Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  The letter partook of the nature of a manifesto, intended to place the Catholic-minded Prince publicly in the wrong, if it did not, as was hardly to be expected, draw him over to the side of the innovators.

  The Duke replied, on Dec. 28, in a manner worthy of his status in the Empire and of the firm attitude he had maintained so far. “As a layman” he refused to enter upon a “Scriptural disputation” with Luther; it was not untrue that Luther had attacked him “harshly and contrary to the ordinance of God and the command of the Gospel”; Luther might, if he chose, compare his former severity with that of God, but he certainly would not find, “in the Gospels or anywhere in Scripture,” abusive epithets such as he employed; for him, as a sovereign, to have had to put up with such treatment from a man under the ban of the Empire, had cost him much; he had been compelled to put pressure on himself to accept “persecution for justice’ sake.” Luther’s “utterly shameful abuse of our most gracious Lord, the Roman Emperor,” made it impossible for him to be Luther’s “gracious master.”

  Formerly, so George admits, when Luther’s writings “first appeared, some of them had pleased him. Nor were we displeased to hear of the Disputation at Leipzig, for we hoped from it some amendment of the abuses amongst Christians.” Luther, however, in his very hearing at Leipzig, had advanced Hussite errors, though he had afterwards promised him privately to “write against them” in order to allay any suspicion; in spite of this he had written in favour of Hus and against the Council of Constance and against “all our forefathers.”

  He, for his part, held fast to the principle, “that all who acted in defiance of obedience and separated themselves from the Christian Churches were heretics and should be regarded as such, for so they had been declared by the Holy Councils, all of which you deny, though it does not beseem you nor any Christian.” Hence he would “trouble little” about Luther’s Evangel, but would continue to do his best to exclude it from his lands.

  “One cause for so doing is given us in the evil fruit which springs from it; for neither you nor any man can say that aught but blasphemy of God, of the Blessed and Holy Sacrament, of the most Holy Mother of God and all the Saints has resulted from your teaching; for in your preaching all the heresies condemned of old are revived, and all honourable worship of God destroyed to an extent never witnessed since the days of Sergius [the monk supposed to have taught Mohammed]. When have more acts of sacrilege been committed by persons dedicated to God than since you introduced the Evangel? Whence has more revolt against authority come than from your Evangel? When has there been such plundering of poor religious houses? When more robbery and thieving? When were there so many escaped monks and nuns at Wittenberg as now?” etc.

  “Had Christ wanted such an Evangel, He would not have said so often: Peace be with you! St. Peter and St. Paul would not have said that the authorities must be obeyed. Thus the fruits of your teaching and Evangel fill us with horror and disgust. We are, however, ready to stake body, soul, goods and honour in defence of the true Gospel, in which may God’s Grace assist us!”

  After urgent admonitions offered to Luther “as New-Year wishes,” more particularly to sever his connection with the nun, he promises him his assistance should he obey him: “We shall spare no pains to obtain the clemency of our most gracious Lord the Emperor, so far as is possible to us here, and you need have no fear of any ill on account of what you have done against us, but may expect all that is good. That you may see your way to this is our hope. Amen.”

  Few Princes were to suffer worse treatment at Luther’s hands than Duke George. The Duke frequently retaliated by charging Luther with being a liar.

  He wrote, for instance, in 1531, that Luther simply bore witness to the fact that the “spirit of lying” dwelt in him, “who speaks nothing but his own fabrications and falsehood.” “You forsworn Luther,” he says to him, “you who treacherously and falsely calumniate His Imperial Majesty.”

  Luther’s anger against the most influential Prince in the Catholic League was not diminished by the fact, that the Duke severely censured the real evils on the Catholic side, was himself inclined to introduce reforms on his own, and even, at times, to go too far. Such action on George’s part annoyed Luther all the more, because in all this the Duke would not hear of any relinquishing of ancient dogma. Hence we find Luther, quite contrary to the real state of the case, abusing George as follows: The Duke was secretly in favour of the new teaching and his resistance was merely assumed; he was opposed to the reception of the Sacrament under both kinds, only because he wished to tread under foot the whole teaching of Christ, to forbid Holy Scripture altogether and particularly to condemn St. Paul; if he, Luther, were not allowed to abuse the Duke, then neither might he call the devil a murderer and a liar. “He is my sworn, personal enemy,” he says, and proceeds in the same vein: “Had I written in favour of the Pope, he would now be against the Pope, but because I write against the Pope, he fights for him and defends him.”

