particularly  in  his  instructions  for  the  Visitation  of  the 
Saxon  Electorate,  which  accordingly  contain  what  is  practically 
a  repudiation  of  his  teaching.  The  reasonable  and  wholesome 
fear  of  the  judge,  which  he  would  have  preached  to  the  "  simple 
people  "  for  the  moving  of  their  hearts,  in  spite  of  all  his  protests 
has  surely  a  right  and  claim  to  work  on  the  minds  not  merely  of 
the  "  simple  "  but  even  of  the  educated,  and  accordingly  to  be 
urged  even  by  the  theologians. 

Luther's  attitude  here  was  as  ambiguous  as  elsewhere, 
for  instance,  in  the  case  of  his  whole  doctrine  of  grace  and 
justification,  no  less  than  in  its  premises,  viz.  unfreedom, 
concupiscence  and  original  sin.  Everywhere  we  meet  with 
contradictions,  which  make  it  almost  impossible  to  furnish 
any  connected  description  of  his  doctrinal  system. 

Augustine  as  the  Authority  for  the  New  Doctrine  of  Works. 

We  have  an  example  of  Luther's  want  of  theological 
acumen  in  his  appeal  to  Augustine  in  support  of  his  doctrine 
of  works. 

In  order  to  understand  this  we  must  recollect  that,  from 
the  beginning,  Luther  had  described  his  new  theology  as 
simply  that  of  Augustine  the  great  Father  of  the  Church. 
Of  Augustine's— of  whom  he  said  in  1516  that  he  had  not 
felt  the  slightest  leaning  towards  him  until  he  had  "  tumbled 
on  "  his  writings2 — he  had  merely  read  in  1509  a  small 
number  of  works,  arid  he  became  acquainted  with  what 
were  for  him  the  more  important  of  this  Father's  writings 
only  after  he  had  already  largely  deviated  from  the  Church's 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  16,  p.  397  ;   Erl.  ed.,  36,  p.  6  f. 

2  To    Spalatin,    Oct.    16,    1516,    "  Brief wechsel,"    1,    p.    64  :     "  qui 
(Augustinus)  apud  me,  antequam  in  libros  eius  incidissem,  ne  tantillum 
quidem  favoris  habuit."     Other  Augustinians  made  more  account  of 
this  Saint,  popularly  regarded  as  their  founder. 


458 

doctrine.1  Even  later,  his  knowledge  of  Augustine  was 
scanty.  He  was,  however,  as  a  monk,  fond  of  identifying 
his  own  new  doctrine  of  grace  with  Augustine's  ;2  he  tried 
to  enlist  the  help  of  his  colleague,  Amsdorf,  by  a  present  of 
St.  Augustine's  works  ;  in  this  he  was  completely  successful.3 
On  May  18,  1517,  he  wrote  to  Lang  on  the  state  of  things  at 
Wittenberg,  the  triumphant  words  already  quoted  :  "  Our 
theology  and  St.  Augustine  are  making  happy  progress  with 
God's  help  and  are  now  paramount  at  the  University,"  etc.4 
From  that  time  forward  he  was  fond  of  saying,  that  Augus 
tine  was  opposed  "  to  Gabriel  Biel,  Thomas  of  Aquin  and 
the  whole  crowd  of  Sententiaries,  and  would  hold  the  field 
against  them  because  he  was  grounded  on  the  pure  Gospel, 
particularly  on  the  testimony  of  Paul."5  To  what  extent 
he  really  in  his  heart  believed  this  of  Augustine  must  remain 
a  moot  question. 

"  Luther,"  says  Julius  Kostlin,  one  of  the  best-known 
authorities  on  Luther's  theology,  "  could,  indeed,  appeal  to 
St.  Augustine  in  support  of  the  thesis  that  man  becomes 
righteous  and  is  saved  purely  by  God's  gracious  decree  and 
the  working  of  His  Grace  and  not  by  any  natural  powers  and 
achievements  [which  is  the  Catholic  doctrine],  but  not  for 
the  further  theory  that  man  is  regarded  by  God  as  just 
purely  by  virtue  of  faith  .  .  .  nor  that  the  Christian  thus 
justified  can  never  perform  anything  meritorious  in  God's 
sight  but  is  saved  merely  by  the  pardoning  grace  of  God 
which  must  ever  anew  be  laid  hold  of  by  faith  "  [i.e.  the 
specifically  Lutheran  theses  on  faith  and  works].  The 
same  author  adds  :  "  Only  gradually  did  the  fundamental 
difference  between  the  Augustinian  view,  his  own  and  that 
of  Paul  become  entirely  clear  to  Luther."8 

When  this  happened  it  is  hard  to  say  ;  at  any  rate,  his 
strictures  on  Augustine  and  the  Fathers  in  his  lectures  of 
1527  on  the  1st  Epistle  of  St.  John,  and  in  his  later  Table- 
Talk  prove,  that,  as  time  went  on  he  had  given  up  all  idea  of 

1  Cp.  Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  pp.  75,  109  f. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  127. 

"  Stud,  und  Krit.,"  1878,  p.  698  ;   Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  134. 

4  "  Briefwechsel,"   1,  p.   100  :    "  Theologia  nostra  et  S.  Augustinus 
prospere  procedunt,"  etc. 

5  Kostlin-Kawerau,   1,  p.   137;  here  it  is  first  stated :    "Luther's 
theology  was  regarded  by  him  and  his  friends  as  simply  that  of  the 
great  Father  Augustine." 

8  Ibid.,  p.  138. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  ON  WORKS        459 

finding  in  these  authorities  any  confirmation  of  his  doctrine 
on  faith  alone  and  works.1 

However  his  convictions  may  have  stood,  he  certainly,  in  his 
earlier  writings,  claimed  Augustine  in  support  of  his  doctrine  of 
the  absence  of  free-will,  particularly  on  account  of  a  passage  in 
the  work  "  Contra  Julianum,"  which  Luther  repeats  and  applies 
under  various  forms.2  There  can,  of  course,  be  no  question  of 
St.  Augustine's  having  actually  been  a  partisan,  whether  here 
or  elsewhere,  of  the  Lutheran  doctrine  of  the  "  enslaved  will." 
"  These  and  other  passages  from  St.  Augustine  which  Luther 
quotes  in  proof  of  the  unfreedom  of  the  will  really  tell  against 
him  ;  he  either  tears  them  from  their  context  or  else  he  falsifies 
their  meaning."3  He  is  equally  unfair  when,  in  his  Commentary 
on  Romans  and  frequently  elsewhere,  he  appeals  to  this  Doctor 
of  the  Church  in  defence  of  his  opinion,  that,  after  baptism, 
sin  really  still  persists  in  man,4  likewise  in  his  doctrine  of  con 
cupiscence  in  general,6  where  he  even  fails  to  quote  his  texts 
correctly.  He  alters  the  sense  of  Augustine's  words  with  regard 
to  the  keeping  of  God's  commandments,  the  difference  between 
venial  and  mortal  sin,  and  the  virtues  of  the  just. 6  Denifle,  after 
patiently  tracing  Luther's  patristic  excursions,  angrily  exclaims  : 
"  He  treats  Augustine  as  he  does  Holy  Scripture."7 

Deserving  of  notice,  because  it  explains  both  his  repeated 
quotations  from  Augustine  and  his  advocacy  of  the  motive  of 
fear,  is  a  lengthy  admonition  of  1531  couched  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  on  the  defence  of  the  new  doctrine  of  faith  alone  and  of 
works.  The  letter  was  written  by  Melanchthon  to  Johann 
Brenz,  but  it  had  the  entire  approval  of  Luther,  who  even 
appended  a  few  words  to  it.8  While  clearly  throwing  overboard 
Augustine,  it  is  nevertheless  anxious  to  retain  him. 

The  letter  discussed  the  objections  alleged  by  Brenz,  the 
influential  promoter  of  the  innovations  in  Suabia,  against 
Luther's  doctrine  of  Justification,  particularly  as  formulated  in 
the  Augsburg  Confession,  and  against  Melanchthon's  appeal 
therein  to  St.  Augustine  ;  Brenz  urged  that  some  effort  on  man's 
part  certainly  intervened  in  the  work  of  pardon.  In  the  reply 
Augustine  is  practically  given  up.  Brenz  is  told  that  he  is  wrong 
in  clinging  to  Augustine's  fancy  ("  hceres  in  Augustini  imagina- 
tione  ")  which  puts  our  righteousness  in  the  fulfilment  of  the 
Law.  "  Avert  your  eyes  from  such  a  regeneration  of  man  and 
from  the  Law  and  look  only  to  the  promises  and  to  Christ.  .  .  . 
Augustine  is  not  in  agreement  with  the  doctrine  of  Paul  [read 
'  of  Luther  '],  though  he  comes  nearer  to  it  than  do  the  School- 

1  Cp.  Bellinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  3,  p.  364. 

2  August.,  "  Contra  Jul.,"  1,  2,  c.  8,  n.  23.     Cp.  Denifle-Weiss,  I2, 
pp.  486  ff.,  511,  512,  513. 

3  Thus  Denifle-Weiss,  ibid.,  p.  508.  4  Ibid.,  pp.  460  f.,  467. 
6  Ibid.,  p.  469.            6  Ibid.,  p.  472.  7  Ibid. 

8  Melanchthon  and  Luther  to  Brenz,  end  of  May,  1531,  "  Luthers 
Brief wechsel,"  9,  p.  18. 


460         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

men.  I  quote  Augustine  as  in  entire  agreement  (prorsus 
6fj.6\f/r)(f>os),  although  he  does  not  sufficiently  explain  the  righteous 
ness  of  faith  ;  this  I  do  because  of  public  opinion  concerning 
him."  What  he  means  is  :  Since  Augustine  is  universally  held 
in  such  high  esteem,  and  has  been  instanced  by  us,  for  this  reason 
I  too  quote  him  as  though  on  this  point  he  agreed  entirely  with 
Paul,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  not  the  case.1 

Melanchthon  next  deals  more  closely  with  the  new  idea  of 
righteousness.  He  hints  that,  in  the  Augsburg  documents,  he  had 
not  been  able  to  speak  as  he  was  now  doing  to  Brenz,2  although, 
so  he  persuades  himself,  he  was  really  saying  the  same  then  as 
now.  He  gives  Brenz  what,  compared  with  Luther's  blunt  words 
at  the  end,  is  a  very  polished  rendering  of  the  Wittenberg 
doctrine.  "  Dismiss  the  fancy  of  Augustine  entirely  from  your 
mind,"  he  concludes,  "  and  then  you  will  readily  understand  the 
reason  [why  only  faith  can  justify]  ;  I  hope  that  then  you  will 
find  in  our  '  Apologia  '  [of  the  Confession]  some  profit,  though 
in  it  I  was  obliged  to  express  many  things  with  that  timidity 
which  can  only  be  understood  in  struggles  of  conscience  ('  in 
certaminibus  conscientiarum  ').  It  is  essential  to  bring  to  the 
ears  of  the  people  the  preaching  of  the  Law  and  of  penance,  but  the 
above  true  doctrine  of  the  Gospel  must  not  be  lost  sight  of." — 
To  retire  with  his  holed  theology  into  the  mystic  obscurity  of 
the  "  struggles  of  conscience  "  was  an  art  that  the  pupil  had 
learnt  from  his  master. 

Luther,  unlike  Melanchthon,  was  no  adept  on  the  tight-rope  ; 
in  his  postscript  he  bluntly  dismisses  the  Law,  penance  and  all 
works  so  far  as  they  are  intended  to  assist  in  sanctification  as 
Brenz  like  the  Papists  thought  ;  his  cry  is  "  Christ  alone."  Not 
even  in  "  love  or  the  gifts  that  follow  from  it,"  does  our  salvation 
lie  ;  in  this  work  nothing  within  ourselves  plays  any  part,  there 
fore  "  away  with  all  reference  to  the  Law  and  to  works,"  away 
too,  with  the  thought  of  "  Christ  as  Rewarder  !  "  "In  the  stead 
of  every  '  qualitas  '  in  myself,  whether  termed  faith  or  love,  I 
simply  set  Jesus  Christ  and  say  :  This  is  my  righteousness,  this 
is  my  '  qualitas  '  and  my  '  formalis  iustitia,'  as  they  call  it." 
Thus  only  had  he  everything  in  himself,  thus  only  did  Christ 
become  the  "  way,  the  truth  and  the  life  "  to  him,  without 
"  effecting  this  in  me  from  without ;  in  me,  not,  however, 
through  me,  He  Himself  must  remain,  live  and  speak."  Of 
Augustine  Luther  indeed  says  nothing  in  this  passage,  but  he 
could  not  have  expressed  more  strongly  the  purely  mechanical 
conception  of  justification,  nor  have  rejected  more  emphatically 
every  human  work,  even  man's  co-operation  under  grace. 

With  this  decision  Brenz  in  his  letters  to  Luther  and  Melanch 
thon  declared  himself  satisfied,  likewise  with  the  instruction 
received,  "  which  was  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  canon  of  Scripture." 

1  Thus  Wrampelmeyer,  editor  of  Cordatus's  "  Tagebuch,"  on  the 
copy  of  the  letter  in  Cordatus,  p.  383. 

2  For  the  course  pursued  by  Melanchthon  when  drawing  up  the 
portion  of  the  Confession  in  question,  see  vol.  iii.,  p.  329  f. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  ON  WORKS        461 

It  is  unfortunate,  however,  that  Conrad  Cordatus,  one  of 
Luther's  favourite  pupils,  when  consigning  to  his  Notes  the 
joint  declarations  of  Luther  and  Melanchthon,  should  have 
registered  a  protest  against  "  Philip's  innovations."  His 
quarrel  with  Philip  Melanchthon  on  the  doctrine  of  Justification 
was  one  of  the  many  phases  of  the  dissensions  called  forth  in  the 
Protestant  camp  by  the  "  article  on  which  the  Church  stands 
or  falls."1 

Against  any  citation  of  St.  Augustine  the  Lutheran  theologians 
and  preachers  in  Pomerania  protested  during  the  negotiations 
for  the  formula  of  Concord.  By  thus  falsely  alleging  this  Father, 
they  said  in  their  declaration  at  the  Synod  of  Stettin  in  1577,  a 
formidable  weapon  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  their  Catholic 
opponents  of  which  they  had  not  failed  to  avail  themselves 
against  the  Protestants  ;  they  were  also  assuming  the  responsi 
bility  for  a  public  lie  :  "  Augustine's  book  '  De  spiritu  et  littera  ' 
teaches  concerning  Justification  what  the  Papists  teach  to-day." 
In  the  following  year  they  declared  against  the  form  of  the  "  first 
'  Confessio  Augustana,'  as  published  at  Wittenberg  in  1531  by 
Luther  and  our  other  fathers,"  again  on  the  ground  that  "  there 
Augustine's  'consensus'  is  alleged."2  In  Mecklenburg  the 
strictures  of  the  Synods  of  Pomerania  were  accepted  as  perfectly 
warranted.  David  Chytrseus,  Professor  at  Rostock  and  once  a 
member  of  Melanchthon's  household,  stated  about  that  time, 
that  Erhard  Schnepf,  the  Wiirtemberg  theologian,  who  was  of 
the  same  way  of  thinking  as  Johann  Brenz,  had  declared  in  1544, 
i.e.  during  Luther's  lifetime,  in  a  public  discourse  at  Tubingen, 
that  in  the  whole  of  Augustine  there  was  not  a  syllable  con 
cerning  the  righteousness  of  Christ  being  imputed  to  us  by 
faith.3  When  Chytrseus  adds  that  Augustine  "was  o/^i/^os 
with  the  Papists,"  it  is  very  likely  that  he  was  countering  the 
opposite  use  of  this  same  word  by  Melanchthon  in  the  passage 
mentioned  above  ;  the  latter's  epistle  to  Brenz  had  then  already 
been  printed. 

The  real  teaching  of  St.  Augustine  is  best  seen  in  his 
anxiety  that  man  should  co-operate  with  all  the  power 
furnished  by  the  assistance  of  God's  grace,  in  the  attain 
ment  of  his  salvation.  The  wholesome  fear  of  God  he 
reckons  first,  after  the  necessary  condition  of  faith  has  been 
fulfilled.  Of  the  acts  of  moral  preparation  (fear,  hope,  love, 
penance  and  good  resolutions)  for  obtaining  the  grace  of 

1  "  Tagebuch,"  ed.  Wrampelmeyer,  p.  385  :    "  Hactenus  Philippus 
ille  cum  sua  novitate."    The  differences  between  Cordatus  and  Melanch 
thon  related  to  the  doctrine  of  Justification  under  another  aspect. 
On  these  dissensions,  see  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  445  ff.  ;    on  the  want 
of    unity    on    Justification    generally    amongst    Luther's    pupils,    see 
Dollinger,  "  Die  Ref.,"  3,  pp.  372-591. 

2  Dollinger,  loc.  cit.,  p.  367  f. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  370. 


462          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

Justification  from  God,  he  regards  fear  as  the  element, 
without  which  a  man  "  never,  or  hardly  ever,"  reaches 
God.1  To  show  the  necessity  of  works  and  a  good  intention 
he  appeals  to  texts  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  James  rejected  by 
Luther,  where  we  read  :  "  You  see  that  by  works  a  man  is 
justified  and  not  by  faith  only  "  (ii.  24).  Here  he  goes  so  far 
as  to  suggest  that  James  probably  spoke  so  explicitly  of 
works  because  the  passages  on  faith  in  Paul's  Epistles  had 
been  misunderstood  by  some.2 

"  We  say,"  so  he  teaches  in  opposition  to  Luther  concerning  the 
destruction  of  sin  in  man  by  baptism,  "  that  baptism  brings  the 
remission  of  all  sins,  and  not  merely  erases  them,  but  actually 
removes  them  ('  auferre  crimina  non  radere  ')  ;  the  roots  of  sin 
do  not  remain  in  the  corrupt  flesh,  so  that  the  sins  have 
not  to  grow  again  and  be  again  cut  off  like  the  hair  of  our 
heads."3 

The  righteousness  which  is  bestowed  on  the  sinner  is,  in  his 
view,  no  imputed  righteousness  of  Christ  but  a  personal  righteous 
ness  actually  residing  in  man.  Hence  he  explains  that  the 
"  Justice  of  God,"  referred  to  in  Rom.  iii.  21  f.,  is  not  that  whereby 
God  is  just,  but  that  with  which  He  provides  the  impious  man 
when  justifying  him  ;  in  the  same  way  the  "  faith  of  Christ  " 
mentioned  there  is  "  not  a  faith  by  which  Christ  believes,  but  the 
faith  that  is  in  us."  "  Both  are  ours,  but  they  are  ascribed  to 
God  and  Christ  because  bestowed  on  us  by  the  Divine  favour."4 
The  righteousness  bestowed  on  us  is  "  that  which  Adam  lost  by 
sin  "  ;  Adam's  righteousness  was  a  quality  inherent  in  him,  not 
the  imputed  righteousness  of  Christ.5  It  is  also  the  same  grace 
which  is  infused  into  adults  in  Justification  and  which  children 
receive  in  baptism.6  By  sanctifying  grace  the  soul  is  inwardly 
ennobled,  "  for  when  nature's  Creator  justifies  it  by  grace,  it 
ceases  to  be  an  object  of  horror  and  becomes  a  thing  of  beauty."7 
The  Holy  Ghost  dwells  in  us  and  "  God  gives  us  therewith  no 
less  a  gift  than  Himself."8  Thus  "as  the  soul  is  the  life  of 
the  body,  so  God  is  the  life  of  the  soul."9 

Our  state  of  grace  may,  however,  be  dimmed,  and  that  not  only 
by  lack  of  faith  ;  for  it  has  its  enemies  in  imperfections  and  sins. 
"  Though  our  righteousness  is  a  true  one,  yet  in  this  life  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  plays  a  greater  part  than  the  perfection  of 
virtue."10  "  If  our  will  turns  against  God,  we  separate  ourselves 

"  De  catechizandis  rudibus,"  c.  5. 

2  Lib.   83,  qusest.,  q.   76  ;    "  Enarr.  2  in  psalm.  31,"  n.  3  ;    "  De 
fide  et  operibus,"  c.  14,  n.  21. 

3  Contra  II  epist.  Pelag.,"  1,  c.  13,  n.  26. 

4  De  spiritu  et  littera,"  c.  9.  5  Ibid. 

6      De  peccato  et  merito,"  1,  9.  7   "  De  Trinitate,"  15,  8,  14. 

8  De  fide  et  symbolo,"  c.  9. 

9  In  Psalm.  LXX,"  serm.  2,  n.  3. 

10  "  De  civitate  Dei,"  19,  27. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  ON  WORKS        463 

from  Him,  and  the  light  which  enlightened  us  during  His  presence 
at  once  changes  into  darkness."1  In  order  to  prevent  any  such 
danger  on  the  part  of  the  will,  Augustine  frequently  reminds  his 
readers  of  such  exhortations  of  our  Saviour,  as  :  "If  thou  wilt 
enter  into  life,  keep  the  commandments."  "  He  that  hath  my 
commandments  and  keepeth  them,  he  it  is  that  loveth  me." 

Man  is  also  spurred  to  be  faithful,  so  he  says,  by  the  merit  of 
good  works.  "  God  Himself  has  become  our  debtor,"  so  he  said 
when  preaching  to  the  assembled  faithful  ;  "  not  as  though  He 
had  received  something  from  us,  but  because  He  has  promised 
what  He  pleased.  To  a  man  we  speak  differently  and  say  :  You 
are  my  debtor  because  I  have  given  to  you.  To  God  we  say,  on 
the  contrary  :  Thou  art  my  debtor  because  Thou  hast  made  me 
promises ;  ...  in  this  sense  therefore  we  may 'urge  on  God  our 
demands  and  say  :  Give  what  Thou  hast  promised,  for  we  have 
done  what  Thou  didst  command."2 

To  recommend  the  practice  of  good  works  out  of  love  of  God 
and  zeal  for  His  honour,  and  to  heap  up  merit  for  heaven,  is  the 
purpose  of  long  and  eloquent  portions  of  the  literary  legacy  which 
Augustine  left  behind  him.  The  whole  of  the  book  "  De  fide  et 
operibus  "  and  long  chapters  of  his  "Enchiridion  "  were  written 
with  this  object.  In  the  former  work  he  introduces,  for  instance, 
the  Judgment  scene  described  by  our  Saviour,  and  says  :  "  Those 
who  are  placed  on  the  left  hand  of  Christ,  according  to  this  passage 
(Mat.  xxv.  41),  He  will  reproach  not  for  not  having  believed  in 
Him,  but  for  not  having  performed  good  works.  How  could 
this  be  true  if  we  were  to  attain  to  salvation  without  keeping  the 
commandments  or  by  faith  alone  ('  per  solam  fidem  '),  which 
without  works  is  dead  ?  Christ  wished  to  impress  on  us  that 
no  one  can  promise  himself  eternal  life  by  a  dead  faith,  minus 
works.  Hence  He  causes  all  the  nations  who  have  received  the 
same  spiritual  food  [of  faith]  to  be  separated  out  before  Him, 
and  clearly  it  is  such  as  have  believed  but  have  not  performed 
good  works  who  will  say :  When  did  we  see  Thee  suffering  this 
and  that  [and  did  not  minister  to  Thee]  ?  They  had  fancied  that 
by  a  dead  faith  they  could  attain  to  everlasting  life."3 

The  voice  of  the  bishop  of  Hippo,  supported  by  the  whole 
Church  whose  doctrine  was  also  his,  was  re-echoed  by  later 
ecclesiastical  writers  who  made  greedy  use  of  his  works  ; 
nor  were  the  exhortations  of  the  Fathers  without  result 
among  the  faithful.  Later  Fathers  frequently  discourse  on 
the  testimony  of  Holy  Writ  in  favour  of  works  just  as 
Augustine  had  done  ;  the  following  texts  were  frequently 
adduced  :  "  God  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his 
works  "  ;  "  Not  the  hearers  of  the  law  are  just  before  God, 

1  "  Super  Genesi  ad  litt.,"  8,  12. 

2  Sermo  158,  c.  2.     Similarly  "  In  Psalm."  LXXXIII  and 

3  "  De  fide  et  op.,"  c.  10. 


464         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

but  the  doers  of  the  law  shall  be  justified  "  ;  "  The  Son  of 
Man  will  come  and  render  to  every  man  according  to  his 
works  "  (Rom.  ii.  6,  13  ;  Mat.  xvi.  27). 

Gregory  the  Great,  who  trained  himself  on  Augustine's 
model,  states,  in  a  homily  to  his  congregation  :  "  Possibly 
we  may  say  to  ourselves  :  I  believe,  hence  I  shall  be  saved. 
This  is  only  true  when  we  prove  our  faith  by  our  works." 
"  Then  are  we  true  believers  when  we  execute  in  work 
what  we  confess  in  our  faith."1 

A  faith  proved  by  works  was  the  sign  manual  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Nor  did  Luther  and  his  preachers  ever  com 
plain  of  the  lack  of  works  of  piety  in  the  days  previous  to 
the  Reformation,  although  they  thought  it  their  duty  to 
blame  the  spirit  in  which  those  works  had  been  performed. 

What,  however,  did  Luther  and  his  followers  think  of  the 
moral  consequences  of  the  preaching  directed  against  all 
merit  of  good  works  ? 

The   New   Doctrine   of  Works   in    Practice,    as    Judged   by 

Lutheran  Opinion  in  the  16th  Century. 
We  have  already  listened  to  Luther's  own  complaints  and 
those  of  many  of  his  contemporaries  concerning  the  parlous 
state  of  morals  amongst  the  adherents  of  the  new  teaching, 
and  the  almost  entire  absence  of  any  practical  fruits  of  piety 
under  the  amended  Gospel.2  Since  the  mainstay  of  the 
innovations  was  the  doctrine  of  grace  and  works  it  is 
necessary  to  seek  out  more  closely  the  connection  between 
the  new  doctrine  of  works  and  the  sad  moral  results  of  the 
revolt  against  the  Church.  Luther  himself  makes  no  odds 
about  referring  to  these  results  and  their  real  cause  :  "  The 
surer  we  are  of  the  freedom  won  by  Christ,  the  more  indolent 
do  we  become  "  ;  "  because  we  teach  that  man  attains  to 
grace  without  any  works  whatever,  we  grow  lazy  "  ;  he 
almost  wishes  "  that  the  old  teaching  again  came  into  its 
own."3  Only  his  shortsightedness  and  the  psychological 
effect  of  his  passionate  temper  prevented  his  foreseeing  the 
inevitable  consequences  of  his  theory  of  the  all-sufficiency 
of  faith  and  of  his  reckless  denunciation  of  the  regard  for 
commandments  and  works  previously  obtaining.  How  little 
his  own  frequent  exhortations  to  lead  a  moral  life  and  to 

1  "  Homil.  29  in  Evang." 

8  See  particularly  above,  pp.  195-218.  3  Cp.  p.  212. 


RESULTS  OF  HIS  DOCTRINE        465 

perform  works  of  Christian  charity  (see  below,  p.  472  ff .)  could 
prevail  against  the  fell  charm  of  the  doctrine  of  Evangelical 
freedom,  remained  hid  from  his  eyes,  until  the  extent  of 
the  moral  corruption  and  the  growing  savagery  of  the 
people  in  certain  regions  began  to  frighten  him  and  to  cause 
him  to  long  ardently  for  the  end  of  the  world  and  even  to 
predict  its  imminence. 

There  was  some  truth  in  what  he  said,  viz.  that,  as  the 
world  was  constituted,  if  one  preached  faith  (i.e.  the  justi 
fying  faith  so  much  belauded  by  him)  works  went  to  the  wall, 
and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  "  faith  "  must  needs  perish 
wherever  works  were  preached.1  The  two  were  indeed  self- 
exclusive,  however  much,  in  his  recommendation  of  works, 
he  might  affirm  the  contrary. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  point  out  anew  the  dangers 
inherent  in  Luther's  doctrine  of  justification,  for  we  have 
already  seen  the  necessary  result  of  one  of  its  presuppositions, 
viz.  the  denial  of  free-will,  and  how  right  Erasmus  was 
when  he  urged  against  Luther,  that,  on  this  assumption, 
all  laws  and  commandments,  even  those  of  Scripture,  were 
simply  superfluous.  A  Protestant  has  aptly  remarked,  that, 
in  the  last  instance,  "  the  difference  between  good  and  evil 
becomes  quite  illusory  "  ;  we  might  well  ask  :  "  How  can 
we  feel  ourselves  responsible  towards  God  ...  if  we  do 
nothing  and  God  works  all  in  all  ?  "  Luther  himself  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  make  Scripture  teach  that  "  the  will  not  only 
desires  nothing  good,  but  is  even  unaware  of  how  much  evil 
it  does  and  of  what  good  is."2  Since  the  imputed  merits  of 
Christ  are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  merely  like  a  screen  set  up 

1  He  says  in  a  frequently  misquoted  paragraph  ("  Werke,"  Erl.  ed., 
182,  p.  352  f.)  in  so  many  words  :    "  The  world  ever  remains  the  same  ; 
either  it  exalts  faith  wrongly  [as  do  the  '  secure  pseudo-Christians  '  on 
his  side  whose  '  faith  is  not  rooted  aright,'  p.  351]  or  it  wishes  to  be 
over-holy  but  without  faith  [like  the  Papists].    If  we  discourse  on  faith 
and  grace,  then  no  one  will  perform  good  works  ;   if  we  insist  on  works, 
then  no  one  will  have  anything  to  do  with  faith  ;   few  indeed  are  those 
who  keep  to  the  true  middle  course  and  even  pious  Christians  find  it 
difficult." — This  was  certainly  quite  true  of  the  piety  he  taught. 

2  Thus  M.  Staub,  "  Willensfreiheit  .   .   .  bei  Luther,"  Zurich,  1894, 
p.  39,  2  ff.     Cp.  the  passage  in  Luther's  book  "  De  servo  arbitrio," 
Weim.  ed.,   18,  p.   697  ;     "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"   1,  p.  238  :     "  Quid  potest 
robustius  contra  liberum  arbitrium  did,  quam  ipsum  esse  nihili,  ut  non 
modo  non  velit  bonum,  sed  nee  sciat  quidem,  quantum  facial  mali  et  quid 
sit  bonum.'"      This  he  proves  from  the  words  of  Christ  on  the  cross  : 
"They  know   not   what  they   do"!      "  An  est  hie  obscuritas  in  ullo 
verbo  ?  .  .  .  Hoc  clarissimum  vcrbum  Christi,"  etc. 


