Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Wittenberg. The Saxon Electorate

  The abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want of consideration.

  Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely to transform this “Bethaven,” this place of idolatry, as he called the Church, and in this matter the Prior and some of the Canons were on his side.

  After some unsuccessful negotiations, carried on with the Elector through Spalatin, Luther himself invited the Chapter, on March 1, 1523, to abolish all Catholic ceremonies, as abominations, which could only give scandal at Wittenberg. “The cause of the ‘Evangel,’ which Christ has committed to this city as a priceless gift,” forced him, so he declared, to speak. “My conscience can no longer keep silence owing to the office entrusted to me.” If they would not give way peaceably, then they must be prepared for “public insults” from him, seeing that they would have to be excluded from the congregation as non-Christians, and have their company shunned.

  The Dean, who was faithful to the Church, and the Catholic members of the Chapter persisted in their resistance, urging that the Elector himself did not wish to see the Masses discontinued which his ancestors had founded for the repose of their souls.

  Luther, not in the least disconcerted, on July 11, 1523, repeated his written declaration, this time in a peremptory tone. “If we endure this any longer,” he writes, “it will fall upon our own heads and we shall be burdened with the sins of others.” The Canons were not to tell him that “the Elector commanded or did not command to do this or to alter that. I am speaking now to your own consciences. What has the Elector to do with such matters?” he asks, strangely contradicting his own theory. “You know what St. Peter says, Acts v. 29, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men,’ and St. Paul (Gal. i. 8), ‘Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.’” He summons them to “obey,” otherwise he will pray against them as he has hitherto prayed for them, and as Christ was “jealous” it might be that his “prayer would be powerful and you may have to suffer for it.” “Christ soon punishes those who are His, when they wax disobedient (c Peter iv. 17).”

  His violence in the pulpit gave reason for anticipating the worst when, on the very next day, he gave free rein to his eloquence against the Collegiate Church.

  On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against the Canons and their service.

  He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even against him: “What does he matter to us?” he cried. “He commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say: “Your Grace, pray look after your own business.” It was an unequivocal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in the same sermon, that they also would be “responsible for the sins of others” if they permitted the Popish disorder any longer in their midst. “I am afraid that this may also be the reason why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer such things to be.” Yet he was careful prudently to admonish the people not to touch the Canons’ persons.

  This admonition seems to have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would “not go any further,” as there was quite enough “discontent at Wittenberg already.” The offender in reply assured the Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult, and, for the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told. We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that Luther did not act up to what he preached. In the letter in question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from “Masses, vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel,” they would be forced to do so; he moreover asked for a “true, straight and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday”; what has happened is that “the devil has inspired you with a spirit of defiance and mischief.” The “great patience with which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and the idolatry in your Churches” is exhausted. He also hints that they could no longer be certain of the Elector’s protection.

  Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was blasphemy, madness and a lie; its celebration was worse than unchastity, murder or robbery; princes, burgomasters, councillors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had received the sword from Him. He exhorts “all princes and rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges” to summon the “blasphemous ministers” of the “whore of Babylon” and force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.

  The agitation intentionally fomented became, however, so great, that the Canons did not know what steps to take against the “rising excitement of the inhabitants” of Wittenberg, for the saving of the Catholic services, and for the safety of their own persons. Even before this, students had perpetrated disorders at night in the Collegiate Church, and Luther had himself declared that he was obliged daily to restrain the people to prevent the committing of excesses. The Canons were now tormented by the singing of satires on the Mass outside their house, and had to listen to the curses which were showered on them. One night the Dean had his windows smashed. The Town Council, and also the University, now definitely took sides against the Chapter, and, after warning them in writing of God’s anger, sent representatives to advise the Canons of their excommunication. Although no actual tumult took place, yet the public declarations and the threatening attitude of the populace incited by Luther amounted to practical compulsion. The few Canons still remaining finally yielded to force, particularly when they saw that the Elector, Frederick “the Wise,” refused to give any but evasive replies to their appeals.

  On Christmas Day, 1524, for the first time, there was no Mass.

  Protestants themselves have recently admitted that, “contrary to the express wish of the sovereign and not without the employment of force against the Canons” did “Luther succeed in carrying matters so far.” “The Canons finally gave way before new outbursts of violence on the part of the students and the citizens,” when, according to Luther’s own account, there remained only “three hogs and paunches” of all the Canons formerly attached to this Church, not of “All Saints,” but rather of “All Devils.”

  An echo of his tempestuous sermon of November 27 is to be found in the pamphlet which Luther published at the commencement of 1525: “On the abomination of Silent Masses” (against the Canon of the Mass). In the Preface he refers directly to the inglorious proceedings against the unfortunate Chapter. He finds it necessary to declare that he, for his part, had aroused no revolt, for what was done by the established authorities could not be termed revolt; the “secular gentlemen,” who, according to him, constituted the established authorities, had, however, felt it their duty to take steps against the Catholic worship in the Collegiate Church.

  In that same year, 1525, under the auspices of the new Elector Johann, a great friend to Luther
anism, who succeeded the Elector Frederick upon his death on May 5, 1525, and whom Luther had long before won over to his cause, the order of Divine Service at Wittenberg was entirely altered. “The Pope” was at last, as Spalatin joyfully proclaimed throughout the city, “completely set aside.”

  Under the rule of the Elector Johann, Luther at once carried out the complete suppression of Catholic worship throughout the Electorate.

