4. The Table-Talk and the First Notes of the same
At the social gatherings of his friends and pupils, Luther was fond of giving himself up unrestrainedly to mirth and jollity. His genius, loquacity and good-humour made him a “merry boon companion,” whose society was much appreciated. Often, it is true, he was very quiet and thoughtful. His guests little guessed, nay, perhaps he himself was not fully aware, how often his cheerfulness and lively sallies were due to the desire to repress thereby the sad and anxious thoughts which troubled him.
Liveliness and versatility, imagination and inventiveness, a good memory and a facile tongue were some of the gifts with which nature had endowed him. To these already excellent qualities must be added that depth of feeling which frequently finds expression in utterances of surprising beauty interspersed among his more profane sayings. Unfortunately, owing to his incessant conflicts and to the trivialities to which his pen and tongue were so prone, this better side of his character did not emerge as fully as it deserved.
In order to become better acquainted with the conditions amid which Luther lived at Wittenberg, we must betake ourselves to a room in the former Augustinian convent, where we shall find him seated, after the evening meal, amidst friends such as Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and Jonas, surrounded by eager students—for the most part boarders in his house, the former “Black monastery”—and strangers who had travelled to the little University town attracted by the fame of the Evangel. There it is that he imparts his views and relates his interior experiences in all confidence. He was perfectly aware that what he said was being noted down, and sometimes suggested that one saying or the other should be carefully committed to writing.[661] The older group of friends (1529-1535), to whom we owe relations of the Table-Talk, comprised Conrad Cordatus, Veit Dietrich, Johann Schlaginhaufen, Anton Lauterbach, Hieronymus Weller and Anton Corvinus; such of these as remained with him from 1536 to 1539 form the middle group; the last (1540-1546) was chiefly made up of Johann Mathesius, Caspar Heydenreich, Hieronymus Besold, Master Plato, Johann Stoltz and Johann Aurifaber. Apart from these there were a few who came into close, personal contact with Luther, for instance, George Rörer, who assisted him in translating the Bible and who is one of Aurifaber’s authorities for the Table-Talk.[662]
In his twelfth Sermon on the “Historien von des ehrwürdigen ... Manns Gottes Martini Lutheri,” etc., Mathesius was later on to write that he had enjoyed at his table “many good colloquies and chats” and had tasted “much excellent stuff in the shape of writings and counsels.”[663] Luther himself refers incidentally to these social evenings in his famous saying, that, while he “drank Wittenberg beer with his friends Philip and Amsdorf,” God, by his means, had weakened the Papacy and brought it nigh to destruction.[664] The wine was drunk—at least on solemn occasions—from the famous bowl known as the “Catechismusglas,” on which were painted in sections, placed one below the other and separated by three ridges, various portions of Christian doctrine: at the top the Ten Commandments, in the middle the Creed and Our Father, and at the bottom the whole Catechism (probably the superscriptions and numbers of the questions in the Catechism). We read in the Table-Talk, that, on one occasion, Johann Agricola could get only as far as the Ten Commandments at one draught, whereas Luther was able to empty the bowl right off down to the very dregs, i.e. “Catechism and all.”[665]
For Luther’s sayings given in what follows we have made use of the so-called original versions of the Table-Talk recently edited by various Protestant scholars, viz. the Diaries of Lauterbach and Cordatus, the notes of Schlaginhaufen and the Collections made by Mathesius and found in the “Aufzeichnungen” edited by Loesche and in the “Tischreden (Mathesius)” published more recently still by Kroker, the Leipzig librarian.[666]
The objection has frequently been raised that the Table-Talk ought not to be made use of as a reliable source of information for the delineation of Luther’s person. It is, however, remarkable that the chapters which are favourable to Luther are referred to and exploited in Protestant histories, only that which is disagreeable being usually excluded as historically inaccurate. The fact is that we have merely to comply conscientiously with the rules of historical criticism when utilising the information contained in the Table-Talk, which, owing to its fulness and variety, never fails to rivet attention. These rules suggest that we should give the preference to those statements which recur frequently under a similar form; that we should not take mere questions, put forward by Luther simply to invite discussion and correction, as conveying his real thought; that we consult the original notes, if possible those made at the time of the conversation, and that, where there is a discrepancy between the accounts (a rare occurrence), we should prefer those which date from before the time when Luther’s pupils arranged and classified his sayings according to subjects. The chronological arrangement of Luther’s sayings has thereby suffered, and here and there the text has been altered. For this reason the Latin tradition, as we have it, for instance, from Lauterbach’s pen,[667] ranks before the German version, which is of slightly later date. Kroker’s new edition, when complete, promises to be the best.
