CHAPTER XIX

LUTHER’S RELATIONS WITH ZWINGLI, CARLSTADT, BUGENHAGEN AND OTHERS

1. Zwingli and the Controversy on the Supper

FROM the time that Zwingli, in 1519, commenced working on his own lines

at Zürich in the cause of the religious innovations, he had borrowed

more and more largely from Luther’s writings. Whilst acknowledging

Luther’s great achievements he did not, however, sacrifice his

independence. Writing in 1523 with a strong sense of what he himself

had done and of the success which had attended his own efforts, he

said: “I began to preach before ever I had heard of Luther.... I was

not instructed by Luther, for, until two years ago, his very name was

unknown to me, and I worked on the Bible Word alone.... Nor do I intend

to be called after Luther, seeing that I have read but little of his

doctrine. What I have read of his writings, however, is as a rule so

excellently grounded on the Word of God, that no creature can overthrow

it.... I did not learn the teaching of Christ from Luther, but from

the Word of God. If Luther preaches Christ, he is doing the same as I,

though, praise be to God, countless more souls have been led to God by

him than by me.”[1264]

Little attention was paid at Wittenberg to the religious occurrences

at Zürich, though they had been welcomed by Luther. Only when Zwingli

sided with Carlstadt against Luther in the controversy on the Supper

did the latter begin to give him more heed; this he at once did in

his own fashion. He asserted, as he had already done in the case of

Carlstadt, [Œcolampadius and others, that Zwingli would not have known

the truth concerning Christ and the Evangel “had not Luther first

written on the subject”; of his own initiative he would never have

dared to come to freedom and the light; later he spoke of him as “a

child of his loins” who had betrayed him.[1265]

In 1526 the divergency of opinion between Luther and Zwingli on the

subject of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament,

already present as early as 1524, became much more apparent.[1266]

Luther, in 1526, in his “Sermon von dem Sacrament,” and, in 1527, in

his work on the words “This is My Body,” had, conformably with his

theory, urged that Christ is present with the bread, and spoken not at

all kindly of his Swiss gainsayers, the Zwinglians.[1267] Zwingli, on

his side, soon after the appearance of the last work, attacked Luther’s

view in a writing entitled “_Amica exegesis_” (1528); this, his first

open assault on the Wittenberg doctor, he followed up with a German

pamphlet on the words of Christ: “This is My Body.” In these we have

the protest of the sceptical rationalism of Zürich, against Luther’s

half-hearted doctrine on the Sacrament.

Zwingli demanded that the words of institution should be taken

figuratively and the Eucharist regarded as a mere symbol of the Body

of Christ. This he did with no less assurance than Luther had urged

his own pet view, viz. that Christ is present together with the bread

(Impanation instead of the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation).

Zwingli complained bitterly of the rude tone adopted by Luther;

according to him God’s Word must prevail, not Luther’s abusive

epithets, “fanatic, devil, rogue, heretic, Trotz, Plotz, Blitz and

Donner, and so on.” Over and over again he roundly accuses Luther of

“lying” and “falsehood,” though his language is not so lurid as his

adversary’s. The artifices by which he sought to evade the plain sense

of the words “This is My Body,” were well calculated to call forth

a rude contradiction from Luther. Zwingli’s arbitrary recourse to

the “figurative, symbolical, metaphorical” sense, Luther answered by

appealing to the interpretation accepted by the whole of antiquity.

At the turn of the fourth and the fifth centuries Macarius Magnes had

written: “Christ has said ‘This is My Body’; it is no figure of the

Body of Christ, nor a figure of His flesh, as some have been foolish

enough to assert, but in truth the body and blood of Christ.”[1268]

Concerning the promise of the Eucharist, Hilary of Poitiers declared

in the fourth century: “Christ says: ‘My flesh is meat indeed’ (John

vi. 56); as to the truth of the flesh and blood there can be no doubt.

The Lord Himself teaches it and our faith confesses it, viz. that it

is truly flesh and truly blood.” Any other interpretation of the words

of Christ he calls “_violenta atque imprudens prædicatio, aliena atque

impia intelligentia_.”[1269] The reproach, which at a much earlier

period Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of the Apostles, had brought

forward against the Docetæ of his day, Luther might well have applied

to the Zwinglians: “They refuse to confess that the Eucharist is the

flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that flesh which suffered for our

sins and which the Father raised from the dead.”[1270]

We can understand the abhorrence which Luther conveyed by the term

Sacramentarians (“_sacramentarii_”), by which he characterised all

those—whether Swiss, Reformed, or followers of Carlstadt—who denied

the Real Presence in the Sacrament.

The Marburg Conference of 1529, at which both Zwingli and Luther

attended with their friends, did not bring any real settlement, for

no compromise on the question of the Eucharist was feasible. Fourteen

of the other Articles submitted by Luther were accepted, but the

15th, with this principal question, remained in suspense owing to

the opposition of the Swiss. In consequence of this Luther refused

to recognise Zwingli and his followers as brothers, in spite of all

the prayers of his opponents. He would not concede to them Christian

brotherhood but merely “Christian charity,” that charity, moreover,

which, as he declared, we owe even to our enemies. He again voiced

it as his opinion, that, “your spirit is different from ours,” which

greatly incensed the other side. A statement was appended to the

Fifteen Articles of Marburg, to the effect, that, on account of the

Supper, they had “so far failed to reach an understanding, but that

each side would exercise Christian charity towards the other so far as

every man’s conscience allowed.”

Once, during the proceedings, Luther, to show his attachment to the

literal sense of the words “This is My Body,” chalked these words on

the tablecloth and held it up in front of him, pointing significantly

to the writing.

Luther, however, overlooked the fact, that, if once the words were

taken in their literal sense, as he was perfectly right in doing, there

was no alternative but to accept the Catholic interpretation, according

to which the bread is actually and substantially changed into the Body

of Christ, and that to say: “This is bread though Christ is present,”

was really out of the question. Many theologians who follow Luther in

other matters, unhesitatingly admit his inconsequence.[1271]

At the solemn meeting at Marburg, Luther was not to be disconcerted,

not even when Zwingli argued that the words of promise of the Sacrament

in St. John’s Gospel (vi. 32 ff., 48 ff.), where we read: “My flesh

is meat indeed,” must mean “my flesh signifies meat.” When Luther, no

less erroneously, objected that the passage in question did not apply

there, Zwingli exclaimed: “Of course not, Doctor, for that passage

is the breaking of your neck.” Luther replied testily: “Don’t be so

sure of it; necks don’t break so easily; here you are in Hesse, not

in Switzerland!” Zwingli was constrained to protest that, even in

Switzerland, people enjoyed the protection of the law, and to explain

that what he had said had not been meant by way of any threat.

Behind the efforts to unite Wittenberg and Zürich there was a different

influence at work. Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, like Zwingli, was

anxious to establish a league of all the Swiss and German Protestants

against those who, in the Empire, defended Catholicism. This proposal

Luther resisted with all his might, urging the Landgrave not to make

common cause with the false teachers, to the delight of the devil.

Melanchthon, who also was present, was likewise pleased to see the

Landgrave’s plan frustrated, for it would have rendered impossible

any reconciliation with the Emperor and the larger portion of the

Empire, which was the vague ideal after which he was striving. The

parties, however, were too distrustful of each other to arrive at any

settlement. Jonas, for his diplomacy, called Bucer a “fox,” and said of

Zwingli, that he detected in him a certain arrogance such as was to be

expected in a boor.

At the time of the Marburg Conference, Vienna was being besieged by the

Turks. Thus, whilst the Empire stood in the greatest peril from foes

without, an attempt was being made within to reach a settlement which

might drive the wedge yet deeper into the unity of the Fatherland. The

latter attempt ended, however, in failure, whilst the siege of Vienna

was raised and the departure of the Turks brought about a certain

strengthening of the Empire.

The tension between the Zwinglians and the Lutherans was not lessened

when each party claimed that it had gained the upper hand and utterly

routed the other at Marburg.

On October 11, 1531, Zwingli fell in the battle of Cappel, in which,

mounted on horseback and fully armed, he was leading the men of Zürich

against the five Catholic cantons. What Luther thought and felt at that

time we learn both from Schlaginhaufen’s Notes of his Table-Talk in

1531 and 1532, which afford some fresh information, and from Luther’s

letters and printed works.

The very first Note we have of Schlaginhaufen’s touches upon Zwingli’s

untimely end. It would appear that a rumour had got abroad that

Luther’s other opponents, Carlstadt and Pellicanus, had also been slain.

Luther was in high glee when news of Zwingli’s death reached him.

He said: “God knows the thoughts of the heart. It is well that

Zwingli, Carlstadt, and Pellicanus lie dead on the battle-field, for

otherwise we could not have retained the Landgrave, Strasburg and

other of our neighbours [true to our doctrine]. Oh, what a triumph

is this, that they have perished! God indeed knows His business

well.”[1272]—“Zwingli died like a brigand,” he said later, when

scarcely a year had elapsed since his death. “He wished to force

others to accept his errors, went to war, and was slain.” “He drew the

sword, therefore he has received his reward, for Christ says: ‘All

who take the sword shall perish by the sword.’ If God has saved him,

then He did so contrary to His ordinary ways.”[1273]—“All seek to

cloak their deceitful doctrines with the name of the Evangel,” so he

exclaims in 1532. From Augsburg he heard that the Sacramentarian (i.e.

