Volume 1 — CHAPTER XVII (continued 3)

His views, not here alone but elsewhere, on matrimonial questions, were founded on an altogether peculiar interpretation of Scripture; he sought in Scripture for the proofs he wished to find, interpreting the Sacred Text in utter disregard of the teaching of its best authorised exponents and the traditions of the Church. The consequences of such arbitrary exegetical study he himself described characteristically enough. Speaking of Carlstadt, who, like him, was disposed to lay great stress on Old-Testament examples and referring to one of his matrimonial decisions which he was not disposed to accept, Luther exclaims: “Let him [Carlstadt] do as he pleases; soon we shall have him introducing circumcision at Orlamünde and making Mosaists of them all.”[811]

Yet he was perfectly aware of the danger of thus loosening the marriage tie. He feared that fresh grounds for severing the same would be invented day by day.[812] On one occasion he exclaims, as though to stifle his rising scruples, that it was clear that all God cares for is “faith and confession.... It does not matter to Him whether you dismiss your wife and break your word. For what is it to Him whether you do so or not? But because you owe a duty to your neighbour,” for this reason only, i.e. on account of the rights of others, it is wrong.[813] These strange words, which have often been misunderstood and quoted against Luther by polemics, were naturally not intended to question the existence of the marriage tie, but they are dangerous in so far as they do not make sufficient account of the nature of the commandment and the sin of its breach.

Most momentous of all, however, was the sixth plea in favour of divorce, an extension of those already mentioned. Not merely the apostasy of one party or his refusal to live with the Christian party, justified the other to contract a fresh union, but even should he separate, or go off, “for any reason whatever, for instance, through anger or dislike.” Should “husband or wife desert the other in this way, then Paul’s teaching [!] was to be extended so far ... that the guilty party be given the alternative either to be reconciled or to lose his spouse, the innocent party being now free and at liberty to marry again in the event of a refusal. It is unchristian and heathenish for one party to desert the other out of anger or dislike, and not to be ready patiently to bear good and ill, bitter and sweet with his spouse, as his duty is, hence such a one is in reality a heathen and no Christian.”[814]

Thus did Luther write, probably little dreaming of the incalculable confusion he was provoking in the social conditions of Christendom by such lax utterances. Yet he was perfectly acquainted with the laws to the contrary. He declaims against “the iniquitous legislation of the Pope, who, in direct contravention of this text of St. Paul’s (1 Cor. vii. 15), commands and compels such a one, under pain of the loss of his soul, not to re-marry, but to await either the return of the deserter or his death,” thus “needlessly driving the innocent party into the danger of unchastity.” He also faces, quite unconcernedly, the difficulty which might arise should the deserter change his mind and turn up again after his spouse had contracted a new marriage. “He is simply to be disregarded and discarded ... and serve him right for his desertion. As matters now are the Pope simply leaves the door open for runaways.”[815]

The new matrimonial legislator refuses to see that he is paving the way for the complete rupture of the marriage tie. If the mere fact of one party proving disinclined to continue in the matrimonial state and betaking himself elsewhere is sufficient to dissolve a marriage, then every barrier falls, and, to use Luther’s own words of the Pope a little further, “it is no wonder that the world is filled with broken pledges and forsaken spouses, nay, with adultery which is just what the devil is aiming at by [such a] law.”[816]

On the other hand, Luther, in his reforms, attacks those matrimonial impediments which, from the earliest Christian times, had always been held to invalidate marriages. The marriage of a Christian with a heathen or a Jew he thinks perfectly valid, though, as was to be expected, he does not regard it with a friendly eye. We are not to trouble at all about the Pope’s pronouncements concerning invalidity: “Just as I may eat and drink, sleep and walk, write and treat, talk and work with a pagan or a Jew, a Turk or a heretic, so also can I contract a marriage with him. Therefore pay no heed to the fool-laws forbidding this.” “A heathen is just as much a man or woman as St. Peter, St. Paul or St. Lucy.”[817]

M. Rade, the Protestant theologian quoted above, considers that on the question of divorce Luther took up “quite a different attitude,” and “opened up new prospects” altogether at variance with those of the past.[818] By his means was brought about a “complete reversal of public opinion on the externals of sexual life”; in this connection to speak of original sin was in reality mere “inward contradiction.” Such were, according to him, the results of the “Christian freedom” proclaimed by Luther.[819]

August Bebel, in his book “Die Frau und der Sozialismus,” says of Luther: “He put forward, regarding matrimony, views of the most radical character.”[820] “In advocating liberty with regard to marriage, what he had in mind was the civil marriage such as modern German legislation sanctions, together with freedom to trade and to move from place to place.”[821] “In the struggle which it now wages with clericalism social democracy has the fullest right to appeal to Luther, whose position in matrimonial matters was entirely unprejudiced. Luther and the reformers even went further in the marriage question, out of purely utilitarian motives and from a desire to please the rulers concerned, whose powerful support and lasting favour they were desirous of securing and retaining. Landgrave Philip I. of Hesse, who was well disposed towards the reformation,” etc. etc.[822]

Polygamy.

Sanctity of marriage in the Christian mind involves monogamy. The very word polygamy implies a reproach. Luther’s own feelings at the commencement revolted against the conclusions which, as early as 1520, he had felt tempted to draw from the Bible against monogamy, for instance, from the example of the Old Testament Patriarchs, such as Abraham, whom Luther speaks of as “a true, indeed a perfect Christian.”[823] It was not long, however, before he began to incline to the view that the example of Abraham and the Patriarchs did, as a matter of fact, make polygamy permissible to Christians.

In September, 1523, in his exposition on Genesis xvi., he said without the slightest hesitation: “We must take his life [Abraham’s] as an example to be followed, provided it be carried out in the like faith”; of course, it was possible to object, that this permission of having several wives had been abrogated by the Gospel; but circumcision and the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb had also been abrogated, and yet they “are not sins, but quite optional, i.e. neither sinful nor praiseworthy.... The same must hold good of other examples of the Patriarchs, namely, if they had many wives, viz. that this also is optional.”[824]

In 1523 he advanced the following: “A man is not absolutely forbidden to have more than one wife; I could not prevent it, but certainly I should not counsel it.” He continues in this passage: “Yet I would not raise the question but only say, that, should it come before the sheriff, it would be right to answer that we do not reject the example of the Patriarchs, as though they were not right in doing what they did, as the Manicheans say.”[825]

The sermons where these words occur were published at Wittenberg in 1527 and at once scattered broadcast in several editions. We shall have to tell later how the Landgrave Philip of Hesse expressly cited on his own behalf the passage we have quoted.

Meanwhile, however, i.e. previous to the printing of his sermons on Genesis, Luther had declared, in a memorandum of January 27, 1524, addressed to Brück, the electoral Chancellor, regarding a case in point, viz. that of an Orlamünde man who wished to have two wives, that he was “unable to forbid it”; it “was not contrary to Holy Scripture”; yet, on account of the scandal and for the sake of decorum, which at times demanded the omission even of what was lawful, he was anxious not to be the first to introduce amongst Christians “such an example, which was not at all becoming”; should, however, the man, with the assistance of spiritual advisers, be able to form a “firm conscience by means of the Word,” then the “matter might well be left to take its course.”[826] This memorandum, too, also came to the knowledge of Landgrave Philip of Hesse.[827]

Subsequently Luther remained faithful to the standpoint that polygamy was not forbidden but optional; this is proved by his Latin Theses of 1528,[828] by his letter, on September 3, 1531,[829] addressed to Robert Barnes for Henry VIII. and in particular by his famous declaration of 1539 to Philip of Hesse, sanctioning his bigamy.

His defenders have taken an unfinished treatise which he commenced in the spring of 1542[830] as indicating, if not a retractation, at least a certain hesitation on his part; yet even here he shows no sign of embracing the opposite view; in principle he held fast to polygamy and merely restricts it to the domain of conscience. The explanation of the writing must be sought for in the difficulties arising out of the bigamy of Landgrave Philip. Owing to Philip’s representations Luther left the treatise unfinished, but on this occasion he expressly admitted to the Prince, that there were “four good reasons” to justify his bigamy.[831]

Needless to say, views such as these brought Luther into conflict with the whole of the past.

Augustine, like the other Fathers, had declared that polygamy was “expressly forbidden” in the New Testament as a “crime” (“crimen”).[832] Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure speak in similar terms in the name of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. Peter Paludanus, the so-called “Doctor egregius” († 1342), repeated in his work on the Sentences, that: “Under the Gospel-dispensation it never had been and never would be permitted.”[833]

It is, however, objected that Cardinal Cajetan, the famous theologian and a contemporary of Luther, had described polygamy as allowable in principle, and that Luther merely followed in his footsteps. But Cajetan does not deny that the prohibition pronounced by the Church stands, he merely deals in scholastic fashion with the questions whether polygamy is a contravention of the natural law, and whether it is expressly interdicted in Holy Scripture. True enough, however, he answers both questions in the negative.[834] In the first everything of course depends on the view taken with regard to the patriarchs and the Old Testament exceptions; the grounds for these exceptions (for such they undoubtedly were) have been variously stated by theologians. In the second, i.e. in the matter of Holy Scripture, Cajetan erred. His views on this subject have never been copied and, indeed, a protest was at once raised by Catharinus, who appealed to the whole body of theologians as teaching that, particularly since the preaching of the Gospel, there was no doubt as to the biblical prohibition.[835]

Thus, in spite of what some Protestants have said, it was not by keeping too close to the mediæval doctrine of matrimony, that Luther reached his theory of polygamy.

