Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Leo Judæ, one of the leaders of the Swiss Reformation, and an opponent of Wittenberg, “accuses Luther of drunkenness and all manner of things; such a bishop [he says] he would not permit to rule over even the most insignificant see.” Thus in a letter to Bucer on April 24, 1534, quoted by Theodore Kolde in his “Analecta Lutherana,” who, unfortunately, does not give the actual text. According to Kolde, Leo Judæ continues: “Even the devil confesses Christ. I believe that since the time of the Apostles no one has ever spoken so disgracefully (‘turpiter’) as Luther, so ridiculously and irreligiously. Unless we resist him betimes, what else can we expect of the man but that he will become another Pope, who orders things first one way then another (‘fingit et refingit’), consigns this one to Satan and that one to heaven, puts one man out of the Church and receives another into it again, until things come to such a pass that he acts as Judge over all whilst no one pays the least attention to him?” With the exception of rejecting infant baptism, so Kolde goes on, Luther appeared to Judæ no better than Schwenckfeld, with whom Bucer would have nought to do; Judæ proceeds: “Not for one hundred thousand crowns would I have all evangelical preachers to resemble Luther; no one could compare with him for his wealth of abuse and for his woman-like, impotent agitation; his clamour and readiness of tongue are nowhere to be equalled.”

  Powerful indeed is the rhetorical outburst of Zwingli in a letter to Conrad Sam the preacher of Ulm, dated August 30, 1528: “May I be lost if he [Luther] does not surpass Faber in foolishness, Eck in impurity, Cochlæus in impudence, and to sum it up shortly, all the vicious in vice.”

  Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor, attacks Luther in his “Warhafften Bekanntnuss” of 1545 in reply to the latter’s “Kurtz Bekentnis”: “The booklet [Luther’s] is so crammed with devils, unchristian abuse, immoral, wicked, and unclean words, anger, rage and fury that all who read it without being as mad as the author must be greatly surprised and astonished, that so old, gifted, experienced and reputable a man cannot keep within bounds but must break out into such rudeness and filth as to ruin his cause in the eyes of all right-thinking men.”

  Johann Agricola, at one time Luther’s confidant and well acquainted with all the circumstances of his life, but later his opponent on the question of Antinomianism, left behind him such abuse of Luther that, as E. Thiele says, “it is difficult to believe such language proceeds, not from one of Luther’s Roman adversaries, but from a man who boasts of having possessed his special confidence.” He almost goes so far, according to Thiele, as to portray him as a “drunken profligate”; he says, “the pious man,” the “man of God (‘vir Dei’),” allowed himself to be led astray by the “men of Belial,” i.e. by false friends, and was inclined to be suspicious; he bitterly laments the scolding and cursing of which his works were full. One of his writings, “Against the Antinomians” (1539), was, he says, “full of lies”; in it Luther had accused him in the strongest terms and before the whole world of being a liar; it was “an abominable lie” when Luther attributed to him the statement, that God was not to be invoked and that there was no need of performing good works. When Luther’s tract was read from the pulpit even the Wittenbergers boggled at these lies and said: “Now we see what a monk is capable of thinking and doing.” Agricola also describes Luther’s immediate hearers and pupils at Wittenberg as mere “Sodomites,” and the town as the “Sister of Sodom.” Such is the opinion of this restless, passionate man, who bitterly resented the wrong done him by Luther. (See vol. v., xxix. 3.)

  Not all the above accusations are entirely baseless, for some are confirmed by other proofs quite above suspicion. The charge of habitual drunkenness, as will be shown below (xvii. 7), must be allowed to drop; so likewise must that of having been a glutton and of having constantly pandered to sensual passion; that Luther sanctioned immorality among his friends and neighbours can scarcely be squared with his frequent protests against the disorders rife at the University of Wittenberg; finally, we have to reduce to their proper proportions certain, in themselves justifiable, subjects of complaint. That, however, everything alleged against him was a pure invention of his foes, only those can believe whom prejudice blinds to everything which might tell against their hero.

  The charges of the Swiss theologians, though so strongly expressed, refer in the main to Luther’s want of restraint in speech and writing; the vigour of their defensive tactics it is easy enough to understand, and, at any rate, Luther’s writings are available for reference and allow us to appreciate how far their charges were justified.

