Chapter XXXI: Luther in His Dismal Moods, His Superstition and Delusions (3)

Concerning the “honesty of his Protestantism” “no doubts” are raised by Protestant theologians, who call his teaching a “modification and a toning down” of that of Luther; nor can we conclude that “he was at all shaky in his convictions,” even should the remarkable utterance about to be cited really emanate from him.[1013] A Catholic historian of the highest standing agrees in saying of him: “Even though Luther’s teaching may not have completely satisfied Melanchthon, yet there is no reason to doubt, that, on the whole, he was heart and soul on the side of the innovations.... We may now and then come upon actions on his part which arouse a suspicion as to his straightforwardness, but on the whole his convictions cannot be questioned.”[1014]

In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day, we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother, speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “_Hæc plausibilior, illa securior_; Lutheranism is the more popular, but Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]

This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016] his mother, as a matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in her fifty-third year.[1017]

Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind, and received from him the above reply.

Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in his native place, and _may_ have done so again in 1529 in the spring, when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018] though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten in the autumn of 1536.

We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed conversation with the mother.

K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019] dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historical foundation.”[1020] C. G. Strobel, in his “_Melanchthoniana_” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021] Against the account Strobel alleges several _a priori_ objections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.

Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022] even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]

It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “_Vitæ theologorum_” was first published in 1615 (see next page).

Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.

Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.

It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much with Italian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]

Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025] Here we do not meet the sentence _Hæc plausibilior, illa securior_. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “_securior_.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.

All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026] The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothing obliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]

Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.

The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028] Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029] Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstances related by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030] He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.

As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “_It is said_” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031] It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.

Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “_Confutatio confessionis_,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.

According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]

What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “_Eccius dedolatus_.” There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]

Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034] When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]

4. Demonology and Demonomania

“Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”[1036]

Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman![1037] How little is left for God.[1038] “The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.”[1039] “Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”[1040]

Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?

“The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.”[1041] “The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.”[1042] “We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”;[1043] “but even with our last breath we must fight against the monsters of Satan.”[1044] Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes.[1045] As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”;[1046] “they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”[1047]

Luther’s letters during his later years are crammed with things of this sort.

The thought of the devil and his far-spread sphere of action, to which Luther had long been addicted, assumes in his mind as time goes on a more serious and gloomy shape, though he continues often enough to refer to the Divine protection promised against the powers of darkness and to the final victory of Christ.

In his wrong idea of the devil Luther was by no means without precursors. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages exaggerations had long prevailed on this subject, not only among the people but even among the best-known writers; on the very eve of Luther’s coming forward they formed no small part of the disorders in the ecclesiastical life of the people. Had people been content with the sober teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church on the action of the devil, the faithful would have been preserved from many errors. As it was, however, the vivid imagination of laity and clergy led them to read much into the revealed doctrine that was not really in it; witness, for instance, the startling details they found in the words of St. Paul (Eph. vi. 12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Great abuses had gradually crept into the use of the blessings and exorcisms of the Church, more particularly in the case of supposed sorcery. Unfortunately, too, the beliefs and practices common among the people received much too ready support from persons of high standing in the Church. The supposition, which in itself had the sanction of tradition, that intercourse with the devil was possible, grew into the fantastic persuasion that witches were lurking everywhere, and required to have their malicious action checked by the authority of Church and State. That unfortunate book, “The Witches’ Hammer,” which Institoris and Sprenger published in 1487, made these delusions fashionable in circles which so far had been but little affected by them, though the authors’ purpose, viz. to stamp out the witches, was not achieved.

