Chapter XIII: The Rise of the Reformed Churches (3)

At this critical period of his life the free and unrestrained tone which he had employed at an earlier date becomes unpleasantly conspicuous in his letters, writings and sermons. It is sufficient to read the passages in his justification of the nuns’ flight where he treats of his pet conviction, viz. the need of marrying, in words which, from very shame, are not usually repeated. “Scandal, or no scandal,” he concludes his dissertation on the nuns who had forsaken their vow of chastity, “necessity breaks even iron and gives no scandal!”[361] He had already once before complained that our ears have become “much purer than the mouth of the Holy Ghost,” referring to certain sexual matters spoken of very openly in the Old Testament.[362] He himself, however, paid little heed to such conventions, and, especially when jesting, delighted to set them at defiance.

Many passages already quoted from his letters to friends prove this. The “_misceor feminis_” and the “three wives” on his hands were unbecoming jokes. Kawerau, the historian of Luther, admits the “cynicism of his language”[363] and this unpleasing quality, which is more particularly noticeable when he becomes abusive, is also to be met with even elsewhere, especially in the years which we are now considering.

Luther, for instance, jocosely speaks of himself as a virgin, “_virgo_,” and, in a letter to Spalatin where he refers playfully to his own merry and copious tippling at a christening at Schweinitz, he says: “These three virgins were present [Luther, Jonas and his wife], certainly Jonas [as a virgin], for as he has no child we call him the virgin.”[364] Jonas, one of the priests who married, had celebrated his nuptials February 22, 1522.

On account of his habit of making fun Luther’s friends called him a “merry boon companion.”

No one could, of course, blame his love of a joke, but his jokes were sometimes very coarse; for instance, that concerning his friend Jonas in his letter of February 10, 1525, to Spalatin, of which the tone is indelicate, to say the least, even if we make all allowance for the age and for the customs in vogue among the Wittenberg professors. Jonas, he there says, was accustomed to write his letters on paper which had served the basest of services; he (Luther) was, however, more considerate for his friends. “Farewell,” he concludes, “and give my greetings to the fat husband Melchior [Meirisch, the stout Augustinian Prior of Dresden, who had married on February 6]; my wishes for him are, that his wife may prove very obedient; she really ought to drag him by the hair seven times a day round the market-place and, at night, as he richly deserves, ‘_bene obtundat connubialibus verbis_.’”[365]

The reference in this letter to Carlstadt and his “familiar demon” (a fanatical monk who was given to prophesying) calls to mind the indecent language in which Luther assailed the Anabaptists and “fanatics” during those years. He makes great fun at the expense of the “nackte Braut von Orlamünde” and her amorous lovers, referring, in language which is the reverse of modest, to a ludicrous, mystical work produced by the “fanatics.”[366]

Melanchthon is very severe in censuring Luther’s free behaviour and coarse jests, especially when in the presence of ex-nuns. It has been pointed out by a Protestant that Luther’s tendency to impropriety of language, though it cannot be denied, is easily to be explained by the fact of his being a “monk and the son of a peasant.”[367] It is hard to see what his being a monk has to do with it, and by what right the excesses which were perhaps noticeable in some few frivolous monks are to be regarded as characteristic of the religious state. Melanchthon’s reproaches lead the same writer to say, this time with at least some show of reason, that his friend surpassed Luther in “delicacy of feeling.”

Melanchthon, on June 16, 1525, in a confidential letter written in Greek to Camerarius about Luther’s recent marriage, complains of his behaviour towards the runaway nuns then at Wittenberg: “The man,” he says, “is light-hearted and frivolous (_εὐχερής_) to the last degree; the nuns pursued him with great cunning and drew him on. Perhaps all this intercourse with them has rendered him effeminate, or inflamed his passions, noble and high-minded though he is.” Melanchthon desiderates in him more “dignity,” and says that his friends (“we”), had frequently been obliged to reprove him for his buffoonery (_βωμολοχία_).[368]

In consequence of this unseemly behaviour with the nuns, blamed even by his intimate friends, we can understand that the professors of theology at Leipzig and Ingolstadt came to speak of Luther with great want of respect.

Hieronymus Dungersheim, the Leipzig theologian, who had before this had a tilt at Luther, wrote, with undisguised rudeness in his “Thirty Articles,” against “the errors and heresies” of Martin Luther: “What are your thoughts when you are seated in the midst of the herd of apostate nuns whom you have seduced, and, as they themselves admit, make whatever jokes occur to you? You not only do not attempt to avoid what you declare is so hateful to you [the exciting of sensuality], but you intentionally stir up your own and others’ passions. What are your thoughts when you recall your own golden words, either when sitting in such company, or after you have committed your wickedness? What can you reply, when reminded of your former conscientiousness, in view of such a scandalous life of deceit? I have heard what I will not now repeat, from those who had intercourse with you, and I could supply details and names. Out upon your morality and religion, out upon your obstinacy and blindness! How have you sunk from the pinnacle of perfection and true wisdom to the depths of depravity and abominable error, dragging down countless numbers with you! Where now is Tauler, where the ‘Theologia Deutsch’ from which you boasted you had received so much light? The ‘Theologia’ condemns as utterly wicked, nay, devilish through and through, all that you are now doing, teaching and proclaiming in your books. Glance at it again and compare. Alas, you ‘theologian of the Cross!’ What you now have to show is nothing but the filthiest wisdom of the flesh, that wisdom which, according to the Apostle Paul (Rom. viii. 6 f.), is the death of the soul and the enemy of God.”

