Hartmann Grisar

LUTHER AND LYING

1. A Battery of Assertions.[216]

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.”[217]

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 occasionally making light of them. We must likewise take into consideration the vividness of Luther’s imagination, the 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 quotation 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 unhesitatingly taught that there might be occasions when it was a Christian’s duty to depart from the truth.”[218]

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,”[219] and extolled as one of the excellencies of the Germans—in which 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.”[220]

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.[221]

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 the 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 Decretals.[222] 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.”[223] 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;[224] on Feb. 3,[225] and again on Feb. 20, 1519,[226] 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.[227] 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.[228]

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

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.”[229]—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.”[230]

To the Emperor too he also gives assurances couched in submissive 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.[231] 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.”[232] 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.”[233] 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 examination 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.[234]

If we go back a little further we find a real and irreconcilable discrepancy between the actual events of the Indulgence controversy 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.”[235] “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; Tetzel escaped scot-free, but I was to be devoured.”[236]

His falsehoods about Tetzel are scarcely believable. The latter was, so he says, such a criminal that he had even been condemned to death.[237]

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.”[238] 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.”[239] 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.”[240] Luther’s friend, Frederick Myconius, helped to spread the same falsehood throughout Germany by embodying it in his “Historia Reformationis” (1542),[241] whilst in Switzerland, Henry Bullinger, who also promoted it, expressly refers to “Wider Hans Worst” as his authority.[242]

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.[243]

We may mention incidentally, that Luther declares concerning 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,”[244] 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 contrived 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.”[245] 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 prohibition, he might make people say that he had thereby forfeited his safe conduct.[246]

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 he declared that he “believed the Bull to be real and authentic,”[247] and yet at that very time, in his “Von den newen 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.[248]

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.”[249]

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.[250]

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.[251]

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 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.”[252]

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 Œcolampadius. 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.[253] His own doctrines, on the other hand, he says, are such that not even Catholics dared to condemn them. On his return to Wittenberg 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.[254]—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,[255] 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 flood of misrepresentations, suspicions, vituperation and abuse which the Reformer poured upon his opponent.”[256]

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 statement, 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.”[257] Thus, so Luther assures us, St. Bernard, at the solemn moment of quitting this world, “made nothing” (“nihili fecit”) of his vows.[258]

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.[259] 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.[260]

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.[261]

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 we know to have been at his command. The Popes “poisoned several Emperors, beheaded or otherwise betrayed others and put them to death, as became the diabolical spectre of the Papacy.”[262] 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.”[263] Of this E. SchÄfer 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 was a strong opponent of the Staufen house.[264]

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 KÖstlin-Kawerau, most probably the Preface to the printed text published at Wittenberg in 1520 came from his pen.[265] 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.[266]

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 extraordinary 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 granting 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.[267]

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 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 nevertheless 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.[268] The following excuse of his statement as to their having been accepted at Schmalkalden 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.[269]

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.[270] He accused the Catholics, particularly the Catholic Princes, of attempting to murder him, and frequently 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.[271] 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 any attempt on George’s part to assassinate Luther.”[272] CochlÆus merely relates that murderers had offered their services to Duke George;[273] 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, mediÆval life was distorted beyond all recognition. Walter KÖhler gives a warning which is to the point: “Protestant historians must beware of looking at the Middle Ages from Luther’s standpoint.”[274] In particular was mediÆval 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.”[275]

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 insinuations 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. DÖllinger was quite right when he wrote: “As a controversialist Luther combined undeniably dialectic and rhetorical talent with a degree of unscrupulousness such as is rarely met with in this domain. One of his most ordinary methods was to distort a doctrine or institution into a mere caricature of itself, and then, forgetful of 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.”[276] 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.[277] Indeed, at a later juncture in that same controversy Luther even declared of the author of the “Hyperaspistes” that he denied the Trinity![278]