  On October 1, 1525, Spalatin wrote to the Elector Johann: “Dr. Martin also says, that your Electoral Grace is on no account to permit anyone to continue the anti-Christian ceremonies any longer, or to start them again.”

  With the object of helping him in his work at Court and of removing any scruples he might have, Luther explained to Spalatin, in a letter of November 11 of the same year, that by stamping out the Catholic worship rulers would not be forcing the faith on anyone, but merely prohibiting such open abominations as the Mass; if anyone, in spite of all, desired to believe in it privately, or to blaspheme in secret, no coercion would be exercised. No attention was paid to the rights of Catholics to a Divine Worship, attendance at which was to them a matter of conscience. They were simply to be permitted to emigrate; if they chose to remain they were not to “perform or take any part in any public worship.” It was on such principles as these that the Memorandum which Spalatin presented to the Elector on January 10, 1526, was based.

  Luther himself appealed to the Elector on February 9, 1526, seeking to “fortify his conscience” and to encourage him “to attack the idolaters with even greater readiness.” He points out to him, first, how damnable is the blasphemous, idolatrous worship; were he to afford it any protection, then “all the abominations against God would eventually weigh upon his, the Prince’s, conscience”; secondly, that differences in religious worship would inevitably give rise to “revolt and tumults”; hence the ruler must provide that “in each locality there be but one doctrine.”

  To the force of such arguments Johann could not but yield.

  He answered in a friendly letter to Luther on February 13, 1526, that he had been pleased to take note of the difficulty, and would for the future know how to comport himself in these matters in a Christian and irreproachable manner. Subsequent to this assurance he acted as an apt pupil of the Wittenberg Professor.

  In accordance with the instructions given by the Elector in 1527 for the general Visitation of the Churches in the Saxon Electorate, an “inquisition” was to be held everywhere by the ecclesiastical Visitors as to whether any “sect or schism” existed in the country. Whoever was “suspected of error in respect of the sacraments or some doctrine of faith” was to be “summoned and interrogated, and, if the occasion required, hostile witnesses were to be heard”; if any refused to give up their “error,” they were commanded to sell their possessions within a given time and to quit the country. One thing only was still wanting, viz. that the people should be compelled by the Ruler to attend the Lutheran sermons and services. Even this was, however, implied in the regulations, since those who did not attend were classed among the “suspects.” As time went on Luther demanded the exercise of such coercion, and it was actually introduced in the Electorate and, later, in the Protestant Duchy of Saxony.

  The proceedings on the introduction of the innovations in other districts were similar to those in the Electorate of Saxony. Wherever a small group of persons were willing to throw in their lot with the first local representatives of the new faith — generally clerics — they were backed up by the State authorities, who reconstructed the religious system as they thought best. “Nowhere was the primitive Lutheran ideal realised of a congregation forming itself in entire independence.... Thus at an early date Lutheranism took its place among the political factors, and its development was to a certain extent dependent upon the tendencies and inclinations of the authorities and ruling sovereigns of that day.”

  The Electors Frederick and Johann of Saxony were gradually joined by a number of other Princes who introduced the innovations into their lands, and the magistrates of the larger, and even of some of the smaller, Imperial cities soon followed suit. Thus the whole movement, having owed its success so largely to the authorities, was governed and exploited by them and assumed a strongly political character, needless to say, much to the detriment of its religious aspect.

  What part the “inclinations of the ruling sovereigns” played, even in opposition to Luther’s own wishes, is plain from the example of the Margrave Philip of Hesse, who, next to the Elector of Saxony, was the most powerful, and undoubtedly the most determined, promoter of the great apostasy. This Prince, whose leanings were towards Zürich, as early as 1529 was anxious to extend the alliance he had concluded in the interests of the innovations with the Saxon Electorate, so as to embrace also the Zwinglians. Attracted by Zwingli’s denial of the sacrament, he also sought, with the assistance of theologians of his own way of thinking, to amalgamate the Swiss doctrine with that of Wittenberg; in this he was not, however, successful. The great religious alliance with Wittenberg aimed at by Zwingli himself as well as by Philip, and which it was hoped to settle at the Conference of Marburg (see vol. iii., xix. 1), was never realised, Luther refusing to give in on any point. In Hesse, however, the Zwinglian influence was maintained through the agency of theologians of Bucer’s school, which had the favour of the Court, while at Strasburg and other South German cities the authorities, leaning even more to the Swiss Confession, set up their “reformed” view as the actual rule of faith in their domains.

  Nuremberg

  The history of the apostasy of Nuremberg, which may be considered separately here, exhibits another type of the proceedings at the general religious revolution.

  Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther’s own Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council. Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob. Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of St. Ægidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas the town-council — the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus Ebner, Caspar Stützel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the Town Clerk — formally decided to join Luther’s party, many among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided; here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden falling away of the people as a whole.

  What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other towns: “I frequently hear that there are many people in this city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons, but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever listened to it.”

  The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures, sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable, stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. Ægidius surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the monks became Lutherans.

  All these changes took place in 1525.

  The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving Friars surrendered thei
r convent to the magistrates in 1543. The Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand, enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer, a lady equally clever and pious.

  The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and confessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament. The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bamberg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion; those who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read in the “Memoirs” of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward peace which nothing could destroy; how they worked actively for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.