It is clear that at home in Saxony, and in his own family, Luther had lived in an atmosphere where the belief in spirits and the harm wrought by the devil was very strong; miners are credited with being partial to such gloomy fancies owing to the nature of their dangerous work in the mysterious bowels of the earth. As a young monk he had fancied he heard the devil creating an uproar nightly in the convent, and the state of excitement in which he lived and which accompanied him ever afterwards was but little calculated to free him from the prejudices of the age concerning the devil’s power. His earlier sermons, for instance those to be mentioned below on the Ten Commandments, contain much that is frankly superstitious, though this must be set down in great part to the beliefs already in vogue and above which he failed to rise. Had Luther really wished to play the part of a reformer of the ecclesiastical life of his day, he would have found here a wide field for useful labour. In point of fact, however, he only made bad worse. His lively descriptions and the weight of his authority merely served to strengthen the current delusions among those who looked to him. Before him no one had ever presented these things to the people with such attractive wealth of detail, no one had brought the weight of his personality so strongly to bear upon his readers and so urgently preached to them on how to deal with the spirits of evil.

Among non-Catholics it has been too usual to lay the whole blame on the Middle Ages and the later Catholic period. They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influence counted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years. Yet Luther’s views and practice show plainly enough, that it was not merely the Catholic ages before his day that were dishonoured with such delusions concerning the devil, and that it was not the Catholics alone, of his time and the following decades, who were responsible for the devil-craze and the bloody persecutions of the witches in those dark days of German history in the 17th century.[1048]

_The Mischief Wrought by the Devil_

Luther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.”[1049] But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he had repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power.

Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan.

In the Larger Catechism of 1529,[1050] “when enumerating the evils caused by the devil,” he tells of how he “breaks many a man’s neck, drives others out of their mind or drowns them in the water”;[1051] how he “stirs up strife and brings murder, sedition and war, _item_ causes hail and tempests, destroying the corn and the cattle, and poisoning the air,” etc.;[1052] among those who break the first commandment are all “who make a compact with the devil that he may give them enough money, help them in their love-affairs, preserve their cattle, bring back lost property, etc., likewise all sorcerers and magicians.”[1053]

In his home-postils he practically makes it one of the chief dogmas of the faith, that all temporal misfortune hails from the devil; “the heathen” alone know this not; “but do you learn to say: This is the work of the hateful devil.” “The devil’s bow is always bent and his musket always primed, and we are his target; at us he aims, smiting us with pestilence, ‘Franzosen’ [venereal disease], war, fire, hail and cloudburst.” “It is also certain that wherever we be there too is a great crowd of demons who lie in wait for us, would gladly affright us, do us harm, and, were it possible, fall upon us with sword and long spear. Against these are pitted the holy angels who stand up in our defence.”[1054]

The devil, so he teaches in his Church-postils, a new edition of which he brought out in 1543 towards the end of his life, could either of himself or by the agency of others “raise storms, shoot people, lame and wither limbs, harrow children in the cradle, bewitch men’s members, etc.”[1055] Thanks to him, “those who ply the magic art are able to give to things a shape other than their own, so that what in reality is a man looks like an ox or a cow; they can make people to fall in love, or to bawd, and do many other devilish deeds.”[1056]

How accustomed he was to enlarge on this favourite subject in his addresses to the people is plain from a sermon delivered at the Coburg in 1530, which he sent to the press the following year: “The devil sends plagues, famines, worry and war, murder, etc. Whose fault is it that one man breaks a leg, another is drowned, and a third commits murder? Surely the devil’s alone. This we see with our own eyes and touch with our hands.” “The Christian ought to know that he sits in the midst of demons and that the devil is closer to him than his coat or his shirt, nay, even than his skin, that he is all around us and that we must ever be at grips with him and fighting him.” In these words there is already an echo of his fancied personal experiences, particularly of his inward struggles at the time of the dreaded Diet of Augsburg, to which he actually alludes in this sermon; the subjective element comes out still more strongly when he proceeds in his half-jesting way: “The devil is more at home in Holy Scripture than Paris, Cologne and all the godless make-believes, however learned they may be. Whoever attempts to dispute with him will assuredly be pitched on the ash heap, and when it comes to a trial of strength, there too he wins the day; in one hour he could do to death all the Turks, Emperors, Kings and Princes.”[1057] “Children should be taught at an early age to fear the dangers arising from the devil; they should be told: ‘Darling, don’t swear, etc.; the devil is close beside you, and if you do he may throw you into the water or bring down some other misfortune upon you.’”[1058] It is true that he also says children must be taught that, by God’s command, their guardian angel is ever ready to assist them against the devil; “God wills that he shall watch over you so that when the devil tries to cast you into the water or to affright you in your sleep, he may prevent him.” Still one may fairly question the educational value of such a fear of the devil. Taking into account the pliant character of most children and their susceptibility to fear, Luther was hardly justified in expecting that: “If children are treated in this way from their youth they will grow up into fine men and women.”

