Chapter XXXI: Luther in His Dismal Moods, His Superstition and Delusions (2)

“They all rage against God and His Messias.” “This is the work of those centaurs, the foes of the Church, kept in store for the latter days. They are more insatiable than hell itself. But Christ, Who will shortly come in His glory, will quiet them, not indeed with gold, but with brimstone and flames of hell, and with the wrath of God.”[918] It was his displeasure against some of the authorities which wrung from him the words: “But the end is close at hand,” the end which will also spell the end of “all this seizing—or rather thieving greed for Church property—of the Princes, nobles and magistrates, hateful and execrable that it is.”[919] Taking this in conjunction with the attitude of the Catholic rulers he could say with greater confidence than ever: “Nothing good is to be hoped for any more but this alone, that the day of the glory of our great God and our Redeemer may speedily break upon us.” “From so Satanic a world” he would fain be “quickly snatched,” longing as he does for the Day and for the “end of Satan’s raging.”[920]

_The End of the World in the Table-Talk_

In the above we have drawn on Luther’s letters. If we turn to his Table-Talk, particularly to that dating from his later years, we find that there, too, his frequent allusions to the approaching end of the world are as a rule connected with his experience of the corruption in his surroundings, especially at Wittenberg. The carelessness of the young is sufficient to make him long for the Last Day, which alone seemed to promise any help.

To Melanchthon, who, with much concern, had drawn his attention to the lawlessness of the students, Luther poured out his soul, as we read in Lauterbach’s Diary: As the students were growing daily wilder he hoped that, “if God wills, the Last Day be not far off, the Day which shall put an end to all things.”[921] “The ingratitude and profanity of the world,” he also says, “makes me apprehend that this light [of the Evangel] will not last long.” “The refinement of malice, thanklessness and disrespect shown towards the Gospel now revealed” is so great “that the Last Day cannot be far off.”[922]

In his Table-Talk, where Luther is naturally more communicative than in his letters, we see even more plainly how deeply the idea of the approaching Day of Judgment had sunk into his mind and under how curious a shape it there abides. “Things will get so bad on this earth,” he says, for instance, “that men will cry out everywhere: O God, come with Thy Last Judgment.” He would not mind “eating the agate Paternoster” (a string of beads he wore round his neck) if only that would make the Day “come on the morrow.”[923] “The end is at the door,” he continues, “the world is on the lees; if anyone wants to begin something let him hurry up and make a start.”[924] “The next day he again spoke much of the end of the world, having had many evil dreams of the Last Judgment during the previous six months”; it was imminent, for Scripture said so; the present hangs like a ripe apple on the tree; the Roman Empire, “the last sweet-william” would also soon tumble to the ground.[925]

In 1530 Luther was disposed to regard the Roman Empire under Charles V with a rather more favourable eye. His impression then was that the Empire, “under our Emperor Carol, is beginning to look up and becoming more powerful than it was for many a year”; yet strange to say he knew how to bring even this fact into connection with the Judgment Day; for this strengthening of the Empire “seems to me,” so he goes on, “like a sort of last effort; for when a light or wisp of straw has burnt down and is about to go out it sends up a flame and seems just about to flare up bravely when suddenly it dies out; this is what Christendom is now doing thanks to the bright Evangel.”[926] Hence all he could see was the last flicker both of the Empire and of the new teaching before final extinction.

The noteworthy utterance about the last flicker of the Lutheran Evangel occurs also in the Table-Talk collected by Mathesius dating from the years 1542 and 1543. “I believe that the Last Day is not far off. The reason is that we now see the last effort of the Evangel; this resembles a light; when a light is about to expire it sends up at the last a sudden flame as though it were going to burn for quite a long while and thereupon goes out. And, though it appears now as though the Evangel were about to be spread abroad, I fear it will suddenly expire and the Last Day come. It is the same with a sick man; when at the point of death he seems quite cheerful and on the high road to recovery, and, then, suddenly, he is gone.”[927]

The Table-Talk from the Mathesius collection recently published by Kroker, among other curious utterances of Luther’s on the end of the world, contains also the following:

In view of the dissensions by which the new Evangel was torn the speaker says, in 1542-43: “If the world goes on for another fifty years things will become worse than ever, for sects will arise which still lie hidden in the hearts of men, so that we shall not know where we stand. Hence, dear Lord, come! Come and overwhelm them with Thy Judgment Day, for no improvement is any longer to be looked for.”[928]