It is more likely that he arrived at it owing to his own arbitrary and materialistic ideas on marriage. It was certainly not the Catholic Church which showed him the way; as she had safeguarded the sanctity of marriage, so also she protected its monogamous character and its indissolubility. In Luther’s own day the Papacy proved by its final pronouncement against the adultery of Henry VIII. of England, that she preferred to lose that country to the Church rather than sanction the dissolving of a rightful marriage (vol. iv., xxi. 1).

Toleration for Concubinage? Matrimony no Sacrament.

In exceptional cases Luther permitted those bound to clerical celibacy, on account of “the great distress of conscience,” to contract “secret marriages”; he even expressly recommended them to do so.[836] These unions, according to both Canon and Civil law, amounted to mere concubinage. Luther admits that he had advised “certain parish priests, living under the jurisdiction of Duke George or the bishops,” to “marry their cook secretly.”[837]

At the same time, in this same letter written in 1540, he explains that he is not prepared to “defend all he had said or done years ago, particularly at the commencement.” Everything, however, remained in print and was made use of not only by those to whom it was actually addressed, but by many others also; for instance, his outrageous letter to the Knights of the Teutonic Order who were bound by vow to the celibate state. Any of them who had a secret, illicit connection, and “whoever found it impossible to live chastely,” he there says, “was not to despair in his weakness and sin, nor wait for any Conciliar permission, for I would rather overlook it, and commit to the mercy of God the man who all his life has kept a pair of prostitutes, than the man who takes a wife in compliance with the decrees of such Councils.” “How much less a sinner do you think him to be, and nearer to the grace of God, who keeps a prostitute, than the man who takes a wife in that way?”[838]

Of the Prince-Abbots, who, on account of the position they occupied in the Empire, were unable to marry so long as they remained in the monastery, he likewise wrote: “I would prefer to advise such a one to take a wife secretly and to continue as stated above [i.e. remain in office], seeing that among the Papists it is neither shameful nor wrong to keep women, until God the Lord shall send otherwise as He will shortly do, for it is impossible for things to remain much longer as they are. In this wise the Abbot would be safe and provided for.”[839]

Here again we see how Luther’s interest in promoting apostasy from Rome worked hand in hand with the lax conception he had been led to form of marriage.

Of any sacrament of matrimony he refused to hear. To him marriage was really a secular matter, however much he might describe it as of Divine institution: “Know, that marriage is an outward, material thing like any other secular business.”[840] “Marriage and all that appertains to it is a temporal thing and does not concern the Church at all, except in so far as it affects the conscience.”[841] “Marriage questions do not concern the clergy or the preachers, but the authorities; theirs it is to decide on them”; this, the heading of one of the chapters of the German Table-Talk, rightly describes its contents.[842]

In Luther’s denial of the sacramental character of matrimony lies the key to the arbitrary manner in which, as shown by the above, he handled the old ecclesiastical marriage law. It was his ruling ideas on faith and justification which had led him to deny that it was a sacrament. The sacraments, in accordance with this view, have no other object or effect than to kindle in man, by means of the external sign, that faith which brings justification. Now marriage, to his mind, was of no avail to strengthen or inspire such faith. As early as 1519 he bewails the lack in matrimony of that Divine promise which sets faith at work (“quae fidem exerceat”),[843] and in his Theses of February 13, 1520, he already shows his disposition to question its right to be termed a sacrament.[844] In his work “On the Babylonish Captivity” of the same year he bluntly denies its sacramental character, urging that the Bible was silent on the subject, that matrimony held out no promise of salvation to be accepted in faith, and finally that it was in no way specifically Christian, since it had already existed among the heathen.[845] He ignores all that the Fathers had taught regarding marriage as a sacrament, with special reference to the passage in Ephesians v. 31 ff., and likewise the ancient tradition of the Church as retained even by the Eastern sects separated from Rome since the fifth century.

In advocating matrimony, instead of appealing to it as a sacrament, he lays stress on its use as a remedy provided by God against concupiscence, and on its being the foundation of that family life which is so pleasing to God. Incidentally he also points out that it is a sign of the union of Christ with the congregation.[846]

Luther did not, as has been falsely stated, raise marriage to a higher dignity than it possessed in the Middle Ages. No more unjustifiable accusation has been brought against Catholic ages than that marriage did not then come in for its due share of recognition, that it was slighted and even regarded as sinful. Elsewhere we show that the writings dating from the close of the Middle Ages, particularly German sermonaries and matrimonial handbooks, are a direct refutation of these charges.[847]

Luther on Matters Sexual.

Examples already cited have shown that, in speaking of sexual questions and of matters connected with marriage, Luther could adopt a tone calculated to make even the plainest of plain speakers wince. It is our present duty to examine more carefully this quality in the light of some quotations. Let the reader, if he chooses, look up the sermon of 1522, “On Conjugal Life,” and turn to pages 58, 59, 61, 72, 76, 83, 84; or to pages 34, 35, 139, 143, 144, 146, 152, etc., of his Exposition of Corinthians.[848] We are compelled to ask: How many theological or spiritual writers, in sermons intended for the masses, or in vernacular works, ever ventured to discuss sexual matters with the nakedness that Luther displays in his writing “Wyder den falsch genantten geystlichen Standt des Bapst und der Bischoffen” (1522), in which through several pages Luther compares, on account of its celibacy, the Papacy with the abominable Roman god Priapus.[849] In this and like descriptions he lays himself open to the very charge which he brings against the clergy: “They seduce the ignorant masses and drag them down into the depths of unchastity.”[850] He thus compares Popery to this, the most obscene form of idolatry, with the purpose of placing before the German people in the strongest and most revolting language the abomination by which he will have it that the Papacy has dishonoured and degraded the world, through its man-made ordinances. Yet the very words in which he wrote, quite apart from their blatant untruth, were surely debasing. In the same writing he also expresses himself most unworthily regarding the state of voluntary celibacy and its alleged moral and physical consequences.[851]

Here again it has been urged on Luther’s behalf, that people in his day were familiar with such plain speaking. Yet Luther himself felt at times how unsuitable, nay, revolting, his language was, hence his excuses to his hearers and readers for his want of consideration, and also his attempt to take shelter in Holy Writ.[852] That people then were ready to put up with more in sermons is undeniable. Catholic preachers are to be met with before Luther’s day who, although they do not speak in the same tone as he, do go very far in their well-meant exhortations regarding sexual matters, for instance, regarding the conjugal due in all its moral bearings. Nor is it true to say that such things occur only in Latin outlines or sketches of sermons, intended for preacher rather than people, for they are also to be found in German sermons actually preached. This disorder even called forth a sharp rebuke from a Leipzig theologian who was also a great opponent of Luther’s, viz. Hieronymus Dungersheim.[853]—In none of the Catholic preachers thus censured, do we, however, find quite the same seasoning we find in Luther, nor do they have recourse to such, simply to spice their rhetoric or their polemics, or to air new views on morality.

His contemporaries even, more particularly some Catholics, could not see their way to repeat what he had said on sexual matters.[854] “It must be conceded” that Luther’s language on sexual questions was “at times repulsively outspoken, nay, coarse, and that not only to our ears but even to those of his more cultured contemporaries.” Thus a Protestant writer.[855] Another admits with greater reserve: “There are writings of Luther’s in which he exceeds the limits of what was then usual.”[856]

Certain unseemly anecdotes from the Table-Talk deserve to be mentioned here; told in the course of conversation while the wine-cup went the rounds, they may well be reckoned as instances of that “buffoonery” for which Melanchthon reproves Luther. Many of them are not only to be found in Bindseil’s “Colloquia” based on the Latin collection of Lauterbach, and in the old Latin collection of Rebenstock, but have left traces in the original notes of the Table-Talk, for instance, in those of Schlaginhaufen and Cordatus. It is not easy to understand why Luther should have led the conversation to such topics; in fact, these improper stories and inventions would appear to have merely served the company to while away the time.

For example, Luther amuses the company with the tale of a Spandau Provost who was a hermaphrodite, lived in a nunnery and bore a child;[857] with another, of a peasant, who, after listening to a sermon on the use of Holy Water as a detergent of sin, proceeded to put what he had heard into practice in an indecent fashion;[858] with another of self-mutilated eunuchs, in telling which he is unable to suppress an obscene joke concerning himself.[859] He entertains the company with some far from witty, indeed entirely tactless and indecent stories, for instance, about the misfortune of a concubine who had used ink in mistake for ointment;[860] of the Beghine who, when violence was offered her, refused to scream because silence was enjoined after Compline;[861] of a foolish young man’s interview with his doctor;[862] of an obscene joke at the expense of a person uncovered;[863] of a young man’s experience with his bathing dress;[864] of women who in shameless fashion prayed for a husband;[865] of the surprise of Duke Hans, the son of Duke George of Saxony, by his steward, etc.[866]

These stories, in Bindseil’s “Colloquia,” are put with the filthy verses on Lemnius,[867] the “Merdipoeta,” and form a fit sequence to the account of Lustig, the cook, and the substitute he used for sauces.[868]

These anecdotes are all related more or less in detail, but, apart from them, we have plentiful indelicate sayings and jokes and allusions to things not usually mentioned in society, sufficient in fact to fill a small volume.