Instead of instancing anew all the many minor misrepresentations 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 ourselves to recalling his bold assertion, that all earlier expositors had taken the passage concerning “God’s justice,” in Rom. i. 17, as referring to punitive justice.[279] This was what 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 acquainted with some at least of the more than sixty commentators 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.[280] 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.”[281] Yet ecclesiastical literature in Luther’s day no less than in ours, and likewise an abundance of documents bearing on the point teach quite the contrary and make faith in Christ the basis of all the good works enjoined.[282] 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 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.”[283]

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 unfavourable 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 anything 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 wish 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 water than in the blood of Christ.... Numberless such-like horrible, blasphemous and hitherto unheard-of lies they invent and use against us. The initiate are well aware that this is the chief trick of the sects, whereby they render the Papacy an abomination to simple and otherwise well-disposed folk.”[284]

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.”[285] Again, during the menacing 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.”[286] 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 without my consent, their consent [the concessions of Melanchthon 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”; “therefore that it would be useful for him [the Bishop] to appear to suspend his judgment (“ut velut suspendens sententiam appareret”); to wait until the people had consented, and then throw in his weight as though he had been conquered by their arguments.”[287] 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 insinuating in a writing against the Catholic Duke Henry of Brunswick,[288] then a prisoner, that the Pope had furnished him supplies for his unfortunate warlike 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.[289] 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 BrÜck hastened to request him to alter the proofs for fear of evil consequences.[290] Luther, however, was in no mood to yield; the writing comprising this malicious insinuation and other falsehoods 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.[291]

“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 to save them with us, soul and body.”[292] 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.”[293] Did Luther perhaps write this with a heavy heart? Yet he also condemns in advance the soul of the unhappy Duke of Brunswick, “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 repentance.”[294] 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.”[295] 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.”[296]

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.”[297] 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.”[298] In fighting against the lies of his opponents Luther, once,—curiously enough—in his writing “Widder die hymelischen Propheten” actually takes the Pope under 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.”[299]

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.

Œcolampadius in his letter to Zwingli of April 20, 1525, calls Luther a “master in calumny, and prince of sophists.”[300]

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.”[301]

Thomas MÜnzer repeatedly calls his enemy Luther “Dr. Liar” and “Dr. Lyinglips,”[302] on account of the unkindness of his polemics; more picturesquely he has it on one occasion, that “he lied from the bottom of his gullet.”[303]

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.

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 sayings 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 Iesum 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.[321]

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 mediÆval 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 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 himself against the Papacy and the older Church by ever more extravagant assertions. Realising how unjust and untenable 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 whom 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 comfortable sense of security, and at the same time duly impress his own followers. Those who looked beneath the surface, however, must often have rejoiced to see Luther so often blunting 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.

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 injustice, 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.[334]

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.

The New Theology of Lying.

Another explanation, this time a theological 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 Sententiarum” 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 concerning the lawfulness of lying might be carried, remained, however, a question to be decided by each one individually.

Meanwhile, however, his peculiar reading of the Old Testament, and possibly no less the urgent demands of his controversy, had exerted an unfortunate influence on his opinion concerning lies of convenience or necessity.

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 StÄudlin, 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.”[346]

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.”[347] 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 accomplishing 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 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 scandalised 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.”[348]

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 permissible” for the salvation of souls (above, p. 95); moreover, 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.”[349]

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 at the Diet of Augsburg,[350] but even advocated in his doctrinal works the Lutheran view that lying is in many cases lawful.

