LUTHER IN HIS DISMAL MOODS, HIS SUPERSTITION AND DELUSIONS
1. His Persistent Depression in Later Years Persecution Mania and
Morbid Fancies
AMONG the various causes of the profound ill-humour and despondency,
which more and more overshadowed Luther’s soul during the last ten
years of his life, the principal without a doubt was his bitter
disappointment.
He was disappointed with what he himself calls the “pitiable spectacle”
presented by his Church no less than with the firmness and stability
of the Papacy. Not only did the Papal Antichrist refuse to bow to the
new Evangel or to be overthrown “by the mere breath of Christ’s mouth,”
as Luther had confidently proclaimed would be the case, but, in the
evening of his days, it was actually growing in strength, its members
standing shoulder to shoulder ready at last to seek inward reform by
means of a General Council.
The melancholy to which he had been subject in earlier years had
been due to other thoughts which not seldom pressed upon him, to his
uncertainty and fear of having to answer before the Judge. In his old
age such fears diminished, and the voices which had formerly disquieted
him scarcely ever reached the threshold of his consciousness; by
dint of persistent effort he had hardened himself against such
“temptations.” The idea of his Divine call was ever in his mind,
though, alas, it proved only too often a blind guide incapable of
transforming his sense of discouragement into any confidence worthy of
the name. At times this idea flickers up more brightly than usual; when
this happens his weariness seems entirely to disappear and makes room
for the frightful outbursts of bitterness, hate and anger of a soul at
odds both with itself and with the whole world.
Doubtless his state of health had a great deal to do with this,
for, in his feverish activity, he had become unmindful of certain
precautions. Lost in his exhausting literary labours and public
controversies his state of nervous excitement became at last unbearable.
The depression which is laying its hand on him manifests itself in
the hopeless, pessimistic tone of his complaints to his friends,
in his conviction of being persecuted by all, in his superstitious
interpretations of the Bible and the signs of the times, in his
expectation of the near end of all, and in his firm persuasion that the
devil bestrides and rules the world.
_His Depression and Pessimism_
Disgust with work and even with life itself, and an appalling unconcern
in the whole course of public affairs, are expressed in some of his
letters to his friends.
“I am old and worked out—‘old, cold and out of shape,’ as they
say—and yet cannot find any rest, so greatly am I tormented every day
with all manner of business and scribbling. I now know rather more of
the portents of the end of this world; that it is indeed on its last
legs is quite certain, with Satan raging so furiously and the world
becoming so utterly beastly. My only remaining consolation is that the
end cannot be far off. Now at last fewer false doctrines will spring
up, the world being weary and sick of the Word of God; for if they
take to living like Epicureans and to despising the Word, who will
then have any hankering after heresies?... Let us pray ‘Thy will be
done,’ and leave everything to take its course, to fall or stand or
perish; let things go their own way if otherwise they will not go.”
“Germany,” he says, “has had its day and will never again be what it
once was”; divided against itself it must, so he fancies, succumb to
the devil’s army embodied in the Turks. This to Jakob Probst, the
Bremen preacher.[802] Not long after he wrote to the same: “Germany
is full of scorners of the Word.... Our sins weigh heavily upon us as
you know, but it is useless for us to grumble. Let things take their
course, seeing they are going thus.”[803]
To Amsdorf he says in a letter that he would gladly die. “The world is
a dreadful Sodom.” “And, moreover, it will grow still worse.” “Could
I but pass away with such a faith, such peace, such a falling asleep
in the Lord as my daughter [who had just died]!”[804] Similarly, in
another letter to Amsdorf we read: “Before the flood the world was as
Germany now is before her downfall. Since they refuse to listen they
must be taught by experience. It will cry out with Jeremias [li. 9]:
‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed; let us forsake
her.’ God is indeed our salvation, and to all eternity will He shield
us.”[805]
“We will rejoice in our tribulation,” so he encourages his former
guest Cordatus, “and leave things to go their way; it is enough that
we, and you too, should cause the sun of our teaching to rise all
cloudless over the wicked world, after the example of God our Father,
Who makes His sun to shine on the just and the unjust. The sun of our
doctrine is His; what wonder then if people hate us.” “Thus we can
see,” so he concludes, that “outwardly we live in the kingdom of the
devil.”[806]
Plunged in such melancholy he is determined, without trusting in
human help, so he writes to his friend Jonas, “to leave the guidance
of all things to Christ alone”; of all active work he was too weary;
everything was “full of deception and hypocrisy, particularly amongst
the powerful”; to sigh and pray was the best thing to do; “let us put
out of our heads any thought and plans for helping matters, for all is
alike useless and deceitful, as experience shows.”[807]
Christ had taken on Himself the quieting of consciences, hence, with
all the more confidence, “might they entrust to Him the outcome of
the struggle between the true Church and the powers of Satan.” “True,
Christ seems at times,” he writes to his friend Johann August, “to
be weaker than Satan; but His strength will be made perfect in our
weakness (2 Cor. xii. 9), His wisdom is exalted in our foolishness,
His goodness is glorified in our sins and misdeeds in accordance with
His wonderful and inscrutable ways. May He strengthen you and us, and
conform us to His likeness for the honour of His mercy.”[808]
During such a period of depression his fears are redoubled when he
hears of the atrocities perpetrated by the Turks at Stuhlweissenburg;
the following is his interpretation of the event: “Satan has noticed
the approach of the Judgment Day and shows his fear. What may be his
designs on us? He rages because his time is now short. May God help
us manfully to laugh at all his fury!” He laments with grim irony the
greed for gain and the treachery of the great. “Devour everything
in the devil’s name,” he cries to them, “Hell will glut you,” and
continues: “Come, Lord Jesus, come, hearken to the sighing of Thy
Church, hasten Thy coming; wickedness is reaching its utmost limit;
soon it must come to a head, Amen.”
Even this did not suffice and Luther again adds: “I have written the
above because it seems better than nothing. Farewell, and teach the
Church to pray for the Day of the Lord; for there is no hope of a
better time coming. God will listen only when we implore the quick
advent of our redemption, in which all the portents agree.”[809]
The outpourings of bitterness and disgust with life, which Antony
Lauterbach noted while a guest at Luther’s table in 1538, find a still
stronger echo in the Table-Talk collected by Mathesius in the years
subsequent to 1540.
In Lauterbach’s Notes he still speaks of his inner struggles with the
devil, i.e. with his conscience; this was no longer the case when
Mathesius knew him: “We are plagued and troubled by the devil, whose
bones are very tough until we learn to crack them. Paul and Christ had
enough to do with the devil. I, too, have my daily combats.”[810] He
had learnt how hard it was “when mental temptations come upon us and
we say, ‘Accursed be the day I was born’”; rather would he endure the
worst bodily pains during which at least one could still say, “Blessed
be the Name of the Lord.”[811] The passages in question will be quoted
at greater length below.
But according to Lauterbach’s Notes of his sayings he was also very
bitter about the general state of things: “It is the world’s way to
think of nothing but of money,” he says, for instance, “as though on
it hung soul and body. God and our neighbour are despised and people
serve Mammon. Only look at our times; see how full all the great ones,
the burghers too, and the peasants, are with avarice and how they
stamp upon religion.... Horrible times will come, worse even than
befell Sodom and Gomorrha!”[812]—“All sins,” he complains, “rage
mightily, as we see to-day, because the world of a sudden has grown so
wanton and calls down God’s wrath upon its head.” In these words he
was bewailing, as Lauterbach relates, the “impending misfortunes of
Germany.”[813]—“The Church to-day is more tattered than any beggar’s
cloak.”[814] “The world is made up of nothing but contempt, blasphemy,
disobedience, adultery, pride and thieving; it is now in prime
condition for the slaughter-house. And Satan gives us no rest, what
with Turk, Pope and fanatics.”[815]
“Who would have started preaching,” he says in the same year,
oppressed by such experiences, “had he known beforehand that such
misfortune, fanatism, scandal, blasphemy, ingratitude and wickedness
would be the sequel?”[816] To live any longer he had not the slightest
wish now that no peace was to be hoped for from the fanatics.[817] He
even wished his wife and children to follow him to the grave without
delay because of the evil times to come soon after.[818]
* * * * *
In the conversations taken down by Mathesius in the ‘forties Luther’s
weariness of life finds even stronger expression, nor are the words
in which he describes it of the choicest: “I have had enough of the
world and it, too, has had enough of me; with this I am well content.
It fancies that, were it only rid of me, all would be well....” As I
have often repeated: “I am the ripe shard and the world is the gaping
anus, hence the parting will be a happy one.”[819] “As I have often
repeated”; the repulsive comparison had indeed become a favourite
one with him in his exasperation. Other sayings in the Table-Talk
contain unmistakable allusions to the bodily excretions as a term
of comparison to Luther’s so ardently desired departure from this
world.[820] The same coarse simile is met in his letters dating from
this time.[821]
The reason of his readiness to depart, viz. the world’s hatred for
his person, he elsewhere depicts as follows; the politicians who were
against him, particularly those at the Dresden court, are “Swine,”
deserving of “hell-fire”; let them at least leave in peace our
Master, the Son of God, and the Kingdom of Heaven also; with a quiet
conscience we look upon them as abandoned bondsmen of the devil, whose
oaths though sworn to a hundred times over are not the least worthy of
belief; “we must scorn the devil in these devils and sons of devils,
yea, in this seed of the serpent.”[822]
“The gruff, boorish Saxon,”[823] as Luther calls himself, here comes
to the fore. He seeks, however, to refrain from dwelling unduly on
the growing lack of appreciation shown for his authority; he was even
ready, so he said, “gladly to nail to the Cross those blasphemers and
Satan with them.”[824]
“I thank Thee, my good God,” he once said in the winter 1542-43 to
Mathesius and the other people at table, “for letting me be one of
the little flock that suffers persecution for Thy Word’s sake; for
they do not persecute me for adultery or usury, as I well know.”[825]
According to the testimony of Mathesius he also said: “The Courts
are full of Eceboli and folk who change with the weather. If only a
real sovereign like Constantine came to his Court [the Elector’s]
we should soon see who would kiss the Pope’s feet.” “Many remain
good Evangelicals because there are still chalices, monstrances and
cloistral lands to be taken.”[826] That a large number, not only of
the high officials, but even of the “gentry and yokels,” were “tired”
of him is clear from statements made by him as early as 1530. Wishing
then to visit his father who lay sick, he was dissuaded by his friends
from undertaking the journey on account of the hostility of the
country people towards his person: “I am compelled to believe,” so he
wrote to the sick man, “that I ought not to tempt God by venturing
into danger, for you know how both gentry and yokels feel towards
me.”[827] “Amongst the charges that helped to lessen his popularity
was his supposed complicity in the Peasant War and in the rise of the
Sacramentarians.”[828]
“Would that I and all my children were dead,” so he repeats, according
to Mathesius,[829] “_Satur sum huius vitae_”; it was well for the
young, that, in their thoughtlessness and inexperience, they failed to
see the mischief of all the scandals rampant, for else “they would not
be able to go on living.”[830]—“The world cannot last much longer.
