Luther consoled himself and Spalatin as follows for the loss of dignity which they apprehended: “The consistory will deal only with matrimonial cases, with which we no longer will or can have any more to do; also with the bringing back of the peasants to some sort of discipline and the payment of stipends to the preachers.”[654]
For the Wittenberg consistory to relieve him of the matrimonial cases was in many respects just what he desired. He had himself frequently dealt with these cases according to the dictates of his own ever-changing views on marriage, so far as he was allowed by his frequent quarrels with the lawyers who questioned his right to interfere. He now declared: “I am glad that the consistoria have been established, especially on account of the matrimonial cases.”[655] As early as 1536, he had written: “The peasants and rude populace who seek nothing but the freedom of the flesh, and likewise the lawyers, who, whenever possible, oppose our decisions, have wearied me so much that I have flung aside the matrimonial cases and written to some telling them that they may do just as they please in the name of all the devils; let the dead bury their dead; for though I give much advice, I cannot help the people when afterwards they are robbed and teased [by the lawyers]. If the world will have the Pope then let it have him if otherwise it cannot be.”
“So far I have not found one single lawyer,” he continues, speaking of a certain matrimonial question, “who would hold with me against the Pope in this or any similar case.... We theologians know nothing, and are not supposed to count.”[656]
It was in part nausea and wounded vanity, in part also his abhorrence for the ecclesiastical and sacramental side of marriage which caused him repeatedly to declare: “I would we were rid of the matrimonial business”;[657] “marriage and all its circumstances is a political affair” (both statements date from 1538);[658] “leave the matrimonial cases to the secular authorities, for they concern, not the conscience, but the external law of the Princes and magistrates” (1532).[659]
Of the ecclesiastical powers of the sovereign he declared however (1539), “We must make the best of him as bishop, since no other bishop will help us.”[660]
“But if things come to such a pass that the Courts try to rule as they please,” so he wrote at a time when this principle had already begun to bear its bitter fruit, “then the last state will be worse than the first ... in that case let the Lords themselves be our pastors and preachers, let them baptise, visit the sick, give communion and perform all the other offices of the Church! Otherwise let them stop confusing the two callings, attend to their own Courts and leave the Churches to the clergy.... It is Satan who in our day is seeking to introduce into the Church the counsels and the authority of the government officials; we shall, however, resist him and keep the two callings separate.”[661]
Yet the “two callings,” the secular and the ecclesiastical, were to become more and more closely intermingled. As was inevitable, the weak spiritual authority set up by Luther was soon absorbed by a strong secular authority well aware of its own aims; the secular power treated the former as its sacristan charged with carrying out the services of the Church, and gradually assumed exclusive control, even in matters of doctrine. A moral servitude such as had never been seen at any period in the history of the German Church was the consequence of the State government of the Church, brought about by the consistories.
In order to understand Luther’s attitude towards the consistories and to gauge rightly his responsibility, some further particulars of their rise and earliest form are called for.
In 1537 the “Great Committee of the Torgau district” demanded, that the Elector should establish four consistories in his lands. On these would devolve the looking after of “all ecclesiasticæ causæ, the preaching office, the churches and ministers, their vindication contra injurias, all that concerned their conduct and life, and particularly the matrimonial suits.” Some such court was essential in the case of these suits, because, since the dissolution of the bishops’ courts, the utmost disorders had prevailed and nobody even knew by which code the questions pending were to be judged, whether by the old canon law with which the lawyers were familiar, or according to the doctrine and statutes of Luther which were quite a different thing. The disciplinary system too had become so lax that some revision of the Church judiciary appeared inevitable.