Dungersheim then quotes for his benefit the passage from the Epistle of St. James concerning the “earthly and devilish wisdom,” notwithstanding that Luther treats this Epistle with contempt; his real reason for refusing to recognise it was that it witnessed so strongly against his teaching. “What will you say on the day of reckoning to the holy Father Augustine [the reputed founder of the Augustinians] and the other founders of Orders? They come accompanied by a countless multitude of the faithful of both sexes who have faithfully followed in the footsteps of Christ, and in the way of the evangelical counsels. But you, you have led astray and to destruction so many of their followers. All these will raise their voices against you on the dreadful Day of Judgment.”[369]

The Leipzig University professor, in his indignation, refers Luther to the warning he himself (in his sermons on the Ten Commandments) had given against manners of talking and acting which tempt to impurity; he continues: “And now you set aside every feeling of shame, you speak and write of questionable subjects in such a disgraceful fashion that decent men, whether married or unmarried, cover their faces and fling away your writings with execration. In order to cast dishonour upon the brides of Christ you [in your writings], so to speak, lead unchaste men to their couches, using words which for very shame I cannot repeat.”

He also answers his opponent’s constant objection that without marriage, on account of the impulse of nature, people must needs be ever falling into sin. “You forget two things, viz. that grace is stronger than nature and that, as Augustine rightly teaches, no one sins without free consent. You exaggerate that impulse and speak of ‘sin’ merely to exonerate your own behaviour and your doctrine. In other matters you declare that everything is possible to him who believes. You, like all other Catholics, were formerly convinced that involuntary movements of the flesh are not sinful unless a man consents to them; they are to the good a cross rather than a fault, and frequently only come from the devil and are not imputed to them at all.”[370]

This protest from Leipzig was reinforced in 1523 from Ingolstadt by Dr. Johann Eck, who kept a keen eye on Luther and pursued him with a sharp pen. In the following description of Luther his bitter opponent complains not only of the frivolous behaviour of the apostate monk in his former monastery which the Elector had made over to him, but above all of the untruth and dishonesty displayed in his writings. “More than once have I proved,” he says, “that he is a liar and hence that he has for his father, him [the devil] of whom the Scripture says that he is a liar and a murderer.” “The fellow exudes lies from every pore and is inconstancy itself (_homo totus mendaciis scatens nil constat_). His teaching too is full of deception and calumny. What he has just advanced, he presently rejects without the least difficulty.” “The dregs of those vices of which he is always accusing the Christians, we rightly pour back upon his own head; let him drink himself of the cup he has mixed.” “He heaps up a mountain of evil on the Pope and the Church,” but with “his nun,”--this is what he adds in a later edition in his indignation with Luther’s marriage--“he is really worshipping Asmodeus”; and this he is not ashamed to do in the old monastery of the Augustinians, “where once pious monks served the Lord God, and pious foundations, now alienated from their original purpose, proclaimed the Christian virtues to the faithful.”[371]

It is no pleasant task to examine Luther’s sermons and writings of those years, and to represent to ourselves the turmoil of his mind at the time directly preceding his marriage.

In 1524 he repeatedly discourses to his Wittenberg hearers on his favourite theme, i.e. that man cannot control himself in sexual matters, save by a miracle and with the help of an “exceedingly rare grace.” Speaking of impotence, he says, that although he himself “by the grace of God does not desire a wife,” yet he would not like, as a married man, to go through the experience of those who are impotent. If nature was not to be satisfied, “then death were preferable.” “I have no need of a wife,” he says, “but must provide a relief for your need.”[372] This was perhaps his reply to those who said: “Oh, how the monk feels the weight of his frock, how glad he would be to have a wife!”[373] “Hitherto,” he says, “the married state has been condemned and styled a sensual state.... Alas, would that all men were therein ... in support of it we have the Word of God.... Those who have the grace to be chaste are few, and among a thousand there is scarcely one to be found.”[374]

“I have frequently tried to be good,” he says to his hearers in 1524, “but the more I try the less I succeed. See from this what free-will amounts to.” And then, in excuse, he unfolds his theology. “Sin urges so greatly that we long for death. If to-day I avoid one sin, to-morrow comes another. We are obliged to fight without ceasing: the Kingdom of Christ admits all, provided only they fight and hold fast to the Head of the Kingdom, namely, [believe] that Christ is the Redeemer. But if we exalt works, then all is lost!... If we desire to attain to purity, this must not be done by works, but Christ must be born in us anew [by faith].... Sin cannot harm (‘_mordere_’) us; the power of sin is at an end. We hold fast to Him who has conquered sin.” “‘_Summa, summarum_,’ works or no works, all is comprised under faith and true doctrine.... But do not let us sleep meanwhile and lull ourselves into security.”[375]

In 1523 Luther wrote on “the Devil’s chastity,” as he called it, an exposition of the 7th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, which the Papists used, so he says, as a “fig-leaf” for celibacy and the monastic state. In it he deals with the inspiring, spiritual teaching of the Apostle of the Gentiles in the chapter which commences with the words: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”[376]

This publication, which has been extolled as “the happy inauguration of a healthy love of the things of sense,”[377] was preceded in 1522 by his sermon “On conjugal life.” We must here call to mind a similar earlier publication of 1519. When, on the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, he preached a “sermon on the conjugal state,” this was at once printed by some stranger from notes made. Many who read it were filled with astonishment at the unheard-of freedom of speech displayed. Very soon Luther’s friend, Christoph Scheurl, expressed his disapproval of the tone: “I have read many of Martin’s writings which appeal to his best friends more than his sermon on Matrimony, because they are pure, humble, modest, measured and earnest, as beseems a theologian.”[378] After this letter Luther declared that the sermon had been printed without his knowledge, and with many stupid mistakes, so that he was “ashamed” of it,[379] and that same year (1519) he had it reprinted in an amended form.[380] It has been proved, however, that another sermon, which had been taken down and printed at the same time as the first sermon on Matrimony, was reported quite correctly;[381] hence the first printed edition of the sermon on Matrimony was probably not as inexact as Luther afterwards pretended.

