This is the honorary title which Catholics bestow upon Martin Luther and
Catherine von Bora, who were married June 13, 1525, during the Peasants'
War. Luther was forty-two years old at the time and his bride past
twenty-six. She had left the cloister two years before her marriage, and
had found employment during that time in the home of one of the citizens
of Wittenberg. Their first child, Hans, was born June 7, 1526.
The grounds on which Catholics object to this marriage are, chiefly,
three. In the first place, they declare the marriage the outcome of an
impure relation which had existed between Luther and Catherine prior to
their marriage. The marriage had virtually become a matter of necessity,
to prevent greater scandal. Moreover, in this impure relationship Luther
with his lascivious and lustful mind, in which fleshly desires were
continually raging, had been the prime mover. The second ground on which
Catholics object to Luther's marriage is, because Luther held
professedly low views of the virtue of chastity and the state of
matrimony. He had stripped matrimony of its sacramental character, and
regarded it as a mere physical necessity and a social and civil
contract. Thirdly, Catholics criticize Luther's marriage because it was
entered into by both the contracting parties in violation of a sacred
vow: Luther had been a monk and Catherine a nun, both sworn to perpetual
celibacy.
Moral cleanness is indelibly stamped upon hundreds of pages of Luther's
writings. The Sixth Commandment in its wider application to the mutual
relation of the sexes and the sexual condition of the individual was to
Luther the solemn voice of God by which the holy and wise Creator guards
and protects the fountains whence springs human life. "Because there is
among us," he says, "such a shameful mixture and the very dregs of all
kinds of vice and lewdness, this commandment is also directed against
all manner of impurity, whatever it may be called; and not only is the
external act forbidden, but every kind of cause, incitement, and means,
so that the heart, the lips, and the whole body may be chaste and afford
no opportunity, help, or persuasion for impurity. And not only this, but
that we may also defend, protect, and rescue wherever there is danger
and need; and give help and counsel, so as to maintain our neighbor's
honor. For wherever you allow such a thing when you could prevent it, or
connive at it as if it did not concern you, you are as truly guilty as
the one perpetrating the deed. Thus it is required, in short, that every
one both live chastely himself and help his neighbor do the same."
(_Large Catechism_, p. 419.) The reason why God in the Sixth Commandment
refers to only one form of sexual impurity Luther states correctly thus:
"He expressly mentions adultery, because among the Jews it was a command
and appointment that every one must be married. Therefore also the young
were early married, so that the state of celibacy was held in small
esteem, neither were public prostitution and lewdness tolerated as now.
Therefore adultery was the most common form of unchastity among them."
(_Ibid_.)
In his _Appeal to the German Nobility_ Luther says: "Is it not a
terrible thing that we Christians should maintain public brothels,
though we all vow chastity in our baptism? I well know all that can be
said on this matter; that it is not peculiar to one nation, that it
would be difficult to demolish it, and that it is better thus than that
virgins, or married women, or honorable women should be dishonored. But
should not the spiritual and temporal powers combine to find some means
of meeting these difficulties without any such heathen practise? If the
people of Israel existed without this scandal, why should not a
Christian nation be able do so? How do so many towns and villages manage
to exist without these houses? Why should not great cities be able to do
so? . . . It is the duty of those in authority to see the good of their
subjects. But if those in authority considered how young people might be
brought together in marriage, the prospect of marriage would help every
man and protect him from temptations." (10, 349; transl. by Waring.)
This is the Luther of whom Catholic writers say that he would not be
considered qualified to sit with a modern Vice Commission.
But what about the many coarse references in Luther's writings to sexual
matters-references which are unprintable nowadays? Do these not show
that Luther was far from being even an ordinary gentleman, that he was
depraved in thought and vulgar nauseating, in speech whenever he
approached the subject of marriage and sexual conditions? We have just
cited a few of Luther's references to these matters. They are clean and
proper. We could fill pages with them, and they would prove most
profitable reading in our loose, profligate, and adulterous age. Those
other references which are also found in Luther's writings should be
studied in their connection. Leaving out of the account humorous
references and playful remarks, which only malice can twist into a
lascivious meaning, they are indignant and scornful expostulations with
the defenders and practisers of vice that flaunted its shame in the face
of the public. Righteous anger will give a person the courage to speak
out boldly and in no mincing words about things which otherwise nauseate
him. When Catholic writers cull from Luther vile and disgusting remarks
about sexual affairs, it should be investigated to whom Luther made
those remarks, and what reason he had for making them. There is another
side to this matter, and that concerns medieval Catholicism itself. We
have indicated in sundry places in this review the social conditions in
respect of the sex relations that existed under the spiritual
sovereignty of the Roman Church in Luther's day in the very city of
Rome, and had grown up and were being fostered by her leading men.
