LUTHER AT THE ZENITH OF HIS LIFE AND SUCCESS, FROM 1540 ONWARDS.
APPREHENSIONS AND PRECAUTIONS
1. The Great Victories of 1540-1544.
THE opening of the Diet of Ratisbon in 1541[595] coincided with the
advance of Protestantism in one of the strongholds of the power and
influence of Albert of Mayence. The usual residence of the Archbishop
and Elector was at Halle, in his diocese of Magdeburg. Against this
town accordingly all the already numerous Protestants in Albert’s sees
of Magdeburg and Halberstadt directed their united efforts. Albert was
compelled by the local Landtag to abolish the Catholic so-called “Neue
Stift” at Halle, and to remove his residence to Mayence. Thereupon
Jonas, Luther’s friend, at once, on Good Friday, 1541, commenced to
preach at the church of St. Mary’s at Halle. He then became permanent
preacher and head of the growing movement in the town, while two other
churches were also seized by Lutheran preachers.
The town and bishopric of Naumburg, which had been much neglected
by its bishop, Prince Philip of Bavaria, who resided at Freising,
fell a prey to the innovations under the Elector Johann Frederick of
Saxony; this in spite of being an imperial city under the immediate
protection of the Emperor. The Elector had taken advantage of his
position as arbitrator, thanks to his influence and to the authority
he soon secured, gradually to establish himself in Naumburg. By his
orders, in 1541, as soon as Philip was dead, Nicholas Medler began
to preach at the Cathedral as “Superintendent of Naumburg”; Julius
Pflug, the excellent Provost, who had been elected bishop by the
Cathedral chapter, was prevented by the Elector from taking possession
of the see. Even the Wittenberg theologians were rather surprised
at the haste and violence with which the Elector proceeded to upset
the religious conditions there, and—a matter which concerned him
deeply—to seize the city and the whole diocese. (See below, p. 191 f.)
The storm was already gathering over the archbishopric of Cologne under
the weak and illiterate Archbishop, Hermann von Wied. This man, who was
in reality more of a secular ruler, after having in earlier days shown
himself kindly disposed to the Church, was won over, first by Peter
Medmann in 1539 and then by Martin Bucer in 1541, and persuaded to
introduce Lutheranism. Only by the energetic resistance of the chapter,
and particularly of the chief Catholics of the archdiocese, was the
danger warded off; to them the Archbishop owed, first his removal, and
then his excommunication.
On March 28, 1546, shortly before the excommunication, the Emperor
Charles V said to Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who had been pleading the
cause of Hermann: “Why does he start novelties? He knows no Latin, and,
in his whole life, has only said three Masses, two of which I attended
myself. He does not even understand the Confiteor. To reform does not
mean to bring in another belief or another religion.”[596]
“We are beholders of the wonders of God,” so Luther wrote to Hermann
Bonn, his preacher, at Osnabrück; “such great Princes and Bishops
are now being called of God by the working of the Holy Ghost.”[597]
He was speaking not only of the misguided Archbishop of Cologne but
also of the Bishop of Münster and Osnabrück, who had introduced the
new teaching at Osnabrück by means of Bonn, Superintendent of Lübeck.
Luther, however, was rather too sanguine. In the same year he announced
to Duke Albert of Prussia: “The two bishops of ‘Collen’ and Münster,
have, praise be to God, accepted the Evangel in earnest, strongly
as the Canons oppose it. Things are also well forward in the Duchy
of Brunswick.”[598] As a matter of fact he turned out right only as
regards Brunswick. Henry, the Catholic Duke, was expelled in 1542 by
the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse after the war which
broke out on account of Goslar had issued in his loss of the stronghold
of Wolfenbüttel; thereupon with the help of Bugenhagen the churches of
the land were forcibly brought over to Lutheranism.
In 1544 the appointment at Merseburg of a bishop of the new faith in
the person of George of Anhalt followed on Duke Maurice of Saxony’s
illegal seizure of the see. So barefaced was this act of spoliation
that even Luther entered a protest against “this rapacious onslaught on
Church property.”[599] The appointment of an “Evangelical bishop” at
Naumburg took place in 1542 under similar circumstances.
From Metz, where the preacher Guillaume Farel was working for the
Reformation, an application was received for admission into the
Schmalkalden League. The Lutherans there received at least moral
support from Melanchthon who, in the name of the League, addressed a
writing to the Duke of Lorraine. Not only distant Transylvania, but
even Venice, held correspondence with Luther in order to obtain from
him advice and instructions concerning the Protestant congregations
already existing in those regions.
Thus the author of the religious upheaval might well congratulate
himself, when, in the evening of his days, he surveyed the widespread
influence of his work.
He was at the same time well aware what a potent factor in all this
progress was the danger which menaced Germany from the Turks. The
Protestant Estates continued to exploit the distress of the Empire to
their own advantage in a spirit far from loyal. They insisted on the
Emperor’s granting their demands within the Empire before they would
promise effectual aid against the foe without; their conduct was quite
inexcusable at such a time, when a new attack on Vienna was momentarily
apprehended, and when the King of France was quite openly supporting
the Turks.
In the meantime as a result of the negotiations an Imperial army was
raised and Luther published his prudent “Vermanunge zum Gebet wider den
Türcken.” In this he advised the princes to do their duty both towards
God and the Evangel and towards the Empire by defending it against
the foe. The Pope is as much an enemy as the Turk, and the world has
reached its close, for the last Judgment is at hand.[600]
The Emperor found it advisable to show himself even more lenient
than before; the violent encroachments of the Protestants, which
so unexpectedly strengthened their position, were allowed to pass
unresisted; the ecclesiastical and temporal penalties pronounced
against the promoters of the innovations remained a dead letter, and
for the time being the Church property was left in their hands. At
the Diet of Spires, in 1544, the settlement was deferred to a General
Council which the Reichsabschied describes as a “Free Christian Council
within the German Nation.”
As was only to be expected, Paul III, the supreme head of Christendom,
energetically protested against such a decision. With dignity, and in
the supreme consciousness of his rights and position, the Pope reminded
the Emperor that a Council had long since been summoned (above, vol.
iii., p. 424) and was only being delayed on account of the war. It did
not become the civil power, nor even the Emperor, to inaugurate the
religious settlement, least of all at the expense of the rights of
Church and Pope as had been the case; to the Vicar of Christ and the
assembly summoned by him it fell to secure the unity of the Church and
to lay down the conditions of reunion; yet the civil power had left the
Pope in the lurch in his previous endeavours to summon a Council and to
establish peace in Germany; “God was his witness that he had nothing
more at heart than to see the whole of the noble German people reunited
in faith and all charity”; “willingly would he spend life and blood, as
his conscience bore him witness, in the attempt to bring this about in
the right way.”[601]
These admonitions fell on deaf ears, as the evil work was already
done. The consent, which, by dint of defiance and determination, the
Protestant princes wrung from Empire and Emperor, secured the triumph
of the religious revolution in ever wider circles.
2. Sad Forebodings
In spite of all his outward success, Luther, at the height of his
triumph, was filled with melancholy forebodings concerning the future
of his work.
He felt more and more that the new Churches then being established
lacked inward stability, and that the principle on which they were
built was wanting in unity, cohesion and permanence. Neither for the
protection of the faith nor for the maintenance of an independent
system of Church government were the necessary provisions forthcoming.