If the rules of historical criticism are followed in this and other points there is no reason why the historian should not thankfully avail himself of this great fount of information, which the first collectors themselves extolled as the most valuable authority on the spirit of their master “of pious and holy memory,”[668] and as likely to prove both instructive and edifying to a later generation. The doubt as to the reliability of the notes has been well answered by Kroker: “Such distrust, so far as the original documents are concerned, can now no longer stand. In his rendering of Luther’s words Mathesius, and likewise Heydenreich, Besold and Weller, whose notes his Collection also embodies, does not differ substantially from the older table companions, Dietrich, Schlaginhaufen and Lauterbach. All these men did their utmost to render Luther’s sayings faithfully and to the best of their knowledge and ability.”[669]
The spontaneous character of the Table-Talk gives it a peculiar value of its own. “These [conversations] are children of the passing moment, reliable witnesses to the prevailing mood” (Adolf Hausrath). In intercourse with intimates our ideas and feelings express themselves much more spontaneously and naturally than where the pen of the letter-writer is being guided by reflection, and seeks to make a certain impression on the mind of his reader. But if even letters are no faithful index to our thought, how much less so are prints, intended for the perusal of thousands and even to outlive the writer’s age? On the other hand, it is true that the deliberation which accompanies the use of the pen, imparts, in a certain sense, to the written word a higher value than is possessed by the spoken word. We should, however, expect to find in a man occupying such a position as Luther’s a standard sufficiently high to ensure the presence of deliberation and judgment even in ordinary conversation.
Among the valuable statements made by Luther, which on account of their very nature were unsuited for public utterance but have been faithfully transmitted in the Table-Talk, we have, for instance, certain criticisms of friends and even patrons in high places. Such reflections could not well be uttered save in the privacy of his domestic circle, but, for this very reason, they may well be prized by the historian. Then we have his candid admissions concerning himself, for instance, that his fear lest the Landgrave of Hesse should fall away from the cause of the Evangel constituted one of the motives which led him to sanction this Prince’s bigamy. Then, again, there is the account of his mental trouble, due to certain external events, of the influence of biblical passages, old memories, etc. Finally, we have his strange counsels concerning resistance to temptation, his own example held up as a consolation to the faint-hearted, to those who wavered in the faith or were inclined to despair; his excuse for a “good drink,” his curious recipe for counteracting the evil done by witches at home, and many other statements of an intimate nature which were quite unsuitable for public writings or even for letters. All this, and much more, offers the unprejudiced observer an opportunity for knowing Luther better. It is true that all is not the Word of God; this Luther himself states in a passage which has been wrongly brought forward in excuse of the Table-Talk: “I must admit that I say many things which are not the Word of God, when speaking outside my office of preacher, at home at meals, or elsewhere and at other times.”[670]
The value of the Table-Talk (always assuming the use of the oldest and authentic version) is enhanced if we take into consideration the attitude assumed with regard to it by learned Protestant writers of earlier times. As an instance of a certain type we may take Walch, the scholarly editor of the important Jena edition of Luther’s works prized even to-day.[671] He was much annoyed at the publication of the Table-Talk, just because it furnished abundant material for a delineation of Luther, i.e. for that very reason for which it is esteemed by the modern historian. It was unjust, he says, and “quite wrong to reveal what ought to have been buried in silence, to say nothing of the opportunity thus afforded the Papists for abuse and calumny of Luther’s person and life.” At most—he continues in a tone in which no present-day historian would dare to speak—mere “selections” from the Table-Talk “which could give no offence” ought to have been published, but thus to bring everything ruthlessly to light was a “perversion of the human will.” Fortunately, however, it was not possible even so to prove much against Luther, for, “though the sayings emanated from him originally,[672] still, they remained mere sayings, spoken without deliberation and written down without his knowledge or consent.”[673]
When he made this last statement Walch was not aware that Luther’s utterances were committed to writing in his presence and with his full “consent and knowledge” even, for instance, when spoken in the garden. “Strange as it may appear to us, these men were usually busy recording Luther’s casual words, just as though they were seated in a lecture-hall.”[674] Once, in 1540, Catherine Bora said jestingly to Luther, when they were at table with several industrious students: “Doctor, don’t teach them without being paid; they have already written down quite a lot; Lauterbach, however, has written the most and all that is best.” To which the Doctor replied; “I have taught and preached gratis for thirty years, why then should I now begin to take money for it in my old age?”[675]
The style of the original notes of the Table-Talk in many instances shows plainly that they were made while the conversation was actually in progress; even the frequent defects in the construction of the original notes, which have now been published, prove this.[676]
In 1844 E. Förstemann in his edition of the Table-Talk, as against Walch, had expressed himself strongly in favour of its correctness; he even went so far as to remark, with all the prejudice of an editor for his own work, that these conversations constituted the most important part of Luther’s spiritual legacy, and that here “the current of his thoughts flows even more limpidly than elsewhere.”[677] Walter Köhler likewise, speaking of the Table-Talk edited by Kroker, considers it a “reliable source.”[678]
Of Johann Aurifaber, who was the first to publish the Table-Talk in German, at Eisleben in 1566, and through whose edition it was most widely known, F. X. Funk said in 1882: “As his devotion to Luther led him to make public all the words and sayings which had come to his knowledge, the book, in spite of its defective plan, is important for the history of the Reformer and his time. Its value has always been admitted, though from different standpoints; of this its numerous editions are a proof.”[679] The defect in the arrangement consists in the classifying of the sayings handed down according to the different subjects, whereby they lose their historical setting. The large, new edition of the Table-Talk now planned, will necessarily abandon this confusing arrangement. It has been proved, however, that Aurifaber had a reliable version to work on. “He most probably took for the basis of his edition Lauterbach’s preliminary work,”[680] says Kawerau. This collection of Lauterbach’s has been incorporated, for the most part, in the Halle MS. edited by Bindseil under the title “Colloquia,” etc.[681] In addition to this, Aurifaber made use of the notes by Cordatus, Schlaginhaufen, Veit Dietrich, Mathesius and others. Kawerau draws attention to the fact, that the coarseness to be found in the German edition is not solely due to the compiler, as some of Luther’s apologists had urged, but really belongs to the original texts. Gross sayings of the sort not only gave no offence to Aurifaber, but he delights to repeat them at great length. Yet in certain instances he appears to have watered down and modified his text, as one investigator has proved by a comparison with the notes of Cordatus.[682]
The Pith of the New Religion. Doubts on Faith.