According to an odd-sounding utterance of Luther’s, every bishop who attended the Diet of Augsburg brought as many devils to oppose him “as a dog has fleas on its back on Midsummer Day.”[1059] Had the devil succeeded in his attempt there, “the next thing would have been that he would have committed murder,”[1060] but the angels dispatched by God had shielded him and the Evangel.

When a fire devastated that part of Wittenberg which lay beyond the Castle gate, Luther was quite overwhelmed; watching the conflagration he assured the people that, “it was the devil’s work.” With his eyes full of tears he besought them to “quench it with the help of God and His holy angels.” A little later he exhorted the people in a sermon to withstand by prayer the work of the devil manifested in such fires. One of his pupils, Sebastian Fröschel, recalled the incident in a sermon on the feast of St. Michael. After the example and words of the “late Dr. Martin,” he declares, “the devil’s breath is so hot and poisonous that it can even infect the air and set it on fire, so that cities, land and people are poisoned and inflamed, for instance by the plague and other even more virulent diseases.... The devil is in and behind the flame which he fans to make it spread,” etc.[1061] This tallies with what Luther, when on a journey, wrote in later years to Catherine Bora of the fires which were occurring: “The devil himself has come forth possessed with new and worse demons; he causes fires and does damage that is dreadful to behold.” The writer instances the forest fires then raging (in July) in Thuringia and at Werda, and concludes: “Tell them to pray against the troublesome Satan who is seeking us out.”[1062]

Madness, in Luther’s view, is in every case due to the devil; “what is outside reason is simply Satanic.”[1063] In a long letter to his friend Link, in 1528, dealing with a case raised, he proves that mad people must be regarded “as teased or possessed by the devil.” “Medical men who are unversed in theology know not how great is the strength and power of the devil”; but, against their natural explanations, we can set, first, Holy Scripture (Luke xiii. 16; Acts x. 38); secondly, experience, which proves that the devil causes deafness, dumbness, lameness and fever; thirdly, the fact that he can even “fill men’s minds with thoughts of adultery, murder, robbery and all other evil lusts”; all the more easily then was he able to confuse the mental powers.[1064] In the case of those possessed, the devil, according to Luther, either usurps the place of the soul, or lives side by side with it, ruling such unhappy people as the soul does the body.[1065]

Thus it is the devil alone who is at work in those who commit suicide, for the death a man fancies he inflicts on himself is nothing but the “devil’s work”;[1066] the devil simply hoodwinks him and others who see him. To Frederick Myconius he wrote, in 1544: “It is my habit to esteem such a one as killed ‘_simpliciter et immediate_’ by the devil, just as a traveller might be by highwaymen.... I think we must stick to the belief that the devil deceives such a man and makes him fancy that he is doing something quite different, for instance praying, or something of the sort.”[1067] In the same sense he wrote to Anton Lauterbach, in 1542, when the latter informed him of three men who had hanged themselves: “Satan, with God’s leave, perpetrates such abominations in the midst of our congregation.... He is the prince of this world who in mockery deludes us into fancying that those men hanged themselves, whereas it was he who killed them. By the images he brought before their mind, he made them think that they were killing themselves”—a statement at variance with the one last given.[1068] Whereas in this letter he suggests that the people should be told of such cases from the pulpit so that they may not despise the “devil’s power from a mistaken sense of security,” previously, in conversation he had declared, that it ought not to be admitted publicly that such persons could not be damned not having been masters of themselves: “They do not commit this wilfully, but are impelled to it by the devil.... But the people must not be told this.”[1069] Speaking of a woman who was sorely tempted and worried, he said to his friends, in 1543: “Even should she hang herself or drown herself through it, it can do her no harm; it is just as though it all happened in a dream.” The source of this woman’s distress was her low spirits and religious doubts.[1070]