Luther's references to lustfulness are paraded as evidence of the lust
that was consuming him; they are, in reality, evidences of the lust that
he knew to be raging in very prominent people with whom he had dealings.
Luther's words and teaching would count for little if his personal
conduct and his acts were in open contradiction to his chaste
professions. We would simply have to set him down as a hypocrite. But so
would the people in Luther's own day have done. It is a poor argument to
say that the common people were no match for Luther in an argument. They
were cowed into silence, they were afraid to tell him to his face that
he ought to practise what he preached. Luther's work proved the
spiritual emancipation of the common people, and one of the effects
which mark his reformatory work is the intelligent layman, who forms his
own judgment on what he hears and sees, and speaks out to his superiors.
The Wittenbergers in Luther's day were not a set of ninnies; the
constant association with the professors and students of the university,
the growing fame of their town, which brought many strangers to it,
important civil and religious affairs on which they had to come to a
decision, had made many of them far-sighted and resolute men of affairs.
Luther's home life before and after his marriage was open to public
inspection as few homes are. The most intimate and delicate affairs had
to be arranged before company at times. In a small town-and Wittenberg
was no modern metropolis-what one person knows becomes public
information in a short time. Small communities have no secrets, or at
least find it extremely difficult to have any.
But the lewdness which Luther attacked in his writings on chastity
existed chiefly among persons of wealth and among the nobility. Not a
few of them resented Luther's invectives against their mode of life.
They surely did not lack the courage nor the ability to express
themselves in retaliation against Luther if they had known him to be
immoral himself while preaching morality to others. Last, not least,
there were the Catholic priests and dignitaries of the Roman Church
whose scandalous life Luther exposed. Aside from their disagreement from
Luther in point of doctrine, personal revenge animated not a few of them
with the desire to find a flaw in Luther's conduct. A few reckless
spirits among them insinuated and declared openly that Luther was
immoral, but the animus back of the charge was so well understood at
the time, and the people who were in daily and close touch with Luther
were so fully convinced of the purity of his life, that the charges were
treated with contempt.
Luther's life from the age of puberty to his marriage was, indeed, a
fight against temptations to unchastity. Is it anything else in the case
of other men? The physical effects of adolescence, as we remarked
before, are a natural and morally pure phenomenon; Luther's frank way of
speaking of them does not make them impure. But this physical condition
in a growing young man or woman may become the occasion for impure acts.
Against these Luther strove as every Christian strives against them who
has not the special grace of which our Lord speaks Matt. 19, 12, in the
first part of the verse. Luther had his flesh fairly well in subjection
to the Spirit. History has not recorded those acts of immorality which
his enemies insinuate or openly charge him with. The illegitimate
children which are imputed to him were born in Catholic fancy. His
constitutional amorous propensities, too, are fiction. Though Luther
admits a few months prior to his marriage that he wears no armor plate
around his heart, it is known that he had been all his life anything
rather than a ladies' man.
Luther's courtship of Catherine--if we may call it that--was almost void
of romance. The nine nuns who had fled from the cloister at Nimpschen to
escape "the impurities of the life of celibacy," had turned to
Wittenberg in their trouble. They were not seeking new impurities, but
running away from old ones. What was more natural than that they should
seek the protection of the man whose teaching had opened the road to
liberty for them. They did not come to Wittenberg to surrender
themselves to Luther, but to seek his protection, advice, and help in
beginning a new, natural life after the unnatural life which they had
been leading. Luther responded to the call of distress. He did not
receive them into his own domicile in the cloister where he lived, but
found shelter for them with kind citizens of the town. Next, he found
husbands for them. In less than two years after the escape from the
cloister all had been respectably married, except Catherine. A
love-affair of hers with Jerome Baumgaertner of Nuernberg had terminated
unhappily, in spite of Luther's urging the young man. Another choice
which Luther proposed to her--Dr. Glatz of Orlamuende--was declined
peremptorily by Catherine, because, it seems, she had read the man's
character. In declining this second offer, Catherine had made complaint
to Luther's friend Amsdorf that Luther was trying to marry her against
her will. She appears to have been a frank and resolute woman; in her
conversation with Amsdorf she remarked that her decision would be
altogether different if either he or even Luther were to ask for her
hand. This was not, as has been said, a bald invitation to either of
these two gentlemen, but only Catherine's energetic way of explaining
what sort of a husband she would like, and why she would not take Glatz.