When we come to examine the teaching contained in the sermon “On conjugal life” of the year 1522, we find, regarding the marriage tie, notwithstanding the protestation that marriage was to be considered sacred and indissoluble, such sentences as the following: “If the wife is stubborn and refuses to fulfil her duty as a wife,” “it is time for the husband to say: If you refuse, another will comply; if the wife will not, then let the maid come.” She is however to be reprimanded first “before the Church,” and only then is the above counsel to be put in force: “If she refuses, dismiss her, seek an Esther and let Vasthi go.... The secular power must here either coerce the woman or make away with her. Where this is not done, the husband must act as though his wife had been carried off by brigands, or killed, and look out for another.” In short, the marriage is dissolved, and the husband is at liberty to marry the maid.[382] We must not, however, overlook the fact that in other passages of the same sermon Luther gives some quite excellent advice, whether against evil desires, or for the exercise of patience in matrimony.

As one on whom the highest authority has been unconditionally conferred, he declares in the same sermon that he “rejects and condemns” almost all the matrimonial impediments or prohibitions invented by the Pope.[383] Virginity he refuses to reject absolutely, but nevertheless he declares: “It is true that he who does not marry must lead an immoral life, for how can it be otherwise?” “without a special grace” it is utterly impossible.[384]

According to his ideas, the duties incident to matrimony cannot be complied with without sin. “No conjugal duty can be performed without sin,” he teaches in conclusion,[385] “though God by His mercy overlooks it”--a statement which certainly does not show any great esteem for matrimony, although Luther is under the impression that he is raising the union of man and wife to a higher plane. The Church had never taught that the use of matrimony, which she looked upon as based on the order of nature, involved any sin. Some few theologians had, it is true, spoken of venial sin as unavoidable here, but these were opposed by others, and, besides, the views of these theologians concerning sinfulness differed widely from those of Luther. Luther’s erroneous notion that every feeling of concupiscence was sinful, indeed mortally sinful, caused him to see grievous sin even here.

In view of his severity in this matter, the freedom of speech which he retains even in the revised edition (1519), and his coarse treatment of the sexual subject is all the more surprising. His tendency to throw off the fetters of decency is at times quite needlessly offensive. Cochlæus remarks of this work: “Luther here speaks in the most filthy way of the intercourse between husband and wife, contrary to the laws of natural modesty.”[386]

Others, and Cochlæus himself in his previous indecent writings, bear witness to the excess of coarseness of this sort which, partly as a consequence of Italian Humanism, had found its way into German literature at that time. Few, however, went so far as Luther. Several of his contemporaries told him so openly, though they were themselves accustomed to strong expressions. It is notorious that the sixteenth century was accustomed to speak more bluntly and openly than is at present usual. Yet in judging Luther’s case a circumstance which is often overlooked should also be borne in mind, namely, that the standard by which he is to be tried is not that of profane authors and literary men of Humanistic leanings, but that of professedly religious writers. Luther not only professed to be a religious writer, but also gave himself out as the introducer of a great reform in faith and morals. From this standpoint the impropriety of his speech must assuredly be more severely judged. He employs by preference such language in his bitter and violent polemics, seeking to make an impression upon the lower classes by a naturalism not far removed from filthy talking. The vulgar figures of speech of which he makes use are all saturated with hate and rendered still more distasteful by the unclean aspersions he is ever casting on his adversaries; from his manner of writing we can gather the satisfaction he derives from seeing the defenders of virginity, the religious and clergy, thus overwhelmed with filth.

Certain preachers of the late Middle Ages, religious and others, for instance, Geiler von Kaysersberg, when dealing with sexual matters sometimes went very far in their plain speaking on the subject, yet their words were, without exception, characterised by gravity and the desire of saving souls. Their tone excludes any levity; indeed, the honesty and simplicity of these productions of the Middle Ages impress the reader at every turn; he may perhaps be inclined to extol the greater delicacy of feeling which obtains at the present day, but he will refrain from blaming the less covert style of days gone by. Luther’s “cynical” language, however, impresses one as an attempt to pit nature, with all its brutality, with its rights and demands, against the more exalted moral aims of earlier ages; the trend of such language, as contemporary Catholics urged, was downwards rather than upwards.

One tract of Luther’s, which dates from about that time, that “Against the Clerical State falsely so called of Pope and Bishops,” contains a chapter “Concerning Vows,”[387] in which the descriptions are so coarse and the language so nasty that Staupitz might well have considered even his censure of certain earlier writings of Luther’s not sufficiently strong: “Your works are praised,” he had told him, “by those who keep houses of ill-fame,”[388] etc. Several particularly violent polemical tracts of those years, meant by Luther for his theological adversaries generally, are so brimful of words descriptive of the vilest parts and functions of the human body, that it would be impossible to match them in the writings of previous ages. His manner of speech was considered by his foes to have reached the lowest depths of thought and feeling. The vulgarity of his language was held to display the utter depravity of his mind.