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 Landgrave’s bigamy with Luther and had defended it personally (above, p. 28). In spite of this, however, when complications 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.”[356] And, again calling God to witness (“hÆc ego ut coram Deo scripta”), he declares that he had never written or signed anything in defence of the bigamy.[357] 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.”[358] 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 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.”[359] 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.[360]—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 questionable 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.”[361] 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 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.”[362] Luther, he says, poured forth abuse (“convicia”), but only to God’s glory, and for the “salvation and encouragement of the little ones.”[363]

4. Some Leading Slanders on the MediÆval 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 mediÆval life, viz. the Church in which it found its highest expression, is one-sided and distorted.” Such is the opinion of a modern Protestant historian. He is sorry that false ideas of the mediÆval Church and theology “have been sheltered so long under the Ægis of the reformer’s name.”[364]—“It will not do,” a lay Protestant historian, as early as 1874, had told the theologians of his faith, speaking of KÖstlin’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.”[365]

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 GermaniÆ historica,” its periodical the “Archiv,” and a number of others dealing largely with mediÆval 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 ecclesiastical life of his age. Astonishment in many soon made way for indignation; in Denifle’s case, particularly, annoyance was caused by a certain attitude adopted by this author which led some to reject in their entirety the theologico-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. BÖhmer, 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, 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 mediÆval Scholasticism and Mysticism.” From Denifle’s work it is clear that Luther was “but little conversant with mediÆval Scholasticism, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas.”[366]

“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 mediÆval theology.” An “examination of the Catholic surroundings in which Luther moved” is, so Kawerau insists, essential, and Protestants must therefore apply themselves to “the examination of that theology which influenced Luther.”[367]

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 always speak against the Middle Ages; on occasion he can employ its language himself, particularly when he thinks he can quote, in his own interests, utterances from that time. What W. KÖhler 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.”[368] 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 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.

Thus we find in the writings of that period, language by no means wanting in vigour used in denunciation of the so-called “holiness-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.[373] Herolt thus becomes a spokesman of “inwardness” in the matter of the fulfilment of the duties of the Christian life;[374] 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.

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 Himself”; thus, in his repudiation of all so-called “holiness-by-works,” he actually goes to the opposite extreme.[375]

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.”[376]

This was the usual language in use in olden time, particularly 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 rule and were reproved by zealous and clear-sighted churchmen.

A favourite work at that time was the “Imitation of Christ” by Thomas À Kempis. Thousands, more particularly 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.[377] 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.”[378]

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 LiebestÄtigkeit,” 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.”[379]

Another fable concerning the Middle Ages, sedulously fostered by Luther in his writings, was, that, in those days 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 preceded by the ancient “Agnus Dei.”[380]

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.[381] 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.

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 mediÆval 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 Protestants, he adds, at least attempt to vindicate their pet assertions “scientifically, i.e. from trustworthy sources.”[386]

The relations between the individual and God were by no means suppressed because the priesthood stood as an intermediary between the faithful and God, or because ecclesiastical 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 on the preachers being listened to, and on the ministers taking the lead in things pertaining to God.

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 foundation upon which the modern State and modern civilisation rest.”

The fact is, however, the Church of past ages fully recognised the value of the secular state and spheres of activity, saw in them a Divine institution, and respected and cherished them accordingly.

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 comparison instituted by Herolt the Dominican between religious Orders and the “Order” of matrimony. Commending 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 God first honoured matrimony by Himself instituting it. In this wise the Order of matrimony excels all other Orders (‘ordo matrimonialis prÆcellit 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.”[400]

True Christian perfection, according to the ancient teaching 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.”[401]

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 whatever 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 “Scrutinium divinÆ scripturÆ”: “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 perfection.... 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.”[402] 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.”[403]

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 “MediÆval 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 regarded as all rubbish. Indeed, “not one of the Fathers,” he says, “ever wrote anything notable or particularly good concerning the married state.”[404] 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.[405]

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.[406]

Conspectus of Luther’s Distortion of the Catholic View of Marriage.

Luther based his charges chiefly on the canonical enforcement 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 anything of the sort.[407]

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 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 respect 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 matrimony 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 encyclopÆdia, 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 “contempt 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 “Evangelibuch,” e.g. in the Augsburg edition of 1487, the “Postils on the Four Gospels throughout the year,” by Geiler of Kaysersberg († 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).