_On all that the Devil is able to do_

Many, in Luther’s opinion, had been snatched off alive by the devil, particularly when they had made a compact or had dealings with him, or had given themselves up to him.

For instance, he had carried off Pfeifer of Mühlberg, not far from Erfurt, and also another man of the same name at Eisenach; indeed, the devil had fetched the latter away in spite of his being watched by the preacher Justus Menius and “many of his clergymen,” and though “doors and windows had been shut so as to prevent his being carried away”; the devil, however, broke away some tiles “round the stove” and thus got in; finally he slew his victim “not far from the town in a hazel thicket.”[1071] Needless to say it is a great crime to bargain with the devil.[1072] This Dr. Eck had done and likewise the Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg († 1535), who wanted to live another fifteen years; this, however, the devil did not allow.[1073] Amsdorf too was dragged into the diabolical affair; one night at an inn two dead men appeared to him, thanks to some “Satanic art,” and compelled him to draw up a document in writing and hand it over to Joachim. Two spirits assisted on the occasion, bearing candles.[1074]

During battles the devil is able to carry men off more easily, but then the angels also kill by Divine command, as the Old Testament bears witness, for there “one angel could cause the death of many persons.”[1075] In war the devil is at work and makes use of the newest weapons “which indeed are Satan’s own invention,” for these cannon “send men flying into the air” and that “is the end of all man’s strength.”[1076] It is also the devil who guides the sleep-walkers “so that they do everything as though wide awake,” “but still there is something wanting and some defect apparent.”[1077]

Elsewhere too Luther discerns the work of the devil; for instance, when Satan sends a number of strange caterpillars into his garden,[1078] pilfers things, hampers the cattle and damages the stalls[1079] and interferes with the preparation of the cheese and milk.[1080] “Every tree has its lurking demon.[1081] You can see how, to your damage, Satan knocks down walls and palings that already totter;[1082] he also throws you down the stairs so as to make a cripple of you.”[1083]

In cases of illness it is the devil who enables the Jews to be so successful in effecting cures, more particularly in the case of the “great and those of high standing”;[1084] on the other hand he is also able maliciously to hinder the good effect of any medicine, as Luther himself had experienced when he lay sick in 1537. He can alter every medicine or medicament in the boxes, so that what has served its purpose well once or twice no longer works at all; “so powerful is the devil.”[1085] Luther, as his pupils bear witness, had frequently maintained that many of his bodily ailments were inflicted on him solely by the devil’s hatred.

Satan is a great foe of marriage and the blessing of children. “This is why you find he has so many malicious tricks and ways of frightening women who are with child, and causes such misfortune, cunning, murder, etc.”[1086] “Satan bitterly hates matrimony,” he says in 1537,[1087] and, in 1540, “he has great power in matrimonial affairs, for unless God were to stand by us how could the children grow up?”[1088] In matrimonial disputes “the devil shows his finger”; the Pope gets along easily, “he simply dissolves all marriages”; but we, “on account of the contentions instigated by the devil,” must have “people who can give advice.”[1089]

Not him alone but many others had the devil affrighted by the “noisy spirits.”[1090] These noisy spirits were, however, far more numerous before the coming of the Evangel. They were looked upon, quite wrongly, as the souls of the dead, and Masses and prayers were said and good works done to lay them to rest;[1091] but now “you know very well who causes this; you know it is the devil; he must not be exorcised[1092], we must despise him and waken our holy faith against him;[1093] we must be willing to abide the ‘spooks and spirits’ calmly and with faith if God permits them to ‘exercise their wantonness on us’ and ‘to affright us.’”[1094] Nevertheless, as he adds with much truth, “we must not be too ready to give credence to everyone, for many people are given to inventing such things.”[1095]