Amongst us there is the utmost ingratitude and contempt for the Word,
whilst amongst the Papists there is nothing but blood and blasphemy.
This will soon knock the bottom out of the cask.”[831] There would be
no lack of other passages to the same effect to quote from Mathesius.
_Some of the Grounds for His Lowness of Spirits_
Luther is so communicative that it is easy enough to fix on the various
reasons for his depression, which indeed he himself assigns.
To Melanchthon Luther wrote: “The enmity of Satan is too Satanic
for him not to be plotting something for our undoing. He feels that
we are attacking him in a vital spot with the eternal truth.”[832]
Here it is his gloomy forebodings concerning the outcome of the
religious negotiations, particularly those of Worms, which lead him
so to write. The course of public events threw fresh fuel on the
flame of his anger. “I have given up all hope in this colloquy....
Our theological gainstanders,” so he says, “are possessed of Satan,
however much they may disguise themselves in majesty and as angels of
light.”[833]—Then there was the terrifying onward march of the Turks:
“O raging fury, full of all manner of devils.” Such is his excitement
that he suspects the Christian hosts of “the most fatal and terrible
treachery.”[834]
The devil, however, also lies in wait even for his friends to
estrange them from him by delusions and distresses of conscience;
this knowledge wrings from him the admonition: “Away with the sadness
of the devil, to whom Christ sends His curse, who seeks to make out
Christ as the judge, whereas He is rather the consoler.”[835] Satan
just then was bent on worrying him through the agency of the Swiss
Zwinglians: “I have already condemned and now condemn anew these
fanatics and puffed-up idlers.” Now they refuse to admit my victories
against the Pope, and actually claim that it was all their doing.
“Thus does one man toil only for another to reap the harvest.”[836]
These satellites of Satan who work against him and against all
Christendom are hell’s own resource for embittering his old age.
Then again the dreadful state of morals, particularly at Wittenberg,
under his very eyes, makes his anger burst forth again and again;
even in his letter of congratulation to Justus Jonas on the latter’s
second marriage he finds opportunity to have a dig at the easy-going
Wittenberg magistrates: “There might be ten trulls here infecting
no end of students with the French disease and yet no one would
lift a finger; when half the town commits adultery, no one sits
in judgment.... The world is indeed a vexatious thing.” The civic
authorities, according to him, were but a “plaything in the devil’s
hand.”
At other times his ill-humour vents itself on the Jews, the lawyers,
or those German Protestant Reformers who had the audacity to hold
opinions at variance with his. Carlstadt, with his “monstrous
assertions”[837] against Luther, still poisons the air even when
Luther has the consolation of knowing, that, on Carlstadt’s death (in
1541), he had been fetched away by the “devil.” Carlstadt’s horrid
doctrines tread Christ under foot, just as Schwenckfeld’s fanaticism
is the unmaking of the Churches.
Then again there are demagogues within the fold who say: “I am your
Pope, what care I for Dr. Martin?” These, according to him, are in
almost as bad case as the others. Thus, “during our lifetime, this
is the way the world rewards us, for and on this account and behalf!
And yet we are expected to pray and heed lest the Turk slay such
Christians as these who really are worse than the Turks themselves!
As though it would not be better, if the yoke of the Turk must indeed
come upon us, to serve the Turkish foeman and stranger rather than the
Turks in our own circle and household. God will laugh at them when
they cry to Him in the day of their distress, because they mocked
at Him by their sins and refused to hearken to Him when He spoke,
implored, exhorted, and did everything, stood and suffered everything,
when His heart was troubled on their account, when He called them
by His holy prophets, and even rose up early on their account (Jer.
vii. 13; xi. 7).”[838] But such is their way; they know that it is God
Whose Word we preach and yet they say: “We shan’t listen. In short,
the wildest of wild furies have broken into them,” etc.[839]
Thus was he wont to rave when “excited,” though not until, so at least
he assures us, having first “by dint of much striving put down his
anger, his thoughts and his temptations.” “Blessed be the Lord Who has
spoken to me, comforting me: ‘Why callest thou? Let things go their
own way.’” It grieves him, so he tells us, to see the country he loves
going to rack and ruin; Germany is his fatherland, and, before his
very eyes, it is hastening to destruction. “But God’s ways are just,
we may not resist them. May God have mercy on us for no one believes
us.” Even the doctrine of letting things go their own way—to which
in his pessimism Luther grew attached in later life—he was firmly
convinced had come to him directly from the Lord, Who had “consolingly”
whispered to him these words. Even this saying reeks of his peculiar
pseudo-mysticism.
All the above outbursts are, however, put into the shade by the
utter ferocity of his ravings against Popery. Painful indeed are the
effects of his gloomy frame of mind on his attitude towards Rome. The
battle-cries, which, in one of his last works, viz. his “Wider das
Babstum vom Teuffel gestifft,” Luther hurls against the Church, which
had once nourished him at her bosom, form one of the saddest instances
of human aberration.
Yet, speaking of this work, the author assures a friend that, “in this
angry book I have done justice neither to myself nor to the greatness
of my anger; but I am quite aware that this I shall never be able
to do.”[840] “For no tongue can tell,” so he says, “the appalling
and frightful enormities of the Papal abomination, its substance,
quantity, quality, predicaments, predicables, categories, its species,
properties, differences and accidents.”[841]
The more distorted and monstrous his charges, the more they seem to
have pleased him when in this temper.
In a morbid way he now heaps together his wonted hyperboles to such
an extent, that, at times, it becomes very tiresome to read his
writings and letters; no hateful image or suspicion seems to him
sufficiently bad. “Though God Himself were to offer me Paradise for
living another forty years, I should prefer to hire an executioner to
chop off my head, for the world is so wicked; they are all becoming
rank devils.”[842] He compares his own times to those which went
before the Flood; the “rain of filth will soon begin”; he goes on to
say that he no longer understands his own times and finds himself as
it were in a strange world; “either I have never seen the world, or,
while I am asleep, a new world is born daily; not one but fancies
he is suffering injustice, and not one but is convinced he does no
injustice.”[843] With a strange note of contempt he says: “Let the
world be upset, kicked over and thrust aside, seeing it not only
rejects and persecutes God’s Word, but rages even against sound common
sense.... Even the seven devils of Cologne, who sit in the highest
temple, and who, like some of the council, still withstand us, will
God overthrow, Who breaks down the cedars of Lebanon. On account of
this [the actual and hoped-for successes at Cologne] we will rejoice
in the Lord, because by His Word He does such great things before our
very eyes.”[844]
Here, as elsewhere too, in spite of all his ill-humour, the progress
of his Evangel inspires him with hope. Nor is his dark mood entirely
unbroken, for, from time to time, his love of a joke gets the better
of it. His chief consolation was, however, his self-imposed conviction
that his teaching was the true one.
A certain playfulness is apparent in many of his letters, for instance,
in those to Jonas, one of his most intimate of friends: “Here is a
conundrum,” writes Luther to him, “which my guests ask me to put to
you. Does God, the wise administrator, annually bestow on the children
of men more wine or more milk? I think more milk; but do you give
your answer. And a second question: Would a barrel that reached from
Wittenberg to Kemberg be large and ample enough to hold all the wine
that our unwise, silly, foolish God wastes and throws away on the most
ungrateful of His children, setting it before Henries and Alberts, the
Pope and the Turk, all of them men who crucify His Son, whereas before
His own children He sets nothing but water? You see that, though I
am not much better than a corpse, I still love to chat and jest with
you.”[845]
In the Table-Talk, recently published by Kroker from the notes
taken by Mathesius in the last years of Luther’s life, the latter’s
irrepressible and saving tendency to jest is very apparent; his humour
here is also more spontaneous than in his letters, with the possible
exception of some of those he wrote to Catherine Bora.[846]
_Suspicion and Mania of Persecution_
A growing inclination to distrust, to seeing enemies everywhere and to
indulging in fearsome, superstitious fancies, stamps with a peculiar
impress his prevailing frame of mind.
