Thus we see that the work of planting and building occupied Luther at this time more than the contest with his old opponents. Well might he, as he says in his hymn, rejoice to see the spring-tide and the flowers, and hope for a rich summer.

On the other hand, not only did the adherents of the old system knit their ranks together more closely, and, like the confederates of Ratisbon in 1524, profess their desire to do something at least to satisfy the general complaint of the corruption of the Church; but men even, who from their undeniably deep and earnest striving for religion, seemed originally called to take part in the work and war, now separated themselves from Luther and his associates, not venturing to break free from the bonds of old ecclesiastical tradition. Still more was this the case with men of Humanistic culture, whose temporary alliance with Luther had been dictated more by the interest they felt in the arts and letters threatened by the old monastic spirit, and by the open scandal caused by the outrageous abuses of the clergy and monachism, than by any sympathy with his religious principles and ideas. And to those who wavered in so momentous a decision, and shrank back from it and the contests it involved, there was plenty in what they observed among Luther's adherents, to give them occasion for still further reflection. It was not to be denied that, sharply as Luther had reproved the conduct of the Wittenberg innovators, the new preaching gave rise among excited multitudes, in many places, to disturbance, disorder, and acts of violence against obstinate monks and priests; and all this was held up as a proof of what the consequences must be of a general dissolution of religious ties. The desertion of their convents by monks and nuns, ostensibly on the ground of their newly-proclaimed liberty, but in reality, for the most part, as was alleged against them by the Catholics, for the sake of carnal freedom, was denounced with no small severity by Luther himself; but, in so doing, he recalled to mind the fact, that equally low interests had led them into the convents, and that the cloisters also, after their fashion, indulged in the 'worship of the belly.' Luther was just as indignant that the great majority of those who refused to be robbed any longer of their money and goods at the demand and by the deceits of the Papal Church, now withheld them both from serving the objects of Christian love and benevolence, which they were all the more called on to promote. The enemies of the new doctrine began already to charge against it that the faith, which was supposed to make men so blessed, bore so little good fruit. Lastly, there were many honest-minded men, and many, also, who looked about for an excuse for abstaining from the battle, whom Luther's personal participation in the din and clamour of the fray served to scandalise, if not to alienate from his cause. Thus among those who had formerly been united by a common endeavour to improve the condition of the Church and repel the tyranny of Rome, a crisis had now begun.

Of all who drew back from Luther's work of reformation, none had been more intimately attached to him than his spiritual father, Staupitz. And this intimacy he retained as Abbot of Salzburg. In his view, nothing of all the external matters to which the Reformation was directed, seemed so important as to warrant the endangerment of religious concord and unity in the Church. Luther expressed to him the sorrow he felt at his estrangement, while renewing, at the same time, his assurance of unalterable affection and gratitude. Staupitz himself felt unhappy in his attitude and position. But even as abbot, and in the proximity of the Archbishop of Salzburg, a man of very different views and temperament to himself, he remained true to his doctrine of Faith, as being the only means of salvation and the root of all goodness. And the very last year of his life, in a letter to Luther, recommending to him a young theologian who was about to further his education at Wittenberg, he assured him of his unchanging love, 'passing the love of women' (2 Sam. i. 26), and gratefully acknowledged how his beloved Martin had first led him away 'to the living pastures from the husks for the pigs.' Luther gave a friendly welcome to the young man recommended to his care, and assisted him in gaining the desired degree of Master of Philosophy. This is the last that we hear of the intercourse between these two friends. On December 28, 1524, Staupitz died from a fit of apoplexy.

The earlier acquaintance between the Reformer and the great Humanist, Erasmus, had now developed into an irreconcilable enmity. The latter had long been unable to refrain from venting, in private and public utterances, his dissatisfaction and bitterness at the storm aroused by Luther, which was distracting the Church and disturbing quiet study. Patrons of his in high places—above all, King Henry VIII. of England—urged him to take up the cause of the Church against Luther in a pamphlet; and, difficult as he felt it to take a prominent part in such a contest, he was the less able to decline their overtures, since other Churchmen were reproaching him with having furthered by his earlier writings the pernicious movement. He chose a subject which would enable him, at any rate, while attacking Luther, to represent his own personal convictions, and to reckon on the concurrence not only of Romish zealots but also of a number of his Humanist friends, and even many men of deeply moral and religious disposition. Luther, it will be remembered, had told him plainly from the first that he knew too little of the grace of God, which alone could give salvation to sinners, and strength and ability to the good. Erasmus now retorted by his diatribe 'On Free Will,' by virtue whereof, he said, man was able and was bound to procure his own blessing and final happiness.

Luther, on perusing this treatise, in September 1524, was struck with the feebleness of its contents. So far, indeed, from defining the operation of the human will, Erasmus floated vaguely about in loose and incoherent propositions, evidently not from want of extreme care and circumspection, but from the fact that, in this province of antiquarian research, he failed in the necessary acuteness and depth of observation and thought. He declared himself ready to yield obedience to all decisions of the Church, but without expressing any opinion as to the real infallibility of an ecclesiastical tribunal. Throughout his whole treatise, however, there were personal thrusts at his enemy.

Luther, as he said, only wished to answer this diatribe out of regard to the position enjoyed by its author, and, from his sheer aversion to the book, for a long while postponed his reply. We shall see moreover, very shortly, what other pressing duties and events engrossed his attention for some time after. It was not until a year had elapsed, that his reply appeared, entitled 'On the Bondage of the Will.' Herein he pushes the propositions to which Erasmus took exception to their logical conclusion. Free Will, as it is called, has always been subject to the supremacy of a higher Power; with unredeemed sinners to the power of the devil; with the redeemed, to the saving, sanctifying, and sheltering Hand of God. For the latter, salvation is assured by His Almighty and grace-conferring Will. The fact that in other sinners no such conversion to God and to a redeeming faith in His Word is effected, can only be ascribed to the inscrutable Will of God Himself, nor durst man dispute thereon with his Maker. Luther in this went further than did afterwards the Evangelical Church that bears his name. And even he, later on, abstained himself and warned others to abstain from discussing such Divine mysteries and questions connected with them. But as for Erasmus, he never ceased to regard him as one who, from his superficial worldliness, was blind to the highest truth of salvation.

In respect to the battle against Catholic Churchdom and dogma, the controversy between Luther and Erasmus presents no new issue or further development. But in company with their old master, other Humanists also, the leading champions of the general culture of the age, dissociated themselves from Luther, and returned, as his enemies, to their allegiance to the traditional system of the Church. Next to Erasmus, the most important of these men was Pirkheimer of Nuremberg, to whom we have already referred.



CHAPTER V.

THE REFORMER AGAINST THE FANATICS AND PEASANTS UP TO 1525.

In his new as in his old contests, Luther's experiences remained such as he described them to Hartmuth of Kronberg, on his return to Wittenberg. 'All my enemies, near as they have reached me, have not hit me as hard as I have now been hit by our own people.'

At first, indeed, Carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till Easter 1523, his lectures at the university. But inwardly he was inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the Zwickau fanatics, and imbibed, like theirs, from mediaval writings; and he too, soon turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform.

He now began to unfold in writing his ideas of a true union of the soul with God. He too explained how the souls of all creatures should empty themselves, so to speak, and prepare themselves in absolute passiveness, in 'inaction and lassitude,' for a glorified state. His profession of learning, and his academical and clerical dignities he resigned, as ministering to vanity. He bought a small property near Wittenberg, and repaired thither to live as a layman and peasant. He wore a peasant's coat, and mixed with the other peasants as 'Neighbour Andrew.' Luther saw him there, standing with bare feet amid heaps of manure, and loading it on a cart.

He found a place for the exercise of his new work in the church at Orlamunde on the Saale, above Jena. This parish, like several others, had been incorporated with the university at Wittenberg, and its revenues formed part of its endowment, being specially attached to the archdeaconry of the Convent Church, which was united with Carlstadt's professorship. The living there, with most of its emoluments, had passed accordingly to Carlstadt, but the office of pastor could only be performed by vicars, as they were called, regularly nominated, and appointed by the Elector. Carlstadt now took advantage of a vacancy in the office, to go on his own authority as pastor to Orlamunde, without wishing to resign his appointment and its pay at Wittenberg. By his preaching and personal influence he soon won over the local congregation to his side, and ended by gaining as great an influence here as he had done at Wittenberg. Here also the images were abolished and destroyed, crucifixes and other representations of Christ no less than images of the saints. Carlstadt now openly declared that no respect was to be paid to any local authority, nor any regard to other congregations; they were to execute freely the commands of God, and whatever was contrary to God, they were to cast down and hew to pieces. And in interpreting and applying these commands of God he went to more extravagant lengths than ever. Must not the letter of the Old Testament be the law for other things as well as images? Acting on this idea, he demanded that Sunday should be observed with rest in all the Mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with God. He proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the Jews in the Old Testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of Orlamunde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. He began, at the same time, to dispute the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament—a doctrine which Luther steadfastly insisted on in his contest with the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. By an extraordinary perversion, as is evident at a glance, of the meaning of Christ's words of institution, he maintained that when our Saviour said 'This is My Body,'—alluding, of course, to the bread which He was then distributing, He was not referring to the bread at all, but only to His own body, as He stood there.

