The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same friend that he has forsaken the “unclean and in its nature damnable state of celibacy,” in order to enter the “married state ordained by God.” “I consider the married state a true Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the greatest indigence.” At the same time he privately informs Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has already started “a powerful conspiracy with the object of setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious.” He is here alluding to the tract he was then writing “On Monastic Vows.” “The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth; if Christ wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists, sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians.” “O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety.... I daily see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than the words nun, monk and priest.”[202]
Hence, at the beginning of November, 1521, when he was engaged on the momentous work “On Monastic Vows,” he believed he had found decisive biblical arguments against the state of chastity and continence, recommended though it had been by Christ and His Apostles.
Previously the case had been different, when Carlstadt and others first began to boggle at vows; Luther was then still undecided, seeking for ostensibly theological arguments with which to demolish the difficulty. At that time he had been troubled by such plain biblical words as those of the Psalmist, “Vow ye and pray to the Lord your God” (Ps. lxxv. 12). Even in August, 1521, he had confided his scruples to Spalatin from the Wartburg: “What can be more perilous than to invite so large a number of unmarried persons to enter into matrimony on the strength of a few passages of doubtful meaning? The consequence will only be that consciences will be still more troubled than they are at present. I, too, would fain see celibacy made optional, as the Gospel wills, but I do not yet see my way to proving this.”[203] We likewise find him criticising rather unkindly Melanchthon’s reasons, because they took a wrong way to a goal after which he was himself ardently striving, viz. the setting aside of the vow of celibacy. He was suffering, he admits, “grievous pain through being unable to find the right answer to the question.”[204]
Such efforts were naturally crowned with success in the end.
Five weeks later he was able to inform Melanchthon: “It seems to me that now I can say with confidence how our task is to be accomplished. The argument is briefly this: Whoever has taken a vow in a spirit opposed to evangelical freedom must be set free and his vow be anathema. Such, however, are all those who have taken the vow in the search for salvation, or justification. Since the greater number of those taking vows make them for this reason, it is clear that their vow is godless, sacrilegious, contrary to the Gospel and hence to be dissolved and laid under a curse.”[205]
Thus it was the indefinite and elastic idea of “evangelical freedom” which was finally to settle the question. Concerning his own frame of mind while working out this idea in his tract, he says to Spalatin, on November 11, in a letter of complaint about other matters: “I am going to make war against religious vows.... I am suffering from temptations, and out of temper, so don’t be offended. There is more than one Satan contending with me; I am alone, and yet at times not alone.”[206]
The book was finished in November and sent out under the title, “On Monastic Vows.”[207] The same strange argument, based on evangelical freedom, recurs therein again and again under all sorts of rhetorical forms; the tract is also noteworthy for its distortion of the Church’s teaching,[208] though we cannot here enter in detail into its theology and misstatements. The very origin of the book does not inspire confidence. Many great and monumental historical works and events have originated in conditions far from blameless, but few of Luther’s writings have sprung from so base a source as this one; yet its results were far-reaching, and it was a means of seducing countless wavering and careless religious, depicting the monasteries and furthering immensely the new evangelical teaching. While writing the book Luther had naturally in his mind the multitude he was so desirous of setting free, and chose his language accordingly.
But what were his thoughts concerning himself at that period, when the idea of matrimony had not yet dawned upon him?
In the letter to Melanchthon just referred to, he says of himself: “If I had had the above argument [concerning evangelical freedom] before my eyes when I made my vow, I should never have taken it. I too am, therefore, uncertain as to the frame of mind in which I did take it; I was rather carried away than drawn, such was God’s will; I fear that I too made a godless and sacrilegious vow.... Later, when the vows were made, my earthly father, who was angry about it all, said to me when he had calmed down: ‘If only it was not a snare of Satan!’ His words made such an impression on me that I remember them better than anything else he ever said, and I believe that through his mouth God spoke to me, at a late hour indeed, and as from afar, to rebuke and warn me.”[209]