His vivid imagination even led him, in April, 1544, to speak of “a
league entered into between the Turks and the most holy, or rather most
silly, Pope”; this was undoubtedly one of the “great signs” foretold by
Christ; “these signs are here in truth and are truly great.”[847] “The
Pope would rather adore the Turk,” he exclaims later, “nay, even Satan
himself, than allow himself to be put in order and reformed by God’s
Word”; he even finds this confirmed in a new “Bull or Brief.”[848]
He has heard of the peace negotiations with the Turks on the part of
the Pope and the Emperor, and of the neutrality of Paul III towards
the Turcophil King of France; he is horrified to see in spirit an
embassy of peace, “loaded with costly presents and clad in Turkish
garments,” wending its way to Constantinople, “there to worship the
Turk.” Such was the present policy of the Roman Satan, who formerly
had used indulgences, annates and countless other forms of robbery
to curtail the Turkish power. “Out upon these Christians, out upon
these hellish idols of the devil!”[849]—The truth is that, whereas
the Christian States winced at the difficulties or sought for delay,
Pope Paul III, faithful to the traditional policy of the Holy See,
insisted that it was necessary to oppose by every possible means the
Turk who was the Church’s foe and threatened Europe with ruin. The only
ground that Luther can have had for his suspicions will have been the
better relations then existing between the Pope and France which led
the Turkish fleet to spare the Papal territory on the occasion of its
demonstration at the mouth of the Tiber.[850]
But Luther was convinced that the Pope had no dearer hope than to
thwart Germany, and the Protesters in particular. It was the Pope and
the Papists whom he accused to Duke Albert of Prussia of being behind
the Court of Brunswick and of hiring, at a high price, the services of
assassins and incendiaries. To Wenceslaus Link he says, that it will
be the priests’ own fault if the saying “To death with the priests” is
carried into practice;[851] to Melanchthon he also writes: “I verily
believe that all the priests are bent on being killed, even against our
wish.”[852]—It was the Papists sure enough, who introduced the maid
Rosina into his house, in order that she might bring it into disrepute
by her immoral life;[853] they had also sent men to murder him, from
whom, however, God had preserved him;[854] they had likewise tried to
poison him, but all to no purpose.[855] We may recall how he had said:
“I believe that my pulpit-chair and cushion were frequently poisoned,
yet God preserved me.”[856] “Many attempts, as I believe, have been
made to poison me.”[857]
He had even once declared that poisoning was a regular business with
Satan: “He can bring death by means of a leaflet from off a tree; he
has more poison phials and kinds of death at his beck and call than
all the apothecaries in all the world; if one poison doesn’t work he
uses another.”[858] He had long been convinced that the devil was
able to carry through the air those who made themselves over to him;
“we must not call in the devil, for he comes often enough uncalled,
and loves to be by us, hardened foe of ours though he be.... He is
indeed a great and mighty enemy.”[859] Towards the end of his life, in
1541, it came to his ears that the devil was more than usually busy
with his poisons: “At Jena and elsewhere,” so he warns Melanchthon,
“the devil has let loose his poisoners. It is a wonder to me why
the great, knowing the fury of Satan, are not more watchful. Here
it is impossible any longer to buy or to use anything with safety.”
Melanchthon was therefore to be careful when invited out; at Erfurt
the spices and aromatic drugs on sale in the shops had been found
to be mixed with poison; at Altenburg as many as twelve people had
died from poison taken in a single meal. Anxious as he was about his
friend, his trust was nevertheless unshaken in the protection of God
and the angels. I myself am still in the hands of my Moses (Katey), he
adds, “suffering from a filthy discharge from my ear and meditating in
turn on life and on death. God’s Will be done. Amen. May you be happy
in the Lord now and for ever.”[860]
“A new art of killing us,” so he tells Melanchthon in the same year,
had been invented by Satan, viz. of mixing poison with our wine and
milk; at Jena twelve persons were said to have died of poisoned wine,
“though more likely of too much drink”; at Magdeburg and Nordhausen,
however, milk had been found in the possession of the sellers that
seemed to have been poisoned. “At any rate, all things lie under
Christ’s feet, and we shall suffer so long and as much as He pleases.
For the nonce we are supreme and they [the Papist ‘monsters’] are
hurrying to destruction.... So long as the Lord of Heaven is at the
helm we are safe, live and reign and have our foes under our feet.
Amen.” Casting all fear to the winds he goes on to comfort Melanchthon
and his faint-hearted comrades in the tone of the mystic: “Fear
not; you are angels, nay, great angels or archangels, working, not
for us but for the Church, nay, for God, Whose cause it is that you
uphold, as even the very gates of hell must admit; these, though they
may indeed block our way, cannot overcome us, because at the very
beginning of the world the hostile, snarling dragon was overthrown by
the Lion of the tribe of Juda.”[861]
The hostility of the Papists to Lutheranism, had, so Luther thought,
been manifestly punished by Heaven in the defeat of Henry of Brunswick;
it had “already been foretold in the prophecies pronounced against
him,” which had forecasted his destruction as the “son of perdition”;
he was a “warning example set up by God for the tyrants of our days”;
for every contemner of the Word is “plainly a tyrant.”[862]
Luther was very suspicious of Melanchthon, Bucer and others who leaned
towards the Zwinglian doctrine on the Supper. So much had Magister
Philippus, his one-time right-hand man, to feel his displeasure and
irritability that the latter bewails his lot of having to dwell as
it were “in the very den of the Cyclopes” and with a real “tyrant.”
“There is much in one’s intercourse with Luther,” so Cruciger said
confidentially, in 1545, in a letter to Veit Dietrich, “that repels
those who have a will of their own and attach some importance to their
own judgment; if only he would not, through listening to the gossip of
outsiders, take fire so quickly, chiding those who are blameless and
breaking out into fits of temper; this, often enough, does harm even in
matters of great moment.”[863] Luther himself was by no means unwilling
to admit his faults in this direction and endeavoured to make up for
them by occasionally praising his fellow-workers in fulsome terms; Yet
so deep-seated was his suspicion of Melanchthon’s orthodoxy, that he
even thought for a while of embodying his doctrine on the Sacrament in
a formulary, which should condemn all his opponents and which all his
friends, particularly those whom he had reason to mistrust, should be
compelled to sign. This, according to Bucer, would have involved the
departure of Melanchthon into exile. Bucer expressed his indignation at
this projected “abominable condemnation” and at the treatment meted out
to Melanchthon by Luther.[864]
Bucer himself was several times the object of Luther’s wrath, for
instance, for his part in the “Cologne Book of Reform”: “It is nothing
but a lot of twaddle in which I clearly detect the influence of that
chatterbox Bucer.”[865] When Jakob Schenk arrived at Wittenberg after a
long absence Luther was so angry with him for not sharing his views as
to refuse to receive him when he called; he did the same in the case
of Agricola, in spite of the fact that the latter brought a letter of
recommendation from the Margrave of Brandenburg; in one of his letters
calls him: “the worst of hypocrites, an impenitent man!”[866] From
such a monster, so he said, he would take nothing but a sentence of
condemnation. As for his former friend Schenk, he ironically offers
him to Bishop Amsdorf as a helper in the ministry. On both of them he
persisted in bestowing his old favourite nicknames, Jeckel and Grickel
(Jakob and Agricola).
_Luther’s Single-handed Struggle with the Powers of Evil_
Owing to the theological opinions reached by some of his one-time
friends Luther, as may well be understood, began to be oppressed by a
feeling of lonesomeness.
The devil, whom he at least suspected of being the cause of his bodily
pains,[867] is now backing the Popish teachers, and making him to be
slighted. But, by so doing, thanks to Luther’s perseverance and bold
defiance, he will only succeed in magnifying Christ the more.
“He hopes to get the better of us or to make us downhearted. But,
as the Germans say, _cacabimus in os eius_. Willy-nilly, he shall
suffer until his head is crushed, much as he may, with horrible
gnashing of teeth, threaten to devour us. We preach the Seed of the
woman; Him do we confess and to Him would we assign the first place,
wherefore He is with us.”[868] In his painful loneliness he praises
“the heavenly Father Who has hidden these things [Luther’s views on
religion] from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes and
little ones who cannot talk, let alone preach, and are neither clever
nor learned.”[869] This he says in a sermon. The clever doctors, he
adds, “want to make God their pupil; everyone is anxious to be His
schoolmaster and tutor. And so it has ever been among the heretics....
In the Christian churches one bishop nags at the other, and each
pastor snaps at his neighbour.... These are the real wiselings of whom
Christ speaks who know a lot about horses’ bowels, but who do not
keep to the road which God Himself has traced for us, but must always
go their own little way.” Indeed it is the fate of “everything that
God has instituted to be perverted by the devil,” by “saucy folk and
clever people.” “The devil has indeed smeared us well over with fools.
But they are accounted wise and prudent simply because they rule and
hold office in the Churches.”[870]
Let us leave them alone then and turn our backs on them, no matter
how few we be, for “God will not bear in His Christian Churches men
who twist His Divine Word, even though they be called Pope, Emperor,
Kings, Princes or Doctors.... We ourselves have had much to do with
such wiselings, who have taken it upon themselves to bring about unity
or reform.”[871] “They fancy that because they are in power they have
a deeper insight into Scripture than other people.”[872] “The devil
drives such men so that they seek their own praise and glory in Holy
Scripture.” But do you say: I will listen to a teacher “only so long
as he leads me to the Son of God,” the true master and preceptor, i.e.
in other words, so long as he teaches the truth.[873]
In his confusion of mind Luther does not perceive to what his proviso
“so long as” amounts. It was practically the same as committing the
decision concerning what was good for salvation to the hands of every
man, however ignorant or incapable of sound judgment. Luther’s real
criterion remained, however, his own opinion. “If anyone teaches
another Gospel,” he says in this very sermon,[874] “contrary to that
which we have proclaimed to you, let him be anathema” (cp. Gal. i.
8). The reason why people will not listen to him is, as he here tells
them, because, by means of the filth of his arch-knaves and liars,
“the devil in the world misleads and fools all.”
Luther was convinced that he was the “last trump,” which was to herald
in the destruction, not only of Satan and the Papacy, but also of the
world itself. “We are weak and but indifferent trumpeters, but, to the
assembly of the heavenly spirits, ours is a mighty call.” “They will
obey us and our trump, and the end of the world will follow. Amen.”[875]
Meanwhile, however, he notes with many misgivings the manifestations of
the evil one. He even intended to collect in book form the instances
of such awe-inspiring portents (“_satanæ portenta_”) and to have them
printed.