We shall begin by giving some practical theological examples out of the Table-Talk which may serve further to elucidate certain of Luther’s ideas already referred to, e.g. those concerning temptations and their remedy, particularly that most serious temptation of all, viz. regarding the saving power of fiducial faith, which, so Luther thinks, comes through our “weakness.” To this, the tender spot and at the same time cardinal point of his teaching and practical morality, Luther returns again and again, with a frankness for which indeed we may be grateful. Owing to the nature of the conversations and to his habitual loquacity it may happen that some of the trains of thought and modes of expression resemble those already quoted elsewhere; this, however, is no reason for neglecting them, for they testify anew to the ideas of which his mind was full, and also to the state of habitual depression in which he lived.
“Early this morning the devil held a disputation with me on Zwingli, and I learned that a full head is better able to wrangle with the devil than an empty one.... Hence,” he says, “eat and drink and live well, for bodies tempted in this way must have plenty of food and drink; but lewdsters, and those tempted by sensual passion, ought to fast.”[683]
“For those who are tempted fasting is a hundred times worse than eating and drinking.”[684]
“When a man is tempted, or is in the company of those who are tempted, let him put to death Moses [i.e. the Law] and cast stones at him; but, when he recovers, the Law must be preached to him also; a man who is troubled must not have new trouble heaped upon him.”[685]
“In the monastery the words ‘just and justice’ fell like a thunderbolt upon my conscience. I was terrified when I heard it said: ‘He is just, and He will punish.’”[686] [But now I know]: “Our justice is a relative justice [687] “Hence I say to the devil: I, indeed, am a sinner, but Christ is righteous.”[688]
Many admissions reveal his altered feelings, the inconstancy and sudden changes to which he was so prone.
“I do not always take pleasure in the Word. Were I always so disposed towards the Word of God as I was formerly, then I should indeed be happy. Even dear St. Paul had to complain in this regard, for he bewails another law which wars in his members. But is the Word to be considered false because it does not happen to suit me?”[689]
“Unless we wrap ourselves round with this God, Who has become both Man and Word, Satan will surely devour us.” “Hence the aim of the Prophets and the Apostles, viz. to make us hold fast to the Word.” “It costs God Almighty much to manifest His power and mercy even to a few. He must slay many kings before a few men learn to fear Him, and He must save many a rascal and many a prostitute before even a handful of sinners learn to believe in Him.”[690]
“So soon as I say: ‘Yes, indeed, I am a poor sinner,’ Christ replies, ‘But I died for you, I baptised you and I teach you daily.’ ... Ever bear this in mind, that it is not Christ Who affrights you, but Satan; believe this as though God Himself were speaking.”[691]
“Is it not a curse that we should magnify our sins so greatly? Why do we not exalt our baptism just as we exalt our inheritance? A princely baby remains a prince even though he should s—— in his cradle. A child does not cease being heir to his father’s property for having soiled his father’s habiliments. If only we could see our way to make much of our inheritance and patrimony before God!... Yet children call God quite simply their Father.”[692]
“You are not the only man to be tempted; I also am tempted and have bigger sins piled on my conscience than you and your fathers. I would rather I had been a procurer or highwayman than that I should have offered up Christ in the Mass for so long a time.”[693]
The last words may serve as an introduction to a remarkable series of statements concerning the religious practices of the ancient Church. As these words show, he does not shrink from dishonouring by the most unworthy comparisons even those acts and doctrines which, by reason of their religious value, were dear to the whole Church of antiquity and had been regarded by some of the purest and most exalted souls as their only consolation in this life.