At the present time the noisy spirits are not so noticeable; “among us they have thinned”;[1096] the chief reason is, that the devils now prefer the company of the heretics, anabaptists and fanatics;[1097] for Satan “enters into men, for instance into the heretics and fanatics, into Münzer and his ilk, also into the usurers and others”;[1098] “the fanatic spirits are greatly on the increase.”[1099] The false teachers prove by their devilish speech how greatly the devil, “clever and dangerous trickster that he is,” “can deceive the hearts and consciences of men and hold them captive in his craze.” “What is nothing but lies, idle error and gruesome darkness, that they take to be the pure, unvarnished truth!”[1100]

If the devil can thus deceive men’s minds, surely it is far easier for him to bewitch their bodily senses. “He can hoax and cheat all the senses,”[1101] so that a man thinks he sees something that he can’t see, or hears what isn’t, for instance, “thunder, pipes or bugle-calls.” Luther fancies he finds an allusion to something of the sort in the words of Paul to the Galatians iii. 1: “Who hath bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been set forth [that you should not obey the truth]?”[1102] Children can be bewitched by the evil eye of one who is under a spell, and Jerome was wrong when he questioned whether the illness of children in a decline was really due to the evil eye.[1103] It is certain that “by his great power the devil is able to blind our eyes and our souls,” as he did in the case of the woman who thought she was wearing a crown, whereas it was simply “cow dung.”[1104] He tells how, in Thuringia, eight hares were trapped, which, during the night, were changed into horses’ heads, such as we find lying on the carrion heap.[1105] Had not St. Macarius by his prayers dispelled the Satanic delusion by which a girl had been changed into a cow in the presence of many persons, including her own parents? The distressed parents brought their daughter in the semblance of a cow to Macarius “in order that she might recover her human shape,” and “the Lord did in point of fact dissolve the spell whereby men’s senses had been misled.” Luther several times relates this incident, both in conversation and in writing.[1106]

There is certainly no lack of marvellous tales of devils either in his works or in his Table-Talk.[1107]

The toils of the sorcerer are everywhere. Magic may prove most troublesome in married life, more particularly where true faith is absent; for, as he told the people in a sermon on May 8, 1524, “conjugal impotence is sometimes produced by the devil, by means of the Black Art; in the case of [true] Christians, however, this cannot happen.”[1108]

_On the Abode of the Devil; his Shapes and Kinds_

It is worth while to glance at what Luther says of the dwelling-places of the devil, the different shapes he is wont to assume, and the various categories into which demons may be classed.

First, as to his abode. In a sermon recently published, and dating from June 13, 1529, Luther says: “The devil inhabits the forests, the thickets, and the waters, and insinuates himself amongst us everywhere in order to destroy us; sleep he never does.” Preaching in the hot weather, he warns his hearers against the cool waters in which the devil lurks: “Be careful about bathing in the cold water.... Every year we hear of people being drowned [by the devil] through bathing in the Elbe.”[1109]

In another sermon incorporated in the Church-postils he explains how in countries like ours, “which are well watered,” the devils are fond of infesting the waters and the swamps; they sometimes drown those who venture there to bathe or even to walk. _Item_, in some places Naiades are to be met with who entice the children to the water’s edge, drag them in and drown them: all these are devils.[1110] Such devils can commit fornication with the maidens, and “are able to beget children which are simply devils”;[1111] for the devil will often drag a girl into the water, get her with child and keep her by him until she has borne her baby; he then lays these children in other people’s cradles, removing the real children and carrying them off.[1112]