Amsdorf so understood her remark and made nothing of it. By an accident
he came to relate it to Luther six months later, when the latter had
written to him in great despondency, describing his lonely life and the
disorderly state of his domicile which needed very much the care of a
woman's hand. Then it was that Amsdorf related what Catherine had
remarked. Luther had never thought of her in such a relation. He had
been attracted, it seems, by another of the nine escaped nuns, Ave von
Schoenfeld, but whatever affection he may have entertained for her must
have been a passing incident, never seriously entertained, for it must
be remembered that at that time Luther declared that he would live and
die a bachelor. Besides, Ave had now been happily married to another. At
this juncture the influence of another woman enters into the private
life of Luther. Argula von Staufen, a noblewoman who had been won over
to the cause of the Reformation and was actively engaged in breaking
down the power of the hierarchy even by her pen, wrote to Luther,
expressing her surprise that he who had written so ably and so well on
the holy estate of matrimony was still single. Among the peasants, too,
the question was being debated whether Luther would follow up his
preaching with the logical action. Luther was ruminating on these
matters when the Peasants' Revolt broke out, and with them in his mind
went to Mansfeld. He soon reached the conclusion that he owed it to his
profession as a preacher of the divine Word, to his Creator, to himself,
and to the lonely Catherine to marry. He foresaw that the celibate
clergy of Rome would raise a hue and cry about the act, but he
considered it a noble work to offend these men, because they had by
their law of celibacy offended the most holy God. He would marry to
spite all of them, and the Pope, and the devil. This resolution was
promptly carried out, for Luther was not in the habit of dallying long
with serious matters. If he had asked his timid friend Melanchthon, he
would most likely have been advised against his marriage. Faint-hearted
Philip was not the man to advise in a matter which at the time required
a heroic faith. Philip, therefore, was duly shocked when he heard about
it. His consternation is now used by Catholics to prove that he regarded
Luther's marriage as a wanton act prompted by lust. This is utterly
unhistorical: Philip was only afraid of the wild talk that would now be
started against all of them. On the right and duty of the clergy to
marry he believed with Luther.
And now a word about the chastity of Rome, particularly that peculiar
brand which was inaugurated by Gregory VII for the Roman clergy and the
religious of both sexes, and riveted upon them by the Council of Trent-
the chastity of the celibate state. That the unnatural principle had
never worked out toward true chastity, that the robbery which it has
perpetrated on men and women had to be compensated for by connivance at,
and open permission of, concubinage, is a matter of current knowledge.
Luther's advice to priests and bishops who had opened their hearts to
him on the state of their chastity to marry their cooks, even if they
had to do it secretly; rather than maintain the other relation to them,
was a good man's effort to meet a grave difficulty as best he could.
This advice is now used to show that Luther was ready to approve any
kind of cohabitation. The very opposite is true: it was because he did
not approve of any kind of sexual intercourse, but because he desired to
obtain some kind of a legal character for that relation, that he gave
the advice to which we have referred.
Before the assembled representatives of the Church and of the German
nation the following statements were read in Article XXIII of the
Augsburg Confession: "There has been common complaint concerning the
examples of priests who were not chaste. For that reason, also, Pope
Pius is reported to have said that there were certain reasons why
marriage was taken away from priests, but that there were far weightier
ones why it ought to be given back; for so Platina writes. Since,
therefore, our priests were desirous to avoid these open scandals, they
married wives, and taught that it was lawful for them to contract
matrimony. First, because Paul says (1 Cor. 7, 2): 'To avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife.' Also (9): 'It is better
to marry than to burn.' Secondly, Christ says (Matt. 19, 11): 'All men
cannot receive this saying,' where He teaches that not all men are fit
to lead a single life; for God created man for procreation (Gen. 1, 23).