Zwinglian) preachers were using his name and Melanchthon’s. “Since

they refused to be our friends in God’s name, let them be so in the

devil’s, even as Judas was the friend of Christ.”[1274]

Because Thomas Münzer was no friend of the Evangel he was, according

to Luther, destined to perish miserably and shamefully. Zwingli

he placed on exactly the same footing; his death likewise was a

just judgment.[1275] Zwingli, so he will have it, was a complete

unbeliever. In his newly published sermons of 1530 he had shown that

Zwingli, like Carlstadt, by his attacks on the Supper, had denied all

the articles of the faith. “If a man falls away from one article of

faith, however insignificant it may appear to reason, he has fallen

away from all and does not hold any of them aright. For instance,

it is certain that our fanatics who now deny the Sacrament, also

deny Christ’s Divinity and all the other articles of faith, however

much they protest to the contrary, and the reason of this is, that,

when even one link of the chain is broken, the whole chain is in

pieces.”[1276]

H. Barge, a Protestant, remarks: “After the battle of Cappel,

Luther appears to have devoted his unusual gifts of eloquence to

slandering Zwingli and all who remained true to him, systematically,

deliberately, and maliciously, as mere heretics.”[1277]

The following delineation of Zwingli by Luther dates from 1538:

“Zwingli was a very clever and upright man, but he fell [into error];

then he became so presumptuous as to dare to say and write: ‘I hold

that no one in the world ever believed that the Body and Blood of

Christ are present in the Sacrament.’” Luther adds: Because Zwingli

ventured to speak rashly against him [Luther] and “against what is

plain to the whole world, he perished miserably, just as did Egranus,

that importunate fellow.”[1278]

Just as he had condemned Carlstadt and Pellicanus, and, lastly,

Egranus (Johann Silvius Egranus of Zwickau), so also elsewhere he

lumps together in one condemnation with Zwingli all those doctors who

differed from him. Relentlessly he scourges them as he had scourged

the Catholics. “The character of those who oppose the Word is fiendish

rather than human. Man does what he can, but when the devil takes

possession of him then ‘enmity arises between him and the woman’”

(Gen. iii. 15).[1279]

Few experienced his intolerance to such an extent as Andreas

Bodenstein von Carlstadt, his quondam colleague in the theological

faculty of Wittenberg.

2. Carlstadt

Carlstadt, the fanatic, failed to obtain any peace from Luther until

he passed over to the camp of the Swiss theologians. In 1534 he became

preacher at St. Peter’s in Basle, and professor of theology. We may

here cast a glance at the troubles brought on him, partly through

Luther, partly through his own passionate exaltation, both previous to

this date and until his death at Basle, where he was carried off by the

plague in 1541.

Carlstadt’s violent doings at Wittenberg and the iconoclasm which he

justified by the Mosaic prohibition of graven images, had miscarried

owing to Luther’s warnings.[1280] Soon it became clear that there was

no longer any room for him at the University town near the leader of

the Reformation, more particularly since, in 1522, he had seen fit to

deny the presence of Christ in the Sacrament. Luther loudly bewailed

Carlstadt’s sudden determination to become a new teacher, and to lay

new injunctions on the people to the detriment of his (Luther’s)

authority.[1281]

Carlstadt now migrated to Orlamünde in the Saxon Electorate, where the

magistrates appointed him pastor. In August, 1524, however, Luther

passed through Weimar, Jena, and the other districts where the fanatics

had gained a footing, preaching energetically against them. Carlstadt

he had met at Jena on August 22, 1523, in the Black Bear Inn. In vain

did they seek a friendly settlement, for each overwhelmed the other

with reproaches. Finally, in the tap-room of the inn, Luther handed

his opponent a goldgulden as a pledge that he was at liberty to write

against him without reserve and that he did not mind in the least:

“Take it and attack me like a man, don’t fear!”[1282] Shortly after,

however, he complained of the treatment he had received: “At the inn at

Jena ... he turned upon me and abused me, snapped his fingers at me and

said: ‘I don’t care that for you.’ But if he does not respect me, whom,

then, amongst us does he respect?”[1283]

The struggle continued after they had gone their ways, both seeking

to secure the favour of the Court. Luther, through the agency of

Prince Johann Frederick, proposed that Carlstadt should be hounded

from his place of refuge and from the whole upper valley of the Saale.

Ultimately the disturber of the peace was banished from the Electorate;

Luther, in his work “Widder die hymelischen Propheten,” approved of

his expulsion, roughly declaring that, so far as lay in him, Carlstadt

would never again set foot in the country.[1284] The homeless man now

betook himself to Strasburg, whither he was pursued by a furious letter

of Luther’s, directed against him and his teaching, entitled “An die

Christen zu Straspurg widder den Schwermer Geyst.”

Luther became greatly enraged when he perceived that the denial of

the Sacrament, already widespread in Switzerland, was also gaining

ground at Strasburg and was being adopted by Capito and Bucer. In his

excitement, in the hope of checking the falling away from his doctrine,

of closing the mouth of that “fiend” Carlstadt—who likewise stood for

the denial of the Sacrament—and of preventing “the overthrow of all

political and ecclesiastical order,” he penned, in the course of a few

weeks, a violent screed entitled, “Widder die hymelischen Propheten.”

The knowledge that everywhere revolt “was being associated with the

Lutheran doctrines and reforms”[1285] roused his terrible eloquence, of

which the principal aim was to annihilate Carlstadt. Having completed

the first part, comprising seventy pages of print in the Erlangen

edition, he rushed this through the press as a preliminary instalment,

informing his readers at the end that “the remainder will follow on

foot.”[1286] As good as his word, three weeks later, he had ready

the conclusion, consisting of nearly one hundred pages of print. He

asserts that Carlstadt had, “for three years, been making a hash” of

his books; he was even anxious to throw them all overboard. Luther’s

strongest argument against him was the revolutionary peril which this

man represented. Even if he did not actually plot “murder and revolt,”

he writes, “yet I must say that he has a murderous and revolutionary

spirit.... Because he carries a dagger, I do not trust him; he might

well be simply awaiting a good opportunity to do what I apprehend. By

the dagger I mean his false interpretation and understanding of the Law

of Moses.”[1287] “What is the use of admonishing him?” he writes,

alluding to Carlstadt’s departure from the Lutheran interpretation

of the Bible and his obstinacy in accepting no exegesis but his own;

“I believe that he still considers me one of the most learned men

at Wittenberg and yet he tells me to my very face, that I am of no

account, though all the while he pretends to be quite willing to be

instructed.”[1288]

From Strasburg, Carlstadt, the restless wanderer, had gone to

Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, a hotbed of Anabaptists. It was whilst

here, that finding himself in dire want, he besought Luther’s aid,

at a time when the latter had not yet finished the above writing

against him; he, however, frustrated all hopes of any reconciliation

by previously penning a defence of his own doctrine of the Sacrament

against the Wittenberg professor. The unfortunate termination of the

Peasant War exposed him to grave danger, when he broke his promise to

keep silence, and again renewed his complaints concerning Luther, and

bewailed his own reduced circumstances, dissensions broke out afresh

between them. Luther, who was greatly vexed, was very anxious to find

some new means of muzzling his opponent. He proposed that he should in

no case advocate in the presence of others his own theological opinions

or his private interpretation of the Bible, though he might cherish

them as his private convictions, for of the heart no man is judge;

doctrines which differed from his own, so Luther declared, were not to

be defended publicly, else they would come under the cognisance of the

authorities. Under these circumstances Carlstadt thought it better to

depart. In the beginning of 1529 he escaped, and, in 1530, found a home

in Switzerland, where he enjoyed a quieter life and was free to proceed

with his theological labours. “Luther, like Carlstadt, never doubted

for a moment that his doctrine was really founded on Scripture. Hence

Luther and the Elector felt themselves bound in conscience to defend

as best they could the Christian faith and their country against any

invasion of false doctrine.”[1289] Such is the considered judgment of a

Protestant historian.[1290]

* * * * *

For the period subsequent to 1534, when Carlstadt at length began to

lead a more tranquil life as professor and preacher at Basle, the

Table-Talk is the principal source of information concerning Luther’s

relations with him.

Luther, in his conversations, frequently referred to his former friend,

particularly in 1538.