Indeed, owing to the very nature of his undertaking, it was impossible
that such could be effectually supplied; thus a vision of coming
disunion, particularly in the domain of doctrine, unrolled itself
before his eyes; this was one of the factors which saddened him.
As early as the ‘thirties we find him giving vent to his fears of an
ever-increasing disintegration. In the ‘forties they almost assume the
character of definite prophecies.
In the Table-Talk of 1538, which was noted down by the Deacon
Lauterbach, he seeks comfort in the thought that every fresh revival
of religion had been accompanied by quarrels due to false brethren, by
heresies and decay; it was true that now “the morning star had arisen”
owing to his preaching, but he feared “that this light would not
endure for long, not for more than fifty years”; the Word of God would
“again decline for want of able ministers of the Word.”[602] “There
will come want and spiritual famine”; “many new interpretations will
arise, and the Bible will no longer hold. Owing to the sects that will
spring up I would rather I had not printed my books.”[603]
“I fear that the best is already over and that now the sects will
follow.”[604] The pen was growing heavy to his fingers; there “will
be no end to the writings,” he says; “I have outlived three frightful
storms, Münzer, the Sacramentarians and the Anabaptists; these are
over, but now others will come.” “I wish not to live any longer since
no peace is to be hoped for.”[605] “The Evangel is endangered by the
sectarians, the revolutionary peasants and the belly servers, just as
once the Roman empire was at Rome.”[606]
“On June 27 [1538],” we read, “Dr. Luther and Master Philip were
dining together at his house. They spoke much, with many a sigh,
of the coming times when many dangers would arise.” The greatest
confusion would prevail. No one would then allow himself to be guided
by the doctrine or authority of another. “Each one will wish to be his
own Rabbi, like Osiander and Agricola. From this the worst scandals
and the greatest desolation will come. Hence it would be best [one
said], that the Princes should forestall it by some council, if only
the Papists would not hold back and flee from the light. Master Philip
replied: The Pope will never be brought to hold a General Council....
Oh, that our Princes and the Estates would bring about a council and
some sort of unity in doctrine and worship so as to prevent each one
undertaking something on his own account to the scandal of many, as
some are already doing. The Church is a spectacle of woe, with so much
weakness and scandal heaped upon her.”[607]
Shortly after this Luther instituted a comparison—which for him must
have been very sad—between the “false Church [of the Pope] which
stands erect, a cheerful picture of dignity, strength and holiness,”
and the Church of Christ “which lies in such misery and ignominy, sin
and insignificance as though God had no care for her.” He fancied he
could find some slight comfort in the Article of the Creed: “I believe
in the Holy Church,” for, so he observes, “because we don’t see it,
therefore we believe in it.”[608]
In the midst of the great successes of those years he still gives
utterance to the gloomiest of predictions for the future of his
doctrine, which dissensions would eat to the very core. His pupil
Mathesius reports him as holding forth as follows:
“Alas, good God,” he groaned in 1540, “how we have to suffer
from divisions!... And many more sects will come. For the spirit
of lies and murder does not sleep.... But God will save His
Christendom.”[609]—In 1542 someone remarked in his presence: “Were
the world to last fifty years longer many things would happen.”
Thereupon Luther interjected: “God forbid, things would get worse than
ever before; for many sects will arise which yet are hidden in men’s
hearts, so that we shall not know how we stand. Hence, dear Lord, come
with Thy Judgment Day, for no further improvement is now to be looked
for!”[610]—After instancing the principal sects that had arisen up to
that time he said, in 1540: “After our death many sects will arise,
God help us!”[611] “But whoever after my death despises the authority
of this school—so long as the Church and the school remain as they
are—is a heretic and an evil man. For in this school [of Wittenberg]
God has revealed His Word, and this school and town can take a place
side by side with any others in the matter of doctrine and life, even
though our life be not yet quite above reproach.... Those who flee
from us and secretly contemn us have denied the faith.... Who knew
anything five-and-twenty years ago [before my preaching started]?
Alas for ambition; it is the cause of all the misfortunes.”[612]
Frequently he reverts to the theory, that the Church must needs put
up with onsets and temptations to despair. “Now even greater despair
has come upon us on account of the sectarians,” he said in 1537;
“the Church is in despair according to the words of the Psalmist
(cviii. 92): ‘Unless Thy Law had been my meditation I had then perhaps
perished in my abjection.’”[613]
At an earlier period (1531) a sermon of Luther’s vividly pictures this
despair: “If, in spiritual matters, it comes about, that the devil
sows his seed in Christ’s kingdom and it springs up both in doctrine
and life, then we have a crop of misery and distress. In the preaching
it happens, that although God has appointed _one_ man and commanded
him to preach the Evangel, yet others are found even amongst his
pupils who think they know how to do it ten times better than he....
Every man wants to be master in doctrine.... Now they are saying: ‘Why
should not we have the Spirit and understand Scripture just as well
as anyone else?’ Thus a new doctrine is at once set up and sects are
formed.... Hence a deadly peril to Christendom ensues, for it is torn
asunder and pure doctrine everywhere perishes.”[614] Christ had indeed
“foretold that this would happen”; true enough, it is not forbidden to
anyone “who holds the public office of preacher to judge of doctrine”;
but whoever has not such an office has no right to do so; if he does
this of “his own doctrine and spirit,” then “I call such judging of
doctrine one of the greatest, most shameful and most wicked vices to
be found upon earth, one from which all the factious spirits have
arisen.”[615]
Duke George of Saxony unfeelingly pointed out to the innovator that
his fear, that many, very many indeed, would say: “Do we not also
possess the Spirit and understand Scripture as well as you?” would
only too surely be realised.
“What man on earth,” wrote the Duke in his usual downright fashion,
“ever hitherto undertook a more foolish task than you in seeking to
include in your sect all Christians, especially those of the German
nation? Success is as likely in your case as it was in that of those
who set about building a tower in Babylonia which was to reach the
very heavens; in the end they had to cease from building, and the
result was seventy-two new tongues. The same will befall you; you also
will have to stop, and the result will be seventy-two new sects.”[616]
Luther’s letters speak throughout in a similar strain of the divisions
already existing and the gloomy outlook for the future; in the ‘forties
his lamentation over the approaching calamities becomes, however, even
louder than usual in spite of the apparent progress of his cause. Much
of what he says puts us vividly in mind of Duke George’s words just
quoted.