Luther, for instance, jests in unseemly fashion “amid laughter” on the difference in mind and body which distinguishes man from woman, and playfully demonstrates from the formation of their body that his Catherine and women in general must necessarily be deficient in wit.[869] An ambiguous sally at the expense of virginity and the religious life, addressed to the ladies who were usually present at these evening entertainments, was received with awkward silence and a laugh.[870]

On another occasion the subject of the conversation was the female breasts, it being queried whether they were “an ornament” or intended for the sake of the children.[871] Then again Luther, without any apparent reason, treats, and with great lack of delicacy, of the circumstances and difficulties attending confinement;[872] he also enters fully into the troubles of pregnancy,[873] and, to fill up an interval, tells a joke concerning the womb of the Queen of Poland.[874]

In the Table-Talk Luther takes an opportunity of praising the mother’s womb and does so with a striking enthusiasm, after having exclaimed: “No one can sufficiently extol marriage.” “Now, in his old age,” he understood this gift of God. Every man, yea, Christ Himself, came from a mother’s womb.[875]

Among the passages which have been altered or suppressed in later editions from motives of propriety comes a statement in the Table-Talk concerning the Elector Johann Frederick, who was reputed a hard drinker. In Aurifaber’s German Table-Talk the sense of the passage is altered, and in the old editions of Stangwald and Selnecker the whole is omitted.[876]

Of the nature of his jests the following from notes of the Table-Talk gives a good idea: “It will come to this,” he said to Catherine Bora, “that a man will take more than one wife.” The Doctoress replied: “Tell that to the devil!” The Doctor proceeded: Here is the reason, Katey: a wife can have only one child a year, but the husband several. Katey replied: “Paul says: ‘Let everyone have his own wife.’ Whereupon the Doctor retorted: ‘His own,’ but not ‘only one,’ that you won’t find in Paul. The Doctor teased his wife for a long time in this way, till at last she said: ‘Sooner than allow this, I would go back to the convent and leave you with all the children.’”[877]

When the question of his sanction of Philip of Hesse’s bigamy and the scandal arising from it came under discussion, his remarks on polygamy were not remarkable for delicacy. He says: “Philip (Melanchthon) is consumed with grief about it.... And yet of what use is it?... I, on the contrary am a hard Saxon and a peasant.... The Papists could have seen how innocent we are, but they refused to do so, and so now they may well look the Hessian ‘in anum.’ ... Our sins are pardonable, but those of the Papists, unpardonable; for they are contemners of Christ, have crucified Him afresh and defend their blasphemy wittingly and wilfully. What are they trying to get out of it [the bigamy]? They slay men, but we work for our living and marry many wives.” “This he said with a merry air and amid much laughter,” so the chronicler relates. “God is determined to vex the people, and if it comes to my turn I shall give them the best advice and tell them to look Marcolfus ‘in anum,’” etc.[878] On rising from table he said very cheerfully: “I will not give the devil and the Papists a chance of making me uneasy. God will put it right, and to Him we must commend the whole Church.”[879] By such trivialities did he seek to escape his burden of oppression.

On one occasion he said he was going to ask the Elector to give orders that everybody should “fill themselves with drink”; then perhaps they would abandon this vice, seeing that people were always ready to do the opposite of what was commanded; what gave rise to this speech on drinking was the arrival of three young men, slightly intoxicated, accompanied by a musical escort. The visitors interrupted the conversation, which had turned on the beauty of women.[880]

Many of Luther’s letters, as well as his sermons, lectures and Table-Talk, bear sad witness to his unseemly language. It may suffice here to mention one of the most extraordinary of these letters, while incidentally remarking, that, from the point of view of history, the passages already cited, or yet to be quoted, must be judged of in the light of the whole series, in which alone they assume their true importance. In a letter written in the first year of his union, to his friend Spalatin, who though also a priest was likewise taking a wife, he says: “The joy at your marriage and at my own carries me away”; the words which follow were omitted in all the editions (Aurifaber, De Wette, Walch), Enders being the first to publish them from the original. They are given in the note below.[881]

Luther himself was at times inclined to be ashamed of his ways of speaking, and repeatedly expresses regret, without, however, showing any signs of improvement. We read in Cordatus’s Diary that (in 1527, during his illness) “he asked pardon for the frivolous words he had often spoken with the object of banishing the melancholy of a weak flesh, not with any evil intent.”[882] At such moments he appears to have remembered how startling a contrast his speeches and jests presented to the exhortation of St. Paul to his disciples, and to all the preachers of the Gospel: “Make thyself a pattern to all men ... by a worthy mode of life; let thy conversation be pure and blameless” (Titus ii. 7 f.). “Be a model to the faithful in word, in act, in faith and charity, in chastity” (1 Tim. iv. 12).

It would be wrong to believe that he ever formally declared foul speaking to be permissible. It has been said that, in any case in theory, he had no objection to it, and, that, in a letter, he even recommends it. The passage in question, found in an epistle addressed to Prince Joachim of Anhalt, who was much troubled with temptations to melancholy, runs thus: “It is true that to take pleasure in sin is the devil, but to take pleasure in the society of good, pious people in the fear of God, sobriety and honour is well pleasing to God, even with possibly a word or ‘Zötlein’ too much.”[883] The expression “Zötlein” (allied with the French “sottise”) did not, however, then bear the bad meaning suggested by the modern German word “Zote,” and means no more than a jest or merry story; that such a meaning was conveyed even by the word “Zote” itself can readily be proved.

Especially was it Luther’s practice to load his polemics with a superabundance of filthy allusions to the baser functions of the body; at times, too, we meet therein expressions and imagery positively indecent.

In his work “Vom Schem Hamphoras” against the Jews he revels in scenes recalling that enacted between Putiphar’s wife and Joseph, though here it is no mere temptation but actual mutual sin; the tract contains much else of the same character.[884] In the notorious tract entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” which he wrote against Duke Henry of Brunswick (1541), he begins by comparing him with a “common procuress walking the street to seize, capture and lead astray honest maidens”;[885] he gradually works himself up into such a state of excitement as to describe the Church of Rome as the “real devil’s whore”; nay, the “archdevil’s whore,” the “shameless prostitute” who dwells in a “whores’ church” and houses of ill-fame, and compared with whom, as we have already heard him say elsewhere, “common city whores, field whores, country whores and army whores”[886] may well be deemed saints. In this work such figures of speech occur on almost every page. Elsewhere he describes the motions of the “Roman whore” in the most repulsive imagery.[887]

The term “whore” is one of which he is ever making use, more particularly in that connection in which he feels it will be most shocking to Catholics, viz. in connection with professed religious. Nor does he hesitate to use this word to describe human reason as against faith. In such varied and frenzied combinations is the term met with in his writings that one stands aghast. As he remarked on one occasion to his pupil Schlaginhaufen, people would come at last to look upon him as a pimp. He had been asked to act as intermediary in arranging a marriage: “Write this down,” he said, “Is it not a nuisance? Am I expected to provide also the women with husbands? Really they seem to take me for a pander.”[888]

Even holy things were not safe in Luther’s hands, but ran the risk of being vilified by outrageous comparisons and made the subject of improper conversations.

According to Lauterbach’s Diary, for instance, Luther discoursed in 1538 on the greatness of God and the wisdom manifest in creation; in this connection he holds forth before the assembled company on the details of generation and the shape of the female body. He then passes on to the subject of regeneration: “We think we can instruct God ‘in regenerationis et salvationis articulo,’ we like to dispute at great length on infant baptism and the occult virtue of the sacraments, and, all the while, poor fools that we are, we do not know ‘unde sint stercora in ventre.’”[889] Over the beer-can the conversation turns on temperance, and Luther thereupon proposes for discussion an idea of Plato’s on procreation;[890] again he submits an ostensibly difficult “casus” regarding the girl who becomes a mother on the frontier of two countries;[891] he relates the tale of the woman who “habitu viri et membro ficto” “duas uxores duxit”;[892] he dilates on a “marvellous” peculiarity of the female body, which one would have thought of a nature to interest a physician rather than a theologian.[893] He also treats of the Bible passage according to which woman must be veiled “on account of the angels” (1 Cor. xi. 11), adding with his customary vulgarity: “And I too must wear breeches on account of the girls.”[894] When the conversation turned on the marriage of a young fellow to a lady of a certain age he remarked, that at such nuptials the words “Increase and multiply” ought not to be used; as the poet says: “Arvinam quaerunt multi in podice porci,” surely a useless search.[895] The reason “why God was so angry with the Pope” was, he elsewhere informs his guests, because he had robbed Him of the fruit of the body. “We should have received no blessing unless God had implanted our passions in us. But to the spark present in both man and wife the children owe their being; even though our children are born ugly we love them nevertheless.”[896]—He then raises his thoughts to God and exclaims: “Ah, beloved Lord God, would that all had remained according to Thine order and creation.” But what the Pope had achieved by his errors was well known: “We are aware how things have gone hitherto.” “The Pope wanted to enforce celibacy and to improve God’s work.” But the monks and Papists “ ... are consumed with concupiscence and the lust of fornication.”[897]—Take counsel with someone beforehand, he says, “in order that you may not repent after the marriage. But be careful that you are not misled by advice and sophistry, else you may find yourself with a sad handful ... then He Who drives the wheel, i.e. God, will jeer at you. But that you should wish to possess one who is pretty, pious and wealthy, nay, my friend ... it will fare with you as it did with the nuns who were given carved Jesus’s and who cast about for others who at least were living and pleased them better.”[898]

Thus does Luther jumble together unseemly fancies, coarse concessions to sensuality and praise for broken vows, with thoughts of the Divine.

Anyone who regards celibacy and monastic vows from the Catholic standpoint may well ask how a man intent on throwing mud at the religious state, a man who had broken his most sacred pledges by his marriage with a nun, could be in a position rightly to appreciate the delicate blossoms which in every age have sprung up on the chaste soil of Christian continence in the lives of countless priests and religious, not in the cloister alone, but also in the world without?