The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Kahla were seized with the same spirit. These mystical ideas and phrases assumed strange forms of expression among the common people, who jumbled together in wild confusion the supernatural and the material. Carlstadt kept up also a secret correspondence with Munzer.

The question of the authority of the Old Testament soon took a wider range. It seemed to be one of the authority of Scripture in general, which was contended for against the Papists. If the authority of God's Word in the Old Testament applied to the whole domain of civil life, should it not equally apply, as against particular regulations established by civil society? On these principles, for example, all taking of interest, as well as usury, was declared to be forbidden, just as it had been forbidden to God's people of old. A restoration of the Mosaic year of Jubilee was even talked of, when after fifty years all land which had passed into other hands should revert to its original owners. With eagerness the people took up these new ideas of social reform, so specious and so full of promises. The evangelical and earnest preacher, Strauss at Eisenach, worked zealously with word and pen in this direction. Even a court-preacher of Duke John, Wolfgang Stein at Weimar, espoused the movement.

Meanwhile Munzer came again to Central Germany. He had succeeded, at Easter 1523, in obtaining the office of pastor at Allstedt, a small town in a lateral valley of the Unstrut. In him, more than in any other, the spirit of the Zwickau prophets fermented with full force, and was preparing for a violent outburst. Alone, in the room of a church tower, he held secret intercourse with his God, and boasted of his answers and revelations. He affected the appearance and demeanour of a man whose soul was absorbed in tranquillity, devoid of all finite ideas or aspirations, and open and free to receive God's Spirit and inner Word. More violently than even the champions of Catholic asceticism, he reproached Luther for leading a comfortable, carnal life. But his whole energies were directed to establishing a Kingdom of the Saints,—an external one, with external power and splendour. His preaching dwelt incessantly on the duty of destroying and killing the ungodly, and especially all tyrants. He wished to see a practical application given to the words of the Mosaic dispensation, commanding God's people to destroy the heathen nations from out of the promised land, to overthrow their altars, and burn their graven images with fire. Community of property was to be a particular institution of the Kingdom of God, the property being distributed to each man according to his need: whatever prince or lord refused to do this, was to be hanged or beheaded. Meanwhile, Munzer sought by means of secret emissaries in all directions to enlist the saints into a secret confederacy. His chief associate was the former monk, Pfeifer at Muhlhausen, not far from Allstedt. The Orlamundians, however, whom also he endeavoured to seduce to his policy of violence, would have nothing to say to such overtures.

The Elector Frederick even now came only tardily to the resolve, to interpose, in these ecclesiastical matters and disputes, his authority as sovereign, nor did Luther himself desire his intervention so long as the struggle was one of minds about the truth. Duke John had been strongly influenced by the ideas of his court-preacher. The princes still hoped to be able to restore peace between Luther and his colleague, Carlstadt, who, with all his misty projects, was still of importance as a theologian.

Carlstadt consented, indeed, at Easter in 1524, to resume quietly his duties at Wittenberg university. But he soon returned to Orlamunde, to re-assert his position there as head and reformer of the Church.

With regard to the question of Mosaic and civil law, Luther was now invited by John Frederick, the son of Duke John, to express his opinion. It is easy to conceive how this question might present, even to upright and calm-judging adherents of the evangelical preaching, considerations of difficulty and much inward doubt. It had cropped up as a novelty, and, as it seemed, in necessary connection with this preaching: moreover, on its answer depended a revolution of all ordinances of State and society, in accordance with the command of God.

Luther's views on this subject, however, were perfectly clear, and he expressed himself accordingly. In his opinion, the answer had been given by the keynote of evangelical teaching. It lay in the distinction between spiritual and temporal government, the essential features of which he had already explained in 1523 in his treatise 'On the Secular Power.' The life of the soul in God, its reconciliation and redemption, its relations and duty to God and fellow-man in faith and love—these are the subjects dealt with in the gospel message of salvation, or the biblical revelation in its completeness. God has left to the practical understanding and needs of man, and to the historical development of peoples and states under His overruling providence, the arrangement of forms of law for social life, without the necessity of any special revelation for that purpose. It is the duty of the secular power to administer the existing laws, and to make new ones in a proper and legal manner, according as they may think fit. That God prescribed to the people of Israel external, civil ordinances by the mouth of Moses, was part of His scheme of education. Christians are not bound by these ordinances,—no more, indeed, than is their inner life and right conduct made conditional on outward rules and forms. Moral commands alone belong to that part of the Mosaic law whereof the sanction is eternal; and to the fulfilment of these commands, written, as St. Paul says, from the beginning on the hearts of men, the Spirit of God now urges His redeemed people. No doubt the law of Moses, in regard to civil life, might contain much that would be useful for other peoples also in that respect. But it would, in that case, be the business of the powers that be to examine and borrow from it, just as Germany borrowed her civil law from the Romans.

Such, briefly stated, are the views which Luther enunciated with clearness and consistency, in his writings and sermons. He guards the civil power as jealously now against an irregular assertion of religious principles and biblical authority, as he had formerly done against the aggressions of an ecclesiastical hierarchy, while at the same time he defends the religious life of Christians against the dangers and afflictions which that hierarchy threatened. Thus he answered the prince, on June 18, 1524, to this effect: Temporal laws are something external, like eating and drinking, house and clothing. At present the laws of the Empire have to be maintained, and faith and love can coexist with them very well. If ever the zealots of the Mosaic law become Emperors, and govern the world as their own, they may choose, if they please, the law of Moses; but Christians at all times are bound to support the law which the civil authority imposes.

In Munzer Luther looked for a near outbreak of the Evil Spirit. He alluded to him in his letter of June 18, as the 'Satan of Allstedt,' adding that he thought he was not yet quite fledged. He soon heard more about him, namely, that 'his Spirit was going to strike out with the fist.' On this subject he wrote the next month to the Elector Frederick and Duke John, and published his letter. Against Munzer's mere words—his preaching and his personal revilements—he was not now concerned to defend himself. 'Let them boldly preach,' he says, 'what they can.... Let the Spirits rend and tear each other. A few, perhaps, may be seduced; but that happens in every war. Wherever there is a battle and fighting, some one must fall and be wounded.' He repeats here, what he had said before, that Antichrist should be destroyed 'without hands,' and that Christ contended with the Spirit of His Word. But if they really meant to strike out with the fist, then Luther would have the prince say to them, 'Keep your fists quiet, for that is our office, or else leave the country.'

In August Luther came himself to Weimar, in obedience to a wish expressed by the two princes. With the court-preacher he had come to a friendly understanding. Munzer had just left Allstedt, an official report of his dangerous proceedings having been forwarded from there to Weimar, whither he was summoned for an examination and inquiry. On August 14 Luther wrote from this town to the magistrate of Muhlhausen, where Munzer, as he heard, had taken refuge and had already mustered a party. He warned the people of Muhlhausen to wait at least before receiving Munzer, until they had heard 'what sort of children he and his followers were.' They would not remain long in the dark about him. He was a tree, as he had shown at Zwickau and Allstedt, which bore no fruit but murder and rebellion.

From Weimar Luther travelled on to Orlamunde. On August 21 he arrived at Jena, where a preacher named Reinhard was staying with Carlstadt. Luther here preached against the 'Spirit of Allstedt,' which destroyed images, despised the sacrament, and incited to rebellion. Carlstadt, who was present and heard the sermon, waited on him afterwards at his lodging, to defend himself against these charges. Luther insisted, notwithstanding, that Carlstadt was 'an associate of the new prophets.' He challenged him finally to abandon his intrigues and confute him openly in writing, and the heated interview ended by Carlstadt promising to do so, and by Luther giving him a florin as a pledge and token of the bargain.

From Jena Luther went through Kahla, where also he preached, to Orlamunde. The people here had been anxious for a personal discussion with him, but in writing to him for that purpose, had addressed him in words as follows: 'You despise all those who, by God's command, destroy dumb idols, against which you trump up feeble evidence out of your own head, and not grounded on Scripture. Your venturing thus publicly to slander us, members of Christ, shows that you are no member of the real Christ.' The discussion he held with them led to no success, and he gave up any further attempt to convince them; for, as he said, they burned like a fire, as if they longed to devour him. On his departure they pursued him with savage shouts of execration.