“He, like Bucer, greatly retarded the progress of the Evangel

by his arrogance. In other matters pride of intellect is not so

dangerous, but in theology it is utterly pestilential to desire to

arrogate anything to oneself.... Hence I was greatly troubled when

Carlstadt once remarked to me: ‘I am as fond of honour as any other

man.’ At Leipzig he refused to concede me the first place at the

Disputation lest I should rob him of his part of the praise. And yet

I was always glad to do him a favour. But he reaped shame instead

of honour at Leipzig, for no worse disputant could be imagined than

a man of so dull and wretched a spirit.... At first he, like Peter

Lupinus, withstood me, but when I rebutted them with Augustine,

they, too, studied Augustine and then insisted upon my doctrine

more than I did myself. Carlstadt, however, was deceived by his

arrogance.”[1291] Indeed, Carlstadt belonged to the category of the

“_arrogantissimi_.”[1292]

Elsewhere Luther again says similar things without noticing, so it

would seem, that others might have complained of his “arrogance” just

as much as he did of Carlstadt’s. Carlstadt is “full of presumption,”

and this “brought about his fall as it did that of Münzer, Zwingli,

[Œcolampadius, Stiefel, and Eisleben.” “Such people, weak and untried

though they be, are puffed up with self-sufficiency before the

victory, whereas I have my daily struggles.” Before this Luther had

declared that he was “plagued and vexed by the devil, whose bones

are strong until we crack them.”[1293]—“It was impossible to make

of Carlstadt a humble man because he had been through no real mental

temptations.”[1294]—“He, like Münzer and Zwingli, was rash when good

fortune attended him, but an arrant coward in misfortune”;[1295]

Luther here was probably recalling how Carlstadt, the unhappy married

priest, had been forced to humble himself before him owing to the

dire want and danger in which he and his family found themselves.

“Had not Carlstadt come on the scene with the fanatics, Münzer and the

Anabaptists, all would have gone well with my undertaking. But though

I alone lifted it out of the gutter, they wished to seize upon the

prize and poach upon my preserves, though, owing to the way they went

about the business, they were really working for the Pope though all

the while anxious to destroy him.”[1296]

Luther afterwards held fast to the opinion concerning his enemy which

he had expressed long before in a letter to Spalatin: “Carlstadt has

now been delivered over to a reprobate spirit so that I despair of his

return. He always was, and probably always will be, unmindful of the

glory of Christ; his insensate ambition has brought him to this. To me,

nay, to us, he is more troublesome than any foe, so that I believe the

unhappy man to be possessed by more than one devil. God have mercy on

his sin, so far as it is mortal.”[1297]

In 1541 the news of his rival’s death reached him. It was rumoured that

he had died impenitent, that the devil had appeared at his death-bed,

had fetched him away, and continued to make a great noise in his

house.[1298] Luther believed these tales. It was not surprising, so he

said, that Carlstadt had at last received his deserts,[1299] though he

was sorry he should have died impenitent.[1300]

* * * * *

It only remains to glance at the arguments Luther brought forward and

at the theoretical attitude he assumed with regard to Carlstadt and

his followers. If we take the book “Widder die hymelischen Propheten”

and the writing he addressed to the Strasburg Christians against the

fanatics, and consider the answers and objections they drew forth, we

shall have a strange picture of Luther’s ways of reasoning and of his

crooked lines of thought. Not that his ability and eloquence failed

him, but, for clearness and coherence, his doctrine and whole conduct

leave everything to be desired. In his book he attacks not Carlstadt

alone, but, as he says: “Carlstadt and his spirits,” i.e. all those

opponents of his whom he was pleased to dub “fanatics.” “Fanaticism”

to him means not merely that fanciful interpretation of the Bible based

on special illumination, to which his opponents were attached, but

more particularly the threefold error for which they stood, viz. their

denial of the Sacrament (i.e. of the Real Presence of Christ in the

Supper), their iconoclasm, and, thirdly, their repudiation of infant

baptism. As for the various elements of good, which, in spite of all

their mistakes, were shared by the earlier Anabaptists, Luther refused

categorically to see them or to hearken to the fanatics’ well-grounded

remonstrances against certain of his propositions.

To preach, a man must be called by God, so he lays it down. Had your

spirit “been the true one, it would have manifested itself by word and

sign; but in reality it is a murderous, secret devil.”[1301] Luther

demands miracles with as much confidence as though he himself could

point to them in plenty.

Those preachers who ventured to differ from him, he invites, at the

very least, to point to their ecclesiastical vocation. But what sort

of a vocation was this to be, they asked. As Luther recognised no

universal Church visible, a call emanating from a congregation of

believers had to suffice; Carlstadt, for instance, could appeal to

his having been chosen by Orlamünde as its pastor. This Luther would

not allow: You must also have the consent of the Elector and of the

University of Wittenberg. Carlstadt and those who felt with him were

well aware, that, in the final instance, this simply meant Luther’s

own consent, for at the University he was all-powerful, whilst the

sovereign likewise was wont to be guided by him. Why, Carlstadt might

also have asked, should not the degree of Doctor of Divinity suffice

in my case, seeing that you yourself have solemnly pleaded your degree

as a sufficient justification for assailing the common tradition of

Christendom?

Luther’s final answer to such an appeal was as follows:

“My devil, I know you well.”[1302]

He was determined to hound out of his last hiding-place his

presumptuous rival, many of whose doctrines, it must be admitted,

were both mistaken and dangerous. Hence the measure which he induced

the Elector to take in 1524, according to which Carlstadt was to

be refused shelter throughout the Electorate; this example was also

followed by the magistrates of Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, who, by an

edict of January 27, 1525, commanded all burghers by virtue of their

oath and fealty “not to house, shelter, or hide, provide with food and

drink, or further on his way the said Dr. Carlstadt,” adding, that a

similar prohibition had been published in “other lordships and Imperial

cities both near and far.”[1303]

When seeking to retain the support of the burghers of Strasburg, Luther

had made a display of broadminded forbearance and charity. What he

then said is often quoted by his followers as proof of his kindliness

and humility. “Take heed that you show brotherly charity towards one

another in very deed.” “I am not your preacher. No one is bound to

believe me, let each one look to himself. To warn all I am able, but

stop any man I cannot.” Yet he continues: “Carlstadt makes a great fuss

about outward things as though Christianity consisted in knocking down

images, overthrowing the Sacrament, and preventing Baptism; by the

dust he raises he seeks to darken the sun, and the brightness of the

Evangel, and the main facts of Christian faith and practice, so that

the world may forget all that has hitherto been taught by us.”[1304]

Luther’s own doctrine, in spite of his preliminary assurance, was alone

to stand, because, forsooth, it reveals the true sun to the world.

What, however, had he to oppose to the “knocking down of images” and

the “overthrow of the Sacrament”? Did his standpoint afford sufficient

resistance, or was it more than a mere subterfuge?

The pulling down of images and the overthrow of the Sacrament, Luther

tells Carlstadt, agreeably with his own feelings at that time, may be

introduced little by little, but must not be made into a law. Everyone

is free to put away his images, to deny the Sacrament, or to refuse

to receive it; let him follow his own conscience as it is the right

and duty of every man to do. Luther, however, is forgetful of the

restrictions he was in the habit of placing upon Catholic practices,

of how he refused to admit the rights of conscience in the matter

of the Mass and the religious life, notwithstanding that Catholics

could appeal to the age-long practice of the Church in every land,

and of his denial of the existence or even of the possibility of good

faith amongst any of his opponents, whether within or without his own

fold. In his book against the “Heavenly Prophets” he declares it to be

“optional to wear a cowl or the tonsure ... in this there is neither

commandment nor prohibition,” “to wear the tonsure, to put on albs and

chasubles, etc. is a thing God has neither commanded nor forbidden.”

“Doctrine, command, and compulsion are not to be tolerated.”[1305] Here

we see the confused after-effects of his old, pseudo-mystic conception

of a religion of freedom, involving no duty of submission to any

external authority in the matter of “doctrine or command.” (See p. 8

ff.)

Granting that any real tolerance underlay these statements, the

fanatics could ask: “Why, then, not include our peculiarities, for

instance, our penitential dress, our grey frock, and outward, pious

practices?” Luther, however, will hear of no self-chosen works of

penance, and condemns indiscriminately those of the fanatics and the

more measured ones preferred by Catholics, in spite of mortification

being recommended by the example of the saints both of the Old and

the New Covenant and of Christ Himself. Of the last Luther says quite

openly that Christ’s example taught us nothing; not Christ’s works,

but merely His express words were to be our example. “What He wished

us to do or leave undone, that He not only did or left undone but also

enjoined or forbade in so many words.... Hence we admit no example,

not even that of Christ Himself.”[1306] Elsewhere he also excludes the

Evangelical Counsels of Perfection, although they are not only based

on example, but are also expressed in words. Yet here, in a particular

instance, he departs from his theory that only Christ’s express

injunctions are binding; Carlstadt had done away with the elevation

of the Sacrament in Divine Worship; this Luther disapproved of; he

acknowledges, however, that Christ did not do so at the Last Supper,

though _we_ do.—He does not tell us when or how Christ enjoined this

by “word.”

