Full text of "Luther"
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
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325
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v.4