Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  As a matter of fact the “poem” in question was a popular mediæval one, frequently met with in manuscripts, sometimes in quite inoffensive forms. At any rate, the jingling rhymes (in the German original: Güte, Hüte, Rinder, Kinder) are the persistent feature. According to Bartsch it occurs in the Zimmern Chronik in a version attributed to Count Hans Werdenberg (1268), which, while retaining the same rhymes (in the German), inverts the meaning. Here the prayer is for:

  Potent stallions, portly oxen,

  Buxom women, plenty children.

  From a MS., “Gesta Romanorum,” of 1476, J. L. Hocker (“Bibliotheca Heilbronnensis”), quotes a similar but shorter verse. A different rendering of the poem was entered into a Diary in 1596 by Wolff von Stechau.

  Certain Protestant writers of the present day, not content with “saving Luther’s honour” by emphasising the fact that the above verses of the Heidelberg MS. are not his, proceed to insinuate that they were really “aimed at the clergy”; the “hoods” and “hats” of which they speak were forsooth the monks’ and the cardinals’, and the rhymester was all the time envying the gay life of the clergy; thus the poem, so we are told, throws a “lurid light on the esteem in which the mediæval monks and clergy were held by the laity committed to their care.” — Yet the verses contain no reference whatever to ecclesiastics. “Hoods” were part of the layman’s dress and presumably “hats,” too. And after all, would it have been so very wicked even for a pious layman to wish to share in the good things possessed by the clergy? If satires on the mediæval clergy are sought for, sufficient are to be found without including this poor jingle.

  Did Luther include Wives in the “Daily Bread” of the Our Father?

  Controversial writers have seen fit to accuse Luther of including wives in the “daily bread” for which we ask, and, in support of their charge, refer to his explanation of the fourth request of the Our Father. In point of fact in the Smaller Catechism the following is his teaching concerning this petition: It teaches us to ask God “for everything required for the sustenance and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes and house, a farm, fields, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children and servants, and good masters, etc. In the Larger Catechism the list is similar: Food and drink, clothes, a house and farm, health of body, grain and fruits, a pious wife, children and servants,” etc. With all this surely no fault can be found.

  Was Luther the originator of the proverb: “Who loves not woman, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long”?

  These verses are found neither in Luther’s own writings nor in the old notes and written traditions concerning him. Joh. Heinrich Voss was the first to publish them in the “Wandsbeker Bote” in 1775, reprinting them in his Musenalmanach (1777). When he was charged by Senior Herrenschmidt with having foisted them on to Luther, he admitted that he was unable to give any account of their origin. Several proverbs of a similar type, dating from mediæval times, have been cited.

  A humorous remark of Luther’s would appear, according to Seidemann, to refer to some earlier proverb linking together women, wine and song. The remark in question is contained in the MS. collection of the Table-Talk preserved at Gotha and known as “Serotina,” now available in the work of E. Kroker, published in 1903. The entire passage is not to be taken seriously: “To-morrow I have to lecture on Noe’s drunkenness, so to-night I shall drink deeply so as to be able to speak of the naughty thing from experience. ‘Not at all,’ said Dr. Cordatus, ‘you must do just the opposite.’ Thereupon Luther remarked: ‘Each country must be granted its own special fault. The Bohemians are gluttons, the Wends thieves, the Germans hard drinkers; for my dear Cordatus, in what else does a German excel than ‘ebrietate, praesertim talem, qui non diligit musicam et mulieres’?” This saying of Luther’s, which was noted down by Lauterbach and Weller, belongs to the year 1536.

  7. The “Good Drink”

  Among the imputations against Luther’s private life most common among early controversial writers was that of being an habitual drunkard.

  On the other hand, many of Luther’s Protestant supporters down to our own day have been at pains to defend him against any charge of intemperance. Even scholarly modern biographers of Luther pass over this point in the most tactful silence, or with just the merest allusion, though they delight to dwell on his “natural enjoyment of life.”