Nor is it in man's power, without a singular gift and work of God, to
alter this creation. Therefore, those that are not fit to lead a single
life ought to contract matrimony. For no man's law, no vow, can annul
the commandment and ordinance of God. For these reasons the priests
teach that it is lawful for them to marry wives. It is also evident that
in the ancient Church priests were married men. For Paul says (1 Tim. 3,
2) that a bishop should be the husband of one wife. And in Germany, four
hundred years ago for the first time, the priests were violently
compelled to lead a single life, who indeed offered such resistance that
the Archbishop of Mayence, when about to publish the Pope's decree
concerning this matter, was almost killed in the tumult raised by the
enraged priests. And so harsh was the dealing in the matter that not
only were marriages forbidden for the time to come, but also existing
marriages were torn asunder, contrary to all laws, divine and human,
contrary even to the canons themselves, made not only by the Popes, but
by most celebrated councils.
"Seeing also that, as the world is aging, man's nature is gradually
growing weaker, it is well to guard that no more vices steal into
Germany. Furthermore, God ordained marriage to be a help against human
infirmity. The old canons themselves say that the old rigor ought now
and then, in the latter times, to be relaxed because of the weakness of
men; which, it is to be devoutly wished, were also done in this matter.
And it is to be expected that the churches shall at length lack pastors,
if marriage should any longer be forbidden.
"But while the commandment of God is in force, while the custom of the
Church is well known, while impure celibacy causes many scandals,
adulteries, and other crimes deserving the punishments of just
magistrates, yet it is a marvelous thing that in nothing is more cruelty
exercised than against the marriage of priests. God has given
commandment to honor marriage. By the laws of all well-ordered
commonwealths, even among the heathen, marriage is most highly honored.
But now men, and also priests, are cruelly put to death, contrary to the
intent of the canons, for no other cause than marriage. Paul (in 1 Tim.
4, 3) calls that a doctrine of devils which forbids marriage. This may
now be readily understood when the law against marriage is maintained by
such penalties.
"But as no law of man can annul the commandment of God, so neither can
it be done by any vow. Accordingly Cyprian also advises that women who
do not keep the chastity they have promised should marry. His words are,
these (Book I, Epistle XIX): 'But if they be unwilling or unable to
persevere, it is better for them to marry than to fall into the fire by
their lusts; at least, they should give no offense to their brethren and
sisters.' And even the canons show some leniency toward those who have
taken vows before the proper age, as heretofore has generally been the
case." (p. 48 f.)
Not a word of dissent arose in the august assembly while these facts and
arguments were presented. The Germans had not forgotten the riotous
proceedings and the cruel heartaches that were caused by the enforcement
of the decrees of the Lenten Synod of 1074 under the theocratic Gregory
VII, who wanted to set up a universal monarchy over the whole world and
required an unmarried priesthood as his consecrated army. In his
historical novel, _Die Letzten ihres Geschlechts_, M. Ruediger has
graphically described the scenes enacted throughout Germany when
Gregory's inhuman order was put into effect.
Similar statements regarding priestly celibacy are found in Art. XXVII
of the First, and in Art. XXIX of the Second Helvetic Confession of the
Reformed. The Episcopal Church has declared itself to the same effect in
Art. XXXII of the Thirty-nine Articles.
However, did not Luther and Catherine both perjure themselves by
marrying? What about their religious vow, which had been given to God?
Also on this matter we might cite Luther's numerous statements and
expository writings, but we prefer to quote again the Augsburg
Confession which grew out of Luther's testimony for the truth. In
Article XXVII the Lutheran confessors state: "What is taught on our part
concerning monastic vows will be better understood if it be remembered
what has been the state of the monasteries, and how many things were
daily done in those very monasteries, contrary to the canons. In
Augustine's time they were free associations. Afterward, when discipline
was corrupted, vows were everywhere added for the purpose of restoring
discipline, as in a carefully planned prison. Gradually, many other
observances were added besides vows. And these fetters were laid upon
many before the lawful age, contrary to the canons. [Catherine von Bora
had taken the veil at the age of sixteen.] Many also entered into this
kind of life through ignorance, being unable to their own strength,
though they were of sufficient age. Being thus ensnared, they were
compelled to remain, even though some could have been freed by the
provision of the canons. And this was more the case in convents of women
than of monks, although more consideration should have been shown the
weaker sex. This rigor displeased many good men before this time, who
saw that young men and maidens were thrown into convents for a living,
and what unfortunate results came of this procedure, and what scandals
were created, what snares were cast upon consciences! They were grieved
that the authority of the canons in so momentous a matter was utterly
despised and set aside.