  Another necessary preliminary remark is that no detailed accusation was ever brought against Luther of having had relations with any woman other than his wife; nothing of this nature appears to have reached the ears of the writers in question. Due weight must here be given to Luther’s constant anxiety not to compromise the Evangel by any personal misconduct. (See vol. ii., .) Luther, naturally enough, was ever in a state of apprehension as to what his opponents might, rightly or wrongly, impute to him. That he was liable to be misrepresented, particularly by foreigners (Aleander [vol. ii., ] and Catharinus), is plain from the examples given above. The distance at which Catharinus resided from Wittenberg led him to lend a willing ear to the reports brought by “reliable men,” needless to say opponents of Luther.

  The deep dislike felt by faithful Catholics for the Wittenberg professor and their lively abhorrence for certain moral doctrines expressed by him in extravagant language, formed a fertile soil for the growth of legends; some of these, met with amongst the literary defenders of Catholicism after Luther’s death, have been propagated even in modern times, and accordingly call for careful examination at the hands of the Catholic critic. Where Luther himself speaks we are on safe ground, as the method employed above shows. Where, however, we have to listen to strangers doubt must needs arise, and the task of discriminating becomes inevitable, owing to the speaker’s probable prejudice either for or against Luther. This applies, as we have already seen, even to Luther’s contemporaries, but it holds good even more as we approach modern times, when, in the heat of controversy, things were said concerning alleged historical facts, for instance, Luther’s immorality, which were certainly quite unknown to his own contemporaries. Many of Luther’s accusers had never read his works, possibly had not even troubled to look up a single one of the facts or passages cited. We must, however, remember — a fact which serves to some extent to explain the regrettable lack of exactitude and discernment — that the prohibition of reading Luther’s writings was on the whole strictly enforced by the authorities of the Church and conscientiously obeyed by the faithful, even by writers. Only rarely in olden days were dispensations granted. Thus, when attacking Luther, writers were wont to utilise passages quoted by earlier writers, often truncated excerpts given without the context. Misunderstood or entirely incorrect accounts of events connected with his life were accepted as facts, of which now, thanks to his works and particularly to his letters, we are in a better position to judge. Many seemed unaware that the misunderstandings were growing from age to age, the reason being that instead of taking as authorities the best and oldest Luther controversialists, those of a later date were preferred in whose writings facts and quotations had already undergone embellishment. In this wise the older popular literature came to attribute to Luther the strangest statements and to make complaints for which no foundation existed in fact. Incautious interpretation by more recent writers, whose training scarcely fitted them for the task and who might have learnt better by consulting Luther’s works and letters, has led to a still greater increase of the evil.

  In the following pages we propose to examine rather more narrowly certain statements which appear in the older and also more recent controversial works.

  Had Luther three children of his own apart from those born of his union with Bora?

  By his wife Luther was father to five children, viz. Hans (1526), Magdalene (1529), Martin (1531), Paul (1533) and Margaret (1534).

  T
he paternity of another child born of a certain Rosina Truchsess, a servant in his house, has also been ascribed to him, it being alleged that his references to this girl are very compromising. The latter assertion, however, does not hold good, if only we read the passages in an unprejudiced spirit; at most they prove that Luther allowed his kindliness to get the better of his caution in receiving into his house one who subsequently proved herself to be both untruthful and immoral, and that, when by her misconduct she had compromised her master and his family, he was exceedingly angry with her. It is incorrect to say that Rosina ever designated Luther as the father of her baby.

  The second child was one named Andreas, of whom Luther is said to have spoken as his son. This boy, however, has been proved to have been his nephew, Andreas Kaufmann, who was brought up in Luther’s family. Only through a mistake of the editor is he spoken of in the Table-Talk as “My Enders” and “My son”; later a fresh alteration of the text resulted in: “filius meus Andreas.”

  The third child was said to have been referred to in the Table-Talk as an “adulter infans,” in a passage where mention is made of its having been suckled by Catherine during pregnancy. In Aurifaber’s Table-Talk (1569 edition) “adulterum infantem” is, however, a misprint for “alterum infantem,” which is the true reading as it appears in the first (1568) edition. It is true that the passage in question mentions of two of Luther’s own children, that his wife was already with child before the first had been weaned.

  Luther and Catherine Bora.