  The following pages may help to show the failings of both methods, of that pursued by Luther’s opponents, with their frequently quite unjustifiable exaggerations, and of that of his defenders with their refusal to discuss even the really existing grounds for complaint. To begin with, Luther’s enemies must resign themselves to abandon some of the proofs formerly adduced for his excessive addiction to drink.

  Unsatisfactory Witnesses.

  Luther’s saying: “If I have a can of beer, I want the beer-barrel as well,” has often been cited against him, the fact being overlooked, that he only made use of this expression in order to illustrate, by a very common example, the idea, expressed in the heading of the chapter in which it occurs, viz. that “No one is ever satisfied.” Everyone, he continues, desires to go one step higher, everyone wants to attain to something more, and, then, with other examples, he gives that mentioned above, where, for “I,” we might equally well substitute “we,” which indeed we find employed elsewhere in this same connection: “If we have one Gulden, we want a hundred.”

  Another passage, alleged, strange to say, by older writers, proves nothing: “We eat ourselves to death, and drink ourselves to death; we eat and drink ourselves into poverty and down to hell.” Here Luther is merely speaking against the habit of drinking which had become so prevalent, and dominated some to such an extent that death and hell were the lamentable consequences to be feared. (See below, f.)

  Luther, wishing to drive a point home, says that he is not “drunk,” but is writing “in the morning hours.” Must we infer, then, that he was in the habit of writing when drunk, or that in the afternoon he was not usually sober? Must he be considered drunk whenever he does not state plainly that he is sober? The truth is that such expressions were merely his way of speaking. In the important passage here under consideration he writes: “Possibly it may be asserted later that I did not sufficiently weigh what I say here against those who deny the presence of Christ in the Sacrament; but I am not drunk or giddy; I know what I am saying and what it will mean to me on Judgment Day and at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus he is speaking most seriously and uses this curious verbal artifice simply to emphasise his earnestness. Were additional proof necessary it might be found in other passages; for instance: “Christ was not drunk when He said this,” viz. the Eucharistic words of consecration, the literal meaning of which Luther is upholding against the Strasburg Sacramentarians.

  For the purpose of discrediting Luther an old opponent wrote: “The part that eating and drinking play in the life of the Reformer is evident from his letters to his Katey,” and then went on to refer to the perfectly innocent passage where Luther says, that he preferred the beer and wine he was used to at home to what he was having at Dessau, whence he wrote. The rest of the letter has also been taken in an unnecessarily tragic sense: “Yesterday I had some poor stuff to drink so that I had to begin singing: ‘If I can’t drink deep then I am sad, for a good deep drink ever makes me so glad.’” It is quite unnecessary to take this as a song sung by a “tipsy man”; it is simply a jesting reference to a popular ditty which quite possibly he had actually struck up to get rid of his annoyance at the quality of the liquor. “You would do well,” he continues in the same jocular vein, “to send me over the whole cellar full of my usual wine, and a bottle of your beer as often as you can, else I shall not turn up any more for the new brew.”

  No one who is familiar with his homely mode of speech will take offence at his calling himself on one occasion the “corpulent Doctor,” and in any case this involves neither gluttony nor drunkenness. Moreover, the words occur in
a serious connection, for we shall hear it from him during the last days of his life: “When I return again to Wittenberg I shall lay myself in my coffin and give the worms a corpulent doctor to feast on,” referring, of course, to his natural stoutness. Offence has also been taken at a sentence met with in Luther’s Table-Talk, where he says of his contemporaries of fifty years before: “How thin they [i.e. their ranks] have become”; from which it was inferred that he wished them a luxurious life and corpulence, and that he “regarded pot bellies as an ornament and a thing to be desired.” From its context, however, the meaning of the word “thin” is clear. What Luther means is: How few of them remain in the land of the living.