"To these evils was added an opinion concerning vows, which, it is well
known, in former times, displeased even those monks who were more
thoughtful. They taught that vows were equal to Baptism; they taught
that, by this kind of life, they merited forgiveness of sins and
justification before God. Yea, they added that the monastic life not
only merited righteousness before God, but even greater things, because
it kept not only the precepts, but also the so-called 'evangelical
counsels.'
"Thus they made men believe that the profession of monasticism was far
better than Baptism, and that the monastic life was mere meritorious
than that of magistrates, than the life of pastors and such like, who
serve their calling in accordance with God's commands, without any
man-made services. None of these things can be denied; for they appear
in their own books. . . .
"These things we have rehearsed without odious exaggerations, to the end
that the doctrine of our teachers, on this point, might be better
understood. First, concerning such as contract matrimony." Here the 27th
Article rehearses in the main the argument of Article XXIII.
"In the second place, why do our adversaries exaggerate the obligation
or effect of a vow, when, at the same time, they have not a word to say
of the nature of the vow itself, that it ought to be in a thing
possible, free, and chosen spontaneously and deliberately? But it is not
known to what extent perpetual chastity is in the power of man. And how
few are they who have taken the vow spontaneously and deliberately!
Young men and maidens, before they are able to judge, are persuaded, and
sometimes even compelled, to take the vow. Wherefore it is not fair to
insist so rigorously on the obligation, since it is granted by all that
it is against the nature of a vow to take it without spontaneous and
deliberate action. . . .
"But although it appears that God's command concerning marriage delivers
many from their vows, yet our teachers introduce also another argument
concerning vows to show that they are void. For every service of God
ordained and chosen of men without commandment of God to merit
justification and grace is wicked as Christ says (Matt. 15, 9): 'In vain
they worship Me with the commandments of men.' And Paul teaches
everywhere that righteousness is not to be sought by our own observances
and acts of worship devised by men, but that it comes by faith to those
who believe that they are received by God into grace for Christ's sake."
The confessors then proceed to show how spiritual pride was fostered by
the monkish teaching of perfection, and how by their rites and
ordinances and rules the true worship of God was obscured, and men were
withdrawn from useful pursuits in life to be buried in cloisters. They
conclude: "All these things, since they are false and empty, make vows
null and void." (p. 57 ff.)
Luther never had taken his own nor other monks' vows lightly. He spoke
and wrote to Melanchthon from the Wartburg against the mere throwing off
of the vows on the ground that they were not binding anyway. He argued
the sacredness of the oath, and held that first the consciences of those
bound by vows must be set free through the evangelical teaching; then,
when they are qualified to make an intelligent choice on spiritual
grounds, they may discard their vows. When he married Catherine, he had
long become a free man in his mind. So had Catherine.
Luther is charged with having entertained a purely secular view of the
essence of marriage. It is true that Luther repudiated the Catholic view
of the sacramental character of matrimony. By the teaching of the Roman
Church a legal marriage can be effected only by the ratification of the
marriage-promise and the blessing spoken over the couple by a
consecrated priest, who thus, by his official quality, imparts to the
marriage which he solemnizes a sacred character. In Luther's days it was
held that "the Church alone properly had jurisdiction over the question
of marriage, and the canonical laws (of the Church) included civil as
well as spiritual affairs. Luther repudiated these canonical laws on the
subject of marriage, and separated its civil from its ecclesiastical
aspect. He maintained that marriage, as the basis of all family rights,
lies entirely within the province of the State, and mast be regulated of
necessity by the civil government. 'Marriage and the married state,' he
declared in his _Traubuechlein_ (10, 721), 'are civil matters, in the
management of which we priests and ministers of the Church must not
intermeddle. But when we are required, either before the church, or in
the church, to bless the pair, to pray over them, or even to marry them,
then it is our bounden duty to do so.'" (Waring, p. 221.)