Elsewhere he says of the sacrifice of the Mass: “The blind priestlings run to the altar like pigs to the trough”; this, “the shame of our scarlet woman of Babylon, must be exposed.” “I maintain that all public houses of ill-fame, strictly forbidden by God though they be, yea, manslaughter, thieving, murder and adultery, are not so wicked and pernicious as this abomination of the Popish Mass.”[694]
He says of the Catholic preacher: “Where the undefiled Evangel is not preached, the whoremonger is far less a sinner than the preacher, and the brothel less wicked than the church; that the procurer should daily make prostitutes of virgins, honest wives and cloistered nuns, is indeed frightful to hear of; still, his case is not so bad as that of the Popish preacher.”[695]
The Church’s exhortation to make use of fasting as a remedy in the struggle against sin—in which counsel she had the support both of Holy Scripture and of immemorial experience—was thus described by Luther: “No eating or drinking, gluttony or drunkenness can be so bad as fasting; indeed, it would be better to swill day and night rather than to fast for such a purpose,” so “ludicrous and shameful in God’s sight” was such fasting.[696]
“Confession” (as made by Catholics), Luther asserted in 1538, “is less to be condoned than any infamy.” “The devil assails Christians with pressing temptations, most of all on account of their confessions.”[697]
The life of the Saints in the Catholic Church, he says elsewhere, consisted in “their having prayed much, fasted, laboured, taken the discipline, slept on hard pallets and worn poor clothing, a kind of holiness which any dog or pig might practise any day.”[698]
He voices his abhorrence of the monastic life in figures such as the following: “Discalced Friars are lice placed by the devil on God Almighty’s fur coat, and Friars-preacher are the fleas of His shirt.” “I believe the Franciscans to be possessed of the devil, body and soul,”[699] and, reverting once again to his favourite image, he adds elsewhere: “Neither the dens of evil women nor any secret sins are so pernicious as those rules and vows which the devil himself has invented.”[700]
We have to proceed to the uninviting task of collecting other sayings of Luther’s, particularly from the Table-Talk, which are characteristic of his more than plain manner of speaking, and to pass in review the somewhat peculiar views held by him on matters sexual. As it is to be feared that the delicacy of some of our readers will be offended, we may point out that those who wish are at liberty to skip the pages which follow and to continue from Section 7 of the present chapter which forms the natural sequence of what has gone before. Certainly no one would have had just cause for complaint had one of the guests at Luther’s table chosen to take leave when the conversation began to turn on matters distasteful to him. The historian, however, is obliged to remain. True to his task he may not close his ears to what is said, however unpleasant the task of listener. He must bear in mind that Cordatus, one of Luther’s guests, in the Diary he wrote praises Luther’s Table-Talk as “more precious than the oracles of Apollo.” This praise Cordatus bestows not only on the “serious theological discourses,” but also expressly on those sayings which were apparently merely frivolous.[701] Another pupil, Mathesius, who was also frequently present, assures us he never heard an improper word from Luther’s lips.[702] This he writes in spite of the fact, that one of the first anecdotes he relates, embellished with a Latin verse from Philo, contains an unseemly jest,[703] and that he himself immediately after tells how Luther on one occasion told the people from the pulpit that: “Ein weiter Leib und zeitiger Mist ist gut zu scheiden”; he even mentions that Luther was carried away to express himself yet more plainly concerning the ventral functions, till he suddenly reined in and corrected himself. The truth is that Mathesius was an infatuated admirer of Luther’s.
As a matter of fact, terms descriptive of the lower functions of the body again and again serve Luther not only to express his anger and contempt, but as comparisons illustrative of his ideas, whether on indifferent matters or on the highest and most sacred topics. It is true that what he said was improper rather than obscene, coarse rather than lascivious. Nor, owing to the rough and uncouth character of the age and the plainness of speech then habitual, were his expressions, taken as a whole, so offensive to his contemporaries as to us. Yet, that Luther should have cultivated this particular sort of language so as to outstrip in it all his literary contemporaries, scarcely redounds to his credit. His readers and hearers of that day frequently expressed their disgust, and at times his language was so strong that even Catherine Bora was forced to cry halt.
As a matter of course the devil came in for the largest share of this kind of vituperation, more particularly that devil who was filling Luther with anxiety and trouble of mind. The Pope and his Catholic opponents came a good second. Luther was, however, fond of spicing in the same way even his utterances on purely worldly matters.
