Part 9 (1/2)

. . . My position, then, is this: In view of the fact that our faith is supported by Holy Writ, we must not depart from its words as they read, nor from the order in which they are placed. . . . Otherwise, what is to become of the Bible?” (20, 213.)

22. Luther a Preacher of Violence against the Hierarchy.

In his fight against papal supremacy Luther discovered that the Roman priesthood was the Pope's chief support. The principle of community of interests had knitted both the higher and the lower clergy, the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, parish priests, monks, etc., together into one firmly compacted society. All its members understood that they were working in a common cause, and kept in constant and close rapport with one another: What concerned one concerned all the rest. Each aided and abetted the other, and all strove jointly to exalt their master, the Pope. Like a huge net the rule of priests was spread over mankind, and all men, with their spiritual and secular interests, were caught in this net. The system was called a hierarchy, that is, a holy government. The priesthood and the holy orders were the Pope's collateral. All its members derived what authority they possessed from the Pope; their fortunes were bound up in the Pope's. This priest-rule Luther overthrew by causing men to see the liberty with which Christ has made them free. Catholic critics claim that by so doing Luther rebelled against an ordinance of G.o.d. We have shown in chapter 18 that Luther acknowledges in the Church of Christ a ministry that exists by divine appointment. Hence the Catholic charge that Luther revolted from G.o.d when he disputed the divine right of the hierarchy is silly.

However, Luther is said to have ”recklessly encouraged the destruction of the episcopate, and openly commanded sacrilege and murder” to mobs.

The appeal of Luther that the _rule_ of bishops be exterminated is interpreted to mean that the bishops be exterminated. This is one of the most wanton charges that could be preferred against Luther. By the Theses against Tetzel the attention of many prominent men in Germany was attracted to Luther. Princes and n.o.blemen of the Empire had for some time been studying from a secular point of view the evils which Luther had begun to attack on spiritual grounds. These men understood the character of the Roman hierarchy much better than Luther. They saw at once that Luther's action would lead to serious complication that might ultimately have to be settled with the sword. When Luther was still dreaming about convincing the Pope with arguments from Scripture, German n.o.blemen were preparing to defend him against physical violence. They knew that the hierarchy would not without a fierce struggle submit to any curtailment of their power. They offered Luther armed support.

Luther recoiled with horror from this suggestion. In a letter from the Wartburg which he wrote to his friend Spalatin who was still tarrying at Worms, Luther refers to one of these warlike knights as follows: ”What Hutten has in mind you can see [from the writings of the knight which he enclosed]. I would not like to see men fight for the Gospel with force and bloodshed. I have answered that parson (_dem Menschen_) accordingly.

By the Word the world has been overcome, the Church has been preserved; by the Word it will also be restored. As to Antichrist, he began his rule without physical force, and will also be destroyed without physical force, by the Word.” (15, 2506.) The letter from which these words are quoted is dated January 16, 1522. Nine months before this date, on May 14, when he had been on the Wartburg about ten days, Luther writes to the same party: ”It is for good reasons that I have not answered your letter ere this: I hesitated from fear that the report recently gone out of my being held captive might prompt somebody to intercept my letters.

A great many things are related about me at this place; however, the opinion is beginning to prevail that I was captured by friends sent for this purpose from Franconia. To-morrow the safe-conduct granted me by the emperor expires. I am sorry that, as you write me, there is an intention to apply the very severe [imperial] edict also for the purpose of exploring men's consciences; not on my account, but because they [the papists] are ill-advised in this and will bring misfortune on their own heads, and because they continue to load themselves with very great odium. Oh, what hatred will this shameless violence kindle! However, they may have their way; perhaps the time of their visitation is near.

--So far I have not heard from our people either at Wittenberg or elsewhere. About the time of our arrival at Eisenach the young men [the students] at Erfurt had, during the night, damaged a few priests'

dwellings, from indignation because the dean of St. Severus Inst.i.tute, a great papist, had caught Magister Draco, a gentleman who is favorably inclined to us, by his ca.s.sock and had publicly dragged him from the choir, pretending that he had been excommunicated for having gone to meet me at my arrival at Erfurt. Meanwhile people are fearing greater disturbances; the magistrates are conniving, for the local priests are in ill repute, and it is being reported that the artisans are allying themselves with the student-body. The prophetic saying seems about to come true which runs: Erfurt is another Prague. [There was rioting in Prague in the days of Hus, whom Rome burned at the stake.]--I was told yesterday that a certain priest at Gotha has met with rough treatment because his people had bought certain estates (I do not know which), in order to increase the revenue of the church, and, under pretext of their ecclesiastical immunity, had refused to pay the inc.u.mbrances and taxes on the same. We see that the people, as also Erasmus writes, are unable and unwilling any longer to bear the yoke of the Pope and the papists.