As for the principles which were to direct the new organisation: Luther was inclined at times to be forgetful of his theory, that his Churches should have no canon law of their own;[662] even at this grave crisis he does not seem to have been distinctly conscious of it; at the same time his jealousy made him unwilling to see all the authority for governing the new Churches conferred directly by the State, though, with his usual frankness, he admitted it was impossible for things to continue as they were. The most influential men of his circle were, however, determined to have so-called ecclesiastical courts introduced by the sovereign, which should then govern in his name; hitherto, they urged, it was the purely secular courts which had intervened, which was a mistake, as had been shown in practice by their failure. Thus, as R. Sohm put it, “did Melanchthon’s ideas, from about 1537, gradually oust those of Luther in the government of the Lutheran Church.”[663]
It was from this standpoint that, in his Memorandum of 1538 addressed to the Elector, Jonas, the lawyer and theologian, supported the above-mentioned proposal of the Torgau assembly.
He points out that “the common people become daily more savage and uncouth,” and that “no Christian Church can hope to stand where such rudeness and lawlessness prevail.” According to him the authority of the consistories was to embrace the whole domain of Church government. They were, however, to derive their authority direct from the sovereign, “through, and by order of, the prince of the land.” Hence “their iudices were to have the right to enforce their decisions”; they were to be in a position to wield the Greater Excommunication with its temporal consequences, also to inflict bodily punishment, fines and “suitable terms of imprisonment,” and therefore to have “men-at-arms” and “a prison” at their disposal.[664]
Jonas and those who agreed with him fancied that what they were setting up with the help of the secular power was a spiritual court; in reality, however, they were advocating a purely secular, coercive institution.
Luther’s views differed from those of his friends in so far as he wished to see the new courts—which he frowned at and distrusted—merely invested with full powers for dealing with matrimonial suits; even here, however, he made a reservation, insisting on the abrogation of canon law. The Elector’s edict of 1539 appointing the consistories, out of consideration for Luther, was worded rather vaguely. The consistories were, “until further notice,” to see to the “ecclesiastical affairs” which “have occurred so far or shall yet occur and be brought to your cognisance.”[665] According to this their authority was received only “until further notice” from the ruler, to whom it fell to bring cases to their “cognisance,” and, who, naturally kept the execution of the sentence in his own hands.
Luther, it is true, accepted the new arrangement, because, as he said, it represented a “Church court” which could take over the matrimonial cases. But forthwith he found himself in conflict with the lawyers attached to the courts because they insisted on taking their stand on canon law. To his very death, even in his public utterances, he lashed the men of the law for thus submitting themselves to the Pope and to the code against which his life’s struggle had been directed. Yet the lawyers were driven to make use of the old statutes, since they alone afforded a legal basis, and because Luther’s propositions to the contrary—on secret marriages, for instance—lacked any general recognition. The result of Luther’s opposition to the consistories was, that, so long as he lived, they remained without any definite instructions, devoid of the authority which had been promised them, and without the coercive powers they so much needed; for the nonce they were spiritual courts without any outward powers of compulsion, the latter being retained by the sovereign to use at his discretion.
After Luther’s death things were changed. The consistories both in the Saxon Electorate and in most other places where they had been copied became exclusively organs of Church government by the State, though still composed of theologians and lawyers. In 1579 and 1580 the end which Luther had foreseen arrived. “The last things became, as a matter of fact, worse than the first,” as he himself had predicted, nay, as the result of his own action; Satan has introduced “into the Church the counsels and the authority of government officials” (above, p. 182).