  But does not Luther in a letter of his let fall a remark scarcely beseeming one in his position, viz. that he would like to be more frequently in the company of those “good fellows, the students,” “the beer is good, the parlour-maid pretty, the lads friendly (innig)”? Such is one of the statements brought forward against him to show his inordinate love of drink. Yet, when examined, the letter is found to say nothing of any yearning of Luther’s to join in the drinking-bouts of the students or of any interest of his in the maid. “Two honest students” had been recommended to Luther, and the letter informs its addressee, the Mansfeld Chancellor Müller at Eisleben, of the rumour that “too much was being consumed without any necessity by the pair”; the Chancellor was to inform the Count of Mansfeld of the fact in order that he (whose protégés they may have been) “might keep an eye on them.” Then come the words: “What harm would friendly supervision do? The beer is good, the parlour-maid pretty and the lads young (‘jung’ not ‘innig’); the students really behave very well, and my only regret is that, owing to my weak health, I am unable to be oftener with them.” This letter surely does Luther credit. It testifies to his solicitude for the two youths committed to his care; seeing they are still “good and pious,” he is anxious to preserve them from intemperance and other dangers, and regrets that, owing to his poor state of health, he is unable to have the pleasure of visiting these young fellows more often.

  We must also caution our readers against an alleged quotation from Luther’s contemporary, Simon Lemnius. Lemnius is reported to have said: “His excessive indulgence in wine and beer made Luther at times so ill that he quite expected to die.” No such statement occurs in the works of Lemnius. What this writer actually did say of Luther on the score of drunkenness will be given later. The above words are a modern invention, though one author, strange to say, actually tacked them on to the authentic passage in Lemnius as though they had belonged to the latter.

  Again, it has been said that excessive indulgence in some Malvasian wine was, on Luther’s own admission, the cause of a malady which troubled him for a considerable time in 1529. Luther’s letter in question speaks, however, of a “severe and almost fatal catarrh,” which lasted for a long time and almost deprived him of his voice; others, too, says Luther, had suffered from the catarrh (no great wonder in the month of March or April), but not to the same extent as he. He had imprudently aggravated the trouble possibly by preaching too energetically or — and here comes the incriminating passage— “by drinking some adulterated Malvasian to the health of Amsdorf.” Such were his words to his confidential friend Jonas. The fact is that a wine so expensive as Malvasian was then very liable to being adulterated, the demand far exceeding the supply of this beverage, which was always expected to figure on the table on great occasions. At any rate, there is no mention here of Luther’s illness having arisen from continuous and excessive indulgence in wine. At the conclusion of this chapter we shall have to consider a similar passage.

  In the above we have examined about a dozen witnesses, whose testimony has been shown quite valueless to prove Luther’s alleged devotion to drink.

  The conclusions which have been drawn from the character of certain of Luther’s writings or utterances are also worthless. It has been affirmed that his “Wider das Bapstum vom Teuffel gestifft” could only have been written “under the excitement produced by drink,” and that many of his sayings, such as his exhortation to “pray for Our Lord God,” could have been uttered “only by a drunken man.”

  Yet his incredible hatred sufficed of itself to explain the frenzy of his utterances, nor must we forget that some of his expressions, out of place though they may seem, were chosen as best fitted to appeal to the populace. “Pray for Our Lord God,” interpreted in the light of other similar expressions used by him, means: Pray for the interests of our Lord God and of the new Evangel.

  Other Witnesses, Friendly and Hostile.

  Before proceeding to scrutinise in detail the more cogent testimonies, we may remark that one trait in Luther’s character, that namely which caused him to be called the “merry boon companion,” might possibly be invoked in support of the charge now under consideration.

  It was his struggle with the gloomy moods to which he was so prone that drove Luther into cheerful company and to seek relief in congenial conversation and in liquor. That he was not over-scrupulous concerning indulgence in the latter comfort is attested by his own words, viz. that he was too fond of jests and convivial gatherings (“iocis aut conviviis excedere”), and that the world had some grounds for taking offence (“inveniat in me quo offendatur et cadat”). Yet he was very desirous of avoiding such accusations on the part of his opponents, though, as he puts it, they “calumniate even what is best and most inoffensive.” When he says elsewhere in his usual gross way: “They spy out everything that concerns me, and no sooner do I pass a motion than they smell it at Rome,” this exclamation was called forth by the scandalous excess in drinking of which a member of his family was habitually guilty.