And still we do not cease coercing and burdening them, although--now that everything has been brought to light--we have lost our reputation and their good will, and our former halo of sanct.i.ty can no longer avail or exert the influence which it exerted formerly. Heretofore we have increased hatred by violence and by violence have suppressed it; however, whether we can continue suppressing it experience will show.”

(15, 2510.) To Melanchthon he wrote about this time: ”I hear that at Erfurt they are resorting to violence against the dwellings of priests.

I am surprised that the city council permits this and connives at it, and that our dear friend Lang keeps silent. For although it is good that those impious men who will not desist are kept in check, still this procedure will bring the Gospel into disrepute, and will cause men justly to spurn it. I would write to Lang, but as yet I dare not. For such a display of friendliness to our cause as these people show is very offensive to me, because it clearly shows that we are not yet worthy servants in G.o.d's sight, and that Satan is mocking and laughing at our efforts [of reform]. Oh, how I do fear that all this is like the fig tree in the parable, of which the Lord, Matt. 21, predicts that it will merely sprout before the Day of Judgment, but will bear no fruit. What we teach is, indeed, the truth; however, it amounts to nothing if we do not practise what we preach.” (15, 1906.)

Disquieting rumors of excesses that were being perpetrated by radical followers of the evangelical teaching had reached Luther also from Wittenberg. To obtain a clear insight into the actual state of affairs, he made a secret visit to his home town in the beginning of December, 1521. Returning to his exile, he wrote his _Faithful Admonition to All Christians to Avoid Tumult and Rebellion._ In this treatise Luther reasons as follows: The papacy, with all its great inst.i.tutions, cloisters, universities, laws and doctrines, is nothing but lies. On lies it was raised, by lies it is supported, with lies and frauds and cheats it deceives, misleads, and oppresses men. Accordingly, all that is necessary to overthrow its dominion is to recognize its lying character, and to publish it and the papacy will collapse as if blown aside by the breath of the Almighty, as Scripture says it shall happen to Antichrist. To start a riot against the papists would never improve them, and would only cause them to vilify the cause of their opponents.

In times of tumult, people lose their reason and do more harm to innocent people than to the guilty. Public wrongs should be redressed by the magistrates, who are vested with authority for that purpose. No matter how just a cause may be, it never justifies rioting. Luther declares that he will rather side with those who suffer in, than with those who start, a riot. Rioting is forbidden in G.o.d's Law (Dent. 16, 20; 32, 35). This particular rioting against the papists has been instigated by the devil, in order to divert people's minds from the real spiritual issues of the times, and to bring the cause of the Gospel into disrepute. Luther feels these tumultuous proceedings as a disgrace.

”People who read and understand my teaching correctly,” he says, ”do not start riots. They were not taught such things by me. If any engage in such proceedings and drag my name into it, what can I do to stop them?

How many things are the papists doing in the name of Christ which Christ never commanded!” Luther begs all who glory in the name of Christians to conduct themselves as Paul demands 2 Cor. 6, 3: ”Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed.” (10, 360 ff.) Whoever can, ought to treat himself to the reading of this fine treatise of the exiled monk of Wittenberg.

The iconoclastic uprising which broke out in Wittenberg in the closing days of the month of February, 1522, finally decided Luther, at the risk of his life, to quit his exile and to fight the devil, who was trying to subvert his good doctrine by such wicked practises. The world knows that it was Luther who quelled the riot in his town. Luther's face was ever sternly set against those who wanted to wage the Lord's wars with the devil's weapons. No murder or sacrilege that was committed in those days can be laid at the door of Luther's teaching.

The Catholics are trying to divert attention from their own unwarranted and violent proceedings by charging Luther with preaching a war of extermination against their hierarchy. How did they treat the just claims and reasonable demands of the German nation for measures that were admitted to be crying needs of the times? No German diet met but a long list of grievances was submitted by the suffering people. It was of no avail. The haughty clergy rode over the people's rights and prayers rough-shod. The tyrannous devices which their cunning had invented were executed with brazen impudence. How had they treated simple laymen in whose possession a Bible was found? What was their inquisitorial court but the anteroom to holy butchers' shambles, the legal vestibule to murder that had been sanctioned by the Popes? How had they treated Luther? If the papal nuncio at the Diet of Worms had had his way with the emperor and the princes, Luther would not have left that city alive.

They openly declared to the emperor that he was not obliged to keep his plighted word for a safe-conduct to a heretic. These people come now at this late day prating about violence that they have suffered from this sacrilegious and bloodthirsty Luther. They themselves were the perpetrators of the most appalling violence against G.o.d and men: their whole system rests, as Johann Gerhard in his famous _Confessio Catholica_ rightly a.s.serts, on _Fraus et Vis,_ that is, Fraud and Violence.