Elsewhere the devils prefer “bare and desolate regions,” “woods and wildernesses.”[1113] “Some are to be found in the thick black clouds, these cause hailstorms, thunder and lightning, and poison the air, the pastures, etc.” Hence “_philosophi_” ought not to go on explaining these phenomena as though they were natural.[1114] Further, the devil has a favourite dwelling-place deep down in the earth, in the mines, where he “pesters and deceives people,” showing them for instance what appears to be “solid silver, whereas it is nothing of the kind.”[1115] “Satan hides himself in the apes and long-tailed monkeys,” who lie in wait for men and with whom it is wrong to play.[1116] That he inhabits these creatures, and also the parrots, is plain from their skill in imitating human beings.[1117]

In some countries many more devils are to be found than in others. “There are many evil spirits in Prussia and also in Pilappen [Lapland].” In Switzerland the devils make a “frightful to-do” in the “Pilatus tarn not far from Lucerne”; in Saxony, “in the Poltersberg tarn,” things are almost as bad, for if a stone be thrown in, it arouses a “great tempest.”[1118] “Damp and stuffy places” are however the devils’ favourite resort.[1119] He was firmly convinced that in the moist and swampy districts of Saxony all the devils “that Christ drove out of the swine in Jerusalem and Judæa had congregated”; “so much thieving, sorcery and pilfering goes on that the Evil One must indeed be present in person.”[1120] The fact of so many devils inhabiting Saxony was perhaps the reason, so he adds quaintly enough, “why the Evangel had to be preached there, i.e. that they might be chased away.” It was for this reason, so he repeats, “that Christ came amongst the Wends [Prussians], the worst of all the nations, in order to destroy the work of Satan and to drive out the devils who there abide among the peasants and townspeople.”[1121] That he was disposed to believe that a number, by no means insignificant, of devils could assemble in one place is plain from several statements such as, that at the Wartburg he himself had been plagued by “a thousand devils,” that at Augsburg every bishop had brought as many devils with him to the Diet as a dog has fleas in hot weather, and, finally, that at Worms their number was probably not far short of the tiles on the roofs.

* * * * *

The forms the devil assumes when he appears to men are very varied; to this the accounts sufficiently bear witness.

He appeared as a goat,[1122] and often as a dog;[1123] he tormented a sick woman in the shape of a calf from which Luther set her free—at least for one night.[1124] He is fond of changing himself into cats and other animals, foxes, hares, etc., “without, however, assuming greater powers than are possessed by such animals.”[1125] The semblance of the serpent is naturally very dear to the devil. To a sick girl at Wittenberg with whom Luther happened to be, he appeared under the form of Christ, but afterwards transformed himself into a serpent and bit the girl’s ear till the blood came.[1126] The devil comes as Christ or as a good angel, so as to be the better able to tempt people. He has been seen and heard under the guise of a hermit, of a holy monk, and even, so the tale runs, of a preacher; the latter had “preached so earnestly that the whole church was reduced to tears”; whereupon he showed himself as the devil; but “whether this story be true or not, I leave you to decide.”[1127] The form of a satyr suits him better, what we now call a hobgoblin; in this shape he “frequently appeared to the heathen in order to strengthen them in their idolatry.”[1128] A prettier make under which he appears is that of the “brownie”; it was in this guise that he was wont to sit on a clean corner of the hearthstone beside a maid who had strangled her baby.[1129] From the behaviour of the devils we may infer that, “so far they are not undergoing any punishment though they have already been sentenced, for were they being punished they would not play so many roguish tricks.”[1130]

* * * * *

Amongst the different kinds of devils he enumerates, using names which recall the humorous ones common in the old folk-lore of Germany, are not merely the stupid, the playful, the malicious and the murderous fiends, but also the more sightly ones,[1131] viz. the familiar and friendly demons; then again there are the childish little devils who allure to unchastity and so forth though not to unbelief or despair like the more dangerous ones.[1132] He is familiar with angelic, shining, white and holy devils, i.e. who pretend to be such, also with black devils and the “supreme majestic devil.” The majestic devil wants to be worshipped like God, and, in this, being “so quick-witted,” he actually succeeded in the ages before Luther’s day, for “the Pope worshipped him.”[1133] The devil repaid the Pope by bewitching the world in his favour; he brought him a large following and wrought much harm by means “of lies and magic,” doing on a vast scale what the “witches” do in a smaller way.[1134]

