We may wonder whether Luther, in the stress of his controversial struggle, was fully aware of the glaring dishonesty of his utterances. Certain it is that he was frequently carried away by anger and excitement. Some daring misrepresentations and inventions he reiterated so often that he may at last have come to believe them. Without some inward obsession playing upon his imagination such a phenomenon is almost inexplicable.
Although the contents of Luther’s “Warnunge an die Deudschen” and “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict” incited people to resist the Emperor,[1137] and thus far agreed with the demands of the revolutionary party, as made, for instance, by the Landgrave of Hesse, yet Luther was most careful to guard himself against any accusation of having preached revolt against the authority of the Empire. Previous to the publication of the “Warnunge” he had assured the Landgrave that the greatest caution would be exercised in the work, “so that it may not be stigmatised as seditious.”[1138] Later, too, he declared, quite at variance with the actual facts of the case, and notwithstanding the well-founded complaints of Duke George of Saxony and his own Elector’s disapproval of the inflammatory character of his work: “In it I have not treated of anything in a seditious manner and no one will be able to convict me of stirring up revolt thereby.”[1139] He informs the Elector, that the two pamphlets were really not “sufficiently severe” considering the tone of his literary opponents; he was “only sorry that he had not used stronger and more violent language,” whereas—the allegation is untrue, but was calculated to produce a powerful effect on the Elector—“unheard-of threats are contained in this horrible statute and sentence levelled against Your Electoral Highness and the members of your house, so that the sword and wrath of the whole Empire menaces Your Electoral Highness in life and limb, drenching Germany with innocent blood, making widows and orphans, and bringing destruction and devastation on the Empire.”[1140] He concludes: “May Our Merciful Father in Heaven comfort and strengthen Your Electoral Highness in His Word.”
The Catholic Duke George of Saxony, a clear-headed man and good politician, owing to the attack made upon him by Luther, descended into the literary arena at the time when the struggle was at its height, after the Edict of Augsburg, writing an anonymous “Gegenwarnung” against Luther’s “Warnunge” and against his “Vermeint Edict.” This was published by Arnoldi, who added an epilogue of his own.[1141] The work is written in powerful language and abounds with good arguments. The Duke commences with the plain statement, that the innovator is after nothing else than making “us Germans disloyal to the Emperor and opposed to all authority.” He points out with how great cunning and malice Luther had gone to work, telling countless lies, making a loud clamour and using endless artifices; this should be taken to heart by those who called him a living Saint and vaunted the spirit of God which spoke through him.
Having learnt the name of the author, Luther replied immediately in a booklet steeped in hate, entitled, “Widder den Meuchler zu Dresen gedrückt.”[1142] He fell upon the Duke with such insults, misrepresentations and calumnies that many Catholics, to whom Luther’s conduct appeared ever stranger, shared the opinion expressed in George’s reply, viz. that “Luther is certainly possessed by the devil, with the whole legion which Christ drove out of the man who was possessed”; if Paul was right in saying that the spirit was known by its fruits (Gal. v. 22), then Luther’s spirit was “the spirit of lies, which spoke fond inventions and untruths through him.”[1143]
Luther, in his pamphlet “Widder den Meuchler, etc.” abuses the author of the “Gegenwarnung” as an “arch-villain,” a “horrid, impudent miscreant,” a fellow who tried to deck out and conceal the “traitorous, murderous tyranny” of the Papists under the mantle of the charges of “revolt and disobedience” directed against him, Luther. He stigmatises all his opponents, more particularly the Catholic rulers, as “bloodthirsty tyrants and priests,” as “bloodhounds” who have gone raving mad from malice, as “murderers who have shed so much innocent blood and are still desirous of shedding more.” They were “worthy offshoots, who believe our teaching to be true and nevertheless condemn it, and are therefore anxious for war and slaughter.” He also declares he had never seen a “bigger and more stupid fool” than the author. “Now then, squire assassin! Speak up and let us hear your opinion. Shame upon your book, shame upon your brazen effrontery and malicious heart; how is it that you do not blush to lay bare your murderous and shameful lies before all the world, to deceive such pious folk and to praise and vaunt such obstinate bloodhounds? But you are a Papist, hence the infamies of the Papacy cling to you so that you have gone mad and spit out such shameful words.”[1144]
To describe the Catholic party at the Diet of Augsburg he makes use of the word “bloodhounds” six times within a few lines.[1145]
The haste with which he dashed off the pamphlet was only equalled by his terrible excitement. He says at the end: “I have been forced to hurry for the Leipzig Fair [the book Fair], but soon I shall lick his gentle booklet into better shape for him.... I don’t care if he complains that it contains nothing but evil words and devils, for that redounds to my honour and glory; I wish it to be said of me in the future, that I was full of evil words, vituperation and curses on the Papists. I have humbled myself frequently for more than ten years and given them nothing but good words.”[1146]
What he really should have done would have been to defend himself against the charge brought forward by George of stirring up revolt against the authority of the Empire. He not only failed to vindicate himself, but assumed a still more threatening and defiant attitude.
After contemplating these far from pleasing pictures we may be allowed to conclude by referring to one of Luther’s more favourable traits. While, on the one hand, his soul was filled with deep anger against the Papists, on the other he was also zealous in inveighing against those who were threatening the foundations of those articles of the Christian faith which he still held in common with Catholics, and which he was ever ready to defend with the fullest conviction.
He foresaw that the freethinking spirit, which was involved in his own religious movement, would not spare the dogma of the Trinity. He was painfully alive to the fact that the arbitrariness of the Anabaptists presaged the ruin of the most fundamental of Christian tenets.