  A letter which Luther wrote to his wife from Eisleben shortly before the end of his life, when he was staying at the Court of the Count of Mansfeld, has been taken as an admission of immorality: “I am now, thanks be to God, in a good case were it not for the pretty women who press me so hard that I again go in fear and peril of unchastity.” What exactly means this reference to unchastity? As a matter of fact, after having partially recovered from his malady, he is here seeking to allay his wife’s anxiety by adopting a jesting tone, though perhaps exception might be taken to the nature of his jest. That what he says was intended as a joke is plain also from the superscription of the letter, addressed to the “Pork dealer,” an allusion to her purchase of a garden close to the Wittenberg pig-market. In the letter he explains humorously to his anxious wife (this too has been taken seriously), that his catarrh and giddiness had been wholly caused by the Jews, viz. by a cold wind raised up against him by them or their God (he was just then engaged in a controversy with the Jews). — The superscriptions of the various letters to Catherine and the jesting remarks they contain have also been taken far too tragically. Luther was wont to address her as deeply-learned dame, gracious lady, holy and careful lady, most holy Katey, Doctoress, etc., also as My Lord Katey and Gracious Lord Katey. It may be that the latter appellations refer to a certain haughtiness peculiar to her; but it would be to misunderstand him entirely to see in this or even in the name “Kette” = chain, which he applies to her now and then, an involuntary admission that he was bound by the fetters of a self-willed wife. We have seen how he once spoke of her in a letter previous to his marriage as his “mistress” (Metze), which has led careless controversialists to fancy that Luther quite openly had admitted that she was “his concubine” (vol. ii., ). At any rate, not only was Luther’s language unseemly in many of his letters and in his intercourse with his Wittenberg circle, but this license of speech seems even to have infected the ladies of the party, at least if we may credit Simon Lemnius who, on the strength of what he had seen at Wittenberg, says that the wives of Luther, Justus Jonas and Spalatin vied with each other in indecent stories and confidences. Thus we cannot take it amiss if the Catholics of that day, to whose ears came such rumours — doubtless already magnified — were too ready to credit them and to give open expression to their surmises. An instance of this is what Master Joachim von der Heyden wrote, in 1528, to Catherine Bora, viz. that she had lived with Luther before their marriage in shameful and open lewdness — as was said.

  Did Luther indulge in “the Worst Orgies” with the Escaped Nuns in the Black Monastery of Wittenberg?

  To give an affirmative reply to this would call for very strong proofs, which, in point of fact, are not forthcoming. The passage in the Latin Table-Talk quoted in justification contains nothing of the sort, but, strange to say, a very fine exhortation to continence. For this reason we must again consider it, though it has already been dealt with. The exhortation commences with the words: “God is Almighty, Eternal, Merciful, Longsuffering, Chaste, etc. He loves chastity, purity, modesty. He aids and preserves it by the sacred institution of marriage in order that [as Paul says] each one may possess his vessel in sanctification, free from unbridled lust. He punishes rape, adultery, fornication, incest and secret sins with infamy and terrible bodily consequences. He warns such sinners that they shall have no part in the Kingdom of God. Therefore let us be watchful in prayer,” etc. It is true, however, that this pious exhortation is set off by frivolous remarks, and it is probably one of these which suggested the erroneous reference. Luther here speaks of his young “relative,” Magdalene Kaufmann — a girl of marriageable age living in his house — and of two other maidens of the same age, remarking that formerly people had been ready for marriage at an earlier age than now, but that he was ready to vouch for the fitness of these three wenches for conjugal work, even to staking his wife on it, etc. Of any “wicked orgies” we hear nothing whatever. Further, it is inexact to state, as has been done, that Luther was surrounded in “his dwelling” by nuns whom he had given a lodging. Neither before nor after his marriage did they stay with him permanently; as already stated (vol. ii., ) he either handed over the escaped nuns to their friends or lodged them in families at Wittenberg. Only on one occasion, in September, 1525, when in the hurry it was impossible to find accommodation for a new band of fugitives, did he receive them temporarily, possibly only for a few days, in the great “Black Monastery.” There, as he himself then expressed it, he was “privatus pater familias.”

  The Passages “which will not bear repetition.”