Carlstadt, a few weeks later, was deprived of his professorship, and had to leave the country. Luther put in a word for the people of Orlamunde as 'good simple folk,' who had been seduced by a stronger will. But against Carlstadt's whole conduct and teaching he launched an elaborate attack in a pamphlet, published in two parts, at the close of 1524 and the beginning of the following year. It was entitled 'Against the Celestial Prophets, concerning Images and the Sacrament, &c.,' with the motto 'Their folly shall be manifest unto all men' (2 Timothy iii. 9). For in Carlstadt he sought to expose and combat the same spirit that dwelt in the Zwickau prophets and in Munzer, and that threatened to produce still worse results. If Carlstadt, like Moses, was right in teaching people to break down images, and in calling in for this purpose the aid of the disorderly rabble, instead of the proper authorities, then the mob had the power and right to execute in like manner all the commands of God. And the consequence and sequel of this would be, what was soon shown by Munzer. 'It will come to this length,' says Luther, 'that they will have to put all ungodly people to death; for so Moses (Deut. vii.), when he told the people to break down the images, commanded them also to kill without mercy all those who had made them in the land of Canaan.'

The great storm, announced and prepared by the 'Spirit of Allstedt,' broke loose even sooner than could have been expected.

Munzer had really appeared at Muhlhausen. The town-council, however, were still able to insist on his leaving the place, together with his friend Pfeifer. He then wandered about for several weeks in the south-west of Germany, exciting disturbance wherever he went. But on September 13 he returned with Pfeifer to Muhlhausen, where he preached in his wonted manner, propounded to the people in the streets his doctrines and revelations, and attracted the mob to his side, while respectable citizens and members of the magistracy left the town from fear of the mischief that was threatening. Towards the end of February he was offered a regular post as pastor, and soon after all the old magistrates were turned out and others more favourable to him elected in their place. The multitude raged against images and convents. The peasants from the neighbourhood flocked in, anxious for the general equality which was promised them. Luther wrote to a friend, 'Munzer is King and Emperor at Muhlhausen.'

Meanwhile, in Southern Germany peasant insurrections had broken out in various places since the summer of this year. In itself, there was nothing novel in this. Repeatedly during the latter part of the previous century, the poor peasantry had risen and erected their banner, the 'Shoe of the League' (Bundschuh), so called from the rustic shoes which the insurgents wore. Their grievances were the intolerable and ever-growing burdens, laid upon them by the lay and clerical magnates, the taxes of all kinds squeezed from them by every ingenious device, and the feudal service which they were forced to perform. The nobles had, in fact, towards the close of the middle ages, usurped a much larger exercise of their ancient privileges against them, by means partly of a dexterous manipulation of the old Roman law, and partly of the ignorance of that law which prevailed among their vassals. On the other side, complaints were heard at that time of the insolence shown by the wealthier peasants; of the luxury, in which they tried to rival their masters; and of the arrogance and defiant demeanour of the peasantry in general. The oppression endured by any particular class of the civil community does not usually lead to violent disturbances and outbreaks, unless and until that class is awakened to a higher sense of its own importance and has acquired an increase of power. The peasants found, moreover, discontented spirits like themselves among the lower orders in the towns, who were avowed enemies of the upper classes, and who complained bitterly of the hardships and oppressions suffered by small people at the hands of the great merchants and commercial companies,—in a word, from the power of capital. Furthermore, when once the peasants rose in rebellion against their masters, the latter also, including the nobility, showed an inclination here and there to favour a general revolution, if only to remedy the defects of their own position. And, in truth, throughout the German Empire at that time there was a general movement pressing for a readjustment of the relations of the various classes to each other and to the Imperial power. Ideas of a total reconstruction of society and the State had penetrated the mass of the people, to an extent never known before.

Thus the way was paved, and incentives already supplied for a powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of Church Reform. And indeed this question Luther was anxious, as we have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. It was impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing bitterness against external oppression. With the same firmness and decision with which Luther condemned all disorderly and violent proceedings in support of the gospel, he had also long been warning its persecutors of the inevitable storm which they would bring upon themselves. Other evangelical preachers, however, as for instance, Eberlin and Strauss, mingled with their popular preaching all sorts of suggestions of social reform. At last men went about among the people, with open or disguised activity, whose principles were directly opposed to those of Luther, but who proclaimed themselves, nevertheless, enthusiasts for the gospel which he had brought again to light, or which, as they pretended, they had been the first to reveal, together with true evangelical liberty. They appealed to God's Word in support of the claims and grievances of the oppressed classes; they grasped their weapons by virtue of the Divine law. Hence the peculiar ardour and energy that marked the insurrection, although the enthusiasm, thus kindled, was united with the utmost barbarity and licentiousness. Never has Germany been threatened with a revolution so vast and violent, or so immeasurable in its possible results. On no single man's word did so much depend as on that of Luther, the genuine man of the people.

The movement began late in the summer of 1524 in the Black Forest and Hegau. After the beginning of the next year it continued rapidly to spread, and the different groups of insurgents who were fighting here and there, combined in a common plan of action. Like a flood the movement forced its way eastwards into Austria, westwards into Alsatia, northwards into Franconia, and even as far as Thuringia. At Rothenburg on the Tauber, Carlstadt had prepared the way for it by inciting the people to destroy the images. The demands in which the peasants were unanimous, were now drawn up in twelve articles. These still preserved a very moderate aspect. They claimed above all the right of each parish to choose its own minister. Tithes were only to be abolished in part. The peasants were determined to be regarded no longer as the 'property of others,' for Christ had redeemed all alike with his blood. They demanded for everyone the right to hunt and fish, because God had given to all men alike power over the animal creation. They based their demands upon the Word of God; trusting to His promises they would venture the battle. 'If we are wrong,' they said, 'let Luther set us right by the Scriptures.' God, who had freed the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, would now shortly deliver His people. In these articles, and in other proclamations of the peasantry, there were none of the wild imaginations of Munzer and his prophets, nor their ideas of a kingdom and schemes of murder. They burned down, it is true, both convents and cities, and had done so from the outset. Still in some places a more peaceable understanding was arrived at with the upper classes, although neither party placed any real confidence in the other.

When now the articles arrived at Wittenberg, and Luther heard how the insurgents appealed to him, he prepared early in April to make a public declaration, in which he arraigned their proceedings, but at the same time exhorted the princes to moderation. He was just then called away by Count Albert of Mansfeld to Eisleben, to assist, as we have seen, in the establishment of a new school in that town. He set off thither on Easter Sunday, April 16, after preaching in the morning. There he wrote his 'Exhortation to peace: On the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia.

In this manifesto he sharply rebukes those princes and nobles, bishops and priests, who cease not to rage against the gospel, and in their temporal government 'tax and fleece their subjects, for the advancement of their own pomp and pride, until the common people can endure it no longer.' If God for their punishment allowed the devil to stir up tumult against them, He and his gospel were not to blame; but he counselled them to try by gentle means to soften, if possible, God's wrath against them. As for the peasants, he had never from the first concealed from them his suspicions, that many of them only pretended to appeal to Scripture, and offered for mere appearance' sake to be further instructed therein. But he wished to speak to them affectionately, like a friend and a brother, and he admitted also that godless lords often laid intolerable burdens upon the people. But however much in their articles might be just and reasonable, the gospel, he said, had nothing to do with their demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten the law of Christ. For by the Divine law it was forbidden to extort anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter was no excuse for violence and rebellion. Respecting the substance of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right enough and Christian; but in that case they must maintain him at their own expense, and on no account protect him by force against the civil power. As for the remaining articles, they had nothing whatever to do with the gospel. He tells the peasants plainly, that if they persist in their rebellion, they are worse enemies to the gospel than the Pope and Emperor, for they act against the gospel in the gospel's own name. He is bound to speak thus to them, although some among them, poisoned by fanatics, hate him and call him a hypocrite, and the devil, who was not able to kill him through the Pope, would now like to destroy and devour him. He is content if only he can save some at least of the good-hearted among them from the danger of God's indignation. In conclusion, he gives to both sides, the nobles and the peasants, his 'faithful counsel and advice, that a few counts and lords should be chosen from the nobility, and a few councillors from the towns, and that matters should be adjusted and composed in an amicable manner—that so the affair, if it cannot be arranged in a Christian spirit, may at least be settled according to human laws and agreements.'

Thus spoke Luther, with all his accustomed frankness, fervency, power, and bluntness, equally indifferent to the favour of the people or of their rulers. But what fruit, indeed, could be looked for from his words, uttered evidently with violent inward emotion, when popular passion was so excited? Was it not rather to be feared that the peasants would greedily fasten on the first portion of his pamphlet, which was directed against the nobles, and then shut their ears all the more closely against the second, which concerned their own misconduct? The pamphlet could hardly have been written, and much less published, before new rumours and forebodings crowded upon Luther, such as made him think its contents and language no longer applicable to the emergency, but that now it was his duty to sound aloud the call to battle against the enemies of peace and order. 'In my former tract,' he said, 'I did not venture to condemn the peasants, because they offered themselves to reason and better instruction. But before I could look about me, forth they rush, and fight and plunder and rage like mad dogs.... The worst is at Muhlhausen, where the arch-devil himself presides.'