* * * * *

In polemics Luther was not merely the “greatest, but also the coarsest writer of his century”; such is the opinion recently expressed by a Protestant historian.[389]

In the work dating from 1522, “Bulla Coenæ Domini, i.e. the Bull concerning the Evening feed of our most holy Lord, the Pope,”[390] he replies, with startling fluency, to the menaces of this Papal Bull against all heretics, including himself. Therein he describes the life and manners of the Roman “prostitutes” with the express intention of degrading all that Catholics considered most worthy of respect and veneration. The Pope and his followers he represents as indulging in every kind of sensuality, “rape, seduction and fornication” to their heart’s content.

Still more degrading are the opprobrious and insulting figures of which he makes use in 1522 in his furious reply “Against King Henry of England,” who had attacked and pilloried his teaching.[391] In his tract it is his aim not only to “lay bare the shame of the Roman prostitute before the whole world, to her eternal disgrace,” but also, as he says further down, to reveal the “shameless audacity” of the King of England, who is a defender of “the scarlet woman of Rome, the tipsy mother of unchastity”; the King, “that fool,” “lies and gibbers like the filthiest of prostitutes,” and that, merely to defend the Pope and his Church, “who are after all nothing more than pimp and procuress, and the devil’s own dwelling.” All this abuse is crammed into a few pages. To conclude, the King, according to Luther’s dictum and description, has been fitly consigned to “the dungheap with the Thomists, Papists and other such-like excrements.” Side by side with all this we find his grand assurances of his, Luther’s, position as the messenger of God. “Christ through me has begun His revelations of the abomination in the Holy Place”;[392] “I am convinced that my doctrines have come down to me from Heaven,”[393] etc. The King he politely describes as a crowned donkey, an infamous knave, an impudent royal windbag, the excrement of hogs and asses. The King, according to him, is more foolish than a fool; His Majesty ought to be pelted with mud; he deserves nothing better, this stupid donkey, this Thomistic hog, this lying rascal and carnival clown, who sports the title of king. He is a nit which has not yet turned into a louse, a brat whose father was a bug, a donkey who wants to read the Psalter but is only fit for carrying sacks, a sacrilegious murderer. He is a chosen tool of the devil, a papistical sea-serpent, a blockhead and as bad as the worst rogues whom indeed he outrivals; an abortion of a fool, a limb of Satan whose God is the devil--and so forth.

One of the unfortunate effects of his public struggle on Luther was, that he entangled himself more and more in a kind of polemics in which his invective was only rivalled by his misrepresentation of his opponents’ standpoint and arguments.

Preachers of the new faith frequently complained of his insulting and unjust behaviour.

Thus Ambrose Blaurer, the spokesman of the innovation in Würtemberg, laments, in 1523, that Luther’s enemies quite rightly made capital out of the hateful language employed in his controversial writings. “They wish to make this honey [Luther’s teaching] bitter to us because Luther is so sharp, pugnacious and caustic, ... because he scolds and rants.... Verily this has often displeased me in him, and I should not advise anyone to copy him in this respect. Nevertheless I have not rejected his good, Christian teaching.”[394] Matthew Zell, also a Lutheran, wrote in 1523: “Nothing has turned me more against Luther and pleased me less in him, and the same is true of other good men, than the hard, aggressive and bitter vindications and writings which he has composed against even his own friends, not to speak of the Pope, the bishops and others whom he has attacked so violently and so derisively that hardly has anything sharper, more violent and mocking ever been read.”[395]

Carlstadt, Luther’s friend, and later theological opponent, underwent such rough treatment at his hands, that a modern Protestant writer on Carlstadt says of the chief work Luther directed against him: Its characteristic feature is the wealth of personal invective.... Though attempts have been made to explain the terrible bitterness of his polemics by Luther’s disposition and the difficulty of his situation at the time the work was composed, yet the deep impression left by his controversial methods should not be overlooked. From that time forward they were generally imitated by the Lutheran party, even in disputes among themselves, and made to serve in lieu of true discussion; that such a procedure was entirely alien to Christian charity seems not to have been noticed. The author also refers and, with even greater reason, to the attacks against the “Papists,” “to the constantly recurring flood of abusive language, insults, misrepresentations and suspicions which the reformer poured upon his foes.” He made use of “his extraordinary command of language,” to accuse Zwingli, after his death, most maliciously of heresy.[396]

Amongst other opponents of the new faith, Erasmus, in a writing addressed to Luther, says: “Scarcely one of your books have I been able to read to the end, so great and insatiable is the tendency to libel which they display (‘_insatiata conviciandi libido_’). If there were only two or three libels one might think you had given vent to them without due consideration, but as it is, your book swarms with abuse on every page (‘_scatet undique maledictis_’). You begin with it, go on with it, and end with it.”[397] Thomas Murner says, in a reply to Luther, as early as 1520, “I see and understand that you are angry. Therefore it will be best for me to keep cool in order that it may not be said that we both are mad. You really go too far.”[398]

It is true that Murner is very severe and satirical towards Luther; in fact, all Luther’s opponents who wrote against him frequently made use of stronger expressions than became the cause they advocated, being incited and encouraged in this by the language he employed. The Dominican, Conrad Köllin, in his answer to Luther’s attacks on the indissolubility of Christian marriage, is a good instance in point.[399] The Dominicans of Cologne were particularly irritated by Luther’s insults, for at the very outset of the struggle he had called them asses, dogs and hogs.[400]