Amidst the excitement of his struggle with the fanatics he wrote as
early as 1525 to the “Christians at Antwerp”: “The tiresome devil
begins to rage amongst the ungodly and to belch forth many wild and
mazy beliefs and doctrines. This man will have nothing of baptism, that
one denies the Sacrament, a third awaits another world between this and
the Last Day; some teach that Christ is not God; some say this, some
that, and there are as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; no
peasant is so rude but that if he dreams or fancies something, it must
forsooth be the Holy Spirit which inspires him, and he himself must be
a prophet.”[617]
After the bitter experiences of the intervening years we find in a
letter of 1536 this bitter lament: “Pray for me that I too may be
delivered from certain ungodly men, seeing you rejoice that God has
delivered you from the Anabaptists and the sects. For new prophets are
constantly arising against me one after the other, so that I almost
wish to be dissolved in order not to see such evils without end, and
to be set free at last from this kingdom of the devil.”[618]
Even in the strong pillars of the Evangel, in the Landgrave of Hesse
and Bucer the theologian, he apprehended treason to his cause and
complains of them as “false brethren.” At the time of the negotiations
at Ratisbon, in 1541, he exclaims in a letter to Melanchthon: “They
are making advances to the Emperor and to our foes, and look on our
cause as a comedy to be played out among the people, though as is
evident it is a tragedy between God and Satan in which Satan’s side
has the upper hand and God’s comes off second best.... I say this with
anger and am incensed at their games. But so it must be; the fact that
we are endangered by false brethren likens us to the Apostle Paul,
nay, to the whole Church, and is the sure seal that God stamps upon
us.”[619]
In spite of this “seal of God,” he is annoyed to see how his Evangel
becomes the butt of “heretical attacks” from within, and suffers from
the disintegrating and destructive influence of the immorality and
godlessness of many of his followers.
This, for instance, he bewails in a letter of condolence sent in 1541
to Wenceslaus Link of Nuremberg. At Nuremberg according to Link’s
account the evil seemed to be assuming a menacing shape. Not the foe
without, writes Luther, but rather “our great gainsayers within, who
repay us with contempt, are the danger we must fear, according to the
words of the common prophecy: ‘After Antichrist has been revealed men
will come who say: There is no God!’ This we see everywhere fulfilled
to-day.... They think our words are but human words!”[620]
About this time he often contemplates with sadness the abundance of
other crying disorders in his Churches,[621] the wantonness of the
great and the decadence of the people; he cries: “Hasten, O Jesus, Thy
coming; the evils have come to a head and the end cannot be delayed.
Amen.”[622] “I am sick of life if this life can be called life....
Implacable hatred and strife amongst the great ... no hopes of any
improvement ... the age is Satan’s own; gladly would I see myself
and all my people quickly snatched from it!”[623] The evil spirit of
apostasy and fanatism which had raged so terribly at Münster, was now,
according to him, particularly busy amongst the great ones, just as
formerly it had laid hold on the peasants. “May God prevent him and
resist him, the evil spirit, for truly he means mischief.”[624]
And yet he still in his own way hopes in God and clings to the idea of
his call; God will soon mock at the devil: “The working of Satan is
patent, but God at Whom they now laugh will mock at Satan in His own
time.”[625]
We can understand after such expressions descriptive of his state of
mind, the assurance with which, for all his confidence of victory, he
frequently seems to forecast the certain downfall of his cause. In the
German Table-Talk, for instance, we read: “So long as those who are
now living and who teach the Word of God diligently are still with us,
those who have seen and heard me, Philip, Pomeranus and other pious,
faithful and honest teachers, all may be well; but when they all are
gone and this age is over, there will be a falling away.”[626] He also
sees how two great and widely differing parties will arise among his
followers: unbelievers on the one hand and Pietists and fanatics on the
other; we have a characteristic prophecy of the sort where he says of
the one party, that, like the Epicureans, they would acknowledge “no
God or other life after this,” and of the other, that many people would
come out of the school of enthusiasm, “following their own ideas and
speculations and boasting of the Spirit”; “drunk with their own virtues
and having their understanding darkened,” they would “obstinately
insist on their own fancies and yield to no one.”[627]
And again he says sadly: “God will sweep His threshing-floor. I pray
that after my death my wife and children may not long survive me; very
dangerous times are at hand.”[628] “I pray God,” he frequently said,
“to take away this our generation with us, for, when once we are gone,
the worst of times will follow.”[629] The preacher, “M. Antonius Musa
once said,” so he recalls: “We old preachers only vex the world, but on
you young ones the world will pour out its wrath; therefore take heed
to yourselves.”[630]
This is not the place to investigate historically the fulfilment
of these predictions. We shall content ourselves with quoting, in
connection with Musa, the words of another slightly later preacher.
Cyriacus Spangenberg saw in Luther a prophet, for one reason because
his gloomiest predictions were being fulfilled before the eyes of all.
In the third sermon of his book, “Luther the Man of God,” he shows
to what frightful contempt the preachers of Luther’s unadulterated
doctrine were everywhere exposed, just as he himself (Spangenberg) was
hated and persecuted for being over-zealous for the true faith of the
“Saint” of Wittenberg. “Ah,” he says in a sermon in 1563 couched in
Luther’s style, “Shame on thy heart, thy neck, thy tongue, thou filthy
and accursed world. Thy blasphemy, fornication, unchastity, gluttony
and drunkenness ... are not thought too much; but that such should be
scolded is too much.... If this be not the devil himself, then it is
something very like him and is assuredly his mother.”[631]
3. Provisions for the Future
Luther failed to make the effectual and systematic efforts called for
in order to stave off the fate to which he foresaw his work would be
exposed. He was not the man to put matters in order, quite apart from
the unsurmountable difficulties this would have involved, seeing he
possessed little talent for organisation. He was very well aware that
one expedient would be to surrender church government almost entirely
into the hands of the secular authorities.
_A Protestant Council?_
The negotiations which preceded the Œcumenical Council of the Catholic
Church, had for one result not only to impress the innovators with
a sense of their own unsettled state, but to lead them to discuss
the advisability of holding a great Protestant council of their own.
Luther himself, however, wisely held aloof from such a plan, nay his
opposition to it was one of the main obstacles which prevented its
fulfilment.
When the idea was first mooted in 1533 it was rejected by Luther
and his theologians Jonas, Bugenhagen and Melanchthon in a joint
memorandum. “Because it is plain,” so they declare, “that we ourselves
are not at one, and must first of all consider how we are to arrive
at unity amongst ourselves. In short, though an opposition council
might be good and useful it is needless to speak of such a thing just
now.”[632]
In 1537 the Landgrave of Hesse, and more particularly the Elector of
Saxony, again proposed at Schmalkalden that Luther, following the
example of the Greeks and the Bohemians, should summon a council of
his own, a national Evangelical council, to counteract the Papal
Council.[633] The Elector proposed that it should be assembled at
Augsburg and comprise at least 250 preachers and men of the law; the
Emperor might be invited to attend and a considerable army was also to
be drafted to Augsburg for the protection of the assembly. At that time
Luther’s serious illness saved him from an embarrassing situation.
Bucer and Melanchthon were now the sole supporters of the plan of a
council. Both were men who believed in mediation and Melanchthon may
really have hoped for a while, that the “philosophy of dissimulation,”
for which he stood,[634] might, even in a council, palliate the inward
differences and issue in something tolerably satisfactory. Luther
himself was never again to refer to the Evangelical Council.
It was the theologians headed by Martin Bucer, who, at the Diet
of Schmalkalden in 1540 at which Luther was not present, lodged a
memorandum on the advisability of holding a council. The petitioners
declared it “very useful and called for, both for the saving of unity
in doctrine and for the bettering of many other things, that, every
one or two years, the Estates should convene a synod.” Visitors
chosen there were to “silence any errors in doctrine” that they might
discover.[635] The Estates, however, did not agree to this proposal;
it was easy to foresee that it would be unworkable and productive of
evil. It was only necessary to call to mind the fruitlessness of the
great assemblies at Cassel and Wittenberg which had brought about the
so-called Wittenberg Concord and the disturbances to which the Concord
gave rise.[636]
Bucer keenly regretted the absence of any ecclesiastical unity and
cohesion amongst his friends.