In South Germany, on that very Easter Sunday when Luther set out for Eisleben, the scene of horror was enacted at Weinsberg, where the peasants, amid the sound of pipes and merriment, drove the unhappy Count of Helfenstein upon their spears, before the eyes of his wife and child. Luther's ignorance of this and similar atrocities, at the time when he was writing his pamphlet at Eisleben, is easily intelligible from the slow means of communication then existing. Soon the news came, however, of bands of rioters in Thuringia, busy with the work of pillage, incendiarism, and massacre, and of a rising of the peasantry in the immediate neighbourhood. Towards the end of April they achieved a crowning triumph by their victorious entry into Erfurt, where the preacher, Eberlin of Gunzburg, with true loyalty and courage, but all in vain, had striven, with words of exhortation and warning, to pacify the armed multitude encamped outside the town, and their sympathisers and associates inside.

On April 26 Munzer advanced to Muhlhausen, the 'arch-devil, 'as Luther called him, but as he described himself, the 'champion of the Lord.' He came with four hundred followers, and was joined by large masses of the peasants. His 'only fear,' as he said in his summons to the miners of Mansfeld, 'was that the foolish men would fall into the snare of a delusive peace.' He promised them a better result. 'Wherever there are only three among you who trust in God and seek nothing but His honour and glory, you need not fear a hundred thousand.... Forward now!' he cried; 'to work! to work! It is time that the villains were chased away like dogs.... To work! relent not if Esau gives you fair words. Give no heed to the wailings of the ungodly; they will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity, like children. Show them no mercy, as God commanded Moses (Deut. vii.) and has declared the same to us.... To work! while the fire is hot; let not the blood cool upon your swords.... To work! while it is day. God is with you; follow Him!' Of Luther he spoke in terms of peculiar hatred and contempt. In a letter which he addressed to 'Brother Albert of Mansfeld,' with the object of converting the Count, he alluded to him in expressions of the coarsest possible abuse.

In Thuringia, in the Harz, and elsewhere, numbers of convents, and even castles, were reduced to ashes. The princes were everywhere unprepared with the necessary troops, while the insurgents in Thuringia and Saxony counted more than 30,000 men. The former, therefore, endeavoured to strengthen themselves by coalition. Duke John, at Weimar, prepared himself for the worst: his brother, the Elector Frederick, was lying seriously ill at his Castle at Lochau (now Annaburg) in the district of Torgau.

At this crisis Luther, having left Eisleben, appeared in person among the excited population. He preached at Stolberg, Nordhausen, and Wallhausen. In his subsequent writings he could bear witness of himself, how he had been himself among the peasants, and how, more than once, he had imperilled life and limb. On May 3 we find him at Weimar; and a few days afterwards in the county of Mansfeld. Here he wrote to his friend, the councillor Ruhel of Mansfeld, advising him not to persuade Count Albert to be 'lenient in this affair'—that is, against the insurgents; for the civil power must assert its rights and duties, however God might rule the issue. 'Be firm,' he entreats Ruhel, 'that his Grace may go boldly on his way. Leave the matter to God, and fulfil His commands to wield the sword as long as strength endures. Our consciences are clear, even if we are doomed to be defeated.... It is but a short time, and the righteous Judge will come.'

Luther now hastened back to his Elector, having received a summons from him at Lochau. But before he could arrive there, Frederick had peacefully breathed his last, on May 5. Faithfully and discreetly, and in the honest conviction that truth would prevail, he had accorded Luther his favour and protection, whilst purposely abstaining to employ his power as ruler for infringing or invading the old-established ordinances of the Church. He allowed full liberty of action to the bishops, and carefully avoided any personal intercourse with Luther. But in the face of death, he confessed the truth of the gospel, as preached by Luther, by partaking of the communion in both kinds, and refusing the sacrament of extreme unction.

When his corpse was brought in state to Wittenberg, and buried in the Convent Church, Luther, who had to preach twice on the occasion, spoke of the universal grief and lamentation that 'our head is fallen, a peaceful man and ruler, a calm head.' And he pointed out as the 'most grievous sorrow of all,' how this loss had happened just in those difficult and wondrous times when, unless God interposed His arm, destruction threatened the whole of Germany. He exhorted his hearers to confess to God their own ingratitude for His mercy in having given them such a noble vessel of His grace. But of those who set themselves against authorities, he declared, in the words of the Apostle (Rom. xiii. 2), that 'they shall receive to themselves damnation.' 'This text,' he said, 'will do more than all the guns and spears.'

Quite in the same spirit that dictated his letter sent to Ruhel only a few days before at Mansfeld, Luther now sent forth a public summons 'Against the murderous and plundering bands of peasants.' He began it with the words already quoted, 'Before I could look about me, forth they rush ... and rage like mad dogs.'

Thus he wrote when he saw the danger was at its highest. He even suggested the possibility 'that the peasants might get the upper hand (which God forbid!);' and that 'God perhaps willed that, in preparation for the Last Day, the devil should be allowed to destroy all order and authority, and the world turned into a howling wilderness.' But he called upon the Christian authorities, with all the more urgency and vehemence, to use the sword against the devilish villains, as God had given them command. They should leave the issue to God, acknowledge to Him that they had well deserved His judgments, and thus with a good conscience and confidence 'fight as long as they could move a muscle.' Whosoever should fall on their side would be a true martyr in God's eyes, if he had fought with such a conscience. Then, thinking of the many better people who had been forced by the bloodthirsty peasants and murderous prophets to join the devilish confederacy, he broke out by exclaiming, 'Dear lords, help them, save them, take pity upon these poor men; but as to the rest, stab, crush, strangle whom you can.'

These words of Luther were speedily fulfilled by the events. The Saxon princes, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Counts of Mansfeld combined together before the mass of the peasants in Thuringia and Saxony had collected into a large army. On May 15 the forces of Munzer, numbering about 8,000 men, were defeated in the battle of Frankenhausen. Munzer himself was taken prisoner, and, crushed in mind and spirit, was executed like a criminal. A few days before, the main army of the Swabian peasants had been routed, and during the following weeks, one stronghold of the rebellion after another was reduced, and the horrors perpetrated by the peasants were repaid with fearful vengeance on their heads. The Landgrave Philip, and John, the new Elector of Saxony, distinguished themselves by their clemency in dismissing unpunished to their homes, after the victory, a number of the insurgent peasants.

But Luther's violent denunciations now gave offence even to some of his friends. His Catholic opponents, and those even who saw no harm in burning heretics wholesale for no other reason than their faith, reproached him then, and do so even now, with horrible cruelty for this language. Luther replied to the 'complaints and questions about his pamphlet,' with a public 'Epistle on the harsh pamphlet against the peasants.' His excitement and irritation was increased by what he heard talked about his conduct. He maintained what he had said. But he also reminded his readers, that he had never, as his calumniators accused him, spoken of acting against the conquered and humbled, but solely of smiting those actually engaged in rebellion. He declared further, at the close of his new and forcible remarks on the use of the sword, that Christian authorities, at any rate were bound, if victorious, to 'show mercy not only to the innocent, but also to the guilty.' As for the 'furious raging and senseless tyrants, who even after the battle cannot satiate themselves with blood, and throughout their life never trouble themselves about Christ'—with these he will have nothing whatever to do. Similarly, in a small tract on Munzer, containing characteristic extracts from the writings of this 'bloodthirsty prophet,' as a warning to the people, Luther entreated the lords and civil authorities 'to be merciful to the prisoners and those who surrendered, ... so that the tables should not be turned upon the victors.' If we have now to lament, as we must, that after the rebellion was put down, nothing was done to remedy the real evils that caused it; nay, that those very evils were rather increased as a punishment for the vanquished, this reproach at least applies just as much to the Catholic lords, both spiritual and temporal, as to the Evangelical authorities or Luther.

In addition also to his alleged harshness and severity to the insurgents, Luther was accused, both then and since, by his ecclesiastical opponents, of having given rise to the rebellion by his preaching and writings. When the danger and anxiety were over, Emser had the effrontery to say of him in some popular doggrel, 'Now that he has lit the fire, he washes his hands like Pilate, and turns his cloak to the wind;' and again, 'He himself cannot deny that he exhorted you to rebellion, and called all of you dear children of God, who gave up to it your lives and property, and washed your hands in blood. Thus did he write in public, and thereto has he striven.'