That Luther’s scolding and storming grew worse and worse as the years went on has been pointed out by the Protestant historian Gustav Krüger, who remarks that Melanchthon could never “see eye to eye with him in this”; Luther, however, did not “by any means always reflect upon what he said, and he must not be held responsible for all he flung among the people by word and pen.”[401]

Luther’s friend, Martin Bucer, strove to console himself in a peculiar fashion for the insults and libels which increased as Luther grew older. To the above-mentioned Ambrose Blaurer he wrote concerning Luther’s attacks on the Zwinglians: “These are terrible invectives and even calumnies, but if you take into account Luther’s character, the evil is diminished. He is by nature violent and accustomed to vituperation, and the abuse of such men (‘_conviciari assuetorum convicia_’) is not to be made so much of as that of persons of a more peaceable temper.” Two years later, however, Bucer confesses to the same friend his real concern regarding Luther’s outbreaks of passion: “It thrills me with a deadly fear (‘_tantum non exanimor_’) when I think of the fury that boils in the man whenever he is dealing with an opponent. With what utter rage did he not fall on the [Catholic] Duke George.”[402]

In recent times Protestants have spoken with a certain admiration of the “heroic, yea, godlike,” rage which always inspired Luther’s vituperation. One admirer emphasises the fact, that he “was only too often right,” because his Popish opponents were altogether hardened, and “therefore it could do their souls no harm to make use of sharp weapons against them”; “it was necessary to warn people against these obdurate enemies and to unveil their wickedness with that entire openness and plainness of speech which alone could impress his contemporaries. He considered this his sacred duty and performed it with diligence.” “When he laid about him so mightily, so scornfully, so mercilessly, his efforts were all directed against the devil.” “Where it is necessary for the salvation of souls,” this theologian urges in excuse, “true charity must not refrain from dealing severe wounds, and Luther was obliged to describe as filth what actually was such.” “Thus we see why he not unfrequently chooses dirty, common words and comparisons intentionally in order adequately to express his horror. His eloquence becomes at times a stream carrying with it a quantity of mud, dirt and filth of every kind; but had it not been for it this filth would never have been swept away.”[403] All this is expressed, even more briefly and drastically, by the Luther biographer, Adolf Hausrath, where, in reply to Harnack’s criticism of the “barbarity of Luther’s polemics,” he says: “Since Luther’s road led him to his goal it must have been the right road, and fault-finders should hold their tongues.... He knew the best language to make use of in order to shake his Germans out of their stupid respect for the Roman Antichrist.” ... Luther, the “prophet,” treated his foes “exactly as they deserved,” save in the case of Zwingli.[404]

This was too much for Gustav Kawerau, another historian of Luther. He pointed out, as against Hausrath, that, not to mention others, Duke George and also Schwenckfeld had experienced such treatment at Luther’s hands as was certainly not “deserved.” If Hausrath “thanked God” for the barbarity of Luther’s prophetical polemics, he, for his part, felt compelled to “protest against the proclamation of any prophetical morality which would oblige us to set aside our own moral standard.” “This is to do Luther and his cause, a bad service,” says Kawerau.... “We are not going to venerate in Luther what was merely earthly.”[405] Whether the “earthliness” of his libels and filthy polemics clung only to Luther’s feet, or whether it involved his character and whole work, Kawerau does not say.

We may fairly ask whether on the whole the character of the man has been more correctly gauged by those who look upon his favourite kind of controversy as nothing more than the disfiguring dirt under his feet, or by those others who trace it back to the very nature of his titanic struggle with the Church. Bucer, as we just saw, traced Luther’s outbursts to the violence of his temper, and Luther himself frequently declares that he wrote “so severely, intentionally and with well-considered courage.”[406] This he looks upon as demanded by his position and, therefore, it is, as he thinks, “well done.”[407] According to Wilhelm Walther, Luther had chosen the “heroic method of development,” i.e. “of isolating himself as it were from the whole world”; his standpoint was not “within the grasp” of the world of his opponents.[408] Thus, unless he wished to forsake his cause, he had to carry it through single-handed, straining every nerve and having recourse to vituperation the like of which had never hitherto been heard.

We shall examine elsewhere the psychological questions involved in this sort of polemics (vol. iv., xxvi. 3). The above will suffice concerning the influence exercised on his literary activity by the public position which Luther had assumed.

4. Further Traits towards a Picture of Luther. Outward Appearance. Sufferings, Bodily and Mental

A change had gradually taken place in Luther’s outward appearance even previous to his stay at the Wartburg. By the time he had returned to Wittenberg his former leanness had gone and he was inclined to be stout.

Johann Kessler, a Swiss pupil who saw him often in 1522 and who frequently played the lute to cheer him, writes in his “Sabbata”: “When I knew Martin at the age of forty-one in 1522 he was by nature somewhat portly, of an upright gait, inclined rather backward than forward, and always carried his face heavenward.”[409]

Albert Burer, who was also studying at Wittenberg after Luther’s return from the Wartburg, praises his amiability, his pleasant, melodious voice, and his winning manner of speech.[410] Thomas Blaurer, then his enthusiastic disciple, is also full of praise of his kindly, attractive and sympathetic manner towards those who came under his influence and to whom he ever behaved in a simple and natural fashion.[411] Neither of them, however, describes his facial appearance.

From the likenesses of him to be referred to below it appears that his face usually wore an expression of energy and defiance. His chin and mouth protruded slightly and gave an impression of firmness; a slight frown denoted irritability; over his right eye there was a large wart; a lock of curly hair overhung his forehead. His “dark eyes blinked and twinkled like stars so that it was difficult to look at them fixedly.”[412] (J. Kessler.) As remarked above, his deportment was upright and almost defiant.