“Not even a shadow of it remains,” so he wrote to Bullinger. “Every
church stands alone and every preacher for himself. Not a few shun all
connection with their brethren and any discussion of the things of
Christ. It is just like a body the members of which are cut off and
where one cannot help the other. Yet the spirit of Christ is a spirit
of harmony; Christ wills that His people should be one, as He and the
Father are one, and that they love one another as He loved us....
Unless we become one in the Lord every effort at mending and reviving
morals is bound to be useless. For this reason,” he continues, “it
was the wish of Œcolampadius when the faith was first preached at
Basle, to see the congregations represented and furthered by synods.
But he was not successful even amongst us [who stood nearest to him
in the faith]. I cannot say that to-day there is any more possibility
of establishing this union of the Churches; but the real cause of our
decline certainly lies in this inability. Possibly, later on, others
may succeed where we failed. For, truly, what we have received of the
knowledge of Christ and of discipline will fade away unless we, who
are Christ’s, unite ourselves more closely as members of His Body.”
He proceeds to indicate plainly that one of the main obstacles to
such a union was Luther’s rude and offensive behaviour towards the
Swiss theologians: Luther had undoubtedly heaped abuse on “guiltless
brethren.” But with this sort of thing, inevitable in his case, it
would be necessary to put up. “Will it not be better for us to let
this pass than to involve so many Churches in even worse scandals?
Could I, without grave damage to the Churches, do something to stop
all this vituperation, then assuredly I should not fail to do so.”[637]
Unfortunately the peacemaker’s efforts could avail nothing against a
personality so imperious and ungovernable as Luther’s.
Bucer continued nevertheless to further the idea of a Protestant
council, though, so long as Luther lived, only with bated breath. He
endeavoured at least to interest the Landgrave of Hesse in his plan
for holding small synods of theologians.
It was the want of unity in the matter of doctrine and the visible
decline of discipline that drove him again and again to think of
this remedy. On Jan. 8, 1544, he wrote to Landgrave Philip: In so
many places there is “no profession of faith, no penalties, no
excommunication of those who sin publicly, nor yet any Visitation or
synod. Only what the lord or burgomaster wished was done, and, in
place of one Pope, many Popes have arisen and things become worse
and worse from day to day.” He reminds the Prince of the proposal
made at Schmalkalden; because nothing was done to put this in effect,
scandals were on the increase. “We constantly find that scarcely a
third or fourth part communicate with Christ. What sort of Christians
will there be eventually?”[638]—In the same way he tells him later:
Because no synods are held “many things take place daily which ought
really greatly to trouble all of us.”[639] In Würtemberg and in
some of the towns of Swabia the authorities were dissuaded by the
groundless fear lest the preachers should once more gain too much
influence; this was why the secular authorities were averse to synods
and Visitations; but “on this account daily arise gruesome divisions
in matters of doctrine and unchastity of life; we find some who are
daily maddened with drink and who give such scandal in other matters
that the enemies of Christ have a terrible excuse for blaspheming and
hindering our true Gospel.... At the last Schmalkalden meeting all the
preachers were anxious that synods and Visitations should be ordered
and held everywhere. But who has paid any heed to this?” And yet this
is the best means whereby “our holy religion might be preserved and
guarded from the new Papists amongst us, i.e. those who do not accept
the Word of God in its purity and entirety, but explain it away, pull
it to pieces, distort and bend it as their own sensual passions and
temptations move them.”[640]
Once the main obstacle had been removed by Luther’s death, Bucer,
who was very confident of his own abilities, again mooted the idea
of a great council. In the same letter to Landgrave Philip of
Hesse in which he refers to the death of Luther, “the father and
teacher of us all,” which had occurred shortly before, he exhorts
the Landgrave more emphatically than ever to co-operate, so that
“first of all a general synod may be held of our co-religionists of
every estate,” to which all the sovereigns should despatch eminent
preachers and councillors—i.e. be formally convened by the secular
authorities—and, that, subsequently “particular synods be held in
every country of the Churches situated there.”[641] “Short of this the
Churches will assuredly fare badly.”[642]
The Landgrave was not averse, yet the matter never got any further.
The terrible quarrels amongst the theologians in the camp of the new
faith after Luther’s decease[643] put any general Protestant council
out of the question.
We can imagine what such a council would have become, if, in addition
to the theologians, the lay element had been represented to the extent
demanded at a certain Disputation held at Wittenberg under Luther’s
presidency in 1543.[644] From the idea of the whole congregation taking
its share in the government of the Church, Luther could never entirely
shake himself free. Nevertheless it is probable, that, in spite of this
Disputation, he had not really changed his mind as to the impossibility
of an Evangelical council.
If, with Luther’s, we compare Melanchthon’s attitude towards the
question of a Lutheran council we find that the latter’s wish for
such a council and his observations about it afforded him plentiful
opportunity for voicing his indignation at the religious disruption
then rampant.[645]
“Weak consciences are troubled,” he said in 1536, “and know not which
sect to follow; in their perplexity they begin to despair of religion
altogether.”[646]—“Violent sermons, which promote lawlessness and
break down all barriers against the passions, are listened to greedily.
Such preaching, more worthy of cynics than of Christians, it is which
thunders forth the false doctrine that good works are not called for.
Posterity will marvel that there should ever have been an age when such
madness was received with applause.”[647]—“Had you made the journey
with us,” he writes on his return from a visit to the Palatinate and
Swabia, “and, like us, seen the woeful desolation of the Churches in
so many places, you would doubtless long with tears and sighs that the
Princes and the learned should confer together how best to come to
the help of the Churches.”[648]—Later again we read in his letters:
“Behold how great is everywhere the danger to the Churches and how
difficult their government; for everywhere those in the ministry
quarrel amongst themselves and set up strife and division.” “We live
like the nomads, no one obeys any man in anything whatsoever.”[649]
Two provisions suggested by Luther for the future in lieu of the
impracticable synods were, the establishment of national consistories
and the use of a sort of excommunication.
_Luther’s Attitude towards the Consistories introduced in 1539_
With strange resignation Luther sought to persuade himself that, even
without the help of any synods and general laws, it would still be
possible to re-establish order by means of a certain supervision to
be exercised with the assistance of the State, backed by the penalty
of exclusion. Against laws and regulations for the guidance of the
Church’s life, he displayed an ever-growing prejudice, the reason for
this being partly his peculiar ideas on the abrogation of all governing
authority of the Church, partly the experiences with which he had met.
