Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Thus, in the hands of a pious Evangelical prince, the co-existence of these two rules involves no disturbance of order. And they may all the more readily be put into the hand of one who serves God according to His “Word” seeing that there is in reality but a single power; according to Luther, the hierarchy having been destroyed, there was no one holding spiritual authority; as for the semblance of spiritual authority which the congregation had once possessed it had willingly resigned it into the hands of the Christian David on the princely throne. There is but one authority that embraces everything temporal and spiritual and that works in the two “governments” (read: spheres of life), i.e. in the temporal life of the subjects, which is founded on reason and earthly laws, and in the spiritual domain to which the Gospel lifts them up. In both orders man is admonished to obedience towards God by the pious ruler who regulates everything either himself or by means of the preachers.

  Thus Luther’s conception of the State finally grows into a kind of theocracy.

  The theocracy of the Israelites is therefore held up to the rulers in the example not only of David but also of the other pious Jewish kings. In the political sphere Old Testament imagery exercised far too great an influence on Luther and his arbitrary new creations. How widely different from the Jewish theocracy was it to see the Father of the country made the highest authority not merely on practical questions of Church government but even on differences concerning faith? The “absolute patriarch” at Luther’s express demand drives his negligent or reluctant subjects to hear the preachers; on him depends the introduction and use of the greater excommunication, should this weapon ever become necessary; he removes from their posts those professors of the theological or other faculties who oppose the ruling faith, just as he makes his authority felt on the preacher who forsakes the right path. He is, according to Luther, the chief guardian of the young and of all who need his protection, in order, that, where his subjects do not take thought for their salvation and act accordingly, he may “force them to do so, in the same way as he obliges them to give their services for the repair of bridges, roads and ways, or to render such other services as their country may require.”

  On one occasion Luther points out, that in the past, the Pope of Rome had been all in all. Now it is the sovereign of the land, who, as God’s own Vicar, is all in all.

  Thus we have here, writes Frank Ward in his “Darstellung der Ansichten Luthers vom Staat,” “almost the counterpart of the old ecclesiastical absolutism, seeing that all ecclesiastical functions and conditions so far as they belong to the outward domain are put under the State.” Instead of its being “almost the counterpart,” it would be better to say that it was an absolute caricature of the supposed ecclesiastical absolutism of the past. Ward, however, goes on to say that in the chapter in question he had only shown how, “Luther gave the State an independent dignity and position, and how he had enlarged and strengthened its claims.”

  In direct contrast to those writers who see in Luther’s political theory the foundation of the modern State, is a recent statement of Heinrich Boehmer’s.

  “Luther’s political and social views,” says this author, “are in every essential point quite mediæval, antiquated and unmodern. People speak of ‘Luther’s views’ or even of ‘Luther’s teaching on the State and society.’ But it would be better to refrain from using such terms which can only serve to arouse false expectations. As little as the reformer was familiar with the words state and society, so little did he know their meaning. For no State or society in the modern sense of the word existed at the time in central or northern Germany, but merely a large number of bodies somewhat resembling States, all of which, however, fell far short of the ideal of a State.” He goes on to explain, that, for this reason, Luther always speaks to the “authorities,” they being in his eyes the most potent factor in the political organisations he knew; yet, in determining their duties, “his mind moves on quite mediæval lines”; “in the matter of political theory he is far behind even Thomas of Aquin, for Thomas had, in the Italian cities, an example of a far more highly developed State, whilst in the school of Aristotle he had made acquaintance with a number of political ideas and views which had led him to a very thorough study of politics.” Boehmer points out that, according to Luther, the Natural Law upbears the outward order with which alone he was conversant — viz. the landed-aristocratic society which predominated at the time of the reformation — until it came to appear as almost a divine institution, any attempt to overthrow which amounted to a crime, “a view which indeed explains much of the success of Lutheranism, but which is anything but modern.”