In answer to this charge, Luther referred to his treatise 'On the Secular Power,' and to other of his writings. 'I know well,' he was able to say with truth, 'that no teacher before me has written so strongly about secular authority; my very enemies ought to thank me for this. Who ever made a stronger stand against the peasants, with writing and preaching, than myself?' Among the Estates of the Empire, not even the most violent enemies of evangelical doctrine could venture now to turn their victorious weapons against their associates in arms who espoused that doctrine, with whom they had achieved the common conquest, and from whose midst had sounded the most vigorous call to battle and to victory. Luther, on the contrary, was not afraid at this moment to exhort the Archbishop, Cardinal Albert, of whose friendly disposition to himself, his friend Ruhel had recently informed him, to follow the example of his cousin, the Grand Master in Prussia, by converting his bishopric into a temporal princedom, and entering the state of matrimony, and to name, as the chief motive for so doing, the 'hateful and horrible rebellion,' wherewith God's wrath had visited the sins of the priesthood.

Thus did Luther, in these stormy times, whatever might be thought of the violence of his utterances, take up his position clearly and resolutely from the first, and maintain it to the end;—sure of his cause, and safe against the new attack which he saw now the devil was making; unyielding and defiant towards his old Papal enemies and their new calumniations. And in this frame of mind he took just now a step, calculated to sharpen all the tongues of slander, but one in which he saw the fulfilment of his calling. Freed from unchristian monastic vows, he entered into the holy state of matrimony ordained by God. We first hear him speaking decidedly on this subject in a letter to Ruhel of May 4. After referring to the devil as the instigator of the insurgent peasants, and of the murderous deeds which made him anxious to prepare himself for death, he continues with the following remarkable words: 'And if I can, in spite of him, I will take my Kate in marriage before I die. I hope they will not take from me my courage and my joy.'



CHAPTER VI.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE.

Our readers will recall to mind those words of Luther at the Wartburg, on hearing that his teaching was making the clergy marry and monks renounce the obligation of their vows. No wife, he declared, should be forced upon him. He remained in his convent; looked on quietly, as one friend and fellow-labourer after the other took advantage of their liberty; wished them happiness in the enjoyment of it, and advised others to do the same; but never changed his views about himself.

His enemies reproached him with living a worldly life, with drinking beer in company with his friends, with playing the lute, and so on. Nor was it merely his Catholic opponents who sought in such charges material for vile slander, but also jealous ranters like Munzer gave vent to their hatred in this manner. All the more remarkable it is that no slanderous reports of immoral conduct were ever launched at this time, even by his bitterest enemies, against the man who was denouncing so openly and sternly offences of that description among the superior, no less than the inferior, clergy. Calumnies of this kind were reserved for the occasion of his marriage.

In truth, his life was one of the most arduous labour, anxiety, and excitement; and as regards his bodily needs, he was satisfied with the plainest and most sparing diet and the simplest enjoyments. The Augustinian convent, whence he received his support, being gradually denuded of its inmates by their abandonment of monastic life, its revenues accordingly were stopped. Luther informed Spalatin in 1524 of the poverty to which they were reduced; not indeed, as Spalatin well knew, that he concerned himself much about it, or wished to make it a subject of complaint; if he had no meat or wine, he could live well enough on bread and water. Melancthon describes how once, before his marriage, Luther's bed had not been made for a whole year, and was mildewed with perspiration. 'I was tired out,' says Luther, 'and worked myself nearly to death, so that I fell into the bed and knew nothing about it.'

When, moreover, he exchanged, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1524, the monastic cowl for the garb of a professor; and when he and the prior Brisger were the only ones of all the former monks left in the convent, he remained quietly where he was, and never entertained the idea of marriage. A noble lady, Argula von Staufen, wife of the Ritter von Grumbach, formerly in the Bavarian army, who had written publicly for the cause of the gospel, and thereby incurred, with her husband, the displeasure of the Duke of Bavaria, and who was now in active correspondence with the Wittenbergers and Spalatin, expressed to the latter her surprise that Luther did not marry. Luther thereupon wrote to Spalatin on November 30, 1524, saying, 'I am not surprised that folks gossip thus about me, as they gossip about many other things. But please thank the lady in my name, and tell her that I am in the hands of the Lord, as a creature whose heart He can change and re-change, destroy or revive, at any hour or moment; but as my heart has hitherto been, and is now, it will never come to pass that I shall take a wife. Not that I am insensible to my I flesh or sex, ... but because my mind is averse to wedlock, because I daily expect the death and the well-merited punishment of a heretic.'

Shortly afterwards Luther wrote to his friend Link: 'Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far other thoughts, the Lord has plunged me into marriage.' It was in the spring of 1525 that he had formed this resolve, which speedily ripened to its fulfilment.

In a letter of March 12, 1525, he complained to his friend Amsdorf, who had gone to Magdeburg, of depression of spirits and temptation, and besought him to pay him a friendly visit to cheer him. It was, as we see from the contents of the letter, a temptation, which caused Luther to feel that, in the words of Scripture, it was 'not good for man to be alone,' but that he ought to have a help-meet to be with him. As to the choice of such a help-meet he may have already talked with Amsdorf, and very possibly they may have spoken of a lady of Magdeburg of the family of Alemann, who were conspicuous there for their devotion to the evangelical cause.

But Luther's own choice turned on Catharine von Bora, a former nun. Sprung from an ancient, though poor family of noble blood, she had been brought up from childhood in the convent of Nimtzch near Grimma. We find her there as early as 1509; she was born on January 29, 1499, and was consecrated as a nun at the age of sixteen. When the evangelical doctrine became known at Nimtzch, Catharine endeavoured with other nuns to break the bonds, which she had taken upon herself without any real free-will or knowledge of her own. In vain she entreated her relatives to release her. At length one Leonhard Koppe, a burgher and councillor of Torgau, took her part. Assisted by him and two of his friends, nine nuns escaped secretly from the convent on Easter Eve, April 5, 1523. Luther justified their escape in a public letter addressed to Koppe, and collected funds for their support, until they could be further provided for. They fled first to Wittenberg, and here Catharine stayed at the house of the town clerk and future burgomaster, Philip Reichenbach.

She was now in her twenty-sixth year, when Luther turned his thoughts towards her. He told afterwards his friends and Catharine herself, with perfect frankness, that he had not been in love with her before, for he had his suspicions, and they were not unfounded, that she was proud. He had even thought, shortly before, of arranging a marriage between her and a minister named Glatz, who later on, however, proved himself unworthy of his office. Catharine, on the other hand, is said to have gone to Amsdorf, as the trusted friend of Luther, and to have told him frankly that she did not wish to marry Glatz, but was ready to form an honourable alliance with himself or with Luther. If Cranach's portrait of her is to be trusted, she was not remarkable for beauty or any outward attraction. But she was a healthy, strong, frank and true German woman. Luther might reasonably expect to have in her a loyal, fresh-hearted, and staunch help-meet for his life, whose own cares or requirements would cause him little anxiety, while she would be just such a companion as, with his physical ailments and mental troubles, he required. In the event of her haughty disposition asserting itself unduly, he was the very man to correct it with quiet firmness and affection.

What further considerations induced him to marry, appear from his letters, in which he urged his friends to do likewise. Thus he wrote on March 27 to Wolfgang Reissenbusch, preceptor of the convent at Lichtenberg, saying that man was created by God for marriage. God had so made man that he could not well do without it; whoever was ashamed of marrying, must also be ashamed of his manhood, or must pretend to be wiser than God. The devil had slandered the married state by letting people who lived in immorality be held in high honour. Luther, in thus frankly stating the natural disposition of man to married life, spoke from his own experience. 'To remain righteous unmarried,' he said once later on, 'is not the least of trials, as those know well who have made the attempt.' In referring as he did to the devil, he probably had in his mind the scandal which threatened him if he should decide on marrying. He then goes on to say to Reissenbusch that if he honoured the Word and work of God, the scandal would be only a matter of a moment, to be followed by years of honour. To Spalatin he writes on April 10: 'I find so many reasons for urging others to marry, that I shall soon be brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres ridicule it every day.' The 'wiseacres' he was thinking of were professors and theologians of his circle at Wittenberg. Not only was he resolved, however, to obey the will of his Creator, despite all condemnation and ridicule, but he deemed it his duty to testify to the rightness of the step by his example as well as by his words. His enemies, in fact, were taunting him that he did not venture to practise himself what he preached to others. A few days after, immediately before his departure for Eisleben, he wrote again to Spalatin, recommending his friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care that he was not anticipated in the step.

Amidst all the terrors of the Peasants' War, which had now broken out in all its violence, and in earnest contemplation of a near end possibly threatening himself, he had formed the fixed resolve, as his letter of May 4 to Ruhel shows, to 'take his Kate to wife, in spite of the devil.' This is the first letter in which he mentions her name to a friend. And to this resolve he steadily adhered during the troublous weeks that followed, when he was called on to pay the last honours to his Elector, to rouse men to the sanguinary contest with the peasants, and to hear contumely and reproach heaped upon his stirring words. Besides writing to the Cardinal Albert himself, recommending him to marry, he sent a letter also on June 3 to his friend Ruhel, who held office as one of his advisers, saying, 'If my marrying might serve in any way to strengthen his Grace to do the same, I should be very willing to set his Grace the example; for I have a mind, before leaving this world, to enter the married state, to which I believe God has called me.' He had thoughts of this kind, he added, even if it should end only in a betrothal, and not an actual marriage.