For this purpose he begged Jonas to send him once more a detailed
account of the case of a certain Frau Rauchhaupt, which would have
come under this category; he tells his friend that the object of his
new book is to “startle” the people who lull themselves in such a
state of false security that not only do they scorn the wholesome
marvels of the Gospel with which we are daily overwhelmed, but
actually make light of the real “furies of furies” of the wickedness
of the world; they must read such marvellous stories, for “they
are too prone to believe neither in the goodness of God nor in the
wickedness of the devil, and too set on becoming, as indeed they are
already, just bellies and nothing more.”[876]—Thus, when Lauterbach
told him of three suicides who had ended their lives with the halter,
he at once insisted that it was really Satan who had strung them up
while making them to think that it was they themselves who committed
the crime. “The Prince of this world is everywhere at work.” “God,
in permitting such crimes, is causing the wrath of heaven to play
over the world like summer lightning, that ungrateful men, who fling
the Gospel to the winds, may see what is in store for them.” “Such
happenings must be brought to the people’s knowledge so that they may
learn to fear God.”[877] Happily the book that was to have contained
these tales of horror never saw the light; the author’s days were
numbered.
The outward signs, whether in the heavens or on the earth, “whereby
Satan seeks to deceive,” were now scrutinised by Luther more
superstitiously than ever.
Talking at table about a thunder-clap which had been heard in winter,
he quite agreed with Bugenhagen “that it was downright Satanic.”
“People,” he complains, “pay no heed to the portents of this kind
which occur without number.” Melanchthon had an experience of this
sort before the death of Franz von Sickingen. Others, whom Luther
mentions, saw wonderful signs in the heavens and armies at grips; the
year before the coming of the Evangel wonders were seen in the stars;
“these are in every instance lying portents of Satan; nothing certain
is foretold by them; during the last fifteen years there have been
many of them; the only thing certain is that we have to expect the
coming wrath of God.”[878] Years before, the signs in the heavens and
on the earth, for instance the flood promised for 1524, had seemed
to him to forebode the “world upheaval” which his Evangel would
bring.[879]
Luther shared to the full the superstition of his day. He did not
stand alone when he thus interpreted public events and everyday
occurrences. It was the fashion in those days for people, even in
Catholic circles, superstitiously to look out for portents and signs.
In 1537[880] Luther relates some far-fetched tales of this sort.
The most devoted servants of the devil are, according to him, the
sorcerers and witches of whom there are many.[881] In 1540 he related
to his guests how a schoolmaster had summoned the witches by means of
a horse’s head.[882] “Repeatedly,” so he told them in that same year,
“they did their best to harm me and my Katey, but God preserved us.”
On another occasion, after telling some dreadful tales of sorcery, he
adds: “The devil is a mighty spirit.” “Did not God and His dear angels
intervene, he would surely slay us with those thunder-clubs of his
which you call thunderbolts.”[883] In earlier days he had told them,
that, Dr. “Faust, who claimed the devil as his brother-in-law, had
declared that ‘if I, Martin Luther, had only shaken hands with him he
would have destroyed me’; but I would not have been afraid of him, but
would have shaken hands with him in God’s name and reckoning on God’s
protection.”[884]
According to him, most noteworthy of all were the diabolical deeds then
on the increase which portended a mighty revulsion and a catastrophe
in the world’s history. Everything, his laboured calculations on the
numbers in the biblical prophecies included, all point to this. Even
the appearance of a new kind of fox in 1545 seemed to him of such
importance that he submitted the case to an expert huntsman for an
opinion. He himself was unable to decide what it signified, “unless it
be that change in all things which we await and for which we pray.”[885]
The change to which he here and so often elsewhere refers is the end of
the world.
2. Luther’s Fanatical Expectation of the End of the World. His hopeless
Pessimism
The excitement with which Luther looks forward to the approaching end
of the world affords a curious psychological medley of joy and fear,
hope and defiance; his conviction reposed on a wrong reading of the
Bible, on a too high estimate of his own work, on his sad experience
of men and on his superstitious observance of certain events of the
outside world.
The fact that the end of all was nigh gradually became an absolute
certainty with him. In his latter days it grew into one of those ideas
around which, as around so many fixed stars, his other plans, fancies
and grounds for consolation revolve. To the depth of his conviction
his excessive credulity and that habit—which he shared with his
contemporaries—of reading things into natural events contributed not a
little.
A remarkable conjunction of the planets in 1524,[886] “other signs
which have been described elsewhere, such as earthquakes, pestilences,
famines and wars,” a predicted flood[887]—“all these signs
agree”[888] in announcing the great day; never have “more numerous
and greater signs” occurred during the whole course of the world’s
history to vouch for the forthcoming end of the world.[889] “All the
firmaments and courses of the heavens are declining and coming to an
end; the Elbe has stood for a whole year at the same low level, this
also is a portent.”[890] Such signs invite us to be watchful.[891]
Over and above all this we have the “many gruesome dreams of the Last
Judgment” with which he was plagued in later years.[892]
He describes to his friends quite confidently the manner of the coming
of the end such as he pictures it to himself: “Early one morning,
about the time of the spring equinox, a thick black cloud, three
lightning flashes and a thunder-clap, and, presto, everything will
lie in ruins,” etc. “I am ever awaiting the day.”[893] “Things may go
on for some years longer,”[894] perhaps for “five or six years,” but
no more, because “the wickedness of men has increased so dreadfully
within so short a time.”[895] “We shall live to see the day”; Aggeus
(ii. 7 f.) says: “Yet a little while and I will shake the heaven and
the earth”; look around you; “surely the State is being shaken ...
the household too, and even the very mob, item our own very sons and
daughters. The Church too totters.”[896]
“All the great wonders have already taken place; the Pope has been
unmasked; the world rages. Nor will things improve until the Last Day
comes. I hope, however, now that the Evangel is so greatly despised,
that the Last Day is no longer far distant, not more than a hundred
years off. God’s Word will again decline ... and the world will become
quite savage and epicurean.”[897]
_Reason and Ground of Luther’s Conviction of the near End of the World_
The actual origin and basis of this strange idea are plainly expressed
in the statement last quoted: “The Pope is unmasked” as Antichrist,
such was Luther’s starting-point. Further, “the Evangel is despised,”
by his own followers no less than by his foes; this depressing sight,
together with the sad outlook for religion generally, formed the ground
on which Luther’s conviction of the coming cataclysm grew, particularly
when the fall of the Papacy seemed to be unduly delayed, and its
strength to be even on the increase. The Bible texts which he twists
into his service are an outcome rather than the cause of his conviction
concerning Antichrist, while the “signs” in the heavens and on earth
also serve merely to confirm a persuasion derived from elsewhere.
The starting-point of the idea and the soil on which it grew deserve to
be considered separately.
Luther’s views on the unmasking of Antichrist and the approaching end
of the world carry us back to the early years of his career. Soon after
beginning his attack on the Church, he, over and over again, declared
that he had been called to reveal the Pope as Antichrist.[898] His
breach with the ecclesiastical past was so far-reaching that he could
not have expressed his position and indicated the full extent of his
aims better than by so radical an apocalyptic announcement. Nor did
it sound so entirely strange to the world. Even according to Wiclif
the Papal power was the power of “Antichrist” and the Roman Church the
“Synagogue of Satan”; John Hus likewise taught, that it was Antichrist
who, by means of the Papal penalties, was seeking to affright those who
were after “unmasking” him.
The idea of Antichrist in Luther’s mind embodied all the wickedness of
the Roman Church which it was his purpose to unmask, all the religious
perversion of which he wished to make an end, and, in a word, the
dominion of the devil against which he fancied he was to proclaim the
last and decisive combat. When, by dint of insisting in his writings,
over and over again, and in the most drastic of ways, on the Papal
Antichrist, the idea came to assume its definitive shape in his own
mind, his announcement of the end of the world could not be any longer
delayed; for, according to the generally accepted view, Antichrist
was directly to precede the coming of Christ to Judgment, or at least
the latter’s coming would not be long delayed after the revelation of
Antichrist in his true colours.[899] As a rule Antichrist was taken to
be a person; Luther, however, saw Antichrist in the Papacy as a whole.
Antichrist had had a long spell of life; the last Pope would, however,
soon fall, he, Luther, with Christ’s help, was preparing his overthrow,
then the end would come—such is the sum of Luther’s eschatological
statements during the first period of his career.
Speaking of the end of the world he often says, that the fall of
the Papacy involves it. “Assuredly,” he says, the end will shortly
follow on account of the manifest wickedness of the Pope and the
Papists. According to him, the Bible itself teaches that, “after the
downfall of the Pope and the deliverance of the poor, no one on earth
would ever again be a tyrant and inspire fear.” “This would not be
possible,” so Luther thinks, “were the world to go on after the fall
of the Pope, for the world cannot exist without tyrants. And thus the
Prophet agrees with the Apostle, viz. that Christ, when He comes,
will upset the Holy Roman Chair. God grant it may happen speedily.
Amen!”[900]
In his fantastic interpretation of the Monk-Calf he declares in a
similar way, that the near end of the world is certain in view of the
abominations of the sinking Papacy and its monkish system, which last
is symbolised in the wonderful calf: “My wish and hope are that it may
mean the Last Day, since many signs have so far coincided, and the
whole world is as it were in an uproar,”[901] the source of the whole
to-do being his triumphant contest with Antichrist. In the same way
his conviction of the magnitude and success of his mission against the
foe of Christ gives the key to his curious reading of Daniel and the
Epistle to the Thessalonians with regard to the time of Antichrist’s
advent and the end of the world, which we find set forth quite
seriously in his reply to Catharinus.[902] In short, “Antichrist will
be revealed whatever the world may do; after this Christ must come
with His Judgment Day.”[903]
When the Papacy, instead of collapsing, began to gather strength and
even proceeded to summon a Council, Luther did not cease foretelling
its fall; he predicts the end of the world in terms even stronger
than before, though the reason he assigns for his forebodings is more
and more the “contempt shown for the Word,” i.e. for his teaching and
exhortations. Disgust, disappointment and the gloomy outlook for the
future of his work are now his chief grounds for expecting the end of
all and for ardently hoping that the Day will soon dawn.... It is the
self-seeking and vice so prevalent in his own fold which wrings from
him the exclamation: “It must soon come to a head,”[904] for things
cannot long go on thus.
