“Were you, Luther, a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal when in the lands of the Protestants, where, with your eloquent or tacit approval, more alleged witches were burned than in lands that remained Catholic? Has God not distinguished you above others with intellect and courage so that you can understand what God is all about? How could you not grasp that the Word, the Law of God, is not to be followed in a literal sense for the word’s and the law’s sake, but only for the sake of God’s children? That God is a God of love, and man has made Him into a vengeful, angry, and murderish God? Have you never asked yourself if the Bible, written by human hands, was often changed and adapted to the wishes of the church so that the Word of God might have been altered?”
When my father remained silent, his defender spoke: “I call as witness for the defense Paul Luther, Doctor and Professor of Medicine, if only for a short time, in Jena.”
God beckoned me to come forward. I did so, and as Frühbottin and her people caught sight of me, they cried out, shook their charred fists, and called, “This one watched our execution, and because he approved it, he must also be accused.”
Thereupon the defender: “My witness, born in the year 1533, saw the burning in AD 1540 as a tender seven-year-old and is hardly likely in any way to be responsible.”
Thereon the High Judge: “The witness may speak. And Frühbottin and the others may go.”
So it happened. The bailiff angel touched the people, who were once again unscathed and winged as well as dressed in long white gowns, and led them out.
Through my activitas docendi, I was accustomed to making speeches coram publico, but one does not every day stand before the judgment seat of God, even if only as a witness.
“Highest Court: My father, Dr. Martinus Luther, is a creature that You, God, have placed in his time. And it has pleased You to furnish this time with all the superstitions, beliefs in witches, Jew hating, etc., to which Luther was subject. It would have required much more than ordinary human strength and effort, a godlike love, I venture, to avoid all this. Few could do that. Luther could not avoid believing that his work of reforming the old church was a godly business, though the side effects and consequences have often been so evil. I beg you to understand these motives of my father.”
Here called the prosecutor, “Objection. The witness charges the Holy Trinity of God with complicity in the deeds of the accused. That is not permissible.”
God, who had looked somewhat affected by my words, then said, “The objection is granted. These submissions are to be deleted from the record. The witness may continue.”
I went on, “I refer to the document written by the accused On the Bondage of the Will, in which the kernel of the new Gospel of my father’s, his alpha and omega, and with it his godliness, is laid open. He himself says:
This is our aim, that we try to find out what the free will can achieve and how it relates to the grace of God. If we do not know that, then we know absolutely nothing of Christian affairs and would be worse than all the heathens. Because if I do not know what, how far, and how much I can do in relation to God, so would it be to me just as uncertain and unknown what, how far, and how much God can do in relation to me, because God appears in everything. If I do not know the works and the effects of God’s power, so can I not know God himself. If I know not God, so can I also not honor Him, praise Him, give Him thanks, and serve Him.
Here was God impatient. He looked at the clerk and ordered him to also strike these remarks out of the record, expressly because they damaged the accused, who here claimed the worshipping man can know God. “And also,” God said, “what we have just heard is on the point of being incomprehensible so that even I, God, have trouble understanding it.”
He then said, “I order the accused to carefully reread his writings and those of Erasmus of Rotterdam against the background of love and reason and the above-declared correct understanding of God’s Word and submit the result in writing before the court. Also, he may defend his view of what he said about Erasmus: ‘Who crushes Erasmus squashes a bug, and this stinks even more in death than it did in life.’”
Now Jesus Christ, God’s Son, chose to speak once more, and said, “Oh, Luther, reflect, too, on your doctrine of justification. Did you not say a man would be blessed and justified sola fide, through faith alone? So you take from God’s creation, the people, the possibility to do the Creator’s will through their own efforts, through goodness and active love, through their own resolve, and even through sacrificing their own lives. You thus reduce them to blind faith and to obedience to the letter and to a subjugation for which God did not create them. Did you yourself not elsewhere translate my words: ‘There is no greater love than this, that he lay down his life for his neighbor’?”
Here God nodded his head and said, “The accused has now an opportunity for justification.”
My father looked up, saw God, His Son, and the Holy Ghost as an ethereal haze hovering over them, was long silent, and then began hesitantly. “We are beggars, that is true. Our nothingness becomes especially clear before the throne of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. In the world I was often overbearing and sinful and lost the right path when I believed I had to fight and destroy the enemies of the Gospel of our Lord for the Lord’s sake, and all too frequently I made use of the means of my enemies. I have erred, for our Lord is a God of peace, of salvation through love.
“But I pray the court for understanding.” Here he raised his hands and called out in despair: “How could I, in view of the confusion of Christians through the thousand years of growing scholastic, papal interpretation and diabolical deception, have acted differently than to forge ahead with gravity and vigor, with bludgeon and grossness? With sword and torture? With regional churches and church order? Does the court believe that Magister Philippus’s gentleness toward the papacy would have helped? And may I at the same time remind the court that Magister Philippus was not gentle at all when he congratulated Calvin on the execution of Michael Servetus and urged the death sentence for the Anabaptists. How else should I have kept the true church apart from the false, other than through relentless severity?