Here too he repeatedly declares that he himself is tired of the world: “I have had enough of the world,” he says, and goes on to introduce the ugly comparison alluded to above.[929] He adds: “The world fancies that if only it were rid of me all would be well.” He is saddened to see that many of his followers make little account of him: “If the Princes and gentry won’t do it, then things will not last long.”[930] Of the want of respect shown to his preachers he says: “Where there is such contempt of the Divine Word and of the preachers, shall not God smite with His fist?” “But if we preachers were to meet and agree amongst ourselves, as has been done in the Papacy, there would be less need for this. The worst of it is that they are not at one even amongst themselves.” He finds a makeshift consolation for the divergency in teaching in the thought that “so it always was even from the beginning of the world, preachers always having disagreed amongst themselves.” “There is a bad time coming, look you to it”; things may go on for another fifty years now that the young have been brought up in his doctrine, but, after that, “let them look out. Hence, let no one fear the plague, but rather be glad to die.”[931] Not only did he look forward to his own death, but, as we know, to that of “all his children,” seeing that strange things would happen in the world.[932]

We have heard him say, that it was a mercy for the young, that, being thoughtless and without experience, they did not see the harm caused by the scandals, “else they could not endure to live.”[933] And, that the world could “not possibly last long.” Its hours are numbered, for, thanks to me, “everything has now been put straight. The Gospel has been revealed.”[934]

“Christ said, that, at His coming, faith would be hard to find on the earth (Luke xviii. 8). That is true, for the whole of Asia and Africa is without the Evangel, and even as regards Europe no Gospel is preached in Greece, Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, England or Poland. The one little bright spot, the house of Saxony, will not hinder the coming of the Last Day.”[935]

“Praise be to God Who has taught us to sigh after it and long for it! In Popery everybody dreads it.”[936]

“Amen, so be it, Amen!” so he sighed in 1543 in a letter to Amsdorf alluding to the end of the world. “The world was just like this before the Flood, before the Babylonian captivity, before the destruction of Jerusalem, before the devastation of Rome and before the misfortunes of Greece and Hungary; so it will be and so it is before the ruin of Germany too. They refuse to listen, so they must be made to feel. I should be glad to console ourselves both, by discussing this thought [of the contempt of the Papists for us] with you by word of mouth.” “We will leave them in the lurch” and cease from attempting their conversion. “Farewell in the Lord, Who is our Helper and Who will help us for ever and ever. Amen.”[937]

“Under the Pope,” we read in the Colloquies, “at least the name of Christ was retained, but our thanklessness and presumptuous sense of security will bring things to such a pass that Christ will be no longer even named, and so the words of the Master already quoted will be fulfilled according to which, at His coming, no faith will remain on the earth.”[938]

As to the circumstances which should accompany the end of the world, he still expected the catastrophe to take place most likely about Easter time, “early in the morning, after a thunderstorm of an hour or perhaps a little more.”[939]

Here he no longer gives the world “a bare hundred years more,” nor even something “not more than fifty years”;[940] he almost expects the end to come before the completion of his translation of the Bible into German.[941] The world will certainly not last until 1548, so he declared, “for this would run counter to Ezechiel.”[942] He is not quite sure whether the Golden Age begins in 1540 or not, though such was the contention of the mathematicians; but “we shall see the fulfilment of Scripture,”[943] or at any rate, as he prudently adds elsewhere, our descendants will. But before this can come the “great light” of faith would have to be dimmed still more.[944]

Luther concludes by saying that he is unable to suggest anything further; he had done all he could; God’s vengeance on the world was so great, he declares, that he could no longer give any advice; for “amongst us whom God has treated so mercifully and on whom He has bestowed all His Graces there is nothing left that is not corrupted and perverted.”[945] “On divine authority we began to amend the world, but it refuses to hearken; hence let it crumble to ruins, for such is its fate!”[946]

In his predictions concerning the end of the world Luther did not sufficiently take to heart the mishap which befell his pupil and friend Michael Stiefel, though he himself had been at pains to reprove him. Stiefel had calculated that the end of the world would come at 8 a.m. on Oct. 19, 1533, at which hour he and his parishioners awaited it assembled in the church at Lochau. Their watch was, however, in vain; the world continued to go its way and the Court judged it expedient to remove the preacher for a while from his post.