IV.— 2   H 


466 

in  front  of  the  soul,  many  might  naturally  feel  tempted  to 
extenuate  and  excuse  all  that  the  sin  which  persists  in  man 
still  docs  behind  it. 

To  appreciate  the  peculiar  nature  of  the  danger  it  is 
necessary  to  take  Luther's  teaching,  not  by  itself,  but  in 
conjunction  Avith  the  mental  atmosphere  of  the  day.  We 
must  of  course  take  it  for  granted  that  many  of  his  followers 
refrained  from  putting  into  practice  Luther's  teaching  in 
its  entirety,  for  instance,  his  peculiar  doctrine  of  the  lack  of 
free-will.  Many  well-disposed  Lutherans  whose  good  faith 
was  above  suspicion,  doubtless  remained  more  or  less  out 
side  the  influence  of  such  ideas,  were  actuated  by  good 
religious  motives  and  expressed  them  in  Christian  wrorks. 
Assisted  by  the  grace  of  God,  which  is  at  the  disposal  of  all 
men  of  good-will,  they,  all  unknowingly,  were  gaining  merit 
in  heaven.  On  the  other  hand,  the  ill-disposed,  those  who 
sought  the  enjoyments  of  life — and  of  such  there  were 
thousands — found  a  sanction  in  the  Wittenberg  doctrine  for 
neglecting  good  works.  In  the  case  of  many  the  "  joyful 
tidings  "  could  not  under  the  circumstances  of  the  age  be 
expected  to  produce  any  other  result.  We  have  only  to 
think  of  what  was  going  on  all  about  ;  of  the  prevalent 
yearning  after  release  from  irksome  bonds  ;  of  the  unkindly 
feeling  towards  rulers,  both  ecclesiastical  and  secular ;  of  the 
seething  discontent  among  the  peasants  on  account  of  their 
oppression  and  toilsome  duties  ;  of  the  spirit  of  independence 
so  vigorous  in  the  towns  ;  of  the  boundless  ambition  of  the 
mighty  ;  of  the  influence,  sometimes  sceptical,  sometimes 
immoral,  of  Humanism,  and  of  the  worldlincss  and  degrada 
tion  of  so  many  of  the  clergy  and  monks,  to  be  able  to 
understand  how  momentous  was  the  effect  of  Luther's 
doctrine  of  justification  and  his  preaching  concerning  works. 

We  know  on  the  one  hand  from  many  examples  with 
what  zest  the  newly- won  promoters  of  Lutheranism — for 
the  most  part  former  ministers  of  the  Church  who  had 
discarded  their  calling — concentrated  their  attacks  on  the 
practice  of  good  works,  and,  on  the  other,  how  the  better- 
disposed  followers  of  the  new  doctrine  admitted  the  danger 
to  works  accruing  from  Luther's  views  and  even  their 
actually  evil  consequences. 

The  declamation  of  the  preachers  against  works  was  partly 
intended  to  silence  their  own  scruples.  At  any  rate  it  was  the 


RESULTS    OF  HIS  DOCTRINE        467 

speediest  method  of  obtaining  a  numerous  following.  The 
preachers  were  obliged  to  deal  in  some  way  with  the  objection 
constituted  by  the  existence  of  far  greater  religious  zeal  in  the 
olden  Church  than  amongst  the  new  believers  ;  they  solved  it  by 
denouncing  zeal  for  "  outward  works."  They  were  also  frequently 
obliged  to  extenuate  their  own  laxity  of  morals,  and  this 
they  did  in  the  most  convenient  fashion  by  branding  moral 
strictness  as  pharisaical  holiness-by-works. 

Thus  it  came  about  that  some,  even  of  the  more  cautious  and 
moderate  Lutherans,  for  instance  Urban  Rhegius,  complained 
that  the  preachers  were  confining  themselves  to  the  denuncia 
tion  of  works  and  to  proclaiming  the  power  of  faith  alone,  as 
though  the  great  gift  of  the  new  religious  system  merely  spelt 
release  from  everything  displeasing  to  the  flesh  ;  there  they  came 
very  near  justifying  the  constant  assertion  to  this  effect  of  the 
defenders  of  Catholicism,  indeed  the  Catholics'  most  effective 
weapon. 

Rhegius,  who  died  in  1541,  as  General  Superintendent  of 
Liineburg,  summed  up  his  experiences  of  the  effect  on  the  people 
of  Luther's  doctrine  of  Evangelical  freedom,  in  the  sermons  he 
delivered  at  Hall  in  the  Tyrol  :  "  The  rude,  carnal  people  here 
think  that  the  Law  has  been  abolished  and  that  we  are  released 
from  it,  so  that  we  can  do  as  we  please  ;  hence,  quite  shamelessly 
and  to  the  disgrace  of  the  Evangel,  they  say  :  To  steal  and  to 
commit  adultery  is  no  longer  sinful,  for  the  Law  is  no  more  of 
any  account.  Alas,  what  crass  blindness  has  fallen  upon  this 
people,  that  they  think  the  Son  of  God  came  into  the  world  and 
suffered  so  much  on  account  of  sin  in  order  that  we  might  lead  a 
shameful,  dissolute  and  bestial  life."1 

A  man  of  no  great  firmness  of  character,  he  had  previously 
been  episcopal  vicar  at  Constance,  and  could  speak  from  experi 
ence  of  the  condition  of  things  amongst  the  preachers  of  both 
Southern  and  Northern  Germany. 

He  accused  them  of  being  responsible  for  the  disastrous  con 
sequences,  but  forgot  to  seek  the  real  cause  in  the  doctrine  itself. 
According  to  him  not  only  did  no  two  preachers  agree  in  their 
preaching,  so  that  the  people  complained  they  did  not  know 
which  religion  to  follow,  but  too  many  were  in  the  habit  of  speak 
ing,  "  as  though  it  were  possible  without  doing  penance  and 
without  any  contrition  or  sorrow  for  sin  to  believe  Christ's  Gospel 
and  rest  secure  in  the  proffered  forgiveness."2  They  gave  vent 
to  utterances  such  as  these  :  "  Our  works  are  no  good  and  stink 
in  God's  nostrils.  He  does  not  want  them.  They  only  make 
hypocrites.  Faith  alone  does  all.  If  only  you  believe,  you  will 
become  pious  and  be  saved."3 

1  Urban  Rhegius,  "  Eine  Summe  christl.  Lehre,"  Augsburg,  1527, 
fol.  5.     Dollinger,  "  Ref.,"  2,  p.  58. 

2  "  U.  Rhegii  Deutsche  Biicher  und  Schriften,"  2,  Niirnberg,  1562, 
p.  234.     Dollinger,  ibid.,  p.  59. 

3  U.  Rhegius,  "  Wie  man  fiirsichtiglich  reden  soil,"  ed.  A.  Uckeley, 
Leipzig,    1908,    according    to    the    1536    German    edition    ("  Quellen- 
schriften  zur  Gesch,  des  Protest."  6),  in  Uckeley's  summary,  p.  7. 


468         LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

In  1535  he  had  recourse  to  the  pen  in  order  to  impress  on  the 
preachers  "  How  to  speak  with  caution,"  as  the  title  of  his  work 
runs.  In  this  tract,  published  in  German  and  Latin,  he  attempts 
to  show  from  a  number  of  instances  "  how  the  preachers  run  off 
the  track  on  one  side  or  the  other,"  and  how  many  of  them 
"merely  destroy  and  fail  to  build."1  Anxious  to  drive  home 
Luther's  doctrine  of  good  works,  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  this 
subject,2  he  mentions  six  different  ways  in  which  good  works 
were  profitable,  which  the  preachers  were  not  to  forget.  In  all 
six,  however,  the  real  advantage  and  necessity  of  good  works  is 
not  established  on  its  true  foundation.  The  curious  tract  was  an 
imitation  and  enlargement  of  a  work  published  in  1529  under 
the  title  :  "  Anweisung  wie  und  was  wir  Ernst  von  Gots  Gnaden 
Hertzog  zu  Braunswick  und  Leuneburg  unseres  Fiirstenthumbs 
Pfarhern  und  Predigern  zu  predigen  befohlen."3  The  secular 
rulers  were  often  obliged,  as  in  this  instance,  to  intervene  in 
order  to  safeguard  the  new  faith  from  preachers  who  were  either 
thoughtless,  or  too  logical,  or  in  some  cases  half  crazy. 

The  complaints  current  among  Luther's  friends  about  the 
bad  effects  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  were  even  heard 
long  after  the  tumults  of  the  earliest  religious  struggles  were 
over. 

For  this  reason  we  are  not  justified  in  making  out  the  decline 
which  followed  in  the  train  of  the  new  system  of  faith  to  have 
been  merely  an  episode  in  the  history  of  civilisation  and  simply 
the  inevitable  after-effect  of  the  great  upheaval  in  the  intellectual 
world.  It  has  been  argued  that  far-reaching  and  disturbing 
changes  in  public  life  are  usually  accompanied  by  an  increase  of 
immorality  among  the  masses,  and  also  that  the  disorders  dating 
from  Catholic  times  bore  fruit  only  when  brought  in  contact  with 
the  new  religion.  Unfortunately  in  the  present  case  we  have  to 
do  with  conditions  which,  as  later  witnesses  show,  persisted  even 
when  tranquillity  had  once  more  been  restored  and  when  the  fruits 
of  the  new  ideas  should  already  have  ripened.  "  What  is  here 
disclosed,"  justly  remarks  Dollinger,  "  was  the  result  of  a  system 
already  firmly  established,  no  mere  after-effect  of  former  con 
ditions,  but  a  true  home  produce  continuing  to  flourish  even  when 
the  thousand  ties  which  had  once  linked  human  life  and  con 
sciousness  with  the  olden  Church  had  long  been  torn  and  rent 
asunder,  and  when  the  memory  of  the  doctrines,  imagery, 
practices  and  institutions  of  that  Church  had  either  been  com 
pletely  forgotten  by  the  people;  or  were  known  to  them  only 
through  controversial  references  made  in  the  pulpits  and  in  the 
manuals  of  religious  instruction."4 

Andreas  Hyperius,  Professor  at  the  University  of  Marburg  and 
the  best  theological  authority  in  Hesse  (f  1564),  in  view  of  the 
low  religious  and  moral  standards  of  the  Protestants  which  he 
had  had  occasion  to  notice  during  his  many  journeys,  declared 

1  Uckeley,  ibid.  2  Ibid.,  p.  45. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  9,  reprinted  by  Uckeley. 

4  "  Die  Reformation,"  2,  p.  vii.  f. 


RESULTS  OF  HIS  DOCTRINE       469 

that  it  was  necessary,  particularly  in  the  pulpit,  to  be  more 
reticent  on  the  article  of  Justification  by  faith  alone.  Not  indeed 
that  he  was  unwilling  to  have  this  preached,  yet  he  did  not 
consider  it  advisable  to  continue  to  "  declaim  to  the  masses  with 
such  violence  on  faith  alone,"  as  had  hitherto  been  done.  The 
state  of  the  Church  most  urgently  required  that  the  people,  who 
already  troubled  themselves  little  enough  about  doing  good, 
should  be  spurred  on  to  good  works  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
brought  back  to  a  faith  productive  of  fruit.1  Elsewhere  he 
describes  with  indignation  the  generally  prevailing  indifference 
towards  the  poor  ;  this  annoyed  him  all  the  more,  as  he  was  well 
aware  of  the  loving  care  displayed  towards  them  by  both  clergy 
and  laity  in  the  past.2 

In  a  document  dealing  with  Luther's  (or  rather  Flacius's) 
doctrine  of  man's  passivity  in  the  work  of  conversion,  the  theo 
logians  of  Leipzig  and  Wittenberg,  in  1570,  attributed  to  it  the 
prevailing  corruption.  "  The  masses,"  they  said,  "  have  been 
led  into  a  wild,  dissolute  and  godless  life.  .  .  .  There  is  hardly  a 
spot  to  be  found  in  the  whole  world  where  greater  modesty, 
honesty  and  virtue  are  not  to  be  met  with  than  amongst  those 
who  listen  daily  to  God's  Word."3 

Thirty  years  later  Polycarp  Leyser,  the  Wittenberg  Professor 
and  Superintendent,  who  stood  for  the  strictest  form  of  Lutheran- 
ism,  declared  :  "  The  moral  corruption  to-day  is  so  great  every 
where  that  not  only  pious  souls  but  even  nature  herself  gives 
vent  to  uneasy  groans  "  ;  as  the  cause  of  it  all  he  mentions  the 
delusion  under  which  many  members  of  the  new  Church  laboured, 
viz.  of  fancying  themselves  excellent  Christians  so  long  as  they 
boasted  loudly  of  faith  and  repeated  Scripture  passages  concerning 
the  unspeakable  mercy  of  God  Who  received  sinners  into  His 
favour  without  any  co-operation  on  their  part,  even  though  mean 
while  they  led  the  most  shameful  life.4 

"  All  these  people  have  ever  the  faith  in  their  mouths,"  wrote 
Wolfgang  Franz,  the  Wittenberg  professor  of  theology,  in  an 
admonition  to  the  Lutheran  preachers  (1610)  ;  "they  are  ever 
prating  of  faith  and  of  nothing  but  faith,  and  yet  no  one  can 
adequately  describe  how  brimful  they  are  of  vice  and  sin."  For 
this  the  preachers  were  chiefly  to  blame,  because  they  dinned 
Justification  by  faith  alone  into  the  people's  ears  without  further 
explaining  it ;  hence  many  of  their  hearers,  who  did  not  even 
know  the  Our  Father,  could  discourse  on  faith  more  learnedly  than 
St.  Paul  ;  they  fancied  that  if  only  they  protested  now  and  then 
during  their  lifetime  that  they  believed  in  Jesus  Christ,  their 

1  "  Hyperii  Varia  opuscula  theol.,"   torn.   2,  Basil.,    1580,  p.   734. 
Dollinger,  ibid.,  2,  p.  216. 

2  Ibid.,  torn.  1,  Basil.,  1570,  p.  871  ;   cp.  p.  881.    Dollinger,  ibid.,  2, 
p.  215. 

3  "  Wahrhaftiger     Bericht,"     etc.     (referring     to    the     Altenburg 
Colloquy),  1507,  Fol.  D  2,  Dollinger,  "  Reformation,"  2,  p.  261  f. 

4  "  Fortgesetzte  Sammlung  von  alten  und  neuen  theol.  Sachen," 
1750,  p.  676  ff.    Dollinger,  2,  p.  565. 


470         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

salvation  was  assured  ;  they  thcmght  that  if  a  murderer  who 
died  after  committing  his  crime  had  only  time  to  confess  Jesus 
with  his  lips  he  would  at  once  soar  up  to  heaven. 1 

Johannes  Rivius,  Rector  of  Freiberg,  and  a  personal  friend  of 
Luther's,  declared  the  very  year  after  Luther's  death  that  his  ex 
perience  had  shown  him  that  the  Lutheran  peasants  knew  neither 
what  they  should  believe  nor  how  they  ought  to  live,  and  troubled 
themselves  little  about  it  ;  the  people  might  well  be  taken  for 
Epicureans  were  they  not  perpetually  boasting  of  their  faith  in 
Christ.  He  bewailed  his  times,  distinguished  as  they  were 
beyond  all  past  ages  by  their  immorality  ;  corruption  of  morals 
had  indeed  grown  so  bad  that  ungodliness  and  Epicureanism 
had  quite  ousted  Christianity.2 — Not  long  after,  in  another 
writing,  he  continued  his  description  of  the  moral  decay,  and 
again  and  again  points  to  the  cause,  viz.  the  false  ideas  of  faith, 
law  and  works.  "  By  far  the  greater  number  of  people  to-day 
take  not  the  slightest  pains  to  restrain  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  ;  .  .  . 
they  indulge  in  every  kind  of  impiety,  while  at  the  same  time 
boasting  of  faith  and  bragging  of  the  Gospel.  .  .  .  When  the 
people  hear  nowadays  that  there  is  no  other  satisfaction  for  sin 
than  the  death  of  the  Redeemer,  they  fancy  they  can  sin  with 
impunity  and  give  themselves  up  to  luxury.  .  .  .  How  many  are 
there  who  practise  real  penance  though  making  so  brave  a  show 
of  faith  ?  .  .  .  They  say  :  '  Even  should  you  be  stained  with 
every  vice,  only  believe  and  you  will  be  saved  ;  you  need  not  be 
scared  by  the  Law,  for  Christ  has  fulfilled  it  and  done  enough 
for  men  !  '  Such  words  [which  Luther  himself  had  used]  give 
great  scandal  to  pious  souls,  lead  men  astray  into  a  godless  life 
and  are  the  cause  of  their  continuing  to  live  hardened  in  vice  and 
shame  and  without  a  thought  of  amendment ;  thus  such  views 
only  serve  to  encourage  the  ungodly  in  vice  and  deprive  them  of 
every  incentive  to  amend  their  lives."3 

If  the  leaders  of  the  innovations  could  speak  in  such  a  way 
then  yet  stronger  charges  against  the  doctrine  of  Justification 
and  its  effects  may  be  expected  from  Luther's  opponents. 

Johann  Haner  of  Nuremberg,  who  there,  in  1534,  turned  his 
back  on  the  new  faith,  wrote  a  small  book  on  the  interpretation 
of  Scripture  which  is  accounted  among  the  best  and  calmest  of 
the  period.  The  Preface  shows  that  it  was  the  sight  of  the 
immoral  outcome  of  Luther's  views  on  faith  and  grace  which  led 
him  to  revert  to  Catholicism.  Without  mentioning  Luther's  name 
he  tells  us  that  in  his  book  he  is  going  "  to  withstand  all  false, 
fleshly  confidence,"  "  all  freedom  of  the  spirit  which  leads  to 
destruction  "  ;  the  object  of  his  attack  is  that  faith  which  is  "  a 
mere  presumptuous  laying  claim  to  grace,  and  that  Evangel 

1  "Wolfg.  Franzii  Disputationes   in   August.   Confess.   Artie,   pos 
terior.,"  Disput.    10,    "  De  bonis  operibus  "  ;     in    Pfeiffer,    "  Consilia 
theol.,"  p.  943  seq.    Dollinger,  2,  p.  570. 

2  loh.  Rivius,  "  De  stultitia  mortalium,"  p.  32.    Dollinger,  2.  p.  600. 

3  Ibid.,   p.    50  seq.,   and    "  Opp.,"    1614,   pp.    275,    305,    370.    672. 
Dollinger,  2,  p.  601  ff. 


RESULTS   OF  HIS  DOCTRINE        471 

which  opens  the  door  to  licence  of  every  kind,"  while  "  telling 
us  to  trust  solely  in  an  alien  righteousness,  viz.  the  righteousness 
of  Christ  "  ;  "  these  anti-Evangelicals,  as  they  ought  to  be  called, 
by  their  roguery  and  their  carnal  mind  had  turned  topsy-turvy 
the  teaching  which  led  to  true  piety."1 

To  Wicel  the  convert  Haner  wrote  a  letter  which  was  one  of 
the  causes  of  his  expulsion  from  Nuremberg  by  the  preachers  and 
the  magistrates.  Here  he  said  :  "  By  the  worthless  dogma  of 
Justification  by  faith  alone,  which  is  their  alpha  and  omega, 
they  have  not  merely  loosed  all  the  bonds  of  discipline  in  the 
Church,  but  also  abolished  all  penance  towards  God  and  all 
unity  and  friendship  among  the  brethren.  Never  since  the 
earliest  heresies  in  the  Church  has  there  been  seen  so  poisonous 
and  noxious  a  dogma,  the  effect  of  which  has  been  none  other 
than  to  make  the  word  of  the  Cross  foolishness  to  us,  and  to  cause 
both  charity  towards  the  brethren  and  the  spirit  of  repentance 
towards  God  to  wax  cold."2 

From  Protestant  Nuremberg  it  also  was  that  Willibald  Pirk- 
heimer  the  patrician,  as  early  as  1528,  after  his  own  return  to  the 
Church,  wrote  to  a  friend  at  Vienna,  the  architect  Tschertte, 
"  I  confess  that  in  the  beginning  I  was  a  good  Lutheran,  just 
like  our  departed  Albert  [Diirer].  For  we  hoped  that  the  Roman 
knavery  and  the  roguery  of  the  monks  and  priests  would  be 
amended.  But  now  we  see  that  matters  have  become  so  much 
worse,  that,  in  comparison  with  the  Evangelical  scoundrels,  those 
other  scamps  are  quite  pious."  The  Evangelicals  with  their 
"  shameful  and  criminal  behaviour  "  wished  nevertheless  "  not 
to  be  judged  by  their  works,"  and  pointed  to  their  faith.  But 
"  when  a  man  acts  wickedly  and  criminally  he  shows  thereby 
that  he  is  no  honest  man,  however  much  he  may  boast  of  his 
faith  ;  for  without  works  faith  is  dead,  just  as  works  are  dead 
without  faith.  .  .  .  The  works  show  plainly  that  there  is  neither 
faith  nor  truth  there,  no  fear  of  God,  or  love  of  our  neighbour, 
but  a  discarding  of  all  honesty  and  clean  living,  art  and  learning. 
,  .  .  Almsgiving  has  ceased,  for  these  knaves  have  so  abused  it 
that  no  one  will  give  any  longer."3 

A  few  years  before  this,  Othmar  Luscinius,  an  Alsacian  theo 
logian,  then  one  of  the  most  weighty  scholars  of  Germany,  who, 
save  for  having  taken  a  passing  fancy  for  Luther,  remained  true 
to  the  Church,  described  the  "  rude  Christians,"  "  whom 
really  we  ought  to  pity,  who  of  the  articles  necessary  for 
Justification  take  those  only  that  please  them  and  are  sweet, 
viz.  faith  and  the  Evangel,  arguing  :  '  I  have  only  to  believe 
and  I  shall  be  saved  '  ;  as  for  the  other,  which  is  bitter  and  far  from 

1  "  Haneri  Prophetia  vetus  ac  nova,"  Lips.,  1534,  Prsef.,  Fol.  B,  a. 
Dollinger,  1,  p.  129  f. 

2  "  Epistote  duaj  J.  Haneri  et  G.  Wicelii,"  1534,  Fol.  A  2  b,  3  a. 
Dollinger,  1,  p.  127  f. 

3  In    C.    G.    Murr,     "  Journal    zur    Kunstgesch.    und    I.iteratur," 
Tl.  10,  Niirnberg,  1781,  p.  40  ff.    Dollinger,  1,  p.  169.    Cp.  our  vol.  ii., 
p.  40. 


472         LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

easy,  viz.  the  putting  to  death  of  the  old  Adam,  that  they  take 
good  care  to  leave  alone."1 

The  above  is  sufficient  to  show  that  there  was  a  consensus 
of  opinion  in  tracing  back  the  moral  decadence  to  the 
Lutheran  doctrine  of  works.  As  against  this  there  is  a 
certain  strangeness  in  the  explanation  variously  given  by 
Protestants  of  this  real  retrogression  :  The  complaints  of 
Luther  and  his  preachers,  so  they  aver,  only  prove  that 
they  were  dissatisfied,  as  it  was  their  right  and  duty  to  be, 
with  what  had  been  achieved  in  the  moral  order. — At  any 
rate,  the  distressing  results  of  the  doctrine  of  faith  alone 
proved  strikingly  how  ineffectual  had  been  all  Luther's 
exhortations  to  good  works. 

Luther's  Utterances  in  Favour  of  Good  Works. 
Many  and  earnest  are  Luther's  exhortations  to  prove 
our  faith  by  works  of  love  towards  God  and  our  neighbour  ; 
to  sinners  he  frequently  speaks  of  the  path  of  penance 
which  they  must  tread;  conversion  he  wishes  to  be  ac 
complished  with  lively  faith  and  the  state  of  grace  preserved 
by  practical  piety.  It  was  assuredly  not  the  lack  of  such 
counsels  which  occasioned  the  decline  described  above ; 
this  was  rather  due  to  the  system  itself,  combined  with 
the  evil  effects  of  the  general  overthrow  of  the  old  ecclesi 
astical  law  and  practice  which  safeguarded  morals,  and 
with  the  contempt  aroused  for  the  sacraments,  for  public 
worship  and  the  spiritual  authorities.  History  must,  how 
ever,  allow  Luther's  exhortations  on  behalf  of  good  works 
and  the  keeping  of  the  commandments  to  speak  for  them 
selves. 

We  may  begin  with  his  thesis  :  "  We  are  bound  to  bring  our 
will  into  entire  conformity  with  the  Divine  Will."2  In  accord 
ance  with  this,  in  his  "  Von  der  Freyheyt  eynes  Christen  Men- 
schen,"  he  does  not  fail  to  speak  agreeably  with  the  teaching  of 
the  olden  Church  of  the  assistance  God  gives  for  the  zealous 
keeping  of  the  commandments.  "  If  you  desire  to  keep  all  the 
commandments,  to  be  rid  of  your  evil  lusts  and  of  sin  as  the 
commandments  enjoin  and  demand,  then  believe  in  Christ,  for 
in  Him  I  make  bold  to  promise  you  all  grace  and  righteousness, 
peace  and  freedom.  If  you  believe,  then  you  have  it  ;  if  you  do 

1  Luscinius  (Nachtigall),  "Evangel.  Historie,"  J525,  pp.  445,  449. 
Dollinger,  1,  p.  550. 

"  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  228;  "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  321,  n.  97. 


GOOD  WORKS  COMMENDED        473 

not  believe,  you  have  it  not.  For  what  is  impossible  to  you  with 
all  the  works  of  the  Law,  of  which  there  must  be  many  though 
all  to  no  profit,  will  be  short  and  easy  to  you  by  faith.  .  .  .  The 
promises  of  God  give  both  the  command  and  the  fulfilment."1 
What  he  means  to  say  is,  that,  by  faith,  we  receive  grace  in  order 
to  wage  a  successful  "  conflict  with  sin."  Grace  is,  however, 
equivalent  to  faith.  "  Without  grace,"  he  had  already  taught 
before,  "  man  cannot  keep  God's  commandments."  "  The  old 
man  ...  is  led  by  concupiscence."  "  But  to  faith  all  things 
are  possible  through  Christ."2 

Elsewhere  he  clearly  teaches  that  faith  alone  is  not  nearly 
enough  ;  to  rely  exclusively  on  this  must  indeed  be  termed 
"  folly  "  ;  with  the  assistance  of  grace  man  must  also  keep 
the  Law.3 

In  spite  of  all  he  has  to  say  against  Moses  and  his  harsh  and 
terrifying  "  Law  " — the  Ten  Commandments  inclusive — when  he 
is  busy  exalting  the  Evangel,  he  nevertheless  has  occasionally 
high  praise  for  the  Decalogue  on  account  of  its  agreement  with 
the  law  of  nature.  His  exposition  of  it  contains  much  that  is 
worth  taking  to  heart.4  Faith,  he  points  out,  shows  us  whence 
the  strength  for  keeping  the  Ten  Commandments  is  to  be  drawn.6 

The  Christian,  according  to  a  lengthy  and  beautiful  passage  in 
the  Church  Postils  (in  a  sermon  for  the  Feast  of  the  Conception), 
must  "  struggle  and  fight  "  against  his  lusts  and  must  seek  to 
resist  the  darts  of  the  wicked  one.6  "  If  we  have  been  baptised 
and  believe,  we  have  received  grace,  and  this  contends  with  the 
evil  inclinations  within  us  and  expels  and  destroys  original  sin  ; 
then  good  and  honest  desires  for  humility,  chastity,  longanimity 
and  all  the  virtues  awaken  in  us,  and  at  once  good  works  begin  to 
be  performed  with  a  cheerful  heart.  All  this  is  done  by  the  grace 
which  we  receive  in  baptism  by  faith  in  Christ  ;  it  is  impossible 
for  such  grace  to  remain  idle,  but  it  must  needs  bring  forth  good 
works." 

Emphatic  admonitions  to  preserve  chastity  and  a  reminder  of 
the  religious  means  to  be  employed  are  also  frequent  with  him, 
for  instance,  in  his  "  Von  guten  Wercken,"  written  in  1520  at 
Spalatin's  instigation,  to  repel  the  charge  that  his  teaching  was 
antagonistic  to  any  striving  after  virtue,  to  morality  or  Christian 
works.  He  dedicated  the  writing  to  Duke  Johann,  the  brother 
of  the  Saxon  Elector.  Chastity,  he  there  says,  is  indeed  a  hard 
matter,  but  it  must  be  acquired.  "  Even  were  no  other  work 
commanded  besides  chastity  we  should  all  of  us  have  enough  to 
do,  so  dangerous  and  furious  is  the  [contrary]  vice.  .  .  .  To  get 
the  better  of  all  this  requires  labour  and  trouble,  and  in  fact  all 
the  commandments  of  God  teach  us  how  important  is  the  rightful 
performance  of  good  works,  nay  that  it  is  impossible  of  our  own 
strength  even  to  plan  a  good  work,  let  alone  commence  and 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  24  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  180. 

2  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  1  p.  145  f.  ;    "  Opp,  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  235  seq. 

3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  142,  pp.  179  f.,  182. 