What the motives were which led to his decisions on such usages we see

from the following. Speaking to Carlstadt’s party he says: “Although

I too had the intention of doing away with the Elevation, yet, now,

the better to defy and oppose for a while the fanatical spirit, I

shall not do so.”[1307] In the same way, “in defiance of the spirit

of the mob, he intends to call the Sacrament a Sacrifice, though

it is not really one, but simply the reception of what was once a

sacrifice.” We cannot wonder if the sectarians looked upon this spirit

of defiance and contradiction as something strange. One of them during

this controversy complained with some justice that Luther, according

to his own admission, had thundered forth many of his theses merely

because the Papists “had pressed him so hard,” and not from any inner

conviction.[1308] Contradiction was to him sufficient reason for

narrowing the freedom of others in the matter of doctrine.

The new Christian freedom Luther vindicates in his book “Widder die

hymelischen Propheten,” more particularly in respect of the Old

Testament Commandments. At that time, strange to say, the fanatics

were set on imposing certain of the Mosaic laws on both public and

ecclesiastical life, under the impression that they were precepts

divinely ordained for all time. For this Luther’s own violent and

one-sided interpretation of the Bible, in defiance of all tradition,

was really responsible; indeed, he himself was not disinclined to lay

undue stress on Mosaism. (See vol. v., xxix., xxxv. 6.)

The fanatics’ exaggerations were, however, too much for Luther. In

his efforts to oppose their trend he goes so far as to include even

the Decalogue, when he exclaims: “Don’t bother us with Moses”; the

Ten Commandments are disfigured with Mosaism, so he says, for they

prescribe the Sabbath and forbid images; it was stupid to see in the

Decalogue nothing more than moral commandments and precepts of the

natural law.[1309] Not on account of this law do we observe the weekly

day of rest, but because we need a rest and regular times for Divine

worship, viz. out of love for our neighbour and from necessity. It

is no easy matter to reconcile this with Luther’s own praiseworthy

practice of teaching the Commandments and seeing that the young were

instructed in them, or with the great respect with which he surrounded

the Decalogue. The Church’s view, as expounded by St. Thomas, was

both better and more logical, viz. that the Ten Commandments were

the primary and common precepts of the law of nature,[1310] and that

the alteration in the third Commandment, introduced by the Church

concerning the day (Sunday in place of the Sabbath), was merely a minor

detail not affecting the real substance of the Commandment.

That, however, the Sunday, instead of the Saturday, was to be observed

as holy was a point on which Luther had perforce to content himself

with that very tradition which he had so often abused.

Tradition likewise was his only authority for defending Infant Baptism

with so much determination against the fanatics. It is true, that, in

order to deprive his opponents of their chief argument, he put forth

the strange theory, treated of elsewhere, that infants are able to

believe.[1311] Elsewhere, too, he seeks to persuade himself, in spite

of all difficulties, that infants in some way or other co-operate in

the baptismal work of justification by means of some sort of faith.

On the other hand, he confutes Carlstadt’s opinion as to the figurative

sense of the Eucharistic words of consecration in a masterly

dissertation on their real meaning. Here he holds the field because

his interpretation is conformable both with that of antiquity and

with the dictates of reason. We find him demolishing Carlstadt’s

stupidities by appeals to reason, but here Luther is in contradiction

with himself, for in another part of the book, where, for his purpose,

it was essential to make out reason to be absolutely blind as regards

doctrine, he has the strongest invectives against it or any use of

reason in matters of faith. In the case of Carlstadt’s objections

against the Sacramental Presence of Christ, he had been obliged to have

recourse to proofs based on reason, yet in the other passage he says:

“As if we did not know that reason is the devil’s handmaid and does

nothing but blaspheme and dishonour all that God says or does.”[1312]

To come to him with such a Frau Hulda (the name by which he ridicules

reason) “is mere devil’s roguery.”[1313] In his contempt for reason he

goes so far as to advocate a new theory of the omnipresence of Christ’s

body, in heaven and everywhere on earth, in spite of the impossibility

such a thing would involve.

It was quite at variance with his habitual exhortations and commands

for him calmly to inform the fanatics that, whoever does not wish

to receive the Sacrament may leave it alone. The only effect of

receiving the Sacrament now appears to him to be, that it strengthens

in us the Word of faith in Christ, and is a consolation to troubled

consciences. It is true that he proves himself a fiery advocate of the

literal sense of the words of institution and a passionate defender

of the Sacramental Presence, yet the meagre effect he concedes to the

Eucharist makes his fervour somewhat difficult to understand, for there

is no doubt that he minimises both the graces we receive through the

Sacrament and the greatness of the gift of Christ; apart from this he

altogether excludes the sacrificial character of the Supper. Still,

his zeal for the defence of the Eucharist against those who denied it

was so great, that, out of defiance, he was anxious to retain even the

Latin wording of his “Liturgy” and, to this end, made a pathetic appeal

to the chapter in which St. Paul speaks of the use of strange tongues

(1 Cor. xiv.), which Luther thought might be understood of the language

used in the Mass.

The list of feeble arguments and self-contradictions found in this

remarkable book might be indefinitely lengthened, though, on the other

hand, it also contains many a practical and striking refutation of

views held by the fanatics.

In the press of his personal struggle, and in spite of all his scorn

for his opponents’ “spiritism,” Luther could not refrain from bringing

forward against Carlstadt a prophecy of the “higher spirit.” This

prophecy had condemned Carlstadt beforehand and had foretold that he

would not long share our faith; this has now been fulfilled to the

letter, so that “I cannot but understand it.”[1314] Unfortunately,

before this, the opposite party had discovered a prediction against

Luther, an “ancient prophecy” which was certainly about to be fulfilled

in Luther, viz. “that the black monk must first come and cause all

mischief.”[1315]

As was to be expected, Luther preferred, however, to lay greater stress

on other considerations which might assist him to gain the upper hand.

He returns to his favourite asseveration: “If what I have begun is

of God, no one will be able to hinder it; if it is not, I shall most

assuredly not uphold it.”[1316] But not to “uphold it” with all the

force and passion at his command, was, as a matter of fact, impossible

to him. “No one shall take it from me!” he exclaims, almost in the same

breath with the above, and though he indeed adds “save God alone,”

still he knew perfectly well that God would not appear personally in

order to wrestle with him. Moreover, he will have it that the crucial

test had occurred long before and had entirely vindicated him. So

great a work as he had achieved could not, he assures us, have been

“built” without God’s help; not he but a higher power was the builder,

though, so far as he was concerned, he had “in the main laboured well

and rightly [this to the Strasburg dissenters],[1317] so that whoever

avers the contrary cannot be a good spirit; I hope I shall have no

worse luck in the outward matters upon which these prophets are so fond

of harping.” In “outward matters,” however, he was cautious enough to

restrict his claim within his favourite province of freedom. He calls

it “spiritual freedom,” not to make iconoclasm a duty, to leave each

one at liberty to receive, or not receive, the Sacrament, and not

to insist on the wearing of grey frocks. He is also careful not to

prescribe anything, that, by way of outward observances they may not

fall back into Popery, the whole essence of which consists in this sort

of thing.

Luther, however, insists all the more on the “Bible spirit,” the spirit

of the outward Word.

This, in spite of its subjective character, is to be set up as a brazen

shield against the private judgment of the “heavenly prophets” and

their inspirations. It is true his opponents objected that he himself

had much to learn from the “Bible spirit,” for instance, greater

meekness and a resolution to proceed without stirring up “dangerous

enmities.” These, however, were minor matters in his eyes. For him the

“Bible spirit” was the witness and safeguard of his treasured doctrine.

What we must hearken to is not the inward Word—such is his

emphatic declaration after his encounter with the fanatics, in flat

contradiction to his earlier statements (see above, p. 4 f.)—but

above all the outward Word contained in Scripture: if we do otherwise

we are simply following the example of the “heavenly prophets.” The

Pope “spoke according to his own fancy,” paying no heed to the outward

Word, but I speak according to Scripture.[1318] All that was necessary

was not to pervert the Bible, as the fanatics did; it is the devil

who gives them a wrong understanding of Scripture, indeed, according

to Luther, there is no heretic who does not make much of Scripture.

“When the devil sees that the Bible is used as a weapon against him, he

runs to Scripture and raises such confusion that people no longer can

tell who has the right interpretation. When I quote Scripture against

the Papists and fanatics, they don’t believe me, for they have their

own glosses.”[1319] Hence, such at least is his implicit invitation,

they must hold fast to his gloss and no other. For I, by discovering

Scripture, “have delivered the world from the horrid darkness of

Antichrist; nor have I the faintest doubt, but am entirely convinced,

that our Evangel is the true one.”[1320] “The heresies and persecutions

rampant amongst us are merely that confirmation of the truth which the

New Testament predicted (1 Cor. xi. 19), of the truth which I preach.

Heresies must needs arise,” etc. etc.