Of his achievements in this field, of his having trodden celibacy under foot, Luther was very proud. To the success of his unholy efforts he himself gave testimony in the words already mentioned: “I am like unto Abraham [the Father of the Faithful] for I am the progenitor of all the monks, priests and nuns [who have married], and of all the many children they have brought into the world; I am the father of a great people.”[899]

By his attacks on celibacy and the unseemliness of his language Luther, nevertheless, caused many to turn away from him in disgust. Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick, who reverted to Catholicism in 1710, states in a writing on the step he had taken, that it was due to some extent to his disgust at Luther’s vulgarity. “What writer,” he says, “has left works containing more filth?... Such was his way of writing that his followers at the present day are ashamed of it.” He had compared the character of this reformer of the Church, so he tells us, with that of the apostolic men of ancient times. In striking contrast they were “pious, God-fearing men, of great virtue, temperate, humble, abstemious, despising worldly possessions, not given to luxury, having only the salvation of souls before their eyes”; particularly did they differ from Luther in the matter of purity and chastity.[900]

6. Contemporary Complaints. Later False Reports

Those of his contemporaries who speak unfavourably of Luther’s private life belong to the ranks of his opponents. His own followers either were acquainted only with what was to his advantage, or else took care not to commit themselves to any public disapproval. To give blind credence in every case to the testimony of his enemies would, of course, be opposed to the very rudiments of criticism, but equally alien to truth and justice would it be to reject it unheard. In each separate case it must depend on the character of the witness and on his opportunity for obtaining reliable information and forming a just opinion, how much we credit his statements.

Concerning the witnesses first to be heard, we must bear in mind, that, hostile as they were to Luther, they had the opportunity of seeing him at close quarters. How far their statements are unworthy of credence (for that they are not to be taken exactly at their word is clear enough) cannot be determined here in detail. The mere fact, however, that, at Wittenberg and in Saxony, some should have written so strongly against Luther would of itself lead us to pay attention to their words. In the case of the other witnesses we shall be able to draw some sort of general inference from their personal circumstances as to the degree of credibility to be accorded them. While writers within Luther’s camp were launching out into fulsome panegyrics of their leader, it is of interest to listen to what the other side had to say, even though, there too, the speakers should allow themselves to be carried away to statements manifestly exaggerated.

Simon Lemnius, the Humanist, who, owing to his satirical epigrams on the Wittenberg professor—whom he had known personally—was inexorably persecuted by the latter, wrote, in his “Apology,” about 1539, the following description of Luther’s life and career. This and the whole “Apology,” was suppressed by the party attacked; the later extracts from this writing, published by Schelhorn (1737) and Hausen (1776), passed over it in silence, till it was at last again brought to light in 1892: “While Luther boasts of being an evangelical bishop, how comes it that he lives far from temperately? For he is in the habit of overloading himself with food and drink; he has his court of flatterers and adulators; he has his Venus [Bora] and wants scarcely anything which could minister to his comfort and luxury.”[901] “He has written a pamphlet against me, in which, as both judge and authority, he condemns and mishandles me. Surely no pastor would arrogate to himself such authority in temporal concerns. He deprives the bishops of their temporal power, but himself is a tyrant; he circulates opprobrious and quite execrable writings against illustrious Princes. He flatters one Prince and libels another. What is this but to preach revolt and to pave the way for a general upheaval and the downfall of our States?... It is greatly to be feared, that, should war once break out, first Germany will succumb miserably and then the whole Roman Empire go to ruin. Meanwhile Luther sits like a dictator at Wittenberg and rules; what he says must be taken as law.”[902]

By the Anabaptists Luther’s and his followers’ “weak life” was severely criticised about 1525. Here we refer only cursorily to the statements already quoted,[903] in order to point out that these opponents based their theological strictures on a general, and, in itself, incontrovertible argument: “Where Christian faith does not issue in works, there the faith is neither rightly preached nor rightly accepted.”[904] In Luther they were unable to discern a “spark of Christianity,” though his “passionate and rude temper” was evident enough.[905] “The witless, self-indulgent lump of flesh at Wittenberg,” Dr. Luther, was not only the “excessively ambitious Dr. Liar, but also a proud fool,”[906] whose “defiant teaching and selfish ways” were far removed from what Christ and His Apostles had enjoined. In spite of the manifest spiritual desolation of the people Luther was wont to sit “with the beer-swillers” and to eat “sumptuous repasts”; he had even tolerated “open harlotry” on the part of some of the members of the University although, as a rule, he “manfully opposed” this vice.[907]

Catholic censors were even stronger in their expression of indignation. Dungersheim of Leipzig, in spite of his polemics an otherwise reliable witness, though rather inclined to rhetoric, in the fourth decade of the century reproached him in his “Thirty Articles” for leading a “life full of scandal”; he likewise appeals to some who had known him intimately, and was ready, if necessary, “to relate everything, down to the circumstances and the names.”[908] As a matter of fact, however, this theologian never defined his charges.

From the Duchy of Saxony, too, came the indignant voice of bluff Duke George, whom Luther had attacked and slandered in so outrageous a fashion: “Out upon you, you forsworn and sacrilegious fellow, Martin Luther (may God pardon me), public-house keeper for all renegade monks, nuns and apostates!”[909] He calls him “Luther, you drunken swine,” you “most unintelligent bacchant and ten times dyed horned beast of whom Daniel spoke in chapter viii., etc.”[910] Luther had called this Prince a “bloodhound”; he is paid back in his own coin: “You cursed, perjured bloodhound”; he was the “arch-murderer,” body and soul, of the rebellious peasants, “the biggest murderer and bloodhound ever yet seen on the surface of the globe.”[911] “You want us to believe that no one has written more beautifully of the Emperor and the Empire than yourself. If what you have written of his Imperial Majesty is beautiful, then my idea of beauty is all wrong; for it would be easy to find tipsy peasants in plenty who can write nine times better than you.”[912]

From the theologian Ambrosius Catharinus we hear some details concerning Luther’s private life.

On the strength of hearsay reports, picked up, so it would appear, from some of the visitors to the Council of Trent in 1546 and 1547, this Italian, who was often over-ardent both in attack and defence, wrote in the latter year his work: “De consideratione praesentium temporum libri quattuor.” Here he says: “Quite reliable witnesses tell me of Luther, that he frequently honoured the wedding feasts of strangers by his presence, went to see the maidens dance and occasionally even led the round dance himself. They declare that he sometimes got up from the banquets so drunk and helpless that he staggered from side to side, and had to be carried home on his friends’ shoulders.”[913]

As an echo of the rumours current in Catholic circles we have already mentioned elsewhere the charges alleged in 1524 by Ferdinand the German King, and related by Luther himself, viz. that he “passed his time with light women and at playing pitch-and-toss in the taverns.”[914] We have also recorded the vigorous denunciation of the Catholic Count, Hoyer of Mansfeld, which dates from a somewhat earlier period; this came from a man whose home was not far from Luther’s, and to whose character no exception has been taken. Hoyer wrote that whereas formerly at Worms he had been a “good Lutheran,” he had now “found that Luther was nothing but a knave,” who, as the way was at Mansfeld, filled himself with drink, was fond of keeping company with pretty women, and led a loose life, for which reason he, the Count, had “fallen away altogether.”[915] The latter statements refer to a period somewhere about 1522, i.e. previous to Luther’s marriage. With regard to that critical juncture in the year 1525 some consideration must be given to what Bugenhagen says of Luther’s marriage in his letter to Spalatin, which really voices the opinion of Luther’s friends at Wittenberg: “Evil tales were the cause of Dr. Martin’s becoming a married man so unexpectedly.”[916] The hope then expressed by Melanchthon, that marriage would sober Luther and that he would lay aside his unseemliness,[917] was scarcely to be realised. Melanchthon, however, no longer complains of it, having at length grown resigned. Yet he continued to regret Luther’s bitterness and irritability: “Oh, that Luther would only be silent! I had hoped that as he advanced in years his many difficulties and riper experience would make him more gentle; but I cannot help seeing that in reality he is growing even more violent than before.... Whenever I think of it I am plunged into deep distress.”[918]

Leo Judæ, one of the leaders of the Swiss Reformation, and an opponent of Wittenberg, “accuses Luther of drunkenness and all manner of things; such a bishop [he says] he would not permit to rule over even the most insignificant see.” Thus in a letter to Bucer on April 24, 1534, quoted by Theodore Kolde in his “Analecta Lutherana,”[919] who, unfortunately, does not give the actual text. According to Kolde, Leo Judæ continues: “Even the devil confesses Christ. I believe that since the time of the Apostles no one has ever spoken so disgracefully (‘turpiter’) as Luther, so ridiculously and irreligiously. Unless we resist him betimes, what else can we expect of the man but that he will become another Pope, who orders things first one way then another (‘fingit et refingit’), consigns this one to Satan and that one to heaven, puts one man out of the Church and receives another into it again, until things come to such a pass that he acts as Judge over all whilst no one pays the least attention to him?” With the exception of rejecting infant baptism, so Kolde goes on, Luther appeared to Judæ no better than Schwenckfeld, with whom Bucer would have nought to do; Judæ proceeds: “Not for one hundred thousand crowns would I have all evangelical preachers to resemble Luther; no one could compare with him for his wealth of abuse and for his woman-like, impotent agitation; his clamour and readiness of tongue are nowhere to be equalled.”[920]

Powerful indeed is the rhetorical outburst of Zwingli in a letter to Conrad Sam the preacher of Ulm, dated August 30, 1528: “May I be lost if he [Luther] does not surpass Faber in foolishness, Eck in impurity, Cochlæus in impudence, and to sum it up shortly, all the vicious in vice.”[921]

Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor, attacks Luther in his “Warhafften Bekanntnuss” of 1545 in reply to the latter’s “Kurtz Bekentnis”: “The booklet [Luther’s] is so crammed with devils, unchristian abuse, immoral, wicked, and unclean words, anger, rage and fury that all who read it without being as mad as the author must be greatly surprised and astonished, that so old, gifted, experienced and reputable a man cannot keep within bounds but must break out into such rudeness and filth as to ruin his cause in the eyes of all right-thinking men.”[922]

Johann Agricola, at one time Luther’s confidant and well acquainted with all the circumstances of his life, but later his opponent on the question of Antinomianism, left behind him such abuse of Luther that, as E. Thiele says, “it is difficult to believe such language proceeds, not from one of Luther’s Roman adversaries, but from a man who boasts of having possessed his special confidence.” He almost goes so far, according to Thiele, as to portray him as a “drunken profligate”; he says, “the pious man,” the “man of God (‘vir Dei’),” allowed himself to be led astray by the “men of Belial,” i.e. by false friends, and was inclined to be suspicious; he bitterly laments the scolding and cursing of which his works were full. One of his writings, “Against the Antinomians” (1539), was, he says, “full of lies”; in it Luther had accused him in the strongest terms and before the whole world of being a liar; it was “an abominable lie” when Luther attributed to him the statement, that God was not to be invoked and that there was no need of performing good works. When Luther’s tract was read from the pulpit even the Wittenbergers boggled at these lies and said: “Now we see what a monk is capable of thinking and doing.” Agricola also describes Luther’s immediate hearers and pupils at Wittenberg as mere “Sodomites,” and the town as the “Sister of Sodom.”[923] Such is the opinion of this restless, passionate man, who bitterly resented the wrong done him by Luther. (See vol. v., xxix. 3.)

Not all the above accusations are entirely baseless, for some are confirmed by other proofs quite above suspicion. The charge of habitual drunkenness, as will be shown below (xvii. 7), must be allowed to drop; so likewise must that of having been a glutton and of having constantly pandered to sensual passion; that Luther sanctioned immorality among his friends and neighbours can scarcely be squared with his frequent protests against the disorders rife at the University of Wittenberg; finally, we have to reduce to their proper proportions certain, in themselves justifiable, subjects of complaint. That, however, everything alleged against him was a pure invention of his foes, only those can believe whom prejudice blinds to everything which might tell against their hero.

The charges of the Swiss theologians, though so strongly expressed, refer in the main to Luther’s want of restraint in speech and writing; the vigour of their defensive tactics it is easy enough to understand, and, at any rate, Luther’s writings are available for reference and allow us to appreciate how far their charges were justified.

Another necessary preliminary remark is that no detailed accusation was ever brought against Luther of having had relations with any woman other than his wife; nothing of this nature appears to have reached the ears of the writers in question. Due weight must here be given to Luther’s constant anxiety not to compromise the Evangel by any personal misconduct. (See vol. ii., p. 133.) Luther, naturally enough, was ever in a state of apprehension as to what his opponents might, rightly or wrongly, impute to him. That he was liable to be misrepresented, particularly by foreigners (Aleander [vol. ii., p. 78] and Catharinus), is plain from the examples given above. The distance at which Catharinus resided from Wittenberg led him to lend a willing ear to the reports brought by “reliable men,” needless to say opponents of Luther.

The deep dislike felt by faithful Catholics for the Wittenberg professor and their lively abhorrence for certain moral doctrines expressed by him in extravagant language,[924] formed a fertile soil for the growth of legends; some of these, met with amongst the literary defenders of Catholicism after Luther’s death, have been propagated even in modern times, and accordingly call for careful examination at the hands of the Catholic critic. Where Luther himself speaks we are on safe ground, as the method employed above shows. Where, however, we have to listen to strangers doubt must needs arise, and the task of discriminating becomes inevitable, owing to the speaker’s probable prejudice either for or against Luther. This applies, as we have already seen, even to Luther’s contemporaries, but it holds good even more as we approach modern times, when, in the heat of controversy, things were said concerning alleged historical facts, for instance, Luther’s immorality, which were certainly quite unknown to his own contemporaries. Many of Luther’s accusers had never read his works, possibly had not even troubled to look up a single one of the facts or passages cited. We must, however, remember—a fact which serves to some extent to explain the regrettable lack of exactitude and discernment—that the prohibition of reading Luther’s writings was on the whole strictly enforced by the authorities of the Church and conscientiously obeyed by the faithful, even by writers. Only rarely in olden days[925] were dispensations granted. Thus, when attacking Luther, writers were wont to utilise passages quoted by earlier writers, often truncated excerpts given without the context. Misunderstood or entirely incorrect accounts of events connected with his life were accepted as facts, of which now, thanks to his works and particularly to his letters, we are in a better position to judge. Many seemed unaware that the misunderstandings were growing from age to age, the reason being that instead of taking as authorities the best and oldest Luther controversialists, those of a later date were preferred in whose writings facts and quotations had already undergone embellishment. In this wise the older popular literature came to attribute to Luther the strangest statements and to make complaints for which no foundation existed in fact. Incautious interpretation by more recent writers, whose training scarcely fitted them for the task and who might have learnt better by consulting Luther’s works and letters, has led to a still greater increase of the evil.

In the following pages we propose to examine rather more narrowly certain statements which appear in the older and also more recent controversial works.

Had Luther three children of his own apart from those born of his union with Bora?

By his wife Luther was father to five children, viz. Hans (1526), Magdalene (1529), Martin (1531), Paul (1533) and Margaret (1534).

The paternity of another child born of a certain Rosina Truchsess, a servant in his house, has also been ascribed to him, it being alleged that his references to this girl are very compromising.[926] The latter assertion, however, does not hold good, if only we read the passages in an unprejudiced spirit; at most they prove that Luther allowed his kindliness to get the better of his caution in receiving into his house one who subsequently proved herself to be both untruthful and immoral, and that, when by her misconduct she had compromised her master and his family, he was exceedingly angry with her. It is incorrect to say that Rosina ever designated Luther as the father of her baby.

The second child was one named Andreas, of whom Luther is said to have spoken as his son. This boy, however, has been proved to have been his nephew, Andreas Kaufmann, who was brought up in Luther’s family. Only through a mistake of the editor is he spoken of in the Table-Talk as “My Enders” and “My son”; later a fresh alteration of the text resulted in: “filius meus Andreas.”[927]

The third child was said to have been referred to in the Table-Talk as an “adulter infans,” in a passage where mention is made of its having been suckled by Catherine during pregnancy. In Aurifaber’s Table-Talk (1569 edition) “adulterum infantem” is, however, a misprint for “alterum infantem,” which is the true reading as it appears in the first (1568) edition. It is true that the passage in question mentions of two of Luther’s own children, that his wife was already with child before the first had been weaned.[928]

Luther and Catherine Bora.

A letter which Luther wrote to his wife from Eisleben shortly before the end of his life, when he was staying at the Court of the Count of Mansfeld, has been taken as an admission of immorality: “I am now, thanks be to God, in a good case were it not for the pretty women who press me so hard that I again go in fear and peril of unchastity.”[929] What exactly means this reference to unchastity? As a matter of fact, after having partially recovered from his malady, he is here seeking to allay his wife’s anxiety by adopting a jesting tone, though perhaps exception might be taken to the nature of his jest. That what he says was intended as a joke is plain also from the superscription of the letter, addressed to the “Pork dealer,” an allusion to her purchase of a garden close to the Wittenberg pig-market. In the letter he explains humorously to his anxious wife (this too has been taken seriously), that his catarrh and giddiness had been wholly caused by the Jews, viz. by a cold wind raised up against him by them or their God (he was just then engaged in a controversy with the Jews).—The superscriptions of the various letters to Catherine and the jesting remarks they contain have also been taken far too tragically. Luther was wont to address her as deeply-learned dame, gracious lady, holy and careful lady, most holy Katey, Doctoress, etc., also as My Lord Katey and Gracious Lord Katey. It may be that the latter appellations refer to a certain haughtiness peculiar to her; but it would be to misunderstand him entirely to see in this or even in the name “Kette” = chain, which he applies to her now and then, an involuntary admission that he was bound by the fetters of a self-willed wife. We have seen how he once spoke of her in a letter previous to his marriage as his “mistress” (Metze), which has led careless controversialists to fancy that Luther quite openly had admitted that she was “his concubine” (vol. ii., p. 183). At any rate, not only was Luther’s language unseemly in many of his letters and in his intercourse with his Wittenberg circle, but this license of speech seems even to have infected the ladies of the party, at least if we may credit Simon Lemnius who, on the strength of what he had seen at Wittenberg, says that the wives of Luther, Justus Jonas and Spalatin vied with each other in indecent stories and confidences.[930] Thus we cannot take it amiss if the Catholics of that day, to whose ears came such rumours—doubtless already magnified—were too ready to credit them and to give open expression to their surmises. An instance of this is what Master Joachim von der Heyden wrote, in 1528, to Catherine Bora, viz. that she had lived with Luther before their marriage in shameful and open lewdness—as was said.[931]

Did Luther indulge in “the Worst Orgies” with the Escaped Nuns in the Black Monastery of Wittenberg?