The last temptation which shall assail the faithful, he says, will
be “an undisciplined life”; then we shall “grow sick of the Word
and disgusted with it.” “Not even the Word of God will they endure;
... the Gospel which they [his own people] once confessed, they now
look upon as merely the word of man.” “Do you fancy you are out of
the world, or that Satan, the Prince of this world, has died or been
crucified in you?”[905] It is bitter experience that causes him to
say: “The day will dawn when Christ shall come to free us from sin and
death.”[906] “May the world go to rack and ruin and be utterly blotted
out,” “the world which has shown me such gratitude during my own
lifetime!”[907] “May the Lord call me away, for I have done, and seen,
and suffered enough evil.”[908] “Would that the Lord would put an end
to the great misery [that among us each one does as he pleases]! Oh
that the day of our deliverance would come!”[909] “The people have
waxed cold towards the Evangel.... May Christ mend all things and
hasten the Day of His Coming.”[910]
“It is a wonder to me what the world does to-day,” he said, alluding
to the turmoil in the newly acquired bishopric of Naumburg; he then
goes on to complain in the words already given (p. 233), that a new
world is growing up around him; no one will admit of having done
wrong, of having lied or sinned; those only who meet with injustice
are reputed unrighteous, liars and sinners. Verily it would soon rain
filth. “The day of our redemption draweth nigh. Amen.” “The world will
rage, but good-bye to it”![911]—“The world is indeed a contemptible
thing,” he groans, after describing the morals of Wittenberg.[912]
The conduct of the great ones at the Saxon Court led him to
surmise that “soon,” after but a few days, hell would be their
portion.[913] For those who infringe the rights of his Church he
has a similar sentence ready: “Hell will be your share. Come, Lord
Jesus, come, listen to the groaning of Thy people, and hasten Thy
coming!”—“Farewell and teach your people to pray for the day of the
Lord; for of better times there is no longer any hope.”[914]
“During our lifetime,” he laments in 1545, “and under our very eyes,
we see sects and dissensions arising, each one wishing to follow
his own fancy. In short, contempt for the Word on our own side and
blasphemy on the other seem to me to announce the times of which
John the Baptist spoke to the people, saying: ‘The axe is laid to
the root of the tree,’ etc. Accordingly, since the end at least of
this happy age is imminent, there seems no call to bother much about
setting up, or coming to an understanding regarding, those troublesome
ceremonies.”[915]
In fact, he is determined not “to bother much,” not merely about the
“ceremonies,” but about the whole question of Church organisation,
for of what use doing so when the signs of the general end of all are
increasing at such a rate? “To set up laws” is, according to him, quite
impracticable; let everything settle itself “according to the law of
God by means of the inspection.”[916]
“To Luther the end which Christ was about to put to this wicked world
seemed so near,” so we read in Köstlin-Kawerau’s biography,[917]
“that he never contemplated any progressive development and expansion
of Christendom and the Church, nor was he at all anxious about the
possible ups and downs which might accompany such development.... It is
just in his later years that we find him more firmly established than
ever in the belief, that the world will always remain the world and
that it must be left to the Lord to take what course He pleases with
it and with His Christendom, until the coming of the ‘longed-for Last
Day.’”
At any rate, since the sectarians in his own camp and the various
centrifugal forces inherent in his creation made impossible any real
organisation, he was all the more ready to welcome the thought of the
end of the world in that it distracted his mind from the sad state of
things.
On the top of the schisms and immorality of the people there was also
the avarice of those in high places, which roused his hatred and
contributed to make him sigh for the coming of the Day.
“They all rage against God and His Messias.” “This is the work of
those centaurs, the foes of the Church, kept in store for the latter
days. They are more insatiable than hell itself. But Christ, Who will
shortly come in His glory, will quiet them, not indeed with gold, but
with brimstone and flames of hell, and with the wrath of God.”[918]
It was his displeasure against some of the authorities which wrung
from him the words: “But the end is close at hand,” the end which will
also spell the end of “all this seizing—or rather thieving greed
for Church property—of the Princes, nobles and magistrates, hateful
and execrable that it is.”[919] Taking this in conjunction with the
attitude of the Catholic rulers he could say with greater confidence
than ever: “Nothing good is to be hoped for any more but this alone,
that the day of the glory of our great God and our Redeemer may
speedily break upon us.” “From so Satanic a world” he would fain be
“quickly snatched,” longing as he does for the Day and for the “end of
Satan’s raging.”[920]
_The End of the World in the Table-Talk_
In the above we have drawn on Luther’s letters. If we turn to his
Table-Talk, particularly to that dating from his later years, we find
that there, too, his frequent allusions to the approaching end of the
world are as a rule connected with his experience of the corruption in
his surroundings, especially at Wittenberg. The carelessness of the
young is sufficient to make him long for the Last Day, which alone
seemed to promise any help.
To Melanchthon, who, with much concern, had drawn his attention to the
lawlessness of the students, Luther poured out his soul, as we read in
Lauterbach’s Diary: As the students were growing daily wilder he hoped
that, “if God wills, the Last Day be not far off, the Day which shall
put an end to all things.”[921] “The ingratitude and profanity of the
world,” he also says, “makes me apprehend that this light [of the
Evangel] will not last long.” “The refinement of malice, thanklessness
and disrespect shown towards the Gospel now revealed” is so great
“that the Last Day cannot be far off.”[922]
In his Table-Talk, where Luther is naturally more communicative than
in his letters, we see even more plainly how deeply the idea of the
approaching Day of Judgment had sunk into his mind and under how
curious a shape it there abides. “Things will get so bad on this
earth,” he says, for instance, “that men will cry out everywhere:
O God, come with Thy Last Judgment.” He would not mind “eating the
agate Paternoster” (a string of beads he wore round his neck) if only
that would make the Day “come on the morrow.”[923] “The end is at the
door,” he continues, “the world is on the lees; if anyone wants to
begin something let him hurry up and make a start.”[924] “The next
day he again spoke much of the end of the world, having had many evil
dreams of the Last Judgment during the previous six months”; it was
imminent, for Scripture said so; the present hangs like a ripe apple
on the tree; the Roman Empire, “the last sweet-william” would also
soon tumble to the ground.[925]
In 1530 Luther was disposed to regard the Roman Empire under Charles
V with a rather more favourable eye. His impression then was that the
Empire, “under our Emperor Carol, is beginning to look up and becoming
more powerful than it was for many a year”; yet strange to say he knew
how to bring even this fact into connection with the Judgment Day; for
this strengthening of the Empire “seems to me,” so he goes on, “like a
sort of last effort; for when a light or wisp of straw has burnt down
and is about to go out it sends up a flame and seems just about to
flare up bravely when suddenly it dies out; this is what Christendom
is now doing thanks to the bright Evangel.”[926] Hence all he could
see was the last flicker both of the Empire and of the new teaching
before final extinction.
The noteworthy utterance about the last flicker of the Lutheran
Evangel occurs also in the Table-Talk collected by Mathesius dating
from the years 1542 and 1543. “I believe that the Last Day is not far
off. The reason is that we now see the last effort of the Evangel;
this resembles a light; when a light is about to expire it sends up
at the last a sudden flame as though it were going to burn for quite
a long while and thereupon goes out. And, though it appears now as
though the Evangel were about to be spread abroad, I fear it will
suddenly expire and the Last Day come. It is the same with a sick man;
when at the point of death he seems quite cheerful and on the high
road to recovery, and, then, suddenly, he is gone.”[927]
The Table-Talk from the Mathesius collection recently published by
Kroker, among other curious utterances of Luther’s on the end of the
world, contains also the following:
In view of the dissensions by which the new Evangel was torn the
speaker says, in 1542-43: “If the world goes on for another fifty
years things will become worse than ever, for sects will arise which
still lie hidden in the hearts of men, so that we shall not know where
we stand. Hence, dear Lord, come! Come and overwhelm them with Thy
Judgment Day, for no improvement is any longer to be looked for.”[928]
Here too he repeatedly declares that he himself is tired of the world:
“I have had enough of the world,” he says, and goes on to introduce
the ugly comparison alluded to above.[929] He adds: “The world fancies
that if only it were rid of me all would be well.” He is saddened to
see that many of his followers make little account of him: “If the
Princes and gentry won’t do it, then things will not last long.”[930]
Of the want of respect shown to his preachers he says: “Where there
is such contempt of the Divine Word and of the preachers, shall not
God smite with His fist?” “But if we preachers were to meet and
agree amongst ourselves, as has been done in the Papacy, there would
be less need for this. The worst of it is that they are not at one
even amongst themselves.” He finds a makeshift consolation for the
divergency in teaching in the thought that “so it always was even from
the beginning of the world, preachers always having disagreed amongst
themselves.” “There is a bad time coming, look you to it”; things may
go on for another fifty years now that the young have been brought up
in his doctrine, but, after that, “let them look out. Hence, let no
one fear the plague, but rather be glad to die.”[931] Not only did he
look forward to his own death, but, as we know, to that of “all his
children,” seeing that strange things would happen in the world.[932]
We have heard him say, that it was a mercy for the young, that, being
thoughtless and without experience, they did not see the harm caused
by the scandals, “else they could not endure to live.”[933] And, that
the world could “not possibly last long.” Its hours are numbered, for,
thanks to me, “everything has now been put straight. The Gospel has
been revealed.”[934]
“Christ said, that, at His coming, faith would be hard to find on
the earth (Luke xviii. 8). That is true, for the whole of Asia and
Africa is without the Evangel, and even as regards Europe no Gospel is
preached in Greece, Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, England or Poland.
