CONTENTS

I. Luther and Freedom of Thought

II. Luther and the State

III. Luther and Religion

IV. Luther and Social Life

V. Luther and Education

VI. Luther, Slaves and Peasants

VII. Luther and Woman



WORKS QUOTED

The following are the editions of Luther’s works to

which reference is made in these articles: ''M. Luthers

sdmtliche Werke”, Erlangen, ''M. Lutheri Exegetica

Opera Latina” and Lutheri Opera Latina, etc.,” Er-

langen
;
”Dr. Martin Luthers Werke” Weimar

;
the Halle

edition, by J. G. Walch ; and the earliest of all collections,

the Wittenberg Edition, “Dr. Martin Luthers Briefwech-

sel,” edited mainly by Enders, and “M. Luthers Briefe,”

collected by M. De Wette. Quotations are likewise given

from “D. Martini Lutheri Colloquia, etc.,” Bindseil,

“Tagehuch uber Dr. Martin Luther,” Cordatus; and

other editions of Luther’s Tabletalk, etc. The works of

historians and biographers cited in the various articles

are sufficiently indicated in their proper places. The

three great Catholic classics upon this subject are

Janssen-Pastor, Denifle and Grisar. The latter has

gathered into his “Luther” the most vital passages that

are to be found in the “Reformer’s” voluminous works.

The references are all to Grisar’s original German edi-

tion. An English translation is being published by

Herder.



I. Luther and Freedom of Thought

Joseph Husslein, SJ.

L
uther has often been hailed as the champion of
freedom of thought. Men were “emancipated” by

him from the spiritual authority of the Pope to whom

Christ had committed the keys of His Kingdom and the

care of His flock. But for the authority of the Sovereign

Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, Luther substituted

his own authority which brooked no rivalry or contradic-

tion. “We believed,” wrote the Protestant theologian

Braun in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung for March 30,

1913, “that we owed to him the spirit of toleration and

liberty of conscience. Yet there is not a shadow of truth

to this.” Discerning Protestant critics admit it was never

Luther’s wish that there should be religious toleration for

anyone except himself. “In speaking of Luther,” says

the Protestant historian Walter Kohler, “there can be

absolutely no question of liberty of conscience or free-

dom of religion.” {''Reformation und KetzerprocessE)

It is true that at times Luther apparently preached a

doctrine of toleration, as when he said that neither Pope

nor angel might presume to rob the Faithful of their lib-

erty; but that liberty was to consist solely in an en-

forced conformity with every article of his creed, even

the least. In the beginning of his career the Reformer

demanded full freedom for the preaching of his doctrine

which stood in such startling opposition to the Faith of

fifteen centuries of Christianity. “As for combating

^
heretics,” he declared, “let the Bishops see to that. It is

their function, not the office of princes
;
for heretics can

5



6 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

never be combated by force. . . . Here the Word of God

must do battle.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol, XXII, p. 90.) Yet

no one ever more studiously urged the princes to apply

force when there was question of advancing his own doc-

trine and prohibiting every other. Therefore the words

quoted, though often cited by his eulogists, are not meant

to convey any principle of general religious toleration.

To establish this thesis it will be sufficient to consider

the Reformer’s attitude towards his fellow-Protestants.

His intolerance of Catholics and their doctrines is too

patent to call for proof. In his final work, “The Papacy

k an Institution of the Devil,” the last will and testament

of a hatred that verged upon insanity, he wrote : “Hang

up the Pope, the Cardinals, and all the Papal rabble.

Tear out their blaspheming tongues, and fix them on a

gibbet, as they clap their seals to their Bulls.” As for the

^
Jews, he demanded in his work, “About the Jews and

Their Lies,” that their synagogues be burned, their houses

broken down and destroyed and their rabbis forbidden to

teach under pain of death. “Force them to work,” he ex-

claims, “and treat them with every kind of severity, as

Moses did in the desert and slew 3,000.” (Erlangen Ed.

Vol. XXXII, p. 99, etc.) Further illustrations would be

superfluous.

In vain did his fellow-sectaries, to whom he had given

the example of separation from the Mother Church, claim

for themselves the privilege of private interpretation of

the Scriptures. They might indeed have it, he said im-

periously, but they must in that case agree with him on

every point of his new doctrine, for “On the foundation

\of the Holy Scriptures I have over^vhelmed and overcome

all my opponents.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. LVHI, p. 6.)

To disagree with him was dishonesty which deserved



LUTHER AND FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 7

punishment. Writing to the Elector, John of Saxony,

1 February 9, 1526, Luther urged him, in the name of law

1 and order, to permit no other doctrine besides his own

:

“In one place there should be one kind of sermon only.”

Luther’s proposed methods of dealing with those who

ventured in any way to differ from him in religious belief

is fully set forth in his explanation of Psalm 82. He dis-

tinguishes two classes of heretics. The first embraces all

those who without authoritative commission from the

Lutheran princes thrust themselves into the office of

preaching. Such men he regarded not merely as a source

of spiritual danger but as a possible cause of public dis-

order in a town where no Scripture interpretation except

that of Luther was to be permitted by the public authori-

ties. Any citizen who hears such a one is under obliga-

tion, by his oath as a citizen, Luther says, to denounce

him to the city officials. “If he does not desist, the au-

.A thorities will commend such a fellow to the proper

master, the Master Executioner.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol.

XXXIX, pp. 250-254.) The popular name given to the

latter was ‘'Meister Hans/' Luther’s frequent allusions

to him are to be taken seriously, for they were acted upon

by the local princes and brought many a poor fellow to

the block or to the stake. In the year 1527 alone twelve

. men and one woman were executed by the Elector John,

Luther’s special favorite at this time. (Grisar, Vol. Ill,

p. 735.)

It is true that in the case of the Anabaptists there had

been considerable disorder. Yet perfectly peaceful citi-

zens were executed for their religious beliefs only. “It is

characteristic of the want of information concerning the

real happenings of the epoch,” writes the Protestant his-

torian of the Reformation, L. Keller, “that very many



8 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

even at the present day proceed on the supposition that

the executions and persecutions of the Anabaptists took

place merely because of public disturbances, and that the

Reformers had no part in them/' (Ibid., p. 747.) Of

these same executions, which form but one phase of

Luther’s “mania for persecution,” as a Protestant his-

torian calls it, P. Wappler, likewise a Protestant author

says

:

The numerous executions of such Anabaptists as, according

to evidence, were no disturbers of the peace, yet who were

killed in precise conformity with the directive explanations of

the Wittenberg theologians, give too plain a testimony against

all attempts of writers who would still deny the clear fact that

Luther approved of the death penalty inflicted for the exclusive

reason of heresy. {"Die Stellung Kursachsens, etc.” p. 125.)

The second class of heretics, according to Luther’s

category, includes those who are entirely peaceful but

presume “to preach publicly against an article of faith.”

They do not fare at his hands much better than the first

class, and in practice, as we have seen, were often made

to suffer the death-penalty. “These too are not to be suf-

fered,” Luther says of them, “but are to be punished as

public blasphemers.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXXIX, pp.

250-254.)

Luther did not give vent to his “mania for persecution”

all at once. As late as 1528 he had not advocated the

death-penalty for Anabaptists, but was content with ap-

proving the edict which interdicted their writings and

those of other heretics. In 1530, however, he wrote the

plain words quoted above in which Anabaptists and all

other heretics were, under the given circumstances, com-

mended to the tender mercies of the Master Executioner.

In one word, as the Protestant historian, H. Barge, ad-



LUTHER AND FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 9

mits in his work, ‘'Andreas Bodenstein/' Luther’s method

of preserving the purity of his doctrine was “to mobilize

the police.” His last argument was the hangman.

In defending his actions Luther constantly writes that

he does not in reality force men to believe against their

consciences, but that he merely makes them conform out-

wardly, by forcing them to attend Lutheran instructions,

build Lutheran schools and churches, and support the men

who preach his doctrine. It is difficult to see how any

further compulsion could possibly be exercised. “They

must be forced to hear the sermons, whether or not they

believe the Gospel,” he wrote to Pastor Thomas Loscher

regarding those who opposed his new doctrines. “If they

would live among the people they should learn the law of

the same people, even though unwilling.” Briefwech-

sel/' Vol. VII, p. 151.) The law in question was the re-

ligious creed laid down according to Luther’s interpreta-

tion of the Scripture. “For the sake of the Ten Com-

[mandments,” he wrote to Joseph Levin Metzsch, “let the

sj people be driven to the sermon that they may at least

learn the external works of obedience.” (Erlangen Ed.,

Vol. LIV, p. 67.)

In the case of preachers who differed from him Luther

insisted that there was no need of any nice hearing of

testimony. Local authorities, in punishing them, might

dispense with it entirely. Least of all was there to be any

discussion with such men, he told the Landgrave Philip of

Hesse. But the climax was reached when Luther signed

Melanchthon’s document. It is a defense of the death-

penalty not only for the “blasphemers” who maintained

that “men could become holy without sermons or church

^ service,” but also for their adherents and deceivers who
persist in saying that “Our Baptism and sermon are not



10 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

Christian, and our Church is not the Church of Christ.”

This magna charta of religious intolerance, directed

mainly against the Anabaptists, was signed by Luther

with the words: “It pleases me, M. Luther.” (Grisar,

Vol. HI, p. 732.)

By Luther’s principles, wrote the Protestant Church

historian, Neander, “All oppressive domination of a State

religion, and all tyranny over the conscience of men

could be sanctioned. His views were the same as those

on which the Roman Emperors had acted in persecuting

the Christians!* {''Das Eine und Manigfaltige des

Christlichen Lebens/* p. 224.)

It is claimed that the Reformer moderated his mania

for religious persecution during his last days, but the

evidence is far from convincing. A sermon preached at

Eisleben, February 7, 1546, is quoted in this connection.

It is an explanation of the parable of the cockle, and

Luther points the obvious moral that “with human force

land power we cannot extirpate (heretics) nor change

them.” Without any reference to the duties of princes

he tells his ordinary hearers that they are to see to it that

heretics are not permitted to rule among them, to enter the

pulpit or approach the altar. Luther’s principles always

turned upon expediency, and the key to this modification

of his extreme intolerance may be found in his cautious

remark that an attempt to extirpate the cockle by force

might make it worse. There were not a few “unbeliev-

ers” in Eisleben who had probably to be reckoned with.

Little of the spirit of even this modified and question-

able toleration is shown, as Grisar points out, in the ser-

mon immediately preceding and the one immediately fol-

lowing it, the last of Luther’s life. In the former he

demands of the citizens of Halle that the “scabby, shabby,



LUTHER AND FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 11

lousy monks,” who still remained there, be thrown out of

their town. In the latter he insists that the Jews “be not

suffered nor tolerated.” They are all to be instantly

banished. It cannot be doubted that he could still have

expressed himself as no less sincerely “delighted” at the

murder of heretics than when, on receiving the premature

announcement of the execution for heresy of John Cam-

panus, he wrote to Justus Jonas, August 3, 1530, “Lcetus

audivi:” “I was delighted to hear of it.” {''Briefwech-

sei;^ Vol. VIII, p. 163.)