  Then, again, the drinking habits of the Germans of those days must be borne in mind. A man had to be a very hard drinker to gain the reputation of being a drunkard. Instances will be given later showing how zealously Luther attacked the vice of drunkenness in Germany. At that time a man (even though a theologian or other person much exposed to the gaze of the public) was free to imbibe far more than was good for him without remarks being made or his conduct censured.

  Luther’s extraordinary industry and the astounding number of his literary productions must likewise not be lost sight of. We are compelled to ask ourselves whether it is likely that the man who wrote works so numerous and profound, in the midst, too, of the many other cares which pressed on him, was addicted to habitual drunkenness. How could the physical capacity for undertaking and executing such immense labours, and the energy requisite for the long, uninterrupted religious and literary struggle into which Luther threw himself, be found in one who unceasingly quenched an excessive thirst with alcoholic drink? Kawerau has sketched Luther’s “colossal mental productivity” during the one year 1529, a year in which he was not engaged in any of his accustomed literary feuds. Works published during that year cover, in the Weimar edition, 287 pages, in imperial octavo, his lectures on Deuteronomy 247 pages and the notes of his sermons (some, however, in duplicate) 824 pages. In addition to this he was at work on his German translation of the Old Testament, completing the Pentateuch and making a beginning with the remaining historical books. Besides this he wrote in that year countless letters, of which comparatively few, viz. 112, are still extant. He also undertook five short journeys lasting together about a fortnight.

  During the short and anxious period, amounting to 173 days, which he spent, in 1530, in the Castle of Coburg (it is to this time that some of the charges of excessive drinking refer), he wrote and forwarded to the press various biblical expositions which in the Erlangen edition occupy 718 pages in small octavo, re-wrote in its entirety “Von den Schlüsseln,” a work of 87 pages, was all the while busy with his translation of Jeremias, of a portion of Ezechiel and all the minor Prophets, and finally wrote at least the 128 letters and memoranda which are still extant. Yet, for whole days during this sojourn in the Coburg, he was plagued with noises in the head and giddiness, results, no doubt, of nervous excitem
ent.

  That such productivity would not have been possible “without meditation and study” is, however, not quite true in his case. Luther wrote most of his works without reflection and without any real study, merely jotting down carelessly whatever his lively fancy suggested.

  Thus we may rightly ask whether the accusation of habitual participation in drinking-bouts and constant private excess is compatible with the work he produced.

  In the case of reports of an unfavourable nature it is of course necessary to examine their origin carefully; this unfortunately is not always done. As we already had occasion to remark when dealing with the imputations against his moral character, it makes all the difference whether the witness against him is a Catholic opponent or represents the New Evangel. Amongst Catholics, again, we must discriminate between foreigners, who were ignorant of German customs and who sometimes wrote merely on hearsay, and Luther’s German compatriots. We shall not characterise the method of those of Luther’s defenders who simply refuse to listen to his opponents on the ground that, one and all, they are prejudiced.

  Wolfgang Musculus (Mäuslin), an Evangelical theologian, in the account of a journey in May, 1536, during which he had visited Luther, gives an interesting and unbiassed report of what he saw at Wittenberg. On May 29, Luther came, bringing with him Melanchthon and Lucas Cranach, to dine as Mäuslin’s guest at the inn where he was staying. There all had their share of the wine. “When dinner was over,” says the chronicler, “we all went to the house of Master Lucas, the painter, where we had another drink.... After this we escorted Luther home, where we drank in true Saxon style. He was marvellously cheerful and promised everything most readily” (i.e. probably all that Musculus proposed concerning the agreement to be come to with the Zwinglians, of whom Musculus was one). The allusion to the “Saxon style” reminds us of Count Hoyer’s reference to the “custom at Mansfeld” (vol. ii., ). Luther’s country does not seem to have been noted for its temperance.