“When we perceive the devil tempting us,” he says, “we can easily overcome him by putting his pride to shame and saying to him: ‘Leck mich im Arss,’ or ‘Scheiss in die Bruch und hengs an den Halss.’”[704] This counsel he actually put in practice: “On May 7, 1532, the devil was tormenting me in the afternoon, and thoughts troubled me, such as that a thunderbolt might kill me, so I replied to him: ‘Leck mich im Arss, I am going to sleep, not to hold a disputation.’”[705] When the devil would not cease urging his sins against him he had a drastic method of effectually disposing of his importunity.[706]
He relates in the Table-Talk, in 1536, the “artifice” by which the parish-priest of Wittenberg, his friend Johann Bugenhagen (Pomeranus), had put the devil to flight. It was a question of the milk which the devil had bewitched by means of sorceresses or witches. Luther says: “Dr. Pommer’s plan was the best, viz. to plague them [the witches] with filth and stir it into the milk so that everything stank. For when his [Pommer’s] cows also lost their milk, he promptly took a vessel filled with milk, relieved himself in it, poured out the contents and said: ‘There, devil, eat that.’ After that he was no longer deprived of the milk.”[707] Before this his wife and the maids had worried themselves to death trying “to get the butter to come”—as we read in another account of this occurrence in a version of the Table-Talk which is more accurately dated—but all to no purpose. “Then Pommer came up, mocked at the devil and eased himself in the churn. Thereupon Satan ceased his tricks, for he is proud and cannot bear to be laughed at.”[708]
Less formal, according to him, was the action of another individual, who had put Satan to flight by a “crepitus ventris.”[709]
Still, all temptations of the devil are profitable to us, so Luther says, for, if we were always at peace, the devil himself “would treat us ignominiously,”[710] for he is full of nothing but deception and filthiness. Luther, like many of his contemporaries and later writers, was well acquainted with the devil’s private life, and convinced that “devil’s prostitutes: ‘cum quibus Sathan coiret’” actually existed.[711]
As the filthy details of the expulsion of the devil from the churn are omitted in Lauterbach’s Diary, certain defenders of Luther think they are warranted in drawing from this particular passage the conclusion that the Table-Talk had been polluted by “unseemly” additions in Aurifaber’s and other later versions (above, p. 224 f.) which “must not be laid to the charge of the Reformer.” “Not Luther in his domestic circle, but the compilers and collectors of the much-discussed Table-Talk, Aurifaber in particular, were rude, obscene and vulgar.” The publication of the original documents, for instance, by Kroker in 1903, has, however, shown the first version of the Table-Talk to be even more intolerably coarse, and confirmed the substantial accuracy of the text of the older German Table-Talk at present under discussion.[712] Preger, the editor of Schlaginhaufen’s notes, rightly repudiated such evasions even in 1888, together with the alleged proofs urged by apologists. “We want to see Luther,” he says, “under the actual conditions in which he moved, and in all his own native rudeness.”[713] Kroker also pointed out that even the first writers of the Table-Talk made use of certain signs in their notes (e.g. × or |) in lieu of certain words employed by Luther which they felt scrupulous about writing.[714]
“The entire lack of restraint with which Luther expresses himself,” a Protestant writer says of the Table-Talk edited by Kroker, “makes a remarkable impression on the reader of to-day, more particularly when we consider that his wife and children were among the audience.... In the Table-Talk we meet with numerous statements, some of them far-fetched, which are really coarse.... Although we can explain Luther’s love of obscenities, still, this does not hinder us from deploring his use of such and placing it to his discredit. It is true,” the same writer proceeds, “that Luther is never lascivious or merely frivolous.”[715] As regards the latter assertion the texts to be adduced will afford a better opportunity of judging. That at any rate in the instances already mentioned Luther did not intentionally wish to excite his hearers’ passions is clear, and the fact has been admitted even by Catholic polemics who have really read his writings and Table-Talk.[716]
An alarming number of dirty expressions concerning the Pope and Catholicism occur in the Table-Talk.
Elsewhere, however, he says of the Council: “I should like, during my lifetime, to see a Council deal with the matter, for they would give one another a fine pummelling, and us a splendid reason for writing against them.”[718]
What was the origin of the Pope’s authority? “I see plainly whence the Pope came; he is the vomit of the lazy, idle Lords and Princes.”[719]—“Then the Pope burst upon the world with his pestilential traditions and bound men by his carnal ordinances, his rules and Masses, to his filthy, rotten law.”[720]
Such unseemly expressions occur at times in conjunction with thoughts intended to be sublime. “I hold that God has just as much to do in bringing things back to nothingness as He has in creating them. This he [Luther] said, referring to human excrement. He also said: I am astounded that the dung-hill of the world has not reached the very sky.”[721]—“He took his baby into his arms and perceived that it was soiling its diaper. His remark was that the small folk by messing themselves and by their howling and screaming earn their food and drink just as much as we deserve heaven by our good works.”[722] He even brings the holy name of God into conjunction with one such customary vulgar expression. “I too have laid down rules and sought to be master, Aber der frum Gott hat mich in sein Arss fahren lassen und meyn Meystern ist nichts worden.”[723]
“There are many students here, but I do not believe there is one who would allow himself to be anointed [by the Papists], or open his mouth for the Pope to fill it with his filth; unless, perhaps, Mathesius or Master Plato.”[724]
In his strange explanation of how far God is or is not the author of evil, he says: Semei wished to curse and God merely directed his curse against David (2 Kings xvi. 10). “God says: ‘Curse him and no one else.’ Just as if a man wishes to relieve himself I cannot prevent him, but should he wish to do so on the table here, then I should object and tell him to betake himself to the corner.”[725]
“The Pope is a cuckoo who gobbles the eggs of his Church and vomits the Cardinals.”[726]
It is not surprising that in Luther’s conversations on non-theological, i.e. on secular subjects, similar and even more offensive expressions occur.