Have non-Lutherans who are now lauding Luther as

the apostle of freedom of thought ever considered what

would have become of them had they expressed their

religious convictions in Luther’s favorite Saxony or in

any State where he held sway ? Had they dared to dis-

agree with the Reformer, in all probability they would

have been clapped into prison and possibly executed with-

out much ceremony. And even if a more lenient course

had been followed, they certainly would have been

silenced at once. If they had disobeyed the order, how-

ever, and continued to preach their doctrine, there is little

doubt that they would have been banished with threats of

dire happenings should they ever presume to return.

Lastly, had they persisted in their obstinacy, they would

have been commended to Meister Hans, the executioner.

“Those who come without official position or commis-

sion,” Luther wrote, “are not good enough to be called

false prophets, but tramps and rogues, who should be

handed over to Meister Hans/' (Erlangen Ed., Vol.

XLHI, p. 313.) What would have become of Luther if

Catholic princes had acted upon this principle in his re-

gard ? At least one apostle of brutal coercion would have

been silenced effectively.



II. Luther and the State

Joseph Husslein, SJ.

I

T is not strange that Luther’s attitude towards the

State should be greatly misunderstood. The reason

is to be found in the contradictory assertions that abound

in his writings. He can with equal facility be quoted as

the supporter of an absolute separation of Church and

State, or as the most extreme advocate of a perfect union

of the two. On either side he departed entirely from the

Church’s practice of forbidding temporal rulers to inter-

fere in purely spiritual interests, and Church authorities

from meddling in purely secular concerns. Both, how-

ever, may cooperate harmoniously in promoting issues

that are neither purely temporal nor purely spiritual, re-

membering always the difference in value between the

things of time and those of eternity.

So striking are the contradictions in Luther’s utter-

ances upon this subject that a Protestant authority has

made bold to say that the Reformer’s attitude depended

entirely upon the sentiment of the moment. This is partly

true, but only in so far as that sentiment itself depended

upon the principle of expediency, which was Luther’s

invariable law in dealing with this momentous question.

Those therefore who wish to represent him as the

champion of a complete separation of Church and State

have only to quote the principles laid down by him on

occasions when local princes were unfavorably disposed

towards his new teaching*. This was particularly the case

at the beginning of his career. He then insisted in the

strongest terms upon the complete de-Christianization of

12



LUTHER AND THE STATE 13

the State. Its functions “all belong to hell” was Luther’s

pithy statement in his Kirchenpostille. (Erlangen Ed,

Vol. XIV, 2, p. 281.) Such too is the summary of

Luther’s teaching as given by the Protestant author,

Brandenburg. Anschauungen vom Staate/' p. 13.)

Luther’s doctrine at this period was that secular powers

have no right to exercise any authority whatsoever over

“Christians,” a term which he applied exclusively to his

followers. Temporal authority was instituted for that

world only which is estranged from God: Catholics,

Turks, and non-Lutherans in general. “Therefore,” he

warns the princes, “you cannot extend it [the temporal

sword] over and under Christians, who have no need of

it.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXII, p. 73.) Luther’s Chris-

tians, although under no moral obligation, were to render

obedience merely for the sake of social order. The tem-

poral regimen, he says in his Kirchenpostille, “is not in-

stituted for those who belong to Heaven [i.e., his own

followers], but merely for this purpose that people may

not sink deeper into hell and make their case still worse.”

(Cf. Grisar, Vol. Ill, p. 486.)

As Luther, however, won control over secular princes

he immediately looked for the support of the secular arm

to promote his doctrine. This made it necessary for him

to confine his former restriction on the power of temporal

rulers to Papistical and non-Lutheran rulers alone, and

at times, in a limited degree, even to Lutheran princes in

so far as he might fear to lose control of them. Those

who favored him, on the contrary, were not merely ex-

horted to take earnestly to heart the spiritual welfare of

their subjects, but likewise to use the full force of their

power, to impose punishment, banishment and death in

order to preserve inviolate the purity of his New Evangel.



14 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

The following illuminative passage is taken from a ser-

mon preached by him in 1533

:

Secular authority holds the sword, with the duty of prevent-

ing all scandal, that nothing of the kind may break into the

realm and work mischief. But the most dangerous and abomin-

able scandal exists when false teaching and incorrect Divine

service break into the land. . , . Let it [secular authority]

then confidently take preventive action and remember that its

office allows of no other course than to use the sword and all

power that doctrine be kept pure and Divine service unalloyed

and unadulterated. (Erlangen Ed., Vol. I, 2, p. 157.)

Luther did not differ from other originators of new

religions in his methods of winning the active support of

princes. He held out to them the tempting lure of the

confiscation of the property of churches and monasteries,

casting over this act of robbery the glamor of right-

eousness. He moreover gave them the complete spiritual

as well as temporal power over their subjects, denying

the existence of any other spiritual authority upon earth.

In his letter to the Elector John of Saxony, November 22,

1526, Luther reminds the prince that since an end has

now been put to the Catholic Church in his dominion,

“and all the monasteries and foundations have fallen into

the hands of your Electoral Grace, as the supreme head,''

the Elector must likewise assume the duty and burden of

“ordering this matter, which no one else undertakes, nor

can or should undertake.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. LHI, p.

386.) To quote at greater length from McGiffert’s trans-

lation of this same letter, in his “Martin Luther” :

Where a city or village has sufficient means, your Grace has

the right to require them to support schools, pulpits and

churches. If they will not do it for their own good, it is the

duty of your Grace, who are the chief guardian of the young

and of all in need, to compel them by force to do it, just as they



LUTHER AND THE STATE 15

are compelled to contribute money and labor for the building

of bridges and roads and for other needed improvements.

(Pp. 310, 311.)

It is to be remembered that this compulsion is to be

exercised by the Elector over his subjects whether they

believe in Luther’s doctrine or not. “Worldly lordship,”

Luther explains in his work ''An den christlichen Adel,”

has now assumed “a spiritual rank.” Luther’s princes are

henceforth of a priestly and spiritual order, mitpriester,

mitgeistlich, and free to exercise their power “wherever

there is need and use for it.”

In the work entitled, “Several Articles which Martin

Luther is Prepared to Maintain against the Whole School

of Satan” (1530), he takes away all spiritual authority

from the church he has founded. Pastors and all higher

church officials are told that they have no power to ordain

fasting, prayers or Divine services. “Such a one,” he

says, “may exhort his church that it approve of some

fasting, prayer, service, etc., for a time, because of some

N pressing need, dropping it again at its own will.” But
the power denied the supposed spiritual pastors over their

flocks—if such terms may be used where no spiritual
authority exists—is granted in the most absolute way to
temporal lords. When the prince sets any fast days,

Luther writes to Melanchthon, July 21, 1530, all his sub-

jects are obliged to obey. The secular lord is thus con-

stituted the sole spiritual as well as temporal ruler over

all his subjects. To make this fact even more plain

Luther adds in the same letter that when princes who are

likewise “bishops” issue such orders they are to be obeyed,

not because they are bishops, but solely because they are

princes. (Grisar, Vol. Ill, p. 797.)

Luther indeed did jiot rest until he had introduced the



16 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

most refined inquisitorial methods enabling princes to pre-

scribe, investigate and control the religious practices of

their subjects. He had definitely asked for the appoint-

ment of four “visitors” by the Elector of Saxony, who

should order Lutheran schools and parishes to be erected

wherever they might determine that there was need of

them. Two of these visitors were to be skilled in tem-

poral matters, and two were to be theologians, whose

duty it was to examine the teachers, the sermons, and the

Divine services, and to see that all was carried out in

strict accordance with Luther’s prescriptions. (Letter to

the Elector, November 22, 1526.) In the ''Instruktion/'

consequently issued by the Elector, and with which

Luther is most intimately associated, the prince, as su-

preme head, is said to be in duty bound not to permit any

false doctrine or false religious service in his land. The

visitors appointed by the prince must exhort the people

that the Gospel is to be understood by all according to the

interpretation laid down by the prince for his subjects,

and they are to support the preachers given them. All

“who preach or hold an error in religion are to be told

to make good speed in leaving the land, with the warning

that if they again set foot upon it they will be punished

in real earnest.” (Ibid, 501-514.)

We are not to suppose that Luther did not have his

well-founded misgivings about these matters, hence the

contradictions that again and again occur. Of what avail,

however, are veiled protests even at the moment that he

wrote the prologue to the very ''Unterrichf that was to

guide the visitors in the inquisitorial work initiated by

him? He had indeed desired a church consisting of inde-

pendent parish units, but he constantly found it necessary

to have recourse to higher powers tp prevent innovations.



LUTHER AND THE STATE 17

Luther’s principle, in brief, was that there must be no

limit to the power of princes in spiritual matters pro-

vided they employ it faithfully in enforcing his own doc-

trine down to the least article. He compares them to

David and tells them that they must extirpate all heresy

throughout their realm. In his explanation of Psalm 101

(100) he adds to these statements that the spiritual and

temporal power of rulers, and the spiritual and temporal

obedience of subjects are to be mingled indiscriminately

“like a cake.” When, however, he finds that his expecta-

tions are disappointed he again chances upon the same

figure, but now it is the devil who has mingled the in-

gredients of the cake. Luther entirely forgets that the

cake was made after his own recipe.

Luther in fact had accomplished his work more thor-

oughly than he himself knew. He had delivered religion

into the hands of the State, hoping that he himself might

remain the power behind the throne. But this hope had

proved vain even in his own lifetime and the ultimate

result was the complete enslavement of human liberty,

for which he must be held responsible, as its modern

originator, which found its terse expression in the motto

:

Cujus regio, illiiis et religio: “The ruler determines the

religion of his subjects.”

That this political slavery was introduced by Luther, a

writer so hostile to the Catholic Church as Scherr is

forced to admit : “Luther was the originator of the doc-

trine of unconditional surrender to civil power,” says this

author in his book on “German Culture” (Third Edition,

p. 260). “He preached that two and five make seven;

that you know. But if the civil government should pro-

claim that two and five are eight, then you must believe

it against your better knowledge and sense. That ex-



18 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

plains why so many German princes took so kindly to the

servile policies of Lutheranism.” Luther’s constant dis-

tinction that the people are forced to conform outwardly

only to his doctrines, is a mere verbal evasion. He is

the father of the most reprehensible form of political

despotism, despotism over the consciences of men.



III. Luther and Religion

John C. Reville, S.J.

T
he lapse of 500 years affords the historian the per-

spective necessary to judge correctly of such an

extraordinary and complex character as Martin Luther.

The world is now entitled to pass a verdict on his work.

Though much of that work has crumbled and disappeared,

it still challenges attention and analysis. And as the

apostate friar of Wittenberg gave himself out as the re-

former of the Church of Christ, it is not unfair to apply

to him the strictest standards of that faith and morality

which he pretended to bring back to their original purity.

In the chaos of errors and contradictions which every-

where disfigure his work, two principles stand out in bold

relief. They may be taken as tests of his system. -'The

first is that the Bible alone is the supreme rule of faith.

The second is that man is justified by faith alone and that

consequently good works are not necessary for salvation.

The first principle, carried to its logical conclusion, sub-

stituted the individual as the supreme arbiter and judge

in matters of faith, for the authority of the Church, and

dealt a staggering blow to the visible unity of Christen-

dom. The second, dealing more directly with the heart

of the individual, perverted the whole doctrine of God’s

dealings with the soul and the creature’s relations with

his Creator. Both together, combined to produce the

most frightful moral disorders, in the heart of the Re-

former first of all and then of the society which adopted

and lived up to his teaching.