To give an affirmative reply to this would call for very strong proofs, which, in point of fact, are not forthcoming. The passage in the Latin Table-Talk[932] quoted in justification contains nothing of the sort, but, strange to say, a very fine exhortation to continence. For this reason we must again consider it, though it has already been dealt with. The exhortation commences with the words: “God is Almighty, Eternal, Merciful, Longsuffering, Chaste, etc. He loves chastity, purity, modesty. He aids and preserves it by the sacred institution of marriage in order that [as Paul says] each one may possess his vessel in sanctification, free from unbridled lust. He punishes rape, adultery, fornication, incest and secret sins with infamy and terrible bodily consequences. He warns such sinners that they shall have no part in the Kingdom of God. Therefore let us be watchful in prayer,” etc. It is true, however, that this pious exhortation is set off by frivolous remarks, and it is probably one of these which suggested the erroneous reference. Luther here speaks of his young “relative,” Magdalene Kaufmann—a girl of marriageable age living in his house—and of two other maidens of the same age, remarking that formerly people had been ready for marriage at an earlier age than now, but that he was ready to vouch for the fitness of these three wenches for conjugal work, even to staking his wife on it, etc. Of any “wicked orgies” we hear nothing whatever. Further, it is inexact to state, as has been done, that Luther was surrounded in “his dwelling” by nuns whom he had given a lodging. Neither before nor after his marriage did they stay with him permanently; as already stated (vol. ii., p. 138) he either handed over the escaped nuns to their friends or lodged them in families at Wittenberg. Only on one occasion, in September, 1525, when in the hurry it was impossible to find accommodation for a new band of fugitives, did he receive them temporarily, possibly only for a few days, in the great “Black Monastery.”[933] There, as he himself then expressed it, he was “privatus pater familias.”

The Passages “which will not bear repetition.”

The popular writer who is responsible for the tale of the “orgies” also declares, there are “other admissions of Luther’s” “which will not bear repetition.” No such admissions exist. The phrase that this or that will not bear repetition is, however, a favourite one among controversialists of a certain school, though very misleading; many, no doubt, will have been quite disappointed on looking up the passages in question in Luther’s writings to find in them nothing nearly so bad as they had been led to expect; this, indeed, was one of the reasons which impelled us rigidly to exclude from the present work any reservation and to give in full even the most revolting passages. Of one of Luther’s Theses against the theologians of Louvain we read, for instance, in a controversial pamphlet which is not usually particular about the propriety of its quotations, that the author does “not dare reproduce it”; yet, albeit coarsely worded, the passage in question really contains nothing so very dreadful, and, as for its coarseness, it is merely such as every reader of Luther’s works is prepared to encounter. The passage thus incriminated, which reads comically enough in its scholastic presentation (Thesis 31), runs as follows: “Deinde nihil ex scripturis, sed omnia ex doctrinis hominum ructant [Lovanienses], vomunt et cacant in ecclesiam, non suam sed Dei viventis.”[934] The German translation in the original edition of 1545 slightly aggravates the wording of the Thesis.[935]

Two other assertions to Luther’s disadvantage have something in common; one represents as the starting-point of the whole movement which he inaugurated his desire to “wed a girl”; the other makes him declare, three years before the end of his life and as the sum-total of his experience, that the lot of the hog is the most enviable goal of happiness.[936] A third statement goes back to his early youth and seeks to find the explanation of his later faults in a temptation succumbed to when he was little more than a boy. The facts, alleged to belong to his early history, may be taken in connection with kindred matters and examined more carefully than was possible when relating the details of his early development. After that we shall deal with the story of the “hog.”

Did Luther, as a Young Monk, say that he would push on until he could wed a Girl?

Such is the story, taken from a Catholic sermon preached in 1580 by Wolfgang Agricola and long exploited in popular anti-Lutheran writings as a proof that Luther really made such a statement. A “document,” an “ancient deed,” nay, even a confidential “letter to his friend Spalatin,” containing the statement have also been hinted at; all this, however, is non-existent; all that we have is the story in the sermon.

The sermon, which is to be found in an old Ingolstadt print,[937] contains all sorts of interesting religious memories of Spalatin, the influential friend of Luther’s youthful days. The preacher was Dean in the little town of Spalt, near Nuremberg, Spalatin’s birthplace, from which the latter was known by the name of Spalatinus, his real name being Burkard. The recollections are by no means all of them equally vouched for, and hence we must go into them carefully in order rightly to appreciate the value of each. We shall see that those dealing with Luther’s love-adventures are the least to be trusted.

Agricola first gives some particulars concerning Spalatin’s past, which seem founded on reliable tradition; in this his object is to confirm Catholics in their fidelity to the Church. Spalatin, in the course of a journey, came to his birthplace and, with forty-six gulden, founded a yearly Mass for his parents, the anniversary having been kept ever since, “even to the present day.” It is evident that this was vouched for by written documents. To say, as some Protestants have, that this and what follows is the merest invention, is not justified. Agricola goes on to inform us that Spalatin settled the finances of the family, and that, on this occasion, he presented to the township of Spalt a picture of Our Lady, which had once belonged to the Schlosskirche of Wittenberg, requesting, however, that, out of consideration for Luther, the fact of his being the donor should be kept secret until after his death. Agricola also tells how, during his stay, Spalatin invited the “then Dean, Thomas Ludel,” with the members of the chapter to be his guests, and in turn accepted their hospitality; he also attended the Catholic sermons in order to ascertain how the Word of God was preached. Thomas Ludel, the Dean, found opportunity quite frankly to discuss Spalatin’s religious attitude, whereupon the latter said: “Stick to your own form of Divine Service,” nor did Spalatin shrink from giving the same advice to the people. Every year, says Agricola, the picture of Our Lady which he had presented was placed on the High Altar to remind the faithful of the exhortation of their fellow-citizen.[938] The picture in question is still to be seen to-day at Spalt.[939] The narrator goes so far as to declare, that during the Dean’s observations on his religious conduct “the tears came to Spalatin’s eyes”; “I admit,” he said, “that we carried things too far.... God be merciful to us all!” From Luther’s correspondence we know that Spalatin, in later days, was much disquieted by melancholy and temptations to despair. Luther, by his letters, sought to inspire his friend as he approached the close of his life with confidence in Christ, agreeably with the tenets of the new Evangel.[940]

Almost all that Agricola here relates appears, from its local colouring, to be absolutely reliable, but this is by no means the case with what is of more interest to us, viz. the account of Luther as prospective bridegroom which he appends to his stories of Spalatin. The difference between this account and what has gone before cannot fail to strike one.

According to this story of Agricola’s, set in a period some three-quarters of a century earlier, Luther, as a young Augustinian, at Erfurt struck up a friendship with Spalatin who was still studying there. At the University were two other youths from Spalt, George Ferber, who subsequently became Doctor, parish-priest and Dean of Spalt, and Hans Schlahinhauffen. All four became fast friends, and Luther was a frequent visitor at the house where they lived with a widow who had a pretty daughter. He became greatly enamoured of the girl and “taught her lace-making,” until the mother forbade him the house. He often declared: “Oh, Spalatin, Spalatin, you cannot believe how devoted I am to this pretty maid; I will not die before I have brought things to such a pass that I also shall be able to marry a nice girl.” Eventually, with the assistance of Spalatin, Luther, so we are told, introduced his innovations, partly in order to make himself famous, partly in order to be able to marry a girl.[941]

It is hardly probable that Wolfgang Agricola himself invented this story of the monk; more likely he found it amongst the numerous tales concerning Spalatin current at Spalt. His authority for the tale he does not give. It can scarcely have emanated from Spalatin himself—for instance, have been told by him on the occasion of the visit mentioned above—for then Agricola would surely have said so. It more probably belongs to that category of obscure myths clustering round the early days of Luther’s struggle with the Church.

What is, however, of greater importance is that the monk’s behaviour, as here described, does not tally with the facts known. During his first stay at the Erfurt monastery Luther was not by any means the worldly young man here depicted, and even during his second sojourn there (autumn, 1508—autumn, 1510) no one remarked any such tendency in him; on the contrary, the seven Observantine priories chose him as their representative at Rome, presumably because he was a man in whom they could trust. We may call to mind that the then Cathedral Provost of Magdeburg, Prince Adolf of Anhalt, received letters from him at this time attesting his zeal for the “spiritual life and doctrine,”[942] and that Luther’s opponent, Cochlæus, from information received from Luther’s brethren, gives him credit for the careful observance of the Rule in the matter of spiritual exercises and studies during his first years as a monk.[943] The notable change in Luther’s outward mode of life took place only after his return from Rome when he abandoned the cause of the Observantine party.

Spalatin commenced his studies at Erfurt in 1498 and continued them from 1502 at Wittenberg; thence, on their termination, he returned to Erfurt in order to take up the position of tutor at a mansion, which he soon quitted to become (1505-1508) spiritual preceptor in the neighbouring convent of Georgenthal. Thus the date of his first stay at Erfurt was too early for him, while himself a student, to have met Luther as a monk, seeing that the latter only entered the monastery in 1505. His second stay presents this further difficulty, that it is not likely that Spalatin lived with the other students at the widow’s house, but, first in a wealthy family, and, later, either in or near the convent. Further, were the other two youths hailing from Spalt then at Erfurt? A certain Johannes Schlaginhaufen from Spalt was there in 1518 and is also mentioned as being at the University in 1520. He is, perhaps, the same as the compiler of the Table-Talk edited by Wilhelm Preger,[944] but, if so, he was not a fellow-student of Luther’s at Erfurt. No other similar name appears in the register. The name of the second, George Ferber, cannot be found at all in the Erfurt University register, nor any Farber, Färber or Tinctoris even with another Christian name. Thus there are difficulties on every side.