He thinks that we “feed on the bowels of the peasants,” for they “expel the stones” which produce the trees which produce the fruit on which we feed.[727]—He has a joke at the expense of an unlearned man who had mistaken the Latin equivalent of the German word “Kunst” for a common German term: “Wenn man eynem auff die Kunst küsset so bescheist er sich.”[728]
Speaking of women who had the impertinence to wish for a share in the government, he says: “The ‘Furtzlecher’ want to rule and we suffer for it; they really should be making cheese and milking the cows.”[729] Elsewhere he says to the preachers: “We never seek to please anybody nor to make our mouth the ‘Arschloch’ of another.”[730]
“Those who now grudge the preachers of the Word their bread will persecute us until we end by disgracing ourselves. Then ... ‘adorabunt nostra stercora.’” By a natural transition of ideas he goes on to say: “They will be glad to get rid of us, and we shall be glad to be out of them. We are as ready to part as ‘ein reiffer Dreck und ein weit Arssloch.’”[731]—“Rather than let them have such a work [732]
“The lawyers scream [when we appropriate Church property]: ‘Sunt bona ecclesiae!’ ... Yes [I say], but where are we to get our bread? ‘We leave you to see to that,’ they say. Yes, the devil may thank them for that. We theologians have no worse enemies than the lawyers.... We here condemn all jurists, even the pious ones, for they do not know what ‘ecclesia’ means.... If a jurist wishes to dispute with you about this, say to him: ‘Listen, my good fellow, on this subject no lawyer should speak till he hears a sow s——, then he must say: ‘Thank you, Granny dear, it is long since I listened to a sermon.’”[733]
After the above there is no need of giving further instances of the kind of language with which opponents within his fold had to put up from Luther. It will suffice to mention the poem “De merda” with which he retaliated on the satirist Lemnius for some filthy verses,[734] and the following prediction to his Zwickau opponents: “When trouble befalls them, whenever it may be, they will ‘in die Hosen scheissen und ein solchen Gestanck anrichten’ that nobody will be able to tarry in their neighbourhood.”[735]
It is also difficult for us to tarry any longer over these texts, especially as in what follows we shall meet with others of a similar character.[736]
Not to do injustice to the general character of Luther’s Table-Talk, we must again lay stress on the fact, that very many of his evening conversations are of irreproachable propriety. We may peruse many pages of the notes without meeting anything in the least offensive, but much that is both fine and attractive. Events of the day, history, nature, politics or the Bible, form in turn the subject-matter of the Table-Talk, and much of what was said was true, witty and not seldom quite edifying.
Still, the fact remains that filthy talking and vulgarity came so natural to Luther as to constitute a questionable side to his character.
Even when writing seriously, and in works intended for the general public, he seems unable to bridle his pen.
In the book “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel gestifft,” he introduces, for instance, the following dialogue: “We have enacted in our Decretals [say the Papists] that only the Pope shall summon Councils and appoint to benefices. [Luther]: My friend, is that really true? Who commanded you to decree this? [Answer]: Be silent, you heretic, what proceeds from our mouth must be hearkened to. [Luther]: So you say; but which mouth do you mean? Da die Förze ausfahren? To such an opinion you are welcome. Or that into which good Corso [wine] is poured? Da scheiss ein Hund ein! [Answer]: Out upon you, you shameless Luther, is it thus you talk to the Pope? [Luther]: Out upon you rather, you rude asses and blasphemous desperadoes, to address the Emperor and the Empire in such a manner! How can you venture to insult and slight four such great Councils and the four greatest Christian Emperors ‘umb euer Förze und Drecketal [sic] willen?’ What reason have you to think yourselves anything but big, rude, senseless fools and donkeys?”[737]
Before this he says in the same work, in personal abuse of Pope Paul III.: “Dear donkey, don’t lick! Oh, dear little Pope-ass, were you to fall and some filth escape you, how all the world would mock at you and say: Lo, how the Pope-ass has disgraced itself!... Oh, fiendish Father, do not be unmindful of your great danger.”[738]
“Dr. Luther is a rough sort of fellow; were he to hear that, he would rush in booted and spurred like a countryman and say: The Pope had been thrust into the Church by all the devils from hell.”[739] “‘As much as the sun is greater than the moon, so does the Pope excel the Emperor.’ ... Hearken, reader; if you forget yourself and your nether garments have to be fumigated with incense and juniper, from such a reeking sin the Most Holy Father would never absolve you.”[740]
“‘Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ ‘Whatsoever’ means [according to the Catholics] all that there is on earth, churches, bishops, emperors, kings and possibly ‘alle Förze aller Esel und sein eigen Förze auch.’ Ah, dear brother in Christ, put it down to my credit when I speak here and elsewhere so rudely of the cursed, noxious, ungainly monster at Rome. Whoever knows my mind must admit that I am far, far too lenient, and that no words or thoughts of mine could repay his shameful and desperate abuse of the Word and Name of Christ, our beloved Lord and Saviour.”[741]
“I must cease,” Luther says elsewhere in his “Wider das Bapstum,” after speaking of a Decretal, “I cannot bear to wallow any longer in this blasphemous, hellish, devils’ filth and stench; let someone else read it. Whoever wants to listen to God’s Word, let him read Holy Writ; whoever prefers to listen to the devil’s word, let him read the Pope’s Drecket [sic] and Bulls,” etc.[742]
We must here consider more closely the statement, already alluded to, made by some of Luther’s apologists. To remove the unfavourable impression left on the mind of present-day readers by his unbridled language an attempt has been made to represent it as having been quite the usual thing in Luther’s day.