  Luther’s “Patriarchal theory,” according to H. Boehmer, had an even greater influence on the political conditions of Lutheran countries than his other theory of the rights of the nobility. The princes within the domain of the new church system entered eagerly into the theory of their supposed paternal rights and finally built it out into a quite insufferable absolutism. Such an undue growth of the secular power was the more to be feared seeing that any independent spiritual power, which might, as in the Middle Ages, have served as a counterweight, no longer existed, having been swallowed up in the authority of the prince. Everything had indeed been secularised, and, to the Lutheran ruler, as God’s own representative, it now was left to direct the religious and temporal concerns of the population on the lines laid down in the Bible.

  “The Lutheran prince,” says Boehmer, “as father of the country, undertook to provide for his subjects in every department of life; his rule was absolute, though indeed patriarchal, an ideal of the State quite in accordance with Luther’s views.”

  “Any separation or division of Church and State Luther neither recognised nor desired,” now that he had invested the Evangelical princes with the supreme episcopate.

  The term “Zwangskultur,” often used of the absolutism obtaining in the Lutheran order of society, is not altogether incorrect, in spite of the protests of Protestant theologians. Other Protestant authors find a parallel between Luther’s view of the State and certain late mediæval ones; both, according to them, have been influenced by humanism, with its Cæsarean conception of unfreedom, and by theocratic absolutism.

  Carl Sell notes how the Reformation, “in its own way, put new life into the mediæval idea of a new theocracy.” “How deeply the theocratical idea was rooted in the Protestant State-system may be seen from the time it took before the States would consent to surrender their religious character.”

  After the Reformation, says G. Steinhausen, “the theological spirit more than ever laid hold of the world and mankind and fettered the ardent longing for freedom. Herein lies the chief harm wrought by the Reformation.”

  “It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that brought about the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”

  Luther’s Real Merit and his Claims

  If anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and corporate independence in religious matters.

  In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the modern conception of the State.

  This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so long held sway. As early as th
e days of Boniface VIII attempts had been made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist. Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away. Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences, had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the way of development.

  Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every detail.” This, however, is only possible if by “its spirit” we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements Luther was, however, scarcely fair.

  According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men — I will not name them — looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”

  Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual. This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.” Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.” “God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.” Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he even dreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.

  Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.” In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”

  We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”

  Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he was already at his best,” etc.

  It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal, which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the road of his development.

  Other Factors which assisted in the Establishment of the State-Church

  It was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the secular before the spiritual.

  To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”

  For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need there was for caution.

  Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.

  Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation. Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the preachers they had appointed, of removing persons they regarded with disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.

  To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz., the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion. “When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all of the rising generation.”

  The intervention of the prince subsequent to the victory over the peasants in 1525 also greatly promoted the increased devotion with which men of influence, Lut
her included, attached themselves to the authority of the ruler as a bulwark against revolution. The arrogance of the country folk had to be broken by strengthening the power of the sovereign; this Luther repeated so often and so loudly that his foes began to call him a footlicker of the princes.

  Significance of the Visitation and Inquisition held in the Saxon Electorate

  The decisive importance, for the inward development of the new Church system and for Luther’s position, of the Visitation of the churches of the Saxon Electorate held in 1528 has already been pointed out cursorily. The Visitation brought to a head a growth which had long been in process. The princely supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs which then came about and was formally sanctioned in Saxony became, with Luther’s consent, which was partly given freely, partly wrung from him, something permanent in the birthplace of the new Church, the Visitations continuing to be carried out in the same way by the prince of the land. Saxony provided a model which was gradually followed in other districts where Lutheranism prevailed, while the then tendency to strengthen the reigning houses so as to enable them to hold their own against Emperor and Empire also exercised a powerful influence.

  The Electoral Visitation which Luther had counselled and to which he most zealously lent his help, had for its aim, according to his own words, which we must take in their most literal sense, “the constituting of the churches” because “everything is now so mangled.” So much did he expect from it that he even expressed the hope that it would clear up for the future the whole problem of the new “Church” and its organisation, which, strange to say, he had never seen fit to think out theoretically. As a matter of fact it was “cleared up,” and that by the very programme for the Visitation issued by the Court. What was to be instituted was to be neither a Church apart, nor a number of free Congregational Churches, nor a great independent National Church, but a State Establishment, a compulsory Church in fact, though calling itself a National Church upheld by the charity of the State.