“So long as the sense of unity is not well rooted in the heart
and mind”—he wrote in 1545, i.e. after the establishment of the
consistories—“outward unity is not of much use, nor will it last
long.... The existing observances [in matters of worship] must not
become laws. On the contrary, just as the schoolmaster and father
of the family rule without laws, and, in the school and in the home,
correct faults, so to speak only by supervision, so, in the same way,
in the Church, everything should be done by means of supervision, but
not by rules for the future.... Everything depends on the minister
of the Word being prudent and faithful. For this reason we prefer to
insist on the erection of schools, but above all on that purity and
uniformity of doctrine which unites minds in the Lord. But, alas,
there are too few who devote themselves to study; many are just
bellies and no more, intent on their daily bread.... Time, however,
will mend much that it is impossible to settle beforehand by means of
regulations.”[650]
“If we make laws,” he continues, “they become snares for consciences
and pure doctrine is obscured and set aside, particularly if those who
come after are careless and unlearned.... Already during our lifetime
we have seen sects and dissensions enough under our very noses, how
each one follows his own way. In short, contempt for the Word on
our side and blasphemy on the other [Catholic] side proclaim loudly
enough the advent of the Last Day. Hence, above all, let us have pure
and abundant preaching of the Word! The ministers of the Word must
first of all become one heart and one soul. For if we make laws our
successors will lay claim to the same authority, and, fallen human
nature being what it is, the result will be a war of the flesh against
the flesh.”[651]
In other words Luther foresaw a war of all against all as likely sooner
or later to be the result of any thoroughgoing attempt to regulate
matters by means of laws as the Catholics did in their councils. He and
his friends were persuaded that laws could only be made effectual by
virtue of the power of the State.
Melanchthon declared: “Unless the Court supports our arrangements, what
else will they become but Platonic laws, to use a Greek saying?”[652]
The idea to which Luther had clung so long as there was any hope,
viz. to make the congregations self-governing, was but a fanciful
and impracticable one; when again, little by little, he came to seek
support from the secular authority, he did so merely under compulsion;
he felt it to involve a repudiation of his own principles, nor could he
control his jealousy when the far-reaching interference of the State
speedily became manifest.
In the Saxon electorate the consistories had been introduced in 1539,
not so much at the instance of Luther as of the committee representing
the Estates. They were to deal with ecclesiastical affairs and
disputes, with complaints against, and grievances of, the clergy,
but chiefly with the matrimonial cases. The earlier “Visitors” had
lacked executive powers. The consistory established by the Elector
at Wittenberg for the whole electorate was composed of two preachers
(Jonas and Agricola), and two lawyers. Luther raised many objections,
particularly to the consistory’s proposed use of excommunication;
he feared that, unless they stuck to his theological views, the
consistories would lead to “yet another scrimmage.” Later, however, he
gave the new organisation his support. It was not till 1541 that the
work of the consistories was more generally extended.[653]
Luther consoled himself and Spalatin as follows for the loss of
dignity which they apprehended: “The consistory will deal only with
matrimonial cases, with which we no longer will or can have any more
to do; also with the bringing back of the peasants to some sort of
discipline and the payment of stipends to the preachers.”[654]
For the Wittenberg consistory to relieve him of the matrimonial
cases was in many respects just what he desired. He had himself
frequently dealt with these cases according to the dictates of his
own ever-changing views on marriage, so far as he was allowed by
his frequent quarrels with the lawyers who questioned his right to
interfere. He now declared: “I am glad that the consistoria have been
established, especially on account of the matrimonial cases.”[655] As
early as 1536, he had written: “The peasants and rude populace who
seek nothing but the freedom of the flesh, and likewise the lawyers,
who, whenever possible, oppose our decisions, have wearied me so much
that I have flung aside the matrimonial cases and written to some
telling them that they may do just as they please in the name of all
the devils; let the dead bury their dead; for though I give much
advice, I cannot help the people when afterwards they are robbed and
teased [by the lawyers]. If the world will have the Pope then let it
have him if otherwise it cannot be.”
“So far I have not found one single lawyer,” he continues, speaking of
a certain matrimonial question, “who would hold with me against the
Pope in this or any similar case.... We theologians know nothing, and
are not supposed to count.”[656]
It was in part nausea and wounded vanity, in part also his abhorrence
for the ecclesiastical and sacramental side of marriage which
caused him repeatedly to declare: “I would we were rid of the
matrimonial business”;[657] “marriage and all its circumstances is a
political affair” (both statements date from 1538);[658] “leave the
matrimonial cases to the secular authorities, for they concern, not
the conscience, but the external law of the Princes and magistrates”
(1532).[659]
Of the ecclesiastical powers of the sovereign he declared however
(1539), “We must make the best of him as bishop, since no other bishop
will help us.”[660]
“But if things come to such a pass that the Courts try to rule as they
please,” so he wrote at a time when this principle had already begun
to bear its bitter fruit, “then the last state will be worse than
the first ... in that case let the Lords themselves be our pastors
and preachers, let them baptise, visit the sick, give communion and
perform all the other offices of the Church! Otherwise let them stop
confusing the two callings, attend to their own Courts and leave the
Churches to the clergy.... It is Satan who in our day is seeking
to introduce into the Church the counsels and the authority of the
government officials; we shall, however, resist him and keep the two
callings separate.”[661]
Yet the “two callings,” the secular and the ecclesiastical, were to
become more and more closely intermingled. As was inevitable, the weak
spiritual authority set up by Luther was soon absorbed by a strong
secular authority well aware of its own aims; the secular power treated
the former as its sacristan charged with carrying out the services of
the Church, and gradually assumed exclusive control, even in matters of
doctrine. A moral servitude such as had never been seen at any period
in the history of the German Church was the consequence of the State
government of the Church, brought about by the consistories.
In order to understand Luther’s attitude towards the consistories and
to gauge rightly his responsibility, some further particulars of their
rise and earliest form are called for.
In 1537 the “Great Committee of the Torgau district” demanded, that
the Elector should establish four consistories in his lands. On
these would devolve the looking after of “all _ecclesiasticæ causæ_,
the preaching office, the churches and ministers, their vindication
_contra injurias_, all that concerned their conduct and life, and
particularly the matrimonial suits.” Some such court was essential
in the case of these suits, because, since the dissolution of the
bishops’ courts, the utmost disorders had prevailed and nobody even
knew by which code the questions pending were to be judged, whether by
the old canon law with which the lawyers were familiar, or according
to the doctrine and statutes of Luther which were quite a different
thing. The disciplinary system too had become so lax that some
revision of the Church judiciary appeared inevitable.
As for the principles which were to direct the new organisation:
Luther was inclined at times to be forgetful of his theory, that his
Churches should have no canon law of their own;[662] even at this
grave crisis he does not seem to have been distinctly conscious of
it; at the same time his jealousy made him unwilling to see all the
authority for governing the new Churches conferred directly by the
State, though, with his usual frankness, he admitted it was impossible
for things to continue as they were. The most influential men of his
circle were, however, determined to have so-called ecclesiastical
courts introduced by the sovereign, which should then govern in his
name; hitherto, they urged, it was the purely secular courts which
had intervened, which was a mistake, as had been shown in practice by
their failure. Thus, as R. Sohm put it, “did Melanchthon’s ideas, from
about 1537, gradually oust those of Luther in the government of the
Lutheran Church.”[663]
It was from this standpoint that, in his Memorandum of 1538 addressed
to the Elector, Jonas, the lawyer and theologian, supported the
above-mentioned proposal of the Torgau assembly.
He points out that “the common people become daily more savage and
uncouth,” and that “no Christian Church can hope to stand where such
rudeness and lawlessness prevail.” According to him the authority of
the consistories was to embrace the whole domain of Church government.