  Luther, as his manner was, announced as early as 1522 that “the Judgment of God would inevitably overtake him.” When the Duke, in 1539, had died the death of a Christian, Luther said: “It is a judgment on those who despise the one true God.” “It is an example when a father and two fine grown-up sons sink into the grave in so short a time, but I, Dr. Luther, prophesied that Duke George and his race would perish.” There was, according to Luther, only one ray of hope for the eternal happiness of the Duke, viz. that, when his son Hans lay dying in 1537, not so long before his own death, it was reported he had consoled him in the Lutheran fashion. According to Luther he had encouraged him with the article on Justification by Faith in Christ and reminded him, “that he must look only to Christ, the Saviour of the world, and forget his own works and merits.” Needless to say the pious thoughts suggested to the dying man were simply those usually placed before the mind of faithful Catholics at the hour of death.

  Luther’s imagination and his polemics combine to trace a picture of Duke George which is as characteristic of himself as it is at variance with the figure of the Duke, as recorded in history. He accused the Duke of misgovernment and tyranny and incited his subjects against him; and, in his worst fit of indignation, launched against the Duke the booklet “Widder den Meuchler zu Dresen” (1531). Yet the Saxons generally did not regard the Duke’s government as tyrannical or look upon him as an “assassin,” not even the Lutherans who formed the majority. On the contrary, they were later on to acknowledge, that, under the Duke’s reign, they had enjoyed “prosperity and peace” with the Emperor, amongst themselves and with their neighbours. His firmness and honour were no secret to all who knew him. The King of France admired his disinterestedness, when, in 1532, he rejected the proffered yearly pension of at least 5000 Gulden which was to detach him from the Empire. At the Diet of Worms this Catholic Duke had been the most outspoken in condemning the proposal made, that Luther should be refused a safe conduct for his return journey; he pointed out how much at variance this was with German ways and what a lasting shame it would bring on the German Princes. As for the rest he favoured the use of strong measures to safeguard Germany from religious and political revolution. He also befriended, more than any other German Prince or Bishop, those scholars who attacked Luther in print.

  After the appearance of the libel “Widder den Meuchler zu Dresen,” he wrote a reply entitled “About the insulting booklet which Martin Luther has published against the Dresden murderer,” though it was issued in 1531, not under his own name, but under that of Franz Arnoldi.

  The work is more a vindication of the Empire’s Catholic standpoint and of the honour of the Catholics against Luther’s foul suspicions and calumnies, than a personal defence of his own cause. It is couched in the language we might expect from a fighter and a sovereign pelted with filth before the eyes of his own subjects. It hails expressions of the roughest against Luther, the convicted “rebel against the Emperor and all authority,” the inventor of “slimy fabrications and palpable lies” n
ot worth an answer, amongst which was the “downright false” assertion, that “the Papists are up in arms” against the Protestant Estates. In order to understand its tone we must bear in mind Luther’s own method of belabouring all his foes with the coarsest language at his command.

  At the beginning of his writing the Duke says of Luther’s abuse: “If both Lutherans and Papists could be reformed by vituperation and abuse, cursing and swearing, then His Imperial Roman Majesty, Christian kings, princes and lords would have had no need of a scholar; plenty other people, for instance, worn-out whores, tipsy boors and loose knaves, might have done it just as well without any assistance or help of yours.”