23. Luther, Anarchist and Despot All in One.

Extremes met, with most disastrous effect-so Catholic writers tell us-in Luther's views of the political rights of men. At one time he was so outspoken in his condemnation of the oppression which the common people were suffering from the clergy, the n.o.bility, and their aristocratic governors that he incited them to discontent with their humble lot in life, to unrest, and to open rebellion against their magistrates. At another time he became the spokesman for the most p.r.o.nounced absolutism and despotism. He turned suddenly against the very people whose cause he had so signally championed, and who hailed him as their prophet and leader. When the poor, downtrodden people needed him most, Luther cowardly deserted them, and by frenzied utterances excited the n.o.bility to slay the common people without mercy in the most ruthless fas.h.i.+on, and even promised the lords whom he had denounced as tyrants heaven for enacting the barbaric cruelties to which he was urging them. This is the Catholic portrayal of Luther during the Peasants' War.

The relation of the peasant uprising to Luther's preaching is grossly misrepresented when the impression is created that Luther had before this sad upheaval worked hand in glove with the malcontent rustics for the overthrow of the government. Disturbances of this kind had been periodical occurrences in Europe for many hundreds of years. The heavy taxes and t.i.thes, and the forced labor which the lords exacted from their tenants, who were little better than serfs, the galling restrictions in regard to hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, gathering wood in the forests which they had imposed on them, the foreign Roman law under which they tried cases in court, and, in general, their haughty and contemptuous bearing toward the common people had for many generations created strained relations between the upper and the lower cla.s.ses. The estrangement which developed into open defiance existed among the peasants before Luther had begun to preach. Nor can Luther's teaching be said to have fanned the slumbering embers of discontent into a huge flame. The liberty of a Christian man which he had proclaimed was not such liberty as the peasants demanded and wrested to themselves when the revolt had reached its height. Luther had consistently taught that obedience to the government is a Christian duty. He had, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, warned with telling force against riot, tumult, and sedition. He had deprecated any allying of the cause of the Gospel and of spiritual freedom with the carnal strivings of disaffected men for mere temporal and secular advantages. He had reminded Christians that it was their duty to suffer wrong rather than do wrong.

On the other hand, Luther had pleaded the cause of the poor before the lords, and had earnestly warned the n.o.bility not to continue their tyranny, but conciliate their subjects by yielding to their just demands. He had fearlessly pointed out to the lords what was galling in their conduct to the common, people-their pride and luxurious living, their disregard of the commonest rights of man, their despotic dealings with their humble subjects, their rude behavior and exasperating conduct toward the men, women, and children whom they made toil and slave for them.

Maintaining, thus, an honest equipoise between the two contrary forces, and dealing out even-handed justice to both, Luther was conscious of serving the true interests of either side and laboring for the common welfare of all. With his implicit faith in the power of G.o.d's Word he was hoping for a gradual improvement of the situation. The conflict would be adjusted in a quiet and orderly manner by the truth obtaining greater and greater sway over the minds of men. Luther had had no inkling of an impending clash between the peasants and the n.o.bility when the revolt broke out with the fury of a cyclone. Luther was shocked. He promptly hurried to the scene of the disturbances by request of the Count of Mansfeld. It speaks volumes for the integrity of Luther that both sides were willing to permit him to arbitrate their differences.

The invitation came originally from the peasants and was addressed to Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and the Elector Frederick jointly, but it was not acted on until Count Albert invited Luther to come to Eisleben. The _Exhortation to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Peasants_ which Luther issued, after having investigated the situation, rebukes the lords with considerably more sternness than the commoners, but makes fair suggestions for the composition of the differences.

Before Luther takes up the ”Twelve Articles of the Peasants” for detailed discussion, he informs them that he considers their whole procedure wrong, even if all their demands were just, because they have resorted to force to secure their right. A beautiful sentiment for an anarchist to utter, is it not? In Article I the peasants demanded freedom to elect their own pastors, who were to preach the Gospel without any human additions. That this request should be embodied in the peasants' plea for their political rights, and that it should be made the foremost demand, is highly suggestive as to the princ.i.p.al cause of their unrest. To this article Luther gave his unreserved endors.e.m.e.nt.

Article II sought to regulate the income of priests-again a very suggestive request: preachers were to receive for their sustenance no more than the t.i.thes, the remainder of the church-income was to be set aside so as to render it unnecessary to tax the poor in war-times. On this point Luther held that the t.i.thes belong to the government, and to turn them over to any one else would be simple robbery. Article III demanded the abolition of serfdom, however, as a test whether the Christianity of the lords was genuine. The peasants implied that their political liberty had been secured by Christ, and that the lords were withholding it from them. This argument Luther rejected as a carnal perversion of the Gospel. Articles IV-X submitted these demands: The poor man is to be accorded the right to fish and hunt; all wooded lands usurped by bishops or n.o.blemen without making payment therefor are to revert to the community, and in case payment had been made, a settlement is to be effected by mutual agreement; burdensome exactions, services, taxes, and fines are to be rescinded; court trials are to be free from partiality and jealousy; meadows and lands which of right belong to the community are to be returned by their present owners. On these points Luther suggests that the opinions of good lawyers be obtained. Article XI deals with the right of heriot, or the death-tax imposed upon the widow or heir of a tenant. This was approved. In the last article the peasants express their readiness to withdraw any or all of these requests that are shown to be contrary to Scripture, and ask permission to subst.i.tute others for them.