They were, however, to derive their authority direct from the
sovereign, “through, and by order of, the prince of the land.” Hence
“their _iudices_ were to have the right to enforce their decisions”;
they were to be in a position to wield the Greater Excommunication
with its temporal consequences, also to inflict bodily punishment,
fines and “suitable terms of imprisonment,” and therefore to have
“men-at-arms” and “a prison” at their disposal.[664]
Jonas and those who agreed with him fancied that what they were
setting up with the help of the secular power was a spiritual court;
in reality, however, they were advocating a purely secular, coercive
institution.
Luther’s views differed from those of his friends in so far
as he wished to see the new courts—which he frowned at and
distrusted—merely invested with full powers for dealing with
matrimonial suits; even here, however, he made a reservation,
insisting on the abrogation of canon law. The Elector’s edict of 1539
appointing the consistories, out of consideration for Luther, was
worded rather vaguely. The consistories were, “until further notice,”
to see to the “ecclesiastical affairs” which “have occurred so far or
shall yet occur and be brought to your cognisance.”[665] According to
this their authority was received only “until further notice” from the
ruler, to whom it fell to bring cases to their “cognisance,” and, who,
naturally kept the execution of the sentence in his own hands.
Luther, it is true, accepted the new arrangement, because, as he said,
it represented a “Church court” which could take over the matrimonial
cases. But forthwith he found himself in conflict with the lawyers
attached to the courts because they insisted on taking their stand
on canon law. To his very death, even in his public utterances, he
lashed the men of the law for thus submitting themselves to the Pope
and to the code against which his life’s struggle had been directed.
Yet the lawyers were driven to make use of the old statutes, since
they alone afforded a legal basis, and because Luther’s propositions
to the contrary—on secret marriages, for instance—lacked any general
recognition. The result of Luther’s opposition to the consistories
was, that, so long as he lived, they remained without any definite
instructions, devoid of the authority which had been promised them,
and without the coercive powers they so much needed; for the nonce
they were spiritual courts without any outward powers of compulsion,
the latter being retained by the sovereign to use at his discretion.
After Luther’s death things were changed. The consistories both in
the Saxon Electorate and in most other places where they had been
copied became exclusively organs of Church government by the State,
though still composed of theologians and lawyers. In 1579 and 1580 the
end which Luther had foreseen arrived. “The last things became, as a
matter of fact, worse than the first,” as he himself had predicted,
nay, as the result of his own action; Satan has introduced “into the
Church the counsels and the authority of government officials” (above,
p. 182).
This change, which in reality was the realisation of the ideas of
Jonas, Melanchthon and Chancellor Brück, leads Rud. Sohm, after having
portrayed in detail the circumstances, to exclaim: “The sovereign as
head of the Church! How can such a thing be even imagined? The Church
of Christ, governed solely by the word of Christ ... and by command
of the ruler of the land.”[666] Speaking of the disorder in Luther’s
Church, which recognised no canon law, the Protestant canonist says:
“Canon law was needed to assist the Word; well, it came, but only
to establish the lord of the land as lord also of the Church.” “The
State government of the Church is in contradiction with the Lutheran
profession of faith.” “If, however, the Church is determined to be
ruled by force, then the ruler must be the secular authority.”[667]
The secular authorities to which Protestantism looked for support
had been well organised throughout the Empire by the League of
Schmalkalden. Subsequent to 1535 the warlike alliance had been extended
for a further ten years. In 1539 the state of things became so
threatening, that Luther feared lest the Catholic princes should attack
the Protestants. In a sermon he referred to the “fury of Satan amongst
the blinded Papists who incite the Emperor and other kings against the
Evangel”; he, however, also added, that “we, by our boundless malice
and ingratitude, have called down the wrath of God.” They ought to
pray, “that the Emperor might not turn his arms against us who have the
pure Word of Christ.”[668] As a matter of fact, however, the Emperor
and the Empire were not in a position even to protect themselves
against the wanton behaviour of the innovators.
Amongst the outward provisions made for the future benefit of the new
Church, the League of Schmalkalden deserves the first place. In the
very year before his death Luther took steps to ensure the prolongation
of this armed alliance.[669]
Among the efforts made at home to improve matters a place belongs to
Luther’s attempts to introduce a more frequent use of excommunication.
_Luther seeks to introduce the so-called Lesser Excommunication_
The introduction of the ban engrossed Luther’s attention more
particularly after 1539, but without any special results. In 1541
we find the question raised under rather peculiar circumstances in
one of the numerous letters in which Luther complains of the secular
authorities. At Nuremberg, Wenceslaus Link had threatened certain
persons of standing with excommunication, whereupon one of the
town-councillors hurled at him the opprobrious epithet of “priestling.”
Full of indignation, Luther wrote: “It is true the civil authorities
ever have been and always will be enemies of the Church.... God has
rejected the world and, of the ten lepers, scarcely one takes His
side, the rest go over to the prince of this world.” “Excommunication
is part of the Word of God.” If they look upon our preaching as the
Word of God then it is a disgrace that they should refuse to hear of
excommunication, despise the ministers of the Word and hate the God
Whom they have confessed; they wickedly blaspheme in thus hurling the
term ‘priestling’ at His ministers.[670]
Here we get a glimpse of the difficulty which attended the introduction
of the ban: “They refuse to hear of excommunication.”
With the Greater Excommunication which involved civil disabilities, and
in particular exclusion to some extent from social intercourse, Luther
had no sympathy; he was interested in the reintroduction merely of
the Lesser Excommunication prohibiting the excommunicate to take part
in public worship, or at least to receive the Supper or to stand as
godparent. In his view the Greater Excommunication was a matter for the
sovereign and did not in the least concern the ministers of the Church;
this he points out in his Schmalkalden Articles.[671] He even was
inclined to look upon any such action of the ruler with a jealous eye;
from anything of the sort it were better for the sovereign to abstain
for fear of any awkward confusion of the spiritual with the secular
power.[672]
The “Unterricht der Visitatorn,” printed in 1528, had already suggested
to the ministers the use of a kind of Lesser Excommunication, but, in
the absence of anything definite, the proposal remained practically
a dead letter. We learn, however, that Luther pronounced his first
ban of this sort against some alleged witches.[673] Subsequently he
had strongly urged at the Court of the Elector that the authorities
should at least threaten gross contemners of religion with “exile and
punishment” as in the case of blasphemers, and that then the pastors,
after instruction and admonition had proved of no avail, should proceed
to exclude such men from church membership[674] as “heathen to be
shunned.” When mentioning this he fails to state whether or to what
extent his proposal was carried out.[675] On the other hand, he often
declares that the actual state of the masses rendered quite impossible
any ordering of ecclesiastical life according to the Gospel; he is also
fond of speaking of the danger there would be of falling back into
the Popish regulations abolished by the freedom of the Gospel, were
disciplinary measures reintroduced.
What moved Luther in 1538 to advocate the use of the ban was, first,
the action of the Elector’s haughty Captain and Governor, Hans Metzsch
at Wittenberg, who, in addition to Luther’s excommunication, was
threatened with dismissal from his office, or, as Luther expresses it,
with the Greater Excommunication of the ruler (1538), and, secondly,
the doings of a Wittenberg burgher who (Feb., 1539) dared to go to the
Supper in spite of having committed homicide. In the case of Metzsch
a form of minor excommunication was resorted to, Luther declaring
invalid the absolution and permission to communicate granted by the
Deacon Fröschel; whether or not, after this, he pronounced a further
excommunication, this much is certain, viz. that, not long after the
pair were reconciled.[676]
Many of the well-disposed on Luther’s side were in favour of the ban
as a disciplinary measure; others were intensely hostile to it. Of his
latest intention, Luther speaks at some length in a sermon of Feb.