“Today I know better. The true church, differently from the false, values the commandment of love higher than itself, its servants, and its institutions. Christ is the Lord of the church, and no one else, not the pope and not any bishop.”
Here he stopped, exhausted, then added, “Yes, I was arrogant when I believed I could fulfill the will of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, which we cannot know. Lord, give me peace and grant me mercy.”
The judges, after this passionate outburst, showed some emotion. Then the Lord spoke: “I adjourn the trial and will decide later whether Dr. Martinus Luther will go to hell or will take part in eternal life in heaven. Until then is the accused to be kept in limbo.”
Always, I wake from the dream at this point and therefore will never discover which decision about my father God had made.
Chapter 11
. . . is about anxiety, war and rumors of war, hardships, and death, and how my family fared after my father’s death.
As was told in chapter 2, my father died and, with many tears and prayers, was entombed in the castle church in Wittenberg. My mother and we children returned to the Black Monastery and with a few friends and students held a sad funeral feast. It seemed to me that Mother had already begun to proceed more economically, which is to say that in spite of the almost desperate sadness of the situation, she had not lost sight of the daily cares and concerns.
I was now thirteen years old and well tutored through Magister Philippus and Veit Oertel von Windsheim. I am indebted to both of them, the first for a thorough instruction in Latin and Greek and the push toward medicine, and the second, who was himself Melanchthon’s student and later graduated in medicine, for an insight into philosophy and the further strengthening of my wish to become a doctor of medicine, first awakened by Philippus.
It should be noted that Father could not have managed his gr
eat work of the Reformation without Magister Philippus, though we must not forget that after Father’s death he once called the collaboration a regular slavery. His work as a scholar earned him the title Praeceptor Germaniae. The reader should take note of this honor—that someone could actually earn the right to be called the Teacher of Germany. For a long time, only Hrabanus Maurus had been so called, the renowned abbot of the Fulda Cloister and archbishop of Mainz, who already as a young man had shined at the court of Charlemagne.
When Philipp Melanchthon in the year 1518 rode into Wittenberg, he was, according to one of his students, small, perhaps sixty inches tall, lean, unimpressive, and possessed of a speech impediment, so that one imagined he was a boy not over eighteen years old, and it must have been a surprise that buried in so small a body was such a great and glaring mountain of art and wisdom.
He was also my godfather. I must note that I did not lack for famous godparents, for which I cannot claim any merit but which on the other hand meant a great responsibility for me; among others, Prince John Ernest of Saxony (from 1541 duke of Saxony-Coburg) and Hans von Löser, Electoral Saxon hereditary marshal, long a friend of my father’s. Father was even invited to go hunting at the marshal’s castle in Pretsch on the Elbe.
Now Father was not a huntsman and rather shooed the game away than let it be shot. But at least he trotted behind the hunting party on his horse and meditated on the wonderful words of Psalm 147, the interpretation of which he dedicated to his friend: good for a hunter and good to read, as he said. As thanks, he received a handsome stag and a barrel of beer from Pretsch as well as an invitation to the baptism of the marshal’s next child. One can see how nutritious the study and wise use of scriptures can sometimes be.
From these two godparents alone, the reader can see what a close connection existed between our family and the electoral house. Whether this had any effects on my later life I still have to relate.
The choice of the godparents was very important to my father, as his baptismal book of AD 1526 shows: “Also should all godparents and all those standing around speak the words of the pastor’s prayer in their hearts. Therefore is it proper and right that crude and drunken priests should not do the baptizing; also irresponsible people should not be chosen as godparents, rather sensible, moral, serious pious priests and godparents whom one can expect will treat the matter with earnestness and the right faith.”
As the sadness regarding my father’s death lessened, my brother Martin and I wanted to begin to enjoy the freedom from Father’s sometimes oppressive authority, but an event occurred that nullified our plans. I hasten to add that I had gladly accepted school instruction in any form and continued learning diligently and gladly after Father’s death. I particularly liked memorizing and reached quite a high level in it. For my later study of medicine that proved to be very useful, as this is not so much about profound thought and about philosophical insights as it is about the retention of many details, often without apparent connections and independent deductions.
It is true that Mother attempted to sensibly continue the daily business and yet made the mistake in her grief of closing the hostel. After that, the money soon became scarce, so she once again in the summer of the year of my father’s death had to take in students.
And then came other concerns. Trusting in God and his elector’s favor, Father had in his will manifestly renounced legal assistance—as we have read, he did not think much of this profession—and had shown great naïveté and contempt for legal regulations. The will dated from AD 1542, and it was obvious he wanted the best for his beloved Herr Käthe. Father was in that year often sick so that our house doctor, Dr. Augustin Schurff, a relative of Magister Philippus, frequently came and went. He had only a short way to go because his mouth was often at court, that is, at the dinner table. Father wrote:
I, Martin Luther, acknowledge with this my own handwriting that I have given all that I own to my beloved and faithful housewife, Katherine, as an endowment or whatever one chooses to call it for her lifetime, to manage according to her desire and to her best interest, and this is given to her by the power of this will on the current and present day.
