Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”; even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”

  It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).

  Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.

  Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, , n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.

  It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much with Italian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”

  Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.” Here we do not meet the sentence Hæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.

  All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother — whether then at the point of death or not — was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.” The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothing obliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother — assuming it to be historical — in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”

  Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.

  The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.” Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.” Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstances related by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.” He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.

  As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.” It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.

  Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter cont
radiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.

  According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.

  What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.” There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.

  Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?” When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”

  4. Demonology and Demonomania

  “Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”

  Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman! How little is left for God. “The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.” “Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”

  Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?

  “The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.” “The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.” “We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”; “but even with our last breath we must fight against the monsters of Satan.” Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes. As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”; “they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”

  Luther’s letters during his later years are crammed with things of this sort.

  The thought of the devil and his far-spread sphere of action, to which Luther had long been addicted, assumes in his mind as time goes on a more serious and gloomy shape, though he continues often enough to refer to the Divine protection promised against the powers of darkness and to the final victory of Christ.

  In his wrong idea of the devil Luther was by no means without precursors. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages exaggerations had long prevailed on this subject, not only among the people but even among the best-known writers; on the very eve of Luther’s coming forward they formed no small part of the disorders in the ecclesiastical life of the people. Had people been content with the sober teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church on the action of the devil, the faithful would have been preserved from many errors. As it was, however, the vivid imagination of laity and clergy led them to read much into the revealed doctrine that was not really in it; witness, for instance, the startling details they found in the words of St. Paul (Eph. vi. 12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Great abuses had gradually crept into the use of the blessings and exorcisms of the Church, more particularly in the case of supposed sorcery. Unfortunately, too, the beliefs and practices common among the people received much too ready support from persons of high standing in the Church. The supposition, which in itself had the sanction of tradition, that intercourse with the devil was possible, grew into the fantastic persuasion that witches were lurking everywhere, and required to have their malicious action checked by the authority of Church and State. That unfortunate book, “The Witches’ Hammer,” which Institoris and Sprenger published in 1487, made these delusions fashionable in circles which so far had been but little affected by them, though the authors’ purpose, viz. to stamp out the witches, was not achieved.

  It is clear that at home in Saxony, and in his own family, Luther had lived in an atmosphere where the belief in spirits and the harm wrought by the devil was very strong; miners are credited with being partial to such gloomy fancies owing to the nature of their dangerous work in the mysterious bowels of the earth. As a young monk he had fancied he heard the devil creating an uproar nightly in the convent, and the state of excitement in which he lived and which accompanied him ever afterwards was but little calculated to free him from the prejudices of the age concerning the devil’s power. His earlier sermons, for instance those to be mentioned below on the Ten Commandments, contain much that is frankly superstitious, though this must be set down in great part to the beliefs already in vogue and above which he failed to rise. Had Luther really wished to play the part of a reformer of the ecclesiastical life of his day, he would have found here a wide field for useful labour. In point of fact, however, he only made bad worse. His lively descriptions and the weight of his authority merely served to strengthen the current delusions among those who looked to him. Before him no one had ever presented these things to the people with such attractive wealth of detail, no one had brought the weight of his personality so strongly to bear upon his readers and so urgently preached to them on how to deal with the spirits of evil.

  Among non-Catholics it has been too usual to lay the whole blame on the Middle Ages and the later Catholic period. They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influence counted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years. Yet Luther’s views and practice show plainly enough, that it was not merely the Catholic ages before his day that were dishonoured with such delusions concerning the devil, and that it was not the Catholics alone, of his time and the following decades, who were responsible for the devil-craze and the bloody persecutions of the witches in those dark days of German history in the 17th century.

  The Mischief Wrought by the Devil

  Luther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.” But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he ha
d repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power.

  Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan.

  In the Larger Catechism of 1529, “when enumerating the evils caused by the devil,” he tells of how he “breaks many a man’s neck, drives others out of their mind or drowns them in the water”; how he “stirs up strife and brings murder, sedition and war, item causes hail and tempests, destroying the corn and the cattle, and poisoning the air,” etc.; among those who break the first commandment are all “who make a compact with the devil that he may give them enough money, help them in their love-affairs, preserve their cattle, bring back lost property, etc., likewise all sorcerers and magicians.”

  In his home-postils he practically makes it one of the chief dogmas of the faith, that all temporal misfortune hails from the devil; “the heathen” alone know this not; “but do you learn to say: This is the work of the hateful devil.” “The devil’s bow is always bent and his musket always primed, and we are his target; at us he aims, smiting us with pestilence, ‘Franzosen’ [venereal disease], war, fire, hail and cloudburst.” “It is also certain that wherever we be there too is a great crowd of demons who lie in wait for us, would gladly affright us, do us harm, and, were it possible, fall upon us with sword and long spear. Against these are pitted the holy angels who stand up in our defence.”

  The devil, so he teaches in his Church-postils, a new edition of which he brought out in 1543 towards the end of his life, could either of himself or by the agency of others “raise storms, shoot people, lame and wither limbs, harrow children in the cradle, bewitch men’s members, etc.” Thanks to him, “those who ply the magic art are able to give to things a shape other than their own, so that what in reality is a man looks like an ox or a cow; they can make people to fall in love, or to bawd, and do many other devilish deeds.”