Finally—such is one of his main arguments against the “heavenly

prophets”—these heretical fanatics do not preach the “chief piece of

Christian doctrine”; they “do not tell people how to get rid of sin,

obtain a good conscience, and a joyful heart at peace with God, which,

really, is the great thing. Here, if anywhere, is the sign that their

spirit is of the devil.... Of how we may obtain a good conscience they

are utterly ignorant, for they have never experienced it.”[1321] He, on

the other hand, thanks to his doctrine, had, though with unheard-of

efforts, won his way to a quiet conscience, and by this impressed an

infallible stamp upon his Evangel; his own way to salvation will be

the way of all who trustfully lay hold on the merits of Christ. Yet

it is not the way for all. For the proud, and for all who are full of

self, there is the law to terrify them and lay bare their sin. It is

only to the “troubled consciences” who tremble before the wrath of God,

to the simple, the poor, and those who are utterly cast down, that

the Evangel speaks. But these fanatics have no interior combats and

death-struggles, they neither humble themselves before God, nor do they

pray. “This I know and am certain of, that they never commenced their

undertaking by imploring God’s help, or praying, and that, even now,

their conscience would not allow them to pray for a happy issue.”[1322]

Not only do they not pray, but they are simply unable to pray; they are

lost souls and belong to the devil.

Never let us in any single thing ever trust to our own knowledge and

our own will. “I prefer to listen to another rather than to myself.” We

cannot be sufficiently on our guard “against the great rascal whom we

bear in our hearts.”[1323] The fanatics retorted: Well may you speak

thus, “you who soar aloft so high with your faith,” you who are so full

of yourself that you must needs use us as your target; “your defiant

teaching and your obstinacy” are well known to all.[1324]

Carlstadt and his fellows were not to be converted by such outpourings

as these.

The rebellious fanatics treated the writings directed against them

with the greatest contempt. Caspar Glatz, who had replaced Carlstadt

as Lutheran pastor at Orlamünde, said in a report to Wittenberg:

They use them in the privy, as I myself have seen and heard from

others.[1325] Luther, too, indignantly apprises Wenceslaus Link of

this: “_Rustici nates libello meo purgant, sic Satan furit._ Thus doth

Satan rage.”[1326]

The most important change called forth in Luther by his encounters with

the fanatics was an increasing disinclination to appeal as heretofore

to any extraordinary divine illumination or inspiration of his own. At

the commencement of the conflict he had been in the habit of telling

them: “I also was in the spirit, I also have seen spirits”; now,

however, little by little, as we shall see more plainly later (vol.

iv., xxviii. 1), such assurances made room for an appeal to the “Word.”

The outward Bible-Word, the meaning of which he had himself discovered,

was now to count for everything.

Beneath the yoke of the Word he was anxious to compel also his other

opponents, such as Agricola, Schenk, and Egranus, to pass.

3. Johann Agricola, Jacob Schenk, and Johann Egranus

Johann Agricola of Eisleben, one of the earliest and most violent of

Luther’s assistants, was desirous of carrying his doctrine on good

works and the difference between the Law and the Gospel to its logical

conclusion. His modifications and criticism of Luther’s doctrine called

forth the latter’s vigorous denunciation. Agricola had to thank his own

restlessness, and “the burden of Luther’s superiority and hostility,”

for what he endured so long as Luther lived.[1327] As the details of

the quarrel are reserved for later consideration (vol. v., xxix. 3), we

shall here merely indicate Luther’s behaviour by quoting a few of his

utterances.

“The foolish fellow was concerned about his honour,” Luther says

very characteristically of this quarrel. He was anxious “that the

Wittenbergers should be nothing and Eisleben everything.”[1328] “He is

hardened,” and nothing can be done for him; “Agricola says, ‘I, too,

have a head.’ Well, were that all that God requires, I might say I

have one too. Thus they go on in their obstinacy and see not that they

are in the wrong.... Our Lord God evidently intends to go on worrying

me yet a while so as to defy the Papists.”[1329] Elsewhere he says:

“Agricola looks on at these doings with a merry mien, and refuses to

humble himself. Yet he has submitted his recantation to me, perhaps

in the hope that I would treat him more leniently. But I shall seek

the glory of Christ and not his; I shall pillory him and his words,

as a cowardly, proud, impious man, who has done much harm to the

Church.”[1330]

Another who fell into serious disagreements with Luther over the

Antinomian question was Dr. Jacob Schenk, then preacher at Freiberg in

Saxony (afterwards Court-preacher at Weimar). At Wittenberg his conduct

began to give rise to suspicion at the same time as Agricola’s. He was

reported to have said in a sermon: Whoever goes on preaching the law,

is possessed of the devil. The eloquence of this man of no mean talents

was as great as his aims were strange.

In Lauterbach’s Diary we find the following, under date October 7,

1538, concerning Luther and Schenk: At Luther’s table the conversation

turned upon Jacob Schenk, “who, in his arrogant and lying fashion was

doing all manner of things [so Luther declared] which he afterwards

was wont to deny. Wherever he was, he raised up strife, relying on

the authority of the Prince and the applause of the people. But he

will be put to shame in the end [so Luther went on to say], just as

Johann Agricola, who enjoyed great consideration at Court and was

almost a Privy Councillor; his reputation vanished without my having

any hand in the matter. When Schenk preached at Zeitz he gave general

dissatisfaction. The wretched man is puffed up with pride and deceives

himself with new-fangled words.... He has concealed his wickedness

under a Satanic hypocrisy and is ever aping me. Never shall I trust

him again, no, not to all eternity.”[1331]

Lauterbach gives a striking picture of Luther’s behaviour at his

encounter with Jacob Schenk on September 11, 1538. Luther and Jonas,

after a sermon which had greatly displeased them, paid him a visit.

They found him, “sad to relate, impenitent and unabashed, rebellious,

ambitious, and perjurious.” Luther pointed out to him his ignorance;

how could he, unexperienced as he was, and understanding neither

dialectics nor rhetoric, venture thus to oppose his teachers? Schenk

replied: “I must do so for the sake of Christ’s Blood and His dear

Passion; my own great trouble of conscience also compels me to it”

(thus adducing a motive similar to that so often alleged by Luther

in his own case). I must “fear God more than all my preceptors; for

I have a God as much as you.” Luther replied: “It may be that you

understand my doctrine perfectly, but you ought nevertheless, for

the honour of God, to honour us as the teachers who first instructed

you.” This seems to have made no impression on Schenk. Luther’s

parting shot was: “If you are torn to pieces, may the devil lap your

blood. We also are ‘in peril from false brethren.’ Poor Freiberg

[the scene of Schenk’s labours] will never recover from this. But

God, the Avenger, will destroy the man who has defiled His temple.

The proverb says: ‘Where heart and mind both are bad, the state of a

man indeed is sad.’” At supper, Schenk, seated at table with Luther

and Jonas, began to abuse Luther and the inhabitants of Freiberg;

after saying much that was scarcely complimentary, he added: “‘When

I have made the Court as pious as you have made the world, then my

work will be finished.’ In spite of all this impertinence he remained

seated, though his hypocritical show of humility revealed how depraved

his heart really was. When Luther got up to leave the room Schenk

attempted to start the quarrel anew.”[1332] Finally they parted

unreconciled.

Schenk subsequently led a wandering existence, ever under suspicion

as to the purity of his faith. In 1541 he was at Leipzig and in

1543 he visited Joachim, Elector of Brandenburg. It was given out

by adversaries, such as Melanchthon and Alberus, that he ultimately

committed suicide, driven thereto by melancholy; the statement is,

however, not otherwise confirmed,

* * * * *

Johann Wildenauer (or Silvius), the theologian, was born at Eger in

Bohemia, and hence was generally known as Egranus. This priest, who

was a man of talent and of Humanistic culture, and an enthusiastic

follower of Erasmus, had been won over to the new teaching in the very

beginning. After having been preacher at the Marienkirche at Zwickau

until Thomas Münzer made any further stay impossible, we find him

from 1521-23 and, again, from 1533-34, preacher of the new faith at

Joachimstal, where he was one of the predecessors of Mathesius.

Wildenauer was one of the most remarkable and independent characters

of the time, but an “extremely restless spirit.”[1333] Although a

Lutheran, he openly expressed his dissatisfaction, not only with the

moral conditions under Lutheranism, but also with many points of his

master’s doctrine, particularly with his theory that faith alone

justifies, and that man cannot co-operate in the work of his salvation.

Luther became at an early date suspicious and angry concerning him. He

wrote to Joachimstal “to warn the people against the dubious doctrines

of Egranus,” as Mathesius relates, on the strength of copies of certain

letters he had seen.[1334] The more dutiful Mathesius speaks of his

predecessor as “a Mameluke and an ungrateful pupil.”[1335] His fault

consisted in his following the example of Erasmus, as did in progress

of time so many other admirers of the Dutch scholar, and relinquishing

more and more his former good opinion of Luther’s person and work;

with this change his own sad experiences had not a little to do. To

the Catholic Church, which had excommunicated him, he apparently never

returned. When, in 1534, he was deprived of his post at Joachimstal,

he complained in a letter, that he had been “driven into exile and

outlawed by Papists and Lutherans alike.”[1336]

In that same year he published at Leipzig a work entitled “A Christian

Instruction on the righteousness of faith and on good works,”[1337]

which, in spite of its bitterness, contained many home-truths. There,

apart from what he says on doctrinal matters, we find an account of the

“temptations and trials” he had to endure for having ventured to teach

that “good works and a Christian life, side by side with faith, are

useful and necessary for securing eternal life.”[1338]

About this time Luther again sent forth a challenge to Erasmus and to

all Erasmians generally who had broken with him, Egranus included.