The “Marriage-booklets” of the close of the Middle Ages form a literary group apart. One of the best is “Ein nÜtzlich 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.[424]

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, neglecting 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.[425] The hero, who was at first desirous of remaining unmarried, declares: “You must not think that I condemn matrimony, for it is holy and was established by God.”[426]

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,”[427] “On the Sacrament of Matrimony,”[428] and the excellent “Mirror of the Matrimonial Order,” by the Dominican Marcus von Weida.[429] 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.[430]

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 thousands.”[431] 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 Sacrament 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.”

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 praiseworthy. 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.[432]

Barletta, in his sermons, frequently follows the example of his brother friar, the English Dominican preacher, Robert Holkot († 1349), whose works were much in request at the close of the Middle Ages.[433] 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.[434] 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.[435] Franz Falk has dwelt in detail on the testimony borne by the Late Middle Ages to the dignity of marriage.[436]

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 Sacrament and the dignity of the married woman there found expressed, Falk compares the sentiments likewise found in the prose “novels” and so-called “VolksbÜcher,” and, still more practically 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.”[437] Of the information concerning bridal outfits, he says, for instance: “The above collection of facts, a real ‘nubes testium,’ will sufficiently demonstrate what a task the Church of the Middle Ages here fulfilled towards her servants and children.... Many other such foundations 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.”[438]

In the “Internationale Wochenschrift” Heinrich Finke pointed out that he had examined hundreds of Late-mediÆval sermons on the position of women, with the result, that “it is impossible to discover in them any contempt for woman.”[439] 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 matrimonial handbooks which imply the existence of that simple, happy family life they depict and encourage.”[440] 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.”[441] Certainly we must admit, as he does, that it is for the most part the ideal of virginity which inspires them, and that it 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.[442]

“Just as Church and Councils energetically took the side of marriage” when it was decried in certain circles,[443] so the accusation of recent times that, in the Middle Ages, woman was universally looked upon with contempt, cannot stand; according to Finke this was not the case, even in “ascetical circles,” and “still less elsewhere.”[444] The author adduces facts which “utterly disprove any such general disdain for woman.”[445]

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 Holy Women, applies the words of Proverbs:[446] “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.”—Elsewhere the liturgy quotes the Psalmist:[447] “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.”[448]

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 mediÆval 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.[449]

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 mediÆval “contempt felt for womankind,” as actually to lay the blame for Luther’s sanction of polygamy on the low, “mediÆval view of the nature of matrimony.” Another theologian, a conservative, fancies that he can, even to-day, detect among “Romanists” the results of the mediÆval 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 foreseen it, he would doubtless have been proud.

Two publications by Professors of the University of Wittenberg 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. Meinhardi’s Latin Dialogues of 1508—which, of the two, would, in this respect, be the most incriminating—has absolutely nothing to do with the mediÆval 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 marrying.[450] 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.”[451] 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 sometimes 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.”[452]

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 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 weakness. 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.”[458]

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.”[459]

His description of marriage “as an outward, material thing, like any other worldly business,[460] 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.”[461]

Matrimonial cases had formerly belonged to the ecclesiastical 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.”[462] “Marriage questions,” he says, “do not touch the conscience, but come within the province of the secular judge.”[463] 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.”[464] 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.[465]

The increase in the number of matrimonial misunderstandings 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 himself 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.”

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.[466] 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 Vow of Chastity.

How did Luther reach his opinion and succeed in endowing 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 conscious of the supposed contempt in which marriage was held by the Roman Church. In his exposition of the Ten Commandments, 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.”[467] 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.”[468]

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.

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 disreputable 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 dispassionate 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 what to think of the sting of the flesh, and, possibly, will be as ready to accept the virginal state as the conjugal.”[469] Even during his 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 Melanchthon, that “Marriage is good, but virginity better” (“Bonum coniugium, melior virginitas”),[470] 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.”[471]

But this great gift, to Luther’s mind, was a moral impossibility, 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 Wartburg 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 impulse; 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, 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 “TrawbÜchlin,” 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.”[472]

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 contempt 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 Protestant 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.”[473]

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 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 prepared to admit that, “because one thing is better, its opposite must needs be bad.”