This change, which in reality was the realisation of the ideas of Jonas, Melanchthon and Chancellor Brück, leads Rud. Sohm, after having portrayed in detail the circumstances, to exclaim: “The sovereign as head of the Church! How can such a thing be even imagined? The Church of Christ, governed solely by the word of Christ ... and by command of the ruler of the land.”[666] Speaking of the disorder in Luther’s Church, which recognised no canon law, the Protestant canonist says: “Canon law was needed to assist the Word; well, it came, but only to establish the lord of the land as lord also of the Church.” “The State government of the Church is in contradiction with the Lutheran profession of faith.” “If, however, the Church is determined to be ruled by force, then the ruler must be the secular authority.”[667]
The secular authorities to which Protestantism looked for support had been well organised throughout the Empire by the League of Schmalkalden. Subsequent to 1535 the warlike alliance had been extended for a further ten years. In 1539 the state of things became so threatening, that Luther feared lest the Catholic princes should attack the Protestants. In a sermon he referred to the “fury of Satan amongst the blinded Papists who incite the Emperor and other kings against the Evangel”; he, however, also added, that “we, by our boundless malice and ingratitude, have called down the wrath of God.” They ought to pray, “that the Emperor might not turn his arms against us who have the pure Word of Christ.”[668] As a matter of fact, however, the Emperor and the Empire were not in a position even to protect themselves against the wanton behaviour of the innovators.
Amongst the outward provisions made for the future benefit of the new Church, the League of Schmalkalden deserves the first place. In the very year before his death Luther took steps to ensure the prolongation of this armed alliance.[669]
Among the efforts made at home to improve matters a place belongs to Luther’s attempts to introduce a more frequent use of excommunication.
The introduction of the ban engrossed Luther’s attention more particularly after 1539, but without any special results. In 1541 we find the question raised under rather peculiar circumstances in one of the numerous letters in which Luther complains of the secular authorities. At Nuremberg, Wenceslaus Link had threatened certain persons of standing with excommunication, whereupon one of the town-councillors hurled at him the opprobrious epithet of “priestling.” Full of indignation, Luther wrote: “It is true the civil authorities ever have been and always will be enemies of the Church.... God has rejected the world and, of the ten lepers, scarcely one takes His side, the rest go over to the prince of this world.” “Excommunication is part of the Word of God.” If they look upon our preaching as the Word of God then it is a disgrace that they should refuse to hear of excommunication, despise the ministers of the Word and hate the God Whom they have confessed; they wickedly blaspheme in thus hurling the term ‘priestling’ at His ministers.[670]
Here we get a glimpse of the difficulty which attended the introduction of the ban: “They refuse to hear of excommunication.”
With the Greater Excommunication which involved civil disabilities, and in particular exclusion to some extent from social intercourse, Luther had no sympathy; he was interested in the reintroduction merely of the Lesser Excommunication prohibiting the excommunicate to take part in public worship, or at least to receive the Supper or to stand as godparent. In his view the Greater Excommunication was a matter for the sovereign and did not in the least concern the ministers of the Church; this he points out in his Schmalkalden Articles.[671] He even was inclined to look upon any such action of the ruler with a jealous eye; from anything of the sort it were better for the sovereign to abstain for fear of any awkward confusion of the spiritual with the secular power.[672]
The “Unterricht der Visitatorn,” printed in 1528, had already suggested to the ministers the use of a kind of Lesser Excommunication, but, in the absence of anything definite, the proposal remained practically a dead letter. We learn, however, that Luther pronounced his first ban of this sort against some alleged witches.[673] Subsequently he had strongly urged at the Court of the Elector that the authorities should at least threaten gross contemners of religion with “exile and punishment” as in the case of blasphemers, and that then the pastors, after instruction and admonition had proved of no avail, should proceed to exclude such men from church membership[674] as “heathen to be shunned.” When mentioning this he fails to state whether or to what extent his proposal was carried out.[675] On the other hand, he often declares that the actual state of the masses rendered quite impossible any ordering of ecclesiastical life according to the Gospel; he is also fond of speaking of the danger there would be of falling back into the Popish regulations abolished by the freedom of the Gospel, were disciplinary measures reintroduced.