  The following, taken from the Duke’s writing, carries us back into the very thick of the excitement of those years:

  “Who is the man who, contrary to God, law, justice and all Scripture and knowledge, has sacrilegiously robbed, stolen and taken from Christ all the possessions bestowed upon Him hundreds of years ago by emperors, kings, princes, lords, counts, knights, nobles, burghers and peasants, all of whom, out of fervent love and appreciation for His sacred Passion, His rosy blood and guiltless death, gave their gifts for the establishment of monasteries, parish-churches, altars, cells, hospitals, mortuaries, guilds, roods, etc., etc.? Why, Squire Martin, Dr. Luther! — Who has plundered and despoiled the poor village clergy — who were true pastors of the Church, ministers of the Sacraments, preachers and guides of souls — of their blood and sweat, their hardly earned yearly stipend, nay, their sacred gifts such as tithes, rents, offerings and Church dues, and that without any permission of the Ordinaries and contrary to God, to honour and to justice? Why, Dr. Pig-trough Luther! — Who has robbed, plundered and deprived God during the last twelve years of so many thousand souls and sent them down with bloody heads to Lucifer in the abyss of hell? Who, but the arch-murderer of souls, Dr. Donkey-ear Mertein Luther! — Who has robbed Christ of His wedded spouses — many of whom (though perhaps not all) had served Him diligently day and night for so many years in a lovely, spiritual life — and has brought them down to a miserable, pitiable and wicked mode of life? Shame upon you, you blasphemous, sacrilegious man, you public bordeller for all escaped monks and nuns, apostate priests and renegades generally! — Who has filched, robbed and stolen from his Imperial Roman Majesty, our beloved, innocent, Christian Prince Charles V., and from kings, princes and lords, the honour, respect, service, obedience and the plighted oath of their subjects (not of all, thank God) by false, seditious and damnable writings and doctrines? Why, sure, Dr. Luther! — Who has made so many thieves and scoundrels as are now to be found in every corner, amongst them so many runaway monks, so that in many places, as I hear, one is not safe from them either in the streets or at home? Why, Dr. Luther! That nothing might be left undone, he has also destroyed the religious houses of nuns.— ‘Summa summarum,’ there would be so much to tell, that, for the sake of brevity, it must stick in the pen.... But I will show you from Scripture who was the first, the second and the third sacrilegious robber. The first was Lucifer, who, out of pride, tried to rob the Almighty of His glory, power, praise and service (Is. xiv. 12). He received his reward. The second was Aman, who stole from God the highest honour, viz. worship, for, in his malice, he caused himself to be worshipped as God. He was hanged on a gallows 50 ells high. Judas Scariothis stole from Christ and His Apostles the tenth penny of their daily living; he hanged himself. Luther, the fourth sacrilegious robber, has surpassed all men in iniquity; what his end and reward will be God alone knows.”

  It has been said, that, among the defenders of Catholicism, no voice was raised which could compare in any way in emphasis and power with that of Luther. Döllinger in later life considered that, in comparison with Luther, his opponents could only “stammer”; what they advanced sounded “feeble, weak and colourless.” Yet, what we have just quoted from Duke George cannot in fairness be charged with weakness. Their indignation and fiery zeal inspired other Catholics too to express with eloquence and rudeness their conviction of the evil consequences of Luther’s action.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  MORAL CONDITIONS ACCOMPANYING THE REFORMATION PRINCELY PATRONS

  1. Reports from various Lutheran Districts

  After Duke George of Saxony had been carried off by death on April 17, 1539, a sudden revulsion in favour of Lutheranism took place in his land. Duke Henry, his brother, who succeeded him, introduced the new teaching to which he had long been favourable. Luther came at once to Leipzig with Melanchthon, Jonas and Cruciger to render at least temporary assistance, by preaching and private counsel. In July of that same year an Evangelical Visitation was already arranged by Duke Henry on the lines of that in the Saxon Electorate; this was carried out by Luther’s preachers.

  Many abuses dating from Catholic times were prevalent amongst both people and parochial clergy. Concubinage in particular had increased greatly in the clerical ranks under the influence of the new ideas. Luther himself boasted of having advised “several parish-priests under Duke George to marry their cook secretly.” But much greater disorders than had previously existed crept in everywhere at the commencement of the change.