Taking these eschatological ideas or rather ardent wishes of Luther’s later life in all their bearings, and giving due weight to the almost unbounded dominion they exercised over his mind, one might well incline to see in them signs of an unhealthy and overwrought mind. They seem to have been due to excessive mental strain, to the reaction following on the labours of his long life’s struggle in the cause of his mission. It is not unlikely that pathology played some part in the depression from which he suffered.

His early theological development also throws some light on the psychological problem, owing to a parallel which it affords.

The middle-point and mainstay of his theology, viz. his doctrine of Justification, was wholly a result of his own personal feelings; after cutting it, so to speak, to his own measure he proceeded to make it something of world-wide application, a doctrine which should rule every detail of religious life, and around which all theology should cluster if it is to be properly understood. In a similar way, after beginning by adapting to his own case the theory of the near end of the world—to which he was early addicted—he gradually came to find in it the clue wherewith to unravel all the knotty problems which began to present themselves. It became his favourite plan to regard everything in the light of the end of the world and advent of Christ. Just as he was fond of asseverating, in spite of all the contradictions it involved, that he could find in his dogma of Justification endless comfort for both himself and the faithful, so, too, he came to regard the Last Day, in spite of all its terrors, as the source of the highest, nay, of the only remaining, joy of life, for himself and for all. With a vehemence incomprehensible to sober reason he allowed himself to be carried away by this idea as he had been by others. Such was his temperament that he could rejoice in the coming of the Judge, Who should deliver him from the bonds of despair.

Hence Luther’s expectation of the end of the world was something very different from that of certain Saints of whom Church-history tells us. Pope Gregory I or Vincent Ferrer were not moved to foretell the approaching end of the world by disgust with life, by disappointment, or as a result of waging an unequal struggle with the Church of their day, nor again because they regarded the destruction of the world as the only escape from the confusion they had brought about. Nor do they speak of the end of the world with any fanatical expectation of their own personal salvation, but rather with a mixture of fear and calm trust in God’s bounty to the righteous; they have none of Luther’s pessimism concerning the world, and, far from desiring things to “take their course,”[947] they exerted every nerve to ensure the everlasting salvation of as many of their fellow-creatures as possible before the advent of the Judge; to this end they had recourse to preaching and the means of grace provided by the Church and insisted greatly on the call for faith and good works. Above all, they gave a speaking proof of their faith by their works and by the inspiring example of heroic sanctity.

3. Melanchthon under the Double Burden, of Luther’s Personality and his own Life’s Work

The personality of Luther counts for much among the trials which embittered Melanchthon’s life.

The passages already quoted witnessing thereto[948] must here be supplemented by what he himself says of his experiences at Luther’s side, in a letter he wrote in 1548 to the councillor Carlowitz and the Court of Saxony. There was some doubt as to what attitude Melanchthon would adopt towards Maurice of Saxony, the new sovereign, the victor of the Schmalkalden War, and to his demands in the matter of religion.

In the letter, which to say the least is very conciliatory, Melanchthon says that he will know how to keep silence on any ecclesiastical regulations, no matter how distasteful to him they may be: for he knew what it was “to endure even a truly ignominious bondage, Luther having frequently given the rein to his own natural disposition, which was not a little quarrelsome, instead of showing due consideration for his own position and the general welfare.” He goes on to explain the nature of the habit of silence he had so thoroughly mastered; it meant no sacrifice of his own doctrine and views (“_non mutato genere doctrinæ_”). For twenty long years, so he complains, he had been obliged to bear the reproaches of the zealots of the party because he had toned down certain doctrines and had ventured to differ from Luther; they had called him ice and frost, accused him of being in league with the Papists, nay, of being ambitious to secure a Cardinal’s hat. Yet he had never had the slightest inclination to go over to the Catholics, for they “were guilty of cruel injustice.” He must, however, say that he, who by nature was a lover of peace and the quiet of the study, had only been drawn into the movement of which Luther was the leader because he, like many wise and learned contemporaries, thought he discerned in it a striving after that truth for which he thirsted and for which he lived. Luther it was true, had, from the very first, introduced a “rougher element into the cause”; he himself, however, had made it his aim to set up only what was true and essentially necessary; he had also done much in the way of reforms, and, to boot, had waged a war against the demagogues (“_multa tribunitia plebs_”) which, owing to the attacks of enemies at Court, had drawn down on him the displeasure of the sovereign and had even put his life in jeopardy.