What moved Luther in 1538 to advocate the use of the ban was, first, the action of the Elector’s haughty Captain and Governor, Hans Metzsch at Wittenberg, who, in addition to Luther’s excommunication, was threatened with dismissal from his office, or, as Luther expresses it, with the Greater Excommunication of the ruler (1538), and, secondly, the doings of a Wittenberg burgher who (Feb., 1539) dared to go to the Supper in spite of having committed homicide. In the case of Metzsch a form of minor excommunication was resorted to, Luther declaring invalid the absolution and permission to communicate granted by the Deacon Fröschel; whether or not, after this, he pronounced a further excommunication, this much is certain, viz. that, not long after the pair were reconciled.[676]
Many of the well-disposed on Luther’s side were in favour of the ban as a disciplinary measure; others were intensely hostile to it. Of his latest intention, Luther speaks at some length in a sermon of Feb. 23, 1539. He there explains how the whole congregation must be behind the clergy in enforcing the ban; they were to be notified publicly of any man who proved obstinate and were to pray against him; then was to follow the formal expulsion from the congregation; re-admission to public worship was also to take place publicly.
The plan of using the ban as a disciplinary measure was, however, brought to nought by the efforts of the Court and the lawyers, who wished all proceedings of the sort to devolve upon the government as represented in the consistories.[677] Luther also encountered the further difficulty, that, in many cases, the ban was simply ignored, even greater scandal arising out of this public display of contempt. Hence, owing to his experience, he came to enjoin the greatest caution.
To his former pupil, Anton Lauterbach, preacher at Pirna, he sent the following not over-confident instructions: “Hesse’s example of the use of excommunication pleases me. If you can establish the same thing, well and good. But the centaurs and harpies of the Court will look at it askance. May the Lord be our help! Everywhere licence and lawlessness continue to spread amongst the people, but it is the fault of the secular authorities.”[678]
The example of Hesse to which Luther referred was the Hessian “Regulations for church discipline,” enacted in 1539 at the instance of Bucer, in which, amongst other things, provision was made for excommunication. So-called “elders,” appointed conjointly by the town authorities and the congregation, were to watch over the faith and morals of all, preachers inclusive; to them, together with the preacher, it fell, after seeking advice of the Superintendent, to pronounce the ban over the obdurate sinner. In the Saxon Electorate, however, so Luther hints, this would hardly be feasible on account of the attitude of the authorities and the utter lawlessness of the people.
In 1538 the Elector himself had well put the difficulty which would face any such disciplinary measure: “If only people could be found who would let themselves be excommunicated!” He had, as Jonas related at Luther’s table, listened devoutly to the sermon at Zerbst and then expressed himself strongly on the universal decline in morals, the “outrageous wickedness, gluttony and drunkenness,” etc.; he had also said that excommunication was necessary, but had then uttered the despairing words just quoted.[679]
Yet in spite of all Luther still continued at times to hold up the ban and its consequences as a threat: “I shall denounce him from the pulpit as having been placed under the ban”—this of a burgher who had absented himself from the Sacrament for fifteen years—“and will give notice that he is to be looked upon as a dog; if, after this, anyone holds intercourse or has anything to do with him, he will do so at his own risk; if he dies he is to be buried on the rubbish-heap like a dog; we formally make him over to the authorities for their justice and their laws to do their worst on him.”[680]—“As for our usurers, drunkards, libertines, whoremongers, blasphemers and scoffers,” he says, “they do not require to be put under the ban, as they have done so themselves; they are in it already up to their ears.... When they are about to die, no pastor or curate may attend them, and when they are dead let the hangman drag them out of the town to the carrion heap.... Since they wish to be heathen, we shall look upon them as such.”[681]
Such self-imposed excommunication was so frequent that the other, viz. that to be imposed by the preacher, was but rarely needed.—“This is the true and chief reason why the ban has everywhere fallen into disuse,” Luther declares, echoing the Elector, “because real Christians are everywhere so few, so small a body and so insignificant in number.”[682] He too could exclaim with a sigh: “If only there were people who would let themselves be banned.”