4  Ibid.,  21,  p.  34  ff.  8  Ibid.,  p.  94.  6  Ibid.,  152,  p.  54. 


474         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

accomplish  it.  ...  This  work  of  chastity,  if  it  is  to  be  pre 
served,  impels  us  to  many  other  good  works,  to  fasting  and 
temperance,  in  order  to  resist  gluttony  and  drunkenness,  to 
watching  and  early  rising,  in  spite  of  our  laziness  and  love  for 
slumber,  to  strive  and  to  labour  in  overcoming  idleness.  For 
gluttony  and  drinking,  too  much  sleep,  idleness  and  loitering  are 
the  weapons  of  unchastity.  .  .  .  These  exercises,  however,  must 
not  be  carried  further  than  is  necessary  to  subdue  unchastity, 
not  to  the  extent  of  damaging  our  frame.  The  strongest  weapons 
of  all  are  prayer  and  the  Word  of  God.  .  .  .  Thus  you  see  that 
each  one  finds  enough  to  do  in  himself  and  good  works  in  plenty 
to  perform.  Yet  now  no  one  makes  use  of  prayer,  fasting,  watch 
ing  and  labour  for  this  purpose,  but  looks  upon  these  works  as 
an  end  in  themselves,  though  the  performance  of  these  works 
of  the  Law  ought  to  be  regulated  daily  so  as  to  be  ever  more  and 
more  purified  [the  sentence  contains  Luther's  usual  perversion 
of  Catholic  doctrine  and  practice].  Other  things  also  have  been 
mentioned  as  to  be  avoided,  such  as  soft  beds  and  clothing, 
unnecessary  adornments,  the  society,  sight  and  conversation  of 
men  or  women,  and  much  else  conducive  to  chastity.  In  all 
this  no  one  can  lay  down  a  fixed  rule  and  measure.  Each  one 
must  decide  for  himself  what  things  and  how  many  are  helpful 
to  chastity,  and  for  how  long."  Here  he  even  pays  a  tribute  to 
the  monasteries  founded  in  bygone  ages  to  teach  the  "  young 
people  discipline  and  cleanliness."  Finally  he  insists  that  "  a 
good,  strong  faith  "  "  helps  greatly  in  this  work,"  since  "  faith 
ever  liveth  and  doth  all  our  works."1 

The  ravings  of  the  fanatics  repeatedly  furnished  him  with  an 
occasion  to  emphasise  good  works  more  strongly  and  even  to 
speak  of  a  faith  working  by  love. 

His  dislike  for  their  lawless  behaviour  and  their  praise  of  the 
Spirit,  to  some  extent  directed  against  ordinary  works,  called 
him  into  the  arena.  To  call  back  the  disturbers  to  a  more  moral 
life  and  to  the  considerations  of  charity,  he  appealed  to  them 
to  "  exercise  themselves  in  the  faith  that  worketh  by  charity  " 
(Gal.  v.  0).  Even  the  Epistle  of  James  now  appeared  to  him  good 
enough  to  quote,  particularly  the  verse  (i.  22)  :  "  Be  ye  doers  of  the 
the  Word,  and  not  hearers  only,  deceiving  your  own  selves  "  ;  from 
this  Epistle  he  also  borrows  the  comparison  of  a  dead  faith,  viz. 
of  a  faith  not  made  living  through  charity,  with  the  face  as  seen 
in  a  glass,  which  is  merely  the  semblance  of  a  countenance  and 
not  the  reality.2 

It  was  the  fanatics  again  who  in  1530  drew  from  him  some 
eloquent  statements  in  favour  of  good  works,  because,  so  he  said, 
they  had  misrepresented  his  doctrine  that  "  Good  works  neither 
make  a  man  pious  nor  blot  out  sin."  They  said  "  they  would 
give  their  good  works  for  a  groat,"  and  that  all  good  works  were 
not  worth  a  peppercorn.  Here  he  professes  to  see  great  danger 
in  contempt  for  good  works  and  the  perversion  of  his  teaching  by 

1  Ibid.,  1C2,  p.  210  f.  ;    cp.  Weim.  ed.,  6.  p.  268  f.  ;    9,  p.  293  f. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  3,  p.  3  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28,  p.  208. 


the  "  devil's  lying  tongue."  Good  works,  according  to  him,  are 
rather  to  be  esteemed  very  highly  because  they  are  God's  own. 
"  If  it  is  a  good  work,  then  God  has  wrought  it  in  and  by  me  "  ; 
"  it  was  done  for  the  honour  and  glory  of  God  and  for  the  profit 
and  salvation  of  my  neighbour."  He  himself  had  been  far  from 
questioning  this  and  had  merely  taught  that  works  did  not 
conduce  to  piety,  i.e.  "  to  justify  the  soul  and  to  placate  God  "  ; 
this,  on  the  contrary,  was  "  entirely  the  work  of  the  One  true 
God  and  of  His  grace."1 

Just  as  during  his  public  career  Luther  looked  upon  such  state 
ments  as  all  the  more  useful  seeing  they  blunted  the  edge  of  the 
awkward  inferences  drawn  from  the  new  Evangel,  and  served  to 
vindicate  his  action  from  the  charge  of  loosening  the  bonds  of 
morality,  so,  at  the  close  of  his  days,  he  was  obliged  in  a  similar 
way  to  hark  back  to  the  defence  of  good  works  against  Anti- 
nomianism,  of  which  the  principal  spokesman  was  Johann 
Agricola.  It  is  true  that  the  Antinomians  based  their  contempt 
for  the  Law,  which  they  said  was  harmful,  and  for  the  excessive 
respect  for  commandments  and  good  works  which,  according  to 
them,  still  prevailed,  on  nothing  less  than  Luther's  own  teaching. 
In  reality  it  was  to  his  advantage  that  their  exaggerations  forced 
him  to  explain  away  much  that  he  had  said,  or  at  least  to  exercise 
greater  caution.  The  encounter  with  Agricola  the  Antinomian 
will  be  described  later  (vol.  v.,  xxix.,  3).  In  spite  of  his  being 
thus  compelled  to  take  the  Law  and  good  works  under  his  wing 
in  this  controversy,  Luther  never,  then  or  later,  put  forward  the 
true  relation  of  the  Law  to  the  Gospel  nor  the  real  foundation  of 
good  works.2  He  became  involved  in  contradictions,  and  to  the 
end  of  his  days  it  became  more  and  more  apparent  how  forced 
had  been  the  introduction  into  his  theology  of  good  works  and 
the  keeping  of  the  Law. 

Nicholas  Amsdorf,  Luther's  intimate  friend  and  most 
docile  pupil,  published  in  1559  a  tract  entitled  "  That  the 
proposition  '  Good  works  are  harmful  to  salvation  '  is  a 
good  and  Christian  one  preached  both  by  St.  Paul  and  by 
Luther."  Their  "  harmfulness  "  resided  in  their  being 
regarded  as  meritorious  for  salvation.  We  may  wonder 
what  Luther  would  have  thought  of  this  writing  had  he 
been  alive  ?  In  any  case  the  Lutheran  Formula  of  Concord 
of  1577  contains  a  mild  protest  against  it  :  "  The  assertion 
that  good  works  are  necessary  is  not  to  be  reprehended, 
seeing  that  it  may  be  understood  in  a  favourable  sense  "  ;3 
it  also  appeals  to  what  had  been  laid  down  in  the  Augsburg 

1  Ibid.,  30,  3,  p.  214  =  63,  p.  295,  Preface  to  "  Der  Wiedertauffer 
Lere  "  of  Justus  Menius. 

2  "  Opp.  l8^'  var.,"  4,  pp.  419  seq.,  434. 

3  "  Solida  declaratio,"  4,  n.  15.     "  Symbolische  Biicher10,"  p.  627. 


476         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

Confession  ;  it  could  "  not  be  gainsaid  that,  in  both  the 
Confession  and  the  '  Apologia,'  the  words  :  '  Good  works  are 
necessary,'  are  frequently  used."1 

As  for  the  attitude  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  it  declares 
concerning  works — a  declaration  for  which  Melanchthon's 
cautious  pen  was  solely  responsible — "  We  also  teach  that 
such  faith  [in  Christ,  whereby  man  is  justified]  must  produce 
good  fruit  and  good  works,  and  that  we  must  perform  all 
manner  of  good  works  which  God  has  commanded,  for 
God's  sake."2 

No  one  was  so  much  concerned  as  Melanchthon  in  insist 
ing  that  the  performance  of  good  works  should  be  repre 
sented  as  indispensable  to  the  people,  particularly  from  the 
pulpit.  It  vexed  him,  the  more  prudent  of  the  two,  to  hear 
Luther  again  and  again,  and  that  often  in  hyperbolical  and 
paradoxical  form,  laying  such  stress  on  faith  alone.  How 
far  Melanchthon's  name  may  justifiably  be  quoted  against 
what  was  undesirable  in  the  olden  Protestant  teaching  on 
works,  should  be  clear  from  what  has  already  been  said  con 
cerning  this  theological  henchman  of  Luther's  (cp.  vol.  iii., 
p.  347  ff.). 

Luther's  admirers  are  wont  to  quote  the  following  utter 
ance  of  his  when  praising  his  attitude  towards  works  : 
"  Good,  pious  works  never  made  a  good,  pious  man,  but  a 
good,  pious  man  performs  good,  pious  works.  Wicked  works 
never  made  a  wicked  man,  but  wicked  men  perform  wicked 
works."3  That  "  wicked  deeds  never  made  a  wicked  man  " 
he  probably  found  some  difficulty  in  really  convincing  many. 
If  Luther  meant  that  an  unjust  man  or  sinner,  who  is  not 
cleansed  by  faith  in  Christ,  can  never  act  but  wickedly,  then 
it  is  the  same  error  as  we  find  in  other  passages  and  which  is 
repeated  in  connection  with  the  words  just  quoted  :  "  Unless 
a  man  believes  beforehand  and  is  a  Christian  ['  consecrated 
by  faith  ']  all  his  works  are  of  no  account,  but  are  vain, 
foolish,  criminal  and  damnably  sinful."  This  is  surely  as 
much  beside  the  mark  as  the  above  statement  of  Luther's 
concerning  the  relation  between  a  "  pious  man  "  and 
"  pious  works."  Of  supernatural  works  that  are  meri 
torious  for  heaven  what  Luther  adds  is  indeed  correct : 

1  Ibid.,  n.  14. 

2  Art.  6.    Cp.  Art.  20.     "  Symbolische  Biicher,"10  pp.  40,  44. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  7,  p.  32  ;    Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  191,  "  Von  der 
Freyheyt  eynes  Christen  Menschen." 


WORKS  FOR  OTHERS'  BENEFIT     477 

"  Hence,  in  every  instance  the  person  must  first  be  good 
and  pious  previous  to  all  works,  and  the  good  works  follow 
and  proceed  from  a  good  and  pious  person."  We  must, 
however,  decline  to  accept  Luther's  other  inferences,  viz. 
that  the  sinner  is  not  in  a  position  to  perform  natural  good 
works  of  his  own,  and  that  the  just  man  does  not  become 
more  righteous  through  good  works. 

Hence  Luther's  statement,  however  apparently  ingenious, 
cannot  remove  the  unfavourable  impression  produced  by 
his  doctrine  of  works.  That  it  was  highly  valued  by  its 
author  is  plain  from  the  number  of  times  he  repeats  it  under 
different  forms.  "  Works  do  not  make  a  Christian,  but  a 
Christian  performs  works,"  so  he  exclaimed  in  a  sermon  in 
1523,  summing  up  in  these  specious  words  the  instruction 
he  had  just  given,  viz.  that  the  faithful  must  struggle  to 
remove  whatever  of  evil  there  is  in  them,  and  that  they 
must  "  work  good  to  their  neighbour,"  but  not  on  any 
account  try  "  to  blot  out  sin  by  works,  for  this  would  be  to 
shame  and  blaspheme  God  and  Christ  and  to  disgrace  their 
own  heritage,"  viz.  Justification  by  faith  alone.1 

Works  of  Charity.    Luther  and  the  Ages  of  the  Past. 

For  the  purpose  of  recommending  the  Lutheran  doctrine 
of  works  it  is  sometimes  urged  that  Luther,  while  slighting 
other  works  of  less  account,  assigned  a  place  of  honour 
to  active  works  of  charity,  done  for  the  sake  of  our  neigh 
bour,  that  he  placed  them  on  a  firmer  moral  basis  than  they 
had  hitherto  occupied  and  promoted  them  so  far  as  the 
unfavourable  circumstances  of  his  age  allowed.  A  few 
words  on  the  conception  and  particularly  on  the  practice  of 
charity  as  advocated  by  him  may  serve  as  a  fit  conclusion 
to  the  present  section. 

First,  we  may  mention  that  Luther  is  disposed  to  ex 
aggerate  the  importance  of  works  of  charity  done  to  our 
neighbour. 

It  was  an  unjustifiable  and  paralysing  restriction  on  the 
pious  impulse  towards  works  pleasing  to  God  that  Luther 
embodied  in  the  rule  he  repeatedly  lays  down  regarding 
works,  viz.  that  they  must  be  directed  exclusively  towards 
the  benefit  of  others.  "  On  this  earth,"  so  he  teaches  in  his 
Church  postils,  "  man  does  not  live  for  the  sake  of  works, 
1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  172,  p.  11.  Cp.  above,  p.  438,  n.  7. 


478          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

nor  that  they  may  profit  him,  for  he  has  no  need  of  them, 
but  all  works  must  be  done  for  the  sake  of  our  neighbour." 
''  Thus  must  all  works  be  done,  that  we  see  to  it  that  they 
tend  to  the  service  of  other  people,  impart  to  them  the  right 
faith  and  bring  them  to  Christ's  Kingdom."  They  bring 
them  the  "  right  faith  "  when  they  serve  to  "  quiet  their 
conscience."  Thus  even  here  the  Kingdom  of  God,  which 
consists  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  must  also  play  its  part. 

Catholic  doctrine  recognises  a  wider  field  for  good  works. 
It  regards  as  such  even  the  works  which  the  faithful  perform 
directly  for  their  own  soul  without  any  reference  to  their 
neighbour,  such  as  self-conquest  in  contending  against  one's 
own  passions,  or  those  works  which  are  concerned  primarily 
with  honouring  God  whether  in  public  worship  or  in  the  private 
life  of  the  Christian.  Luther  himself,  at  least  incidentally, 
also  knows  how  to  speak  of  the  value  of  such  works,  though 
thereby  he  contradicts  his  other  statements  like  the  above. 

If,  however,  we  neglect  the  principle,  we  have  to  admit, 
that  Luther's  frequent  exhortations  to  neighbourly  charity 
and  kindness  contain  some  fine  and  truly  Evangelical 
thoughts.  With  deep  feeling  he  expresses  his  sorrow  that  his 
admonitions  are  not  heeded  to  the  extent  he  would  have 
wished. 

In  his  statements  already  quoted  concerning  the  corrup 
tion  of  morals  consequent  on  the  change  of  religion,  we 
have  heard  him  several  times  lamenting  the  notorious 
falling  off  in  private  benevolence  and  the  quite  remarkable 
decrease  of  public  works  of  Christian  charity.  Everywhere 
avarice  reigns  supreme,  so  we  have  heard  Luther  repeatedly 
exclaim,  and  a  reprehensible  indolence  in  the  doing  of  what 
is  good  has  spread  far  and  wide  ;  everything  is  now  different 
from  Avhat  it  had  been  "  in  the  time  of  the  monks  and 
parsons,"  when  people  "  founded  and  built  "  right  and  left, 
and  when  even  the  poorest  was  anxious  to  contribute.1 

His  defenders  now  declare,  that  he  "  unlocked  the  true 

1  Cp.  above  472  f.,  210,  194  f.,  and  passim.  To  supplement 
what  he  there  says  on  the  scarcity  and  smallness  of  contributions 
towards  Divine  worship  and  preaching  we  may  add  two  other  utter 
ances  of  Luther's  given  by  Mohler  ("  KG.,"  3.  pp.  149  and  160)  : 
Nobles,  burghers  and  peasants  were  all  intent  on  letting  the  clergy 
starve  that  the  Evangel  might  cease  to  be  proclaimed. — "  Unless 
something  is  done  soon,  there  will  be  an  end  in  this  land  to  Evangel, 
pastors  and  schools  ;  they  will  have  to  run  away,  for  they  have  nothing, 
and  go  about  looking  like  haggard  ghosts," 


THE  CHARITY  OF  THE  PAST       479 

source  of  charity  "  by  denying  any  meritorious  character 
to  works,  thus  sending  to  limbo  the  imperfect,  mediaeval 
motive  of  charity  and  substituting  a  better  one  in  its  place, 
viz.  a  "  grateful  love  springing  from  faith."  Luther's  own 
words  have  been  used  to  decry  earlier  ages,  as  though 
charity  then  had  "  merely  had  itself  in  view,"  people  in 
those  days  having  been  intent  solely  on  laying  up  merit 
''  for  them  and  theirs." 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  the  Catholic  Church  gladly  emphasises 
the  reward  charity  brings  to  the  giver. 

If  in  the  times  previous  to  Luther's  day,  both  in  the  Middle 
Ages  and  before,  the  Church  frequently  extolled  the  temporal  and 
everlasting  reward  of  charity,  and  if  this  proved  to  the  faithful 
an  incentive,  she  could  at  least  in  so  doing  appeal  to  those 
passages  in  the  Gospel  itself  which  promise  to  the  charitable  a 
heavenly  recompense.  Yet  the  thought  of  this  reward  did  not 
exclude  other  high  and  worthy  motives.  So  little  were  such 
motives  slighted  in  the  mediaeval  practice  of  charity,  that,  side  by 
side  with  the  heavenly  reward,  the  original  deeds  of  foundations, 
gifts  and  pious  legacies  still  extant  allege  all  kinds  of  other 
reasons,  for  instance,  compassion  for  the  helpless  and  concern  for 
their  bodily  and  spiritual  welfare,  or  the  furtherance  of  the 
common  good  by  the  establishment  of  institutions  of  public 
utility.  One  formula  frequently  used,  which,  taken  literally, 
seems  actually  to  ignore  all  merit  and  reward,  runs  variously  : 
"  For  God's  sake  only  "  ;  "  for  God  "  ;  or,  "  in  order  to  please  Him 
with  temporal  goods."  Thus  the  author  of  the  "  Wyhegertlin  fur 
alle  frummen  Christenmenschen,"1  a  German  work  of  edification, 
wrote  in  1509  :  "  Thanks  to  God's  grace  there  are  still  in  our 
towns  many  hundreds  of  brothers  and  sisters  wTho  have  united 
themselves  out  of  Christian  charity  and  compassion  for  the 
purpose  of  serving  the  poor  sick  people,  the  infirm,  plague- 
stricken  and  lepers,  purely  for  God's  sake." 

Duke  George  of  Saxony,  in  his  reply  to  Luther's  "  Widder  den 
Meuchler  zu  Dresen,"  really  expresses  the  motive  for  the  active 
Catholic  charity  formerly  so  lavishly  displayed,  when  he  speaks 
of  the  great  possessions  given  by  past  ages  of  which  the  religious 
revolt  had  robbed  the  Church  ;  of  the  "  gifts  freely  given  by 
nobles,  burghers  and  peasants  out  of  ardent  Christian  love  and 
gratitude  for  His  sacred  bitter  Passion,  bright  blood  and  guilt 
less  death,  to  cloisters,  parish  churches,  altars,  chapels,  cells, 
hospitals,  religious  houses,  crafts,"  etc.2 

Neither  did  such  motives  or  the  motive  of  reward  curtail  the 
spirit  of  charity  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  some 
Protestants  have  chosen  to  assert.  On  the  contrary  they  served 
to  animate  it. 

1  Mayence,  1509,  Bl.  7. 

2  "  Luthers  Werke."  Erl.  ed.,  252  (where  the  whole  of  the  Duke's 
reply  is  printed),  p.  144. 


480         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

On  the  basis  of  the  data  furnished  by  German  archives  a 
modern  historian  remarks  of  those  times  :  "  The  spirit  of  Chris 
tian  charity  showed  itself  most  active  in  the  foundation  of 
benevolent  institutions,  in  which  respect  hardly  any  age  can 
compare  with  the  15th  century."1  "  Towards  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages  the  gifts  to  hospitals,  pest-houses  and  hostels  were 
simply  innumerable  "  ;  such  is  the  opinion  of  another  researcher.2 
Even  G.  Uhlhorn,  in  his  "  Geschichte  der  christlichen  Liebestatig- 
keit,"  had  to  admit  :  "  No  period  did  so  much  for  the  poor  as  the 
Middle  Ages,"  though,  agreeably  to  the  standard  of  his  peculiar 
Lutheranism,  this  author  would  fain  make  out  that  good  works 
then  were  done  out  of  mere  egotism. 

Other  Protestant  authorities  allow,  that,  even  according  to 
Luther's  own  admission,  the  Catholic  charity  far  exceeded  that 
displayed  by  the  new  faith.  "  Here  "  (among  the  Catholics),  says 
one  historian,  "  Confraternities  for  the  care  of  the  poor  and  sick 
arose  in  the  16th  and  17th  centuries  which  far  surpassed  anything 
hitherto  known  in  the  purity  of  their  aims  and  their  extraordinary 
achievements.  .  .  .  Among  the  Catholics  the  reform  in  the 
nursing  of  the  sick  proceeded  from  Spain,  which  also  produced 
the  men  who  loomed  largest  in  the  Catholic  Counter-Reforma 
tion,  viz.  the  Jesuits  and  the  Dominicans.  From  Spain  came  the 
model  of  the  modern  hospital  with  the  nursing  staff  as  we  now 
know  it."  "  The  Protestant  communities  during  the  two 
centuries  which  followed  the  Reformation  showed  a  great  lack  of 
fruitfulness  as  regards  works  of  charity."  "  The  hospitals  in  the 
Protestant  districts,  with  few  exceptions,  were  and  remained 
bad,  nor  was  anything  done  to  improve  them."3 

Although  Luther's  praiseworthy  efforts  to  awaken  charity  were 
not  altogether  wasted,  yet  neither  his  success  in  some  localities 
nor  the  supposed  purer  and  higher  spirit  he  introduced  into  deeds 
of  love  were  so  apparent  as  to  bear  comparison  with  the  charity 
so  sedulously  cultivated  on  the  Catholic  side.  On  the  contrary; 
his  complaints  confirm  the  suspicion  that  in  Lutheran  circles 
works  of  charity  were  as  a  rule  lamed  by  the  lack  of  that  very 
spirit  of  piety  which  should  have  been  so  manifest.  (More  in 
vol.  vi.,  xxxv.,  4.) 

In  1528  he  told  the  inhabitants  of  Wittenberg  :  "  This  week 
your  offerings  will  be  solicited.  I  hear  that  people  say  they  will 
give  nothing  to  the  collectors,  but  will  turn  them  away.  Well, 
thank  God  !  You  most  ungrateful  creatures,  who  are  so  grudging 
with  your  money,  refuse  to  give  anything,  and,  not  satisfied  with 
this,  heap  abuse  on  the  ministers  of  the  Church  !  I  wish  you  a 
happy  year.  I  am  so  horrified,  that  I  do  not  know  whether  to 
continue  preaching  any  longer  to  you,  you  rude  brutes  who 
cannot  give  even  four  half -pence  ungrudgingly."  It  was  a 

1  S.  Riezler,  "  Gesch.  Bayerns,"  3,  1889,  p.  809. 

2  R.  Wackernagel  ("  Easier  Zeitschr.  f.  Gesch .,"  2,  1903,  p.  181). 

3  Dietrich,  "  t)ber  Gesch.  der  Krankenpflege  "  in  Liebe-Jacobsohn- 
Meyer,  "  Hdb.  der  Krankenversorgung  und  Krankenpflege,"  1,  Berlin, 
1899,  p.  47  ff. 


ON  THE  FLORENCE   HOSPITALS    481 

disgrace,  he  says,  that  so  far  the  fiscal  authorities  had  been 
obliged  to  provide  for  the  churches,  the  schools  and  the  poor 
in  the  hospitals,  whom  it  was  the  people's  duty  as  Christians  to 
support.  "  Now  that  you  are  called  upon  to  give  four  beggarly 
half -pence,  you  feel  it  a  burden."  "  Deceivers  will  come  who  will 
wax  fat  at  your  expense  as  happened  formerly  [in  Catholic  times]. 
I  am  sorry  that  you  have  arrived  at  such  a  glorious  state  of 
freedom,  free  from  all  tyrants  and  Papists,  for,  thankless  brutes 
that  you  are,  you  don't  deserve  this  Evangelical  treasure.  Unless 
you  mend  your  ways  and  act  differently  I  shall  cease  to  preach  to 
you  in  order  not  to  cast  pearls  before  swine  and  to  give  what 
is  holy  to  the  dogs,  and  shall  proclaim  the  Gospel  to  my  real 
students  who  are  the  poor  beggar-men.  Formerly  you  gave  so 
much  to  the  wicked  seducers  [the  Catholic  clergy]  and  now  .  .  .I"1 
Already,  the  year  before,  he  had  vigorously  complained  from  the 
pulpit,  though,  as  it  would  appear,  all  to  no  purpose  :  "  Amongst 
those  who  hear  the  Word,  faith  is  dull  and  charity  has  grown 
cold  and  hope  is  at  an  end,  etc.  There  is  no  one  who  pities  his 
brother's  distress.  Once  upon  a  time  we  gave  a  hundred,  two 
hundred,  five  hundred,  or  even  a  thousand  pieces  of  gold  to  the 
monks,  canons  or  priests  for  the  building  of  monasteries  and 
churches.  To-day  no  one  can  be  found  who  will  give  a  coin,  let 
alone  a  piece  of  gold,  for  the  poor.  For  this  reason  God  sends  His 
judgments  on  the  world  and  curses  the  earth  on  account  of  the 
contempt  for  His  Word  and  His  Evangel  ;  but  we  may  look  for 
yet  worse  things  in  the  future."2 

Amongst  the  reminiscences  of  his  journey  to  Italy,  Luther 
retained  a  kindly  memory  of  the  charity  as  practised  by  the 
Catholics,  particularly  at  Florence.  We  read  in  Lauterbach's 
Diary  on  Aug.  1,  1538  :  "  Then  Luther  spoke  of  charity  in  Italy 
and  how  the  hospitals  there  were  cared  for.  They  are  located  in 
princely  buildings,  are  amply  supplied  with  food  and  drink,  the 
servants  are  most  diligent  and  attentive,  the  physicians  very 
skilled,  the  bedding  and  clothing  are  perfectly  clean  and  the  beds 
are  even  painted.  When  a  patient  is  brought  in,  he  has  at  once 
to  strip,  an  inventory  of  his  clothes  is  made  in  the  presence  of  a 
notary  and  they  are  then  kept  carefully  for  him.  Then  he  is 
dressed  in  a  white  shirt  and  put  in  a  nice  painted  bed  with  clean 
sheets,  and  after  a  little  while  two  physicians  are  at  his  bedside  ; 
servants  come  and  bring  him  food  and  drink  in  perfectly  clean 
glass  goblets,  which  they  do  not  touch  even  with  a  finger,  carry 
ing  everything  on  a  tray.  Even  the  greatest  ladies  come  there, 
muffled  up  completely  so  as  to  be  unrecognisable,  in  order  to 
serve  the  poor  for  some  days,  after  which  they  return  to  their 
homes.  At  Florence  I  have  seen  what  great  care  is  bestowed  on 
the  hospitals.  Also  on  the  foundling  homes  where  the  children 
are  admirably  installed,  fed  and  taught,  are  all  dressed  alike  and 
in  the  same  colour  and  treated  in  a  right  fatherly  way."3 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  od.,  27,  p.  409  ff.  (from  notes). 

2  Ibid.  24,  p.  454  (from  notes). 

3  Cp.  "Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  2,  p.  283;    "Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  58, 
p.  425  f.,  Table-Talk. 

IV.— 2  I 


482          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

5.  Other  Innovations  in  Religious  Doctrine 

The  absence  of  any  logical  system  in  Luther's  theological 
and  moral  views  is  so  far  from  being  denied  by  Protestants 
who  know  his  theology  that  they  even  reproach  Luther's 
opponents  for  expecting  to  find  logic  in  him.  No  system, 
but  merely  "  the  thought- world  of  a  great  religious  man  " 
is,  so  they  say,  all  that  we  may  look  for  in  his  works  ;  it  is 
true  that  he  had  a  "  general  religious  theory,"  but  it  was 
"  faulty,  in  its  details  not  seldom  contradictory,  and  devised 
for  a  practical  and  polemical  object."  "  Luther  was  no 
dogmatic  theologian  or  man  of  system,"  hence  his  individual 
sayings  must  not  always  be  treated  as  though  they  were 
parts  of  a  system. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  a  defect  in  a  teacher 
who  comes  forward  as  the  founder  of  a  denomination  and  as 
the  restorer  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  who,  in  his  quality  of 
"  Prophet  of  the  Germans,"  declares  :  "  Before  me  people 
knew  nothing."  After  all,  precision  and  coherence  of 
doctrines  form  a  test  of  their  truth. 

In  reality  the  facts  of  the  case  are  only  indicated  in  a 
veiled  way  in  the  Protestant  admissions  just  recorded. 
The  truth  is,  as  the  reader  has  already  had  many  an  occa 
sion  to  see,  that,  with  Luther,  one  assertion  frequently 
invalidates  the  other.  Even  in  the  field  of  moral  teaching 
we  find  him  at  utter  variance  with  himself,  and  his  contra 
dictions  become  particularly  glaring  as  soon  as  he  passes  from 
theory  to  practice.  Here  it  is  easy  to  seize  the  "  consum 
mate  contradictions  of  his  theology,"  of  which  a  present- 
day  Protestant  theologian  ventures  boldly  to  speak  ;  we 
may  also  subscribe  to  what  this  same  writer  says,  viz.  that 
Luther  hardened  his-  heart  against  certain  consequences  of 
his  own  religious  principles.1  (Cp.  p.  415,  447  ;  vol.  ii., 
p.  312,  etc.) 

The  Regula  Fidei. 

Such  a  denial  of  the  consequences  of  the  principles  of  his 
doctrine  lies  first  and  foremost  in  the  fact  that  Luther 
summed  up  in  a  Rule  of  Faith  the  various  dogmas  to  which 
it  was  his  intention  to  remain  true.  The  "  regula  fidei" 
such  as  he  wished  to  bequeath  to  posterity,  he  saw  expressed 

1  A.  Harnack,  "  Dogmengesch.,"  33,  p.  733  ff.  ;   34,  p.  819  ff. 


THE  RULE   OF   FAITH  483 

in  the  Confession  of  Augsburg,  and  in  the  oldest  (Ecumenical 
Creeds  of  the  Church. 

It  has  already  been  seen  that  the  radicalism  involved  in 
his  religious  attitude  should  by  rights  have  issued  in  a 
freedom,  nay,  licence,  which  would  have  rendered  im 
possible  any  binding  formularies  of  faith. 