There are further, as Luther jestingly explains, house-devils, Court-devils and church-devils; of these “the last are the worst.”[1135] “Boundless is the devils’ power,” he says elsewhere, “and countless their number; nor are they all childish little devils, but great national devils, devils of the sovereigns, devils of the Church, who, with their five thousand years’ experience, have grown very knowing ... in fact, far too cunning for us in these latter days.”[1136] “Satan knows his business and no one but Jesus Christ can cope with him.”[1137] Very dangerous indeed are the Court-devils, who “never rest,” but “busy themselves at Court, and work all the mischief in the councils of the kings and rulers, thwarting all that is good; for the devil has some fine rakehells at Court.”[1138] As for the noisy devils, they had troubled him even in his youth.[1139]

The Papists have their own devils who work supposed miracles on their behalf, for the wonders which occur amongst them at the places of pilgrimage or elsewhere in answer to their prayers are not real miracles but devil’s make-believe. In fact, Satan frequently makes a person appear ill, and, then, by releasing him from the spell, cures him again.[1140]

The above ideas Luther had to a large extent borrowed from the past, indeed we may say that the gist of his fancies concerning the devil was but part of the great legacy of credulity, folk-lore and the mistaken surmises of theologians handed down verbally and in writing from the Middle Ages. Only an age-long accumulation of prejudice, rife particularly among the Saxon people, can explain Luther’s rooted attachment to such a congeries of wild fancies.

Assisted by the credulity of Melanchthon and other of his associates Luther not only added to the number of such ideas, but, thanks to his gift of vivid portraiture, made them far more strong and life-like than before. Through his widely-read works he introduced them into circles in which they were as yet scarcely known, and, in particular, established them firmly in the Lutheran world for many an age to come.

_The Devil and the Witches_

“It is quite certain,” says Paulus in his recent critical study of the history of witchcraft, “that Luther in his ideas on witchcraft was swayed by mediæval opinion.” “In many directions the innovators in the 16th century shook off the yoke of the Middle Ages; why then did they hold fast to the belief in witches? Why did Luther and many of his followers even outstrip the Middle Ages in the stress they laid on the work of the devil?”[1141]

Paulus here touches upon a question which the Protestant historian, Walter Köhler, had already raised, viz.: “Is it possible to explain the Reformers’ attachment to the belief in witchcraft simply on the score that they received it from the Middle Ages? How did they treat mediæval tradition in other matters? Why then was their attitude different here?”[1142]

G. Steinhausen, in his “Geschichte der deutschen Kultur,” writes: “No one ever insisted more strongly than Luther on his role [the devil’s]; he was simply carried away by the idea.... Though in his words and the stories he tells of the devil he speaks the language of the populace, yet the way in which he weaves diabolical combats and temptations into man’s whole life is both new and unfortunate. Every misfortune, war and tempest, every sickness, plague, crime and deformity emanates from the Evil One.”[1143]

Some of what Luther borrowed from the beliefs of his own day goes back to pre-Christian times. The belief in witches comprised much heathen tradition too deeply rooted for the early missionaries to eradicate. Moreover, certain statements of olden ecclesiastical writers incautiously exploited enabled even the false notions of the ancient Græco-Roman world to become also current. Fear of hidden, dangerous forces, indiscriminating repetition of alleged incidents from the unseen, the ill-advised discussions of certain theologians and thoughtless sermons of popular orators, all these causes and others contributed to produce the crass belief in witches as it existed even before Luther’s day at the close of the Middle Ages, and such as we find it, for instance, in the sermons of Geiler von Kaysersberg.