The fable that Luther discovered the long-lost Bible,

19



20 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

that “he had never seen a Bible until he was twenty years

of age,” that Popery, to use his words, “had kicked Scrip-

ture under the bench,” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XLII, p.

280) has been abandoned by the most reliable Protestant

writers, men of such recognized authority as Kohler,

Walther, Geffken, Grimm, Thudichum, Dobschiitz, Kolde

and Kropatscheck. The rule of the Augustinian Order to

which Luther belonged, and of which at one time at

least in his life he seems to have been a faithful member,

instructed its novices “to read the Scripture assiduously,

hear it devoutly and learn it fervently.” Biblical studies

were in honor at Erfurt where he studied, and commen-

taries on Holy Writ were numerous and popular. And

if we confine ourselves to the year intervening between

the discovery of the art of printing and the year of

Luther’s excommunication, a period of seventy years dat-

ing from 1450 to 1520, we find that no less than 156 dif-

ferent Latin editions of the Bible had been printed. To

these editions of the Bible in Latin must be added seven-

teen in German, eleven in Italian, ten in Erench, two in

Bohemian, two in Spanish, and one each in Flemish,

Russian and in the dialect of the Limousin. To these

must be added six in Hebrew—over 200 editions in all of
the complete Bible. In spite of Luther’s assertion to the

contrary, even Protestant authorities, like Reichert, (Cf.

Grisar, Vol. Ill, p. 463) think it quite probable that he

had these older translations, the German versions among

them, at his elbow, when he made his own translation of

the Scriptures, a translation which Catholic historians.

Biblical scholars and theologians willingly admit to be an

achievement worthy of all admiration if considered in its

literary aspects alone and apart from its dogmatic errors.

A fundamental error lay at the very root of Luther’s
conception of the Bible. He was too keenly intelligent.



LUTHER AND RELIGION 21

too practical a psychologist not to know that in matters

of faith, there must be some standard of direction, some

guide and rule. As a reformer he was too proud to bend

to one not of his own creation. For fifteen centuries, the

Church interpreting and expounding the Bible, in the

light of her tradition, her own history, and infallible in

her teaching and her decisions in this regard, had been

the living rule of faith in the past. But a reformer of

the stamp of Luther is ever restive under restraint. His

revolt was a protest against the very principle of any

authority in matters of faith outside of the individual him-

self. There was no other fountain of revealed truth for

him but a dumb, though inspired, book of which the in-

dividual was constituted judge. Therefore this book was

to become the rule and the guide, and in virtue of the

universal priesthood of which, according to him, all

Christians partook, every individual was constituted its

authorized interpreter and expounder. Such was Luther’s

theory, although in practice he would allow of no inter-

pretation in opposition to his own.

But the Bible, inspired as it is, is for us an obscure

book. It does not explain its own difficulties. It is writ-

ten in a language that bears the stamp of past centuries

and forgotten civilizations. In it are to be found ap-

parent contradictions and paradoxes which, without an

infallible interpreter, it is almost impossible to reconcile.

No book more directly affects the hearts, the lives and the

passions of men. Its lessons are so stern, its legislation

is in such opposition to the tendencies of our fallen na-

ture, that the first impulse of the reader is to reject them

altogether, unless he can be persuaded by some unerring

guide that they must be received under penalty of the

greatest punishment and loss. The Bible was lifted by

Luther to an exclusive position, to which in spite of its



22 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

eminence, its inspiration, and authority, it had no right.

The Church that interprets God’s Word was thrust aside

and the Book became the supreme judge in matters of

faith and morals, a judge that could not explain even the

meaning of its words. The heresiarch wished to bring

back the Church to the purity of the ancient Faith. But

in the words of the poet, when the Bible and the Bible

alone interpreted by the light of private judgment is

seated in the tribunal of authority,

'‘Chaos umpire sits and by decision more embroils the

fray.”

Seemingly exalted by Luther’s act, the Bible was in

reality degraded. When the individual becomes its sole

authoritative interpreter to the exclusion of the Church,

the Bible is lowered to the level of its erring, frail and sin-

ful readers. The high-minded and the pure may, it is

true, read into it their own lofty views. But the shallow,

the coarse, the rash innovator, and the sinfully inclined

will force it to bend to their passions, sanction their er-

rors and their sins. If Christ prayed that there should be

“one fold and one shepherd,” there could be no better

means taken to make void His prayer, than to lift the

Bible into that position of false honor and dignity into

which Luther thrust it. For those who follow his guid-

ance, it has became an instrument of disunion and dis-

cord. Private judgment acting upon the Bible has

proved the great dissolvent of Christianity and its teach-

ings. For that judgment is varying, unstable, without

authority and as fickle as the passions of the men who

read the sacred volume. It has been the cause of the

diminishing beliefs of millions, who first induced to con-

sider the Bible alone, as their one infallible guide, soon

came to look upon it as a mere human document and to

disregard its Divine character altogether. At first those



LUTHER AND RELIGION 23

who believed in the Reformer’s teaching would believe

nothing which they did not at least imagine they saw con-

firmed by the Bible. Now many reject almost everything

they see there. The reaction has come. The Bible of

Luther, worshiped to idolatry, succeeding generations

have mutilated and ridiculed. It is not without reason

that Thomas Munzer exclaimed : “Bibel, Babel.” The

Bible has become a real Babel of discordant tongues and

divers creeds. Misinterpreted, because shorn of the only

safeguard that could protect the sanctity of its words,

it works havoc in Christendom. It brought anarchy into

the fold of Christ. It destroyed the cohesion of the body

of the Faithful united under the rule and the headship

of the one supreme pastor. Heresies, sects, churches, all

contradicting and fighting one another in the name of the

Bible came into being at the bidding of unscrupulous and

worldly-minded men to the spiritual loss and ruin of

thousands. Cardinal Hosius and Staphylus tell us that

at the end of the sixteenth century there were no fewer

than 270 conflicting sects, the spurious brood of one false

principle and a sad commentary on the extraordinary

efficiency of the ruinous rule of faith devised by the Doc-

tor of Wittenberg.

The results of this cardinal principle of the Reformer

could be seen, felt and sensibly analyzed in the defections

of thousands from the visible center of unity, from

Rome and the Papacy, which were the constant object

of the hatred and the scorn of the apostate friar.

His second principle, the principle of justification by

faith alone and the uselessness of good works, went deep

down into the hearts of men and wrought there the most

disastrous results. By justification the Catholic Church

understands that marvelous and supernatural transfor-

mation of the sinner from the state of sin and unright-



24 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

eousness, to the state of holiness, and sonship of God.

According to Catholic teaching, the faith that justifies is

a firm belief in the truth of God’s Revelation, not a dead

faith, however, but one that must be informed or quick-

ened by charity. Transferring the seat of the act of faith

from the intellect to the will, Luther taught that faith is

a feeling of trust and confidence infallible and beyond

doubt, that God for Christ’s sake will no longer impute

to us our sins, but will deign to treat us as innocent, holy

and justified in His sight, though in reality our sins are

not done away with or blotted out, but only hidden,

cloaked over, as it were, by the sheltering mantle of the

merits of Christ. As in his theory of grace, Luther main-

tained that original sin had thoroughly perverted human

nature so that it had lost even its glorious prerogative

of free-will, to be logical he had to hold that the process

of justification effected only an apparent change in the

soul. The mantle of Christ’s justice only covered the

wounds of sin. Beneath its folds, these were still fester-

ing and bleeding. A gloomy and disheartening doctrine

!

Sternly logical once more, the Reformer had to main-

tain in strict adherence to his doctrine of the total de-

pravity and sinfulness of fallen human nature that good

works were of no avail and useless. Human nature, he

held, was irretrievably corrupt, it could work no good.

This doctrine was everything to Luther and he made it

the center around which his other theories revolved and

on which they depended. As the cry: “The Bible and

the Bible alone interpreted by the light of private judg-

ment is the sole rule of faith” has been called the formal

principle of Lutheranism, so the doctrine of justification

by fiduciary faith without works has been called the ma^

terial principle of its theology in the sense in which



LUTHER AND RELIGION 25

Luther himself speaks in a sermon of 1530, calling it “The

only elementary article or doctrine by which we become

Christians and are called such.”

To bolster up this new doctrine which perverted the

very idea of faith and invented a dogma subversive of

the laws of Christian morality, Luther had to falsify the

text of St. Paul (Rom. iii:28) adding to the verse “we

account a man to be justified by faith” the word “alone”

so necessary for his theory. And as the Epistle of St.

James is the express condemnation of his doctrine of

•justification by faith without works, the Reformer un-

ceremoniously rejected it and called it an “Epistle of

straw.” Luther might cry aloud: “The Bible alone is

the rule of faith,” but when that principle stood in his

way he ruthlessly set it aside.

Although Luther adhered to this principle of justifica-

tion by faith alone without works more steadily than to

any of his other teachings, he cannot be said to have

always been absolutely consistent. Now and then he

admits and insists on man’s cooperation. (Erlangen Ed.,

Vol. XIV, 2, p. 285.) On the whole he maintained that

it is the one principle by which the Church must stand

or fall. His adherents both in his own age and after

have at times considerably modified it. Yet it was so

taught and so propagated that it undoubtedly deeply and

disastrously influenced the lives of the Reformer and of

all those who pretend to follow his new and purer in-

terpretation of the Gospel.



IV. Luther and Social Life

Joseph Husslein, SJ.

^
^ T T

^FORTUNATELY the facts can be stated very
LJ briefly,” says Adolf Harnack speaking of the

social work of the Reformation period. “Nothing of any

consequence was accomplished. What is more, Catholics

are right in holding that not we, but they experienced a

revival of charity in the sixteenth century, and that within

the province of Lutherdom conditions had soon grown

worse than they were before in regard to social pro-

visions.” {‘'Reden und Aufsdtze”)

The truth of these words cannot be questioned by any-

one who has had direct recourse to the authentic docu-

ments of the time. They are fully borne out by the testi-

mony of Luther himself, as well as that of his contempor-

aries, when he describes the social and moral deteriora-

tion that followed upon his doctrine. In his despair he

even went so; far as to exclaim : “If God had not closed my

eyes and if I had foreseen these scandals, I would never

have begun to teach the Gospel” (Walch Ed., Vol. VI,

p. 920). The cities that received him with open arms

became a new “Sodom and Gomorrah,” and he marveled

that the gates and windows of hell were not opened to

“snow or rain down devils.” As early as 1529 he pro-

claimed that social and moral conditions had become

seven times worse than they were under the Papacy.

For after we have learned the Evangel we steal, lie, deceive,

practise gluttony and drunkenness and every kind of vice. Now

that one devil has been driven out, seven others, worse than

the former, have entered into us, as we can see in princes, lords,

26



LUTHER AND SOCIAL LIFE 27

nobles, burghers, and peasants. So they act, and so they live,

without any fear, regardless of God and His threats,” (Erlan-

gen Ed., Vol. XXXVI, p. 411 .)

No class of society, therefore, was excluded from the

general deterioration, and all the leading cities that ac-

cepted Luther’s doctrine fell, according to his own testi-

mony, into the same deplorable state of complete social

and moral disorder. His favorite Wittenberg is de-

scribed by him in his letter to Justus Jonas, June 18, 1543,

ps “a plaything of the devil,” the students “have been

ruined by fallen women” and “half the town is going to

destruction through adultery, usury, thievery and deceit.”