He speedily gave effect to his final resolve, in order to cut short all the loose and idle gossip which threatened him as soon as his intentions were known with regard to Catharine von Bora. He took none of his friends into his confidence, but acted, as he afterwards advised others to act. 'It is not good,' he said, 'to talk much about such matters. A man must ask God for counsel, and pray, and then act accordingly.'

As to how he finally came to terms with Catharine we have no account to show. But on the evening of June 13, on the Tuesday after the feast of the Trinity, he invited to his house his friends Bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, Jonas, the professor and provost of the church of All Saints, Lucas Cranach with his wife, and the juristic professor Apel, formerly a dean of the Cathedral at Bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was married to Catharine. The marriage was solemnised in the customary way. The pair were asked, by the priest present, Bugenhagen, according to the custom prevailing in Germany, and which Luther afterwards followed in his tract on Marriage, whether they would take one another for husband and wife; their right hands were then joined together, and thus, in the name of the Trinity, they were 'joined together in matrimony.' The ceremony was therewith concluded, and Catharine remained thenceforth with Luther as his wife. Some days after Luther gave a little breakfast to his friends; and the magistracy, of whom Cranach was a member, sent him their congratulations, together with a present of wine. A fortnight later, on June 27, Luther celebrated his wedding in grander style, by a nuptial feast, in order to gather his distant friends around him. He wrote to them saying that they were to 'seal and ratify' his marriage, and 'help to pronounce the benediction.' Above all he rejoiced to be able to see his 'dear father and mother' at the feast. Among the motives for his marrying he especially mentioned that he had felt himself bound to fulfil an old duty, in accordance with his father's wishes.

Great as was the surprise which Luther occasioned by his speedy marriage, it was no greater than the talk and sensation that immediately ensued.

Among even his adherents and friends—especially the 'wiseacres' of whom he had spoken—there was much astonishment and shaking of heads. It was considered that the great man had lowered himself, and gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to take the step. Melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment, as is shown by his letter of June 16 to the philologist Camerarius, his accustomed self-possession. He admitted that married life was a holy state, and one well-pleasing to God, and that its results might be beneficial to Luther's nature and character; but he was of opinion that Luther's lowering himself to this condition was a lamentable act of weakness, and injurious to his reputation—and that, too, at a time when Germany was more than ever in need of all his spirit and his energy. Luther had not invited him to be present on the 13th, from a suspicion that Melancthon would scarcely approve of what he was doing. A few days afterwards, however, he warmly besought Link, their common friend, to be sure and attend their nuptial feast on the 27th. That Luther, in this respect also, had acted as a man of strong character and determination, would soon be evident to them all.

His enemies seized the occasion of his marriage to spread vulgar falsehoods about him, which soon were further exaggerated, and have been raked up shamelessly again, even in our own time, or at least repeated in veiled and scandalous inuendoes.



As for Luther himself, he at first felt strange in the new mode of life which he had entered at the age of forty-one, so suddenly, and in the midst of his arduous labours, and the stirring public events and struggles of the time. At the same time he could not but be aware of the unfavourable reception which his step would encounter, even with his friends at Wittenberg. Melancthon found him, during the early days of his married life, in a restless and uncertain mood. But he remained firm in his conviction that God had called him to the married state. The same day that Melancthon wrote so anxiously to Camerarius about his marriage, Luther himself wrote to Spalatin, saying, 'I have made myself so vile and contemptible forsooth, that all the angels, I hope, will laugh, and all the devils weep.' In his letter of invitation to his friends for June 27, friendly humour is mingled with words of deep earnestness; nay, even with thoughts of death, and a longing for release from this infatuated world. Later on Luther preached, on the ground of his own experiences, about the blessings, the joys, and the purifying burdens of the state ordained and sanctified by God, and never without an expression of gratitude to God for having brought him to enter into it. Seventeen years after his marriage he bore testimony to Catharine in his will, that she had been to him a 'pious, faithful, and devoted wife, always loving, worthy, and beautiful.'



Of the wedding feast of June 27 we have no further details. It was, so far as concerns the repast, a very simple one, as compared with the elaborate nuptial entertainments then in fashion. The university presented Luther with a beautifully chased goblet of silver, bearing round its base the words: 'The honourable University of the Electoral town of Wittenberg presents this wedding gift to Doctor Martin Luther and his wife Kethe von Bora. [Footnote: The goblet is now in the possession of the University of Greifswald.]



Apartments in the convent, which Brisger also quitted shortly after to become a minister, were appointed by the Elector as the dwelling-place of Luther. Here, therefore, Catharine had to manage her household.



Protestant posterity has been anxious to retain a memorial of this marriage in the wedding rings of the newly-married couple. These, however, were probably not used at the marriage itself, since Luther wished to have it solemnised so quickly and without the knowledge of others. But a ring has been preserved, which Luther, to judge from the inscription (D. Martino Luthero Catharina v. Boren 13 Jun. 1525), received at any rate from his Kate as a supplementary reminiscence of the day. In recent times—about 1817—it has been multiplied by several copies. It bears the figure of the crucified Saviour and the instruments of His death; in perfect keeping with the spirit of the Reformer, whose marriage, like the other acts of his life, was concluded in the name of Christ crucified. There exists also, in the Ducal Museum at Brunswick, a double ring, consisting of two interfastened in the middle, of which one bears a diamond with his initials M. L. D., and the other a ruby with the initials of his wife, C. v. B. The inner surface of the first ring is engraved with the words: 'WAS. GOT. ZUSAMEN. FIEGT,' (Those whom God hath joined together), and the second, 'SOL. KEIN. MENSCH. SCHEIDEN,' (Shall no man put asunder). This double ring was probably given by some friend to Luther, or, as others suppose, to his wife.



PART V.

LUTHER AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH, TO THE FIRST RELIGIOUS PEACE. 1525-1532.



CHAPTER I.

SURVEY.

The year 1525 marks in the life of Luther and the history of the Reformation an epoch and a departure of general importance.

Luther's preaching had originally forced its way among the German people and its various classes, with an energy and strength never counted on by its opponents. It seemed impossible to calculate how far the ferment would extend, and what would be its ultimate results. It was the idea of the Elector Frederick the Wise, now dead, that by simply letting the word of the gospel unfold itself quietly and work its way without hindrance, the truth could not fail eventually to penetrate all Christendom, or at least the Christian world of Germany, and thus accomplish a peaceful victory. This hope had guided him during his lifetime in his relations with Luther, and no one appreciated and responded to it more loyally than Luther himself. But now, as we have seen, those German princes who adhered to the old Church system had begun to form a close alliance, and were meditating means of remedying, albeit in their own fashion, certain evils in the Church. Erasmus, still the representative of a powerful modern movement of the intellect, had at length broken finally with Luther, and renewed his former allegiance to the Romish Church. From the German nobility, whose sympathy and co-operation Luther had once so boldly and hopefully invoked in his contest with the Papacy, it was vain, since the fatal enterprise of Sickingen, which Luther himself had been forced to condemn, to expect any material assistance in furtherance of the Evangelical cause. True, there was the extensive rising of another class, the peasantry, who likewise appealed to the gospel. But genuine disciples of the gospel could not fail to see in this movement, with terror, how a perverse conception of the sacred text led to errors and crimes which even Luther wished to see suppressed in blood. And the Catholic nobles took advantage of this rising to persecute with the greater rigour all evangelical preaching, and to extend, without further inquiry, their denunciation of the insurgents to those of evangelical sympathies who held entirely aloof from the insurrection. Luther, in his dealings with the nobles and peasants, failed to preserve that boldness and confidence of mind and language which he had previously displayed towards his fellow-countrymen. That his cause, indeed, was the cause of God, he remained unshakenly convinced; but in a sadder spirit than he had ever shown before, he left God's will to determine what amount of visible success that cause should attain to in the present evil world, or how far the decision should depend upon His last great Judgment.