The famous Strasburg preacher not only accepted it as an undoubted fact, that witches were able with the devil’s help to do all kinds of astounding deeds, but he also takes for granted the possibility of their making occasional aerial trips, though it is true he dismisses the nocturnal excursions of the women with Diana, Venus and Herodias as mere diabolical delusion. He himself never formally demanded the death-penalty for witches, but it may be inferred that he quite countenanced the severe treatment advocated in the “Witches’ Hammer.” In his remarks on witches he follows partly Martin Plantsch, the Tübingen priest and University professor, partly, and still more closely, the “_Formicarius_” of the learned Dominican Johannes Nider (1380-1438).[1144]

Concerning the witches and their ways Luther’s works contain an extraordinary wealth of information.

In the sermons he delivered on the Ten Commandments as early as 1516 and 1517, and which, in 1518, he published in book form,[1145] he took over an abundance of superstition from the beliefs current amongst the people, and from such writers as Geiler. In 1518 and 1519 were published no less than five editions in Latin of the sermons on the Decalogue; the book was frequently reprinted separately and soon made its appearance in Latin in some collections of Luther’s writings; later on it figures in the complete Latin editions of his works; six German editions of it had appeared up to 1520 and it is also comprised in the German collections of his works. In his old age, when the “evils of sorcery seemed to be gaining ground anew,” he deemed it “necessary,” as he said,[1146] “to bring out the book once more with his own hand”; certain tales, amongst which he instances one concerning the devil’s cats and a young man, might serve to demonstrate “the power and malice of Satan” to all the world. One cannot but regard it as a mistake on Luther’s part, when, in his sermons on the Ten Commandments, he takes his hearers and readers into the details of the magic and work of the witches, though at the same time emphasising very strongly the unlawfulness of holding any communication with Satan. This stricture tells, however, as much against many a Catholic writer of that day.

It is in his commentary on the 1st Commandment that he gives us a first glimpse into the world of witches which later was to engross his attention even more.

He is anxious to bring home to the “weaklings” how one can sin against the 1st Commandment.[1147] He therefore enumerates all the darkest deeds of human superstition; of their reality he was firmly convinced, and only seldom does he speak merely of their “possibility,” or say, “it is believed” that this or that took place. He also divides into groups the people who sin against the virtue of Divine love, doing so according to their age, and somewhat on the lines of a Catechism, in order that “the facts may be more easily borne in mind.”

“The third group,” he says, “is that of the old women, etc.” “By their magic they are able to bring on blindness, cause sickness, kill, etc.”[1148] “Some of them have their fireside devil who comes several times a day.” “There are _incubi_ and _succubi_ amongst the devils,” who commit lewdness with witches and others. Devil-strumpetry and ordinary harlotry are amongst the sins of these women. Luther also speaks of magic potions, desecration of the sacrament in the devil’s honour, and secret incantations productive of the most marvellous effects.

His opinion he sums up as follows: “What the devil himself is unable to do, that he does by means of old hags”;[1149] “he is a powerful god of this world”;[1150] “the devil has great power through the sorceresses.”[1151] He prefers thus to make use of the female sex because, “it comes natural to them ever since the time of Mother Eve to let themselves be duped and fooled.”[1152] “It is as a rule a woman’s way to be timid and afraid of everything, hence they practise so much magic and superstition, the one teaching the other.”[1153] Even in Paradise, so he says, the devil approached the woman rather than the man, she being the weaker.[1154]

It is worthy of note that he does not merely base his belief in witchcraft on the traditions of the past but preferably on Scripture directly, and the power of Satan to which it bears witness.

In 1519 he had attempted to prove on St. Paul’s authority against the many who refused to believe in such things, that sorcery can cause harm, omitting, however, to make the necessary distinctions.[1155] In 1538 he declares: “The devil is a great and powerful enemy. Verily I believe, that, unless children were baptised at an early age no congregations could be formed; for adults, who know the power of Satan, would not submit to be baptised so as to avoid undertaking the baptismal vows by which they renounce Satan.”[1156]