But even had such people been forthcoming, those who would have to pronounce the ban were too often anything but perfect. What was needed was prudent, energetic and disinterested preachers, for, in order “to make use of the ban, we have need of good, courageous, spiritual-minded ministers; we have too many who are immersed in worldly business.” “I fear our pastors will be over-bold and grasp at temporalities and at property.”[683]
Sebastian Franck of Donauwörth, a man responsible for some fanatical doctrines, but a good observer of events, wrote in 1534 in his “Cosmography”: “Every sect has its own teacher, leader and priest, so that now no one can write of the German faith, and a whole volume would be necessary, and indeed would not suffice, to enumerate all their sects and beliefs.” “Men will and must have a Pope,” he says, “they will steal one or dig one out of the earth, and if you take one from them every day they will soon find a new one.”[684]
It was not, however, exactly a “Pope” that the various sects desired; the great and commanding name of the author of the schism could endure none other beside it, quite apart from the impossibility of anything of the sort being realised. On the other hand, the appointment of bishops to the new Churches, i.e. the introduction of a kind of hierarchy, had been discussed since about 1540.
Luther saw well enough what a firm foundation the Church of the “Papists” possessed in its episcopate. Would not the introduction of eminent Lutheran preachers into the old German episcopal sees and their investment with the secular authority and quality of bishops, serve to strengthen the cause of the Evangel where it was weakest? The Superintendents did not suffice, though these officers, first introduced in the Saxon Visitation of 1527, held a post of supervision duly recognised in the Church.
“The Papists boast of their bishops,” said Luther, “and of their spiritual authority though it is contrary to God’s ordinances.”[685] “They are all set on retaining the bishops, and simply want to reform them.”[686] “In Germany the bishops are wealthy and powerful, they have a position and authority and they rule of their own power.”[687] “If only we had one or two bishops on our side, or could induce them to come over to us!”[688]
On Ascension Day, May 15, 1539, we are told that “Luther dined with his Elector and assisted at a council. It was there resolved to maintain the bishops in their authority, if only they would renounce the Pope and were pious persons devoted to the Gospel, like Speratus. In that case,” said Luther, “we shall grant them the right and the power to ordain ministers.” When Melanchthon attempted to dissuade him, pointing out that it would be difficult to make sure of them by examination, he replied: “They are to be tested by our people and then consecrated by the laying on of hands, just as I am now a bishop.”[689] Instead of the words “as I am now a bishop” a more likely rendering is, “as we have already done as bishops here at Wittenberg.”[690] The resolution indicated would seem to have been merely provisional and non-committal, possibly a mere project. Nor is it likely that Melanchthon can have been very averse to it.
As a matter of fact, Luther had, like a bishop, already ordained or inducted into office such men as had been “called” to the ministry, viz. by the congregations or the authorities; this he did for the first time in 1525 in the case of George Rörer, who had been called to the archdiaconate of Wittenberg. The ordination took place with imposition of hands and prayer. Since 1535 there existed a Wittenberg oath of ordination to be taken by the preachers and pastors who should be appointed, by which they bound themselves to preserve and to teach the “Catholic” faith as taught at Wittenberg.[691]
Luther did not think that any consecration at the hands of the existing episcopate was necessary for a new bishop;[692] such necessity was incompatible with his conception of the Church, the hierarchy and the common priesthood; as for the Sacrament of Orders in the usual sense of the word, it no longer existed.
A welcome opportunity for setting up a Protestant “bishop” was presented to the Elector of Saxony and to Luther when the bishopric of Naumburg-Zeitz fell vacant (above, p. 165 f.).
Johann Frederick, the Elector, not satisfied with his rights as protector, laid claim also to actual sovereignty, and as the innovations had, as stated above, already secured a footing in Naumburg, he determined to introduce a Lutheran preacher as bishop and to seize upon the rights and lands in spite of the Chapter and larger part of the nobility still being true to the Catholic faith. He appealed to the fact that the kings of England, Denmark and Sweden, and likewise the Duke of Prussia, had set their bishops in “order.”[693] The noble and scholarly Julius Pflug, whom wisely the Chapter at once elected to the vacant see, was, as related above, never to be allowed to ascend the episcopal throne.