It  is  also  the  opinion  of  most  modern  Protestant  theo 
logians  that  the  definition  of  doctrine  which  began  with  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg,  or  in  fact  with  the  Articles  of 
Marburg,  really  constituted  an  unjustifiable  encroachment 
on  the  freedom  of  religious  thought  inaugurated  by  Luther. 
Luther  indeed  invested  these  doctrinal  formularies  with  all 
the  weight  of  his  authority,  yet,  according  to  these  theo 
logians,  they  represented  a  "  narrowing  "  of  the  Evangelical 
ideas  advocated  by  him  ;  nor  can  it  be  gainsaid  that  the 
revolutionary  ideas  for  which  Luther  stood  from  about  1520 
to  1523  justify  such  strictures.1 

"  This  promising  spring,"  writes  Adolf  Harnack,  a  repre 
sentative  of  theological  freedom,  "  was  followed  by  no  real 
summer.  In  those  years  Luther  was  lifted  above  himself  and 
seemed  to  have  overcome  the  limitations  of  his  peculiar  tempera 
ment."  .  .  .  But  Luther  unfortunately  reverted  to  his  limita 
tions.  Nor  were  they  "  merely  a  light  vesture,  or  as  some  would 
fain  have  us  believe,  due  simply  to  lack  of  comprehension  on  the 
part  of  Melanchthon  and  other  henchmen,  for  Luther  himself  saw 
in  them  the  very  foundation  of  his  strength  and  made  the  fullest 
use  of  them  as  such."2 

In  other  words,  his  contradiction  with  his  own  original  princi 
ples  became  to  him,  so  to  speak,  a  second  nature.  He  was  in 
deadly  earnest  with  the  dogmas  which  he  retained,  and  which 
were  comprised  in  the  official  Articles  of  faith.  In  so  far,  there 
fore,  he  may  be  said  to  have  turned  away  from  the  consequences 
of  his  own  action  and  to  have  striven  to  slam  the  door  which  he 
had  opened  to  unbelief  and  private  judgment. 

Of  the  Confession  of  Augsburg,  the  most  important  of  these 
declarations  of  faith,  Harnack  says  :  "  That  the  Gospel  of  the 
Reformation  found  masterly  expression  in  the  '  Augustana,,'  that 
I  cannot  admit.  The  '  Augustana  '  founded  a  teaching  Church  ; 
on  it  must  be  laid  the  blame  for  the  narrowing  of  the  movement 
of  reform.  Could  such  a  thing  have  been  written  previous  to 
1526,  or  even  previous  to  1529  ?  " 

After  admitting  elsewhere  the  advantages  of  the  Confession 
of  Augsburg,  Harnack  proceeds  :  "  It  is  possible  by  retracing 
our  steps  to  arrive  through  it  at  the  broader  Evangelical  ideas 
without  which  there  would  never  have  been  a  Reformation  or  an 

1  See  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  5  ff.  2  "  DG.,"  34,  p.  811. 


484          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

'  Augustana.'  With  regard  to  their  author,  however,  it  is  no  use 
blinking  the  fact,  that  here  Melanchthon  undertook,  or  rather 
was  forced  to  undertake,  a  task  to  which  his  gifts  and  his  char 
acter  were  not  equal."1  "In  the  theology  of  Melanchthon  the 
moralist,  who  stands  at  the  side  of  Luther  the  Evangelist,  we 
discern  attempts  to  amend  Luther's  theology.  .  .  .  Melanchthon, 
however,  felt  himself  cramped  by  having  to  act  as  the  guardian 
of  Lutheranism.  We  cannot  take  it  ill  if  Lutherans  prefer  to 
err  with  Luther  their  hero,  rather  than  submit  to  be  put  in 
Melanchthon's  leading-strings." 2 

Harnack  and  those  who  think  like  him  are  even  more  antagon 
istic  to  the  later  creeds  of  Lutheranism  than  to  the  Confession 
composed  by  Melanchthon.  "  The  '  symbolic  age  '  when  the 
'  Lutheran  Church  '  gave  '  definite  expression  '  to  her  will  is 
nothing  more  than  a  fable  convenue.  '  This  Lutheran  Church 
as  an  actual  body,'  says  Carl  Miiller,  'never  really  existed  and 
the  spokesmen  of  the  strictest  Luther  faction  were  just  the  worst 
enemies  of  such  a  union.  .  .  .  Thus  to  speak  of  creeds  of  the 
Lutheran  Church  involves  an  historic  impossibility.'  "3  Accord 
ing  to  these  theologians  Protestantism  must  hark  back  to 
Luther's  original  principles  of  freedom.  Moreover,  argues 
Harnack,  Protestantism  has  on  the  whole  already  reverted  to 
this  earlier  standpoint.  "We  are  not  forsaking  the  clear  testi 
mony  of  history  when  we  find  in  Luther's  Christianity  and  in  the 
first  beginnings  of  the  Reformation  all  that  present-day  Protes 
tantism  has  developed,  though  amidst  weakness  and  constraint  ; 
nor  when  we  state  that  Luther's  idea  of  faith  is  still  to-day  the 
moving  spirit  of  Protestantism,  however  many  or  however  few 
may  have  made  it  their  own."4  Luther's  "most  effective 
propositions,"  according  to  him,  may  well  be  allowed  to  stand  as 
the  "  heirloom  of  the  Evangelical  Churches  "  ;  it  is  plain  that 
they  do  not  lead  to  a  mere  "  dogmatic  Christianity,"  but  to  true- 
Christianity  consisting  in  the  "  disposition  which  the  Father  of 
Jesus  Christ  awakens  in  the  heart  through  the  Gospel."  Luther 
himself  has  only  to  be  rightly  appreciated  and  "  allowed  to 
remain  Luther."5 

Harnack  repeatedly  insists  that  Luther  by  setting  aside  all 
authority  on  dogma,  whether  of  the  Church,  the  hierarchy  or 
tradition,  also  destroyed  the  binding  character  of  any  "  doctrine." 
By  his  attack  on  all  authority  he  dealt  a  mortal  blow  at  the  vital 
principle  of  the  ancient  Church,  traceable  back  to  the  second 
century.  According  to  him  "  every  doctrinal  formulary  of  the 
past  required  objective  proof  "  ;  this  objective  proof  was  to  him 
the  sole  authority.  "  How  then  could  there  be  authority  when 
the  objective  proof  failed  or  seemed  to  demonstrate  the  con 
trary  ?  "  To  judge  of  the  proof  is  within  the  province  of  each 
individual,  and,  according  as  he  is  constituted,  the  result  will  be 

1  P.  684,  n.  1.  2  P.  895. 

3  P.  811.     Carl  Miiller,  "  Preuss.  Jahrb.,"  63,  Hft.  2,  p.  147. 

4  "  DG.,"  33,  p.  616  (omitted  in  the  4th  edition). 

5  Ibid.,  p.  808,  and  34,  p.  896  f. 


THE   RULE   OF   FAITH  485 

different.  "  Luther — even  at  the  most  critical  moment,  when 
he  seemed  to  stand  in  the  greatest  need  of  the  formal  authority 
of  the  letter — did  not  allow  himself  to  be  overawed  or  his  mouth 
to  be  closed  even  by  the  Apostles'  Creed."  •  He  indeed  "  involved 
himself  later  in  limitations  and  restrictions,"  "  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  .  .  .  that  by  his  previous  historic  behaviour  towards  them 
he  had  undermined  all  the  formal  authorities  of  Catholicism."1 

On  this  fundamental  question  of  the  possibility  of  a  "  regula 
fidei"  in  Luther's  case,  we  may  listen  to  the  opinion  of  another 
esteemed  Protestant  historian  of  late  years. 

Friedrich  Paulsen,  in  his  much-prized  "  Geschichte  des  gelehrten 
Unterrichts,"  writes  :  "  The  Word  of  God  does  not  suffice  as  a 
'  regula  fidei,'  but  a  personal  authority  is  also  needed  to  decide  on 
questions  of  doctrine,  this  is  what  the  Luther  of  1535  says  and 
thereby  confutes  the  Luther  of  1521,  who  refused  to  allow  any 
one  on  earth  to  point  out  to  him  the  faith  unless  he  himself  could 
gather  its  truth  from  the  Word  of  God.  Had  Luther  abided  by 
his  rejection  of  all  human  authority  he  should  have  declared  : 
On  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  there  is  no  final  court  of  appeal, 
each  one  believes  or  errs  at  his  own  peril.  .  .  .  What  Luther  had 
relied  on  in  1521  against  the  Papists,  viz.  inability  to  refute  him 
from  Scripture,  was  used  against  him  in  his  own  struggle  with 
the  '  fanatics.'  .  .  .  For  the  confuting  of  heretics  a  rule  of  faith  is 
needed,  and  what  is  more,  a  living  one  to  decide  in  each  case. 
The  principle  of  1521,  to  allow  no  authority  on  earth  to  prescribe 
the  faith,  is  anarchical.  On  these  lines  there  can  be  no  '  Church  ' 
with  an  '  examen  doctrince  '  of  its  candidates  and  Visitations 
of  the  clergy.  This  the  Reformers  also  saw  and  thus  there  was 
nothing  left  for  them,  if  they  were  to  retain  a  '  Church,'  than  to 
set  up  their  own  authority  in  the  stead  of  the  authority  of  Pope 
and  Councils.  On  one  vexatious  point  they  were,  however,  at  a 
loss  :  Against  the  later  Luther  it  was  always  possible  to  appeal 
to  the  Luther  of  Worms.  The  starting-point  and  raison  d'etre 
of  the  whole  Reformation  was  the  repudiation  on  principle  of 
all  human  authority  in  matters  of  faith  ;  after  this,  to  find  Luther 
installed  as  Pope,  was  scarcely  pleasing.  If  anyone  stands 
in  need  of  a  Pope  he  would  surely  be  better  advised  in  sticking 
to  the  real  one  at  Rome.  .  .  .  The  hole  in  Luther's  teaching  still 
remains  a  hole  in  the  principle  of  the  Protestant  Church  to-day  : 
There  can  be  no  earthly  authority  in  matters  of  faith,  and  :  Such 
an  authority  there  must  be,  this  is  an  antinomy  which  lies  at  its 
very  root.  Nor  is  the  antinomy  accidental,  but  lies  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  matter  and  is  expressed  as  often  as  we  speak  of  the 
'  Protestant  Church.'  If  there  is  to  be  a  Church  .  .  .  then  the 
individual  must  submit  himself  and  his  '  faith  '  to  the  '  faith  ' 
of  the  community."  Paulsen,  who  had  spoken  of  "  Luther  as 
Pope,"  refers  to  Luther's  own  remark  when  taking  his  seat  with 
Bugenhagen  in  the  carriage  in  which  he  went  to  meet  Vergerio 
the  Papal  Nuncio  :  "  Here  go  the  German  Pope  and  Cardinal 
Pomeranus,  God's  chosen  instruments  "  ;  Luther's  remark  was 

1  34,  p.  857  f. 


486         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

of  course  spoken  in  jest,  but  the  jest  "  was  only  possible  against 
a  background  of  bitter  earnest  "  ;  Luther  frequently  dallied 
with  this  idea  ;  "  for  the  position  Luther  occupied,  ages  even 
after  his  death,  there  really  was  no  other  comparison  to  be  found. 
.  .  .  With  the  above  jest  Luther  reduced  himself  ad  absurdum."1 
— Such  censures  are  in  reality  more  in  place  than  those  eulogies 
of  Luther's  exclamation  at  Worms  in  1521  on  the  freedom  of 
Bible  conviction,  into  which  orthodox  Protestant  biographers  of 
Luther  sometimes  lapse. 

Some  Peculiarities  of  the  New  Doctrine  on  the  Sacraments, 
Particularly  on  Baptism. 

The  theological  pillars  of  the  edifice  of  public  worship  are 
the  seven  sacraments,  the  visible  signs  ordained  by  Christ 
by  which  grace  is  given  to  our  souls.  Held  in  honour  even 
by  the  Nestorians  and  Monophysites  as  witnesses  to  ecclesi 
astical  antiquity,  they  enfold  and  hallow  all  the  chief  events 
of  human  life.  Luther  debased  the  effect  of  the  sacraments 
by  making  it  something  wholly  subjective,  produced  by  the 
recipients  themselves  in  virtue  of  the  faith  infused  into  them 
by  God,  whereas  the  Church  has  ever  recognised  the  sacra 
ments  as  sublime  and  mysterious  signs,  which  of  themselves 
work  in  the  receiver  ("  ex  opere  operate  ")  according  to  the 
extent  of  his  preparation,  Christ  having  made  the  grace  pro 
mised  dependent  on  the  outward  signs  instituted  by  Himself. 
Luther,  on  the  other  hand,  by  declaring  the  sacraments 
mere  symbols  whereby  faith  is  strengthened,  operative 
only  by  virtue  of  the  recipient's  faith  in  the  pardon  and 
forgiveness  of  his  sins,  reduced  them  to  the  status  of  empty 
pledges  for  soothing  and  consoling  consciences.  Only  later 
did  he  again  come  nearer  to  the  Catholic  doctrine  of  the 
"  opus  operatum."  With  his  view,  however,  that  the  sole 
object  of  the  sacraments  is  to  increase  the  "fides  specialist'1 
we  arrive  again  at  the  point  which  for  Luther  is  the  sum 
total  of  religion,  viz.  :  "  mere  forgiveness." 

He  was  not  at  all  conscious  of  the  contradiction  involved 
in  his  vigorous  insistence  on  the  absolute  necessity  of  the 
sacraments  for  salvation.  From  his  standpoint  Carlstadt 
was  far  more  logical  when  he  said  :  "  If  Christ  [alone]  is 
peace  and  assurance  [of  salvation],  then  lifeless  creatures 
[the  sacramental,  outward  signs]  can  surely  not  satisfy  or 
make  secure."2 

1  Vol.  i2,  p.  213  ff. 

2  Cp.  Mohler,  "  Symbolik,"  30.    Cp.  above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  10  f. 


INFANT  BAPTISM  487 

Luther  raised  no  objection  to  infant  baptism.  He  also 
wished  it,  and  baptism  in  general,  to  be  given  in  the  usual 
way  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity.  But  how  did  he  try  to  solve 
the  difficulty  arising  from  his  theory  of  the  sacraments  : 
If  the  sacrament  only  works  in  virtue  of  the  faith  of  the 
receiver  and  the  effect  is  merely  an  increase  of  faith,  of 
what  advantage  can  it  be  to  the  infant  who  is  incapable  of 
belief  ?  He  endeavoured  to  remedy  the  defect  with  the 
help  of  the  faith  of  the  congregation. 

Meeting  difficulties  on  this  line  he  did  not  shrink  from 
claiming  a  perpetually  recurring  miracle,  and  proposed  to 
assume  that,  during  the  act  of  baptism,  the  new-born  infant 
was  momentarily  endowed  by  God  with  the  use  of  reason 
and  filled  with  faith. 

In  his  "  De  captivitate  babylonica"  he  had  already 
attempted  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  presented  by  infant 
baptism  by  this  assumption,  which,  however  arbitrary,  is 
quite  intelligible  from  his  psychological  standpoint.  Thanks 
to  the  believing  prayer  of  the  congregation  who  present  the 
children  for  baptism,  so  he  said,  faith  is  infused  into  them 
and  they  thus  become  regenerate.  In  1523  he  states  that 
children  have  a  hidden  faith.  "  From  that  time  onwards 
the  tendency  of  his  teaching  was  to  require  faith  from 
candidates  for  baptism.  .  .  .  Even  after  the  Concord  he 
continued  to  speak  exactly  as  before."1  The  Bible  teaches 
nothing  about  infant  baptism.  Yet  Luther  declares  in 
1545  in  a  set  of  theses  :  "  It  is  false  and  outrageous  to  say 
that  little  children  do  not  believe,  or  are  unworthy,"  while 
at  the  head  of  the  theses  these  words  stand  :  "  Everything 
that  in  the  Church,  which  is  God's  people,  is  taught  with 
out  the  Word  of  God,  is  assuredly  false  and  unchristian."2 

It  is  of  interest  to  follow  up  his  arguments  for  the  faith 
of  infants.  In  1522  already  he  had  attempted  in  a  letter 
to  prove  to  Melanchthon  the  possibility  of  such  unconscious 
faith.  He  referred  him  to  the  circumstance,  which,  how 
ever,  is  irrelevant,  "  that  we  retain  the  faith  while  asleep  or 
otherwise  engaged."  Moreover,  since  to  him  who  believes, 
everything  is  possible  with  God,  so,  too,  to  the  congregation 
which  prays  for  the  children  ;  the  children  are  presented 

1  Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.,"  22,  p.  237  f. 

2  "  Werke,"   Erl.   ed.,   65,   p.    170,    "Wider  die  xxxii.   Artikel   der 
Teologisten  von  Loven." 


488         LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

by  the  congregation  to  the  Lord  of  all,  and  He,  by  His 
Omnipotence,  kindles  faith  in  them.  In  the  same  letter, 
aimed  at  the  Anabaptists,  who  were  then  beginning  to  be 
heard  of,  we  find  an  emphatic  appeal  to  the  authority  and 
belief  of  the  Church  ("  totius  orbis  constans  confessio  "), 
which,  as  a  rule,  Luther  was  so  ruthless  in  opposing.  "  It 
would  be  quite  impious  to  deny  that  infant  baptism  agrees 
with  the  belief  of  the  Church  ;  to  do  so  would  be  tantamount 
to  denying  the  Church  "  ;  it  was  a  special  miracle  that 
infant  baptism  had  never  been  attacked  by  heretics  ;  there 
was  therefore  good  reason  to  hope  that  Christ,  now,  would 
trample  the  new  foemen  "  under  our  feet."  Luther  forgets 
that  the  ancient  Church  was  not  hampered  by  such  a  heel  of 
Achilles  as  was  his  own  teaching,  viz.  that  the  sacraments 
owed  all  their  efficacy  to  faith.  We  can,  however,  quite 
understand  his  admission  to  Melanchthon  :  "I  have  always 
expected  that  Satan  would  lay  violent  hands  on  this  weak 
spot,  but  he  has  chosen  to  stir  up  this  pernicious  quarrel,  not 
through  the  Papists,  but  with  the  help  of  our  own  people."1 
The  rise  of  the  Anabaptist  heresy  was  indeed  merely  a 
natural  reaction  against  Luther's  doctrine  of  baptism. 

Seeing  that  the  doctrine  of  baptism  is  of  such  importance 
to  the  Christian  Church,  we  may  be  permitted  to  consider 
the  inferences  regarding  the  sacrament  of  baptism  drawn 
in  modern  times  from  Luther's  conception  of  it,  and  from 
his  whole  attitude  towards  faith  and  Christianity.  A 
domestic  dispute  among  the  Protestants  at  Bremen  in  1905 
on  the  validity  of  baptism  not  administered  according  to 
the  usages  of  the  Church,  led  to  a  remarkable  discussion 
among  theologians  of  broader  views,  some  of  whom  went 
so  far  as  to  argue  in  Luther's  name  and  that  of  his 
Reformation,  that  baptism  should  be  abolished. 

Johannes  Gottschick  in  "  Die  Lehre  der  Reformation  von  der 
Taufe  "  (1906)  defended  the  opinion  that,  according  to  the  real 
views  of  the  Reformers,  baptism  was  valid  even  when  conferred 
without  any  mention  of  the  Trinity. — O.  Scheel,  on  his  side, 

1  To  Melanchthon  from  the  Wartburg,  Jan.  13,  1522,  "  Brief - 
wechsel,"  3,  p.  273  f.  Because  reason  is  "  diametrically  opposed  to 
faith  "  and  gleams  only  like  "  a  smudge  on  a  lantern  "  (p.  156),  people, 
so  he  says,  "  would  believe  better  were  they  a  little  less  reasonable  " 
(p.  162).  But  "  even  though  it  were  true,  which  it  is  not,"  and  even 
were  we  to  allow  that  infants  do  not  believe  at  all,  are  without  reason 
and  cannot  grasp  the  Word  of  God,  would  their  baptism  therefore 
"  be  wrong  "  ?  Even  then  it  would  have  its  value. 


IS   BAPTISM  NECESSARY?          489 

pointed  out  in  his  book  "  Die  dogmatische  Behandlung  der 
Tauflehre  in  der  modernen  positiven  Theologie  "  (1906),  that  a 
contradiction  with  the  principle  of  the  Reformation  was  apparent 
even  in  Luther's  own  theology,  inasmuch  as,  according  to  this 
principle,  baptism  should  merely  be  the  proclaiming  of  the  Word 
of  God  ;  in  the  ceremony  of  baptism,  according  to  the  Reforma 
tion  teaching,  which  should  be  taken  seriously,  "  the  Word  is  all  "  ; 
baptism  is  the  solemn  declaration  that  the  child  has  been  received 
into  the  congregation  and  the  bestowal  on  it  of  the  promise  of 
salvation,  hence  requires  no  repetition.  "As  to  when  the  Word 
works  faith  [in  them]  we  do  not  know,  nor  is  it  necessary  that 
theology  should  know  "  ;  the  power  of  God  knows  the  day  and 
the  hour.1 — The  question  :  "  Can  baptism  be  regarded  rightly  as 
the  exclusive  act  of  reception  into  the  Church  ?  "  was  answered 
negatively  by  Rietschel  in  an  article  under  that  title  in  the 
"Deutsche  Zeitschrift  fur  Kirchenrecht,"2  in  which  he  too 
appeals  to  Luther.  At  any  rate  Rietschel's  conclusion  is,  that, 
since  Luther  makes  the  Christian  state  dependent  on  faith,  the 
baptismal  act  as  such  cannot,  according  to  him,  be  of  any 
essential  importance  ;  he  thinks  it  possible  to  complete  Luther's 
doctrine  on  baptism  in  the  light  of  that  of  Zwingli  and  Calvin, 
who  were  of  opinion  that  the  children  of  Christian  parents,  by 
their  very  birth  were  received  into  the  Church. 

Luther's  attitude  towards  these  questions  was  treated  of  more 
in  detail  by  the  editor  of  the  Deutsch-Evangelische  Blatter, 
Erich  Haupt,  Professor  ot  theology  at  Halle.3 

Haupt  agrees  with  Gottschick  as  to  the  possibility  of  dis 
carding  the  Trinitarian  formula  in  baptism,  in  that,  like  Riet 
schel,  all  he  considei's  necessary  is  the  liturgical  retention  of  some 
definite  form  of  words.  He  also  subscribes  in  principle  to 
Rietschel's  contention  that  it  is  possible  to  enter  the  Church 
without  baptism.  Going  even  further,  however,  he  declares 
with  regard  to  Luther,  that  it  was  not  even  necessary  to  borrow 
from  Zwingli  and  Calvin  as  Rietschel  had  proposed.  "  I  believe 
the  admission  that  salvation  may  be  secured  even  without 
baptism,  is  a  necessary  corollary  of  Luther's  theories  taken  in 
the  lump.  One  thing  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  Liither's  doctrine 
of  the  sacraments  is  that  the  salvation  bestowed  by  a  sacrament 
is  none  other  than  that  communicated  by  the  word  of  the 
preacher.  .  .  .  Nay,  the  sacrament  is  merely  a  particular  form 
in  which  the  Evangel  comes  to  men."  But  wherever  there  is 
faith,  there  is  communion  with  God,  and  faith  may  be  wherever 
there  is  the  Word  of  God.  Just  as  it  was  said  of  the  Supper  : 
"  crede  et  manducasti,"  so  also  it  might  be  said  :  "  crede  et 
baptizatus  es."  "  To  deny  this  would  not  merely  be  to  ascribe 
a  magical  and  mechanical  effect  to  the  sacrament,  but  would  also 
imply  the  denial  of  the  first  principle  of  all  Evangelical  Chris 
tianity,  viz.  that  for  man's  salvation  nothing  further  is  necessary 
than  to  accept  in  faith  the  offer  of  God's  grace  given  him  in  the 

1  P.  256.  2  Vol.  17,  No.  2. 

3  "  Deutsch-Ev.  Bl.,"  32,  1907,  p.  651  ff.    Ibid.,  p.  713  ff. 


490         LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

Gospel.  In  this  the  Reformation  was  simply  holding  to  the  words 
of  Scripture  (Mk.  xvi.  16),"  where,  in  the  second  part  ("  He  that 
believeth  not  shall  be  condemned"),  baptism  is  not  mentioned.1 
— Haupt,  like  Rietschel,  draws  attention  to  the  fact,  that, 
according  to  Luther,  the  unbelieving  Christian,  in  spite  of 
baptism,  is  inwardly  no  better  than  a  heathen.2  Nevertheless 
Haupt  is  unwilling  to  allow  that  all  children  of  Christian  parents 
should  simply  be  declared  members  of  the  Christian  Church  on 
account  of  their  birth  and  regardless  of  baptism  ;  for  canonical 
reasons,  to  be  considered  Christians,  they  must  be  inducted  into 
the  congregation  by  the  act  of  baptism,3  although  it  is  "  a  logical 
outcome  of  the  Reformer's  opinions  that  instances  may  occur 
where  the  Gospel  awakens  faith,  and  thereby  incorporates  in 
the  congregation  people  who  have  never  been  baptised  ;  but  this 
is  the  invisible  congregation  of  the  '  vere  credenles,'  not  the  out 
ward,  visible,  organised  Church."  In  order  to  enter  children 
into  the  latter,  the  parents  must  express  their  wish  ;  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  ceremony  ot  baptism  ;  the  fact  remains,  that, 
dismissing  the  magical  effect  formerly  ascribed  to  baptism,  the 
principal  thing  is,  "  not  Christian  parentage  as  such,  but  the  will 
of  the  parents  as  expressed  in  some  way  or  other."4 

These  vigorous  attempts  to  shelter  such  ultra-modern  views 
behind  Luther's  authority,  and  to  make  him  responsible  for 
consequences  of  his  doctrine,  which  he  had  been  unwilling  to 
face,  have  a  common  ground  and  starting-point. 

Wilhelm  Herrmann,  the  Marburg  theologian,  in  the  "  Zeit- 
schrift  fiir  Theologie  und  Kirche,"  thus  expresses  himself  on  the 
subject.5  "  Christians  are  becoming  more  and  more  conscious," 
he  says,  "  that  a  religion  which  must  base  its  origin  on  an  assent 
to  '  dogmas  revealed  by  God  '  is  at  variance  with  elements  of 
scholarship  which  they  can  no  longer  deny."  He  speaks  of  the 
"  distress  of  conscience  into  which  the  Church,  by  her  demanding 
assent  to  revealed  doctrine,  plunges  people  as  soon  as,  under  the 
influence  of  education,  they  have  come  to  see  what  alone  can 
induce  honest  assent  to  any  idea "  (viz.  the  fact  "  that  one 
evolves  it  for  oneself  ").  Luther  was  himself  scarcely  acquainted 
with  such  trouble  of  conscience  concerning  faith,  notwithstanding 
the  many  spiritual  troubles  he  had  to  endure.  On  the  contrary, 
he  unhesitatingly  sought  and  found  a  source  of  strength  in 
supernatural  faith.  Herrmann  continues  :  "  We  should  be 
unable  to  escape  from  this  difficulty  had  not  the  true  Christian 
understanding  of  faith,  i.e.  of  religion,  been  recovered  at  the 
Reformation."  From  that  standpoint  "  any  demand  for  an 
assent  to  revealed  doctrine  may  well  be  repudiated."  For  it  was 
the  teaching  of  Luther's  Reformation  that  faith  "  must  be 
experienced  as  the  gift  of  God  if  it  is  to  be  the  '  nova  et  spiritualis 
vita  '  essentially  '  supra  naturam.'  '  This,  however,  could  not 
be  required  of  all.  The  demand  is  subversive  of  faith  itself  and 

1  P.  651. 

*  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  162.     Cp.  Rietschel,  ibid.,  p.  274. 

3  P.  653.  4  P.  717.  6  Vol.  18,  1908,  p.  148. 


THE  SACRAMENT  OF  PENANCE  491 

"embodies  the  false  Roman  principle"  that  everything  depends 
on  the  "  decision  to  acquiesce  in  a  doctrine,"  and  not  on  the 
"  experienced  power  of  a  personal  life."  "  To  lend  a  hand  and 
clear  a  path  for  the  chief  discovery  of  the  Reformation  is  the 
grandest  task  of  theology  within  the  Protestant  Church."1 

Luther  by  so  incessantly  emphasising  personal  religious 
experience  and  by  his  repudiation  of  all  objective  ecclesiastical 
authority  capable  of  putting  before  mankind  the  contents  of 
faith,  certainly  came  very  near  that  which  is  here  represented  as 
the  "  chief  discovery  "  of  the  innovations  undertaken  by  him 
(see  above,  pp.  403,  vol.  iii.,  8  ff.).  But  what  would  the  Wittenberg 
"  lover  of  the  Bible  and  Apostle  of  the  Word  "  have  said  to  the 
claim  of  modern  scholars  who  wish  simply  to  surrender  revela 
tion  ?  The  passages  in  which  he  so  indignantly  censures  the 
unbelief  of  his  day  cannot  but  recur  to  one.2 

Luther  arbitrarily  reduced  the  sacraments  to  two ; 
*'  there  remain,"  he  says,  "  two  sacraments ;  baptism  and 
the  Supper."3  With  regard  to  Penance  his  attitude  was 
wavering  and  full  of  contradiction.  In  later  years  he  again 
came  nearer  to  the  Catholic  teaching,  arguing  that  Penance 
must  also  be  a  sacrament  because,  as  he  said  in  1545, 
"  it  contains  the  promise  of  and  belief  in  the  forgiveness  of 
sins."4  He  had  much  at  heart  the  retention  of  confession 
and  absolution  under  some  shape  or  form  as  a  remedy 
against  the  moral  disorders  that  were  creeping  in.5  Yet, 
according  to  him,  Penance  was  only  to  be  regarded  as  the 
"  exercise  and  virtue  of  baptism,"6  so  that  the  number  of 
the  sacraments  underwent  no  actual  increase. 