Neither the authorities nor any of the citizens are in the

least concerned about these abominations, since “All

laugh at them, are parties to them and go and do the

same.” (“M. Luthers Briefe/' De Wette Ed., Vol. V, p.

615.) The brazenness and corruption of the girlhood of

the town, as pictured in his letter to the Elector, January

22, 1544, beggars description. It leaves the reader under

the impression that the whole city had been turned into

a cesspool of impurity and lasciviousness, where women

vied with men in open and shameless immorality. (Ibid.,

p. 615.) Ever since the New Evangel was preached there,

he is obliged to confess, “Things have steadily grown

worse.” He fears that at the end he must hear that “They

have never been worse than now.” {Ibid., VI, p. 302.)

Lutheran apologists seek at times to excuse these

abominations by dwelling upon what they consider the

social and moral degeneracy of the Papacy
;
but Luther’s

own words are an absolute refutation to all such ex-

planations, since he continually insists, in countless pas-

sages that the very worst conditions under the Papacy

were as nothing compared with the indifference, laxity



28 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

and vice that followed where his doctrine had been

preached. Those who are specially accused by him of

such conduct are not the men and women who remained

faithful to the Church of the preceding fifteen centuries,

but those who accepted his own doctrines. Thus he

states very explicitly: “The good receive the law [i.e.

abide in Catholicism] and the wicked receive the Gospel

^[i.e. Luther’s New Evangel].” {'‘Analecta Lutherana

et Melanchthonia/' p. 402.)

Everyone admits the many evils of the time immedi-

ately preceding Luther’s preaching. They called for a

true reformer, in the spirit of Christ, such as St. Erancis

had been in his day. In place, however, of seeking to

reform the morals of the men who were unfaithful to the

teachings of their Church, Luther sought to reform the

doctrine of the Church itself, which Christ declared could

never err, since He had promised it His abiding presence

even to the consummation of the world, and had given it

the assurance that the gates of hell should never prevail

against it. Either Luther was wrong in seeking to cor-

rect the doctrine, which Christ proclaimed would never

need correction, or the words of Christ were false. It is

a dilemma from which there is no escape, and which

should suffice to bring back into the one true Fold all the

souls that still believe in Christianity.

No less unhappy were Luther’s economic reforms. The

poor had previously been bountifully provided for by the

monasteries and the liberality of the Faithful, as well as

through the channel of well-regulated civic organizations

which had already developed in Catholic cities at this

early period of the economic transition. City and church

authorities cooperated in a thoroughly scientific way. But

the pillage of monasteries and foundations, and the in-



LUTHER AND SOCIAL LIFE 29

troduction of the New Evangel at once destroyed the

flourishing work of charity. Luther hoped that the money

taken with his approval might, as he expressly states, be

spent in propagating his new religion, and the superflui-

ties devoted to governmental and charitable purposes.

Needless to say, his hope was vain. The princes and

nobles had joined his revolt for booty and license and for

the ampler power which, by making them the sole spiritual

rulers, it gave them over their subjects. They were by

no means minded to bestow upon the poor the riches

which Luther had authorized them to gather into their

treasuries. The citizens were therefore urged to begin

anew to offer contributions, but his ideal system of relief,

introduced into Leisnig, proved to be an utter failure, as

Luther bitterly admitted.

The contrast between the social conditions under the

Papacy, and those that arose under the New Evangel

were indeed so great and appalling that Luther was re-

peatedly forced to advert to them

:

If we did not have the goods bestowed by our forefathers in

mild alms and foundations, the Gospel [Luther’s New Evangel]

would long ago have been extinct because of the burghers in

the cities and the nobles and peasants upon the land. Not a

single poor preacher would have food or drink; since we do

not wish to do anything but take and rob by force what others

have given and founded for this purpose [i. e. for charity and

religion in Catholic times]. (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XLIII, p. 164.)

The manner in which lords and public officials gorged

themselves with the goods of the Church was “eating

away the substance of beggars, guests and the poor.” To

the latter the wealth of the Church had always been open.

“Wo, wo to you” he cried, “peasants, burghers and

^/nobles, who wrest, scrape and scratch together every-



30 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

thing for yourselves, and yet claim that you are thor-

oughly evangelical!” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XLIV, p.

356.) And so too they were, according to Luther’s own

doctrine, however much he might protest against them,

and however powerful, and at times even beautiful, his

exhortations to virtue and charity might be.

His first anti-social teaching is that concerning good

works. Even though performed with a supernatural

motive, he claimed, they were not meritorious for Heaven.

“The most tangible consequence of Luther’s doctrine of

grace,” says Feuchtwanger, “which allowed nothing to

human merit, was, for the multitude at least, libertinism

and irresponsibility.” By a deliberate falsehood, it would

seem, Luther persisted in attributing to the Catholic

Church the most un-Catholic doctrine, that “Christ did

not die for our sins, but each one should satisfy for them

himself.” Her plain teaching had been on the contrary

that without the merits of Christ mankind could never

be saved, but that good works of every sort induce God

to apply these merits of Christ to our souls, according to

the Divine promise. “This do, and thou shalt live,” Our

Lord had said in reference to good works. (Luke, x :28.)

To these and similar words of Christ Luther opposed his

own destructive doctrine, which he thus briefly expresses

:

Those pious souls who do good to gain the Kingdom of

Heaven, not only will never succeed, but they must even be

reckoned among the impious; and it is more important to guard

them against good works than against sin, (Wittenberg Ed.,

Vol. VI, p. 160.)

The choice, therefore, between Luther and Christ, is open

for all. We cannot follow both.

The second anti-social doctrine of Luther is his teach-

ing regarding sin. “There is no longer any sin in the



LUTHER AND SOCIAL LIFE 31

world except unbelief,” is his dogmatic assertion. The

stench of all other sins committed by the Faithful passes

unnoticed by God because of their faith. The exact

wording of the passage itself (Erlangen Ed., Vol. IV., 2,

p. 131) cannot be quoted here owing to its indecency. If

therefore on the one hand he inveighed against sin, on

the other he thus removes from it all terror:

You see how rich the Christian is [i. e. the follower of Luther],

since even if he wished it he could not lose his salvation, no

I

matter how many sins he might commit, provided he will be-

\| lieve. No sin can bring about his damnation except unbelief

alone. All else is swept away by his faith the moment it returns

or clings to the Divine promises made to the baptized. (Weimar

Ed., Vol. VI, p. 529.)

This is comfortable doctrine, but is of no avail to

restrain the passions of men. Luther’s counsel for those

who are troubled with doubts about the truth of his new

religion and with similar temptations is to indulge in

sensuality, in thoughts “of a beautiful girl, of money-

making, of drink, or of some other vivid emotion.”

{”Colloq/' Ed. Bindseil, Vol. II, p. 209.) In his letter

to Melanchthon, August 1, 1521, he wrote:

God does not save those who are mere imaginary sinners

:

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe more boldly. ... It is

sufficient that through the riches of the glory of God we have

\\ known the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world.

Sin wotdd not tear us away from this even though in a single

day we commit fornication and murder a thousand and a thou-

sand times. . . . Pray boldly, for you are a very bold

sinner. CBriefwechself* Vol. Ill, p. 208.)

Explain such passages as we may, they cannot be

excused. We have quoted enough of Luther’s language

to show how perverse his teachings were; but there is



32 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

another phase of his New Evangel more ruinous perhaps

than all these.

The third anti-social doctrine in Luther is that of “the

slave-will.” According to this teaching, man is not re-

sponsible for either his good or his evil actions. Here as

elsewhere Luther’s practice contradicts his doctrine, for

why preach at all if men are of necessity compelled to sin

or to be virtuous ? But Luther’s hearers were more con-

sistent than he, and many of them did not fail to act upon

the logical conclusions to which his dreadful doctrines

led. No teaching is more essential to Lutheranism, as

propounded by him, than that of the slave-will. God and

the devil, he tells us, in his most characteristic passage,

are struggling with one another for the human soul.

When God is in possession it is not possible for us to will

anything except what is good, but when the devil has

gained the upper hand we can will only what is evil. Thus

he paints the awful and blasphemous picture, which rep-

resents neither more nor less than the ancient pagan

dualism

:

When the stronger comes upon us and makes us his prey, in

wresting us from our former ruler, we become his servants and

prisoners in such a way that we wish and gladly do whatever he

wills. Thus the human will stands like a steed between the two.

If God mounts into the saddle, man wills and goes according to

God’s will, as the Psalm has it: “I am become as a beast before

thee: and I am always with thee.” If however the devil leaps

into the saddle, man wills and goes as the devil wills. It is not

in his power to run to one of the two riders and offer his

service to him; but the riders themselves struggle with one

another for possession of the animal. {“De Servo Arbitrio”

Weimar Ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 635.)

If virtue or vice do not depend upon human agents,

and if human beings, as Luther teaches, are predestined to



LUTHER AND SOCIAL LIFE 33

hell or heaven independently of any will of theirs, why

seek to be good at all? Why not follow the way taken

by Luther’s practical disciples, in all the cities where his

Evangel was accepted, who after hearing his teaching

went and gave themselves over to the gratification of

their passions, regardless of God or neighbor? Why

labor to be virtuous if, according to Luther’s doctrine,

God damns even such as do not in the least deserve it;

'Hmmeritos damnat”? {Ibid., p. 730.) It does violence

to sane reason, he admits, to say that “Merely according

to His good pleasure God forsakes men, hardens and

damns them,” but his only answer is that “No application

of our intellect, no matter how hard we try, can ever save

the holiness of God,” Reason must simply bow to the

inevitable. {Ibid., p. 719.) Such abhorrent doctrines will

confirm the sinner in his sins, as Luther clearly foresaw,

but he added that it did not matter, since in His proper

time the Spirit of God would transform into His children

those whom He predestined to save.

Could any teachings be more destructive of social and

moral life? Out of his own mouth Luther stands con-

demned. In vain did he strive to excuse the evil effects

of his preaching, when forced to offer a defense, by say-

ing that the morning star was now risen and sin had

become more apparent than before. He had too often

contradicted this assurance. Lutheranism, as taught by

him, hardly outlived his own day; but the Pope, whose

death he boasted he would be, is today encompassed by

the glory of new triumphs of the Faith, and the center of

the greatest social and moral renewal of all things in

Christ.



V. Luther and Education

John C. Reville, SJ.

N O man, however corrupt his life or low his ideals, isentirely bad. While the private conduct of the
apostate friar fell far below the standard of purity and

goodness which the Catholic Church requires not only of

her priests but even of her' ordinary Faithful, and his in-

tellectual and religious principles were unsound, subver-

sive of morality and Christianity, he was not absolutely a

monster. Had he been such, his work could not have had

the measure of success, which in some respects, it has en-

joyed. The strange inconsistencies which everywhere

meet us in his life and in his work, seem at times to em-

phasize the nobler sides of his nature. As an evidence

of this we need only read the words of his address to the

magistrates of the cities of Germany, in 1524, in which

he speaks of the necessity of educating the young. There

he reminds his hearers that it would be the greatest pos-

sible evil to neglect or defile “the noble souls of the chil-

dren. A hundred gulden would not be too much to make

a good Christian out of a child.” As if reiterating the

constant teaching of that Church which he had left and

which he so virulently attacked, he was far-seeing enough

to know that “The welfare of a city does not consist in

wealthy mansions, but in its educated, trained and intel-

ligent citizens.” Without schools and education there

will not be the men needed and required for the govern-

ment of the Church and even for civil life, for the or-

dered economy of family life. (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXII,

p. 173, etc.) In the same letter he considered that educa-

34



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 35

tion was especially needed to tame the passions of the

German people. He wished that all should be taught, not

only languages, but history, mathematics, and the other

sciences, but above all religion.