At first Luther was loath under the circumstances to advise the setting up in Naumburg of a bishop of the new faith. To him and to his advisers the step appeared too dangerous. Nevertheless, on hearing of the election of Pflug, he wrote as follows to the Elector: These Naumburg canons “are desperate people and the devil’s very own. But what cannot be carried off openly, may be won by waiting. Some day God will let it fall into your Electoral Highness’s hands, and the devil’s wiseacres will be caught in their own wisdom.”[694]
When, however, the Elector obstinately insisted on putting into execution his plan, contrary to justice and to the laws of the Empire as it was, and when his agents had already begun to govern the new territory, Luther’s views and those of the Wittenberg theologians gradually changed. It was difficult, they wrote, to “map out beforehand the order” of the German Church; the question whether they would have bishops, or do without, had not yet been decided; meanwhile the Prince had better establish a consistory. Later on, however, they advised the appointment of a bishop, for the Church cannot be without its bishop and the Chapter had forfeited its rights; there was, nevertheless, to be a real and genuine election at which the faithful were to be represented.[695]
Luther and his friends wanted to have as bishop Prince George of Anhalt, Canon of Magdeburg and Merseburg, who shared the Wittenberg views.
To the Elector, however, who had other plans of his own, it seemed, that, owing to his position, this Prince might not prove an easy tool in his sovereign’s hands. Nicholas Amsdorf, preacher at Magdeburg, who for long years had been Luther’s associate, was accounted one of his most determined supporters and, as time went on, even gained for himself the reputation of being “more Lutheran than Luther,” appeared a more likely candidate. It was no difficult matter to secure Luther’s consent. He gave Amsdorf the following testimonial: “He was richly endowed by God, learned and proficient in Holy Scripture, more so than the whole crowd of Papists; also a man of good life and faithful and upright at heart.” The fact that he was unmarried was a recommendation for the post, even from the point of view of “Papal law.”[696]
It has already been mentioned that Amsdorf was later on to write the book “That good works are harmful to Salvation,” and that, previously, about 1525, he was active in making matches between the escaped nuns and the leaders of the innovations. Melanchthon, writing to Johannes Ferinarius, says: “He was an adulterer, and lay with the wife of his deacon at Magdeburg”; of this we hear from the Luther researcher J. K. Seidemann, who quotes from a Dresden MS.[697]
The 20 Jan., 1542, was appointed for the “consecration” of the bishop. Two days before, the Elector of Saxony made his solemn entry into the little town on the Saale escorted by some three hundred horsemen, the gentlemen all clothed in decorous black. His brother Johann Ernest and Duke Ernest of Brunswick were in his train. Luther, Melanchthon and Amsdorf also took part in the procession. It was a mere formality when the Chapter (or rather the magistrates of the towns of Zeitz and Naumburg, and the knights, though only such as were Protestant) were asked to cast their votes in favour of Amsdorf; in reality the will of Johann Frederick was law. Their scruples concerning the oath they had taken under the former bishop, of everlasting fidelity to the Catholic Chapter were, at their desire, dealt with by Luther himself, who argued that no oath taken by the sheep to the wolves could be of any account, and that no duty “could be binding which ran counter to God’s commandment to do away with idolatrous doctrine.”[698]
The “consecration” then took place on the day appointed, within the venerable walls of the mediæval Cathedral of Naumburg, ostensibly according to the usage of the earliest ages, when the Church had not as yet fallen away from the Gospel. The Blessing and imposition of hands were to signify that the Church of Naumburg, i.e. the whole flock, was wedded to its bishop; he too, in like manner, would ceremonially proclaim his readiness to take charge of this same flock. The bishops of the adjoining sees, who, in accordance with the custom of antiquity should have assembled to perform the consecration, were represented by three superintendents and one apostate Abbot. “At this consecration [to quote Luther’s own words] the following bishops, or as we shall call them parsons, shall officiate: Dr. Nicholas Medler, parson and super-attendant of Naumburg, Master George Spalatin, parson and super-attendant at Aldenburg [the former preacher at the Court of the Elector], Master Wolfgang Stein, parson and super-attendant at Weissenfels”[699] (also Abbot Thomas of St. George’s near Naumburg).