The one little bright spot, the house of Saxony, will not hinder the
coming of the Last Day.”[935]
“Praise be to God Who has taught us to sigh after it and long for it!
In Popery everybody dreads it.”[936]
“Amen, so be it, Amen!” so he sighed in 1543 in a letter to Amsdorf
alluding to the end of the world. “The world was just like this before
the Flood, before the Babylonian captivity, before the destruction of
Jerusalem, before the devastation of Rome and before the misfortunes
of Greece and Hungary; so it will be and so it is before the ruin of
Germany too. They refuse to listen, so they must be made to feel. I
should be glad to console ourselves both, by discussing this thought
[of the contempt of the Papists for us] with you by word of mouth.”
“We will leave them in the lurch” and cease from attempting their
conversion. “Farewell in the Lord, Who is our Helper and Who will help
us for ever and ever. Amen.”[937]
“Under the Pope,” we read in the Colloquies, “at least the name of
Christ was retained, but our thanklessness and presumptuous sense
of security will bring things to such a pass that Christ will be no
longer even named, and so the words of the Master already quoted will
be fulfilled according to which, at His coming, no faith will remain
on the earth.”[938]
As to the circumstances which should accompany the end of the world,
he still expected the catastrophe to take place most likely about
Easter time, “early in the morning, after a thunderstorm of an hour or
perhaps a little more.”[939]
Here he no longer gives the world “a bare hundred years more,” nor
even something “not more than fifty years”;[940] he almost expects
the end to come before the completion of his translation of the Bible
into German.[941] The world will certainly not last until 1548, so
he declared, “for this would run counter to Ezechiel.”[942] He is
not quite sure whether the Golden Age begins in 1540 or not, though
such was the contention of the mathematicians; but “we shall see the
fulfilment of Scripture,”[943] or at any rate, as he prudently adds
elsewhere, our descendants will. But before this can come the “great
light” of faith would have to be dimmed still more.[944]
Luther concludes by saying that he is unable to suggest anything
further; he had done all he could; God’s vengeance on the world was
so great, he declares, that he could no longer give any advice; for
“amongst us whom God has treated so mercifully and on whom He has
bestowed all His Graces there is nothing left that is not corrupted
and perverted.”[945] “On divine authority we began to amend the world,
but it refuses to hearken; hence let it crumble to ruins, for such is
its fate!”[946]
In his predictions concerning the end of the world Luther did not
sufficiently take to heart the mishap which befell his pupil and friend
Michael Stiefel, though he himself had been at pains to reprove him.
Stiefel had calculated that the end of the world would come at 8 a.m.
on Oct. 19, 1533, at which hour he and his parishioners awaited it
assembled in the church at Lochau. Their watch was, however, in vain;
the world continued to go its way and the Court judged it expedient to
remove the preacher for a while from his post.
Taking these eschatological ideas or rather ardent wishes of Luther’s
later life in all their bearings, and giving due weight to the almost
unbounded dominion they exercised over his mind, one might well incline
to see in them signs of an unhealthy and overwrought mind. They seem to
have been due to excessive mental strain, to the reaction following on
the labours of his long life’s struggle in the cause of his mission. It
is not unlikely that pathology played some part in the depression from
which he suffered.
His early theological development also throws some light on the
psychological problem, owing to a parallel which it affords.
The middle-point and mainstay of his theology, viz. his doctrine of
Justification, was wholly a result of his own personal feelings; after
cutting it, so to speak, to his own measure he proceeded to make it
something of world-wide application, a doctrine which should rule every
detail of religious life, and around which all theology should cluster
if it is to be properly understood. In a similar way, after beginning
by adapting to his own case the theory of the near end of the world—to
which he was early addicted—he gradually came to find in it the clue
wherewith to unravel all the knotty problems which began to present
themselves. It became his favourite plan to regard everything in the
light of the end of the world and advent of Christ. Just as he was fond
of asseverating, in spite of all the contradictions it involved, that
he could find in his dogma of Justification endless comfort for both
himself and the faithful, so, too, he came to regard the Last Day, in
spite of all its terrors, as the source of the highest, nay, of the
only remaining, joy of life, for himself and for all. With a vehemence
incomprehensible to sober reason he allowed himself to be carried away
by this idea as he had been by others. Such was his temperament that he
could rejoice in the coming of the Judge, Who should deliver him from
the bonds of despair.
Hence Luther’s expectation of the end of the world was something very
different from that of certain Saints of whom Church-history tells
us. Pope Gregory I or Vincent Ferrer were not moved to foretell the
approaching end of the world by disgust with life, by disappointment,
or as a result of waging an unequal struggle with the Church of their
day, nor again because they regarded the destruction of the world as
the only escape from the confusion they had brought about. Nor do they
speak of the end of the world with any fanatical expectation of their
own personal salvation, but rather with a mixture of fear and calm
trust in God’s bounty to the righteous; they have none of Luther’s
pessimism concerning the world, and, far from desiring things to “take
their course,”[947] they exerted every nerve to ensure the everlasting
salvation of as many of their fellow-creatures as possible before the
advent of the Judge; to this end they had recourse to preaching and
the means of grace provided by the Church and insisted greatly on the
call for faith and good works. Above all, they gave a speaking proof
of their faith by their works and by the inspiring example of heroic
sanctity.
3. Melanchthon under the Double Burden, of Luther’s Personality and his
own Life’s Work
The personality of Luther counts for much among the trials which
embittered Melanchthon’s life.
The passages already quoted witnessing thereto[948] must here be
supplemented by what he himself says of his experiences at Luther’s
side, in a letter he wrote in 1548 to the councillor Carlowitz and the
Court of Saxony. There was some doubt as to what attitude Melanchthon
would adopt towards Maurice of Saxony, the new sovereign, the victor of
the Schmalkalden War, and to his demands in the matter of religion.
In the letter, which to say the least is very conciliatory,
Melanchthon says that he will know how to keep silence on any
ecclesiastical regulations, no matter how distasteful to him they
may be: for he knew what it was “to endure even a truly ignominious
bondage, Luther having frequently given the rein to his own natural
disposition, which was not a little quarrelsome, instead of showing
due consideration for his own position and the general welfare.”
He goes on to explain the nature of the habit of silence he had
so thoroughly mastered; it meant no sacrifice of his own doctrine
and views (“_non mutato genere doctrinæ_”). For twenty long years,
so he complains, he had been obliged to bear the reproaches of the
zealots of the party because he had toned down certain doctrines
and had ventured to differ from Luther; they had called him ice and
frost, accused him of being in league with the Papists, nay, of
being ambitious to secure a Cardinal’s hat. Yet he had never had the
slightest inclination to go over to the Catholics, for they “were
guilty of cruel injustice.” He must, however, say that he, who by
nature was a lover of peace and the quiet of the study, had only been
drawn into the movement of which Luther was the leader because he,
like many wise and learned contemporaries, thought he discerned in
it a striving after that truth for which he thirsted and for which
he lived. Luther it was true, had, from the very first, introduced a
“rougher element into the cause”; he himself, however, had made it his
aim to set up only what was true and essentially necessary; he had
also done much in the way of reforms, and, to boot, had waged a war
against the demagogues (“_multa tribunitia plebs_”) which, owing to
the attacks of enemies at Court, had drawn down on him the displeasure
of the sovereign and had even put his life in jeopardy.
Coming finally to speak of the concessions, speculative and practical,
which he was prepared to make in addition to preserving silence, he
mentions “the authority to be conceded to the bishops and the chief
bishop in accordance with the Augsburg Confession.” He adds: “Mayhap
I am by nature of a servile turn of mind” (“_fortassis sum ingenio
servili_”), but, after all there is a real call to be humble and open
to advances. He also refers to the defeat of the Evangelical Princes,
but only to assure Carlowitz that he attributes this, “not to blind
fate, but rather admit that we have drawn down the chastisement on
ourselves by many and great misdeeds.”[949]
This is the oft-quoted declaration which Protestant writers as a whole
regret more on Melanchthon’s than on Luther’s account. It was “an
unhappy hour” in which Melanchthon wrote the letter “which gives us
so profound an insight into his soul”;[950] he forgot that he was “a
public character”; “in this letter not only what he says of Luther
and of his relations with him, but even his account of the share he
himself took in the Reformation,” “is scarcely to his credit.”[951]
Another Protestant holds, however, a different view. In this letter
we have, as a matter of fact, “the expression of feelings which for
long years Melanchthon had most carefully kept under restraint locked
up in his heart.... From it we may judge how great was the vexation
and bitterness Melanchthon had to endure.... In an unguarded moment
what had been so long pent up broke out with elemental force.”
The historian we are quoting then goes on to plead for a “milder
sentence,” especially as “almost every statement which occurs in the
letter can be confirmed from Melanchthon’s confidential correspondence
of the previous twenty years.”[952]
_Some of Melanchthon’s Deliverances_
It is quite true, that, in his confidential correspondence, Melanchthon
had long before made allusions to the awkwardness of his position.
He says, for instance, in a letter to the famous physician Leonard
Fuchs, who wanted him to take up his abode at Tübingen: “Some
Fate has, as it were, bound me fast against my will, like hapless
Prometheus,” bound to the Caucasian rock, of whom the classic myth
speaks. Nevertheless, he had not lost hope of sometime cutting himself
free; happy indeed would he account himself could he find a quiet home
amongst his friends at Tübingen where he might devote his last years to
study.[953]
On a later occasion, when bewailing his lot, the image of Prometheus
again obtrudes itself on the scholar.[954]
Melanchthon’s uneasiness and discontent with his position did not
merely arise from the mental oppression he experienced at Luther’s
side; it was, as already pointed out, in part due to sundry other
factors, such as the persecution he endured from disputatious
theologians within the party, the sight of the growing confusion which
met his eye day by day, the public dangers and the moral results of
the religious upheaval, and, lastly, the depressing sense of being out
of the element where his learning and humanistic tastes might have
found full and unhampered scope. His complaints dwell, now on one,
now on some other of these trials, but, taken together, they combine
to make up a tragic historical picture of a soul distraught; this is
all the more surprising, since, owing to the large share he had in
the introduction of the new Evangel, the cheering side of the great
religious reform should surely have been reflected in Melanchthon.