Father recognized the reality, if not always the law (or did not want to recognize it), when he wrote further and sought to establish Mother’s claim:
Third, and most of all, I do not want her to have to care for the children, but rather the children should care for her, hold her in honor, and be subject to her, as God has intended from birth. Because I have seen and experienced how the Devil has inflamed and provoked even pious children against the commandment through wicked and jealous mouthing, especially when the mothers are widows and the sons have wives and the daughters husbands and, in turn, when mothers-in-law have daughters-in-law and daughters-in-law have mothers-in-law.
Our father was aware of the hostilities to which our mother in Wittenberg was exposed when he begged his friends (he here trusted them with more than they were able or even willing to do):
Also, I pray all my good friends to be witnesses for my dear Käthe and to help pardon and defend her, where jealous and useless mouths want to complain or disparage her.
Even with the assistance of the elector John Frederick, the administration of the will with all its requests and invocations was troublesome. According to the famous lawbook Sachsenspiegel, not the widows but rather the children or the nearest blood relatives of the man were the heirs. The widow was also not the guardian of the children but received herself a guardian. Father had neglected to determine that. In addition, this important document had not been officially notarized but only witnessed by his friends Bugenhagen and Melanchthon. So the elector had to graciously intervene and validate the will to Mother’s benefit, but he did not resolve the difficult issue of the guardianship. At her request, this was finally accomplished by the elector appointing Wittenberg’s captain Hans von Spiegel and her brother Hans von Bora as guardians. We underage children got Father’s brother Jacob Luther from Mansfeld and Wittenberg’s mayor, Ambrosius Reuter, as well as Magister Philippus.
Thank the Lord that our mother was a strong and brave woman. She gave in very little to the famous men of her time and even, I believe, sometimes awed them. Even when the otherwise always well-intentioned elector wanted to deprive her of her children’s education—that is, my twenty-year-old brother Johannes, Father’s Hänschen, was to come under his oversight at the court—my mother was adamant that Hans should remain by her and continue his studies, and also Martin and I were to remain with her as well so that—this was the reasoning—the doctor’s blessed sons all three be diligently held to chastity, virtue, and learning.
Mother also had the support of Duke Albrecht of Prussia and the king of Denmark, Christian III, whom Justus Jonas had begged to help the widow and her children whenever necessary. The duke and the king quite often intervened for the widow with the elector. So she could—in spite of the opposition of the elector’s adviser and former chancellor, a friend of Father’s and the Reformation, Gregor von Brück, whose opinion was that after the doctor’s death, she should adapt her life to the new circumstances—acquire the estate Wachsdorf in Wittenberg.
Commenting on this, Magister Philippus, whom Brück had asked to be an influence on our mother, resignedly said, “The woman will not allow herself to be advised but must proceed in all things as her opinion and discretion dictate.” One sees here the distance between Melanchthon and Mother that existed even during Father’s lifetime, and probably Melanchthon’s wife, Katharina, was not innocent in this. We know that my mother also had a hearty dislike of Frau Melanchthon.
However, the estate did not become the property of Mother; rather did it pass to us, the sons. Still Brück assumed that she wanted to bring up her sons there “to become squires and loose fellows.” The elector, to the anger of his adviser, gave her 1500 guldens for the purchase of the property.
Naturally, the future of her children lay close to her heart, and she believed that without a
husband and in these uncertain times, landownership was a certain security. Her trust in God was steadfast, and she saw in Him an important support, but in contrast to Father, she was of the opinion that God especially watched over those who took care of themselves. That appears a little like the teaching of the Calvinists, which our father condemned.
I must here beg for patience because I believe it is important and essential for my life story that the financial affairs at my father’s death are presented.
I think today that we were comparatively quite well-to-do, though Mother often complained about Father’s lighthearted handling of the money, even his inclination to reject gifts, as the following letter from Father to Elector John Frederick illustrates:
Wittenberg, 17th August, 1529
I have long hesitated to thank Your Grace for the clothes and garments. But I will ask Your Grace humbly that Your Grace may not believe those who maintain that I lack in anything. I have unfortunately more, especially from Your Grace, than I can in conscience accept. Also as a preacher, I should not have in abundance. I also do not desire it because in this life I do not want to belong to those to whom Christ spoke: “Woe to the rich; you will not benefit from your wealth.” In addition, too much will tear the sack. Although the dark red cloth has already been too much, I will out of gratitude and to honor Your Grace wear the black robe, although it is actually much too precious for me. Were it not a gift from Your Grace, I would never wear such a robe.
And in 1545, in November, my father wrote to Elector Frederick in a similar vein, thanking him and saying at the same time that it is decidedly too much: several brands of beer, wine, threescore of carp, lots of other fish including pike—it would have been enough if the elector had sent one piece of each.
Shadows of My Father Page 12