Luther is silent concerning the two requirements which, according to the olden views, were the most essential for the consecration of a bishop, viz. the ritual consecration, which only a consecrated bishop could impart, and the jurisdiction or authority to rule, only to be derived from bishops yet more highly placed in the hierarchy, or from the Pope. Both these Luther himself had to supply.
At the outset of the ceremony Nicholas Medler announced the deed which was about to be undertaken “through God’s Grace,” to which the people assented by saying “Amen.” After this Luther preached a sermon on the Bible-text addressed to the Church’s heads: “Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops to rule the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood” (Acts xx. 28). After the sermon Amsdorf knelt before the altar surrounded by the four assistants and the “Veni Creator” was sung. Luther admonished the future bishop concerning his episcopal duties, and, on the latter giving a satisfactory answer, in common with the four others, he laid his hands on his head; after this Luther himself offered a prayer for him. The “Te Deum” was then sung in German. Hence the bishop’s consecration took place in much the same way as the ordination of the preachers, viz. by imposition of hands and prayer.
Luther himself had some misgivings concerning the step and its far-reaching consequences.
He wrote not long after to Jacob Probst, pastor at Bremen, whom he here addresses as bishop: “I wonder you have not heard the news, how, namely, on Jan. 20, Dr. Nicholas Amsdorf was ordained by the heresiarch Luther bishop of the church of Naumburg. It was a daring act and will arouse much hatred, animosity and indignation against us. I am hard at work hammering out a book on the subject. What the result will be God knows.” He adds: “Jonas is working successfully for the kingdom of Christ at Halle [where he had been appointed pastor] in spite of the accursed Heinz and Meinz [Duke Henry of Brunswick and Archbishop Albert of Mayence]. My own lordship and Katey my Moses greet you and your spouse. Pray for me that I may die at the right hour, for I am sick of this life, or rather of this unspeakably bitter death.”[700]
The bitter work which Luther, at the request of the Elector and the Naumburg Estates, “hammered out,” in vindication of this act of violence, appeared in the same year, i.e. 1542, under the title “Exempel einen rechten Christlichen Bischoff zu weihen.”[701]
The title itself shows that the pamphlet was no mere attempt to justify himself and those who had taken part in the act but aims at something more; Luther’s apologia becomes a violent attack; a breach was to be made in the wall which so far had hindered Protestants from appropriating the Catholic bishoprics of Germany. “Our intention,” says Luther quite plainly, “is to establish an example to show how the bishoprics may be reformed and governed in a Christian manner.”[702]
The opening lines show that the book was intended to inflame and excite the masses. The jocular tone blatantly contrasts with the august subject of the episcopate and supplies a good “example” of the author’s mode of controversy. The work begins: “Martin Luther, Doctor. We poor heretics have once more committed a great sin against the hellish, unchristian Church of our most fiendish Father the Pope by ordaining and consecrating a bishop for the see of Naumburg without any chrism, without even any butter, lard, fat, grease, incense, charcoal or any such-like holy things.” Cheerfully indeed did he own, acknowledge and confess this sin against those, who “have shed our blood, murdered, hanged, drowned, beheaded, burnt, robbed and driven us into exile, and inflicted on us every manner of martyrdom, and now, with Meinz and Heinz, have taken to sacking the land.”