“It is not fitting,” writes the Protestant theologian Carl Sell, “to
throw a veil over the sad close of Melanchthon’s life, for it was
but the logical consequence of his own train of thought.” Luther’s
theology, of the defects of which Melanchthon was acutely conscious,
had, according to Sell, “already begun to break down as an adequate
theory of life”;[955] of the forthcoming disintegration Luther’s
colleague already had a premonition.
In Aug., 1536, when Melanchthon paid a visit to his home and also to
Tübingen, he became more closely acquainted with the state of the
Protestant Churches, both in the Palatinate and in Swabia. It was at
that time that he wrote to his friend Myconius: “Had you travelled
with us and seen the woeful devastation of the Churches in many
localities you would undoubtedly long, with tears and groans, for the
Princes and the learned to take steps for the welfare of the Churches.
At Nuremberg the good attendance at public worship and the orderly
arrangement of the ceremonies pleased me greatly; elsewhere, however,
lack of order and general barbarism is wonderfully estranging the
people [from religion; ‘_[Greek: ataxia] et barbaries mirum in modum
alienat animos_’]. Oh, that the authorities would see to the remedying
of this evil!”[956]
After he had reluctantly resumed the burden of his Wittenberg office
he continued to fret about the dissensions in his own camp. “Look,”
he wrote to Veit Dietrich in 1537, “how great is the danger to which
the Churches are everywhere exposed and how difficult it is to govern
them, when those in authority are at grips with one another and set
up strife and confusion, whereas it is from them that we should look
for help.... What we have to endure is worse than all the trials of
Odysseus the sufferer.”[957]
In the following year he told the same friend the real evil was, that
“we live like gipsies, no one being willing to obey another in any
single thing.”[958]
In the name of Wittenberg University he wrote to Mohr, the Naumburg
preacher, who was quarrelling with his brethren in the ministry, “What
is to happen in future if, for so trivial a matter, such wild and
angry broils break out amongst those who govern the Church?”[959]
The growing tendency to strife he describes in 1544 in these words:
“There are at present many people whose quarrels are both countless
and endless, and who everywhere find a pretext for them.”[960]
Many of his complaints concerning the morals of the time, as Döllinger
remarks, sound very much like those of a “sworn Catholic criticising
the state of affairs brought about by the Reformation.” Döllinger
also calls attention to the saying of 1537: “The only glory remaining
in this iron age is that of boldly breaking down the barriers of
discipline (‘_audacter dissipare vincula disciplinæ_’) and of
propounding to the people new opinions neatly cut and coloured.”[961]
A similar dictum dates from 1538. “Our age, as you can see, is full of
malice and madness, and more addicted to intrigue than any previous
one. The man who is most shameless in his abuse is regarded as the
best orator. Oh, that God would change this!”[962] The growing evils
made him more and more downhearted. “People have become barbarians,”
he exclaims twelve years later to his friend Camerarius, “and,
accustomed as they are to hatred and contempt of law and order, fear
lest any restraint be put on their licentiousness (‘_metuunt frenari
licentiam_’). These are the evils decreed for the last age of the
world.”[963]
Over and over again we can see how the timorous man endeavours
to clear the religious innovations of any responsibility for the
prevalent lawlessness, which, as he says, deserved to be bewailed with
floods of tears; after all, the true Church _had_ been revived; this
edifice, this temple of God, still remained amidst all the chaos; even
in Noe’s day it had been exposed to damage.[964] At times, though less
frequently than Luther, he lays all the blame on Satan; the latter, by
means of the scandals, was seeking to scare people away from the true
Evangel now brought to light, and to vex the preachers into holding
their tongues.
Pessimistic consideration of the “last age of the world” was quite
in his line; the dark though not altogether unfriendly shadow of the
approaching end of all was discernible in the moral disorders, in the
unbelief and anti-christian spirit of the foe. He would not dwell, so
he once said, on the state of things among the people towards whom he
was willing to be indulgent, but it could not be gainsaid that, “among
the learned open contempt for religion was on the increase; they
lean either towards the Epicureans or towards universal scepticism.
Forgetfulness of God, the wickedness of the times, the senseless fury
of the Princes, all unite in proving that the world lies in the pains
of travail and that the joyous coming of Christ is nigh.”[965] It was
his hopelessness and the great solace he derived from the approaching
end of all things that called forth this frame of mind. It is also
plain that he saw no prospect of improvement. “In these last days,”
he says, even a zealous preacher can no longer hope for success,
though this does not give him the right to quit his post.[966] The
poetic reference to the frenzied old age of the world (“_delira mundi
senecta_”) is several times met with in his letters.
In 1537 he grumbled to Johann Brenz, the preacher, of the hostility of
the theologians, especially of the Luther-zealots; he had seen what
hatred the mitigations he had introduced in Luther’s doctrines had
excited. “I conceal everything beneath the cloak of my moderation,
but what shall I do eventually faced by the rage of so many (‘_in
tanta rabie multorum_’)?”[967] “I seek for a creephole,” he continues,
“may God but show me one, for I am worn out with illness, old age and
sorrow.”
Of Amsdorf he learnt with pain that he had warned Luther against him as
a serpent whom he was warming in his bosom.[968]
Andreas Osiander likewise wrote of Melanchthon to Besold at Nuremberg,
that, since Apostolic times, no more mischievous and pernicious man
had lived in the Church, so skilful was he in giving to his writings
the semblance of wholesome doctrine while all the time denying its
truth. “I believe that Philip and those who think like him are nothing
but slaves of Satan.” On another occasion the same bitter opponent
of Melanchthon inveighs against the religious despotism which now
replaced at Wittenberg the former Papal authority, a new tyranny which
required, that “all disputes should be submitted to the elders of the
Church.”[969]—It was men such as these who repaid him for the labours
he had reluctantly undertaken on behalf of the Church. Of their bitter
opposition he wrote, that, even were he to shed as many tears as there
was water in the flooded Elbe, he would still not be able to weep away
his grief.[970]
_Melanchthon’s Strictures on Luther. His “Bondage”_
If we consider more closely Melanchthon’s relations with Luther we
find him, even during Luther’s lifetime, indignantly describing the
latter’s attacks on man’s free-will as “_stoica et manichæa deliria_”;
he himself, he declares, in spite of Luther’s views to the contrary,
had always insisted that man, even before regeneration, is able by
virtue of his free-will to observe outward discipline and, that, in
regeneration, free-will follows on grace and thereafter receives from
on High help for doing what is good. Later, after Luther’s death, he
declared, with regard to this denial of free-will which shocked him,
that it was quite true that “Luther and others had written that all
works, good and bad, were inevitably decreed to be performed of all
men, good and bad alike; but it is plain that this is against God’s
Word, subversive of all discipline and a blasphemy against God.”[971]
In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness
of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though,
from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name.
He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as
“less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they
fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they
refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And
such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless
about something of great importance and quite essential. To support
every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never
been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more
freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran
after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some
of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation
I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that
the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972] Theramenes had perished on the
scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous
infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can
scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some
less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection
when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk
he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I
have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]
Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s
life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly
unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage
([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance
while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has
since become much worse.”[974] In later letters he likens Luther to
the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]
Although it was no easy task for Luther, whose irritability increased
with advancing years, to conceal his annoyance with his friend for
presuming to differ from him, yet, as we know, he never allowed matters
to come to an open breach. Melanchthon, too, owing to his fears and
pusillanimity, avoided any definite personal explanation. Both alike
were apprehensive of the scandal of an open rupture and its pernicious
effects on the common cause. Moreover, Luther was thoroughly convinced
that Melanchthon’s services were indispensable to him, particularly in
view of the gloomy outlook for the future.
The matter, however, deserves further examination in view of the
straightforwardness, clearness and inexorableness which Luther is
usually supposed to have displayed in his doctrines.
When important interests connected with his position seemed to call
for it, Luther could be surprisingly lenient in questions of doctrine.