Coming finally to speak of the concessions, speculative and practical, which he was prepared to make in addition to preserving silence, he mentions “the authority to be conceded to the bishops and the chief bishop in accordance with the Augsburg Confession.” He adds: “Mayhap I am by nature of a servile turn of mind” (“_fortassis sum ingenio servili_”), but, after all there is a real call to be humble and open to advances. He also refers to the defeat of the Evangelical Princes, but only to assure Carlowitz that he attributes this, “not to blind fate, but rather admit that we have drawn down the chastisement on ourselves by many and great misdeeds.”[949]

This is the oft-quoted declaration which Protestant writers as a whole regret more on Melanchthon’s than on Luther’s account. It was “an unhappy hour” in which Melanchthon wrote the letter “which gives us so profound an insight into his soul”;[950] he forgot that he was “a public character”; “in this letter not only what he says of Luther and of his relations with him, but even his account of the share he himself took in the Reformation,” “is scarcely to his credit.”[951]

Another Protestant holds, however, a different view. In this letter we have, as a matter of fact, “the expression of feelings which for long years Melanchthon had most carefully kept under restraint locked up in his heart.... From it we may judge how great was the vexation and bitterness Melanchthon had to endure.... In an unguarded moment what had been so long pent up broke out with elemental force.” The historian we are quoting then goes on to plead for a “milder sentence,” especially as “almost every statement which occurs in the letter can be confirmed from Melanchthon’s confidential correspondence of the previous twenty years.”[952]

_Some of Melanchthon’s Deliverances_

It is quite true, that, in his confidential correspondence, Melanchthon had long before made allusions to the awkwardness of his position.

He says, for instance, in a letter to the famous physician Leonard Fuchs, who wanted him to take up his abode at Tübingen: “Some Fate has, as it were, bound me fast against my will, like hapless Prometheus,” bound to the Caucasian rock, of whom the classic myth speaks. Nevertheless, he had not lost hope of sometime cutting himself free; happy indeed would he account himself could he find a quiet home amongst his friends at Tübingen where he might devote his last years to study.[953]

On a later occasion, when bewailing his lot, the image of Prometheus again obtrudes itself on the scholar.[954]

Melanchthon’s uneasiness and discontent with his position did not merely arise from the mental oppression he experienced at Luther’s side; it was, as already pointed out, in part due to sundry other factors, such as the persecution he endured from disputatious theologians within the party, the sight of the growing confusion which met his eye day by day, the public dangers and the moral results of the religious upheaval, and, lastly, the depressing sense of being out of the element where his learning and humanistic tastes might have found full and unhampered scope. His complaints dwell, now on one, now on some other of these trials, but, taken together, they combine to make up a tragic historical picture of a soul distraught; this is all the more surprising, since, owing to the large share he had in the introduction of the new Evangel, the cheering side of the great religious reform should surely have been reflected in Melanchthon.

“It is not fitting,” writes the Protestant theologian Carl Sell, “to throw a veil over the sad close of Melanchthon’s life, for it was but the logical consequence of his own train of thought.” Luther’s theology, of the defects of which Melanchthon was acutely conscious, had, according to Sell, “already begun to break down as an adequate theory of life”;[955] of the forthcoming disintegration Luther’s colleague already had a premonition.

In Aug., 1536, when Melanchthon paid a visit to his home and also to Tübingen, he became more closely acquainted with the state of the Protestant Churches, both in the Palatinate and in Swabia. It was at that time that he wrote to his friend Myconius: “Had you travelled with us and seen the woeful devastation of the Churches in many localities you would undoubtedly long, with tears and groans, for the Princes and the learned to take steps for the welfare of the Churches. At Nuremberg the good attendance at public worship and the orderly arrangement of the ceremonies pleased me greatly; elsewhere, however, lack of order and general barbarism is wonderfully estranging the people [from religion; ‘_[Greek: ataxia] et barbaries mirum in modum alienat animos_’]. Oh, that the authorities would see to the remedying of this evil!”[956]

After he had reluctantly resumed the burden of his Wittenberg office he continued to fret about the dissensions in his own camp. “Look,” he wrote to Veit Dietrich in 1537, “how great is the danger to which the Churches are everywhere exposed and how difficult it is to govern them, when those in authority are at grips with one another and set up strife and confusion, whereas it is from them that we should look for help.... What we have to endure is worse than all the trials of Odysseus the sufferer.”[957]

