Catholic writers make thorough work in explaining the reasons for
Luther's "defection" from Rome. They apply to Luther's stubborn
resistance the law of heredity: Luther's wildness was congenital. Some
have declared him the illegitimate child of a Bohemian heretic, others,
the oaf of a witch, still others, a changeling of Beelzebub, etc.
Many of these writers, giving themselves the airs of painstaking
investigators who have made careful research, repeat the tale of
Barbour, viz., that Luther was born in the day-and-night room of an inn
at Eisleben. If this is so, Luther's mother must have been a traveler on
the day of her first confinement. If this were so, the fact could, of
course, be easily explained without dishonor to Luther's mother: she
merely miscalculated the date of the birth of her first-born,--not an
unusual occurrence. Carlyle believed this story, but gave it an almost
too honorable turn, by likening the inn at Eisenach to the inn at
Bethlehem.
But this story of Luther's birth in a bar-room is not history; it
belongs in the realm of mythology. Nobody knows to-day the house where
Luther was born. Preserved Smith, his latest American biographer, says
there is a house shown at Eisleben as Luther's birthplace, but it is
"not well authenticated." (p. 2.) There is a bar and a restaurant in
this particular building _now,_ for the accommodation of foreign
visitors. It is possible that in this mythical birthplace of Luther you
can get a stein of foaming "monk's brew" or a "benedictine" from the
monastery at Fecamp, or a "chartreuse" from Tarragona, distilled
according to the secret formula of the holy fathers of La Grande
Chartreuse. If you sip a sufficient quantity of these persuasive
liquors, you will find it possible to believe most anything. And the
blessing of the holy fathers who have prepared the beverages for your
repast will be given you gratis in addition to their liquors.
The journey of Luther's mother to Eisleben which compelled her to put up
at an inn is, likewise, imaginary. Melanchthon, Luther's associate
during the greater part of the Reformer's life, investigated the matter
and states that Luther was born at his parents' home in Eisenach during
their temporary sojourn in that city, prior to their removal to Mansfeld.
These stories about the place and manner of Luther's birth originated in
the seventeenth century. They were unknown in Luther's time. Generations
after a great man has died gossip becomes busy and begins to relate
remarkable incidents of his life. Lincoln did not say or do one half of
the interesting things related about him. He has been drawn into that
magical circle where myths are formed, because his great name will
arouse interest in the wildest tale. That is what has happened to
Luther. These "myths" are an unconscious tribute to his greatness. One
might let them pass as such and smile at them.
But the Catholic version of Luther's birth is needed by their writers as
a corollary to another "fact" which they have discovered about Luther's
father Hans. Hans Luther, so their story runs, was a fugitive from
justice at the time of his Martin's birth. In a fit of anger he had
assaulted or slain a man in his native village of Moehra, and abandoning
his small landholdings, he fled with his wife, who was in an advanced
stage of pregnancy. Color is lent to this story by the discovery that
the Luthers at Moehra were generally violent folk. Research in the
official court-dockets at Salzungen, the seat of the judicial district
to which Moehra belonged, shows that brawls were frequent in that
village, and some Luthers were involved in them. Now follows the
Catholic deduction, plausible, reasonable, appealing, just like the
"assumption" of Mary: "Out of the gnarly wood of this relationship,
consisting mostly of powerful, pugnacious farmers, assertive of their
rights, Luther's father grew."
This story was started in Luther's lifetime. George Wicel, who had
fallen away from the evangelical faith, accused Luther of having a
homicide for a father. In 1565, he published the story under a false
name at Paris, but gave no details. In Moehra nothing was known of the
matter until the first quarter of the twentieth century. This
circumstance alone is damaging to the whole story. Luther was during his
lifetime exposed to scrutiny of his most private affairs as no other
man. If Wicel's tale could have been authenticated, we may rest assured
that would have been done at the time.