He told his friends that now his business was to “purify the

Church from the brood of Erasmus” (“_a fœtibus eius_”); he was

referring particularly to Egranus, also to Crotus Rubeanus, Wicel,

[Œcolampadius, and Campanus.[1339] Erasmus had already “seduced”

Zwingli and now he had also “converted Egranus, who believes just as

much as he,” viz. nothing.[1340]—Egranus he calls a “proud donkey,”

who teaches that Christ must not be exalted so high, having learnt

this from Erasmus;[1341] “this proud spirit declared that though

Christ had earned it, yet we must merit it.”[1342]—He had long been

acquainted with this false spirit, so he wrote in 1533 or 1534 to a

Joachimstal burgher; he, like other sectarians, was full of “devil’s

venom.” “Even though no syrup or purgative be given them, yet they

cannot but expel their poison from mouth and anus. The time will come

when they will be unable any longer to pass the matter, and then

their belly must burst like that of Judas; for they will not be able

to retain what they have stolen and devoured of [the doctrine of]

Christ.”[1343]

That Egranus finally drank himself to death with Malmsey “is a

despicable calumny, which can be traced back to Mathesius.”[1344] In

the sixteenth-century controversies it was the usual thing on either

side to calumniate opponents and to make them die the worst death

conceivable,[1345] and it would appear, that, in the case of Egranus,

at a very early date unfavourable reports were circulated concerning

his manner of death. His lamentable end (“_misere periit_”), Luther

likens to that of Zwingli, struck down in the battle of Cappel by a

divine judgment.[1346] His death occurred in 1535.

In the “Christian Instruction,” referred to above, Egranus had

written: “The new prophets can only tell us that we are freed from

sin by Christ; what He commanded or forbade in the Gospel that they

pass over as were it not in the Gospel at all.” “If we simply say:

Christ has done everything and what we do is of no account, then we

are making too much of Christ’s share, for we also must do something

to secure our salvation. By such words Christ is made a cloak for our

sins, and, as is actually now the case, all seek to conceal and excuse

their wickedness and viciousness under the mantle of Christ’s merits.”

“If such faith without works continues to be preached much longer, the

Christian religion will fall into ruins and come to a lamentable end,

and the place where this faith without works is taught will become a

Sodom and Gomorrha.”[1347]

4. Bugenhagen, Jonas and others

Disagreements such as these never arose to mar the relations between

Luther and some of his other more intimate co-workers, for instance,

his friendship with Bugenhagen and Jonas, who have been so frequently

alluded to already. He was always ready to acknowledge in the warmest

manner the great services they rendered him in the defence and

spread of his teaching, and to support them when they stood in need

of his assistance. He was never stingy in his bestowal of praise,

narrow-minded or jealous, in his acknowledgement of the merits of

friendly fellow-preachers, or of those writers who held Lutheran views.

Nicholas von Amsdorf, who introduced the new faith into Magdeburg in

1524 and there became Superintendent, he praises for the firmness with

which he confessed the faith and for his fearless conduct generally.

In Disputations he was wont to go straight to the heart of the matter

like the “born theologian” he was; at Schmalkalden, when preaching

before the Princes and magnates, he had not shrunk from declaring that

our Evangel was intended for the weak and oppressed and for those who

feel themselves sinners, though he could not discern any such in the

audience.[1348]

Johann Brenz, preacher in Schwäbisch-Hall since 1522, and one of the

founders of the new church system in Suabia, was greatly lauded by

Luther for his exegetical abilities. “He is a learned and reliable

man. Amongst all the theologians of our day there is not one who knows

how to interpret and handle Holy Scripture like Brenz. When I gaze in

admiration at his spirit I almost despair of my own powers. Certainly

none of our people can do what he has done in his exposition of the

Gospel of St. John. At times, it is true, he is carried away by his

own ideas, yet he sticks to the point and speaks conformably to the

simplicity of God’s Word.”[1349]

Next to Melanchthon, however, the friend whom Luther praised most

highly as a “thoroughly learned and most able man,” was Johann

Bugenhagen. “He has, under most trying circumstances, been of service

to many of the Churches.”[1350]

In his Preface to Bugenhagen’s Latin Commentary on the Psalms—a work

which, even in the opinion of Protestant theologians, “leaves much to

be desired”[1351] from the “point of view of learning,” and which in

reality is merely a sort of polemical work of edification, written

from the standpoint of the new faith—Luther declared, that the spirit

of Christ had at length unlocked the Psalter through Bugenhagen; every

teacher must admit that now “the spirit was revealing secrets hidden

for ages.” “I venture to assert that the first person on earth to give

an explanation of the Book of Psalms is Pomeranus. Almost all earlier

writers have introduced their own views into the book, but here the

judgment of the spirit will teach you wondrous things.”[1352]

Yet at the very outset, in the first verse of the Psalms, instead of a

learned commentary, we find Bugenhagen expounding the new belief, and

attacking the alleged self-righteousness of Catholicism, termed by him

the “_cathedra pestilentiæ_”; he even relates at length his conversion

to Lutheranism, which had given scandal “to those not yet enlightened

by the sun of the Evangel.”[1353] They were no longer to wait for the

completion of his own Commentary on the Psalms, Luther concludes,

since now—in place of poor Luther—David, Isaias, Paul, and John were

themselves speaking to the reader.

“He had no clear perception of the defects of Bugenhagen’s exegetical

method,” remarks O. Albrecht, the editor of the above Preface in

the Weimar edition of Luther’s works.[1354] The explanation of this

“uncalled-for praise,” as Albrecht terms it, is to be found in the

feeling expressed by Luther in the first sentence of the Preface:

At the present time God had caused His Word to shine like crystal,

whereas of yore there prevailed only chill and dismal mists.

The truth is that few of Luther’s assistants promoted his cause with

such devotion and determination combined as did Pomeranus, who,

for all his zeal, was both practical and sober in his ways. Such

were his achievements for the cause, that Luther greets him in the

superscription of a letter as “Bishop of the Church of Wittenberg,

Legate of Christ’s face and heart to Denmark, my brother and my

master.” He thus explains the words “_legatus a facie et a corde_”:

“the Pope boasts of his ‘_legati a latere_,’ I boast of my pious

preachers ‘_a facie et a corde_.’”[1355] Luther was in the habit of

putting Bugenhagen on the same footing with himself and Melanchthon:

Luther, Philip, and Pomeranus will support the Evangel as long as they

are there, he says, but after this there will come a fall (“_fiet

lapsus_”).[1356] Let those braggarts who pretend they know better

“come to me, to Philip, and to Pomeranus ... then they will be nicely

confounded.”[1357] Köstlin is, however, rightly of opinion that,

as compared with Luther and Melanchthon, Bugenhagen was “merely a

subordinate, though endowed by nature with considerable powers of

mind and body.”[1358] Yet the sun of Luther’s favour shone upon him.

Agricola, “the poor fellow,” says Luther, “looks down on Pomeranus,

but the latter is a great theologian and has plenty nerve for his work

(‘_multum habet nervorum_’); Agricola, of course, would make himself

out to be more learned than Master Philip or I.”[1359] “Pomeranus is a

splendid professor”; “his sermons are full of wealth.”[1360] The truth

is that the “wealth,” or rather expansiveness, of his discourses was

so great that Luther had to reprove him severely for the length of his

sermons.

Johann Bugenhagen, called Pommer or Pomeranus because he hailed from

Wollin in Pomerania, after two years spent at the University of

Greifswald and a further course devoted mainly to Humanist studies,

was ordained priest by the Bishop of Cammin, when “as yet he probably

had not begun to study theology.”[1361] At the College at Treptow he

earned respect as professor of Humanism and as Rector; in his desire to

further the better theology advocated by Erasmus he took to studying

the Bible, and, on Luther’s appearance, was soon won over to the cause,

though on first reading Luther’s work “On the Babylonish Captivity,”

he “had been repelled by the palpable heresies” it contained. He

settled at Wittenberg, delivered private lectures on the Psalms, and

married, on October 13, 1522, a servant-maid of Hieronymus Schurf, the

lawyer; in the following year he was inducted at the Schlosskirche as

parish-priest of Wittenberg by the magistrates, acting together with

Luther. In defiance of right and justice and of the murmurs raised,

Luther, from the pulpit, proclaimed him pastor, thus overruling the

objections of the Chapter; his choice by the board of magistrates “and

by the congregation agreeably with the evangelical teaching of Paul,”

Luther held to be quite sufficient.[1362]

As pastor, Bugenhagen displayed great energy not merely in preaching to

and instructing the people, but in furthering in every way the spread

of Lutheranism in the civic and social life of the Electorate. His

practical talents made him eventually the apostle of the new Church,

even beyond the confines of Saxony. He successively introduced or

organised it in Brunswick, Hamburg, Lübeck, and in Pomerania, his own

country; then in Denmark, from 1537-39, where he fixed his residence at

Copenhagen. Two main features are apparent in all he did; everywhere

the new Churches were established on a strictly civil basis, and, so

far as the new religion allowed of it, the old Catholic forms were

retained.