With a couple of Bible passages he bowls over the legal difficulties arising out of the expulsion of the bishop-elect and the oath of the Estates: “Thou shalt have none other Gods before me”; “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves,” etc. We must sweep away the “wolf-bishops whom the devil ordains and thrusts in.” “Oath and obedience stand untouched,” for they “could take no [valid] oath to the wolf.”[703] The further question, “whether it was right to accept consecration or ordination from such damnable heretics [i.e. as he], was disposed of by saying, that the Evangel was no heresy, and that though he understood Holy Scripture but little, yet at any rate he understood it far better—and also knew better how to consecrate a Christian bishop—than the Pope and all his men, who one and all were foes of Holy Writ and of the Word of God.”[704]
This screed stands undoubtedly far below many of Luther’s other productions. It tends to be diffuse and to harp tediously on the same ideas. Luther had already overwritten himself, and when engaged on it was struggling with bad health, the forerunner of his fatal sickness three years later. His disgust with life spoiled his work.
The “Popes, cardinals, bishops, abbots, canons and parsons” he implores to look rather to the beam in their own eye, to the “simony, favouritism, sharp practices, agreements, conventions and other horrible vices” which prevailed at their own consecrations, than at the mote in the eye of the Lutherans. “You strainers at gnats and swallowers of camels, wipe yourselves first—you know where I mean—before coming and telling us to wipe our noses. It is not fitting that a sow should teach a dove not to eat any unclean grain of corn while itself it loves nothing better than to feed on the excreta which the peasants leave behind the hedge. As for the rest you understand it well enough.”[705] “Let us stop our ears and not listen to their shouting, barking, bellowing, their complaints and their abuse,” with which I have “put up for many a year from Dr. Sow [Dr. Eck], from Witzel, Tölpel, Schmid, from Dr. Dirtyspoon [Cochlaeus], Tellerlecker, ‘Brünzscherben,’ Heinz and Meinz and whatever else they may be.... The [Last] Day is approaching for which we hope and which they must needs fear, however obstinately they may affect to despise it. Against their defiance we pit ours; at least we may look forward to The Day with a happy, cheerful conscience. On that day we shall be their judges, unless indeed there is really no God in heaven or on earth as the Pope and his followers believe.”[706]
How little Luther really knew of the cunning policy of his sovereign is plain from his assuring his reader in the same booklet, apparently in the best of faith, that it was no motive of self-interest that had led the Elector to intervene in the Naumburg business; “the lands were to remain the property of the see,” the Elector did not wish “to subjugate it, to deprive it of its liberty, or alienate it from the Empire,” etc.[707] He declares that whatever reports Julius Pflug was spreading to the contrary were a “stinking lie.” Yet the Elector had ousted the rightful occupant of the see, as he had intended to do all along, and those who ventured to oppose his commands he was to punish by sequestration of lands and even by imprisonment.
The Protestant bishop was assigned a miserable pittance of six hundred Gulden so that Amsdorf, as Luther declared, had been better off at Magdeburg.[708] Practically nothing was done by the sovereign for the ordering of the Church. Luther bewailed to Amsdorf: “The negligence of our government gives me great concern. They so often take rash steps and, then, when we are down in the mire, snore idly and leave us on the lurch. I intend, however, to open the ears of Dr. Pontanus [Chancellor Brück] and of the Prince and give them some plain speaking.”[709]
“How is this?” Luther wrote about this time to Justus Jonas, who, at Halle, had gone through much the same experience, “We pray against the Turk, we are the teachers of the people and their intercessors with God and yet those who wish to be accounted ‘Evangelicals’ rashly excite the wrath of God by their avarice, their robbing and plundering of the Church. The people let us go on teaching, praying and suffering while they heap sin upon sin!”[710]
Luther’s correspondence with his friend Amsdorf affords an instructive psychological insight into the working of his mind. During those last years of his life he took refuge more and more in a certain fanatical mysticism. He sought comfort in the thought of his exalted calling and in a kind of inspiration; yet all he could do availed but little against his inward gloom.