Thus, for instance, we can hardly recognise the once so rigid Luther in
the Concord signed with the Zwinglians, and again, when, for a while,
the English seemed to be dallying with Lutheranism. In the case of the
Zwinglian townships of South Germany, which were received into the
Union by the Wittenberg Concord the better to strengthen the position
of Lutheranism against the Emperor, Luther finally, albeit grudgingly,
gave his assent to theological articles which differed so widely from
his own doctrines that the utmost skill was required to conceal the
discrepancy.[976] As for the English, Kolde says: “How far Luther was
prepared to go [in allowing matters to take their course] we see, e.g.
from the fact that, in his letter of March 28, 1536, to the Elector,
he describes the draft Articles of agreement with the English—only
recently made public and which (apart from Art. 10, which might at a
pinch be taken in the Roman sense) are altogether on the lines of the
‘_Variata_’—as quite in harmony with our own teaching.”[977] The terms
of this agreement were drawn up by Melanchthon. As a matter of fact “we
find little trace of Luther’s spirit in the Articles. We have simply
to compare [Luther’s] Schmalkalden Articles of the following year to
be convinced how greatly Luther’s own mode of thought and expression
differed from those Articles.” “They show us what concessions the
Wittenberg theologians, as a body, were disposed to make in order to
win over such a country as England.”[978]
Concerning Luther’s attitude towards the alterations made by
Melanchthon in the Confession of Augsburg (above, vol. iii., p. 445 f.)
we must also assume “from his whole behaviour, that he was not at all
pleased with Melanchthon’s action; yet he allowed it, like much else,
to pass.”[979] This, however, does not exclude Luther’s violence and
narrowness having caused an estrangement between them, Melanchthon
having daily to apprehend outbursts of anger, so that his stay became
extremely painful. The most critical time was in the summer of 1544, in
consequence of the Cologne Book of Reform (vol. iii., p. 447). Luther,
who strongly suspected Melanchthon’s orthodoxy on the Supper, prepared
to assail anew those who denied the Real Presence. Yet the storm which
Melanchthon dreaded did not touch him; Luther’s “Kurtz Bekentnis vom
heiligen Sacrament,” which appeared at the end of September, failed to
mention Melanchthon’s name. On Oct. 7, Cruciger was able by letter to
inform Dietrich, that the author no longer displayed any irritation
against his old friend.[980] Here again considerations of expediency
had prevailed over dogmatic scruples, nor is there any doubt that the
old feeling of friendship, familiarity and real esteem asserted its
rights. We may recall the kindly sympathy and care that Luther lavished
on Melanchthon when the latter fell sick at Weimar, owing to the
trouble consequent on his sanction given to the Hessian bigamy.[981]
Indeed we must assume that the relations between the two were often
more cordial than would appear from the letters of one so timid and
faint-hearted as Melanchthon; the very adaptability of the latter’s
character renders this probable. In Nov., 1544, Chancellor Brück
declared: “With regard to Philip, as far as I can see, he and Martin
are quite close friends”; in another letter written about that time
he also says Luther had told him that he was quite unaware of any
differences between himself and Melanchthon.[982]
The latter, whenever he was at Wittenberg, also continued as a rule to
put in an appearance at Luther’s table, and there is little doubt that,
on such occasions, Luther’s frank and, open conversation often availed
to banish any ill-feeling there may have been. We learn that Magister
Philip was present at the dinner in celebration of Luther’s birthday
in 1544, together with Cruciger, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Major, and that
they exchanged confidences concerning the present and future welfare of
the new religion.[983]
When Melanchthon was away from Wittenberg engaged in settling
ecclesiastical matters elsewhere he was careful to keep Luther fully
informed of the course of affairs. He occasionally expressed his thanks
to the latter for the charity and kindness of his replies; Luther in
his turn kept him posted in the little intimacies of their respective
families, in the occurrences in the town and University of Wittenberg,
and almost always added a request for prayer for help in his struggles
with “Satan.” This intimate correspondence was carried on until the
very month before Luther’s death. Even in his last letters Luther calls
the friend with whom he had worked for so many years “My Philip”;
Melanchthon, as a rule, heads his communications in more formal style:
“_Clarissimo et optimo viro D. Martino Luthero, doctori theologiæ,
instauratori puræ evangelicæ doctrinæ ac patri suo in Christo reverendo
et charissimo_.”[984]
The great praise which Melanchthon bestows on the deceased immediately
after his death is indeed startling, but we must beware of regarding it
as mere hypocrisy.
The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14,
1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all
their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so
that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now
to devolve on him.
The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg
boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist,
the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the
humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common
feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence”
of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who
was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown
himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or
quarrelsome.[985] Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what
he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in
panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have
felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s
death to the students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and
the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the
Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]
_Melanchthon’s Last Years_
After Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years
of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet
tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst
his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining
the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying
conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to
anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of
Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]
His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many
hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims
of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg
Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War
of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice.
Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by
means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants
back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other
theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing
to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his
opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988] In this the “moot observances
(Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention
of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include
the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus
Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the
Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon
also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments.
By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the
Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he
even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending
his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with
man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also
co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’s _sola
fides_, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the
formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of
the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”
Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and
others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied
Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of
their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with
them was that Melanchthon gradually ceased to be the head of the
Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.
Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was
more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had
been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all,
they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to
pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form
of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal
errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine
teaching of the Gospel.”[989]
Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he
steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied,
whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.
Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a
traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did
much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was
particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even
before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned
an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the
Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at
Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship
with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them;
“we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man
come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the
house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990] The friends of Flacius
Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous
demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well
say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He
opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their
doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.
At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it
became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the
interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the
points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference;
the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition
of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the
interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman,
pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the
contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where
every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible
to arrive at any decision?[991] It was from Canisius, “who during the
course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the
Catholic party and later repeatedly proved himself a sharp observer
of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992] that the suggestion
came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly
by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of
Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning
Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s
doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely
refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius
departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off.
“The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus
revealed to the whole world.”[993]
“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]
From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote
to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies
and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]
Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by
the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a
“congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and
as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his
dismissal.[996]
His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction
we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of
Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse
to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in
order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and
become partaker of its wisdom.[997] He looked forward, so he writes
to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there
is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998] Only a few days before his
death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons
why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote:
“You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble
and the fury of the theologians (‘_liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie
theologorum_’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you
will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into
those wonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend
in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two
natures are united in Christ.”[999] He finally departed this life on
April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.
_Review of Melanchthon’s Religious Position as a whole_
Melanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,”
which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such
as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls
his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of
the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts
of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of
Protestantism.[1000]
In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the
“so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his
train (_satellites_) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they
“withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001]
This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies,
like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic
contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any
sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the
most far-reaching religious questions of the day.
Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says,
“Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated
by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained
content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of
allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true
religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years
of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he
has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so
many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from
the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable
disorders.”[1002] To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various
writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had
produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”
Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of
Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal
intercourse with him.
Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted
Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us
from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into
Troy.[1003] Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him
the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with
his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by
sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is
ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and
seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004] About the same time in a
printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture
of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself
into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon
learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the
Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once,
after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the
people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest
attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do,
and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005] “Most people,” he
writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to
be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should,
however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see
how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]
The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts
already put before the reader, particularly by those from his
Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new
edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded
to.[1007] Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices
of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on
which his professed love for union could thrive.
His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than
the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.
In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which
runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly
differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is
the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and
his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to
uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary he is fond of using
classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy”
where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008] is a
detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole
contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system,
or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009] It would have
fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what
Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their
crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ
and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not
to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one
hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question
of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to
Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the
religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only
his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In
a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557,
he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to
share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau
the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the
doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘_docti_.’”[1010]
A similar lack of any just and clear appreciation of the great truths
of the faith is also apparent in Melanchthon’s letters to Erasmus, more
particularly in the later ones. Here personal friendship and Humanist
fellow-feeling vie with each other in explaining away in the most
startling manner the religious differences.[1011] Many elements of
theology were dissolved by Melanchthon’s subjective method of exegesis
and by the system of philosophy he had built up from the classical
authors, particularly from Cicero. Melanchthon’s philosophy was quite
unfitted to throw light on the doctrines of revelation. To him the two
domains, of philosophy and theology, seemed, not only independent, but
actually hostile to each other, a state of things absolutely unknown to
the Middle Ages. If, as Melanchthon avers, reason is unable to prove
the existence of God on philosophical grounds, then, by this very fact,
the science of the supernatural loses every stay, nor is it possible
any longer to defend revelation against unbelief.
It is the merest makeshift, when, like other of his Humanist
contemporaries, Melanchthon seeks to base our knowledge of God’s
existence on feeling and on a vague inward experience.[1012]
Thus we can quite understand how old-fashioned Protestantism, after
having paid but little attention to Melanchthon either in the days
of orthodox Lutheranism or of Pietism, began to have recourse to
him with the advent of Rationalism. The orthodox had missed in him
Luther’s sparkling “strength of faith” and the courageous resolve to
twit the “devil” within and without; the Pietists failed to discern
in him the mysticism they extolled in Luther. Rationalists, on the
other hand, found in him many kindred elements. Even of quite recent
years Melanchthon has been hailed as the type of the easy-going
theologian who seeks to bridge the chasm between believing and infidel
Protestantism; at any rate, Melanchthon’s positive belief was far more
extensive than that of many of his would-be imitators.
_Melanchthon Legends_
The tale once current that, at the last, Melanchthon was a Lutheran
only in name, is to-day rejected by all scholars, Protestant and
Catholic.
Concerning the “honesty of his Protestantism” “no doubts” are raised
by Protestant theologians, who call his teaching a “modification and
a toning down” of that of Luther; nor can we conclude that “he was at
all shaky in his convictions,” even should the remarkable utterance
about to be cited really emanate from him.[1013] A Catholic historian
of the highest standing agrees in saying of him: “Even though Luther’s
teaching may not have completely satisfied Melanchthon, yet there is
no reason to doubt, that, on the whole, he was heart and soul on the
side of the innovations.... We may now and then come upon actions on
his part which arouse a suspicion as to his straightforwardness, but on
the whole his convictions cannot be questioned.”[1014]
In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day,
we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother,
speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “_Hæc
plausibilior, illa securior_; Lutheranism is the more popular, but
Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]
This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went
on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond
in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon
on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the
latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016] his mother, as a
matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate
long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in
her fifty-third year.[1017]
Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the
above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been
persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind,
and received from him the above reply.
Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in
his native place, and _may_ have done so again in 1529 in the spring,
when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence
construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018]
though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a
flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten
in the autumn of 1536.
We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed
conversation with the mother.
K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019] dealt with the family records
of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was
wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historical
foundation.”[1020] C. G. Strobel, in his “_Melanchthoniana_” (1771),
had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread
form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when
visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it
told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric
on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School,
had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s
large-mindedness in religion.[1021] Against the account Strobel
alleges several _a priori_ objections of no great value; his best
argument really was that there was no authority for it.
Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors
of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für
protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not
unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022] even G.
Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may
assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who
continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with
the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later
conversation in 1529.”[1023]
It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation
actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel,
mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “_Vitæ theologorum_” was
first published in 1615 (see next page).
Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement.
Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly
earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page),
published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.