  The popular writer who is responsible for the tale of the “orgies” also declares, there are “other admissions of Luther’s” “which will not bear repetition.” No such admissions exist. The phrase that this or that will not bear repetition is, however, a favourite one among controversialists of a certain school, though very misleading; many, no doubt, will have been quite disappointed on looking up the passages in question in Luther’s writings to find in them nothing nearly so bad as they had been led to expect; this, indeed, was one of the reasons which impelled us rigidly to exclude from the present work any reservation and to give in full even the most revolting passages. Of one of Luther’s Theses against the theologians of Louvain we read, for instance, in a controversial pamphlet which is not usually particular about the propriety of its quotations, that the author does “not dare reproduce it”; yet, albeit coarsely worded, the passage in question really contains nothing so very dreadful, and, as for its coarseness, it is merely such as every reader of Luther’s works is prepared to encounter. The passage thus incriminated, which reads comically enough in its scholastic presentation (Thesis 31), runs as follows: “Deinde nihil ex scripturis, sed omnia ex doctrinis hominum ructant [Lovanienses], vomunt et cacant in ecclesiam, non suam sed Dei viventis.” The German translation in the original edition of 1545 slightly aggravates the wording of the Thesis.

  Two other assertions to Luther’s disadvantage have something in common; one represents as the starting-point of the whole movement which he inaugurated his desire to “wed a girl”; the other makes him declare, three years before the end of his life and as the sum-total of his experience, that the lot of the hog is the most enviable goal of happiness. A third statement goes back to his early youth and seeks to find the explanation of his later faults in a temptation succumbed to when he was little more than a boy. The facts, alleged to belong to his early history, may be taken in connection with kindred mat
ters and examined more carefully than was possible when relating the details of his early development. After that we shall deal with the story of the “hog.”

  Did Luther, as a Young Monk, say that he would push on until he could wed a Girl?

  Such is the story, taken from a Catholic sermon preached in 1580 by Wolfgang Agricola and long exploited in popular anti-Lutheran writings as a proof that Luther really made such a statement. A “document,” an “ancient deed,” nay, even a confidential “letter to his friend Spalatin,” containing the statement have also been hinted at; all this, however, is non-existent; all that we have is the story in the sermon.

  The sermon, which is to be found in an old Ingolstadt print, contains all sorts of interesting religious memories of Spalatin, the influential friend of Luther’s youthful days. The preacher was Dean in the little town of Spalt, near Nuremberg, Spalatin’s birthplace, from which the latter was known by the name of Spalatinus, his real name being Burkard. The recollections are by no means all of them equally vouched for, and hence we must go into them carefully in order rightly to appreciate the value of each. We shall see that those dealing with Luther’s love-adventures are the least to be trusted.

  Agricola first gives some particulars concerning Spalatin’s past, which seem founded on reliable tradition; in this his object is to confirm Catholics in their fidelity to the Church. Spalatin, in the course of a journey, came to his birthplace and, with forty-six gulden, founded a yearly Mass for his parents, the anniversary having been kept ever since, “even to the present day.” It is evident that this was vouched for by written documents. To say, as some Protestants have, that this and what follows is the merest invention, is not justified. Agricola goes on to inform us that Spalatin settled the finances of the family, and that, on this occasion, he presented to the township of Spalt a picture of Our Lady, which had once belonged to the Schlosskirche of Wittenberg, requesting, however, that, out of consideration for Luther, the fact of his being the donor should be kept secret until after his death. Agricola also tells how, during his stay, Spalatin invited the “then Dean, Thomas Ludel,” with the members of the chapter to be his guests, and in turn accepted their hospitality; he also attended the Catholic sermons in order to ascertain how the Word of God was preached. Thomas Ludel, the Dean, found opportunity quite frankly to discuss Spalatin’s religious attitude, whereupon the latter said: “Stick to your own form of Divine Service,” nor did Spalatin shrink from giving the same advice to the people. Every year, says Agricola, the picture of Our Lady which he had presented was placed on the High Altar to remind the faithful of the exhortation of their fellow-citizen. The picture in question is still to be seen to-day at Spalt. The narrator goes so far as to declare, that during the Dean’s observations on his religious conduct “the tears came to Spalatin’s eyes”; “I admit,” he said, “that we carried things too far.... God be merciful to us all!” From Luther’s correspondence we know that Spalatin, in later days, was much disquieted by melancholy and temptations to despair. Luther, by his letters, sought to inspire his friend as he approached the close of his life with confidence in Christ, agreeably with the tenets of the new Evangel.