23, 1539. He there explains how the whole congregation must be behind
the clergy in enforcing the ban; they were to be notified publicly of
any man who proved obstinate and were to pray against him; then was
to follow the formal expulsion from the congregation; re-admission to
public worship was also to take place publicly.
The plan of using the ban as a disciplinary measure was, however,
brought to nought by the efforts of the Court and the lawyers, who
wished all proceedings of the sort to devolve upon the government as
represented in the consistories.[677] Luther also encountered the
further difficulty, that, in many cases, the ban was simply ignored,
even greater scandal arising out of this public display of contempt.
Hence, owing to his experience, he came to enjoin the greatest caution.
To his former pupil, Anton Lauterbach, preacher at Pirna, he sent
the following not over-confident instructions: “Hesse’s example of
the use of excommunication pleases me. If you can establish the same
thing, well and good. But the centaurs and harpies of the Court will
look at it askance. May the Lord be our help! Everywhere licence and
lawlessness continue to spread amongst the people, but it is the fault
of the secular authorities.”[678]
The example of Hesse to which Luther referred was the Hessian
“Regulations for church discipline,” enacted in 1539 at the instance
of Bucer, in which, amongst other things, provision was made for
excommunication. So-called “elders,” appointed conjointly by the
town authorities and the congregation, were to watch over the faith
and morals of all, preachers inclusive; to them, together with the
preacher, it fell, after seeking advice of the Superintendent, to
pronounce the ban over the obdurate sinner. In the Saxon Electorate,
however, so Luther hints, this would hardly be feasible on account
of the attitude of the authorities and the utter lawlessness of the
people.
In 1538 the Elector himself had well put the difficulty which would
face any such disciplinary measure: “If only people could be found
who would let themselves be excommunicated!” He had, as Jonas related
at Luther’s table, listened devoutly to the sermon at Zerbst and then
expressed himself strongly on the universal decline in morals, the
“outrageous wickedness, gluttony and drunkenness,” etc.; he had also
said that excommunication was necessary, but had then uttered the
despairing words just quoted.[679]
Yet in spite of all Luther still continued at times to hold up the
ban and its consequences as a threat: “I shall denounce him from the
pulpit as having been placed under the ban”—this of a burgher who had
absented himself from the Sacrament for fifteen years—“and will give
notice that he is to be looked upon as a dog; if, after this, anyone
holds intercourse or has anything to do with him, he will do so at
his own risk; if he dies he is to be buried on the rubbish-heap like
a dog; we formally make him over to the authorities for their justice
and their laws to do their worst on him.”[680]—“As for our usurers,
drunkards, libertines, whoremongers, blasphemers and scoffers,” he
says, “they do not require to be put under the ban, as they have done
so themselves; they are in it already up to their ears.... When they
are about to die, no pastor or curate may attend them, and when they
are dead let the hangman drag them out of the town to the carrion
heap.... Since they wish to be heathen, we shall look upon them as
such.”[681]
Such self-imposed excommunication was so frequent that the other, viz.
that to be imposed by the preacher, was but rarely needed.—“This
is the true and chief reason why the ban has everywhere fallen
into disuse,” Luther declares, echoing the Elector, “because real
Christians are everywhere so few, so small a body and so insignificant
in number.”[682] He too could exclaim with a sigh: “If only there were
people who would let themselves be banned.”
But even had such people been forthcoming, those who would have to
pronounce the ban were too often anything but perfect. What was
needed was prudent, energetic and disinterested preachers, for, in
order “to make use of the ban, we have need of good, courageous,
spiritual-minded ministers; we have too many who are immersed in
worldly business.” “I fear our pastors will be over-bold and grasp at
temporalities and at property.”[683]
_The want of a Hierarchy. Ordinations_
Sebastian Franck of Donauwörth, a man responsible for some fanatical
doctrines, but a good observer of events, wrote in 1534 in his
“Cosmography”: “Every sect has its own teacher, leader and priest, so
that now no one can write of the German faith, and a whole volume would
be necessary, and indeed would not suffice, to enumerate all their
sects and beliefs.” “Men will and must have a Pope,” he says, “they
will steal one or dig one out of the earth, and if you take one from
them every day they will soon find a new one.”[684]
It was not, however, exactly a “Pope” that the various sects desired;
the great and commanding name of the author of the schism could endure
none other beside it, quite apart from the impossibility of anything of
the sort being realised. On the other hand, the appointment of bishops
to the new Churches, i.e. the introduction of a kind of hierarchy, had
been discussed since about 1540.
Luther saw well enough what a firm foundation the Church of the
“Papists” possessed in its episcopate. Would not the introduction of
eminent Lutheran preachers into the old German episcopal sees and
their investment with the secular authority and quality of bishops,
serve to strengthen the cause of the Evangel where it was weakest?
The Superintendents did not suffice, though these officers, first
introduced in the Saxon Visitation of 1527, held a post of supervision
duly recognised in the Church.
“The Papists boast of their bishops,” said Luther, “and of their
spiritual authority though it is contrary to God’s ordinances.”[685]
“They are all set on retaining the bishops, and simply want to reform
them.”[686] “In Germany the bishops are wealthy and powerful, they
have a position and authority and they rule of their own power.”[687]
“If only we had one or two bishops on our side, or could induce them
to come over to us!”[688]
On Ascension Day, May 15, 1539, we are told that “Luther dined with
his Elector and assisted at a council. It was there resolved to
maintain the bishops in their authority, if only they would renounce
the Pope and were pious persons devoted to the Gospel, like Speratus.
In that case,” said Luther, “we shall grant them the right and the
power to ordain ministers.” When Melanchthon attempted to dissuade
him, pointing out that it would be difficult to make sure of them
by examination, he replied: “They are to be tested by our people
and then consecrated by the laying on of hands, just as I am now a
bishop.”[689] Instead of the words “as I am now a bishop” a more
likely rendering is, “as we have already done as bishops here at
Wittenberg.”[690] The resolution indicated would seem to have been
merely provisional and non-committal, possibly a mere project. Nor is
it likely that Melanchthon can have been very averse to it.
As a matter of fact, Luther had, like a bishop, already ordained or
inducted into office such men as had been “called” to the ministry,
viz. by the congregations or the authorities; this he did for the
first time in 1525 in the case of George Rörer, who had been called
to the archdiaconate of Wittenberg. The ordination took place with
imposition of hands and prayer. Since 1535 there existed a Wittenberg
oath of ordination to be taken by the preachers and pastors who should
be appointed, by which they bound themselves to preserve and to teach
the “Catholic” faith as taught at Wittenberg.[691]
Luther did not think that any consecration at the hands of the
existing episcopate was necessary for a new bishop;[692] such
necessity was incompatible with his conception of the Church, the
hierarchy and the common priesthood; as for the Sacrament of Orders in
the usual sense of the word, it no longer existed.
A welcome opportunity for setting up a Protestant “bishop” was
presented to the Elector of Saxony and to Luther when the bishopric of
Naumburg-Zeitz fell vacant (above, p. 165 f.).