In his indefatigable and arduous undertakings Bugenhagen made himself

one with Luther, and became, so to speak, a replica of his master. In

his scrupulous observance of Luther’s doctrine he was to be outdone by

none, save possibly by Amsdorf; in rudeness and want of consideration

where the new Evangel was concerned, and in his whole way of thinking,

he stood nearest to Luther, the only difference being, that, in his

discourses and writings we miss Luther’s imagination and feeling.

In the literary field, in addition to the Commentary on the Psalms

and other similar writings, he distinguished himself by a work in

vindication of the new preaching, addressed to the city of Hamburg

and entitled: “Von dem Christen-loven und den rechten guden Werken”

(1526), also by the share he took, with Melanchthon and Cruciger, in

Luther’s German translation of the Bible, and his labours in connection

with the Low-Saxon version. Most important of all, however, were his

Church-constitutions. Bugenhagen died at Wittenberg on April 20, 1558,

after having already lost his sight—broken down by the bitter trials

which had come on him subsequent to Luther’s death.

Such was Luther’s confidence in his friend and appreciation of his

power, that, during Bugenhagen’s prolonged absence, we often find

Luther expressing his desire to see him again by his side and in

charge of the Wittenberg pastorate. “Your absence,” so in 1531 he

wrote to him at Lübeck, “is greatly felt by us. I am overburdened with

work and my health is not good. I am neglecting the Church-accounts,

and the shepherd should be here. I cannot attend to it. The world

remains the world and the devil is its God.... Since the world

refuses to allow itself to be saved, let it perish. Greet your Eve

and Sara in my name and that of my wife and give greetings to all our

friends.”[1363]

When Bugenhagen was at Wittenberg Luther loved to open to him the

secret recesses of his heart, especially when suffering from

“temptations.” Frequently he even aroused in Bugenhagen a sort of echo

of his own feelings, which shows us how close a tie existed between

them, and gives us an idea of the kind of suggestion Luther was wont

to exercise over those who surrendered themselves to his influence.

Bugenhagen, like Luther, was not conscious of any good-will or merit

of his own, but—apart from the merits of Christ with which we are

bedecked—merely of the oppression arising from his “great weakness”

and “secret idolatry against the first Table of the Law of Moses.”

Hence, when Luther, in June, 1540, complained that Agricola was

after some righteousness of his own, whereas he (Luther) could find

nothing of the sort in himself, Bugenhagen at once chimed in with the

assurance that he was no less unable to discover any such thing in

himself.[1364]

Luther’s anger against the fanatics and Sacramentarians was imbibed

by Bugenhagen. To him and his other Table-guests Luther complained

that his adversaries, Carlstadt, Grickel and Jeckel (i.e. Agricola

and Jacob Schenk), were ignorant braggarts; they accuse us of want of

charity because we will not allow them to have their own way, though

we read in Paul: “A man that is a heretic avoid.” Bugenhagen was at

once ready to propose a drastic remedy. “Doctor, we should do what

is commanded in Deuteronomy [xiii. 5 ff.], where Moses says they

should be put to death.” Whereupon Luther replied: “Quite so, and the

reason is given in the same text: It is better to make away with a man

than with God.”[1365] Bugenhagen was also the first to take up his

pen in Luther’s defence[1366] when the Swiss heresy concerning the

doctrine of the Supper began to be noised abroad owing to a letter of

Zwingli’s to Alber at Reutlingen, and to his book, “_Commentarius de

vera et falsa religione_,” of March, 1525. When Melanchthon showed

signs of inclining towards the Zwinglian doctrine of the Sacrament,

there was soon a rumour at Wittenberg that “Melanchthon and Pomeranus

have fallen out badly on the Article concerning the Supper,” and

an apprehension of “dreadful dissensions amongst the foremost

theologians.”[1367]

In 1532 Luther declared: There must be some ready to show a “brave

front” to the devil; “there must be some in the Church as ready to

slap Satan, as we three [Luther, Melanchthon, and Bugenhagen]; but not

all are able or willing to endure this.”[1368] And on another occasion

he described, in Bugenhagen’s presence, how he was wont cynically to

mock the devil when “he comes by night to worry me ... by bringing up

my sins”; Satan did not, however, torment him about his really grave

sins, such as his “celebration of Mass and provocation of God [in

the religious life].” “May God preserve me from that! For were I to

realise keenly how great these sins were, the horror of it would kill

me!” It was on the occasion of this fantastic outburst, employed by

Luther to quiet his conscience, that Bugenhagen, not to be outdone in

coarseness, uttered the words already recorded (above, p. 178).[1369]

The spiritual kinship between Luther and Bugenhagen produced in the

latter a similar liking for coarse language. He was much addicted to

the use of strong expressions, witness, for instance, his saying that

friars wore ropes around their waists that we might have wherewith to

hang them.[1370]

In his most severe temptations Luther found consolation in the words

of comfort spoken by the pastor of Wittenberg, and he assures us he

was often refreshed by such exhortations, the memory of which he was

slow to lose.[1371] Bugenhagen assisted him during his severe illness

in 1527, and again in the other attack some ten years later. On the

latter occasion he summoned his friend to Gotha, made his confession

to him, so he says, and commended the “Church and his family” to his

care.[1372] When separated they were in the habit of begging each

other’s prayers.

In his letters Bugenhagen recounts to Luther the success of his

labours, in order to afford him pleasure, giving due thanks to God.

Somewhat strange is the account he sent Luther of an encounter he

had at Lübeck with a girl supposed to be possessed by the devil;

through her lips the devil had given testimony to him just as at

Ephesus, so the Acts of the Apostles tell us, he had borne witness

to the power of Jesus and Paul.[1373] Hardly had he come to the town

and visited the girl than the devil, speaking through her, called

him by name (we must not forget that her parents, at least, were

acquainted with Bugenhagen) and declared his coming to Lübeck to

be quite uncalled for. That, in spite of his prayers and tears, he

was unable to expel the devil, he himself admits.[1374] The account

of the incident, written down by him soon after his arrival at

Lübeck, and before he had properly inquired into the case, was soon

published under a curious title.[1375] So much did Luther think of

the encounter with this hysterical or mentally deranged girl,[1376]

that he wrote: “Satan is giving Pomeranus a great deal to do at Lübeck

with a maid who is possessed. The cunning demon is planning marvels.”

This, when forwarding from the Coburg to Wenceslaus Link, preacher

at Nuremberg, the account he had received.[1377] In 1536 Bugenhagen

related at table, during the conciliation meetings held at Wittenberg,

the encounters he had had in Lübeck and Brunswick with “delivered

demoniacs.”[1378]

Luther on his side gave his friend, when busy abroad, frequent tidings

of the state of things at Wittenberg. In 1537 he sent to him, at

Copenhagen, an account of a nasty trick played by Paul Heintz, a

professor at the University of Wittenberg, “greatly to the detriment

of the town and University.” The latter, in order to possess himself

of an inheritance, had given out that a youthful stepson of his was

dead, and had caused a dog to be solemnly buried in his place with

all the usual rites. “The Master’s drama makes me almost burst with

rage.” If these lawyers (who in Luther’s opinion treated the case

too leniently) “look upon the disgrace to our Church as a small

matter,” he writes, to Bugenhagen, “I will show them a bit of the

true Luther (‘_ero, Deo volente, Lutherus in hac causa_’).”[1379]

He did actually write a furious letter to the Elector to secure the

severe punishment of the offender, who has caused us “to be jeered at

everywhere as dogs’ undertakers”; the lawyers, who in the Pope’s or

the devil’s name had shown themselves lenient, he would denounce from

the pulpit.[1380] To Magister Johann Saxo, who in turn related it to

Bugenhagen, he declared, that, should the burial of the dog with all

the rites of the Church be proved to have taken place, then “Paul

would pay for it with his neck” on account of the mockery of religion

involved.[1381] Even later Luther declared: “I should have liked to

have written his death-sentence”; he added, however, that the culprit

had really “buried the dog in order to drive away the plague.”[1382]

Possessed, like Luther, by a positive craze for seeing diabolical

intervention everywhere, Bugenhagen shared his superstitions to

the full. He it was who knew how to expel the devil from the churn

by what Luther termed the “best” method, which certainly was the

coarsest imaginable.[1383] When, in December, 1536, a storm broke over

Wittenberg he vied with Luther in declaring, that since it was quite

out of the order of nature, it must be altogether satanic (“_plane

sathanicum_”).[1384]

He discerned the work of the devil just as clearly in the persistence

of Catholicism and its resistance to Lutheranism. “Dear Lord Jesus

Christ,” he writes, “arise with Thy Holy Angels and thrust down

into the abyss of hell the diabolical murder and blasphemy of

Antichrist.”[1385] Elsewhere he prays in similar fashion, “that God

would put to shame the devil’s doctrines and idolatries of the Pope

and save poor people from the errors of Antichrist.”[1386] Among all

the qualities he had acquired from Luther, his patron and model,

this hatred—which the Sectarians of the new faith who differed from

Luther were also made to feel—is perhaps the most striking. In his

case, however, fanaticism was tempered with greater coolness and

calculation. For calm obstinacy Bugenhagen in many ways recalls Calvin.