In the eighteenth century a mining official in Thuringia by the name of
Michaelis told the story of Hans Luther's homicide with the necessary
detail to make it appear real. Observe, this was 220 years after the
alleged event. It had been this way: Hans Luther had quarreled with a
person who was plowing his field, and had accidentally slain the man
with the bridle, or halter, of his horse. Several Protestant writers now
began to express belief in the story. Travelers came to Moehra for the
express purpose of investigating the matter, _e.g.,_ Mr. Mayhew of the
_London Punch_. Behold, the story had assumed definite shape through
being kept alive a hundred years: the accommodating citizens of Moehra
were now able to point out to the inquiring Englishman the very meadow
where the homicide had taken place. It takes an Englishman on the
average two years and four months to see the point of a joke. By this
time, we doubt not, it will be possible to exhibit to any confiding
dunce the very horse-bridle with which Hans Luther committed
manslaughter, also the actual hole which he knocked into the head of his
victim, beautifully surrounded by a border of blue and green, which are
the colors which the bruise assumed six hours after the infliction. The
border may not be genuine, but we dare any Catholic investigator to
disprove the genuineness of the hole.
Writers belonging to a church that is rich in legends of the saints and
in relics ought to know how a tale like Wicel's can assume
respectability and credibility in the course of time. It is not any more
difficult to account for these tales about Hans Luther's homicide than
for the existence in our late day of the rope with which Judas hanged
himself, or the tears which Peter wept in the night of the betrayal, or
the splinters from the cross of the Lord, or the feathers from the wings
of the angel Gabriel, and sundry other marvels which are exhibited in
Catholic churches for the veneration of the faithful.
No historian that has a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits
the story of Hans Luther's homicide. It is improbable on its face. The
small landholdings of Hans at Moehra are not real, but irreal estate.
Nobody has found the title for them. There is, however, a very good
reason why Hans should want to leave Moehra. He was, according to all
that is known of his father's family, the oldest son. According to the
old Thuringian law the home place and appurtenances of a peasant
freeholder passed to the youngest son. McGiffert regards the custom as
"admirably careful of those most needing care." (p. 4.) Luther's father,
on coming of age, was by this law compelled to go and seek his fortune
elsewhere, because opportunity for rising to independence there was none
for him at Moehra.
If Hans was a fugitive from justice, he was certainly unwise in not
fleeing far enough. For at Eisenach, whither he went, he was still under
the same Saxon jurisdiction as at Moehra. He seems to have had no fear
of abiding under the sovereignty which he is claimed to have offended.
This observation has led one of the most exact and painstaking of modern
biographers of Luther, Koestlin, to say that the homicide story, if it
rests on any basis of fact, must either refer to a different Luther, or
if to Hans, the incident cannot have been a homicide. It should be
remembered that there is no authentic record which in any way
incriminates Hans Luther.
Lastly, this homicide Hans Luther, eight years after coming to Mansfeld,
is elected by his fellow-townsmen one of the "Vierherren," or aldermen,
of the town. Only most trusted and well-reputed persons were given such
an office. A homicide would not have been allowed to settle at Mansfeld,
much less to govern the town. Any rogue in the town that he had to
discipline in his time of office would have thrown his bloody record up
to him.
A Catholic writer says: "The wild passion of anger was an unextinguished
and unmodified heritage transmitted congenitally to the whole Luther
family, and this to such an extent that the Lutherzorn (Luther rage) has
attained the currency of a German colloquialism." Mr. Mayhew thinks that
"Martin was a veritable chip of the hard old block," the "high-mettled
foal cast by a fiery blood-horse." Catholic writers cite Mr. Mayhew as a
distinguished Protestant. If you have not heard of him before, look him
up in _Who is Who?_ most anywhere.
All this, however, is a desperate attempt to find proof against an
assumed criminal by circumstantial evidence. No direct evidence has ever
been available to implicate Luther's father in a village brawl. As to
the Lutherzorn, Luther has in scores of places explained the real reason
of it: Luther did not inherit, but Rome roused it. This Lutherzorn may
arise in any person that is not remotely related to the Luthers after
reading Catholic biographies of Martin Luther.