Of what Luther must have been, judging by his descriptions, not one of the portraits which have come down to us gives any good idea.[413] This sounds strange, as the art of portrait painting was already very highly developed in Luther’s day, whilst his likenesses were in great demand and were despatched from Wittenberg to every quarter in order to increase his popularity. Dürer and Holbein, who have left us characteristic and faithful likenesses of Melanchthon, never employed their brush or pencil in depicting Luther. The death-mask which we still have was not taken till four days after Luther’s death from a stroke, i.e. after decomposition had already made some progress, while the portrait of the dead man painted in haste by Lucas Fortenagel is almost terrifying and betrays a very unpractised hand.[414]

Lucas Cranach the elder, as is well known, sketched or painted several likenesses of Luther, and as the two were very intimate with each other we might have anticipated something reliable. He was, however, not sufficiently true to life; he suppressed what he considered to be defects in his sitter, and, in spite of his artistic talent, he did not possess the special qualifications for faithfully reproducing in a portrait the expression of the soul. In his pictures of Luther we are at a loss to find certain traits mentioned in the accounts we possess; the artist introduces into the face an expression of mildness and tenderness which was foreign to Luther. Neither is it a fact that we have hundreds of pictures from his studio, as is so often stated, for of all the portraits and engravings ascribed to Cranach only five can be considered as absolutely genuine, the copper plates of 1520 and 1521,[415] then the “Squire George” of the Wartburg in the Leipzig Town Library, and two portraits in the Kaufmann Gallery in Berlin. “If we examine the absolutely genuine ‘Cranachs’ we at once notice that they have nothing in common with the typical Luther features [of a later day].” From these original likenesses down to the pictures of Luther which circulate to-day there are many steps. The transformation was carried further and further, though the “broad, peasant face” and the “powerful jaw” were destined to remain. Nearly all these pictures represent an elderly man, inclined to corpulence, with somewhat blurred features, with surprisingly abundant curly hair and small, kindly eyes.

This, the typical Luther of to-day, appears perhaps for the first time in the so-called “_Epitaphium Lutheri_,” a woodcut which was made after Luther’s death by the elder Cranach’s son, Lucas Cranach the younger. The type in question became very generally known owing to the picture of Luther painted nine years after his death by the younger Cranach for an altar-piece in the parish church at Weimar, although in this likeness, which has been so frequently copied, there may still be found some traces of the bold, warrior features of the real Luther. Böhmer, the Protestant historian, remarks: “In the most popular of these modern ‘ideal pictures,’ viz. the oleograph of Luther in the fur cappa which ‘adorns’ so many churches, even the Doctor’s own Catherine would be unable to recognise her Martin.”

The pictured Luther has become almost a fable among Protestants. This may well make us suspicious of the pen-picture of him now spread abroad by so many of his followers and admirers. Is it in the least trustworthy? Here again it is the Protestant authority cited above who complains: “The literary Luther-portraits, though strikingly similar, are all more or less unlike the original. In the strict sense they are not portraits at all, but presentments of a type.”

* * * * *

The strain of such strenuous literary work, in the case of one whose public life was so full of commotion as Luther’s, could not fail to tax the most healthy nervous system. We can only wonder how he contrived to cope with the excitement and incessant labour of the years from 1520 to 1525 and to continue tirelessly at the task till his life’s end.

Amongst his works in those years were various controversial writings printed in 1523, for instance, that against Cochlæus; also tracts such as those “On the Secular Power” and “On the Adoration of the Sacrament”; also the Instructions on the Supper, on Baptism and on the Liturgy, etc., and, besides these, voluminous circular-letters, translations from, and extensive commentaries on, the Bible. There was also a vast multitude of sermons and private letters. Among the writings on widely differing subjects dealt with by Luther in 1524-25 the following may be specified: “On Christian Schools,” “Two Unequal Commands of the Emperor,” “On Trade and Usury,” “On the Abomination of silent Mass,” “Against the Heavenly Prophets,” “Against the Murderous Peasants,” “On the Unfreedom of the Will.” His publications in the three years 1523-25 number no less than seventy-nine. His attacks on the vow of chastity, and on celibacy, constitute a striking feature of many of his then writings. Obstinacy in the pursuit of one idea, which characterises the German, degenerates in Luther’s case into a sort of monomania, which would have made his writings unreadable, or at least tedious, had not the author’s literary gifts and unfortunately the prurient character of the subject-matter appealed to many. The haste in which all this was produced has left its mark everywhere.[416]

In those years Luther’s nerves frequently avenged themselves by headaches and attacks of giddiness for the unlimited demands made upon them. Irregular meals and the want of proper attention to the body in the desolate “black monastery” of Wittenberg also contributed their quota. Among the bodily disorders which often troubled him we find him complaining of a disagreeable singing in the ears; then it was that he began to suffer from calculus, a malady which caused him great pains in later years and of which we first hear in 1526. We reserve, however, our treatment of Luther’s various ailments till we come to describe the close of his life. (See vol. v., xxxv. 1.)

We cannot, however, avoid dealing here with a matter connected with his pathology, which has frequently been discussed in recent times. The delicate question of his having suffered from syphilis was first broached by the Protestant physician, Friedrich Küchenmeister, in 1881, and another Protestant, the theologian and historian Theodore Kolde, has brought it into more prominent notice by the production of a new document, which in 1904 was unfortunately submitted to noisy discussion by polemical writers and apologists in the public press.