When Superintendent of the Saxon Electorate he introduced into the

Litanies a new petition: “From the blasphemy, cruel murder and

uncleanness of Thine enemies the Turk and the Pope, graciously deliver

us.”[1387]

With delight he was able to write to Luther from Denmark,[1388] that

the Mass was forbidden throughout the country and that the mendicant

Friars had been driven over the borders as “sedition-mongers” and

“blasphemers” because they refused to accept the King’s offers (“some

of them were hanged”).[1389] The Canons had everywhere been ordered to

attend the Lutheran Communion on festivals; the four thousand parishes

had now to be preserved in the new faith which had dawned upon the

land. Bugenhagen, on August 12, 1537, a few weeks after his arrival,

vested in alb and cope, and with great ecclesiastical pomp, had placed

the crown on the head of King Christian III. who had already given

the Catholics a foretaste of what was to come and had caused all the

bishops to be imprisoned.

“All proceeds merrily,” Luther told Bucer on December 6, “God is

working through Pomeranus; he crowned the King and Queen like a

true bishop. He has given a new span of life to the University [of

Copenhagen].”[1390] Bugenhagen was inexorable in his extirpation of

the worship of “Antichrist” in Denmark, even down to the smallest

details. To the King, concerning a statue of Pope St. Lucius in the

Cathedral Church at Roskilde, he wrote, that this must be removed;

it was an exact representation of the Pauline prophecy concerning

Antichrist; the sword, which the Pope carried in his hand as the

symbol of his death, Bugenhagen regarded as emblematic of the cruelty

of the Popes, who now preferred to cut off the heads of others and

to arrogate to themselves authority over all kings and rulers; if a

true likeness of the Pope was really wanted, then he would have to be

represented as a devil with claws and a fiendish countenance, and be

decked out in a golden mantle, a staff, a sword and three crowns; from

such a book the laity would be able to read the truth.[1391]

Justus Jonas, who, of all his acquaintances, remained longest with

Luther at Wittenberg, like Bugenhagen, bestowed upon the master his

enduring veneration and friendship. His numerous translations of

Luther’s works are in themselves a proof of his warm attachment to

his ideas and of his rare affinity to him. He, next to Melanchthon

and Bugenhagen, was the clearest-headed and most active assistant in

the affairs of Wittenberg, and his name frequently appears, together

with those of Luther and the two other intimates, among the signatures

appended to memoranda dealing with matters ecclesiastical.

To the close relationship between Luther and Jonas many interesting

details preserved in the records remain to attest.

Jonas once dubbed Luther a Demosthenes of rhetoric.[1392] Luther in

his turn praised Jonas not merely for his translations, but also

for his sermons; he had all the gifts of a good orator, “save that

he cleared his throat too often.”[1393] Yet he also accuses him of

conceit for declaring that “he knew all that was contained in Holy

Scripture” and also for his annoyance and surprise at the doubts

raised concerning the above assertion.[1394]

On the other hand, the bitter hostility displayed by Jonas towards

all Luther’s enemies, pleased the latter. Jonas, taking up the thread

of the conversation, remarked on one occasion to the younger guests

at Luther’s table: “Remember this definition: A Papist is a liar and

a murderer, or the devil himself. They are not to be trusted in the

least, for they thirst after our blood.”[1395]

His opinion of Jacob Schenk coincided with that of Luther: His

“head is full of confused notions”; he was as “poison” amongst the

Wittenberg theologians, so that Bugenhagen did well in refusing him

his daughter in marriage.[1396] Of Agricola he remarked playfully,

when the latter had uttered the word “_oportet_” (it must be): “The

‘must’ must be removed; the salt has got into it and we refuse to take

it.” Whereupon Luther replied: “He must swallow the ‘must’ but I shall

put such salt into it that he will want to spit it out again.”[1397]

No one, so well as Jonas, knew how to cheer up Luther, hence Katey

sometimes invited him to table secretly.[1398] It is true that his

chatter sometimes proved tiresome to the other guests, for one of

them, viz. Cordatus, laments that he interrupted Luther’s best sayings

with his endless talk.[1399] The truth is, of course, that the pupils

were anxious to drink in words from Luther’s own lips. Luther for his

part encouraged his friend when the latter was oppressed by illness

or interior anxieties. Jonas suffered from calculus, and, during one

of his attacks, Luther said to him: “Your illness keeps you watchful

and troubled, it is of more use to you than ten silver mines. God

knows how to direct the lives of His own people and we must obey Him,

each one according to our calling. Beloved God, how is Thy Church

distracted both within and without!”[1400] When Jonas on one occasion,

being already unwell, was greatly troubled with scruples of conscience

and doubts about the faith (“_tentatus gravissime_”), Luther sent

him, all written out, the consoling words with which he himself was

wont to find comfort in similar circumstances: “Have I not been found

worthy to be called to the service of the Word and been commanded,

under pain of Thine everlasting displeasure, to believe what has

been revealed to me and in no way to doubt it?... Act manfully and

strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in God.”[1401]

In the matter of faith Jonas was easily contented, and, for this,

Luther praised him; since a man could not comprehend the Articles, it

was sufficient for him to begin with a mere assent (“_ut incipiamus

tantum assentiri_”). This theology actually appealed to Luther so much

that he exclaimed: “Yes, dear Dr. Jonas, if a man could believe it as

it stands, his heart would burst for joy! That is sure. Hence we shall

never attain to its comprehension.”[1402] On Ascension Day, 1540,

Luther’s pupils wrote down these words which fell from his lips: “I am

fond of Jonas, but if he were to ascend up to heaven and be taken from

us, what should I then think?... Strange, I cannot understand it and

cannot believe it, and yet all the Apostles believed.... Oh, if only a

man could believe it!”[1403]

Jonas found the faith amongst the country people around Wittenberg so

feeble and barren of fruit, that, on one occasion, he complained of it

with great anger. Luther sought to pacify him: God’s chastisement will

fall upon those peasants in due time; God is strong enough to deal

with them. He added, however, admitting that Jonas was right: “Is it

not a disgrace that in the whole Wittenberg district only one peasant

can be found in all the villages who seriously exhorts his household

in the Word of God and the Catechism? The others are all going to the

devil!”[1404]

Justus Jonas, whose real name was Jodocus (Jobst) Koch, was a native

of Nordhausen in the province of Saxony. He, like Bugenhagen, could

not boast of a theological education as he had devoted himself to

jurisprudence, and, as an enthusiastic Erasmian, to Humanism. In 1514

or 1515 he became priest at Erfurt, and in 1518 Doctor of Civil and

Canon Law, at the same time securing a comfortable canonry. He attached

himself to Luther during the latter’s journey to Worms, and in July,

1521, migrated to Wittenberg, where he lectured at the University on

Canon Law and also on theology, after having been duly promoted to the

dignity of Doctor in the theological Faculty; at the same time he was

provost of the Schlosskirche.

In 1522 he married a Wittenberg girl, and, in the following year,

vindicated this step against Johann Faber in “_Adv. J. Fabrum,

scortationis patronum, pro coniugio sacerdotali_,” just as Bugenhagen

after his marriage had found occasion to defend in print priestly

matrimony. In 1523 he lectured on Romans. Of his publications his

translations of Luther’s works were particularly prized.

His practical mind, his schooling in the law, and his business

abilities, no less than the friendship of Luther bestowed upon a

man so ready with the pen, procured for him his nomination as dean

of the theological Faculty; this position he retained from 1523

till 1533. Jonas, the “theologian by choice,” as Luther termed him

in contradistinction to Amsdorf, the “theologian by nature,” took

part in all the important events connected with Lutheranism, in the

Conference at Marburg, the Diet of Augsburg and the Visitations in the

Saxon Electorate from 1528 onwards, also in the introduction of the

innovations into the Duchy of Saxony in 1539. In 1541 he introduced the

new church-system in the town of Halle, which till then had been the

residence of the Cardinal-Elector, Albert of Mayence. From the time of

the War of Schmalkalden and the misfortunes which ensued, his interior

troubles grew into a mental malady. Melanchthon speaks of his “_animus

ægrotus_.” His was a form of the “_morbus melancholicus_”[1405] which

we meet with so often at that time amongst disappointed and broken-down

men within the Protestant fold, and which was unquestionably due

to religious troubles. According to the report of one Protestant,

Cyriacus Schnauss (1556), and of a certain anonymous writer, his death

(† October 9, 1555),[1406] was happier than his life. To the darker

side of his character belongs the malicious and personal nature of his

polemics, as experienced, for instance, by Johann Faber and Wicel, whom

he attacked with the weapon of calumny, and his “constant, often petty,

concern in the increase of his income.”[1407]