It is true that, saving some expressions peculiar to the Saxon peasant, such obscenity is to be met with among the neo-Humanist writers of that age, both in Germany and abroad. Even Catholic preachers in Germany, following the manners of the time, show but scant consideration for the delicacy of their hearers when speaking of sexual matters or of the inferior functions of the human body. It is quite impossible to set up a definite standard of what is becoming, which shall apply equally to every age and every state of civilisation. But if Luther’s defenders desire to exonerate him by comparing him with others, it is clear that they are not justified in adducing examples taken from burlesque, popular writers, light literature, or even from certain writings of the Humanists. The filth contained in these works had been denounced by many a better author even in that age. Luther, as already explained (vol. ii., p. 150 f.), must not be judged by a profane standard, but by that which befits a writer on religion and the spiritual life, a reformer and founder of a new religion. The fact remains that it is impossible to instance any popular religious writer who ever went so far as, or even approached, Luther in his lack of restraint in this particular. Luther, in the matter of licentiousness of language, stands out as a giant apart. The passages to be quoted later on marriage and the sexual question will make this still more apparent.
His own contemporaries declared aloud that he stood quite alone in the matter of coarseness and in his incessant use of vituperation; Catholics, such as Dungersheim, and opponents of the Catholic Church like Bullinger, testify alike in the strongest terms to the impression made upon them. Some of their numerous statements will be quoted below. We may, however, remark that the severest strictures of all came from Sir Thomas More, who, for all his kindliness of disposition, condemned most indignantly the filthy language of the assailant of King Henry VIII. of England. The untranslatable passage may be read in its Latin original in the note below.[743] Caspar Schatzgeyer, another learned opponent of Luther’s, and likewise a man of mild temper, also rebuked Luther with great vehemence for the ignoble and coarse tone he was wont to employ against theological adversaries; he plainly hints that no one within living memory had brought into the literary arena such an arsenal of obscene language. Luther behaved “like a conqueror, assured by the spirit that he was able to walk upon the sea.” Spirits must, however, be tried. “The triumphal car of the victor can only be awarded to Luther and his followers if it be admitted that to triumph is synonymous with befouling the face and garments of all foes with vituperative filth (‘conviciorum stercora’), so that they are forced to save themselves by flight from the intolerable stench and dirt. Never in any literary struggle has such an array of weapons of that sort been seen.” One could well understand how such a man inspired fear amongst all who valued the cleanliness of their garments. Well might he be left to triumph with his assertion, which his adversaries would be the last to gainsay, “that everything which is not Gospel, must make room for the Gospel.”[744]
Some have gone so far as to say, that the tone of the popular religious writers of the period, from 1450-1550, was frequently so vulgar that there is little to choose between them and Luther. This is an unfair and unhistorical aspersion on a sort of literature then much read and which, though now little known, is slowly coming to its due owing to research. We may call to mind the long list of those in whose writings Luther could have found not merely models of decency and good taste—which might well have shamed him—but also much else worthy of imitation; for instance, Thomas à Kempis, Jacob Wimpfeling, Johann Mensing, Johann Hoffmeister, Michael Vehe, Johann Wild, Matthias Sittard, Caspar Schatzgeyer, Hieronymus Dungersheim, Ulrich Krafft, Johannes Fabri, Marcus de Weida, Johann Staupitz, and lastly Peter Canisius, who also belonged practically to this period. Many other popular religious authors might be enumerated, but it is impossible to instance a single one among them who would have descended to the level of the language employed by Luther.