In the following year he told the same friend the real evil was, that “we live like gipsies, no one being willing to obey another in any single thing.”[958]

In the name of Wittenberg University he wrote to Mohr, the Naumburg preacher, who was quarrelling with his brethren in the ministry, “What is to happen in future if, for so trivial a matter, such wild and angry broils break out amongst those who govern the Church?”[959]

The growing tendency to strife he describes in 1544 in these words: “There are at present many people whose quarrels are both countless and endless, and who everywhere find a pretext for them.”[960]

Many of his complaints concerning the morals of the time, as Döllinger remarks, sound very much like those of a “sworn Catholic criticising the state of affairs brought about by the Reformation.” Döllinger also calls attention to the saying of 1537: “The only glory remaining in this iron age is that of boldly breaking down the barriers of discipline (‘_audacter dissipare vincula disciplinæ_’) and of propounding to the people new opinions neatly cut and coloured.”[961] A similar dictum dates from 1538. “Our age, as you can see, is full of malice and madness, and more addicted to intrigue than any previous one. The man who is most shameless in his abuse is regarded as the best orator. Oh, that God would change this!”[962] The growing evils made him more and more downhearted. “People have become barbarians,” he exclaims twelve years later to his friend Camerarius, “and, accustomed as they are to hatred and contempt of law and order, fear lest any restraint be put on their licentiousness (‘_metuunt frenari licentiam_’). These are the evils decreed for the last age of the world.”[963]

Over and over again we can see how the timorous man endeavours to clear the religious innovations of any responsibility for the prevalent lawlessness, which, as he says, deserved to be bewailed with floods of tears; after all, the true Church _had_ been revived; this edifice, this temple of God, still remained amidst all the chaos; even in Noe’s day it had been exposed to damage.[964] At times, though less frequently than Luther, he lays all the blame on Satan; the latter, by means of the scandals, was seeking to scare people away from the true Evangel now brought to light, and to vex the preachers into holding their tongues.

Pessimistic consideration of the “last age of the world” was quite in his line; the dark though not altogether unfriendly shadow of the approaching end of all was discernible in the moral disorders, in the unbelief and anti-christian spirit of the foe. He would not dwell, so he once said, on the state of things among the people towards whom he was willing to be indulgent, but it could not be gainsaid that, “among the learned open contempt for religion was on the increase; they lean either towards the Epicureans or towards universal scepticism. Forgetfulness of God, the wickedness of the times, the senseless fury of the Princes, all unite in proving that the world lies in the pains of travail and that the joyous coming of Christ is nigh.”[965] It was his hopelessness and the great solace he derived from the approaching end of all things that called forth this frame of mind. It is also plain that he saw no prospect of improvement. “In these last days,” he says, even a zealous preacher can no longer hope for success, though this does not give him the right to quit his post.[966] The poetic reference to the frenzied old age of the world (“_delira mundi senecta_”) is several times met with in his letters.

In 1537 he grumbled to Johann Brenz, the preacher, of the hostility of the theologians, especially of the Luther-zealots; he had seen what hatred the mitigations he had introduced in Luther’s doctrines had excited. “I conceal everything beneath the cloak of my moderation, but what shall I do eventually faced by the rage of so many (‘_in tanta rabie multorum_’)?”[967] “I seek for a creephole,” he continues, “may God but show me one, for I am worn out with illness, old age and sorrow.”

Of Amsdorf he learnt with pain that he had warned Luther against him as a serpent whom he was warming in his bosom.[968]

Andreas Osiander likewise wrote of Melanchthon to Besold at Nuremberg, that, since Apostolic times, no more mischievous and pernicious man had lived in the Church, so skilful was he in giving to his writings the semblance of wholesome doctrine while all the time denying its truth. “I believe that Philip and those who think like him are nothing but slaves of Satan.” On another occasion the same bitter opponent of Melanchthon inveighs against the religious despotism which now replaced at Wittenberg the former Papal authority, a new tyranny which required, that “all disputes should be submitted to the elders of the Church.”[969]—It was men such as these who repaid him for the labours he had reluctantly undertaken on behalf of the Church. Of their bitter opposition he wrote, that, even were he to shed as many tears as there was water in the flooded Elbe, he would still not be able to weep away his grief.[970]