Here,  as  everywhere  else,  the  changeableness  of  Luther's 

1  The  better  to  understand  the  strange  (though  by  no  means  unique) 
attitude  of  this  professor  of  theology,  see  the  "  Zeitschr.  fur  Theol.  und 
Kirche,"  18,  pp.  228  ff.,  389  ff.,  and  more  particularly  74  ff.,  where  he 
defends   his   proposals  for  the   remedy  of   the    "  lamentable   state   of 
present-day  Protestantism  "  ;   also  17,  1907,  pp.  1  ff.,  315  ff.— On  the 
above  question  see  also  Ernst  Bunge,  "  Der  Lehrstreit  viber  die  Kinder- 
taufe  innerhalb  der  Lutherischen  Kirche,"  Cassel,  1900,  with  Preface 
by  Ad.  Stocker. 

2  Cp.  above,  vol.  ii.,  p.  398  ff. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  508  ;    Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  371  in  "  Vom 
Abendmal  Christi  Bekentnis,"  1528. 

4  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.  173  :    "  Widder  die  xxxii.  Artikel  der 
Teologisten  von  Loven."     Cp.  Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.."  22,  p.  247. 

6  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  507  ;  Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  371.  Cp. 
p.  582  ff. 

6  Ibid.,  p.  508  =  371.  In  the  passage,  Erl.  ed.,  21,  p.  140,  im 
mediately  after  the  portion  of  the  sentence  cited  by  Kostlin  :  "  The 
third  sacrament  which  has  been  called  Penance,"  there  follows  : 
"  Which  is  nothing  else  but  baptism  ;  for,"  etc. 


492          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

doctrinal  opinions  is  deserving  of  notice.  The  numerous 
instances  where  he  relinquishes  a  position  previously  held 
and  virtually  betakes  himself  to  another,  are  scarcely  to  the 
credit  either  of  his  logic  or  of  his  foresight.  Such  wavering 
and  groping  hither  and  thither  is  the  stamp  of  error.  In 
the  "  Histoirc  des  variations  "  which  might  be  written  on 
the  fate  of  Luther's  views  even  during  his  lifetime,  much 
would  be  found  truly  characteristic  of  them. 

One  sacramentarian  doctrine,  which  to  the  end  of  his  life 
he  would  never  consent  to  relinquish,  was,  as  we  know,  the 
Presence  of  Christ  in  the  Supper.  And  relentless  as  he 
was  in  combating  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  (see  below,  p. 
506  ff.),  yet  he  insisted  steadfastly  on  the  literal  acceptance 
of  Christ's  words  of  institution  :  "  This  is  My  Body." 

His  Teaching  on  the  Supper. 

Luther's  retention  of  the  Presence  of  Christ  in  the 
Eucharist  may  to  some  extent  be  explained  by  the  influence 
which,  side  by  side  with  the  Bible,  tradition  and  the 
authority  of  the  Church  still  exercised  over  him,  at  least  on 
such  points  as  did  not  call  for  modification  on  account  of 
his  new  doctrine  of  Justification.  He  had  grown  up  in  this 
faith,  and  was  accustomed  to  give  practical  proof  of  it  even 
when  on  other  scores  he  had  already  broken  with  the 
Church.  In  this  matter  Scripture  presented  no  difficulty. 
Had  he  shared  Zwingli's  rationalistic  leanings  it  is  likely 
that,  like  him,  he  might  have  sought  for  some  other  in 
terpretation  of  the  words  of  institution  than  the  obvious 
and  literal  one.  It  is  also  possible  that  the  mysticism  to 
which  he  was  addicted  in  early  years  may  have  contributed 
to  make  him  acknowledge  the  "  mysterium  tremendum " 
of  the  Sacrament,  as  he  terms  it  in  the  language  of  olden 
days. 

It  is  true  there  came  a  time — according  to  him  the  year 
1519-1520 — when  he  felt  strongly  tempted  to  throw  the 
Sacrament  overboard,  because,  as  he  says  in  the  well-known 
words,  "  I  could  thus  have  given  a  great  smack  in  the  face 
to  Popery."  At  that  time  I  "  wrestled  and  struggled  and 
would  gladly  have  escaped."  But  from  the  plain  text  of 
the  Bible,  he  had,  so  he  declares,  been  unable  to  free  him 
self.  This  statement,  which  is  on  the  whole  worthy  of 


TEACHING   ON   THE   SUPPER       493 

belief,  we  find  in  "  Eyn  Brief!  an  die  Christen  zu  Straspurg  " 
which  he  published  in  1525,  and  it  is  further  corroborated 
by  the  fact,  that  he  there  refers  to  two  men  who  had  been 
anxious  to  move  him  to  the  denial  of  the  Presence  of  Christ, 
but  who  had  failed  to  convince  him.  The  two,  whose  names 
he  does  not  mention,  were  probably  Cornelius  Hendriks 
Hoen,  a  Dutchman,  and  Franz  Kolb  of  Baden,  whose  letters 
to  Luther,  in  1522  and  1524,  trying  to  induce  him  to  accept 
the  Zwinglian  sense  of  the  Sacrament,  still  exist.1 

When  Carlstadt  began  his  attack  on  the  Real  Presence, 
this,  in  view  of  the  then  situation,  so  Luther  declares  in  his 
letter  to  the  people  of  Strasburg,  merely  "  confirmed  his 
opinion."  "  Even  had  I  not  believed  it  before,  I  should  at 
once  have  known  that  his  opinions  were  nought,  because  of 
his  worthless,  feeble  stuff,  devoid  of  any  Scripture  and  based 
only  on  reason  and  conceit."  Offended  vanity  and  annoy 
ance  with  Carlstadt  were  here  not  without  their  effect  on 
Luther  ;  to  deny  this  would  argue  a  poor  acquaintance  with 
Luther's  psychology.  It  is  true  that  the  arguments  of  his 
opponent  were  very  weak  ;  it  was  not  without  reason  that 
Luther  speaks  of  his  "  stuff  and  nonsense  "  and  "  ridiculous 
tales."  He  ranks  the  objections  of  the  two  letter-writers 
mentioned  above  higher  than  the  proofs  adduced  by  Carl 
stadt  ;  at  least  they  "  wrote  more  skilfully  and  did  not 
mangle  the  Word  quite  so  badly."  Luther  was,  however, 
tactless  enough  to  give  the  Strasburgers  a  glimpse  of  the 
secondary  motives  which  led  him  to  defend  the  Presence  of 
Christ  so  strongly  and  defiantly  from  that  time  forward. 
He  complains  that  Carlstadt  was  making  such  an  ado  as 
though  he  wanted  "  to  darken  the  sun  and  light  of  the 
Evangel,"  so  "  that  the  world  might  forget  everything  that 
had  been  taught  them  by  us  [by  Luther]  hitherto."  "  I 
have  up  till  now  managed  well  and  rightly  in  all  the  main 
points,  and  whoever  says  the  contrary  has  no  good  spirit ; 
I  trust  I  shall  not  spoil  it  in  the  matter  of  the  externals  on 
which  alone  prophets  such  as  these  lay  stress."2 

It  is  unnecessary  to  show  anew  here  how  Luther's  later 
defence  of  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Eucharist  against  the 
Zwinglians  contains  indubitable  evidence  in  its  virulence 

1  Doc.  15,  1524,  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  15,  p.  394  ;  Erl.  ed.,  53, 
p.  274  ("  Brief wechsel,"  5,  p.  83).  On  the  pair,  see  Enders,  "  Brief- 
wechsel,"  3,  p.  412.  2  P.  393  f.  =  273  f. 


494          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

that  Luther  felt  hurt.  This  personal  element  is,  however, 
quite  insufficient  for  one  to  base  upon  it  any  suspicion  as  to 
the  genuineness  of  his  convictions. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  consider  the  strange  and 
arbitrary  form  he  gave  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Supper,  more 
particularly  by  insisting  that  the  sole  aim  and  effect  of 
communion  is  to  inspire  faith  in  the  personal  forgiveness  of 
sins,  then  his  belief  in  the  presence  of  Christ  appears  to  a 
certain  extent  to  harmonise  with  his  peculiar  theological 
views.  Amidst  the  storm  of  his  struggle  after  certainty  of 
salvation  the  pledge  of  it  which  Christ  bestows  in  the 
Sacrament  seems  to  him  like  a  blessed  anchor.  That  this 
Body  was  "  given  "  for  us,  and  this  blood  shed  for  us,  and 
that  the  celebration  is  in  memory  of  the  saving  death  of 
Christ,  as  the  very  words  of  institution  declare,  was  fre 
quently  brought  forward  by  him  as  a  means  to  reassure 
anxious  souls.  The  need  of  strengthening  our  faith  should, 
according  to  him,  impel  us  to  receive  the  Sacrament. 

He  demands  accordingly  of  others  the  same  traditional 
faith  in  the  Eucharist  in  which  he  found  his  own  stay  and 
support.  While  clinging  to  the  literal  interpretation  of  the 
words  of  the  Bible,  he,  as  we  already  know,  is  quite  ready  to 
appeal  to  the  "  dear  Fathers  "  and  to  the  whole  of  the 
Church's  past,  at  least  when  thereby  he  hopes  to  make  an 
impression.1  To  such  lengths  does  he  go  in  the  interests  of 
the  confirmation  of  faith  to  which  he  strives  to  attain  by 
means  of  this  indispensable  Sacrament. 

He  overlooks  the  fact,  however,  that  his  view  of  the 
Supper,  according  to  which  its  only  purpose  is  to  be  a  sign 
for  the  stimulating  of  saving  faith,  in  reality  undermines  the 
doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence.  True  to  his  theory  of  the 
Sacrament  and  of  faith  he  reduces  the  Supper  to  an  outward 
sign  destined  to  confirm  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  One  might 
ask  :  If  it  is  merely  a  sign,  is  so  sublime  a  mystery  as  the 
Real  Presence  at  all  called  for  ?  And,  if  it  is  a  question  of 
assurance,  how  can  we  be  rendered  secure  of  our  salvation  by 
something  which  is  so  far  removed  above  the  senses  as  the 
belief  in  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ,  or  by  an  act  which 
makes  such  great  demands  on  human  reason  ?  Luther's 
theory  requires  a  sign  which  should  appeal  to  the  senses 
and  vividly  remind  the  mind  of  the  Redemption  and  thus 
1  Above,  p.  410. 


IMPANATION  AND   UBIQUITY       495 

awaken  faith.  This  is  scarcely  the  case  in  the  Eucharist 
where  Christ  is  invisibly  present  and  only  to  be  apprehended 
by  "  the  Word."  If  bread  and  wine  are  merely  to  call 
forth  a  remembrance  of  Christ  which  inspires  faith,  then  the 
Zwinglian  doctrine  of  the  Sacrament  fulfils  all  that  is 
required.  Luther  does  not  face  this  difficulty,  but  Protes 
tants  were  not  slow  to  urge  it  against  him.1 

A  peculiarity  of  Luther's  teaching  on  the  Sacrament  is 
to  be  found  in  his  two  theories  of  Impanation  and  Ubiquity. 
Impanation,  viz.  the  opinion  that  the  substance  of  the 
bread  persists  in  the  Sacrament  and  that  Christ  is  present 
together  with  the  bread,  served  him  as  a  means  to  escape 
the  Catholic  doctrine  of  a  change  of  substance  (Tran- 
substantiation).  With  the  help  of  the  theory  of  Ubiquity 
which  affirmed  the  presence  everywhere  of  the  Body  of 
Christ,  he  fancied  he  could  extricate  himself  from  certain 
difficulties  raised  by  opponents  of  the  Sacrament.  The 

1  K.  Jager  ("  Luthers  religoses  Interesse  an  seiner  Lehre  von  der 
Realprasenz,"  Giessen,  1900)  examines  the  writings  dating  from  the 
period  previous  to  the  Sacramentarian  controversy  and  rightly  comes 
to  the  conclusion,  first,  that  Luther  had  above  all  an  ethical  interest 
in  regarding  as  he  did  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar  as  a  means  of 
strengthening  faith  by  making  known  the  redeeming  death  of  Christ  ; 
secondly,  that  he  held  fast  to  the  Real  Presence  on  the  strength  of  the 
traditional  faith  of  the  Church  without  going  any  deeper  into  its 
grounds.  Faith  in  the  Real  Presence  was,  however,  no  suitable  means 
of  strengthening  the  certainty  of  salvation,  because  the  Presence  there 
does  not  appeal  to  the  senses  nor  does  it  serve  as  a  sign  of  the  forgive 
ness  of  sins  as  Luther  supposed.  To  postulate  it  primarily  on  the 
authority  of  the  Church  was  to  contradict  the  principles  of  Lutheran- 
sim. — P.  27  :  According  to  Luther,  by  partaking  of  it  we  are  to  be 
convinced  in  a  "  peculiarly  vivid  and  lively  manner  of  God's  Grace." 
The  partaking  of  these  "  signs  "  was,  according  to  Luther,  necessary 
for  us,  "  because  we  are  still  living  in  sin  and  our  certainty  of  salva 
tion  is  ever  exposed  to  attack,  and  it  is  useful  or  suitable  because 
here  the  Grace  of  God  is  offered  to  each  man  in  a  manner  that  appeals 
to  the  senses.  Thus  the  assurance  arising  from  sensible  perception  is 
to  serve  to  strengthen  and  support  religious  certainty  of  salvation." 
"  This  is  the  sole  religious  importance  that  can  be  attributed  to  the 
sacramental  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ."  Nevertheless,  "  from  that 
very  point  of  view  of  the  religious  interest  involved  in  the  Supper, 
which  we  have  seen  above  to  be  Luther's  main  concern  (p.  28),  we  are 
forced  to  deny  the  Real  Presence."  "  What  is  to  strengthen  our  faith 
in  God's  grace  must  not  itself  be  the  object  of  faith,  but,  as  is 
evident,  must  force  itself  upon  our  mind  by  a  higher  certainty,  or  to 
speak  more  correctly,  by  a  clearer  certainty,  such  as  attaches  to 
sensible  perception.  ...  A  fact  which  in  the  last  instance  itself  calls 
for  confirmation,  and  which  in  every  instance  is  perceptible  only  to 
faith,  cannot  reasonably  serve  to  support  another  fact  which  is  of  th.Q 
utmost  importance  to  our  life  of  faith." 


496          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

history  of  both  opinions  presents  much  that  is  instructive. 
Here,  however,  we  shall  consider  only  the  second,  viz.  the 
ubiquity  of  Christ's  Body. 

The  theory  of  the  omnipresence  of  the  Body  of  Christ 
which  Luther  reached  together  with  his  doctrine  of  the  Supper, 
like  his  other  theory  of  the  faith  of  infants,  shows  plainly  not 
only  of  how  much  his  imagination  was  capable,  but  also 
what  curious  theses  he  could  propound  in  all  calmness  and 
serenity.  Thus  we  hear  him  asserting  that  the  Redeemer, 
the  Lord  of  Creation,  is  present,  in  His  spiritualised  Body, 
everywhere  and  penetrates  all  things  !  He  is  present  bodily 
at  the  right  hand  of  God  according  to  the  Scriptures  ;  but 
the  right  hand  of  God  is  everywhere,  hence  also  in  the 
consecrated  Bread  and  Wine  lying  on  the  altar  ;  conse 
quently  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  must  be  there  too.1 
To  the  question  how  this  comes  about,  he  replies  :  "  It  is 
not  for  us  to  know,"  nor  does  reason  even  understand  how 
God  can  be  in  every  creature. 

Much  more  important  is  it,  so  he  says,  that  we  should 
learn  to  seize,  grasp  and  appropriate  this  ever-present 
Christ.  "  For  though  Christ  is  everywhere  present,  He 
does  not  everywhere  allow  Himself  to  be  seized  and  laid  hold 
of.  ...  Why  ?  Because  it  is  one  thing  for  God  to  be 
present  and  another  for  Him  to  be  present  to  you.  He  is 
present  to  you  then  when  He  pledges  His  Word  to  it  and 
binds  Himself  by  it  and  says  :  Here  you  shall  find  Me. 
When  you  have  His  Word  for  it,  then  you  can  truly  seize 
Him  and  say  :  Here  I  have  Thee,  as  Thou  hast  said."2  In 
this  way  Christ  assures  us  of  His  presence  in  the  Sacrament, 
and  invites  us,  so  Luther  teaches,  to  partake  of  Him  in  the 
Bread  of  the  Supper.  This,  however,  is  practically  to 
explain  away  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Bread  (to  which 
Luther  adheres  so  firmly)  and  to  dissolve  it  into  a  purely 
subjective  apprehension.  Nevertheless,  at  least  according 
to  certain  passages,  he  was  anxious  to  see  the  Sacrament 
adored  and  did  not  hesitate  to  do  so  himself.3 

To  the  belief  that  Christ's  Body  is  truly  received  in 
Communion  he  held  fast,  as  already  stated,  till  the  end 
of  his  life. 

1  "  Werke,"   Weim.   ed.,   23,  p.    143  ;    Erl.  ed.,   30,   p.   65,   in  the 
writing  "  Das  dieso  Wort  Christi  '  Das  ist  mein  Leib  etce.,'  noch  fest 
stehen?'  1527. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  151  =  69.  3  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  341. 


THE    REAL   PRESENCE  497 

The  report,  that,  in  the  days  of  extreme  mental  tension 
previous  to  his  last  journey  to  Eisleben,  he  abandoned  the 
doctrine  of  the  Real  Presence,  hitherto  so  passionately  advocated, 
in  order  to  conciliate  the  Zwinglians  or  Melanchthonians,  is  a 
fable,  put  into  circulation  by  older  Protestant  writers.1  In  view 
of  the  proofs,  met  with  up  to  the  very  last,  of  his  belief  to  the 
contrary,  we  may  safely  dismiss  also  the  doubtful  account  to  be 
mentioned  directly  which  seems  to  speak  in  favour  of  his  having 
abandoned  it. 

Luther's  "  Kurtz  Bekentnis  "  of  September,  1544,  certainly 
was  true  to  his  old  standpoint  and  showed  that  he  wished  "  the 
fanatics  and  enemies  of  the  Sacrament,  Carlstadt,  '  Zwingel,' 
CEcolampadius,  Stinkfield  [Schwenkfeld]  and  their  disciples  at 
Zurich,  or  wherever  else  they  be,  to  be  sternly  condemned  and 
avoided."2  In  his  last  sermon  at  Wittenberg  on  Jan.  17,  1546, 
he  warned  his  hearers  against  reason,  that  "  fair  prostitute  and 
devil's  bride,"  and,  indirectly,  also  against  the  Sacramentarians 
and  those  who  attacked  his  doctrine  of  the  Supper.  George 
Major  relates  that  when  he  was  sent,  on  Jan.  10,  1546,  by  Luther 
to  the  religious  conference  at  Ratisbon  he  found  scribbled  on  his 
door  these  words  :  "  Our  professors  must  be  examined  on  the 
Supper  of  the  Lord  "  ;  Luther  also  admonished  him  not  to 
endeavour  to  conceal  or  pass  over  in  silence  belief  in  the  Real 
Presence.  On  his  journey  Luther  said  much  the  same  in  the 
sermons  he  delivered  at  Halle  and  Eisleben  ;  even  in  his  last 
sermon  at  Eisleben  we  find  the  Sacramentarians  described  as 
seducers  of  mankind  and  foes  of  the  Gospel.3 

That  Luther  changed  his  opinion  is  the  purport  of  a  com 
munication,  which,  after  his  death,  Melanchthon  is  said  to  have 
made  to  A.  R.  Hardenberg,  a  friend  of  his.  Hardenberg  speaks 
of  it  in  a  document  in  his  own  handwriting  preserved  in  the 
Bremen  municipal  archives.  There  he  certainly  affirms  that 
Melanchthon  had  told  him  how  that  Luther,  before  his  last 
journey,  had  said  to  him  :  People  have  gone  too  far  in  the 
matter  of  the  Supper  ;  he  himself  had  often  thought  of  writing 
something  so  as  to  smooth  things  down  and  thus  allow  the 
Church  again  to  be  reunited  ;  this,  however,  might  have  cast 
doubts  on  his  doctrine  as  a  whole  ;  he  preferred  therefore  to 
commend  the  case  to  God  ;  Melanchthon  and  the  others  might 
find  it  possible  to  do  something  after  his  death.4 — Evidently  it  is 
our  duty  to  endeavour  to  understand  and  explain  this  account, 
however  grounded  our  suspicions  may  be.  One  recent  Protestant 
writer  has  justly  remarked  :  "  There  must  be  something  behind 
Hardenberg's  testimony"5;  and  another,  that  it  "cannot  be 
simply  set  aside."6 

J.  Hausleiter,  in   1898,  seems  to  have  given  the  most  likely 

1  Ree  the  passages  of  Buchholzer  and  Trabe,  two  Protestants,  in 
Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  694. 

"  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  32,  p.  397.  3  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  616. 

4  Cp.,  the  reprint  in  Kostlin-Kawerau. 

5  Kostlin-Kawerau,  2,  p.  616,  6  F.  Loofs,  "  DG.,"4  p.  863, 

IV. — 2  K 


498          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

explanation  of  it  :l  After  Luther's  death  Amsdorf  complained 
bitterly  that  the  Wittenberg  edition  of  Luther's  German  works, 
then  in  the  press,  had  not  preserved  the  real  Luther  undefiled  ; 
he  pointed  out,  that,  in  the  second  volume,  Luther's  violent 
attack  on  the  Sacramentarians  had  been  omitted  where  (at  the 
end  of  the  work  "  Das  diese  Wort  Christi '  Das  ist  mein  Leib,  etce.,' 
noch  fest  stehen,"  1527)  he  had  said  that  the  devil  with  the 
help  of  Bucer  and  his  denial  of  the  Sacrament  had  "  smeared  his 
filth  "  over  Luther's  books  ;  that  Bucer  was  a  "  sly,  slippery, 
slimy  devil  "  ;  where  Luther  had  spoken  of  Bucer 's  "  poisonous 
malice,  murderous  stabs  and  arch-scoundreldom,"  thanks  to 
which  he  had  "  defiled,  poisoned  and  defamed  "  Luther's  teach 
ing,  and  where  a  protest  was  registered  against  the  assertion 
that  "  to  begin  with,"  Philip  too  had  taught  the  same  as  the 
Sacramentarians,  viz.  that  there  is  "  nothing  but  bread  in  the 
Lord's  Supper."2  It  was  known  that  those  pages  had  been 
suppressed  in  the  new  edition  at  Luther's  own  hint.  This  was 
stated  by  George  Rorer,  Luther's  former  assistant,  who  super 
vised  the  correction.  He  said,  "  he  did  this  with  the  knowledge 
and  by  the  request  and  command  of  Luther,  because  M.  Bucer, 
who  had  there  been  so  severely  handled  as  a  notable  enemy  of  the 
Sacrament,  had  since  been  converted."  Of  any  real  conversion  of 
Bucer  there  can  be  no  question,  but  as  he  was  then  doing  good 
work  at  Ratisbon  in  the  interests  of  the  new  Evangel  it  may  be 
that  Luther— perhaps  moved  thereto  by  his  Electer  at  the 
instance  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse — consented  to  display  such 
indulgence.  This  may  well  have  formed  the  subject  of  the  com 
munication  Hardenberg  received  from  Melanchthon,  only  that 
the  one  or  the  other,  or  possibly  both,  in  the  interests  of  the 
movement  hostile  to  Luther's  Sacramental  teaching,  distorted 
and  exaggerated  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  thus  gave  rise  to  the 
legend  of  Luther's  change  of  views. 

Support  for  it  may  also  have  been  seen  in  the  circumstance 
that  Luther,  in  spite  of  Melanchthon's  defection  on  the  doctrine 
of  the  Sacrament,  never  broke  off  his  relations  with  him.  In  his 
severe  "  Kurtz  Bekentnis  "  (1544)  he  forbore  from  attacking 
Melanchthon  either  openly  or  covertly.  Even  in  1545,  in  the 
Preface  to  his  own  Latin  works,  Luther  bestowed  his  well-known 
eulogy  on  Melanchthon's  "  Loci  theologici."3  It  has  been  pointed 
out  elsewhere  that  the  services  his  friend  rendered  him  had  been 
and  continued  to  be  too  important  to  allow  of  Luther's  breaking 
with  him.4 

Though  Luther  was  unflinching  in  his  advocacy  of  the 
Presence  of  Christ  together  with  his  pet  theories  of  Impana- 
tion  and  Ubiquity,  yet  he  waged  an  implacable  war  on  the 

1  "  N.  kirchl.  Zeitschr.,"  9,  p.  831  ff.  ;    10,  p.  455  ff. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  23,  p.  279  f.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  147  ff.  :    "  I, 
innocent  man,  am  made  the  devil's  scavenger.  .  .  .  There  was  really 
no  need  so  to  defame  my  beloved  book  behind  my  back." 

3      OPP-  lftk  var.,"  1,  p.  15.  4  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  346  ff. 


ON   THE   SAINTS  499 

Sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  As,  however,  we  have  reserved  this 
for  later  consideration  we  shall  here  only  point  out,  that 
both  his  doctrine  and  his  practice  with  regard  to  the  Sacra 
ment  of  the  Altar  suffered  by  his  unhappy  opposition  to  the 
Mass  in  which  it  is  celebrated  and  offered,  even  more  so 
than  by  the  modifications  he  had  already  introduced  into 
the  older  doctrine. 

Invocation  of  the  Saints. 

Among  those  doctrines  of  the  Church  from  which  Luther 
cut  himself  adrift  only  little  by  little  and  at  the  expense  of  a 
wrench,  must  be  numbered  those  dealing  with  the  invocation 
of  the  Saints  and  with  Purgatory. 

The  grand  and  inspiring  belief  of  the  Church  in  the 
Communion  of  Saints,  which  weaves  a  close  and  common 
band  between  the  living  and  those  souls  who  have  already 
passed  into  heaven  and  those,  again,  who  are  still  under 
going  purification,  had  at  first  taken  deep  root  in  Luther's 
mind.  Later  on,  however,  the  foundations  of  this  doctrine 
became  more  and  more  undermined,  partly  owing  to  his 
theories  on  the  Church  and  the  Mcdiatorship  of  Christ,  partly 
and  even  more  so  by  his  ardent  wish  to  strike  a  deadly  blow 
at  the  practical  life  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  all  that 
"  Popish  "  worship  had  erected  on  this  particular  doctrine. 
Veneration  of  the  Saints  and  intercession  for  the  dead 
loomed  very  large  among  the  religious  practices  dear  to  the 
Christian  people,  though,  at  that  time,  they  were  disfigured 
by  abuses.  Luther  adroitly  used  the  abuses  as  a  lever  for 
his  work. 

As  late  as  1519,  in  one  of  his  sermons,  he  urged  his  hearers  to 
call  upon  the  angels  and  the  Saints  ;  just  as  on  earth  one  Chris 
tian  may  pray  for  another  and  be  asked  for  his  prayers,  so,  as 
he  justly  remarks,  is  it  also  with  the  Saints  in  heaven.1  In  his 
Church-postils,  however,  he  raises  his  voice  to  condemn  the 
"  awful  idolatry  "  by  which  (so  he  thought)  the  "  trust  "  which 
we  should  repose  on  God  alone  was  put  in  the  Saints. 2  From  that 
time  he  never  tires  of  declaring  that  there  was  "  no  text  or 
warrant  in  Scripture  for  the  worship  of  the  Saints  "  ;  all  he  will 
sanction  is  the  humble  petition  to  the  Saints  :  "  Pray  for  me."3 
He  required  the  Wittenberg  Canons  to  erase  from  the  liturgical 
prayers  all  reference  to  the  intercession  of  the  saints,  as  mis- 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  2,  p.  696  :    Erl.  ed.,  21,  p.  272.     Kostlin, 
"  Luthers  Theol.,"  I2,  pp.  253,  371.  » -^ 

2  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  72,  p.  71  f.  3  Cp.  Kostlin,  ibid.,  p.  372. 


500          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

leading  and  likely  to  give  offence  ;x  this,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
the  liturgical  prayers  of  the  Church's  earliest  days  loudly  voice 
the  opposite  view.  The  "  Sendbrieff  von  Dolmetzschen  "of  1530 
gives  even  stronger  expression  to  his  abhorrence  for  all  invoca 
tion  of  the  Saints.  There  he  says  that  the  light  of  the  Gospel  was 
now  so  bright  that  no  one  could  find  any  excuse  for  remaining  in 
darkness. 2 

In  his  Schmalkalden  Articles  the  invocation  of  Saints  has 
become  one  of  the  "  abuses  of  Endchrist  "  ;  for  "  though  the 
angels  in  heaven  pray  for  us,"  so  he  explains,  again  reverting  to 
the  ancient  teaching  of  the  Church,  "  and  also  the  Saints  on 
earth,  and,  perhaps,  even  those  in  heaven,  yet  it  does  not  follow 
that  we  are  to  invoke  the  angels  and  the  Saints."3 

Mary. 

As  long  as  he  admitted  the  invocation  of  Saints,  Luther 
assigned  a  prominent  place  to  that  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 
"  She  is  to  be  invoked,"  he  writes  in  1521,  "  that  God  may 
give  and  do  according  to  her  will  what  we  ask."4  After  he 
had  changed  his  mind  concerning  the  saints,  he  was  un 
willing  to  allow  this  any  longer. 

Owing,  however,  to  the  after  effects  of  his  Catholic 
education,  here  particularly  noticeable  in  him,  we  meet 
with  many  beautiful  sayings  of  his  in  support  of  the  wor 
ship  of  Mary,  although  as  time  went  on  he  grew  ever  more 
hostile  to  it. 

"  You  know,"  so  he  says  in  a  sermon  published  in  1522,  "  that 
the  honour  paid  to  the  Mother  of  God  is  so  deeply  implanted  in 
the  heart  of  man  that  we  dislike  to  hear  it  spoken  against,  but 
would  much  rather  it  were  fostered  and  encouraged."5 

"  O  Blessed  Mother,"  he  had  already  said,  "  O  most  worthy 
Virgin,  be  mindful  of  us  and  grant  that  the  Lord  may  do  great 
things  in  us  also."  Such  were  his  words  in  1516  in  a  sermon  on 
the  Feast  of  the  Assumption.6 

In  the  same  year,  on  the  Feast  of  our  Lady's  Conception,  he 

1  To  the  Provost,  Canons  and  whole  Wittenberg  Chapter,  Aug.  19, 
1523,  "  Briefwechsel,"  4,  p.  212  :    "  Quamvis  private  affectui  spiritualis 
viri  indulgendum  sit,  tamen  manifestam  et  publicam  religionem  in  his 
tolerare  non  licet  propter  scandalum  ignorantium  et  infmnorum,   qui 
relicta  fide  hue  adfluunt." 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  30,  2,  p.  632  ff.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  65,  p.   119  ff. 
Cp.  "  Conf.  Aug.,"  art.  21,  and  "  Apol.,"  ad  art.  21.    Below,  p.  501. 