  Luther himself was soon at a loss to discover any religious spirit or zeal for ecclesiastical affairs, either in the ruler or in his councillors. The Duke seemed to him “old, feeble and incapable.” He complained, on March 3, 1540, to his friend Anton Lauterbach, then minister at Pirna: “I see well enough, that, at the Dresden Court there is an extraordinary unwillingness to advance the cause of God or man; there pride and greed of gain reign supreme. The old Prince can’t do anything, the younger Princes dare not, and would not even had they the courage. May God keep the guidance of His Church in His own Hands until He finds suitable tools.” On the moral conditions at the Ducal Court he passes a startling and hasty judgment when he says, writing to his Elector in 1540, that there the “scandals were ten times worse” than those caused by the Hessian bigamy. He was annoyed to find that, even after the introduction of the new teaching, the courtiers and nobles thought only of replenishing their purses. He speaks of them as the “aristocratic harpies of the land,” and exclaims: “These courtiers will end by eating themselves up by their own avarice.” They refused to support the ministers of the Word and disputed amongst themselves as to whose duty it was to do so; they did not hide their old contempt for Wittenberg, i.e. for its theologians and theology, and yet they expected Wittenberg to carry out the Visitations free of cost. “Even should you get nothing for the Visitation,” he nevertheless instructs one of the preachers, “still you must hold it as well as you can, comfort souls to the best of your power and, in any case, expel the poisonous Papists.”

  The unexpected and apparently so favourable change in the Duchy really did little to dispel his gloom, though he occasionally intones a hymn of gratitude and admiration for the working of Providence displayed in the change of rulers.

  About this time (1539), in Brandenburg, the Elector Joachim II. also ushered in the innovations. The rights and possessions of the ancient Church fell a prey to the spoilers. Luther praised the ruler for going forward so bravely “to the welfare and salvation of many souls.” He was, however, apprehensive lest the “roaring of the lion in high places” might influence the Elector; with the Divine assistance, however, he would not fear even this. He showed himself strangely lenient in regard to the Elector’s prudent retention of much more of the Catholic ceremonial than had been preserved in any other German land. Even the Elevation of the Sacrament at Mass (or rather at the sham Mass still in use) was tolerated by Luther; he writes: “We had good reasons for doing away with the elevation [of the Sacrament] here at Wittenberg, but perhaps at Berlin you have not.”

  In the Duchy of Prussia, formerly ecclesiastical property of the Teutonic Knights, the way had been paved for the apostasy of these Knights, all bound by the vow of chastity, by Luther’s alluring tract “An die Herrn Deutschs Ordens, das sic falsche Keuscheyt meyden und zur rechten ehlichen Keuscheyt
greyffen.” Albert, the Grand Master, who had visited Luther twice, as already narrated, seized upon the lands of the Order belonging to the Church and caused himself to be solemnly invested and proclaimed hereditary Duke of Prussia on April 10, 1525; thereupon Luther sent him his congratulations that God should have so graciously called him to this new Estate. The Grand Master, himself a married man, with the assistance of the two apostate Bishops of Samland and Pomerania, then established Lutheranism. As chief Bishop he assumed the position of head of the territorial Church, agreeably with the Protestant practice in the other German lands. The episcopal jurisdiction was transferred to the civil Consistorial Courts.

  Violent appropriation of alien property, as well as illegal assumption of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, also characterised the advent of the new faith in Würtemberg. Duke Ulrich, who had been raised to the throne in 1534 by a breach of the peace of the Empire and contrary to all law and justice, thanks to the successful raid of Philip of Hesse (above, ; vol. iii., f.), continued to labour under the stigma attaching to the manner in which he had obtained the Duchy, in spite of the peace he had patched up with the Emperor. The religious transformation of the country was however, soon accomplished, thanks to his pressure.

  The chief part in this, so far as Upper Würtemberg was concerned, devolved on the preacher, Ambrosius Blaurer (Blarer), who favoured the Zwinglian leanings of Bucer.