In Luther’s view, the first aim of the school is to fight

the devil who in order to spread his rule and power in

Germany wishes no schools. If harm is to be done him,

it must be done through the young growing up in the

knowledge of God and becoming the means and the in-

strument of teaching to others the Sacred Word. An-

other aim of the school, he tells us, is that men may not

receive the grace of God in vain nor let slip the acceptable

and favorable time. And as he asserted that the “ass-stalls

and devil-schools” of the cloister were on the point of

taking their departure, he warned his “dear Germans” to

use God’s grace and Word now present in their midst.

(Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXII, pp. 173, 35.) He insisted on

the necessity of having men who would do God’s work

and dispense His Sacraments. But where can such men

be found, he asked, if schools are allowed to go, and if

others more in accord with the spirit of Christ are not

built in their stead? (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXII, p. 193.)

The coldness of his followers leads him to see that if the

schools are neglected “a pigsty,” a wild and lawless mass

of Turks will be the result. With that exaggeration and

lack of balance which marred almost everything he said

and wrote, he thinks it would be no wonder if the fate of

Sodom and Gomorrah should overtake them “for they

were not one tenth as bad as Germany now is.” (Weimar

Ed., Vol. XXX, 2
, p. 582.) Credit undoubtedly must be

given to the Reformer for his insistence on the necessity

of education. We shall see, however, that his views
in this respect were not so broad and sound as they are



36 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

often painted. As to the content of his system of peda-

gogy, it is needless to say that the Bible formed an im-

portant study, besides the Luther catechism and the

Church hymns. “Would to God,” he wrote, “every city

[had its girl-school where every day the girls could hear

the Gospel for an hour, either in Latin or in German.”

He insisted on Latin, even at the cost of German; he

wants the lessons in Latin and insists that Latin should be

spoken in the schoolroom. He had but little use for the

sciences and scarcely gave them any place in his curri-

culum, which, however, to do him justice was not with-

out a certain breadth. For that breadth of view he was

undoubtedly a debtor to the old monastic education which

he had received in those few happy days he had spent in

his first fervor at Erfurt. (Cf. p. 4.) Compayre writes

in his “History
,
of Pedagogy” that it is to Luther in the

sixteenth and to Conienius in the seventeenth century,

that must be ascribed the honor of having first organized

schools for the people. “In its origin, the primary school

is the child of Protestantism, and its cradle was the Ref-

ormation” (“History of Pedagogy,” p. 112). The state-

ment is by no means borne out by the facts. To prove it

we need not go back further than the very century of

Luther himself.

It were unhistorical, of course, to maintain that educa-

tion was as common and as widespread in the fifteenth

century as it is now. Yet popular schools were by no

means neglected. It is true there were no general educa-

tion boards, no revised codes or statutes, no regents’ ex-

aminations, little of that complex machinery with all its

gearing and cogs, and wheels within wheels that keeps

our educational system moving in its standardized

grooves and appointed pathway. But popular schools



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 37

were plentiful and well attended. Every town, almost

every village could boast of them. Religious education

was urged above everything else, but children were in-

structed in the elements of secular learning and taught to

reverence their teachers. In the sixth chapter of the

‘"Narrenschiff” or “Ship of Fools” Sebastian Brant allots

a special place among the fools, whom he describes with

so much caustic wit and humor, to the man who neglects

the education of his children. In small towns like Xanten

and Wesel, there were as many as four or five school-

masters. The salaries which they received, according to

the money value of the time, were not inconsiderable. In

Goch, for instance, the schoolmaster had eight florins a

year, besides his house and the schoolpence, while the sal-

' ary of the town clerk amounted only to five florins. (Cf.

Verres, “Luther,” pp. 11, 12.) Although compulsory

education was unknown, yet it happened that sometimes

the schools were overcrowded. Thus at Xanten, the little

town on the lower Rhine, mentioned above, the master of

a school for reading and writing complained that he and

his assistant were not sufficient for the number of scholars

and begged for another master. The town council pro-

vided him, and also another school in the town, with a

second assistant. They stipulated, however, that the

parents must provide the additional salary. On Christ-

mas, 1494, the five teachers of the town of Wesel, who

were employed to instruct the children of the town in

reading, writing, arithmetic and choir-singing, were en-

tertained by the clergy and presented with a piece of cloth

for a coat and a small coin “for they have all well earned

this reward.” To these details, given us by Janssen in his

admirable “History of the German People” (Vol. I, c.

,y 2) where he treats the whole question of “Elementary



38 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

Schools and Religious Education,” at the end of the fif-

teenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the

historian adds that in the district of the Middle Rhine, in

the year 1500, there were whole stretches of country

where a national school was to be found within a circuit

of every six miles, a record, we think, which might com-

pare quite favorably with certain conditions which not

so long ago prevailed in some parts of our own country.

We can see that the sacred cause of instructing
the young was by no means neglected, when “small par-

ishes of 500 or 600 souls, such as Weisenau, near May-

ence, and Michelstadt in the Odenwald, were not without

their village schools.” And education was not confined

to boys alone. Girls’ schools were numerous also and

well attended. At Xanten, in 1497, the school founded

for them by the great Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa, counted

eighty-four scholars, no small number when the size and

the population of the town are taken into consideration.

And in true democratic fashion, the pupils came both

from the ranks of the nobility and the humbler and poorer

classes.

We boast of the methodized grading in our schools

and point with pride to the various steps and levels, the

primary, secondary, college and university courses where-

by our generation climbs to the very pinnacle of the

temple of science. Even that the Germany of Luther’s

day knew long before his educational theories were ex-

pounded.

In the fifteenth century, academies and grammar

schools were as numerous in Germany as they were in

England thirty years ago. Writing of those times, Eras-

mus says: “/w Germania tot fere sunt academice, quot

oppida:” “In Germany, there are as many academies, as



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 39

there are towns.” The elder humanists, who culled the

honey from the pagan literature of Greece and Rome and

left the poison, and in whom the love of secular learning

was blended with love and veneration of the Faith and a

loyal submission to the Church, developed the greatest

activity in establishing the intermediate or academy and

grammar schools. Prominent among these benefactors

of education were the members of the illustrious Brother-

hood, founded by Gerhard de Groote, who, while occupy-

ing a more prominent place in the educational and in-

tellectual life of Flanders and Holland, had schools in

every part of the Empire. At Zwolle they had at one

time 800 students, at Alkmar 900, at Hertogenbosch

1,200, and at Deventer more than 2,000. They counted

among their friends Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa and the

two Popes, Eugenius IV and Pius II. About the same

time Cologne had eleven grammar schools in connection

with its eleven collegiate churches.

If from the grammar schools and the academies, we

pass to the universities, we find that during the fifteenth

century they were more flourishing in Germany perhaps

than they were thirty years ago. In the middle of the

fifteenth century Germany could boast of seven univer-

sities, among them Cologne, Vienna, Prague, Erfurt and

Heidelberg. Between 1456 and 1506, nine others had been

founded, among others, those of Greifswald, Ingoldstadt,

Tubingen and Wittenberg. With few exceptions they

had been founded by Popes and their existence and main-

tenance were secured from revenues of Church property

set apart for that purpose. They were well attended,

some of them overcrowded. The University of Vienna

at one time could boast of 7,000 students. In the second

half of the fifteenth century, the number of university



40 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

students in the whole of Germany cannot have been much

smaller than 20,000.

If judged by their output, they were doing good work

in every field of human endeavor. Among the great liter-

ary men of the age, it is possible to mention a few only,

and that in the briefest terms. The learned Carthusian

monk Werner Rolewink, as famous for the holiness of

his life as for the depth of his Scriptural knowledge, saw

thousands of students crowd his lecture-hall to listen to

his interpretation of the Epistles of St. Paul. Rudolph

Agricola, surnamed the second Vergil, equally famous for

his classical knowledge, his German lyrics, his modesty

and his piety, seems to have been one of those favored

characters of history over whose grave no words but

those of love and admiration are spoken. He may be

considered as the model of those elder humanists who

vied with one another in their endeavor to press the litera-

tures of antiquity into the service of the Gospel and to

use them as the interpreters of that natural law which

God has planted in the human breast. Though Agricola

cannot be reckoned among the professional teachers, his

life and character exercised a great influence on Alex-

ander Hegius, a pupil of “The Brethren of the Common

Life” and rector of the gymnasium of Wesel on the

lower Rhine from 1469 to 1474. Hegius was a great and

practical teacher. By discarding antiquated methods,

simplifying the curriculum and getting rid of the old and

rather complicated text-books, and centralizing the at-

tention of the pupil on the study of the classics, he may

be said to have infused a new life into the schools.

Side by side with Hegius stands Jacob Wimpheling,

who saw 30,000 copies of his pedagogical treatises scat-

tered over all Germany. For years, Geiler von Kaisers-



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 41

berg, one of the world’s great pulpit orators, preached

in Strassburg, not always in the best of taste, but always

with a power, a vitality and originality of thought and

expression which have been seldom surpassed. Trithe-

mius, abbot of Sponheim, acknowledged to be the most

universal genius of his age; the jurist, Ulrich Zasius
;
the

mathematician and cosmographer, Johann Muller, sur-

named Regiomontanus, who became Bishop of Ratisbon,

and is with Nicolas de Cusa one of the pioneers of mod-

ern astronomical science; Gabriel Biel, the last of the

scholastics; Johann von Dalberg, the zealous Bishop of

Worms and the M^caenas of all the learned men of the

day; the poets Sebastian Brant, Gregory Reisch, Joannes

Heynlin of Stein; Cochlseus and Eck, those two future

formidable adversaries of Luther, would have cast an un-

dying luster even on a century far more enlightened and

advanced in the arts and sciences than the fifteenth.

There was a revival of learning before Luther came.

It had extended to every rank of society. Noble women

in the cloister and in the world were everywhere enthu-

siastic for the ‘“'new learning.” Of the nun Ursula Can-

tor, it was said that in theology and in the arts and ac-

complishments more specially suited to her sex, Germany

had not seen her equal for centuries. Aleydis Raiskop,

the nun of Goch, whom her contemporaries compared to

Hroswitha, the nun of Gandersheim, and to the saintly

Hildegard, could write sound and instructive homilies on

the Epistles of St. Paul and translate a book of devotions

on the Mass into strong and popular German. Caritas

Pirkheimer, the learned and pious abbess of Nuremberg,

and her sister Clara, illustrated, the cloister with all the

virtues of true brides of Christ, and the culture and re-

finement of high-born ladies. The same could be said of



42 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

the Augustinian nun Christina von der Leyden, of Marien-

thal, of the Benedictine Barbara von Dalberg, of Marien-

berg. German princesses, too, imitated in their own sphere

the virtues of their cloistered sisters. The Countess Pala-

tine Matilda was looked upon as the patroness of arts,

of scholars and literary men. The Duchess Hedwig of

Suabia read the classics in the original with her house

chaplain, and wrote Latin and German poetry. And to

the efforts and influence of the Countess Matilda men-

tioned above we owe the foundation of two universities,

those of Freiburg in Breisgau and of Tubingen. (Cf.