_Melanchthon’s Strictures on Luther. His “Bondage”_

If we consider more closely Melanchthon’s relations with Luther we find him, even during Luther’s lifetime, indignantly describing the latter’s attacks on man’s free-will as “_stoica et manichæa deliria_”; he himself, he declares, in spite of Luther’s views to the contrary, had always insisted that man, even before regeneration, is able by virtue of his free-will to observe outward discipline and, that, in regeneration, free-will follows on grace and thereafter receives from on High help for doing what is good. Later, after Luther’s death, he declared, with regard to this denial of free-will which shocked him, that it was quite true that “Luther and others had written that all works, good and bad, were inevitably decreed to be performed of all men, good and bad alike; but it is plain that this is against God’s Word, subversive of all discipline and a blasphemy against God.”[971]

In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though, from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name. He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as “less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless about something of great importance and quite essential. To support every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972] Theramenes had perished on the scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]

Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage ([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has since become much worse.”[974] In later letters he likens Luther to the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]

Although it was no easy task for Luther, whose irritability increased with advancing years, to conceal his annoyance with his friend for presuming to differ from him, yet, as we know, he never allowed matters to come to an open breach. Melanchthon, too, owing to his fears and pusillanimity, avoided any definite personal explanation. Both alike were apprehensive of the scandal of an open rupture and its pernicious effects on the common cause. Moreover, Luther was thoroughly convinced that Melanchthon’s services were indispensable to him, particularly in view of the gloomy outlook for the future.

The matter, however, deserves further examination in view of the straightforwardness, clearness and inexorableness which Luther is usually supposed to have displayed in his doctrines.

When important interests connected with his position seemed to call for it, Luther could be surprisingly lenient in questions of doctrine. Thus, for instance, we can hardly recognise the once so rigid Luther in the Concord signed with the Zwinglians, and again, when, for a while, the English seemed to be dallying with Lutheranism. In the case of the Zwinglian townships of South Germany, which were received into the Union by the Wittenberg Concord the better to strengthen the position of Lutheranism against the Emperor, Luther finally, albeit grudgingly, gave his assent to theological articles which differed so widely from his own doctrines that the utmost skill was required to conceal the discrepancy.[976] As for the English, Kolde says: “How far Luther was prepared to go [in allowing matters to take their course] we see, e.g. from the fact that, in his letter of March 28, 1536, to the Elector, he describes the draft Articles of agreement with the English—only recently made public and which (apart from Art. 10, which might at a pinch be taken in the Roman sense) are altogether on the lines of the ‘_Variata_’—as quite in harmony with our own teaching.”[977] The terms of this agreement were drawn up by Melanchthon. As a matter of fact “we find little trace of Luther’s spirit in the Articles. We have simply to compare [Luther’s] Schmalkalden Articles of the following year to be convinced how greatly Luther’s own mode of thought and expression differed from those Articles.” “They show us what concessions the Wittenberg theologians, as a body, were disposed to make in order to win over such a country as England.”[978]

Concerning Luther’s attitude towards the alterations made by Melanchthon in the Confession of Augsburg (above, vol. iii., p. 445 f.) we must also assume “from his whole behaviour, that he was not at all pleased with Melanchthon’s action; yet he allowed it, like much else, to pass.”[979] This, however, does not exclude Luther’s violence and narrowness having caused an estrangement between them, Melanchthon having daily to apprehend outbursts of anger, so that his stay became extremely painful. The most critical time was in the summer of 1544, in consequence of the Cologne Book of Reform (vol. iii., p. 447). Luther, who strongly suspected Melanchthon’s orthodoxy on the Supper, prepared to assail anew those who denied the Real Presence. Yet the storm which Melanchthon dreaded did not touch him; Luther’s “Kurtz Bekentnis vom heiligen Sacrament,” which appeared at the end of September, failed to mention Melanchthon’s name. On Oct. 7, Cruciger was able by letter to inform Dietrich, that the author no longer displayed any irritation against his old friend.[980] Here again considerations of expediency had prevailed over dogmatic scruples, nor is there any doubt that the old feeling of friendship, familiarity and real esteem asserted its rights. We may recall the kindly sympathy and care that Luther lavished on Melanchthon when the latter fell sick at Weimar, owing to the trouble consequent on his sanction given to the Hessian bigamy.[981]

Indeed we must assume that the relations between the two were often more cordial than would appear from the letters of one so timid and faint-hearted as Melanchthon; the very adaptability of the latter’s character renders this probable. In Nov., 1544, Chancellor Brück declared: “With regard to Philip, as far as I can see, he and Martin are quite close friends”; in another letter written about that time he also says Luther had told him that he was quite unaware of any differences between himself and Melanchthon.[982]