Küchenmeister wrote: “As a student Luther was on the whole healthy. From syphilis, the scourge of the students and knights at that time (we have only to think of Ulrich von Hutten), he never suffered, ‘I preserved,’ he says, ‘my chastity.’”[417]

The inference is, however, not conclusive, since syphilis is now looked upon as an illness which can be contracted not merely by sexual intercourse, but also in other ways. There was therefore no real reason to introduce the question of chastity, which the physician here raises.

As regards, however, the question of infection, every unbiassed historian will make full allowance for the state of that age. Owing to the great corruption of morals which prevailed, syphilis, or the “French sickness, _malum Franciæ_,” as it was called, raged everywhere, but especially in France and Italy. The danger of infection was, as Luther himself points out, extremely great, so that, as he says, even “boys in the cradle are plagued with this disease.” So prevalent was this formerly unknown malady that “friends wished it to each other in jest.”[418] He sees in the spread of the “_scabies gallica_” a manifest Divine judgment for the growing lack of the fear of God, and looks upon it as a sign of the approaching end of the world.[419] In his “Chronicle” he says that, in 1490, a new illness, the French sickness, made its appearance, “one of the great signs of the coming of the Last Day.”[420]

The new material furnished by Theodore Kolde in his “_Analecta Lutherana_” consists of a medical letter of Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Magenbuch dated June 11, 1523, taken from the Hamburg Town Library, and is of a character to make one wonder whether Luther did not at one period suffer from syphilis, at any rate in a mild form.[421]

The circumstances of the letter are as follows: Luther was recovering from a serious attack of illness which he himself believed to be due to a bath.[422] We learn from Melanchthon that this indisposition was accompanied by high fever.[423] On May 24, however, the patient was able to report that he was better, but that he “was over-burdened with distracting labours.”[424] At that time a certain Apriolus, a renegade Franciscan and zealous disciple of Luther’s (his real name was Johann Eberlin), was staying with Luther at Wittenberg. He forwarded detailed accounts of Luther’s illness to a physician with whom he was intimate, Wolfgang Rychardus, at Ulm. Rychardus was also a great admirer of the Wittenberg professor and at the same time, as it would appear, a devoted friend of Melanchthon’s. In consequence of Apriolus’s reports he wrote the medical letter now in question to another physician then studying at Wittenberg, Johann Magenbuch of Blaubeuren, who also was intimate with the Wittenberg Reformers, had helped Melanchthon in his Greek lexicon with regard to the medical side, and was then in attendance on Luther. It was Magenbuch who had first brought Rychardus into touch with Luther, and both had already exchanged letters concerning him.[425] Rychardus remained Luther’s friend at a later date.[426]

Rychardus wrote to the physician attending Luther, that he had heard of the illness of the new “Elias” (Luther), but now rejoices to learn he is convalescent. It was evident that God was preserving him. In the meantime, out of pity [in a letter not extant], Apriolus had given him various particulars concerning Luther’s illness and his sleeplessness. He points out that it was not sufficient that Luther should only enjoy some sleep every second night, though, of course, his mental exertion explained his sleeplessness, hence, as a careful physician, he recommends his friend Magenbuch to give the patient a certain sleeping-draught, which he also describes, and with which Magenbuch (“_qui medicum agis_”) must already be acquainted. “But if,” he says, “the pains of the French sickness disturb his sleep,” these must be alleviated by means of a certain plaster, the mysterious components of which, comprising wine, quicksilver (“_vinum sublimatum_”), and other ingredients he fully describes; this would induce sleep which was absolutely essential for the restoration of health. “For God’s sake take good care of Luther,” he concludes, and adds greetings to Apriolus his informant.[427]

Divergent interpretations have naturally been placed upon this letter by Luther’s friends and enemies. It might have sufficed to detail the circumstances and the contents of the letter, did not the somewhat violent objections raised against the view, that, owing to the information given him by Apriolus, Rychardus took Luther to be suffering from the French sickness, render some further remarks necessary.

It has been said that Luther was not ill at all at the time Rychardus wrote, but had recovered his health long before. It is true that in June, 1523, his life was no longer in danger, since Rychardus had heard from Giengerius, who came from the fair at Leipzig, that Elias had recovered (“_convaluisse Heliam_”); but then his friend Apriolus forwarded the above disquieting accounts (“_multa de valetudine adscripsit_”) which led Rychardus to write his letter, which in turn is an echo of his informant’s letter. The circumstance that Luther was on the whole much better is therefore, as a matter of fact, of no importance. It has also been said that “Rychardus can be understood as speaking in general terms without any reference to Luther.” According to this view of the matter the physician’s meaning would amount to this: “Luther must be made to sleep by means of the remedy well known to you [and which he describes], but if along with it (‘_cum hoc_’) the pains of the French sickness should disturb anyone’s sleep, they must be allayed by a plaster,” etc. It is surely all too evident that such an explanation is untenable.

Again, the word “if” has been emphasised; Rychardus does not say that Luther has syphilis, but that _if_ he has it. But, as a matter of fact, he does not write “if he be suffering from it,” but, “_if this malady disturbs his sleep_”; taken in connection with the account of the illness, supplied by Apriolus, the most natural (we do not, however, say necessary) interpretation to be placed on his words is that he was aware the patient was suffering from this malady, perhaps only slightly, yet sufficiently to endanger his sleep. “But if, when use is made of the sleeping-draught indicated, syphilis should prevent his sleeping,” is surely a proviso which no physician would make in the case of a patient in whom syphilitic symptoms were not actually present; Rychardus would never have spoken of the “new Elias” in this way unless he had reason to believe in the existence of the malady. It would have been far-fetched to introduce the subject of so disgusting a complaint, and much more natural to speak of other commoner causes which might disturb sleep.