Then again, the familiar visits to the girl, as though there had been no Rule which debarred the young religious from such intercourse. We know that even in 1516 the Humanist Mutian had great trouble in obtaining permission for an Augustinian frequently to visit his house at Erfurt, even accompanied by another Friar.[945]

Hence, however deserving of credit Agricola’s other accounts of Spalatin may be, we cannot accept his story of Luther’s doings as a monk. Nor is this the only statement concerning the earlier history of the Reformation in which Agricola has gone astray. The story may have grown up at Spalt owing to some misunderstanding of something said by George Ferber, the Dean of Spalt, who was supposed to have been a fellow-student of Luther’s at Erfurt, and who may possibly have related tales of the young Augustinian’s early imprudence. It is however possible, in fact not at all unlikely, that, in 1501, when Luther was still a secular student at Erfurt, and according to the above, a contemporary of Spalatin’s, he took a passing fancy to a girl in the house where Spalatin boarded, and that, during the controversies which accompanied the Reformation, a rumour of this was magnified into the tale that, as a monk, Luther had courted a girl, had been desirous of marrying, and, for this reason, had quitted both his Order and the Church.

Luther’s stay as a boy in Cotta’s house at Eisenach no ground for a charge of immorality.

Entirely unfounded suspicions have been raised concerning Luther’s residence in Frau Cotta’s house at Eisenach (vol. i., p. 5). There is not the slightest justification for thinking that Frau Cotta—who has erroneously been described as a young widow—acted from base motives in thus receiving the youth, nor for the tale of his charming her by his playing on the lute or the flute.

Cuntz (Conrad) Cotta, the husband of Ursula Cotta (her maiden-name was Schalbe), was still living when Luther, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, was so kindly received into the house and thus dispensed from supplementing his small resources by singing in the streets. Conrad’s name appears in 1505 in the Eisenach registers as one of the parish representatives. His wife Ursula, witness her tombstone, died in 1511.[946] How old she was at the time she became acquainted with Luther cannot be determined, but quite possibly, she, like her husband, was no longer young. The date of death of two supposed sons of hers would certainly tend to show that she was then still young, but these two Cottas, as has been proved, were not her sons, though they may have been nephews. Conrad Cotta is not known to have had any children, and the fact of his being childless would explain all the more readily Luther’s reception into his household.

Mathesius, in his frequently quoted historical sermons on Luther,[947] says, that “a pious matron” admitted the poor scholar to her table. He is referring to Ursula Cotta. The word matron which he makes use of seems intended to denote rather respectability than advanced age. That he should mention only the wife is probably due to the fact that she, rather than her husband, was Luther’s benefactress. He seems to have had the account from Luther himself, who, it would appear, told him the story together with the edifying cause of his reception. This Mathesius relates in a way which excludes rather than suggests any thought of dishonourable motives. He says that the matron conceived a “yearning attraction for the boy on account of his singing and his earnest prayer in the churches.” The expression “yearning attraction,” which sounds somewhat strange to us, was not unusual then and comes naturally to a preacher rather inclined to be sentimental, as was Mathesius. Ratzeberger the physician, a friend of Luther’s to whom the latter may also have spoken of his stay at Eisenach, merely says, that the scholar “found board and lodging at Cuntz Cotta’s.” Thus he credits the husband with the act of charity.

Luther could not well have played the flute there, seeing that he never learned to play that instrument; as for the lute, he became proficient on it only during his academic years; nor does any source allude to musical entertainments taking place in the Cotta household.

Luther relates later in the Table-Talk,[948] that he had learned this saying from his “hostess at Eisenach,” i.e. Frau Cotta: “There is nought dearer on earth than the love of woman to the man who can win it.” This, however, affords no ground for thinking evil. The saying was a popular one in general use and may quite naturally refer to the love existing between husband and wife. It is another question whether it was quite seemly on Luther’s part to quote this saying as he did in his Glosses on the Bible, in connection with the fine description of the “mulier fortis” (Proverbs xxxi. 10 ff.), so distinguished for her virtue.

Did Luther describe the lot of the Hog as the most enviable Goal of Happiness?

In view of the fear of death which he had often experienced when lying on the bed of sickness, Luther, so we are told, came to envy the lot of the hog, and to exclaim: “I am convinced that anyone who has felt the anguish and terror of death would rather be a pig than bear it for ever and ever.” That such are his words is perfectly true, and he even goes on to give a graphic description of the happy and comfortable life a pig leads until it comes under the hand of the butcher, all due to its unacquaintance with death.[949]

It should first be noted that, throughout the work in question, “Von den Jüden und jren Lügen,” Luther is busy with the Jews. He compares the happiness which, according to him, they await from their Messias, with that enjoyed by the pig.[950] In his cynical manner he concludes that the happiness of the pig was even to be preferred to Jewish happiness, for the Jews would not be “secure for a single hour” in the material happiness they expected, for they would be oppressed by the “horrible burden and plague of all men, viz. death,” seeing that they merely look for a temporal king as their Messias, who shall procure them riches, mirth and pleasure. Thereupon we get one of his customary outbursts: “Were God to promise me no other Messias than him for whom the Jews hope, I would very much rather be a pig than a man.”

Yet he proceeds: I, however, as a Christian, have a better Messias, “so that I have no reason to fear death, being assured of life everlasting,” etc. Well might our “heart jump for joy and be intoxicated with mirth.” “We give thanks to the Father of all Mercy.... It was in such joy as this that the Apostles sang and gave praise in prison amidst all their misery, and even young maidens, like Agatha and Lucy,” etc. But the wretched Jews refused to acknowledge this Messias.

How then can one infer from Luther’s words, “I am convinced that anyone who has felt the anguish and terror of death,” etc., that he represented the lot of the hog as the supreme goal of Christians in general and himself in particular? It is true that he magnifies the fear of death which naturally must oppress the heart of every believer, and for the moment makes no account of the consolation of Christian hope, but all this is merely with the object of forcing home more strongly to the Jews whom he is addressing, what he had just said: “Of what use would all this be to me [viz. the earthly happiness which you look for] if I could not be sure of it even for one hour? If the horrible burden and plague of all men, death, still presses on me, from which I am not secure for one instant, but go in fear of it, of hell and the wrath of God, and tremble and shiver at the prospect, and this without any hope of its coming to an end, but continuing for all eternity?” His closing words apply to unbelievers who are ignorant of the salvation which is in Christ: “It is better to be a live pig than a man who is everlastingly dying.” The passage therefore does not convey the meaning which has been read into it.

We may here glance at some charges in which his moral character is involved, brought against certain doctrines and sayings of Luther.

Did Luther allow as valid Marriage between Brother and Sister?

The statement made by some Catholics that he did can be traced back to a misunderstanding of the simple word “dead.” This word he wrote against several passages of a memorandum of Spalatin’s on matrimonial questions submitted by the Elector in 1528, for instance, against one which ran: “Further, brother and sister may not marry, neither may a man take his brother’s or sister’s daughter or granddaughter. And similarly it is forbidden to marry one’s father’s, grandfather’s, mother’s or grandmother’s sister.”[951] The word “dead” here appended does not mean that the prohibition has ceased to hold, but is equivalent to “delete,” and implies that the passage should be omitted in print. Luther considered it unnecessary or undesirable that the impediments in question should be mentioned in this “Instruction”; he prefers that preachers should as a general rule simply insist on compliance with the Laws of the Empire.

The accompanying letter of the Elector, in which he requests Luther to read through the memorandum, anticipates such a recommendation to omit. In it the writer asks whether “it would perhaps be better to leave this out and to advise the pastors and preachers of this fact in the Visitation,”[952] since, in any case, the “Imperial Code,” in which everything was contained in detail, was to be taken as the groundwork. Against many clauses of the Instruction Luther places the word “placet”; a “non placet” occurs nowhere; on the other hand, we find frequently “omittatur, dead, all this dead” (i.e. “delete”); he also says: “hoc manebit, hactenus manebit textus” (equivalent to “stet”). If “dead” had meant the same as “this impediment no longer holds,” then Luther would here have removed the impediment even between father and daughter, mother and son, seeing that he writes “dead” also against the preceding clause, which runs: “Firstly, the marriage of persons related in the ascending and descending line is prohibited throughout and in infinitum.”

Did Luther Recommend People to Pray for Many Wives and Few Children?

This charge, too, belongs to the old armoury of well-worn weapons beloved of controversialists. The answer to the question may possibly afford material of some interest to the historian and man of letters.

Down to quite recent times it was not unusual to find in Catholic works a story of a poem, said to have been by Luther, found in a MS. Bible in the Vatican Library, in which Luther prayed that God in His Goodness would bestow “many wives and few children.” At the present day no MS. Bible containing a poem by Luther, or any similar German verses, exists in the Vatican Library. What is meant, however, is a German translation of Holy Scripture, in five volumes, dating from the fifteenth century, which was formerly kept in the Vatican and now belongs to the Heidelberg University library. It is one of those Heidelberg MSS. which were brought to Rome in 1623 and again wandered back to their old quarters in 1816 (Palat. German. n. 19-23). The “poem” in question is at the end of vol. ii. (cod. 20). Of it, as given by Bartsch (“Die altdeutschen Handschriften der Universität Heidelberg”) and Wilken (“Heidelberger Büchersammlung”),[953] we append a rough translation:

God Almighty, Thou art good, Give us coat and mantle and hood,

*****

Many a cow and many a ewe, Plenty of wives and children few.

Explicit: A small wage Makes the year to seem an age.

The “poem” has nothing whatever to do with Luther. It is a product of the Middle Ages, met with under various forms. The “Explicit,” too, is older than Luther and presumably was added by the copyist of the volume. In the seventeenth century the opinion seems to have gained ground that Luther was the author, though no Roman scholar can be invoked as having said so. Of the MS. Montfaucon merely says: “A very old German Bible is worthy of notice”; Luther’s name he does not mention.[954]

One witness for the ascription of its authorship to Luther was Max. Misson, who, in his “Nouveau voyage d’Italie,”[955] gives the “poem” very inaccurately and states that a Bible was shown him at the Vatican in which Luther was said to have written it, and that the writing was the same as that of the rest of the volume. He adds, however, that it was hardly credible that Luther should have written such things in a Bible.