3  Pars  II.  art.  2,  "  Symbol.  Bucher,"10  p.  305. 

4  Ibid.,  7,  pp.  575  =  45,  p.  252.    Exposition  of  the  Magnificat. 

5  Ibid.,    10,   3,   p.   313  =  152,   p.    495.      Church-postils,   Sermon   on 
Mary's  Nativity. 

6  Ibid.,    1,   p.   79  =  "Opp.   lat.   var.,"    1,   p.    118.      Sermon  on  the 
Assumption,  Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.,"  I2,  p.  86. 


ON  THE  BLESSED  VIRGIN          501 

speaks  of  her  name,  which  he  says  is  derived  from  "  stilla  maris," 
and  extols  her  as  the  one  pure  drop  in  the  ocean  of  the  "  massa 
perditionis."1  To  his  admission  here  that  her  conception  was 
immaculate  he  was  still  true  in  1527,  as  has  already  been  shown  ; 
after  1529,  however,  the  passage  containing  this  admission  was 
expunged  when  the  sermon  in  question  was  reprinted.2  In  his 
home-postils  he  says  of  her  conception  :  "  Mary  the  Mother  was 
surely  born  of  sinful  parents,  and  in  sin,  as  we  were  "  ;  any 
explanation  of  the  universal  belief  to  the  contrary  and  of  his  own 
previous  statements  he  does  not  attempt.3 

Owing  to  his  belief  in  the  Divinity  of  the  Son,  Luther  con 
tinued  to  call  Mary  the  "  Mother  of  God."  Even  later  he  shared 
the  Catholic  view  that  Mary  by  the  overshadowing  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  and  at  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  had  been  sanctified  by  God 
as  the  instrument  of  the  great  mystery  of  the  Incarnation  through 
her  Divine  Son.4  He  was  also  firm  in  accepting  the  Virginity  of 
the  Mother  of  God  as  expressed  in  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Never 
theless,  according  to  his  own  confession,  this  appealed  to  him 
less  than  her  "  wifehood,"  and  when  praising  her  he  prefers  to 
dwell  on  the  latter,  i.e.  on  the  Virgin's  motherhood.5  Mary  was 
to  him  ever  a  Virgin,  before,  during  and  after  childbirth,  and,  in 
the  last  sermon  he  delivered  at  Eisleben  before  his  death,  he 
insists  on  this  perpetual  Virginity,  says  she  ever  remained  a 
"  pure,  chaste  maid,"  and  praises  her  humility,  because,  though 
a  "  most  pure  and  most  holy  Virgin,"  yet  after  the  birth  of  her 
Son,  obediently  to  the  Law,  she  came  to  the  Temple  to  be  purified. 6 

Luther's  work  on  the  Magnificat  (1521),  of  which  we  have 
already  spoken  (p.  237,  n.  1),  marks  a  turning-point.  Although 
much  that  it  says  of  the  greatness,  dignity  and  virtues  of  Mary 
might  well  be  quoted,  yet  it  contains  some  curiously  superfluous 
warnings,  for  instance,  not  to  look  on  Mary  as  a  "  helpful  god 
dess."7  In  spite  of  any  abuse  which  may  possibly  have  mingled 
with  her  worship,  the  Catholic  people  were  well  able  to  dis 
tinguish  between  the  veneration  and  confidence  given  to  her  and 
those  acts  of  worship  which  belong  solely  to  God.  Catholicism 
allowed  full  play  to  the  deepest  and  warmest  feelings  towards  the 
ideal  of  the  purest  of  women,  without  in  any  way  detracting  from 
the  exclusive  rights  of  her  Divine  Son  ;  on  the  contrary,  devotion 
to  the  Mother  tended  only  to  increase  the  honour  paid  to  the  Son. 

His  "  Exposition  of  the  Magnificat  "  has  frequently  been  taken 
as  a  proof  of  Luther's  great  piety.  It  indeed  contains  many  good 
thoughts,  even  apart  from  those  relating  to  Mary,  but  in  numerous 
passages  the  author  uses  his  pen  for  a  highly  prejudiced  vindica 
tion  of  his  new  teachings  on  the  state  of  grace. 

It  should  also  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  printers  started  on  the 
book  just  before  the  Diet  of  Worms,  and  that  it  was  intended  to 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  107  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  var.,"  1,  p.  150. 

2  Above,  p.  238,  n.  1.  3  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  62,  p.  433. 

4  Ibid.,  192,  p.  29  ff.  ;   37,  p.  71.    Kostlin,  ibid.,  2,  p.  135. 

5  Cp.,  ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  72,  p.  276.  6  Ibid.,  202,  2,  pp.  530-532. 

7  Ibid.,  Weim.  ed.,  7,  pp.  568,  573  f.  ;    Erl.  ed.,  45,  pp.  245,  250  f. 


502          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

attract  and  secure  the  support  of  the  future  rulers  of  the  Saxon 
Electorate.  Luther  was  also  engaged  at  that  time  on  his  ex 
ceedingly  violent  screed  against  Catharinus,  in  which  he  attempts 
to  reveal  the  Pope  in  his  true  character  as  Antichrist.  When, 
after  the  Diet  of  Worms,  he  continued  his  work  on  the  Magnificat 
he  was  certainly  in  no  mood  to  compose  a  book  of  piety  on  Mary. 
The  result  was  that  the  book  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
a  controversial  tract,  which  cannot  be  quoted  as  a  proof  of  his 
piety  or  serenity  of  mind  during  those  struggles.  Luther's 
Magnificat  is  as  little  a  serious  work  of  edification  and  piety  as 
his  exposition  of  certain  of  the  Psalms,  which  appeared  almost 
simultaneously  and  was  also  directed  "  against  the  Pope  and  the 
doctrine  of  men." 

In  the  "  Prayer-book  "  which  Luther  prepared  for  the  press  he 
retained  the  "  Hail  Mary  "  together  with  the  "  Our  Father  "  and 
the  "  I  believe,"  but  he  cut  it  down  to  the  angel's  greeting,  as 
contained  in  the  Bible,  and  taught  that  thereby  honour  was  merely 
to  be  given  God  for  the  grace  announced  to  Mary.1  He  frequently 
preached,  e.g.  in  1523,  on  the  wrong  use  of  this  prayer.2 

In  the  Augsburg  Confession,  Melanchthon,  when  rejecting  the 
invocation  of  the  Saints,  made  no  exception  in  favour  of  Mary. 
Yet  in  the  "  Apologia  "  of  the  Confession  also  composed  by  him, 
he  says,  that  "  Mary  prays  for  the  Church,"  that  she  is  "  most 
worthy  of  the  greatest  honour  "  ("  dignissima  amplissimis 
honoribus  "),  but  is  not  to  be  made  equal  to  Christ,  as  the  Catholics 
fancied. 3 

Luther  did  not  merely  reproach  the  Catholics  for  making  a 
goddess  of  Mary  ;  he  even  ventured  some  remarks  scarcely  to 
the  credit  of  the  Mother  of  God  ;  for  a  while,  so  he  says,  she  had 
possessed  only  a  small  measure  of  faith  and  God  had  sometimes 
allowed  her  to  waver  ;  such  statements  were  due  to  his  idea  that 
all  Christians,  in  order  to  preserve  a  firm  faith  in  their  hearts, 
must  ever  be  waging  battle.  On  these  statements,  Eck,  in  his 
Homilies,  was  very  severe.4 

An  attitude  hostile  to  all  the  Catholic  veneration  for  Mary  is 
expressed  by  Luther  in  a  sermon  in  1522  on  the  Feast  of  our 
Lady's  Nativity,  included  in  his  church-postils.  It  is  true  that  we 
"  owe  honour  to  Mary,"  he  says,  rather  frigidly,  at  the  very 
beginning,  "  but  we  must  take  care  that  we  honour  her  aright." 
He  proceeds  to  explain  that  "  we  have  gone  too  far  in  honouring 
her  and  esteem  her  more  highly  than  we  should."  For  in  the 
first  place  we  have  thereby  "  disparaged  "  Christ,  the  Redeemer, 
and  "  by  the  profound  honour  paid  to  the  Mother  of  God 
derogated  from  the  honour  and  knowledge  of  Christ  "  ;  secondly, 
the  honour  due  to  our  fellow-men  and  the  love  of  the  poor  has 
thereby  been  forgotten.  If  it  is  a  question  of  honouring  anyone 

1  Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  574  f. 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  11,  p.  59  f.    On  March  11,  1523. 

3  Miiller-Kolde,  "  Symb.  Biicher,"10  p.  227. 

4  "Horn,  de  temp.,"  Aug.  Vindel.,  1533   ("  Opp.,"  torn.  5,  pars  1), 
fol.  55'. 


ON  THE  BLESSED   VIRGIN        503 

on  account  of  his  holiness,  "  then  we  are  just  as  holy  as  Mary  and 
the  other  Saints,  however  great,  provided  we  believe  in  Christ." 
That  she  "  has  a  greater  grace,"  viz.  a  higher  dignity  as  the 
Mother  of  God,  "  is  not  due  to  any  merit  of  hers,  but  simply 
because  we  cannot  all  be  Mothers  of  God  ;  otherwise  she  is  on 
the  same  level  with  us."1 

Of  the  anthem  "  Salve  Regina,"  which  is  "  sung  throughout 
the  world  to  the  ringing  of  great  bells,"  he  says,  that  it  was  a 
"  great  blasphemy  against  God,"  for  it  terms  Mary,  the  mother  of 
mercy,  our  life,  our  sweetness  and  our  hope.  "  The  '  Regina 
Caeli  '  is  not  much  better,  since  it  calls  her  Queen  of  Heaven." 
Why  should  her  prayers  have  so  much  value,  he  asks,  as  though 
unaware  of  the  explanations  given  by  so  many  ecclesiastical 
writers,  particularly  by  St.  Bernard.  "  Your  prayers,  O  Christian, 
are  as  dear  to  me  as  hers.  And  why  ?  Because  if  you  believe 
that  Christ  lives  in  you  as  much  as  in  her  then  you  can  help  me  as 
much  as  she."2 

In  this  discourse  again  he  ventures  on  the  calumny  on  the 
Catholic  veneration  of  Mary,  of  which  he  was  to  make  such 
frequent  use  later  ;  it  is  equivalent  to  adoration  ;  "To  seek  to 
make  of  Mary  an  idol,  that  we  cannot  and  may  not  do.  We  will 
not  have  her  as  a  mediator,  but  as  an  advocate  [to  this  Luther 
always  clung]  we  will  gladly  accept  her,  like  the  other  Saints. 
But  people  have  put  her  above  all  the  choirs  of  angels."3  Neither 
here  nor  elsewhere  does  he  attempt  to  prove  her  alleged  adora 
tion  or  the  idolatry  of  the  Catholics  ;  when,  a  little  further  on, 
he  launches  forth  against  the  pilgrimages  made  by  common  folk 
to  churches  and  chapels  of  our  Lady,  he  is  straying  from  the 
subject  and  dealing  with  a  practice  of  the  faithful,  quite  harm 
less  and  wholesome  in  itself,  whatever  abuses  it  may  then  have 
involved. 

The  veneration  for  the  holy  Mother  of  the  Redeemer,  that  high 
ideal  of  humility  and  purity  of  heart,  so  devoid  of  the  slightest 
trace  of  sensuality,  springs  from  the  soil  of  humility,  chastity 
and  pure,  unselfish  love.  Luther's  whole  mental  outlook  was  not 
too  favourable  to  such  necessary  dispositions.  His  moral  char 
acter,  as  exhibited  more  particularly  during  the  period  after  his 
stay  at  the  Wartburg  and  previous  to  his  marriage,  scarcely 
harmonised  with  the  delicate  blossoms  of  this  cultus,  nor  can 
we  be  surprised,  looking  at  it  psychologically,  that  the  chief 
alteration  in  his  views  took  place  just  at  this  time. 

That  hostile  instinct,  shared  by  so  many  heretics  in  their 
attitude  towards  the  most  holy  of  women,  outweighed  in  his  soul 
the  vestiges  of  Catholic  feeling  he  still  retained.  Malice  impelled 
him  to  blacken  the  honour  which  the  people  loved  to  pay  to 
Mary  ;  this  he  strove  to  paint  as  mere  idolatry,  seeking  unceasingly 
to  affix  this  stigma  on  Catholicism.  Controversy  stifled  in  him 
the  impulse  to  that  pious  veneration  which  he  himself  had 
admitted  to  be  so  well-founded  and  so  natural. 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  3,  p.  113  ff  ;    Erl.  ed.,  152,  p.  495  f. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  321  f.  =  499.  3  Ibid.,  p.  325  =  501. 


504          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 


Purgatory. 

In  the  Schmalkalden  Articles  the  olden  doctrine  of 
Purgatory  was  rejected  by  Luther  as  follows  :  Purgatory, 
"  with  all  its  pomp,  worship  and  traffic,  must  be  held  to  be 
nothing  more  than  a  mere  phantom  of  the  devil,"  born  of 
"  that  dragon's  tail  "  the  Mass.1 

Although  in  this  condemnation  Luther's  customary 
polemical  exaggeration  of  abuses  clearly  plays  a  part,  yet 
from  his  Indulgence  Theses  and  "  Resolutions  "  down  to 
the  sentence  in  the  Articles  of  Schmalkalden  the  working  of 
his  mind  can  clearly  be  traced,  expressed  as  it  is,  now  in 
rejection  on  principle,  and  on  theological  or  biblical  grounds, 
now  in  opportunist  and  cynical  attacks  on  the  Church's 
ancient  doctrine  of  Purgatory.  The  temporal  penalties 
which,  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  must  be  paid 
by  the  suffering  souls  notwithstanding  their  state  of  grace, 
found  no  place  in  Luther's  new  theory  of  a  faith  which 
covered  over  everything.  According  to  the  usual  view 
venial  sins  also  are  forgiven  in  the  next  world,  thanks  to  the 
purifying  pains  of  Purgatory.  But  of  venial  sins  as  distinct 
from  grievous  sins  Luther  refused  to  hear.  He  had  nothing 
but  evasive  replies  to  the  objection  which  presented  itself 
of  its  own  accord,  viz.  that  mortals  when  they  die  often 
seem  ripe  neither  for  heaven  nor  for  hell.2 

At  first  Luther  was  content  to  modify  merely  the 
doctrine  of  Purgatory  which  is  so  deeply  implanted  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  Christian,  by  denying  that  it  was 
capable  of  making  satisfaction  while  nevertheless  assert 
ing  his  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  place  of  purgation  ("  mihi 
certissimum  est,  purgatorium  esse  ")  ;3  then  he  devoted  him 
self  to  countering  the  many  legends  and  popular  tales  of 
the  appearance  of  ghosts,  a  comparatively  easy  task.4  The 
Pope,  he  went  on  to  say,  had  merely  made  Purgatory  an 
article  of  faith  in  order  to  enrich  himself  and  his  followers 

1  Muller-Kolde,  ibid.,  p.  303. 

2  K.  Hase,  "  Hdb.  der  prot.  Polemik,"  Buch  2,  KapiteJ  6  :    "  Most 
mortals  are  too  good  for  hell,  but  assuredly  not  good  enough  for  heaven. 
We  may  as  well  openly  admit  that  there  is  something  not  quite  clear 
here  in  the  Protestantism  of  the  Reformation." 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,   1,  p.  555;      "  Opp.    lat.  var.,"   1,  p.   177. 
Resolutions  on  the  Indulgence  Theses.    Thesis  15. 

4  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  10,  1,  1,  p.  585  ;   Erl.  ed.,  102,  p.  354. 


ON  PURGATORY  505 

by  Masses  for  the  Dead,  though  in  fact  "  it  may  be  that  only 
very  few  souls  go  there." 

Later  he  preferred  to  think,  that  God  had  in  reality  told 
us  practically  nothing  about  the  existence  or  non-existence 
of  Purgatory,  or  of  the  condition  of  the  Saints  in  heaven  ; 
the  preachers  would  do  well,  he  says,  gradually  to  wean 
the  people  from  their  practices  in  this  regard  ;  they  had 
merely  to  decline  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  dead  and  of 
the  Saints  in  heaven.  He  was  indeed  unwilling  to  sever  the 
close  ties,  so  dear  to  the  Catholic,  binding  the  faithful  to 
the  deceased  members  of  his  family  and  to  the  beloved 
patterns  and  heroes  of  former  days,  yet  his  writings  do  tend 
in  that  direction. 

From  1522  onward  he  inclined  strongly  to  the  idea  that 
those  who  passed  away  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  from  which 
they  would  awaken  only  on  the  day  of  Judgment ;  those 
who  had  breathed  their  last  in  the  faith  of  Christ  would  all, 
so  he  fancies,  sleep  as  in  Abraham's  bosom  ;  but  since  this 
depended  on  the  "  good  pleasure  of  God,"  it  was  not  for 
bidden  "  to  pray  for  the  dead  "  ;  the  petition  must,  how 
ever,  be  cautiously  worded,  for  instance,  as  follows  :  "I 
beseech  Thee  for  this  soul  which  may  be  sleeping  or  suffering  ; 
if  it  be  suffering,  I  implore  Thee,  if  it  be  Thy  Divine 
Will,  to  deliver  it."  After  praying  thus  once  or  twice, 
then  "  let  it  be."1  In  1528  we  still  meet,  in  his  writ 
ings,  with  similar  concessions  to  the  olden  teaching  and 
practice.2 

In  1530,  however,  his  writing  "  Widderruff  vom  Fege- 
feur,"3  made  an  end  of  all  concessions  ;  here  he  is  compelled 
to  combat  the  "  shouting  and  boasting  of  the  Papists,"  for 
the  "  lies  and  abominations  of  the  sophists  with  regard  to 
Purgatory  "  had  passed  all  endurance.  He  now  wants  the 
sleep  of  the  soul  to  be  understood  as  a  state  of  happy  peace, 
and  when  it  becomes  a  question  of  answering  the  Bible 
passage  alleged  by  the  Catholics,  viz.  2  Machabees  xii.  45  f., 
where  it  is  said  of  the  offering  made  for  the  fallen,  that  it 
is  "  a  holy  and  wholesome  thought  to  pray  for  the  dead 
that  they  may  be  loosed  from  sins,"  Luther  simply  strikes 

1  Cp.,  ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  132,  p.  2  ff.  ;    152,  p.  521  ;    172,  p.  55. 

2  In  the  "  Bekentnis  "  also,  ibid.,  Weini.  ed.,  26,  p.  508  ;   in  Erl.  ed., 
30,  p.  370,  prayer  for  the  dead  is  left  optional. 

3  Ibid.,  Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  184  ff. 


506          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

out  this  book  from  the  Canon  of  Scripture,  as  indeed  he  had 
done  even  previously  ;  the  Church,  so  his  curious  argument 
ran,  could  not  bestow  more  authority  and  force  on  a  book 
than  it  possessed  of  itself,  because  the  sacred  books  must 
themselves  bear  witness  to  their  inspiration. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  enumerate  in  detail  the  other 
points  of  theology  on  which  he  set  himself  to  oppose  the 
Catholic  teaching  he  had  himself  in  earlier  days  advocated, 
sometimes  on  excellent  grounds.  We  know  his  exclamation  : 
Were  I  to  teach  to-day  everything  that  I  formerly  taught, 
particularly  in  the  beginning,  then  "  I  should  be  obliged  to 
worship  the  Pope."  Moreover,  not  only  were  there  contra 
dictions  due  to  his  falling  away  from  doctrines  of  the  Church 
which  he  had  formerly  vindicated,  but  also  many  others 
resulting  from  his  modification  of  his  own  views,  or  implied 
in  his  new  opinions. 

His  views  on  indulgences,  satisfaction,  penance  and 
contrition,  original  sin  and  predestination,  on  marriage, 
priestly  ordination,  spiritual  jurisdiction  and  secular  au 
thority,  on  Councils  and  the  Roman  Primacy,  have  already 
been  dealt  with  historically  in  what  has  gone  before.  Other 
points  of  doctrine  will  have  to  be  discussed  elsewhere  in  a 
different  connection  ;  for  instance,  the  far-reaching  question 
of  the  Church  and  her  visibility  and  invisibility,  and — what 
is  of  no  less  importance  for  a  due  appreciation  of  the  man — 
the  end  of  all  and  the  devil. 

One  only  point,  on  which  indeed  Luther  opposed  the 
doctrine  and  practice  of  the  Church  with  all  his  heart  and 
soul,  must  here  be  considered  more  closely. 

6.  Luther's  Attack  on  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass 

All  Luther's  new  doctrines  referred  to  above  might  be 
regarded  in  the  light  of  attacks  on  the  Church's  teaching 
and  practice.  None  of  his  theological  views  were  put 
forward  by  him  merely  to  be  discussed  in  the  calm  domain 
of  thought.  They  are  always  quickened  by  his  hatred  of 
the  Church  and  the  antichristian  Papacy.  This  holds  good 
in  particular  of  his  antagonism  to  the  sacrificial  character  of 
the  Mass. 

By  his  violent  assault  on  the  Mass  he  robbed  the  churches 


THE  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  MASS       507 

and  public  worship  of  the  Holy  Sacrifice,1  and  removed  the 
very  focus  of  Divine  service  in  the  Church. 

Whereas  to  the  Catholic  Church  the  celebration  of  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Altar  was  always  a  true  sacrifice  of  praise, 
thanksgiving  and  atonement,  which  Christ,  as  the  High 
Priest,  offers  to  the  Eternal  Father  through  the  instrumen 
tality  of  a  priest,  according  to  Luther  it  is  merely  a  memorial 
on  the  part  of  the  congregation,  which  stimulates  faith  and 
gives  a  public  testimony  to  God's  glory.2  In  1538  he 
characterised  the  struggle  against  the  Mass  as  one  vital  to 
the  new  faith  ; 3  he  was  very  well  aware  how  closely  allied 
it  was  with  the  worship  to  which  he  himself  had  once  been 
devoted  :  "  Had  any  man  twenty  years  ago  tried  to  rob  me 
of  the  Mass,  I  should  have  come  to  blows  with  him."4 

Sacrifice  is  the  supreme  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 
popular  expression  of  the  worship  of  God.  "  From  the 
rising  of  the  sun  even  to  the  going  down,"  the  Prophet 
Malachias  had  prophesied  (i.  11),  "  my  name  is  great  among 
the  Gentiles,  and  in  every  place  there  is  sacrifice,  and  there 
is  offered  to  my  name  a  clean  oblation,"  viz.  the  Eucharist. 
The  common  oblation  throughout  Christendom  formed  a 
sublime  bond  uniting  all  the  Christian  nations  of  the  earth 
in  one  holy  family.  The  words  of  Christ  concerning  the 
"  Body  that  is  given  for  you,"  and  "  Blood  that  is  shed  for 
you  "  were  rightly  regarded  as  proving  both  the  institution 
of  the  common  sacrifice  and  its  atoning  power. 

1  That  a  sacrifice  had  been  made  of   the  Mass  appeared  to  him 
"  Idolatry  and  a  shameful  abuse,"  a  "  twofold  impiety  and  abomina 
tion  "  ;    its  abomination  no  tongue  could  express.     "  Werke,"  Weim. 
ed.,  8,  pp.  489,  493  ;   Erl.  ed.,  28,  pp.  38,  45  f.  ;   60,  pp.  403  f.,  396. 

2  Kostlin,   "  Luthers  Theol.,"   22,  p.   243.     There  were,   however, 
always  some  voices  raised  amongst  Protestants  to  demand  that  the 
"  Sacrifice  and  Atonement  "   under  some  shape   or  form  should  be 
insisted  on  more  than  the  sermon.     The  Presence  of  Christ,  as  taught 
by  Luther,  although  this  Presence  did  not  involve  a  sacrifice,   was 
made  use  of  to  oppose  any  further  denuding  of  worship.     "  No  longer 
is  the  Sacrifice  and  the  Atonement  which  takes  place  at  the  Altar  to  be 
the  centre  of  Divine  worship,"  Pastor  E.  Strack  wrote  in  1904,  in  "  Der 
alte  Glaube,"  1903-4,  5,  col.  1255,  "  but,  according  to  modern  views, 
God  is  merely  present  in  the  listening  congregation  by  virtue  of  the 
Word  preached  from  the  pulpit.     Hence  the  pulpit  becomes  the  central 
point,  the  altar  an  accessory.     To  this  we  cannot  agree.     Without 
atonement  we  have  no  God  ;  hence  no  altar  either  .   .   .  and  no  pulpit." 

3  Lauterbach,    "  Tagebuch,"   p.    24  :    "  Stante   missa   Lutherus   est 
damnatus,  ruente  missa  tolum  fundamentum  papas  corruit." 

4  Ibid.,  p.  19  :  "  nam  ego  toto  pectore  illam  adorabam."    But  cp.  below, 
p.  509,  n.  2. 


508          LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

Luther  not  only  burst  asunder  the  bond  of  unity,  but  also 
overthrew  the  altar  of  sacrifice.  It  is  against  the  correct 
idea  of  Divine  worship  to  deprive  it  of  all  sacrifice,  and  to 
make  its  principal  object  consist  in  the  edification  and 
instruction  of  the  congregation,  as  Luther  decreed.  Here 
again  we  see  Luther's  individualism  and  the  stress  he  laid  on 
the  subjective  side,  even  to  the  extent  of  robbing  religion 
of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb,  which  had  the  misfortune  to 
be  independent  of  fortuitous  piety.  The  very  walls  of  his 
temples  seemed  to  utter  a  chill  protest  against  being  given 
over  to  a  worship  so  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  feelings  of 
the  visitor.  Luther  was  against  the  abuses  connected  with 
the  Mass,  and  so  were  all  well-instructed  Catholics.  But 
the  latter  argued,  that,  in  spite  of  the  abuses,  the  Mass 
must  be  honoured  as  the  sacrifice  on  which  the  spiritual  life 
rests.  To  the  many  contradictions  of  which  he  was  guilty 
Luther  added  a  further  one,  viz.  of  advocating  as  a  purer 
and  higher  worship,  one  that  does  not  even  come  up  to  the 
true  standard  of  worship.  (See  vol.  v.,  xxix.,  9). 

Luther's  deep-seated  and  almost  instinctive  antipathy  to 
the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  affords  us,  in  its  various  phases, 
a  good  insight  into  his  plan  of  campaign.  On  no  other  point 
does  his  hate  flame  forth  so  luridly,  nowhere  else  is  he  so 
defiant,  so  contemptuous  and  so  noisy — save  perhaps  when 
attacking  Popery — as  when  assailing  the  Sacrifice  of  the 
Mass,  that  main  bulwark  of  the  Papacy.  One  thing  is  certain ; 
of  all  the  religious  practices  sacred  to  Catholics  none  was 
branded  by  him  with  such  hideous  and  common  abuse  as 
this,  the  sublimest  mystery  of  faith  and  of  Divine  Love. 

First  Attacks.  "  On  the  Abomination  of  the  Silent  Mass." 
In  spite  of  Luther's  assurance  given  above  of  his  former 
high  regard  for  the  Mass,  he  must  quite  early  have  grown 
averse  to  it,  probably  at  the  time  when  his  zeal  in  the 
religious  life  first  began  to  flag. 

Even  in  1516  we  learn  from  his  correspondence  that  he 
rarely  found  time  for  its  celebration  or  for  the  recitation  of 
the  Canonical  Hours.1  At  a  much  later  date  he  lets  fall  the 
remark,  that  he  had  never  liked  saying  Mass.2  In  view  of 
his  disturbed  state  of  soul  we  can  readily  credit  what  he 
says,  viz.  that,  in  the  monastery  Gabriel  Bid's  book  on  the 
1  Above,  vol.  i.,  p.  275.  2  Ibid.,  p.  276. 


THE  SACRIFICE  OF  THE  MASS       509 

Mass,  in  which  the  dignity  of  the  Holy  Sacrifice  is  extolled 
with  the  voices  of  antiquity,  had  often  made  his  heart  bleed.1 
It  is  rather  curious,  that,  according  to  his  own  account,  it 
was  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  Mass  after  ordination  that 
his  morbid  state  of  fear  showed  itself  strongly  for  the  first 
time.2  No  less  remarkable  is  it  that  his  most  extravagant 
self-reproaches  for  his  past  life  had  reference  to  his  saying 
Mass.  He  tells  us  how,  even  long  after  his  apostasy,  he  had 
often  been  brought  to  the  verge  of  despair  by  the  recollection 
of  the  terrible  sin  of  saying  Mass  whereby  he  had  at  one 
time  openly  defied  and  offended  God.  He  morbidly  per 
suades  himself  that  he  had  been  guilty  of  the  most  frightful 
idolatry ;  that,  as  a  priest  and  monk,  he  had  performed  the 
most  criminal  of  actions,  one  subversive  of  all  religion,  in 
spite  of  his  having  done  so  in  ignorance  and  in  perfect  good 
faith.3 

In  his  sermons  on  the  Commandments,  published  in  1518, 
we  still  find  a  tribute  to  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  as  Catholics 
understood  it.1  But  in  his  "  Sermon  von  dem  hochwirdigen 
Sacrament  des  heyligen  waren  Leychnams  Christi  "  of  1519 
he  is  curiously  reticent  concerning  the  nature  of  the  Mass, 
whilst  expressly  recommending  and  praising  the  communion 
of  the  congregation — under  both  kinds — as  the  work  of  that 
faith  "  wherein  strength  lies."5 

The  first  open  attack  on  the  Holy  Sacrifice  was  made  in 
his  "  Sermon  von  dem  ncwen  Testament  das  ist  von  der 
heyligen  Messe "  (1520).  The  latter  appeared  almost 
simultaneously  with  his  "  An  den  christlichen  Adel  "  and 
prepared  the  way  for  his  subversive  treatment  of  the  Mass 
in  his  "  De  captivitate  babylonica."  In  the  Sermon  he 

1  Lauterbach,  "  Tagebuch,"  p.  18. 

2  Cp.  vol.  i.,  p.    15  f.  and,  besides  the  references  given  there,  a 
passage  from  George  Rorer's  MS.  of  the  Table-Talk,  given  by  E.  Kroker, 
"  Archiv  fur  RG.,"  5,  1908,  p.  354,  where  Luther,  in  a  paroxysm  of 
terror  at  the  words  of  the  Canon  "  offero  tibi  Deo  vivo  ceterno  [sic],"  says  : 
"  Sic  pcrterrefiebam,  ut  ab  altari  discedere  cogitabam,  et  fecissem,  nisi  me 
retinuisset  metis  prceceptor,  quia  cogitavi  :   Who  is  He  with  Whom  you 
are  speaking  ?    From  that  time  forward  I  said  Mass  with  terror,  and  I 
am  thankful  to  God  that  He  has  released  me  from  it." 