“Who thinks,” continues the same writer, that “preference 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.”[474]

Luther’s judgment was not due so much to mere thoughtlessness 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 Sacrament which sanctifies conjugal intercourse and brings down the blessings we require if the earthly and eternal purpose of marriage is to be fulfilled.

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 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.”[481] 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?”[482] According 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.”[483]

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 matrimonial 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 statements to those already adduced.[484]

“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.”[485]

“The sting of the flesh may easily be helped, so long as girls and women are to be found.”[486]

Our readers will not have forgotten the reason he gives why women have so little intellect;[487] or the reproof addressed to him by Staupitz.[488]

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.”[489]—“What greater service can one do a girl than to get her a baby? This rids her of many fancies.”[490] 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.[491]—“A young fellow should be simply given a wife, otherwise he has no peace. Then the troubles of matrimony will soon tame him.”[492]

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.”[493]

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.

This happened in the case of many of his converts from the ranks of the clergy and religious.[494]

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 bridegroom “was gone,” because she had been tardy in opening the door (v. 6). A German proverb said, “Wenn das Ferkel beut soll 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.[495]

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.”[496] It was then, too, that he sent to Albert of Prussia, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, who 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 mercifully helped him to such a position [that of a secular Prince].”[497] 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 “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.”[498]

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 constituting 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.[499] “If the Pope was able to dispense,” he said later on concerning this, “why can’t I too?”[500] 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.”[501] At a later date, nevertheless, 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.”[502]

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.”[503] At Gotha, as Luther himself relates, a woman deserted her 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.”[504]

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 unfortunate. 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 transferred to Lucka, got into trouble on account of his three marriages, but saved his skin by appealing to Luther’s letter.[505]

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 other advice can be given to one who is in constant danger from carnal lusts?”[506] Duke George of Saxony, referring to a similar passage in Luther’s work “On Conjugal Life” (1522),[507] 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.”[508]

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 repugnant 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.[514]

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.”[515] 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.[516]

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.”[534] “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 a man fears fornication he falls into secret sin, as seems to have been the case with St. Jerome.”[535]

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.” Contempt will simply lead to abuse; the true remedy for immorality was prayerfully to hold conjugal love in honour.[536]

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,[537] “has been defiled by sensuality! Just look at the "!”—[He must here have used, says Kroker, “a term for phallus, or something similar,” which Caspar Heydenreich the reporter has suppressed.][538] “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.

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?”[539]

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 Rhegius[540] 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 list of testimonies such as these might be considerably lengthened.[553]

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.[554] 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.[555] 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 was 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.

The results furnished by such painstaking research are more reliable than the vague accounts and complaints of contemporaries.[560] 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.[561] “God knows, I am acquainted with many, yea, 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 “bridegroom’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.”[562] 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 contemptible 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 “work, 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.[563] 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 fulfilment 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 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 extensive 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.[564]

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.[565] When 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 MÜnzer 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.”[566]

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 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.”[567]

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 Visitations, in 1533, he was charged with bigamy and was reprimanded for being a “drinker and gambler,” although his industry and talents were at the same time recognised. Nothing is known of his later doings.[568]

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 Matrimony and their falling away from the Catholic faith.[569] It is probable that Duke George of Saxony had something to do with this joint attack.[570] It is also likely that hopes of sterner measures on the part of the Imperial authorities also helped to induce the writers to put pen to paper.[571] 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 consecratÆ,” then attributed to St. Ambrose.[572] 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 which 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 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 HymenÆus.” 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: ‘Iesu, corona virginum.’[573]... 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 throughout 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 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 themselves; 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 pestilential 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 preaching 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 wore 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.”[574]

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.”[575] 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.”[576]

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.”[577] 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.[578]

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”;[579] 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.”[580] Hence Luther’s views are fairly apparent in the replies.

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.”[581]

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.”[582]