Later, Christian Juncker, a Protestant, relates the same thing in his “Life of Luther,” published in 1699, but likewise expresses a doubt. He quotes the discourse on Travels in Italy by Johann Fabricius, the theologian of Helmstedt, where the version of the verses differs from that given by Misson.[956]

According to a record of a journey to Rome undertaken in 1693, given by Johann Friedrich von Wolfframsdorf, he, too, was shown a MS. Bible alleged to have been written by Luther, doubtless that mentioned above.[957]

As a matter of fact the “poem” in question was a popular mediæval one, frequently met with in manuscripts, sometimes in quite inoffensive forms. At any rate, the jingling rhymes (in the German original: Güte, Hüte, Rinder, Kinder) are the persistent feature. According to Bartsch it occurs in the Zimmern Chronik[958] in a version attributed to Count Hans Werdenberg (1268), which, while retaining the same rhymes (in the German), inverts the meaning. Here the prayer is for:

Potent stallions, portly oxen, Buxom women, plenty children.

From a MS., “Gesta Romanorum,” of 1476, J. L. Hocker (“Bibliotheca Heilbronnensis”[959]), quotes a similar but shorter verse.[960] A different rendering of the poem was entered into a Diary in 1596 by Wolff von Stechau.[961]

Certain Protestant writers of the present day, not content with “saving Luther’s honour” by emphasising the fact that the above verses of the Heidelberg MS. are not his, proceed to insinuate that they were really “aimed at the clergy”; the “hoods” and “hats” of which they speak were forsooth the monks’ and the cardinals’, and the rhymester was all the time envying the gay life of the clergy; thus the poem, so we are told, throws a “lurid light on the esteem in which the mediæval monks and clergy were held by the laity committed to their care.”—Yet the verses contain no reference whatever to ecclesiastics. “Hoods” were part of the layman’s dress and presumably “hats,” too. And after all, would it have been so very wicked even for a pious layman to wish to share in the good things possessed by the clergy? If satires on the mediæval clergy are sought for, sufficient are to be found without including this poor jingle.

Did Luther include Wives in the “Daily Bread” of the Our Father?

Controversial writers have seen fit to accuse Luther of including wives in the “daily bread” for which we ask, and, in support of their charge, refer to his explanation of the fourth request of the Our Father. In point of fact in the Smaller Catechism the following is his teaching concerning this petition: It teaches us to ask God “for everything required for the sustenance and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothes, shoes and house, a farm, fields, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children and servants, and good masters, etc.[962] In the Larger Catechism the list is similar: Food and drink, clothes, a house and farm, health of body, grain and fruits, a pious wife, children and servants,” etc.[963] With all this surely no fault can be found.

Was Luther the originator of the proverb: “Who loves not woman, wine and song remains a fool his whole life long”?

These verses are found neither in Luther’s own writings nor in the old notes and written traditions concerning him. Joh. Heinrich Voss was the first to publish them in the “Wandsbeker Bote” in 1775, reprinting them in his Musenalmanach (1777). When he was charged by Senior Herrenschmidt with having foisted them on to Luther, he admitted that he was unable to give any account of their origin.[964] Several proverbs of a similar type, dating from mediæval times, have been cited.

A humorous remark of Luther’s would appear, according to Seidemann, to refer to some earlier proverb linking together women, wine and song. The remark in question is contained in the MS. collection of the Table-Talk preserved at Gotha and known as “Serotina,” now available in the work of E. Kroker, published in 1903.[965] The entire passage is not to be taken seriously: “To-morrow I have to lecture on Noe’s drunkenness, so to-night I shall drink deeply so as to be able to speak of the naughty thing from experience. ‘Not at all,’ said Dr. Cordatus, ‘you must do just the opposite.’ Thereupon Luther remarked: ‘Each country must be granted its own special fault. The Bohemians are gluttons, the Wends thieves, the Germans hard drinkers; for my dear Cordatus, in what else does a German excel than ‘ebrietate, praesertim talem, qui non diligit musicam et mulieres’?” This saying of Luther’s, which was noted down by Lauterbach and Weller, belongs to the year 1536.

7. The “Good Drink”

Among the imputations against Luther’s private life most common among early controversial writers was that of being an habitual drunkard.

On the other hand, many of Luther’s Protestant supporters down to our own day have been at pains to defend him against any charge of intemperance. Even scholarly modern biographers of Luther pass over this point in the most tactful silence, or with just the merest allusion, though they delight to dwell on his “natural enjoyment of life.”

The following pages may help to show the failings of both methods, of that pursued by Luther’s opponents, with their frequently quite unjustifiable exaggerations, and of that of his defenders with their refusal to discuss even the really existing grounds for complaint.[966] To begin with, Luther’s enemies must resign themselves to abandon some of the proofs formerly adduced for his excessive addiction to drink.

Unsatisfactory Witnesses.

Luther’s saying: “If I have a can of beer, I want the beer-barrel as well,”[967] has often been cited against him, the fact being overlooked, that he only made use of this expression in order to illustrate, by a very common example, the idea, expressed in the heading of the chapter in which it occurs, viz. that “No one is ever satisfied.” Everyone, he continues, desires to go one step higher, everyone wants to attain to something more, and, then, with other examples, he gives that mentioned above, where, for “I,” we might equally well substitute “we,” which indeed we find employed elsewhere in this same connection: “If we have one Gulden, we want a hundred.”

Another passage, alleged, strange to say, by older writers, proves nothing: “We eat ourselves to death, and drink ourselves to death; we eat and drink ourselves into poverty and down to hell.” Here Luther is merely speaking against the habit of drinking which had become so prevalent, and dominated some to such an extent that death and hell were the lamentable consequences to be feared. (See below, p. 308 f.)

Luther, wishing to drive a point home, says that he is not “drunk,”[968] but is writing “in the morning hours.”[969] Must we infer, then, that he was in the habit of writing when drunk, or that in the afternoon he was not usually sober? Must he be considered drunk whenever he does not state plainly that he is sober? The truth is that such expressions were merely his way of speaking. In the important passage here under consideration he writes: “Possibly it may be asserted later that I did not sufficiently weigh what I say here against those who deny the presence of Christ in the Sacrament; but I am not drunk or giddy; I know what I am saying and what it will mean to me on Judgment Day and at the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.”[970] Thus he is speaking most seriously and uses this curious verbal artifice simply to emphasise his earnestness. Were additional proof necessary it might be found in other passages; for instance: “Christ was not drunk when He said this,” viz. the Eucharistic words of consecration, the literal meaning of which Luther is upholding against the Strasburg Sacramentarians.[971]

For the purpose of discrediting Luther an old opponent wrote: “The part that eating and drinking play in the life of the Reformer is evident from his letters to his Katey,” and then went on to refer to the perfectly innocent passage where Luther says, that he preferred the beer and wine he was used to at home to what he was having at Dessau, whence he wrote. The rest of the letter has also been taken in an unnecessarily tragic sense: “Yesterday I had some poor stuff to drink so that I had to begin singing: ‘If I can’t drink deep then I am sad, for a good deep drink ever makes me so glad.’” It is quite unnecessary to take this as a song sung by a “tipsy man”; it is simply a jesting reference to a popular ditty which quite possibly he had actually struck up to get rid of his annoyance at the quality of the liquor. “You would do well,” he continues in the same jocular vein, “to send me over the whole cellar full of my usual wine, and a bottle of your beer as often as you can, else I shall not turn up any more for the new brew.”[972]

No one who is familiar with his homely mode of speech will take offence at his calling himself on one occasion the “corpulent Doctor,” and in any case this involves neither gluttony nor drunkenness. Moreover, the words occur in a serious connection, for we shall hear it from him during the last days of his life: “When I return again to Wittenberg I shall lay myself in my coffin and give the worms a corpulent doctor to feast on,”[973] referring, of course, to his natural stoutness. Offence has also been taken at a sentence met with in Luther’s Table-Talk, where he says of his contemporaries of fifty years before: “How thin they [i.e. their ranks] have become”; from which it was inferred that he wished them a luxurious life and corpulence, and that he “regarded pot bellies as an ornament and a thing to be desired.” From its context, however, the meaning of the word “thin” is clear. What Luther means is: How few of them remain in the land of the living.

But does not Luther in a letter of his let fall a remark scarcely beseeming one in his position, viz. that he would like to be more frequently in the company of those “good fellows, the students,” “the beer is good, the parlour-maid pretty, the lads friendly (innig)”?[974] Such is one of the statements brought forward against him to show his inordinate love of drink. Yet, when examined, the letter is found to say nothing of any yearning of Luther’s to join in the drinking-bouts of the students or of any interest of his in the maid. “Two honest students” had been recommended to Luther, and the letter informs its addressee, the Mansfeld Chancellor Müller at Eisleben, of the rumour that “too much was being consumed without any necessity by the pair”; the Chancellor was to inform the Count of Mansfeld of the fact in order that he (whose protégés they may have been) “might keep an eye on them.” Then come the words: “What harm would friendly supervision do? The beer is good, the parlour-maid pretty and the lads young (‘jung’ not ‘innig’); the students really behave very well, and my only regret is that, owing to my weak health, I am unable to be oftener with them.” This letter surely does Luther credit. It testifies to his solicitude for the two youths committed to his care; seeing they are still “good and pious,” he is anxious to preserve them from intemperance and other dangers, and regrets that, owing to his poor state of health, he is unable to have the pleasure of visiting these young fellows more often.