It must, however, be allowed, that, both before and after this letter was written, no trace of such an illness occurs in any of the documents concerning Luther. The “_molestiæ_” twice mentioned previously, which by some have been taken to refer to this malady, have, as a matter of fact, an altogether different meaning, which is clear from the context.[428]

In addition to his bodily ailments, the result more particularly of extreme nervous agitation, the indefatigable worker was over and again tormented with severe attacks of depression and sadness.

They were in part due to the sad experiences with his followers and to the estrangement--now becoming more and more pronounced--of his party from the fanatical Anabaptists; in part also to the alarming reports of the seditious risings of the peasants; also to his deception concerning the Papacy, which, far from falling to pieces “at the breath of the true Gospel,” had asserted its authority and even strengthened it by reforms such as those commenced under Hadrian VI. It was, however, principally his “interior struggles,” and the pressing reproaches of his conscience concerning his work as a whole, which rendered him a prey to melancholy. This mental agony never ceased; the inward voice he had heard in the Wartburg, and which had pierced his very soul with the keenness of a sword, continued to oppress him: “Are you alone wise? Supposing that all those who follow you are merely dupes.”[429]

If he sought for distraction in cheerful conversation, this was merely to react against such gloomy thoughts. The more and more worldly life he began to lead may also be regarded as due in some measure to the effort on his part to escape these moods. We may also find in them the psychological explanation of the excesses he commits in his attacks upon the Church, his very violence serving to relieve his feelings and to reassure him. His customary defiance enables him to surmount all obstacles: the external anxieties caused by his adversaries and the interior temptations which he ascribes to the devil. “I have triumphed over him [the devil],” he exclaims confidently, “who has more power and cunning in his smallest claw than all the popes, kings and doctors.... My doctrine shall prevail and the Pope fall, in defiance of the gates of hell and all the powers of the air, the earth and the sea.”[430]

We feel it our duty to complete this remarkable picture of passion, defiance and struggle by some few additional traits taken from Luther’s writings at that time.

On the question of the vow of chastity and priestly celibacy a rude though perfectly justified answer was supplied him by many writers on the Catholic side, yet he ignored them all, and on the contrary proceeded on his way with even greater fury and passion. He proclaims a sacred command to marry, a command not one whit less binding than the Decalogue. Here, as in the case of other questions of morals and dogma, he is carried forward by passion, rather than by a calm recognition of the truth. He exclaims somewhat later: “Just as it is a matter of stern necessity and strict command when God says: ‘Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ so there is also stern necessity and strict command, nay a still greater necessity and yet more stringent command: ‘Thou shalt marry, Thou shalt have a wife, Thou shalt have a husband.’ For there stands God’s Word (Gen. i. 27), ‘God created man ... male and female he created them’! The consciences of the unmarried must be importuned, urged and tormented until they comply, and are made at length to say: ‘Well, if it must be so, then let it so be.’”[431]

When it was pointed out to him, that in the New Testament celibacy embraced from love of God was presented as one of the evangelical counsels, he straightway denied both the existence and the authority of the evangelical counsels. And when his opponents replied that Christ frequently counselled acts of great virtue without making of them strict commands, but mere counsels of perfection, for instance with the words: “If one smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,” Luther will have it that Christ, even here, gave the strict command to allow ourselves to be smitten also on the left cheek.

In his attack on the Mass, in his excitement, he went so far as to state: No sin of immorality, nay not even “manslaughter, theft, murder and adultery is so harmful as this abomination of the Popish Mass.” He adjured the authorities to take steps against the blinded parsons “who run to the altar like hogs to the trough,” “the shame of the scarlet woman of Babylon” must be laid bare in order that the “dreadful anger of God may not be poured forth like a glowing furnace upon the negligence” of those who fail to use the “sword entrusted to them by God.” These were his words to the people in a sermon of the year 1524.[432]

How deeply his experiences with the fanatics excited and enraged him is apparent, for instance, from this statement concerning Carlstadt: “He is no longer able to go back, there is no hope for this orator, inflated and hardened as he is by the applause of the crowd” (“_plausu vulgi inflatus et induratus_”).[433] Carlstadt and his followers, according to him, “are always on the look-out for a chance of incriminating the evangel.”[434] Luther in these struggles felt bitterly that he himself, the originator of the great movement, had already become to many a byword and a jest, “a target for malice, for deceit, for buffoonery--by reason of my simplicity.”[435]

It is true he had a fellow-sufferer at his side, Melanchthon, who at that time “was brought to the brink of the grave”[436] by cares and want of sleep; yet none of his friends suffered as much as he, for the whole burden of care settled upon him. To-day he has to dispute with a “sly and cunning monk,” who ill-uses his wife because she desires a separation, and, then, when she actually leaves him, wishes to marry another; Luther flings the desired permission after him (“if others will allow him so to do, I am content”).[437] On the morrow he has to go to Wittenberg to take steps “against a new sort of prophets arrived from Antwerp,” who deny the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, which, they say, is not founded on the “Word,”[438] On the day following he is assailed with complaints regarding the encroachments of the Lutheran authorities.

“How does Satan rage,” he cries in view of the above, “how he rages everywhere against the Word!”[439]