Even before the Peasants' War broke out, the proceedings of the fanatics had begun to hamper and disturb his labours in the field of reformation, and had prepared for him much pain and tribulation. He had to grow distrustful of so many whom he had regarded as brothers, and of their manner of proclaiming the Word of God, Whom they pretended to serve. He already heard of men among them, who not only rejected infant baptism, and openly attacked his own, no less than the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament, but who impugned the universal belief of Christendom in the Triune God and the Divinity of the Saviour. Early in 1525 news reached him of such a man at Nuremberg, John Denk, the Rector of the school there, who was expelled on that account by the magistrates. Luther's own doctrine of the presence of Christ's Body in the Lord's Supper, which he had previously to defend against Carlstadt, his former colleague and fellow-combatant, now found a far more formidable opponent in the Zurich Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. The latter, in a letter of November 16, 1524, to Alber, a preacher at Reutlingen, had already disputed the Real Presence, by interpreting the words 'This is my body' to mean 'This signifies my body.' In March 1525 he made known this interpretation to the world by publishing his letter, together with a pamphlet 'On the True and False Religion.' He was joined at Basle by Oecolampadius, whom Luther had welcomed formerly as a fellow-labourer, and who published his own interpretation of the words of Christ. Butzer and Capito, the evangelical preachers at Strasburg, inclined to the same view, which threatened to spread rapidly over the South of Germany. The opposition now encountered by Luther was far more dangerous for his teaching than the theories and agitations of a Carlstadt, since whatever judgment may be formed about its merits, it proceeded at any rate from men of far more thoughtful minds, more solid theological acquirements, and more honest reverence for the Word of God. Herewith then began that division of opinion among the ranks of the Evangelical Reformers, which served more than anything else to retard the fresh and vigorous progress of the Reformation, and infected even Luther's spirit with the bitterness of the controversy it entailed.

At the same time, however, Luther had now won firm ground for the Evangelical cause upon a fixed and extensive territory. Within these limits it was possible to construct a new Church system, upon stable foundations and with a new constitution. John, the new Elector of Saxony, did not enjoy, it is true, the same high consideration throughout the Empire as his brother Frederick, Luther's great protector, and he was also his inferior as a statesman. But with Luther himself both he and his son John Frederick had already maintained a friendly personal intercourse, such as his predecessor had carefully avoided. Nor did his disposition lead him, like Frederick, to pay any such regard to the possible preservation of Church unity in the German Empire and Western Christendom; on the contrary, he soon showed his readiness to undertake independently, as sovereign of his country, the establishment of a new Evangelical Church. Prussia had just preceded him in a reform embracing the whole country, under the former Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, their present Duke. The Elector now found a further ally for the work in the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the most active and politically the most important of all. As a young man of only twenty years of age, in the beginning of 1525, he had rendered valuable service by his energy, resolution, and warlike ability, in the defeat of Sickingen, and again when opposed to the seditious peasants. Already before the Peasants' War commenced, he had acquired, mainly through Melancthon, whom he had met when travelling, a knowledge and love of the evangelical doctrines. His father-in-law, Duke George of Saxony, had vainly endeavoured, after their common victory over the insurgents, to alienate him from the cause of the hateful Luther, who he said was the author of so much mischief. But the menaces hurled against that cause by the Catholic States of the Empire served only to attach him more closely and loyally to John and John Frederick, and thence resulted in the following spring the League of Torgau, which was joined also by the princes of Brunswick-Luneburg, Anhalt, and Mecklenburg, and the town of Magdeburg. The co-operation of the territorial princes made it possible to procure for the Reformation and its Church system a firm position in the German Empire against the Emperor and the hostile Catholic States. And, at the same time, it offered means for establishing on the ground newly occupied by the Reformation itself, firm and generally recognised regulations of Church polity, and defending them from being disturbed by the proceedings of fanatics.



Under these new conditions and circumstances, Luther's work became limited, as was natural, to a narrower field, and bore no longer the same character of boldness and independence which had marked it in his original contest with Rome. But it required, on this account, all the more perseverance and patience, faithfulness and circumspection in minor matters, and an adequate regard to what was actually required and practicable, while clinging firmly to the lofty aims and objects with which the work of the Reformation had commenced.

To the portrait of Luther as the Reformer we have to add henceforth that of the married man and head of the household, whose single desire is to fulfil, as a man and a Christian, the duties belonging to this state of life, and to enjoy with a quiet conscience the blessings of God. In his letters to intimate friends we find happy home news alternating with the most profound and serious reflections on the conduct and duties of the Evangelical Church, and on abstruse questions of theology. His language as a Reformer deals now no longer, as in his Address to the German Nobility, in particular, with the problems and interests of political and social life; it is mainly to religious and spiritual matters, and to the kindred questions affecting the active work and constitution of the Church, that his mission is now directed. But his personal relations with his countrymen became all the more close and intimate in consequence of this change of life; and that which by many of his friends was regretted as a lowering of his reputation and influence, becomes a valuable and essential feature in the historical portrait now presented to our eyes.

In single dramatic incidents and changes, so to speak, Luther's life henceforth, as was only natural, is no longer so rich as during the earlier years of development and struggle. We shall no longer meet with crises of such a kind as mark a momentous epoch.



CHAPTER II.

CONTINUED LABOURS AND PERSONAL LIFE TO 1529.

Among the particular labours which occupied Luther during the further course of the year 1525, apart from his persevering industry as a professor and preacher, we have already had occasion to mention one, namely, his reply to Erasmus. We find him towards the end of September entirely engrossed in this work. Not a single proposition in Erasmus' book, so he wrote to Spalatin, would he admit.

The reckless severity with which he assailed that distinguished opponent appears all the more remarkable when contrasted with the conciliatory tone whereby he was then hoping to appease the wrath of his two bitterest enemies in high places, King Henry VIII. of England and Duke George of Saxony.

On September 1, 1525, he addressed a humble letter to Henry. King Christian II. of Denmark, who, after forfeiting his throne by his arbitrary and despotic rule, had taken refuge with the Elector Frederick, showed an inclination to favour the new doctrine, and even came in person to Wittenberg. By him Luther was induced to believe—for what reason it does not appear—that Henry VIII. had entirely changed his Church principles; and to hope that, if only he could make amends for the personal offence he had given him, Henry might be won over still further for the Evangelical cause. Luther refers to this hope as follows: 'My Most Gracious Sire the King gave me good cause to hope for the King of England ... and ceased not to urge me by speech and letter, giving me so many good words, and telling me that I ought to write humbly, and that it would be useful to do so, and so forth, until I am fairly intoxicated with the idea.' He then cast himself in his letter at the feet of his Majesty, and besought him to pardon him for the offence he had given by his earlier pamphlet, 'because from good witnesses he had learned that the Royal treatise which he had attacked, was not indeed the work of the King himself, but a concoction of the miserable Cardinal of York' (Edward Lee). He promised to make a public retractation, in another pamphlet, for the sake of the King's honour. At the same time, he wished that the grace of God might assist his Majesty, and enable him to turn wholly to the gospel, and shut his ears against the siren voices of its enemies.

With regard to Duke George of Saxony, all that Luther had as yet heard about him was that he was incessantly bringing fresh complaints about him to the Elector, that he rigorously excluded the new teaching from his own territory, and, what was more, that, he was anxious to go on from the conquest of the peasants to the suppression of Lutheranism, which had been the cause, he declared, of all the mischief. Now, however, Luther learned from certain Saxon nobles, that the Duke himself was not so unfavourably disposed to the cause, and was willing to treat with mildness and toleration those who preached or confessed the gospel; that it was with Luther personally that he was so offended and irritated. Luther wrote to him on December 22 of this year. 'I have been advised,' he says, 'once more to entreat your Grace in this letter, with all humility and friendship, for it almost seems to me as if God, our Lord, would soon take some of us from hence, and the fear is that Duke George and Luther may also have to go.' He then entreats, with all submission, his pardon for whatever wrong he had done the Duke by writing or in speech; but of his doctrine he could, for conscience' sake, retract nothing. Luther, however, did not humble himself to George as he had done to King Henry, and his letter bears his characteristic sharpness of tone. He assured the Duke, however, that, with all his former severity of language towards him, he was a better friend to him than all his sycophants and parasites, and that the Duke had no need to pray to God against him.

Luther undoubtedly wrote the two letters, as he himself says of the one to Henry, with a simple and honest heart. They show, indeed, how much genuine good-nature, and at the same time how strange an ignorance of the world and of men, was combined in him together with a passionate zeal for combat. George answered him at once with ferocity, and, as Luther says, with the coarseness of a peasant. The prince, otherwise not ignoble, was so embittered by hatred against the heretic as to reproach him with the vulgarest motives of avarice, ambition, and the lust of the flesh. Never had Luther, even with his worst enemies, stooped to such personal slander. Concerning the answer which came afterwards from King Henry, as well as the reply of Erasmus, we shall speak further on.

Meanwhile, Luther and his friends were directing their attention to the newly published doctrine of the Last Supper. At first Luther left others to contest it: Bugenhagen addressed a public letter against it to his friend Hess at Breslau; Brenz at Schwabish Hall, together with other Swabian preachers, published tracts against Oecolampadius. Luther himself, after February 1525, referred repeatedly to Zwingli's theory in sermons to the congregation at Wittenberg which were printed at the time. But beyond this he confined himself to sending warnings by letter, on November 5, 1525, and January 4, 1526, to Strasburg and Reutlingen, whence he had been appealed to on the subject, against the false doctrines which had been put forward concerning the Sacrament, and particularly against the fanatics. We shall follow later on the further course of the controversy.