In 1906, a papal decree was published which declares any betrothal or
marriage entered into by a Catholic with a Catholic, or by a Catholic
with a non-Catholic, to be valid only on condition that either the
betrothal or the marriage take place in the presence or with the
sanction of a Catholic priest This decree is known as the _Ne Temere_
decree. It is called thus according to a custom prevailing in the
Catholic Church by which the official deliverances of the Popes are
cited by giving the initial word, or words, of such a deliverance. The
two Latin terms _Ne Temere_ are a warning against reckless action, and
the reckless action intended is the one indicated above.
We quote a few statements from the _Ne Temere_ decree, from the work of
Dr. Leitner of Passau, which was issued in its fifth edition at
Regensburg in 1908. Dr. Leitner is a Catholic professor at Passau and
bears the title "Doctor of Theology and Canon Law." Dr. Leitner's book
is in German: _Die Verlobungs- und Eheschliessungsform nach dem Dekrete
Ne Temere_, which means, "The Form of Betrothal and Marriage according
to the _Ne Temere_ Decree." Throughout his book the author cites the
original language of the papal deliverance. The decree reaffirms, in the
first place, the decree of the Council of Trent, to this effect: "The
Holy Congregation declares any person who dares to enter into the estate
of matrimony, except upon license from the parish priest or of some
other priest of the same parish, or of the ordinary, and of two or three
witnesses, incapacitated for such a contract, and contracts of this kind
are declared null and void." (p.9.)
Regarding betrothals the decree declares: "Only such betrothals are
regarded as valid and efficacious, according to the law of the Church,
as are set down in a document signed by the contracting parties and by
the parish priest, or the local ordinary, and by at least two
witnesses."
Regarding marriage the decree hands down the following ruling: "Only
such marriages are valid as are entered into in the presence of the
parish priest, or the local ordinary, or of a priest delegated for the
purpose by either of these, and of two witnesses." Again: "To the above
law are amenable all persons baptized in the Catholic Church, also who
have joined the Catholic Church from errorist or schismatic societies
(notwithstanding the fact that either former or the latter have
apostatized later) whenever they entered into betrothal or matrimony."
Lastly: "The laws apply to the aforenamed Catholics whenever they enter
into betrothal or matrimony with non-Catholics, baptized or not, even
when they have obtained a dispensation from the obstacle of a mixed
religion or of a disparity of cult; except the Holy See decrees
otherwise for a certain or locality."
The operations of this decree have been peculiar. Some countries as
Germany and Belgium, promptly secured exemption from it. In Canada the
decree has caused law suits. One of them, Morin _vs_. Le Croix, was
tried in Justice Greenshield's court at Montreal, June 21, 1912. The
judge in his ruling said; "No Church, be it the powerful Roman Catholic
Church, or the equally great and powerful Anglican Catholic Church,
possesses any authority to overrule the civil law. Such authority as any
Church has (in the matter of marriages) is given it by the civil law and
is subservient to the civil law."
The _Protestant Magazine_, in Vol. IV, No. 2, published a facsimile of a
baptismal certificate for Anna Susanna Dagonya, daughter of Stephen
Dagonya, Roman Catholic, and Mary Csoma, Reformed, who were married at
Perth Amboy, N. J., August 4, 1909, by Rev. Louis Nannassy, Reformed.
Their child was born November 6, 1910, and baptized by Rev. Francis
Gross, priest of the Holy Cross Church at Perth Amboy. In writing out
the baptismal certificate, the priest has stated that the child is
illegitimate, and that the parents are living in concubinage.
Under the civil laws of most states the _Ne Temere_ decree will lead to
actions for libel. As related to the authority of the State, it is
riotous and seditious. For the State will protect even those for whom
the decree is specially published in their civil rights as over against
their Church. But the decree shows to what absurdities the logical
application of Rome's teaching on matrimony leads. Concubinage--that is
the name which it applies to every marriage which she has not
sanctioned. Marriages of this kind began to be celebrated in countries
which Rome had theretofore held firmly under its jurisdiction, when
Martin Luther and Catherine von Bora were married. Accordingly, they are
entitled to the distinction of being called the Adam and Eve of the
non-Catholic paradise of concubinage which pretends to be matrimony.
Enough said.