The latter, whenever he was at Wittenberg, also continued as a rule to put in an appearance at Luther’s table, and there is little doubt that, on such occasions, Luther’s frank and, open conversation often availed to banish any ill-feeling there may have been. We learn that Magister Philip was present at the dinner in celebration of Luther’s birthday in 1544, together with Cruciger, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Major, and that they exchanged confidences concerning the present and future welfare of the new religion.[983]

When Melanchthon was away from Wittenberg engaged in settling ecclesiastical matters elsewhere he was careful to keep Luther fully informed of the course of affairs. He occasionally expressed his thanks to the latter for the charity and kindness of his replies; Luther in his turn kept him posted in the little intimacies of their respective families, in the occurrences in the town and University of Wittenberg, and almost always added a request for prayer for help in his struggles with “Satan.” This intimate correspondence was carried on until the very month before Luther’s death. Even in his last letters Luther calls the friend with whom he had worked for so many years “My Philip”; Melanchthon, as a rule, heads his communications in more formal style: “_Clarissimo et optimo viro D. Martino Luthero, doctori theologiæ, instauratori puræ evangelicæ doctrinæ ac patri suo in Christo reverendo et charissimo_.”[984]

The great praise which Melanchthon bestows on the deceased immediately after his death is indeed startling, but we must beware of regarding it as mere hypocrisy.

The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14, 1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now to devolve on him.

The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence” of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or quarrelsome.[985] Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s death to the students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]

_Melanchthon’s Last Years_

After Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]

His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice. Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988] In this the “moot observances (Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments. By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’s _sola fides_, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”

Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with them was that Melanchthon gradually ceased to be the head of the Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.

Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all, they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine teaching of the Gospel.”[989]

Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied, whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.

Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them; “we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990] The friends of Flacius Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.

At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference; the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman, pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible to arrive at any decision?[991] It was from Canisius, “who during the course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the Catholic party and later repeatedly proved himself a sharp observer of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992] that the suggestion came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off. “The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus revealed to the whole world.”[993]

“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]

From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]

Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996]

His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997] He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998] Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘_liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum_’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into those wonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999] He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.

_Review of Melanchthon’s Religious Position as a whole_

Melanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,” which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of Protestantism.[1000]

In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (_satellites_) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001] This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.

Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002] To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”

Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him.

Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003] Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004] About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005] “Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]

The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007] Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive.

His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.

In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary he is fond of using classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy” where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008] is a detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system, or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009] It would have fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557, he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘_docti_.’”[1010]

A similar lack of any just and clear appreciation of the great truths of the faith is also apparent in Melanchthon’s letters to Erasmus, more particularly in the later ones. Here personal friendship and Humanist fellow-feeling vie with each other in explaining away in the most startling manner the religious differences.[1011] Many elements of theology were dissolved by Melanchthon’s subjective method of exegesis and by the system of philosophy he had built up from the classical authors, particularly from Cicero. Melanchthon’s philosophy was quite unfitted to throw light on the doctrines of revelation. To him the two domains, of philosophy and theology, seemed, not only independent, but actually hostile to each other, a state of things absolutely unknown to the Middle Ages. If, as Melanchthon avers, reason is unable to prove the existence of God on philosophical grounds, then, by this very fact, the science of the supernatural loses every stay, nor is it possible any longer to defend revelation against unbelief.

It is the merest makeshift, when, like other of his Humanist contemporaries, Melanchthon seeks to base our knowledge of God’s existence on feeling and on a vague inward experience.[1012]

Thus we can quite understand how old-fashioned Protestantism, after having paid but little attention to Melanchthon either in the days of orthodox Lutheranism or of Pietism, began to have recourse to him with the advent of Rationalism. The orthodox had missed in him Luther’s sparkling “strength of faith” and the courageous resolve to twit the “devil” within and without; the Pietists failed to discern in him the mysticism they extolled in Luther. Rationalists, on the other hand, found in him many kindred elements. Even of quite recent years Melanchthon has been hailed as the type of the easy-going theologian who seeks to bridge the chasm between believing and infidel Protestantism; at any rate, Melanchthon’s positive belief was far more extensive than that of many of his would-be imitators.

_Melanchthon Legends_

The tale once current that, at the last, Melanchthon was a Lutheran only in name, is to-day rejected by all scholars, Protestant and Catholic.