3  On  a  solemn  occasion,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  "  Vom  Abendmal 
Christi  Bekentnis,"  in  1528,  he  has  it,  that,  though  he  had  "  spent  his 
youth  damnably,"  yet  his  having  been  a  monk  and  his  having  said 
Mass  had  been  his  greatest  sins.     See  below,  p.  524. 

4  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  1,  p.  443  ff.  ;    "  Opp.  lat.  exeg.,"  12,  pp.  81, 
83  seq. 

5  Ibid.,  2,  p.  738  ff.  ;   Erl.  ed.,  27,  p.  25  ff. 


510          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

declared  that  it  was  "  almost  the  worst  abuse,"  that  in  the 
older  Church  the  Eucharistic  celebration  had  been  turned 
into  a  sacrifice  to  be  offered  to  God.1  Statements  such  as 
these  predominate  in  the  virulent  chapter  devoted  to  the 
Mass  in  the  "  De  captivitate  babylonica  "  :  Christ's  sacrifice 
on  the  cross  had  been  made  out  to  be  insufficient  and  the 
Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  set  up  in  its  place  ;  the  Supper  was 
the  Lord's  work  for  us,  but,  by  ascribing  a  sacrificial  value 
to  the  Mass,  it  becomes  a  work  of  man  for  God,  whereby  man 
hopes  to  please  God. 

The  close  ties  connecting  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  with 
both  the  Church's  ancient  traditions  and  the  institution  of 
Christ  are  here  ruthlessly  torn  asunder.  A  lurid  and  grossly 
exaggerated  account  of  the  abuses  which  had  arisen  in  con 
nection  with  the  money-offerings  for  Masses  served  to 
stimulate  the  struggle,  essentials  faring  as  badly  as  what  was 
merely  accidental. 

At  the  Wartburg  the  "  Spirit  "  of  the  place  further 
excited  Luther's  hatred  of  the  Mass.  He  poked  fun  at  the 
"  Mass-priest  "  who  served  the  stronghold  and  wrote  to 
Melanchthon  :  "  Never  to  all  eternity  shall  I  say  another 
Low  Mass." 2  This  he  says  in  the  same  letter  which  witnesses 
to  his  inner  contest  writh  the  monastic  vows,  and  in  which  we 
find  the  sentence  :  "  Be  a  sinner  and  sin  boldly  but  believe 
more  boldly  still."3  At  the  time  of  his  spiritual  baptism  in 
the  Wartburg  he  also  wrote  both  his  "  De  abroganda  missa  " 
and  his  "  De  votis  monasticis."  The  former  he  published  in 
1522,  also  in  a  German  version  entitled  "  Vom  Missbrauch 
der  Messen." 

This  was  the  bugle-call  to  the  struggle  he  immediately 
commenced  at  Wittenberg  against  the  continued  celebra 
tion  of  Mass  by  the  Catholic  clergy  in  the  Castle  and 
Collegiate  churches  of  the  town.  We  have  already  treated 
of  the  phases  of  that  campaign  in  which  his  impetuosity 
and  intolerance  manifested  itself  in  all  its  nakedness.4  From 
the  inglorious  combat,  thanks  to  the  help  of  the  mob,  he 
was  to  come  forth  victorious.  On  Christmas  Day,  1524,  for 
the  first  time,  there  was  no  Mass,  and  in  the  following  year 
Justus  Jonas  wrote  of  the  completion  of  the  work  :  "  On  the 

1  Ibid.,  6,  p.  364  ff.  =  27,  p.  155  if. 

2  Aug.  1,  1521,  "  Brief wechsel/'  3,  p.  208. 

3  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  194  ff,  4  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  88  f. ,  327  ft 


Saturday  after  the  Feast  of  St.  Matthew  the  Apostle  and 
Evangelist,  the  whole  Pope  .  .  .  was  flung  out  of  All  Saints' 
church  at  Wittenberg,  together  with  the  stoles,  albs,  etc.  ; 
the  olden  ceremonies  were  replaced  by  pious  ones  such  as 
accord  with  Scripture."1 

Luther  was  convinced  that  the  "  whole  Pope  "  could  not 
be  destroyed  throughout  the  world  save  by  the  abolition 
everywhere  of  the  Mass.  "  When  once  the  Mass  has  been 
put  away,"  he  declares  in  1522,  in  his  screed  against 
Henry  VIII.,  "  then  I  shall  think  I  have  overthrown  the 
Pope  completely."2 

In  this  writing  his  consciousness  of  his  mission  and  his 
defiant  insistence  on  the  new  teaching  were  largely  directed 
against  that  palladium  of  the  old  Church  :  "  Through  me 
Christ  has  begun  to  reveal  the  abomination  standing  in  the 
Holy  Place  "  (Dn.  ix.  27).  It  is  in  denying  the  sacrificial 
character  of  the  Mass  that  he  uses  those  odd  words  of 
bravado  :  "  Here  I  stand,  here  I  sit,  here  I  remain,  here  I 
defy  with  contempt  the  whole  assembly  of  the  Papists,"  etc.3 

The  last  act  in  his  warfare  on  the  Mass  at  the  Collegiate 
church  of  Wittenberg  had  been  anticipated  by  Luther's 
stormy  sermon  against  the  Canon  of  the  Mass  (Nov.  27, 
1524).4  This  identical  sermon,  taken  down  by  his  pupil 
George  Rorer,  formed  the  groundwork  of  the  writing  he 
published  in  1525,  "  Von  dem  Grewel  der  Stillmesse  so  man 
den  Canon  nennet."5 

Here  he  proceeds  on  the  curious  assumption,  only  to  be  ex 
plained  by  his  perverted  enthusiasm,  that  the  mere  bringing  to 
light  of  the  Canon  (i.e.  of  the  principal  part  of  the  Mass,  which 
includes  the  Consecration  and  which  the  priest  reads  in  silence) 
will  suffice  to  bring  about  the  fall  of  the  whole  Eucharistic  ritual. 
The  passionate,  cynical  commentary  which  he  appended  to  the 
translation,  was,  however,  far  more  effective. 

The  author  seems  not  in  the  least  to  realise  that  the  Canon  of 
the  Mass  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  most  authentic  echoes  of 
the  early  Western  Church.  It  contains  sublime  religious  ideas 
couched  in  the  simple  yet  impressive  language  of  the  remotest 
ages  of  the  Church  when  she  was  still  in  touch  with  classical 

1  To  Spalatin,   Sep.   23,   1525.     Cp.   "  Briefwechsel  des  Jonas,"   1, 
p.  94. 

2  See  vol.  ii.,  p.  320. 

3  Ibid.  *  Ibid.,  p.  328. 

5  On  Rorer's  work  and  its  connection  with  the  wriiting  mentioned, 
gee  Weim.  ed.,  28,  p.  22  ff. 


512          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

culture.1  Yet  Luther's  opinion  is  that :  "  It  must  have  been 
composed  by  some  unlettered  monk."2 

He  concludes  the  booklet  with  a  specimen  of  his  usual  language  : 
"  See,  there  you  have  heard  the  holy,  silent  Mass  and  now  know 
what  it  is,  that  you  may  stand  aghast  at  it  and  cross  yourself  as 
though  you  saw  the  devil  as  large  as  life."  He  exhorts  the  reader 
to  thank  God,  that  "  such  an  abomination  has  been  brought 
to  light,"  and  "  that  the  great  whore  of  Babylon  has  been 
exposed." 

At  the  same  time  he  tells  the  secular  authorities  that  it  is  their 
bounden  duty  to  interfere  "  by  means  of  the  law  "  against  such 
defamation  of  the  name  of  God  ;  "  for  when  an  impudent  rascal 
openly  blasphemes  God  in  the  street,  or  curses  and  swears,  and  the 
authorities  permit  it,  they  become  in  the  sight  of  God  partners  in 
his  wickedness.  And  if  in  some  regions  it  is  forbidden  to  curse  or 
swear,  much  more  just  were  it  that  the  secular  lords  should  here 
do  something  to  prevent  and  to  punish,  because  such  blaspheming 
and  defaming  in  the  Mass  is  quite  as  public  and  as  open  as  when 
a  knave  blasphemes  in  the  street.  If  one  is  punishable,  the  other 
is  surely  no  less  so."3 

Thus  Luther's  attacks  on  the  Mass  in  a  fatal  way  became  one 
of  the  quicksands  on  which  the  theory  of  freedom  of  conscience 
and  worship  which  he  had  put  forth  at  the  commencement 
suffered  shipwreck. 4  Even  in  the  question  of  the  Mass  at  Witten 
berg  he  had  formerly  insisted,  in  opposition  to  Carlstadt's  violent 
proceedings,  that  no  religious  compulsion  should  be  exercised  ; 
this  he  did,  for  instance,  in  the  sermons  he  preached  against 
Carlstadt's  undertaking  and  particularly  in  that  on  Low  Masses,5 
where  he  declared  that  faith  cannot  he  held  captive  or  bound, 
that  each  one  must  see  for  himself  what  is  right  or  wrong  and  is 
not  simply  to  fall  in  with  the  "  general  opinion  or  to  yield  to 
compulsion."  His  words  were  an  honourable  declaration  in 
favour  of  freedom  of  conscience.  And  now,  in  his  warfare  against 
his  fantastic  caricature  of  the  Mass,  not  theoretically  only  but  in 
practice  too  (for  besides  Wittenberg,  there  was  also  Altenburg 
and  Erfurt)6  he  placed  the  Mass,  the  most  sacred  centre  of  the 
Church's  worship,  on  a  level  with  criminal  deeds  and  invited  the 

1  F.  Probst,  "  Die  Liturgie  der  drei  ersten  Jahrh.,"  1870,  p.  349  ff. 
P.  Drews,  "  Zur  Entstehungsgesch.  des  Kanons  der  rom.  Messe,"  1902, 
p.  39  ff.    F.  X.  Funk,  "  t)ber  den  Kanon."  ("  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  24,  1903), 
pp.  62  ff.,  283  ff.  (against  Drews).     A.  Baumstark,  "  Liturgia  romana 
e  liturgia  dell'  esarcato,  Origini  del  canon  missse  romanse,"    1904  (see 
"  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  25,  1904,  p.  859  ;  cp.,ibid.,  31,  1910,  p.  596).    P.  Drews, 
"  Untersuchungen  iiber  die  sog.  klementinische  Liturgie,"  1  TL,   1907 
(see  "  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  28,  1907,  p.  166).    N.  Gihr,  "  Das  hi.  Messopfer  "10, 
1907. 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  119,  in  1540. 

3  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  36  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  132  f. 

4  Cp.  vol.  ii.,  p.  311. 

5  Kostlin,  "  Luthers  Theol.,"   I2,  p.  338.     "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  28, 
pp.  216ft.,  258  ff. 

6  Vol.  ii.,  pp.  326  ff.,  336  ff. 


THE   SACRIFICE   OF   THE  MASS        513 

magistrates  to  treat  it  as  a  sacrilege,  since  it  was  the  duty  of 
authority  "to  check  all  outbreaks  of  wickedness."1 

When  Johann  Eck  took  up  his  pen  to  refute  Luther's 
;'  Von  dem  Grewel  der  Stillmesse  "  he  felt  it  almost  super 
fluous  to  prove  how  unfounded  the  latter's  assertions  were, 
that,  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  Catholics  "  denied  in  deed 
and  in  their  heart  that  Christ  had  blotted  out  sin  "2  by  His 
Sacrifice  on  Golgotha,  or  that  they  maintained,  that,  not  the 
merits  of  Christ,  but  rather  "  our  works,  must  effect  this."3 
He  enters  at  greater  length  into  the  theological  proofs  of 
the  truly  sacrificial  character  of  the  consecration  and  of  the 
correctness  and  value  of  the  Canon,  supplementing  the 
biblical  passages  on  the  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Covenant  by 
the  clear  and  definite  witness  of  tradition.4 

He  and  his  Catholic  readers  were,  however,  quite  prepared 
to  find  Luther  refusing  even  to  listen  to  such  proofs  taken 
from  tradition.  "  Ah,  bah,  tradition  this  way,  tradition 
that !  "  he  had  already  cried,  with  regard  to  this  very  question, 
when  striving  to  shake  himself  free  of  the  fetters  of  the 
Church's  doctrine. 

Eck,  however,  also  attacked  Luther  from  another  point. 
Luther  had  placed  in  the  very  forefront  of  his  writing  the 
assertion,  that  he  had  never  advised  the  people  to  have 
recourse  to  violent  measures,  whether  with  regard  to  the 
Mass  or  the  Catholic  worship  generally,  or  invited  them  to 
revolt ;  in  the  preface  Eck  accordingly  promises  to  take  him 
to  task  both  concerning  the  Canon  and  for  his  responsibility 
in  the  rising.  "  I  shall,  please  God,  prove  Luther  a  liar  on 
both  counts."  He  convicts  him  of  inciting  to  revolt  on  the 
strength  of  "  five  proofs  "  taken  from  various  works  of  his. 

The  pecuniary  aspect  of  the  Mass  supplied  Luther  and 
the  preachers  with  an  effective  means  of  exciting  the  people 
which  they  were  not  slow  to  seize.  The  abuses,  real  or 
apparent,  of  the  system  of  Mass-stipends,  were  worked  to 
their  utmost  by  the  demagogues. 

1  After  Kostlin  (ibid.,  p.  340),  who  quotes  from  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed., 
22,  p.  49  (Weim.  ed.,  8,  p.  687  f.),  Luther's  passage  against  the  Princes, 
who  allow  everything  to  slide  :    they  ought  to  draw  the   sword,  not 
indeed  to  "  put  the  priests  to  death,"  but  to  "  forbid  by  word  and  then 
put  down  by  force  whatever  they  do  that  is  over  or  against  the  Gospel." 

2  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  29  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  124. 

3  Ibid,,  p.  33  =  129. 

4  "  Auf  Luthers  Greuel  wider  die  heilige  Stillmess  Antwort,"  1525. 

IV.— 2    L 


514 

In  Luther's  extravagant  language  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  is 
simply  made  to  appear  a  rich  field  for  vulgar  greed  of  gain, 
discovered  and  exploited  by  the  Papists  because  it  filled  their 
pockets.  The  amount  brought  in  by  Masses  for  the  Dead  was 
chiefly  to  blame  for  the  spread  of  the  Mass.  "This  invention 
[Masses  for  the  Dead]  has  been  worth  money  to  them,"  he  cries, 
"  so  that  they  need  not  say  Mass  for  nothing."1  "  At  All  Saints', 
here  at  Wittenberg,  the  money  is  godlessly  thrown  away  [by 
foundation-Masses,  annual  commemorations,  etc.] ;  the  three 
Mass-priests  there,  'three  pigs  or  paunches,'"  celebrate  it  "in 
the  house  of  infamy  simply  because  they  worship  money."2 

Many  of  the  apostles  of  the  new  faith  preached  in  the  same 
strain  as  Luther.  Others,  as  Stephen  Agricola  for  instance  states 
he  did,  were  content  to  scourge  "  the  great  superstition  and 
hindrance  to  the  true  honour  of  God,"  i.e.  the  abuses.  Agricola, 
if  we  may  trust  him,  "was  loath  to  see  Masses  for  the  dead  said 
for  money,  as  this  should  be  done  out  of  pure  charity."3  When, 
later,  Flacius  Illyricus  made  similar  charges  against  the  Catholics 
on  the  pretext  of  the  alms  given  for  Masses,  the  Dominican, 
Johann  Fabri,  replied  :  "  What  do  you  sectarians  do  gratis  ? 
People  can  never  give  enough  for  your  preaching,  your  psalm- 
singing,  your  Supper,  etc.,  so  that  yearly  a  very  large  sum  has  to 
be  spent  on  your  support.  .  .  .  Why  then  do  you  abuse  the  poor 
priests  who  take  payment  for  their  work  and  unkindly  twit  them 
for  saying  Mass  solely  for  money  ?  What  answer  would  you 
make  were  I  to  say  :  You  too,  Illyricus,  preach  for  the  sake  of 
money  ?  "4 

The  charges  of  self-seeking  and  avarice  had,  however,  in  some 
places  so  strong  an  effect  as  to  lead  to  popular  risings  against  the 
celebration  of  Mass.  This  recalls  the  account  given  by  Erasmus 
of  the  ready  success  he  had  noticed  attended  the  addresses  of  the 
preachers  :  "  The  Mass  has  been  abolished,"  he  writes,  "  but 
what  more  holy  thing  has  been  set  in  its  place  ?  .  .  .  Their 
churches  I  have  never  entered.  I  have  occasionally  seen  those 
who  listened  to  their  sermons  come  out  like  men  possessed,  with 
anger  and  fury  writ  large  upon  their  faces.  .  .  .  They  walked 
like  warriors  who  have  just  been  harangued  by  their  general. 
When  have  their  sermons  ever  produced  penance  and  contrition  ? 
Do  they  not  devote  most  of  their  time  to  abuse  of  the  clergy  and 
their  lives  ?  .  .  .  Are  risings  rare  amongst  these  evangelicals  ? 
And  do  they  not  resort  to  violence  on  the  slightest  provocation  ?  "5 

1  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  18,  p.  31  ;   Erl.  ed.,  29,  p.  126. 

2  Cp.  Kostlin-Kawerau,  1,  p.  527. 

3  Cp.  "  Hist.  Jahrb.,"  12,  1891,  p.  776,  where  N.  Paulus  quotes  for 
the   first   time    a   memorandum    (1523)    of   Johann    Staupitz    against 
Stephen  Agricola,  which  corroborates  his  statement  mentioned  before 
(ibid.,  p.   309  ff. ),  that  Staupitz  was  quite  Catholic  in  his  views  on 
matters  of  faith. 

4  "  Antwort    auf    das  .   .   .   Geschwetz    M.    Flaccii    Illyrici,"    1558, 
p.  121  f.     Quoted  by  Paulus,  ibid.,  p.  776. 

6  "  Opp.,"  10,  col.  1578  seq.  Dollinger,  "  Die  Reformation,"  1, 
p.  13  f. 


THE   SACRIFICE   OF   THE   MASS     515 

The  peaceable  union  of  Christians  before  the  Altar  of 
Sacrifice  in  the  "  Mystery  of  Faith  "  had  made  way  for 
warfare.  The  absence  of  the  sacrifice  avenged  itself,  how 
ever,  in  the  Churches  given  over  to  the  new  religion  by 
the  dreariness  and  utter  desolation  of  the  sacred  buildings 
once  so  full  of  life  ;  not  to  mention  the  dreadful  contro 
versies,  the  bare  "  ministry  of  the  Word  "  and  the  one 
sided  effort  to  make  of  the  Supper  simply  a  source  of 
edification  and  increase  of  faith,  could  not  suffice  to  attract 
the  multitude  to  the  Eucharistic  celebration.  The  great 
sacrifice,  which  by  its  own  infinite-*  worth  and  quite  in 
dependently  of  its  power  to  edify,  glorifies  God  in  His  Temple, 
and  so  powerfully  stimulates  the  faithful  to  unite  their 
offering  with  the  sacramental  oblation,  had  been  torn  from 
the  midst  of  the  congregation. 

If  we  seek  here  for  the  connecting  link  between  Luther's 
bitter  hostility  to  the  Mass  and  his  system  as  a  whole,  we 
shall  find,  that,  granted  the  doctrine  of  the  imputation  of  the 
merits  of  Christ  by  faith  alone,  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice  had 
no  real  place  left.  Luther  said  in  1540  :  "  Where  the 
'  locus  '  ['  iustificationis  ']  is  rightly  taught  and  stands,  there 
can  be  nothing  evil ;  for  the  antecedens,  '  faith  alone 
justifies,'  spells  the  fall  of  the  Mass,"  etc.1 

In  the  new  faith  everything  turned  on  the  saving  and  the 
pacification  of  the  sinner  by  virtue  of  a  sort  of  amnesty 
furnished  by  the  merits  of  Christ's  death  on  the  cross. 
Faith  alone  secures  all  the  fulness  of  the  Redeemer's  work 
of  satisfaction  ;  no  ordinance  of  Christ,  sacrament,  sacrifice 
or  priesthood  can  assist  in  the  work  of  clothing  the  soul 
with  the  mantle  of  these  Divine  merits  ;  anything  of  the 
sort  would  only  diminish  the  dignity  and  the  efficacy  of  the 
confidence  of  faith.  Only  what  promotes  the  personal  faith 
which  saves — that  master-key  to  the  forgiveness,  or  better, 
to  the  cloaking  of  sin — is  here  admitted,  but  no  work,  no 
"  opus  operatum  "  of  Christ's  institution,  which,  through 
sacrament  and  sacrifice,  imparts  grace  to  the  faithful 
Christian  who  is  duly  prepared  to  seek  salvation  ;  on  the 
contrary,  according  to  Luther,  such  institutions,  which  the 
ancient  Church  looked  upon  as  sacred,  only  detract  from 
the  merits  of  Christ. 

1  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.  236 


516          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

And  since,  in  his  view,  every  Christian  by  his  faith  is  a 
priest,  the  hierarchy  falls,  and  thus  sacrifice  too,  at  least 
as  the  prerogative  of  a  special  sacerdotal  class,  also  ceases 
to  exist. 

Hence  the  warfare  on  behalf  of  the  Evangel  of  faith  alone 
and  against  sacerdotalism,  naturally,  and  of  necessity,  led 
to  the  warfare  against  the  Mass.  This  particular  combat, 
in  which  (as  in  the  attack  on  the  Church's  visible  head,  viz. 
the  Pope)  Luther's  animosity  against  the  Catholics  reached 
its  culminating  point,  necessarily  occupied  a  place  in  the 
forefront,  because  the  Mass,  which  united  the  congregation 
before  the  altar,  was  the  most  public  and  most  tangible 
expression  of  Catholic  life  and  the  one  most  frequently  seen. 

Luther's  theological  perversions  of  the  Church's  doctrine 
of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  in  the  above  works  and  else 
where,  are  all  the  more  astonishing,  seeing  that  Gabriel 
Biel,  the  theologian,  with  whom  he  was  so  well  acquainted 
and  whose  "  Sacri  canonis  missce  expositio  "  he  had  studied 
with  keen  interest,  had,  in  his  exposition  of  the  ancient 
doctrine  of  the  Mass,  forestalled  these  very  misrepresenta 
tions,  almost  as  though  he  had  actually  foreseen  them. x  The 
respected  Tubingen  University-Professor,  in  this  explana 
tion  of  the  Mass,  which  appeared  in  1488,  was  frequently 
reprinted,  and  was  much  used  by  both  parish  clergy  and 
preachers,  insists,  in  close  unison  with  the  past,  that  there 
was  but  one  great  and  atoning  sacrifice  of  the  cross,  and  that 
the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  did  not  in  the  least  detract  from 
it  but  rather  applied  it  to  the  individual  believer.  He 
points  out  with  great  emphasis  the  uniquely  sublime 
character  of  the  sacrifice  on  Calvary  ("  unlca  oblatio  et 
perfectissimum  sacrificium  "),  in  its  fourfold  aspect  as  a 
sacrifice  of  praise,  thanksgiving,  petition  and  atonement. 
In  support  of  this  he  quotes  a  number  of  passages  from  the 
Bible  :  "  By  it  [the  sacrifice  on  the  cross]  our  sins  are 
blotted  out  (Romans  iv.).  Through  it  we  have  found  grace 
whereby  we  are  saved  (Hebrews  v.) :  for,  being  consummated 

1  For  this  excellent  work,  which  for  the  most  part  reproduces  the 
lectures  of  Magister  Egeling  Becker,  see  A.  Franz,  "  Die  Messe  im 
deutschen  MA.,"  Freiburg,  1902,  pp.  542-554.  The  comprehensive 
"  Expositio,"  comprising  51  "  signatures,"  consists  of  89  Lectures 
addressed  to  the  clergy.  Franz  characterises  it  as  "  a  work  which,  by 
its  theological  thoroughness  and  its  moderately  ascetical  views,  was 
calculated  to  promote  learning  amongst  the  clergy  and  render  them 
more  worthy  of  exercising  their  greatest  and  finest  privilege  "  (p.  554). 


THE   SACRIFICE   OF   THE  MASS    517 

by  suffering,  He  (Christ)  became  to  all  who  obey  Him  the 
cause  of  eternal  life.  By  the  one  oblation  of  the  cross  He 
hath  for  ever  perfected  them  that  are  sanctified  (Hebrews  x.)," 
etc.  "  If  you  seek  the  blotting  out  of  sins,  behold  the  Lamb 
of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world  ;  if  you  seek 
thanksgiving,  Christ  gives  thanks  to  the  Father ;  if  you 
seek  for  deliverance  from  evil,  He  heals  and  sets  us  free."1 
In  several  passages  he  dwells  in  detail  on  the  idea  of  the 
saving  Lamb  of  God,  once  in  connection  with  the  thrice- 
repeated  Agnus  Dei  of  the  Mass. 

But,  a  comparatively  short  time  after,  another  was  to 
come,  who  would  assert  that  the  world  had  long  ago  lost 
the  Lamb  of  God,  and  who  presumed  to  take  upon  himself 
the  task  of  pointing  Him  out  anew  to  all  men  and  of  making 
Him  profitable  to  souls. 

In  unison  with  Fathers  and  theologians,  Biel  sums  up  the 
mutual  relations  between  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  and  the 
Sacrifice  on  the  Cross  in  the  words  :  "  Although  Christ  was 
once  only  offered  visibly  in  the  flesh,  yet  He  is  daily  offered 
concealed  under  the  appearances  of  bread  and  wine,  though 
painlessly,  for  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  is  the  representation 
and  memorial  of  the  sacrifice  consummated  on  the  Cross 
and  produces  the  same  effects."2 

1  Lectio  85,  F. 

2  Ibid.  :    "  Quamvis  autem  semel  oblatus  est  Christus  in  aperta  carnis 
effigie,   offertur  nihilominus   quotidie  in  altari  velatus,"   etc.      Of   the 
numerous  witnesses  to  the  ancient  belief  of  the  Church,  Joh.  Ernest 
Grabe  notes  in  his  Oxford  edition  of  Irenseus  (1702)  with  regard  to  a 
statement  of  his  on  this  subject  (4  c.  17,  al.  33)  :    "  What  Irenseus  here 
teaches   of   the   sacrificial   character   of   the  Eucharist,    Ignatius  and 
Justin   taught   before   him,  and   Tertullian  and  Cyprian  after.     It  is 
clearly  vouched  for  in  Clement  of  Rome's  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians." 
"  There  is  no  doubt  that  Irenseus  and  the  other  Fathers,  both  those 
who  had  seen  the   Apostles,   as   well  as  their  immediate  successors, 
regarded  the  Eucharist  as  the  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Law,  and  .  .  .    pre 
sented  at  the  altar  the  consecrated  elements  of  Bread  and  Wine  to  God 
the  Father  in  order  to  figure  the  bloody  Sacrifice  which  He  Himself 
had  offered  on  the  cross  in  His  flesh  and  Blood,  and  in  order  to  obtain 
the  fruits  of  His  death  for  all  for  whom  it  was  offered."     Gregory  the 
Great  taught  with  antiquity  (Horn.  37  in  Evang.  c.  7)  :    "  Quoties  ei 
(Deo)   hostiam  suce  passionis   offerimus,   toties  nobis   ad  absolutionem 
nostrum   passionem   illius   reparamus,"    and   in   his  Dialogues,  which 
contributed  greatly  to  the  high  esteem  of  Masses  for  the  dead  (we  are 
here  considering  the  doctrine,  not  the  legends),  he  says  of  the  Sacrifice 
of  the   Mass  :     "  Hcec  singulariter  victima  ab  ceterno  interitu  animam 
salvat,  quce  illam  nobis  mortem   Unigeniti  per  mysterium  reparat.   .   .   . 
Pro  nobis  iterum  in  hoc  mysterio  sacrce  oblationis  immolalur  "  (''  Dial.," 
4,  58  ;    cf.  59).     The  well-known  Lutheran  theologian  Martin  Chemnitz 


518          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

When  describing  more  minutely  its  efficacy  for  the 
obtaining  of  grace  and  forgiveness  of  sins  he  dwells  on 
the  thought,  that  it  has  no  quasi-magical  effect,  but  acts 
"  according  to  man's  preparation  and  capacity,"  so  that  the 
Holy  Sacrifice  does  not  by  any  means  blot  out  sin  if  man's 
heart  is  still  turned  away  from  God  :  to  souls  that  show 
themselves  well-disposed  it  brings  contrition  and  sorrow  for 
sin  and  finally  forgiveness.1  Unlike  Baptism  and  Penance, 
it  does  not  reconcile  the  soul  \vith  God  directly,  but  only 
indirectly,  by  arousing  the  spirit  of  penance  which  leads  to 
the  wholesome  use  of  the  sacraments  and  appeases  the  anger 
of  the  Heavenly  Father  by  the  offering  of  His  Son,  and 
prevents  Him  withdrawing  the  help  of  His  grace.  Biel 
elucidates  the  idea  of  sacrifice,  deals  \vith  the  figurative 
sacrifices  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  found  their  fulfilment 
in  the  clean  oblation  (Mai.  i.  10  f.)  to  be  offered  from  the 
rising  of  the  sun  even  to  the  going  down,  with  the  twofold 
efficacy  of  the  Mass  ("  ex  opere  operato  "  and  "  ex  opere 
operante"}*  and  many  other  points  which  Luther  unjustly 
attacks ;  with  the  lawfulness  of  private  Masses,  with  or 
without  any  Communion  of  the  faithful,  with  the  advantage 
of  Masses  for  the  souls  of  the  faithful  departed,  with  Mass- 
stipends3  which  he  defends  against  the  charge  of  simony, 
and  with  the  practice  of  repeating  silently  certain  portions 
of  the  Mass,  an  ancient  usage  for  which  he  gives  the  reasons.4 

"  On  the  Corner-Mass"    Continuation  of  the  Conflict. 