Johann Frederick, the Elector, not satisfied with his rights as
protector, laid claim also to actual sovereignty, and as the
innovations had, as stated above, already secured a footing in
Naumburg, he determined to introduce a Lutheran preacher as bishop
and to seize upon the rights and lands in spite of the Chapter and
larger part of the nobility still being true to the Catholic faith.
He appealed to the fact that the kings of England, Denmark and
Sweden, and likewise the Duke of Prussia, had set their bishops in
“order.”[693] The noble and scholarly Julius Pflug, whom wisely the
Chapter at once elected to the vacant see, was, as related above,
never to be allowed to ascend the episcopal throne.
4. Consecration of Nicholas Amsdorf as “Evangelical Bishop” of Naumburg
(1542)
At first Luther was loath under the circumstances to advise the setting
up in Naumburg of a bishop of the new faith. To him and to his advisers
the step appeared too dangerous. Nevertheless, on hearing of the
election of Pflug, he wrote as follows to the Elector: These Naumburg
canons “are desperate people and the devil’s very own. But what cannot
be carried off openly, may be won by waiting. Some day God will let it
fall into your Electoral Highness’s hands, and the devil’s wiseacres
will be caught in their own wisdom.”[694]
When, however, the Elector obstinately insisted on putting into
execution his plan, contrary to justice and to the laws of the Empire
as it was, and when his agents had already begun to govern the new
territory, Luther’s views and those of the Wittenberg theologians
gradually changed. It was difficult, they wrote, to “map out beforehand
the order” of the German Church; the question whether they would have
bishops, or do without, had not yet been decided; meanwhile the Prince
had better establish a consistory. Later on, however, they advised the
appointment of a bishop, for the Church cannot be without its bishop
and the Chapter had forfeited its rights; there was, nevertheless,
to be a real and genuine election at which the faithful were to be
represented.[695]
Luther and his friends wanted to have as bishop Prince George of
Anhalt, Canon of Magdeburg and Merseburg, who shared the Wittenberg
views.
To the Elector, however, who had other plans of his own, it seemed,
that, owing to his position, this Prince might not prove an easy tool
in his sovereign’s hands. Nicholas Amsdorf, preacher at Magdeburg,
who for long years had been Luther’s associate, was accounted one of
his most determined supporters and, as time went on, even gained for
himself the reputation of being “more Lutheran than Luther,” appeared
a more likely candidate. It was no difficult matter to secure Luther’s
consent. He gave Amsdorf the following testimonial: “He was richly
endowed by God, learned and proficient in Holy Scripture, more so than
the whole crowd of Papists; also a man of good life and faithful and
upright at heart.” The fact that he was unmarried was a recommendation
for the post, even from the point of view of “Papal law.”[696]
It has already been mentioned that Amsdorf was later on to write the
book “That good works are harmful to Salvation,” and that, previously,
about 1525, he was active in making matches between the escaped nuns
and the leaders of the innovations. Melanchthon, writing to Johannes
Ferinarius, says: “He was an adulterer, and lay with the wife of his
deacon at Magdeburg”; of this we hear from the Luther researcher J. K.
Seidemann, who quotes from a Dresden MS.[697]
_The Ceremony at Naumburg_
The 20 Jan., 1542, was appointed for the “consecration” of the bishop.
Two days before, the Elector of Saxony made his solemn entry into the
little town on the Saale escorted by some three hundred horsemen, the
gentlemen all clothed in decorous black. His brother Johann Ernest
and Duke Ernest of Brunswick were in his train. Luther, Melanchthon
and Amsdorf also took part in the procession. It was a mere formality
when the Chapter (or rather the magistrates of the towns of Zeitz and
Naumburg, and the knights, though only such as were Protestant) were
asked to cast their votes in favour of Amsdorf; in reality the will of
Johann Frederick was law. Their scruples concerning the oath they had
taken under the former bishop, of everlasting fidelity to the Catholic
Chapter were, at their desire, dealt with by Luther himself, who
argued that no oath taken by the sheep to the wolves could be of any
account, and that no duty “could be binding which ran counter to God’s
commandment to do away with idolatrous doctrine.”[698]
The “consecration” then took place on the day appointed, within the
venerable walls of the mediæval Cathedral of Naumburg, ostensibly
according to the usage of the earliest ages, when the Church had not
as yet fallen away from the Gospel. The Blessing and imposition of
hands were to signify that the Church of Naumburg, i.e. the whole
flock, was wedded to its bishop; he too, in like manner, would
ceremonially proclaim his readiness to take charge of this same flock.
The bishops of the adjoining sees, who, in accordance with the custom
of antiquity should have assembled to perform the consecration, were
represented by three superintendents and one apostate Abbot. “At this
consecration [to quote Luther’s own words] the following bishops, or
as we shall call them parsons, shall officiate: Dr. Nicholas Medler,
parson and super-attendant of Naumburg, Master George Spalatin, parson
and super-attendant at Aldenburg [the former preacher at the Court of
the Elector], Master Wolfgang Stein, parson and super-attendant at
Weissenfels”[699] (also Abbot Thomas of St. George’s near Naumburg).
Luther is silent concerning the two requirements which, according to
the olden views, were the most essential for the consecration of a
bishop, viz. the ritual consecration, which only a consecrated bishop
could impart, and the jurisdiction or authority to rule, only to be
derived from bishops yet more highly placed in the hierarchy, or from
the Pope. Both these Luther himself had to supply.
At the outset of the ceremony Nicholas Medler announced the deed which
was about to be undertaken “through God’s Grace,” to which the people
assented by saying “Amen.” After this Luther preached a sermon on the
Bible-text addressed to the Church’s heads: “Take heed to yourselves
and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops
to rule the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood”
(Acts xx. 28). After the sermon Amsdorf knelt before the altar
surrounded by the four assistants and the “_Veni Creator_” was sung.
Luther admonished the future bishop concerning his episcopal duties,
and, on the latter giving a satisfactory answer, in common with the
four others, he laid his hands on his head; after this Luther himself
offered a prayer for him. The “_Te Deum_” was then sung in German.
Hence the bishop’s consecration took place in much the same way as the
ordination of the preachers, viz. by imposition of hands and prayer.
Luther himself had some misgivings concerning the step and its
far-reaching consequences.
He wrote not long after to Jacob Probst, pastor at Bremen, whom he
here addresses as bishop: “I wonder you have not heard the news, how,
namely, on Jan. 20, Dr. Nicholas Amsdorf was ordained by the heresiarch
Luther bishop of the church of Naumburg. It was a daring act and will
arouse much hatred, animosity and indignation against us. I am hard
at work hammering out a book on the subject. What the result will be
God knows.” He adds: “Jonas is working successfully for the kingdom of
Christ at Halle [where he had been appointed pastor] in spite of the
accursed Heinz and Meinz [Duke Henry of Brunswick and Archbishop Albert
of Mayence]. My own lordship and Katey my Moses greet you and your
spouse. Pray for me that I may die at the right hour, for I am sick of
this life, or rather of this unspeakably bitter death.”[700]
_Luther’s booklet on the Consecration of Bishops_
The bitter work which Luther, at the request of the Elector and
the Naumburg Estates, “hammered out,” in vindication of this act
of violence, appeared in the same year, i.e. 1542, under the title
“Exempel einen rechten Christlichen Bischoff zu weihen.”[701]