Moreover, those secular writers of that day whose offensive crudities have been cited in excuse of Luther, all differed from him in one particular, viz. they did not employ these as he did, or at least not to the same extent, as controversial weapons. It is one thing to collect dirty stories and to dwell on them at inordinate length in order to pander to the depraved taste of the mob; it is quite another to pelt an enemy with filthy abuse. Hate and fury only make a vulgar tone more repulsive. There are phrases used by Luther against theological adversaries which no benevolent interpretation avails to excuse. Such was his rude answer to the request of the Augsburgers (above, p. 233), or, again, “I would rather advise you to drink Malvasian wine and to believe in Christ alone, and leave the monk (who through being a monk has denied Christ) to swill water or ‘seinen eigenen Urin.’”[745]
It may occur to one to plead in justification the language of the peasants of that day, and it must be conceded, that, even now, in certain districts the countryman’s talk is such as can only be appreciated in the country. The author of a book, “Wie das Volk spricht” (1855), who made a study of the people in certain regions not particularly remarkable for culture or refinement, says quite rightly in his Preface, that his examples are often quite unsuited “for the ears of ladies, and those of a timorous disposition”; “the common people don’t wear kid gloves.” This writer was dealing with the present day, yet one might ask what indulgence an author would find were he to draw his language from such a source, particularly did he happen to be a theologian, a spiritual writer or a reformer? Luther undoubtedly savours of his time, but his expressions are too often reminiscent of Saxon familiarity; for instance, when he vents his displeasure in the words: “The devil has given his mother ‘eine Fliege in den Hintern.’”[746]
Luther was fond of introducing indelicacies of this sort even into theological tracts written in Latin and destined for the use of the learned, needless to say to the huge scandal of foreigners not accustomed to find such coarseness in the treatment of serious subjects. Under the circumstances we can readily understand the indignation of men like Sir Thomas More (above, p. 237, n. 1) at the rudeness of the German.
Luther’s example proved catching among his followers and supporters. A crowd of writers became familiar with the mention of subjects on which a discreet silence is usually observed, and grew accustomed to use words hitherto banished from polite society. So well were Luther’s works known that they set the tone. His favourite pupils, Mathesius and Aurifaber, for instance, seem scarcely aware of the unseemliness of certain questions discussed. Sleidan, the well-known Humanist historian, described the obscene woodcuts published by Luther and Lucas Cranach in 1545 in mockery of the Papacy, “as calmly as though they had been no worse than Mr. Punch’s kindly caricatures.”[747] Luther actually told the theologians and preachers (and his words carried even more weight with secular writers, who were less hampered by considerations of decency) that “those who filled the office of preacher must hold the filth of the Pope and the bishops up to their very noses,”[748] for the “Roman court, and the Pope who is the bishop of that court, is the devil’s bishop, the devil himself, nay, the excrement which the devil has ... into the Church.”[749]
One of Luther’s most ardent defenders in the present day, Wilhelm Walther of Rostock, exonerates Luther from any mere imitation of the customary language of the peasants or the monks, for, strange to say, some have seen in his tone the influence of monasticism; he claims originality for Luther. “Such a mode of expression,” he says, “was not in Luther’s case the result of his peasant extraction or of his earlier life. For, far from becoming gradually less noticeable as years went on, it is most apparent in his old age.”[750] It is plain that Luther’s earlier Catholic life cannot be held responsible, nor the monastic state of celibacy, often misjudged though it has been in certain quarters. As regards the reassertion in him of the peasant’s son, we are at liberty to think what we please. At any rate, we cannot but endorse what Walther says concerning the steady growth of the disorder; in all likelihood the applause which greeted his popular and vigorous style reacted on Luther and tended to confirm him in his literary habits. As years passed he grew more and more anxious that every word should strike home, and delighted in stamping all he wrote with the individuality of “rude Luther.” Under the circumstances it was inevitable that his style should suffer.
Walther thinks he has found the real explanation in Luther’s “energy of character” and the depth of his “moral feeling”; here, according to him, we have cause of his increasingly lurid language; Luther, “in his wish to achieve something,” and to bring “his excellent ideas” home to the man in the street, of set purpose disregarded the “esthetic feelings of his readers” and his own “reputation as a writer.” Melanchthon, says Walther, “took offence at his smutty language. Luther’s reply was to make it smuttier still.”
This line of defence is remarkable enough to deserve to be chronicled. From the historical standpoint, however, we should bear in mind that Luther had recourse to “smuttiness” not merely in theological and religious writings or when desirous of producing some effect with “his excellent ideas.” The bad habit clings to him quite as much elsewhere, and disfigures his most commonplace conversations and casual sallies.
Thus the psychological root of the problem lies somewhat deeper. We shall not be far wrong in believing, that a man who moved habitually amidst such impure imaginations, and gave unrestrained expression to statements of a character so offensive, bore within himself the cause. Luther was captain in a violent warfare on vows, religious rules, celibacy and many other ordinances and practices of the Church, which had formerly served as barriers against sensuality. Consciously or unconsciously his rude nature led him to cast off the fetters of shame which had once held him back from what was low and vulgar. After all, language is the sign and token of what is felt within. It was chiefly his own renunciation of the higher standard of life which led him to abandon politeness in speech and controversy, and, in word and imagery, to sink into ever lower depths. Such is most likely the correct answer to the psychological problem presented by the steady growth of this questionable element in his language.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (“Werke,” 7, p. 401) has a few words, not devoid of admiration for Luther, which, however, apply to the whole man and not merely to his habits of speech. They may well serve as a transition to what follows: “Luther’s merit lies in this, that he possessed the courage of his sensuality—in those days tactfully described as the ‘freedom of the Gospel.’”