All these polemics, however, were only an adjunct to his positive labours and activity. His chief task now was to carry out the work he had begun in his own Church. For this he could rely with certainty on the inward sympathy of the new Elector, and he hastened to turn it actively to account as soon as possible, for the furtherance of his Church objects. During his communications with the late Elector Frederick, Spalatin had always acted as intermediary; but to John he addressed himself direct, and, whenever occasion offered, by word of mouth, and this at times with much urgency. Spalatin was now the pastor of a parish, as had been his wish some time before. He was the successor at Altenburg of Link, who had removed to Nuremberg, and he enjoyed the especial confidence of John.

In his official capacity Luther was, and always remained, before all things, a member of the university. He cherished at all times a lively appreciation of its importance to the cause of evangelical truth, the Church, and the common welfare of society. He began by pleading on its behalf to the new Elector, to remedy the defects and grievances which had crept in during the latter years of the old and ailing Elector Frederick. The requisite salary, in particular, was wanting for several of the professorships, and the customary lectures on many branches of study had been dropped. Luther, as he himself afterwards told the Elector in a tone of apology, had 'worried him sorely to put the university in order,' so much so that 'his urgency wellnigh surprised the Elector, as though he had not much faith in his promises.' In September the necessary reforms at Wittenberg were provided for by a commission specially appointed by the prince. The interest the latter took in theology made him double Melancthon's salary, in order to attach him the more closely to the theological lectures, which originally were not part of his duty.

Luther next devoted all his energies towards the requirements of the new Church system.

At Wittenberg, and from thence in other places, regulations for the performance of public worship had already been established, with the object of giving full and free expression to evangelical truth. The congregation had the Word of God read aloud to them, and joined in the singing of German hymns. The portions of the Liturgy, however, which were sung partly by the priests and partly by the choir, were still conducted in Latin. Luther now introduced a complete service in German, changing here and there the old form. To assist him in the musical alterations required, the Elector sent him two musicians from Torgau. With one of these in particular, John Walter, Luther worked with diligence, and continued afterwards on terms of friendly intercourse. He himself composed a few pieces for the work.

Of these, as of the earlier regulations at Wittenberg, Luther published a formal account. It appeared at the beginning of the next year (1526), under the title of 'The German Mass and Order of Divine Worship at Wittenberg.' But he guarded himself in this publication, from the outset, against the new Service being construed into a law of necessary obligation, or made a means of disquieting the conscience. In this matter, as in others, he wished above all things that regard should be paid to the weak and simple brethren—to those who had still to be trained and built up into Christians. Nay, he had meant it for a people among whom, as he said, many were not Christians at all, but the majority stood and stared, for the mere sake of seeing something new, just as though a Christian Service were being performed among Turks and heathens. The first question with these was how to attract them publicly to a confession of belief and Christianity. He thought also, at this time, of another and, as he termed it, a true kind of Evangelical Service, for which, however, the people were not yet prepared. His idea in this was that all individuals who were Christians in earnest, and were willing to confess the gospel, should enrol themselves by name, and meet together for prayer, for reading the Word of God, for administering the Sacraments, and exercising works of Christian piety. For an assembly of this kind, and for their worship of God, he contemplated no elaborate form of Liturgy, but, on the contrary, simply a 'short and proper' means of 'directing all in common to the Word and prayer and charity,' and in addition thereto, a regular exercise of congregational discipline and a Christian care of the poor, after the example of the Apostles. But for the present, he said, he must resign this idea of a congregation simply from the want of proper persons to compose it. He would wait 'until Christians were found sufficiently earnest about the Word to offer themselves for the purpose, and adhere to it;' otherwise it might serve only to generate a 'spirit of faction,' if he attempted to carry it through by himself; for the Germans, he said, were a wild people, and very difficult to deal with, unless extreme necessity compelled them. The Elector, however, readily assented to this project, and purposed to propose it as a model for other churches in his dominions.

At this point, however, a wider field of action opened out, the details of which could not be comprehended at a single glance, and which seemed to require a higher care, and the guidance and support of higher powers and authorities. In many places, nothing as yet, or at all events nothing of a stable and well-ordered kind, had been done towards a reconstruction of the Church and the satisfaction of spiritual requirements in an evangelical sense. There was no collective Church, and no ecclesiastical office existing by whose influence and authority reforms might have been made, and a new organisation established. This was a grievous state of need where, perhaps, the existing clergy and the majority or the flower of their congregations were already unanimous and decided in their confession of evangelical doctrine. And in a number of congregations, indeed, among the great mass of the country people, there prevailed to a peculiar degree, that want of understanding, of ripe thought, and of inward sympathy, which Luther noticed even among many of his Wittenbergers. The bishops, in their visitations in Saxony under the Elector Frederick, had been unable to check any longer the progress of the new teaching, and did not venture on any further interference. And yet this teaching, as Luther knew better than anyone, had not yet succeeded, in spite of all its popularity, in penetrating the souls of men. To a large extent, the masses seemed to be still stolid and indifferent. Even among the clergy, many were so unstable, so obscure, and so incompetent, that they failed to make any progress with their congregations. There were even some among them who were ready, according to circumstances, to adopt either the old or the new Church usages. In some places the new practices were opposed as innovations, especially by various nobles, and by the priests, who were dependent on the nobles: if such opposition was to be broken, it could only be done by the authority and power of the local sovereign. Lastly, and apart from all this, the new Church system was threatened with imminent disturbance and dissolution from the insufficiency or misuse of the funds required for its support. The customary revenues were falling off; payments were no longer made for private masses; and many of the nobles, including even those who remained attached to the old system, began to secularise the property of the Church. 'Unless measures are taken,' said Luther, 'to secure a suitable disposition and proper maintenance for ministers and preachers, there will shortly be neither parsonages nor schools worth speaking of, and Divine Worship and the Word of God will come utterly to an end.'

The first question was to establish the principles on which a new organisation of the Church should be based.

The earlier opinions expressed by Luther, especially in his Address to the German Nobility, might have led one to expect that the new Church system conformably to his ideas would have to be built up, to use a modern expression, from below, that is to say, on the basis of the universal priesthood of all baptized Christians, who should now therefore, after hearing and receiving the Word of the Gospel, have proceeded to organise and embody themselves into a new community. Luther had also, in that treatise, as we have seen, allotted certain duties to the civil authorities in regard even to ecclesiastical matters; and it was now from profound and painful conviction that he confessed that the great bulk of the people were as yet not genuine Christians, but needed public means of attraction to draw them to Christianity. Later on we met with his idea of a 'German Mass,' involving a voluntary union and assembly of genuine Christians, as explained by him three years before in a sermon. There were elements here at least, one might have thought, sufficient to constitute an independent system of congregations. Shortly afterwards, in October 1526, a Hessian synod, convoked by the Landgrave Philip at Homberg, actually adopted the draft of a constitution, which provided that those Christians who acknowledged the Word of God should voluntarily enrol themselves as members of a Christian Evangelical Brotherhood or congregation, who should elect in assembly their pastors and bishops, and that the latter, together with other deputies, should constitute a general synod for the national Church. But Luther, true to his conviction, previously expressed, that there were not the men fitted for such an institution, stated now his opinion to Philip, that he had not the boldness to carry out such a heap of regulations, and that people were not as fit for them as those who sat and made the regulations imagined. Moreover he could not tolerate the idea that the mass of those who remained outside this community, and who were looked upon, according to the Homberg scheme, as heathens, should be left to their fate, without preachers of the Word, and above all, without either baptism or the Christian education of their children. Added to this, he adhered strenuously to his belief, which we have noticed long before, that certain duties with reference to religion and the Church were incumbent on the civil authorities, the princes and magistrates, in common with all the rest of Christendom. It was their duty, he declared in those earlier writings of his, to prohibit, by force if necessary, the proceedings of those priests who were hostile to the gospel. He now applied the idea and definition of external, idolatrous practices to the Papal system of public worship and the sacrifice of the mass. To suppress these practices, he said, was the duty of those authorities who watched over the external relations of life: such was his demand against the Catholics at Altenburg. On the other hand, this province of external life and external regulations embraced also the material means required for the external maintenance of the Church. And it was only a step further for those authorities to forbid any public exposition of doctrines which they found to be at variance with the Word of God, and to appoint also preachers of that Word; nay, to undertake, in short, the establishment and preservation of the constitution of the Church, so far as the same was external, and necessary, and incapable of being established by any other power. The Elector John himself had already, on August 16, 1525, announced at his palace of Weimar to the assembled clergy of the district, 'that the gospel should be preached, pure and simple, without any additions by man.'