Janssen, “History of the German People,” Vol. 1 passim.)

Such was the condition of the schools, of the academies

and grammar schools, of the universities, of education

and literature in general, when the Reformer of Witten-

berg launched forth his new program. It would be

natural to expect from his efforts and those of the men

and the princes who backed his movement, many of them

of unquestionable talents and endowments, the most

favorable results. Was the result, on the whole favor-

able to letters, to art, to science, to the intellectual uplift

of the people? Let us see.

It is true that Luther insisted on popular education.

His works are full of exhortation, counsel, reprimand, in-

vective, wherever he touches on this topic. But it is

evident from all these that his views on the subject were

limited by the dominant idea, not so much that the people

should be broadly educated for their sphere and all its

duties as that Luther should beget followers and disciples,

learned preachers and doctors for the work he had begun,

for the fight against the Papacy and the Church which he

had abandoned. He wanted education rather for Luther’s

sake than for any other cause. Luther’s schools were



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 43

valuable in his eyes only as they were, as he himself

called them seminaria ecclesiarum, nurseries for the

churches of which he was the self-ordained founder and

where he expected to have his doctrines taught to the

people. The man who denied the liberty of the human

will and heaped the vilest abuse upon the noblest gift

that man enjoys, his reason, could scarcely have a right

concept of the true function of education and the school.

And what were the results of the agitation of the Re-

former for the new education? Violence, untruth, ex-

aggeration ever recoil upon themselves. Luther had

thundered his anathemas against the old church schools

and the education given there. He saw those fierce de-

nunciations work out, if not the complete destruction, at

least the deterioration of the school itself, even of the one

whose function and aim he had proclaimed. He had

preached the universal priesthood of all Christians and

the right of the individual to interpret what all men

recognized to be the most difficult book in the world. He

had preached the doctrine of justification and salvation

by faith alone. He had inflamed his contemporaries with

the fierce flames of theological controversy and political

disputes. He saw in consequence of these principles a

spirit of arrogance, self-sufficiency and self-conceit per-

vade every class of society, and where any intellectual

effort was still visible, all its energy and power wasted

in the arena of the fiercest and most ruinous theological

discussion and debate.

The Reformer bitterly complains that his schools are

neglected and that the parents are bringing their children

up only for the most unworthy careers. (Erlangen Ed.,

Vol. LXHI, p. 280.) The spiritual outlook on life and its

tasks had been practically blotted out of the thoughts and



44 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

hearts of those whom the influence of the Reformer had

more closely affected, and men and women were satisfied

with the material gains which life could afford, careless

and disdainful of more spiritual values. But though the

result of Luther’s work, even in the field, where he might

seem to have a special claim to success, that of popular

education, were by no means adequate to the seeming

earnestness of his pleas on its behalf nor to the material

and political means of success at his command, it is es-

pecially in the field of higher education that we see the

total collapse of his system and his influence.

The words of Erasmus have become classical: ^'Ubi-

cumque regnat Lutheranismus, ibi est litterarum interi-

tus.” “Wherever Lutheranism prevails, there letters die.”

How far the words may be true of ages and studies not

contemplated by the Dutch humanist, may be left to

others to decide. But of the Germany of his time and of

the universities of the Empire, it may be said, that they

are absolutely true.

According to Janssen (“History of the German Peo-

ple,” Vol. Ill, p. 355) already in 1524, people were com-

plaining that students were no longer interested in serious

studies, that controversy and disputations about the new

doctrines were absorbing their whole attention, that they

were “degenerating into coarseness and immorality, while

at the same time they pretended to be the messengers of

a new wisdom and the reformers of public life.” How

could the universities, the natural home of sciences and

the haunt of reason in her noblest form, thrive under

Luther’s guidance? He had denounced reason in terms

too coarse to be quoted. “The Devil’s Bride”* was the

mildest of the odious nicknames which this master of

obscenity and filthy invective heaped upon her. He called



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 45

the universities the gates of hell, styled them worse than

Sodom and Gomorrah, likened the youth instructed in

their halls to the youths sacrificed of old to the hideous

idol of Moloch. (Cf. Luther’s Works
;
Walch Edition, Vol.

XIV, 1430-1431.) Again he writes that the universities

deserve to be reduced to ashes for nothing “more hellish

or diabolical has been seen from the beginning of the

world.” (Walch Ed., Vols. XII, p. 45; XI, p. 123;

IX, p. 862 ; VI, p. 2,553.) Melanchthon echoes the words

of his chief and in writing against Emser in 1521 says

that “Never had anything more corrupt or godless been

^invented than the universities
;
not the Popes but the devil

himself was their originator.” And Janssen, documents

in hand, gives the cause of this fierce hatred. Luther and

Melanchthon hated the universities, because true to the

old Catholic instinct these had always exalted the light

of nature, and had attempted a reconciliation between re-

ligion and science. If later on Melanchthon somewhat

changed this ridiculous and unworthy opinion of reason,

his chief had nothing but words of contempt and scorn for

reason itself and its functions. Yet Luther has been called

the emancipator of the human mind. Never was the

splendid title less deserved.

Describing the decay of intellectual life subsequent to

the revolt of the apostate friar, Janssen begins with Er-

furt, so closely associated with the movement for a new

intellectual and spiritual life in the German people. Be-

tween May, 1520 and 1521, as many as 311 students had

been matriculated
;
in the following year the number sank

to 120; in 1524 it had dropped to thirty-four. From a

letter of Melanchthon to Eobanus in 1523 it can be seen

that conditions in Wittenberg were similar. There was

a very considerable falling off in studies, which Mel-



46 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

anchthon himself acknowledges to have been flourishing

but a short time before. (Cf. Dollinger, “Reformation,”

Vol. I, p. 354; Janssen, “History of the German People,”

Vol. HI, p. 358 sq.). In the other North German uni-

versities, there was a similar decay of arts, philosophy,

science, theology, literature and studies in general, and a

similar falling off in the number of scholars. The univer-

sities of Leipzig and Rostock gradually lost their former

position of preeminence. At Rostock, Janssen again in-

forms us, where. formerly 300 students had matriculated

every year, the number in 15M, had been reduced to 38,

and in 1525 to 15. The South German universities,
'

Basle, Freiburg, Heidelberg presented the same lament-

able picture. In Basle in 1522, only twenty-nine new

students were entered and in 1526 only five. In Heidel-

berg in 1535 there were more professors than students

and from Freiburg, Zasius, one of the most renowed pro-

fessors of law of his time, wrote that he had scarcely six

regular attendants at his lectures, and these were French-

men. The deplorable condition of letters caused the most

widespread alarm. Glareamus writes to Wilibald Pirk-

heimer in 1524, that he feared that learning and science

would soon be lost together with the knowledge of the

classical languages. And Melanchthon had reason to

exclaim : “In Germany, all the schools are disappearing.

Wo to the world!”
For years the downward tendencies inflicted by the Re-

formation on the course of the universities continued.

Paulsen, in his work “The German Universities” (p. 42)

writes that at the end of the seventeenth century, the Ger-

man universities had sunk to the lowest leVel which they

had ever reached in the public esteem and in the intel-

lectual life of the German people.



LUTHER AND EDUCATION 47

Academic science was no longer in touch with reality and

its controlling ideas. . . . Added to this was the pre-

vailing coarseness of the entire life. The students had sunk

to the lowest depths, and carousals and brawls, carried to the

limits of brutality and bestiality, largely filled their days.

Had' Luther no other regret as he surveyed his life-

work but that which must inevitably have been his at the

thought of the ruin and the havoc he had made in the halls

of learning and the schools of which Catholic Germany

had so many reasons to be proud, that spectacle must have

surely riven his very heart. He had wrought in anger

and in hatred a work of destruction and disintegration.

It took years to rebuild on the ruins which he made.

With all his gifts, with all his talents, in education as in

religion, his work has not been for the benefit of that

Germany which he pretended to disenthrall or of the

spiritual or moral uplift of the world which he pretended

to reform.



VI. Luther, Slaves and Peasants

Joseph Husslein, SJ.

S
O little is known of the real Luther, even in our day,

that the statement may appear startling that he was

an ardent admirer and a strong defender of slavery.

More than this, he considered it the ideal state for the

hired men and women, das Gesinde, of his own race.

Nothing is more plainly contained in his writings. He

went so far as to hold that slavery must of necessity be

introduced into modern Europe. Other writers may have

favored such a system while it was actually in existence,

but Luther is apparently the only religious teacher who

held that the infliction of this bitter bondage upon men

and women of his own blood was the one satisfactory

solution of the social question. If there are civilized

men today who agree with him, they certainly are

careful not to voice their opinion in public. Yet Luther

expressed his opinion without shame or hesitation.

His utterances in favor of serfdom and slavery must

not be regarded as merely casual remarks. They are the

expression of his firm convictions. If, in the beginning,

for certain reasons, he spoke of the wrongs of the greatly

oppressed peasants, he later held that they were treated

only too well: “You worthless, coarse peasants and

mules, he said, “the thunder strike you dead ! You have

the best of the land.” (Weimar Ed., Vol. XXVHI, p.

520.) Far from being content with the statement that,

“Slavery is not against the Christian or,der, and he who

-v^says so lies!” {Ibid., Vol. XVI, p. 244.) Luther really

wished that this system might be reintroduced. (Erlang-

48



LUTHER, SLAVES AND PEASANTS 49

en Ed. XXXIII p. 390.) A striking utterance of his

opinion is to be found in the sermon preached by him in

1524. That the sentiments contained in it were not the

result of a passing impression is plain from the fact that

the sermon was printed three years after its delivery,

with an introduction by Luther in which he states that it

expresses his true “mind and conviction.” Referring in

the course of this sermon to a gift of servants and hand-

maids which Abimelech made to Abraham together with

a present of sheep and oxen, Luther said of the former:

These too are personal possessions, like other cattle (wie ander

Viehe), which the Patriarchs sold as they pleased, as it would

well-nigh be best were it done so now, since in no other way

can servants on estates be forced into subjection and tamed.

. Should the world continue long this state would have

to be introduced again. . . . The Patriarchs, so far as the;?

themselves were concerned, would have given it up; but such

an act would not have been good. They (i, e. the former

slaves) would soon have become too proud, if so much right

had been conceded them, or they had been treated as one’s self

or child. ... If the rule of fist and force were here as in
days gone by (i. e. if slavery were reintroduced) so that no one

could stir but the fist would come down upon his head, there

would then be a better state of affairs. Nothing else is of

any avail. (Weimar Ed., Vol. XXIV, pp. 367, 368.)

vSo far Luther, the “Ecclesiastes by God’s grace.” But

this is not all. How tenderly devoted he was in reality

to the common people may be judged from a sermon

printed by him in 1526, a period when he was able soberly

to form his final opinion of them. They were scornfully

called by him Herr Omnes, “Master All,” and in the fol-

lowing gentle terms he suggests the manner in which they

should be treated

:

Because God has given the law and knows that nobody ob-

serves it. He has in addition instituted rod-masters, drivers and



50 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

urgers. So the Scripture by a similitude calls the rulers. They

must be like men who drive mules. One must constantly cling

to their necks and urge them on with whips, or else they will

not move ahead. So then are the rulers to drive, beat, choke,

hang, burn, behead and break upon the wheel the vulgar masses,

Sir All. (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XV, 2, p. 276.)