In  his  war  against  the  Mass  Luther  wras  never  to  yield  an 
inch.  His  "  Von  dem  Grewel  der  Stillmesse  "  was  followed 

wrote  in  his  "  Examen  concilii  Tridentini"  (1565-1573),  that  it  could 
not  be  denied  that  the  Fathers,  when  speaking  of  the  celebration  of 
the  Supper,  make  use  of  expressions  descriptive  of  Sacrifice,  such  as 
"  sacrificium,"  "  immolatio,"  "  oblatio,"  "hostia,"  "victima,"  "  offerre," 
"  sacrificare,'"  "  immolare  "  (t.  2,  p.  782).  Cp.  J.  Dollinger,  "  Die 
Lehre  von  der  Eucharistie  in  den  ersten  drei  Jahrh.,"  1826.  J.  A. 
Mohler,  "  Symbolik,"  §§  34  and  35. 

1  Lectio  85,  under  L.  :  "  Si  eos  dispositos  inveniat,  eis  gratiam 
obtinet  virtute  illius  unius  sacrificii,  a  quo  omnis  gratia  in  nos  influxit,  et 
per  consequens  peccata  morlalia  in  eis  delet  .  .  .  in  quantum  gratiam 
contritionis  eis  impetrat."  2  Lectio  26,  under  F.  3  Lectio  28. 

4  Ibid.,  L.  17  (E.).  Master  Egeling  discusses  this  even  more  in  detail. 
Franz  says  (ibid,,  p.  548),  speaking  of  Egeling's  MS.,  of  which  he  makes 
use  :  "  The  remarkable  length  at  which  he  vindicates  the  Church's 
rule  that  the  Canon  be  recited  silently  is  not  without  significance.  It 
would  appear  that  this  gave  offence  to  the  people."  Luther  seized  upon 
this  popular  prejudice  as  a  weapon  in  his  war  on  the  Mass. 


ON  THE    « WINKLE-MASS"  519 

by  fresh  pronouncements  and  writings  which  bear  witness 
to  the  intensity  of  his  hatred. 

The  occasion  for  another  lengthy  writing  against  the 
Mass  and  the  hierarchy  seems  to  have  been  furnished  in 
1533  by  the  religious  conditions  in  the  province  of  Anhalt, 
where  the  Princes,  under  pressure  from  their  Catholic 
neighbours,  had  begun  to  tolerate  the  former  worship  and 
the  saying  of  Mass.  In  Dec.  of  that  year  Luther  published 
his  booklet  "  Von  der  Winckelmesse  und  Pfaffen  Weihe."1 

It  was  designed  primarily  as  a  protest  against  "  the 
ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  and  Ordination,"  i.e.  against  the 
hierarchy  and  priesthood,  and  broadly  hinted  to  the 
"  bishops  and  priests  "  that  their  Order  was  doomed  to 
destruction.  At  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  he  declared  his 
followers  had  "  very  humbly  informed  the  Pope  and  the 
bishops,  that  we  had  no  wish  forcibly  to  infringe  on  their  rights 
and  authority  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  but  that,  so  long  as 
they  did  not  compel  us  to  any  unchristian  doctrines,  we 
were  quite  ready  to  be  ordained  and  governed  by  them,  and 
even  to  assist  them  in  their  administration,"  but  his  over 
tures  having  been  rejected,  nothing  remained  for  him  but 
to  await  the  end  of  the  priesthood  when  God  should  "  in 
good  time  "  so  dispose.  "  God  is  wonderful " ;  He  had 
"  overthrown  by  His  word  "  so  much  "  papistical  Mammon- 
service  and  idolatry  "  ;  "  He  would  also  be  able  to  wipe  away 
the  rancid  Chresam,"  i.e.  to  make  an  end  of  the  bishops  and 
priests  in  whose  ordination  Chrism  was  used.2  Towards 
the  end  of  the  tract  he  returns  to  the  attack  on  priestly 
ordination.  He  is  determined  "  again  to  adjudge  and 
commit  to  the  Churches  the  call,  or  true  ordination  and 
consecration  to  the  office  of  pastor."  The  members  of  the 
Church  must  have  the  "  right  and  authority  to  appoint 
people  to  the  office,"  and  to  entrust  it  to  simple  believers  of 
blameless  lives,  even  "  without  Chrism  or  butter,  grease 
or  lard."3 

The  greater  portion  of  the  writing  is,  however,  devote^ 
to  the  "  Corner-Mass,"  i.e.  the  Mass  generally,  which  accord 
ing  to  the  Catholic  doctrine  is  equally  valid  whether  cele 
brated  by  the  priest  alone  in  a  lonely  chapel  or  amid  a 

1  "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  308  ff.     New  edition  by  G.  Kawerau  in 
"  Neudrucke  deutscher  Literaturwerke,"  No.  50,  Halle,  1883. 

2  "  Werke,"  ibid.,  p.  308.          3  Ibid.,  p.  374  f. 


520          LUTHER  THE  REFORMER 

concourse  of  faithful  who  unite  their  prayers  with  his  and 
communicate.  For  reasons  readily  understood,  Luther 
prefers  to  use  the  contemptuous  term  "  Corner-Mass." 

Towards  the  end  he  himself  sums  up  the  thoughts  on  the  Mass 
which  he  has  just  submitted  r1 

t  He  had  the  best  grounds  for  "  being  affrighted,"  that  he  and 
others  "  had  once  said  the  Corner-Mass  so  devoutly."  After  the 
reasons  he  had  advanced,  everyone,  particularly  the  Papists 
to-day,  must  be  driven  to  despair  at  the  frightful  idolatry  of  the 
Mass  ;  yet  they  "  wantonly  persist  in  their  abomination." 
"  They  pervert  Christ's  ordinance,  say  their  Mass  not  merely  in 
disobedience  to  God,  but  also  blasphemously  and  without  any 
command,  give  the  sacrament  to  no  one  but  keep  it  for  them 
selves  alone,  and,  to  make  matters  worse,  are  not  even  certain 
whether  they  are  receiving  merely  bread  and  wine  or  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ,  because  they  do  not  follow  Christ's  ordi 
nance." 

Here  he  plainly  enough  questions  the  presence  of  Christ  under  the 
consecrated  elements  in  the  "  Corner-Mass  "  and  has  thus  made 
a  notable  stride  forward  in  his  hostility. 

"  Nor  can  anyone  be  certain,"  so  he  continues  his  summing  up, 
"  whether  they  [the  priests,  in  the  Canon  of  the  Mass]  pronounce 
the  Words  [of  institution]  or  not ;  hence  no  one  is  bound  to 
believe  their  secret  antics.  Neither  do  they  preach  to  anyone, 
though  Christ  commanded  it."  In  his  opinion  it  was  essential 
both  that  the  words  of  institution  should  be  spoken  aloud,  in 
order  to  stimulate  faith,  and  that  the  service  should  include  the 
preaching  of  the  Word— minor  matters,  which,  however,  became 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  him  when  once  he  had  reduced  it  all 
to  the  status  of  a  mere  ceremonial  of  edification. 

He  boldly  concludes.  "It  is  also  impossible  that  they  [the 
Popish  sayers  of  Masses]  can  be  right  in  their  faith."  For,  as 
already  demonstrated,  "  one  and  the  same  man  could  not  believe 
aright  and  yet  knowingly  rage  against  the  Word  of  God.  Hence 
they  can  neither  pray,  nor  offer  thanks  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
acceptable  to  God.  And,  finally,  over  and  above  these  abomi 
nations  and  crimes,  they  actually  dare  to  offer  to  God  this 
sacrament  (if  what  is  disgraced  by  so  much  blasphemy  and 
abomination  can  be  called  a  sacrament)  and  to  barter  and  sell 
it  to  other  Christians  for  money." 

The  book  on  the  "  Winckelmesse  "  is  celebrated  for  the 
disputation  between  Luther  and  the  devil  which  it  describes. 
The  devil  sets  forth  the  proofs  against  the  Mass  with 
marvellous  skill,  and,  by  his  reproaches,  drives  the  quondam 
monk  into  desperate  straits.  Here  Luther  is  describing  the 
deep  remorse  of  conscience  which  he  will  have  it  he  had 

1  P.  372. 


ON  THE   "WINKLE-MASS"          521 

to  endure  on  account  of  his  Masses.  He  is,  however,  merely 
using  a  literary  artifice  when  he  introduces  the  devil  as  the 
speaker;  of  this  there  will  be  more  to  say  later.1  Here, 
in  addition  to  a  letter,  which  so  far  has  received  but  little 
attention,  in  which  he  himself  furnishes  the  key  to  the 
form  in  which  he  casts  his  argument,2  we  may  mention  the 
fact  that  Luther's  first  draft  of  his  writing  on  the  "  Winckcl- 
messe,"  which  has  recently  been  examined,  gives  a  portion 
of  the  devil's  arguments  against  the  Mass  and  without  any 
reference  to  the  devil,  as  the  author's  own  ;  only  later  on 
was  the  devil  made  the  spokesman  for  Luther's  ideas.3 
We  can  see  that  it  was  only  as  the  work  proceeded  that 
there  occurred  to  Luther  the  happy  thought  of  making  the 
devil  himself  speak,  not  so  much  to  reveal  to  the  world  the 
worthlcssncss  of  the  Mass,  as  to  cast  if  possible  poor  Luther 
into  despair,  because  of  his  former  Mass-sayings,  and  to 
reveal  the  utter  perversity  of  the  Papists,  who,  far  from 
being  in  despair,  actually  boasted  of  the  Mass. 

Luther  expected  great  things  from  his  ruthless  attack 
and  from  the  scene  in  which  the  devil  appears.  It  would  be, 
so  he  fancied,  a  "  test  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  the 
Papacy."4  His  friend  Jonas,  in  a  letter  of  Oct.  26,  1533, 
speaking  of  the  yet  unpublished  "  Winckelmesse,"  calls  it  a 
real  "  battering-ram  "  to  be  used  against  the  Papacy  ;  it 
was  long  since  the  Professor  had  been  heard  speaking  in 
such  a  way  of  the  Mass,  the  Pope  and  the  priests.5  Those 

1  Vol.  v.,  xxxi.,  4. 

2  To  Nic.  Hausmann  at  Dessau,  Dec.  17,  1533,  "  Brief wechsel,"  9, 
p.   363,   where  he  calls  the  writing  a   "  novi  generis  libellus,"  which 
challenged  the  Papists  to  see  whether  they  had  an  answer  ready  to 
give  the  devil  when  lying  on  their  death-beds. 

3  A.  Freytag,  in  Koft'mane,  "  Die  handschriftl.  Uberlieferung  von 
Werken  Luthers,"  1907,  pp.  16  and  11,  where  in  Luther's  rough  notes 
the  words  first  occur  :   "  primum  argumentum  diaboli."     Freytag,  how 
ever,  is  of  opinion,  that  "  Luther's  account  of  the  disputation  with  the 
devil  certainly  [?]  had  its  origin  in  the  Reformer's  tormenting  mental 
experiences,    and   that   he   had   been   actually   assailed   by   accusing 
thoughts  concerning  his  former  share  in  the  abomination  of  private 
Masses."     Kostlin-Kawerau,   2,  p.   308,  speaking  of  the  disputation, 
also  refers  to  the  "  anguish  of  soul  "  which  overwhelmed  him  "  owing 
to  his  own  former  share  in  so  great  a  crime  as  he  now  more  fully  recog 
nised  it  to  be."    Cp.  our  vol.  v.,  xxxii. 

4  In  the  letter  to  Hausmann  (above,  n.  2)  :    "  Lutherum  hoc  libello 
tentare,  papatus  sapientiam  et  potentiam." 

5  To  Spalatin  ;  only  an  extract  extant.    See  Jonas's  "  Brief wechsel," 
1,   p.    201:     "  Lutherus  scribit    utilissimum,  fortissimum  arietem,    quo 
quatietur,  ut  Jerreus  murus,  papatus." 


522          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

of  the  preachers  who  were  fallen  priests  rejoiced  at  the 
advice  they  found  in  the  book  for  the  quieting  of  their 
consciences  when  tempted  by  the.  devil,  and  at  its  hint  that 
they  should  rub  their  anointed  hands  with  soap  and  lye 
the  better  to  obliterate  the  mark  of  the  Beast. 

The  writing  was  translated  by  Jonas  into  Latin,  but  his 
rendering  was  a  very  free  and  rhetorical  one. 

The  interest  it  aroused  was  increased  by  the  negative 
attitude  which  Luther  seemed  to  assume  towards  the  Real 
Presence.  To  many  of  his  followers  Luther  seemed  to  come 
to  an  opinion  not  far  removed  from  the  Zwinglian  denial  of 
the  Presence.  Luther  learned  that  Prince  Johann  of  Anhalt 
and  others  had  expressed  their  anxiety  Jest  the  booklet 
"  should  be  understood  as  though  I  agreed  with  the  fanatics 
and  enemies  of  the  Sacrament."  Hence  he  at  once  issued 
a  fresh  writing  entitled  :  "  A  Letter  of  D.  Mart.  Luther  to 
a  good  friend  concerning  his  book  on  the  Corner-Masses  " 
(1534).1 

To  attack  the  Sacrament  and  the  Real  Presence  was,  he 
there  declared,  far  from  his  thoughts.  I  shall  prove  "  that 
I  do  not  hold,  nor  ever  shall  hold  to  all  eternity,  with  the 
wrong  doctrine  of  the  foes  of  the  Sacrament — or  to  speak 
quite  plainly — with  that  of  Carlstadt,  Zwingli  and  their 
followers."2  But  by  this  he  stood:  "Whoever,  like  the 
Papists,  did  not  celebrate  the  Sacrament  according  to  the 
ordinance  of  Christ,  had  no  right  to  say  Christ  was  there  "  ; 
"  a  counterfeit  florin,  struck  contrary  to  the  King's  order, 
can  never  be  a  good  one."3  "  May  God  bestow  on  all  pious 
Christians  such  a  mind,  that,  when  they  hear  the  Mass 
spoken  of,  they  quake  with  fear  and  cross  themselves  as 
they  would  at  the  sight  of  some  abomination  of  the  devil."4 

Johann  Cochlaeus  at  once  replied  to  the  "  Winckelmesse  " 
with  an  appeal  to  the  correctness  of  ecclesiastical  tradition. 
In  the  same  year  he  published  Innocent  the  Third's  "  De 
sacro  altaris  mysterio  "  and  Isidore  of  Scvilla's  "  De  ecclesi- 
asticis  officiis"  These  venerable  witnesses  of  Christian 
antiquity  had,  he  declared,  "  a  better  claim  to  be  believed 
than  Luther's  furies."  In  addition  to  this  he  also  wrote  a 
popular  theological  defence  in  the  vernacular  "  On  the  Holy 

1   "  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  31,  p.  378  ff.          2  Ibid.,  p.  379. 
3  P.  383.  *  P.  384. 


HIS   HATRED   OF   THE   MASS       523 

Mass  and  Priestly  ordination  "  (Leipzig,  1534).  In  this 
writing  he  begins  by  emphasising  the  claims  of  ecclesiastical 
tradition  and  the  teaching  office  of  the  Church  :  "  The 
Church  understands  Scripture  far  better  and  more  surely, 
thanks  to  the  Holy  Spirit  promised  by  Christ  and  duly  sent 
her,  than  Luther  does  by  his  evil  spirit."  He  laid  down  the 
principle  which  he  urged  was  the  only  true  and  reliable 
guide  in  the  controversies  of  the  age  :  Hold  fast  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  rather  than  to  the  subjective  inter 
pretations  of  the  Bible,  which  are  often  so  divergent.  He 
was  not,  however,  altogether  happy  in  his  choice  of  ex 
pressions,  for  instance,  when  he  exclaims  :  "  Bible  hither, 
Bible  thither  !  "  for  this  might  well  have  given  the  im 
pression,  that,  on  his  side,  small  account  was  made  of  the 
Bible.  In  reality  this  was  merely  his  way  of  retorting  on 
Luther's  :  "  Tradition  hither,  Tradition  thither."  The 
theologian,  who  elsewhere  is  careful  to  set  its  true  value  on 
the  Bible,  seeks  in  this  way  to  brand  the  tricks  played  with 
the  Bible  ;  similar  phrases  then  in  use  were  the  one  we 
already  know,  "  Bible,  Babble,  Bubble,"  and  Luther's  own 
sarcastic  saying  :  "  The  Bible  is  a  heresy-book."1 

Cochlaeus  not  only  brought  forward,  in  support  of  the 
Mass,  besides  Holy  Scripture,  that  tradition  which  Luther 
had  treated  so  scornfully,  but  also  replied  to  his  opponent's 
perversions  and  charges  on  all  the  other  counts.  Of  the 
grievous  disorders  \vhich  Luther  said  had  come  under  his 
notice  during  his  stay  in  Rome,  what  Cochlseus  says  is 
much  to  the  point  :  "  It  is  quite  possible,  that,  among  so 
many  thousands  from  all  lands,  there  may  have  .been  some 
such  desperate  villains.  But  it  is  not  seemly  that  Luther  on 
that  score  should  seek  to  calumniate  pious  and  devout  monks 
and  priests  and  make  the  people  distrustful  of  them."2 

In  his  familiar  conversations  Luther  repeatedly  reveals 
the  psychological  side  of  his  attack  on  the  Mass. 

He  said  in  1540  :  "  From  the  earliest  years  [of  the  revolt 
against  the  Church]  I  was  grievously  tempted  by  the  thought  : 
'  If  the  Mass  is  really  the  highest  form  of  Divine  worship,  then, 
Good  God,  how  wickedly  have  I  behaved  towards  God  !  '  He 

1  On  "  Bible,  Babble,  Bubble,"  see  above,  vol.  ii,  pp.  365,   370;    on 
the  "  Heresy-book,"  see  above,  p.  396. 

2  Bl.  A.  3. 


524         LUTHER  THE   REFORMER 

sought  to  stifle  the  voice  of  conscience,  which  he  called  a  tempta 
tion,  by  insisting  still  more  strongly  on  the  worthlessness  of  the 
Mass.1  "But  this  is  quite  certain,"  he  says,  "the  Mass  is 
Moasim."2  Moasim,  according  to  Dan.  xi.  38,  was  the  idol  to  be 
set  up  by  Antichrist,  in  the  letters  of  whose  name,  according  to 
Luther,  we  find  the  word  "  Mass  "  ;  this  idol,  he  says,  was 
honoured  with  "  silver,  gold  and  precious  stones,"  because  the 
Mass  helps  to  bring  in  such  great  wealth. 

"  From  the  Mass,"  he  said  in  the  same  conversation,  "  came 
every  sort  of  ungodliness,  it  was  an  '  abominanda  abominatio,' 
and  yet  it  was  held  in  such  honour." — In  another  conversation 
in  the  same  year  we  hear  him  say  :  "  the  Canon  was  looked  upon 
as  so  sacred  that  to  attack  it  was  like  attacking  both  heaven  and 
earth.  When  first  I  wrote  against  the  Mass  and  against  the 
Canon  I  could  hardly  hope  that  people  would  agree  with  me.  .  .  . 
But  when  my  writing  [the  '  Sermon  on  the  New  Testament,  i.e. 
the  Mass,'  1520]  was  published,  I  found  that  many  had  shared 
my  temptation  ;  they  thanked  me  for  deliverance  from  their 
terror."3 

In  Luther's  efforts  to  deliver  himself  and  others  "  from  their 
terror  "  and  to  convince  himself  that  "  this  is  quite  certain,"  lies 
the  sole  explanation  of  his  wild  statements  that  his  former 
saying  of  Mass — though  undoubtedly  done  in  good  faith,  and,  at 
first,  even  with  pleasure  and  devotion4 — was  his  worst  sin,5 
and  that  he  would  rather  have  "  kept  a  bawdy  house  or  been  a 
robber  than  to  have  blasphemed  and  traduced  Christ  for  fifteen 
years  by  the  saying  of  Masses,"6  and,  again,  that  "no  tongue 
can  tell  the  abomination  of  the  Mass,  nor  can  any  heart  believe 
its  wickedness.  It  would  not  have  been  astonishing  had  God 
destroyed  the  world  on  account  of  the  Mass,  as  He  will  without  a 
doubt  soon  do  by  fire."7  The  Mass  embodies  a  "pestilential 
mistake  of  the  self -righteousness  of  the  opus  operatum."  In  the 
Popish  Mass  an  ignorant  priest,  who  does  not  even  know  Latin, 
takes  it  on  himself  to  blot  out  the  sins  of  others.8 

Equally  evident,  according  to  the  Table-Talk,  was  the  pestilent 
side  of  the  Mass  as  a  pecuniary  concern.  It  is  on  this  account 
that  Luther  is  fond  of  calling  it  the  foundation  of  Popery,  as 
though  the  Papacy  were  erected  on  wealth.9  His  historical 

1  In  this  sense  G.  Kawerau's  remark  on  the  "  Winckelmesse  "  is 
much  to  the  point  :    "  It  is  of  interest  on  account  of  the  insight  it 
affords  into  the  Reformer's  efforts  to  arrive  at  certainty  concerning  the 
fundamentals   of  his   religious   views."      In   the   Introduction  to   the 
edition  quoted  above,  p.  519  n.  1." 

2  Mathesius,  "  Tischreden,"  p.' 132. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  119. 

4  See  the  letter  written  before  his  first  Mass,   "  Briefwechsel  "   1 
p.  10. 

5  See  "  Werke,"  Weim.  ed.,  26,  p.  508  ;  Erl.  ed.,  30,  p.  372.    Above, 
p.  509  n.  3. 

6  Above,  vol.  iii.,  p.  130. 

"  Colloq.,"  ed.  Bindseil,  1,  p.  122. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  119.  »  Ibid.,  p.  120. 


HIS   HATRED    OF   THE   MASS       525 

knowledge  of  the  actual  facts  is  as  great  here  as  it  is  when,  in  his 
Table-Talk,  he  makes  private  Masses  originate  in  the  time  of 
Pope  Gregory  I  (f  604).  *• 

Incidentally  he  describes  quite  frankly  one  way  in  which  he 
had  endeavoured  to  overthrow  the  Mass  :  At  first  it  had  seemed 
to  him  impossible  to  achieve  its  fall  because  its  roots  were  so 
deeply  imbedded  in  the  human  heart.  "  But  when  once  the 
Sacrament  is  received  under  both  kinds,  the  Mass  will  not  stand 
much  longer."2 — We  have  already  had  occasion  to  describe  the 
underhand  measures  he  recommended  in  the  warfare  against  the 
Mass  (Vol.  ii.,  p.  321  f.). 

In  part  at  least,  he  could  congratulate  himself  on  the  success 
of  his  unholy  efforts.  "  If  our  Lord  God  allows  me  to  die  a 
natural  death,  He  will  be  playing  a  nasty  trick  on  the  Papists, 
because  they  will  have  failed  to  burn  the  man  who  has  thus 
brought  the  Mass  to  nought."3 

Denunciation  of  the  Mass  naturally  occupies  a  place  in 
Luther's  Articles  of  Schmalkalden.4  Since  the  latter  were 
incorporated  in  the  "  Symbolic  Books  "  of  the  Lutheran 
Evangelical  Church  and  figure  in  the  Book  of  Concord  with 
the  three  oldest  (Ecumenical  Creeds,  the  Confession  of 
Augsburg,  etc.,  as  writings  "  recognised  and  accepted  as 
godly  truths  by  our  blessed  forefathers  and  by  us,"  con 
demnation  of  the  Mass  became  as  much  a  traditional  canon 
within  the  Protestant  fold  as  Luther  himself  could  have 
desired. 

In  the  Schmalkalden  Articles  we  find,  after  the  first 
article  on  Justification  by  Faith  alone,  a  second  article  on 
the  office  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ  which  declares  :  "  That 
the  Mass  among  the  Papists  must  be  the  greatest  and  most 
frightful  abomination  "  because  it  is  "  in  direct  and  violent 
opposition  "  to  the  first  article,  according  to  which  the 
Lamb  of  God  alone  delivers  man  from  sin,  not  "  a  wicked  or 
pious  minister  of  the  Mass  by  his  work."  The  Mass  is  a 
"  work  of  men,  yea,  of  wicked  knaves,"  a  source  "  of  un 
speakable  abuses  by  the  buying  and  selling  of  Masses," 
defended  by  the  Papists  only  because  they  "  know  very  well, 
that  if  the  Mass  falls,  the  Papacy  too  must  perish."  Over 
and  above  all  this,  that  dragon's  tail,  which  is  the  Mass,  has 
produced  much  filth  and  vermin  and  many  forms  of  idolatry  : 
First  of  all  Purgatory  ;  for  the  execrable  market  of  Masses 

1  Ibid.    On  Gregory  the  Great,  see  above,  p.  517  n.  2. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  119.          3  Ibid.,  p.  122. 

4  Symbol.  Biicher10,  p.  301  ff.  "  Luthers  Werke,"  Erl.  ed.,  252, 
p.  174  ff. 


526          LUTHER   THE   REFORMER 

for  the  dead  produced  that  "  devilish  spectre  "  of  Purgatory. 
Secondly,  "  on  account  of  it  evil  spirits  have  performed 
much  trickery  by  appearing  as  the  souls  of  men  "  ;  the 
devils  "  with  unspeakable  roguery  "  demanded  Masses,  etc. 
"  Thirdly,  pilgrimages,  whereby  people  ran  after  Masses, 
forgiveness  of  sins,  and  the  Grace  of  God,  for  the  Mass  ruled 
everything  "  and  caused  men  to  run  after  "  hurtful,  devilish 
will-o'-the-wisps."  "  Fourthly,  the  brotherhoods  "  with 
their  Masses,  etc.,  are  also  "  contrary  to  the  first  article  of 
the  Atonement."  "  Fifthly,  the  holy  things  "  (relics)  were 
also  "  supposed  to  effect  forgiveness  of  sin  as  being  a  good 
work  and  worship  of  God  like  the  Mass."  "  Sixthly,  here 
belong  also  the  beloved  Indulgence  "  in  which  "  Judas 
incarnate,  i.e.  the  Pope,  sells  the  merits  of  Christ." — Hence 
even  Indulgences  are  made  out  to  be  one  of  the  unhappy 
consequences  of  the  Mass  ! 

It  is  a  relief,  after  such  lamentable  utterances  which 
could  only  have  been  accepted  by  people  whom  prejudice 
in  Luther's  favour  had  rendered  blind,  to  recall  the  clear 
statements— so  full  of  conviction — on  the  Real  Presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Sacrament,  which  occur  in  the  very  writings 
in  which  Luther  attacks  the  Mass.  Our  second  volume 
concluded  with  a  cheering  confession  on  the  part  of  the 
Wittenberg  Professor  of  his  faith  in  the  Trinity  and  Incarna 
tion,  a  confession  which  both  did  him  honour  and  expressed 
those  consoling  and  incontrovertible  truths  which  constitute 
the  common  treasure  of  the  Christian  creeds.  The  present 
volume  also,  after  the  sad  pictures  of  dissent  of  which  it  is 
only  too  full,  may  charitably  end  with  the  words  in  which 
Luther  voices  his  belief  in  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  the 
lasting  memorial  of  Divine  Love,  in  which  our  Lord  never 
ceases  to  pray  for  unity  amongst  those  bidden  as  guests  to 
His  table. 

"  I  hereby  confess  before  God  and  the  whole  world  that 
I  believe  and  do  not  doubt,  and  with  the  help  and  grace  of 
my  dear  Lord  Jesus  Christ  will  maintain  even  to  that  Day, 
that  Avhere  Mass  is  celebrated  according  to  Christ's  ordinance 
whether  amongst  us  Lutherans  or  in  the  Papacy,  or  in 
Greece  or  in  India  (even  though  under  one  kind  only — 
though  that  is  wrong  and  an  abuse),  there  is  present  under 
the  species  of  the  Bread,  the  true  Body  of  Christ  given  for 


"THIS    IS    MY   FAITH"  527 

us  on  the  cross,  and,  under  the  species  of  wine,  the  true 
Blood  of  Christ  shed  for  us  ;  nor  is  it  a  spiritual  or  fictitious 
Body  and  Blood,  but  the  true  natural  Body  and  Blood  taken 
of  the  holy,  virginal,  and  really  human  body  of  Mary, 
without  the  intervention  of  any  man  but  conceived  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  alone  ;  which  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  now 
sitteth  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Majesty  of  God  in  the 
Divine  Person,  which  is  Christ  Jesus,  true,  real,  and  eternal 
God,  with  the  Father  of  Whom  He  is  begotten  from  all 
eternity,  etc.  And  that  same  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Son 
of  God,  Jesus  Christ,  not  only  the  Saints  and  those  who  are 
worthy,  but  also  sinners  and  the  unworthy  truly  handle 
and  receive,  bodily  though  invisibly,  with  hands,  mouth, 
chalice,  paten,  corporal,  or  whatever  else  be  used  when 
it  is  given  and  received  in  the  Mass." 

"  This  is  my  faith,  this  I  know,  and  no  one  shall  take  it 
from  me." 

He  had  always,  so  he  insists,  by  his  testimony  upheld  the 
"  clear,  plain  text  of  the  Gospel  "  against  heresies  old  and 
new,  and  withstood  the  "  devil's  malice  and  work  in  the 
service  and  for  the  betterment  of  my  dear  brothers  and 
sisters,  in  accordance  with  Christian  charity."1 

1  "  Brieff  von  seinem  Buch  der  Winckelmessen,"  "  Werke,"  Erl. 
ed.,  31,  p.  381  f. 


END    OF    VOL.    IV 


"  :••  i  3  "  r ,   H  ^.r tir.?,nn . 
Luther. 


RR 

325 

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v.4