Luther was in a fair way of bringing about an amicable settlement of the differences. Philip of Hesse had at the same time come to a full agreement with the peasants in his domains, and peace seemed near, when the real genius of the whole peasant movement, Muenzer, interfered.

Luther had suspected for some time that this unscrupulous agitator was spreading the teaching of unbridled license under pretense of preaching liberty, and that the mystical piety which he was reported as practising, his leaning towards the reform movement, and his references to Luther and the ”new Gospel,” were nothing but the angel's garment which a very wicked devil had borrowed for purposes of deception. When Muenzer at the head of hordes of men who through his inflammatory speeches had been turned into unreasoning brutes was spreading ruin and desolation along his path, wiping out in a few days the products of the patient labors of generations, subverting the fundamental principles of honesty, justice, and morality on which the organized public life of the community and the private life of the individual must rest, and rapidly changing even the well-meaning and reasonable among the peasants into frenzied madmen, Luther recognized that conciliatory measures and arbitration would not avail with these mobs. His duty as a teacher of G.o.d's Word and as a loyal subject of his government demanded prompt and stern action from him. However, back of the terrible mien with which Luther now faced the wild peasants there is a heart of love; in the appalling language which he now uses against men whose cause he had befriended there is discernible a note of pity for the poor deluded wretches who thought they were rearing a paradise when they were building bedlam. Above all, the great heart of Luther is torn with anguish over the shame that is now being heaped on the blessed Gospel of his dear Lord. Luther did not desert the peasants, but they deserted him; they were the traitors, not he.

There is a diabolical streak in the character of Thomas Muenzer. He parades as the People's Man, and the German people in the sixteenth century never had a worse enemy. His fluent speech and great oratory seemed honey to the peasants, but they were the veriest poison. He spoke the language of a saint, and lived the life of a profligate and a reprobate. It is hard to believe that his error was merely the honest fanaticism of a blind bigot; there is a malign element in it that betrays conscious wickedness. This raving demon should be studied more by Catholics when they investigate the Peasants' Revolt. They have their eyes on Luther; his every word and action are placed under the microscope. But the real culprit is treated as the hero in a tragedy. He was a blind enthusiast; he mistook his aims; he selected wrong means and methods for achieving his aim. He did wickedly, and we may have to curse him some for decency's sake, but be deserves pity, too, for he was the misguided pupil of that arch-heretic Luther. That is Catholic equity in estimating Luther's share in the peasant uprising. We only note in conclusion that Thomas Muenzer died in the arms of the alone-saving Church, a penitent prodigal that had returned to the bosom of ”Holy Mother.” Luther did not die thus, and that makes a great deal of difference.

Catholics father upon Luther not only the Peasants' Revolt, but every revolutionary movement which since then has occurred in Europe. The political unrest which has at various times agitated the ma.s.ses in France, England, and Germany, the changes in the government which were brought about in such times, are all attributed to the revolutionary tendencies in Luther's writings. So is the disrespect shown by citizens of the modern State to persons in authority, the bold and scathing criticism indulged in by subjects against their government. There is hardly a political disturbance anywhere but what ingenious Catholics will manage to connect with Luther. Read Luther, and you will inevitably become an anarchist.

But Luther is also credited with the very opposite of anarchism. When the Peasants' Revolt had been put down by the lords, they began to strengthen their despotic power over the people, and a worse tyranny resulted than had existed before. It is pointed out that absolutism, the claim of kings that they are ruling by divine right and are not responsible to the people, has taken firm root in all Protestant countries, and that even the Protestant churches in these countries are mere fixtures of the State. This, too, we are asked to believe, is a result of Luther's teaching. Luther is not only the spiritual ring-leader of mobs, but also the sycophant of despots. It is particularly offensive to Catholics to see Luther hailed as the champion of political liberty. Let us try and make up our minds about Luther's views of the secular government from Luther's own words. Dr. Waring, in his _Political Theories of Luther,_ has made a very serviceable collection of statements of Luther on this matter.

”In his tract on Secular Authority (10, 374 ff.) Luther maintains that the State exists by G.o.d's will and inst.i.tution; for the Apostle Paul writes: 'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of G.o.d: the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resiseth [tr. note: sic] the ordinance of G.o.d; and they that resist shall receive to themselves d.a.m.nation' (Rom.