This “evangelical” teaching of the new apostle is

wholly in accord with his desire for the reintroduction

of bondage and slavery. Thus shackled and handed over

to their masters, the common people could certainly far

more readily be driven, beaten, and if so desired, broken

upon the wheel. Luther’s New Evangel, it may be no-

ticed, has in more than one regard a striking similarity

to the old Roman paganism. But Luther literally out-

Herods Herod in his final reflection upon the poor slaugh-

tered peasants, who were butchered in the revolution, and

for whose fate he was doubly responsible. Leading

Protestant historians freely admit that he had been largely

the immediate cause of their uprising, which took place

in the name of the New Evangel. Yet not content with

their defeat, he goaded the princes to their slaughter.

But our blood boils when after the destruction of 100,000

of these misguided men, incited to revolt by his violent

invectives against bishops and princes, we hear him

actually boasting years after the bloody deeds had taken

place

:

I, Martin Luther, have during the rebellion slain all the

peasants, for it v/as I who ordered them to be struck dead.

All their blood is upon my head. But I put it all on our Lord

God; for He commanded me to speak thus. (Tischreden.

Erlangen Ed., Vol. LIX, p. 284.)

How, we marvel, was it possible for any human being

to be so heartless, brutal and unnatural ? Even had these

men not been incited to rebellion by Luther himself, still



51LUTHER, SLAVES AND PEASANTS

they were at least to be pitied. This cruel boast is made

the more unnatural by the fact that he himself was the

son of a peasant, and that, as Vedder remarks in another

connection “His sympathies should naturally have been

with the class from which he had risen, and in thus tak-

ing without reservation the side of the princes, and be-

coming more violent in word than they were in deed, he

was acting the renegade.” (p. 244.) But that role he had

assumed in many ways. He was the great Benedict

Arnold of history, who after betraying by foul and lying

words the spiritual Mother who had nursed him, betrayed

likewise the class to which he belonged and was willing

to hand them over to bondage, slavery and death.

How was it that Luther came to such a monstrous state

of mind? It is possible to follow the process step by

step. The story is long and complicated, but the outline

of it can be given in few words.

Luther’s first appeal was to the princes by whom he

hoped to sweep the Church from the face of the land and

forcibly impose upon the people his newly invented creed,

if they would not accept it willingly. When his expecta-

tions were disappointed he turned to the people, thinking

that the same effect could be brought about by a popular

movement. But this resulted more disastrously than he

had imagined, and its direct effect was the dreadful

peasants’ war. It was not the carnage and destruction,

however, which made him turn like a wounded boar upon

the peasants and tear them with his tusks. The deepest

grievance lay in the fact that, in place of accepting his

New Evangel, they preferred to follow his example and

interpret the Scriptures for themselves. This was of all

things the most dreaded and abhorred by Luther. It

meant heresy against his own doctrine and his own inter-



52 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

pretation, which no one was to question, much less to

gainsay. Moreover his Lutheran princes too were now

imperiled. What therefore was to become of his religion

if the peasants should be victorious? The very thought

made Luther frantic with rage, and turning against his

own class he cast his full power on the side of the princes.

In terms of unexampled violence he called upon all to

“strike, stab and slay” the peasants, openly, secretly and

in every possible way “like mad dogs.” Such is the his-

tory in brief.

In confirmation of these statements a few quotations

from his own writings previous to the peasant uprising

' must be given. “What wonder,” he wrote, “if princes>

nobles and the laity were to strike Pope, bishops, priests

and monks over the head, and drive them out of the

land?” (Erlangen Ed. Vol. XXIV, 2, p. 46.) Yet he

gently added that he did not by this wish to excite the

masses against their spiritual authorities. “Why,” he

again demanded, in even far dearer language, “do we not

seize upon all weapons, and wash our hands in their

blood?” (0pp. lat. var. II, p. 80.) Later editors strove

to modify this passage by an insertion, but the original

is unqualified. Equally anarchistic is the following

declaration

:

It were better that all bishops be murdered, all foundations

and monasteries torn up, root and all, th^n that a single soul

should perish; how much better then were this than that all

souls be lost because of the useless fetishes and idols (i. e.

\ bishops, priests, etc.) Of what good are they except to live in

luxury by other peoples’ sweat and toil, and to hinder the Word

of God (which Luther alone possessed). . . . What fitter

thing could happen to them than a powerful revolution which

will wipe them from the earth. And this were only a matter

of mirth, if it were to take place, as the Divine Wisdom says:



LUTHER, SLAVES AND PEASANTS 63

“You have despised all my counsels and have neglected my

reprehension. I also will laugh in your destruction.” (Weimar

Ed., Vol. X, 2, p. 111.)

Finally in true Mohammedan style the people were

told that “All who give aid, all who risk life, goods and

honor, that the bishoprics be destroyed and the regimen

. of the Bishops extirpated, these are the dear children of

God, and true Christians,” while the men who supported

the Bishops were “the devil’s own servants.” {Ibid., p.

140.) How else could the peasants understand such

words than as the declaration of a holy war, and so in

fact they interpreted them and acted accordingly. Words

of patience were spoken by him only to be retracted the

next moment by a storm of new invectives. In like man-

ner the secular authorities were denounced as “worse

than robbers and knaves,” and the Emperor styled “a

sack of maggots,” while Luther declared that, “God Him-

self has abolished all authority which acts against the

^ Evangel,” that is, in opposition to the heresiarch’s pet
ideas. (De Wette, Vol. II, p. 192.) Even the ardent ad-

mirer of Luther, Fr. V. Bezold, writes: “Such language

could be used by Luther only in case he wished to place

himself at the head of a rebellion,” a purpose which we

do not ascribe to him.

When finally the peasants arose in arms, in the name of

the Evangel, they immediately turned to Luther for a

consecration of their cause. Realizing the seriousness of

the situation, he now sent forth a message of peace. He

denounced both peasants and princes, for he saw the harm

that was being done to his own cause, but while telling

the peasants that if they were Christians “they would

suffer everything” and even patiently allow themselves

to be tortured by the princes, as he had always taught



54 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

them ( !), he again broke into the most violent denuncia-

tions of the Catholic lords who had not accepted his

doctrine

:

\T

God is so bringing it about that one cannot and will not any

longer endure your tyranny. You must change and yield to the

Word of God (i. e. to the religion of Luther’s invention). If

you will not do so by gentle means, you must do so through

violent destructive ways. If the peasants do not accomplish

this, others must do it. (W.eimar Ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 293.)

Such was his message of peace by which he fanned

anew the flames of war. But the leadership among the

peasants had been assumed by sectaries, who, although

of Luther’s own making, had become heretics in his

sight by interpreting the Bible for themselves after

Luther’s example. This was the one unpardonable sin

for which no punishment could be too great. He also

saw that his own princes, who were great oppressors of

the people, were being attacked, and that both he and his

doctrine might be discredited and some other form of

“evangelical Christianity” introduced. Such doctrine

would surely have the same justification as his and might

equally insist that the authority of all earthly rulers was

null and void in the sight of God the moment they op-

posed it.

Luther’s decision was soon taken. Heart and soul he

cast his influence on the side of the princes. All the

devils of hell, he now believed, had entered into the

,

peasants. “Let everybody who can,” he cried in frantic

J passion, “strike, slay, stab, secretly or publicly.”

Although the princes needed no exhortation, yet he in-

sisted that neither patience nor mercy should be shown.

The violence of his language knew no bounds

:

\
Hence it may happen that he who is killed on their side may be

^
a true martyr before God. . . . But whoever falls on the



LUTHER, SLAVES AND PEASANTS 55

side of the peasants is a brand of hell for all eternity, because

he is a member of the devil. . . . It is such a wonderful

time now that a prince may gain heaven by bloodshed better

than by prayer. (Weimar Ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 358, etc.)

A wonderful time indeed it was, for while 100,000

peasants, whose blood he boasted was upon his head, were

being mercilessly slaughtered, Luther himself celebrated

his union with the nun Katharine Bora. His intercourse

with women had been such, he tells us, that he was turn-

ing into a woman. Such was the man who could write

tender letters to his “sweetheart Kate” and at the same

time urge the princes and their followers to strangle,

stab and kill; who could speak in glowing terms of

Christian liberty and in his heart desire that the days of

bondage and of slavery might soon return with their rule

of “force and fist”
;
who could claim a message from the

Most High, and yet so deeply despise his own class, the

peasant population whose hangman he made himself,

that he believed not even the devil cared for them : “He

despises them as he does leaden pennies,” since he can

have them without trouble, for no one else “would claim

them.” (Cordatus, Tagebuch, p. 127.) The common

people, he held, “must be driven and forced like swine

and wild beasts.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XV, 2, p. 276.)

His titanic pride reached such heights that by the favor

and power of princes he wished to impose upon them

and upon all mankind his own irrational and self-invented

creed. “Since I am sure of it,” he proclaimed, “I shall

be through it your judge and the judge of angels, as St.

Paul says, so that he who does not embrace my doctrine

cannot be saved.” (Walch Ed., Vol. XIX, pp. 838, 839.)

But the people too, had their day when they sat in judg-

ment upon Luther, and the name they gave him clung

through life : “Hypocrite and princes’ menial.”



VII. Luther and Woman

Joseph Husslein, SJ.

L
uther has been acclaimed the restorer of woman’s

dignity. The Fathers of the Church, he tells us,

had never written anything worthy of note upon the sub-

ject of matrimony. God had waited for his coming in

order that marriage might be reestablished in the world

before the Last Day, as it had from the first been “insti-

tuted and commanded.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. LXI, p.

178.) Catholics, we are assured, had hitherto regarded

the nuptial state as “un-Christian” and entirely “dedi-

cated to the devil.” “They have made mortal sins of all

the words and actions of married people, and I myself,

when I was still a monk, had the same idea: that the

married life was a damned state.” (“M. Lutheri Exege-

tica Opera Latina” Vol. VI, p. 283. Cf. Grisar II, p.

481, etc.)

There is one short word which adequately describes

such statements as the foregoing. That here, as elsewhere

when speaking of the Church, Luther should wilfully

misrepresent the truth is not strange. It is the simple

application of his principle that a lie must not be balked

at when it serves the New Evangel: “What would it

matter,” he said in the famous case of the Landgrave of

Hesse, “if for the sake of a greater good and of the

ijChristian Church one were to tell a big round lie ?”
—

‘'Ein

gudte stargke Liigen thet,” in Luther’s sixteenth-century

German. {“Briefwechsel,” between Philip and Bucer,

Vol. I, p. 369.)

That Luther was aware he was libeling the Church is

56



LUTHER AND WOMAN 57

plain from his own earlier writings, in which the Catholic

attitude towards matrimony is perfectly stated. “Matri-

mony,” he wrote in 1519, “is a Sacrament, an external,

sacred sign of the most high, holy, worthy, and noble

thing that ever was or ever will be, the union of the Di-

vine and human nature in Christ.” This is the exact de-

scription given by the Roman Pontiffs of the Sacrament

of Matrimony as existing between the Faithful when con-

summated, while the Sacrament in general is described

as representing the union between Christ and His Church.

Luther then continues to speak of it as a “bond of

fidelity,” which has for “its end and principle object” to

bear children who are to be “educated in the service of

God.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXIV, 2, p. 63.) This defini-

tion of the Catholic doctrine, as it has always been held

in the Church, is completed by the equally Catholic state-

ment: “Marriage is good, virginity is better:” ''Bonum

coniugium, melior virginitas.” (Weimar Ed., Vol. VIII,

p. 330.)

Luther therefore merely applied his clearly expressed

principle about lying when he said that as a monk he had

believed, in common with other Catholics, that all the

words and actions of married people are mortal sins. No

Catholic ever believed so absurd a doctrine, and nowhere

was married life esteemed so highly and held to be so

holy and sacred as within the Catholic Church. In rating

the chastity of the virginal state as even higher in ex-

cellence and spiritually more desirable than matrimonial

life, the Church was not belittling the latter, but was

merely repeating the plain teaching of Christ and of St.

Paul. But a great change had come over Luther, and no

one who discerningly follows the development of his

New Evangel can say that it was a change for the better.



58 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

Marriage in the first place was robbed by him of its

Sacramental character, and entirely securalized. It be-

came for him “an external bodily thing, like any other

manipulation.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XVI, p. 519.) It

was to be regarded simply like eating, drinking and sleep-

ing; whence he also concludes: “As I can eat, drink,

sleep, walk, ride, trade and deal with a pagan, a Jew, a

Turk and a heretic, so too I may marry and remain mar-

ried with them.” (Ibid., Vol. LXI, p. 205.) Finally,

after being robbed of all its sacredness, marriage was

handed over by Luther entirely to the secular powers:

“Hitherto I was foolish enough to expect more than is

human from human beings, and to imagine that they could

be guided by the Gospel. No, the fact shows that they

despise God and would be forced by the law and the

sword.” {‘'Briefwechsel,” Vol. VI, p. 6.) Such was the

disastrous effect of his new doctrine from the very first,

and such the cynicism of Luther.

Secondly, it was Luther, and not the Church, who

taught that matrimony is of necessity sinful. This state-

ment may appear startling to those who are not acquainted

with the real Luther and his teachings. “The matri-

monial duty,” he says, “is never performed without sin.”

(Weimar Ed., Vol. XX, 2, p. 304.) That sin, which he

holds married people must of necessity continually com-

mit, is described by him as in its nature “differing in

nothing from adultery and fornication.” {Ibid., Vol.

VIII, p. 654.) To complete the absurdity of his doctrine,

he adds that the sin which according to him is neces-

sarily committed by every person in the married state is

overlooked by God out of pure m.ercy, “since it is impos-

sible for us to avoid it, although we are obliged to refrain

from it.” {Ibid.) Could any doctrine be more unreason-

able, more disgraceful, or more dishonorable to God?



LUTHER AND WOMAN 59

In the third place marriage is made of strict obligation

by Luther. Mistaking for a universal law God’s blessing,

“Increase and multiply,” spoken likewise over the fish

and fowl which surely were not capable of receiving a

Divine precept, Luther created a new commandment,

thus placing himself in opposition to the words of Our

Lord and of St. Paul, who, though not enjoining the state

of virginity, yet highly commended it. Here then is

Luther’s law: “Whatever is man must have a wife.”

(Weimar Ed., Vol. X, 2, p. 276.) So likewise he com-

mands every woman to have a husband. Some rare ex-

ceptions, he admits, are made by God
;
but these are

“wonders,” and no man or woman is to presume that such

a miracle will be worked in his or her regard. In a letter

to Archbishop Albrecht, dated June 2, 1525, he thus ap-

plies his hitherto unheard-of law

:

It is a terrible thing for a man to be found without wife at

the hour of death. He must at least have the intention and

resolution of entering into the married state. For what answer

will he give to Almighty God when He asks of him : “I made

you a man, who is not to stand alone, but is to have a wife.

Where is your wife?” (De Wette, Vol. II, p. 676.)

No less terrible, however, will be the fate of the un-

married woman. “God’s word and work are evident,”

says Luther, “that woman must be used for matrimony

or for lust.” (Erlangen Ed., Vol. LI, p. 6.) We forbear

to give his plainer language. All single women are flatly

accused by him of immorality

:

Though women folk are ashamed to confess it, yet it is

proved by Scripture and experience that there is not one among

many thousands to whom God gives the grace to keep pure

chastity; but a woman has no power over herself. {Ibid., II,

p. 535.)



60 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

Can any Protestant woman consent to the apotheosis

of the shameless ex-monk who thus defames her sex and

slanders her sisters who by thousands upon thousands are

living pure lives in the unmarried state ? Can a Protestant

gentleman, once he understands Luther’s infamous

slander of womankind, look on such doctrine with in-

difference ?

Much is said of the domestic felicity of Luther’s house-

hold, and tender passages are quoted from his letters.

But is there a Protestant woman so far lost to all sense

of decency that she could sit down without shame and

indignation at Luther’s table and listen to his outpourings

of coarse and vulgar jests at her own sex and at all that is

sacred in her person, “taking a stable boy’s unclean de-

light at rude witticisms over woman’s physical differentia-

tion from man” ? Even the most foul-mouthed of

Luther’s contemporaries found his language too obscene.

A volume could be filled with Luther’s scurrilities that

would be fit reading no place outside the bottomless pit.

Yet out of the abundance of the heart the mouth

speaketh.

How profound his appreciation for woman really was

may be gaged from the following estimate written by

him in defense of her sex

:

The body of women is not strong, and their soul is even

weaker in the common run. So it is a matter of importance

whether the Lord places a wild or a mild one at our side. The

woman is half a child. He who takes a woman should consider

himself as the guardian of a child. . . . She is likewise a

freakish animal ("ein toll Thier’^). Recognize her weakness. If

she does not always walk in the straight path, guide her weak-

ness. A woman remains a woman in eternity. (Weimar Ed.,
Vol. XV, p. 420.)



LUTHER AND WOMAN 61

His personal experience gave him little opportunity

to act upon his own advice, for “Master Kate,” as he

called his wife, was not the “weaker vessel” so far as

family authority was concerned. “If I were to woo an-

other,” he said, “I would hew me an obedient wife out

of a block of stone, else I despair of the obedience of all

wives.” (Kostlin-Kawerau, II, p. 487.) The fact is,

however, that Luther had not done the wooing, since

Kate had simply offered herself indifferently to him and

his friend Amsdorf. Luther took her, and we do not wish

to question either his affection or his fidelity towards

her. This is the least to be expected of any married man.

The religious exaltation of his ideals may be judged from

the following “jocular” language which occurs in a letter

to Spalatin by Luther before his own marriage. He is

urging his clerical friend to marry, and says

:

But if you desire me for an example, behold I have given

you a most signal one. For I have had three wives at once,

and loved them so ardently that I have lost two of them, who

will take other husbands. The third I scarcely hold on my

left arm, and am perhaps about to lose her too. {“Briefwech-

seir Vol. V, p. 157.)

While this is merely a sample of Luther’s idea of

humor, his permission given to the Landgrave of Hesse

to have two wives at once is sufficiently well known. A

confessed libertine, the ruler had delicately hinted at the

strong support he might give to the New Evangel if the

keeping of two wives were granted him, and it was there-

fore deemed advisable for the sake of the good cause to

permit this on condition of secrecy, “for the Church is

poor and miserable, small and desolate, and is indeed in

want of righteous rulers (!)” (De Wette, Vol. V, p.



62 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

237.) The reason of piety is likewise alleged, for when

did this ever fail even the devil himself : “If his High-

ness does not abstain from an impure life, which accord-

ing to his own statement is impossible, it is better that he

should provide for the peace and security of his con-

science by an additional marriage.” {Ibid.)

This must not, however, be regarded as an isolated

case. The right of keeping several wives was openly

preached by Luther: “/f is not forbidden that a man

should have more than one wife. I could not forbid it

today. (Erlangen Ed., Vol. XXXIII, p. 324.) It is

true that Luther did not advise it, and that, as occasion

served, he even severely reprehended it. Yet he held it

to be entirely permissible before God. In the test case at

Orlamiinde, when his counsel was asked, he gave the

same clear reply: “I confess that if a man wishes to

marry several wives, I cannot forbid it, nor is it in oppo-

sition to the Holy Scriptures.” “Ego sane fateor, me

non posse prohibere, si quis plures uxores velit du,cere,

nec repugnat sacris litteris.” (De Wette, Vol. II, p. 459.)

Thus, in spite of empty remonstrances, was a complete

license given for polygamy, as the Landgrave of Hesse

said, to abbreviate his words : “If it is right in conscience

before Almighty God, what do I care for the cursed

world
!”

When Luther’s sanction of Philip’s bigamy became pub-

lic, Melanchthon was deeply chagrined, but Luther soon

recovered himself, and joked about the topic, even banter-

ing his wife upon the subject, in that ideal home, by tell-

ing her the time was coming when “A man will take sev-

eral wives,” to which the meek Kate replied : “The devil

believe it !” Decency forbids quotation of Luther’s argu-

ment. A marvelous application of supposed texts now



LUTHER AND WOMAN 63

followed : “Paul said,” was Kate’s rejoinder,
“
‘Let

every man have his own wife.’ ” To which the Doctor

replied
“
‘His own,’ but not ‘one only one,’ that cannot

be found in Paul.” So, we are authentically informed,

“the Doctor joked for a long time, until the Doctor’s

wife said : ‘Before I will tolerate that, I will rather go

back into the convent, and leave you and all the children

alone.’ ” (Schlaginhaufen, ‘'Tischreden Luthers aus den

Yahren 1531 und 1532.” p. 69.)

Whether or not Luther rejected this doctrine in an

isolated passage towards the end of his life, is of small

concern. In word and practice he had defended poly-

gamy as entirely “Christian” and lawful before God.

Mormonism is nothing more than the consistent applica-

tion of his words. Polygamy is inseparably connected

with the name of Luther; we cannot loathe the one and

extol the other.

Adultery, with the husband’s consent, is also expressly

sanctioned by Luther, when no children result from the

marriage. The child thus secretly begotten is to be as-

cribed to the legal husband. (Weimar Ed., Vol. VI, p.

558). The keeping of a mistress, too, is strongly urged

by him upon those who must by vow conform to the

rule of celibacy: “Let them secretly marry their cook.”

(Lauterbach, “Tagehuch” p. 198.) Neither before the

law nor before the Church was this a marriage, and its

object is clear. The members of the Teutonic Order were

expressly told by him not to seek a dispensation for mar-

riage from the Council. “I would rather look through

God’s fingers and trust in His grace for him who has

two or three concubines, than for him who takes a lawful

wife with the consent of the Council.” (Weimar Ed.,

Vol. XII, p. 237, etc.) And what are we to say of the



64 WHAT LUTHER TAUGHT

brutal language regarding the wife who refuses her duty

:

‘Tf the woman would not, let the maid come.” The hus-

band has only to “Let Vasthi go and take an Esther, like

King Assuerus.” {Ibid., Vol. X, 2, p. 290.) To the wife’s

remonstrance he is simply to say: “Go and run

to the devil!” {Ibid., Ill, p. 222.)

We might multiply quotations but the subject is too

nauseating: it smells to heaven. Yet mention of it can-

not be avoided if Luther is to be seen in his true light.

Many beautiful passages can doubtless be gathered from

his writings, but they are merely the remnant of his

Catholic inheritance. What has here been given is

Luther’s own entirely, and upon this must therefore be

founded his claim to a Divine mission. One tenth of

what has been quoted in these pages is sufficient to dis-

credit him forever as a religious teacher.