Luther, vol. 2 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

In later years, as his pupil Mathesius relates in the “Historien” of his conversations with him, Luther was anxious to induce the Elector to erect a “Priests’ Tower” “in which such wild and untamed persons might be shut up as in a prison; for many of them would not allow themselves to be controlled by the Evangel; ... all who once had run to the monasteries for the sake of their belly and an easy life were now running out again for the sake of the freedom of the flesh.”[316] According to Lauterbach’s “Tagebuch,” however (1538), the Elector had before this decided to rebuild the University prison as a jail for such of the clergy of Luther’s camp who misbehaved themselves,[317] and the Notes of Mathesius recently edited by Kroker allow us to infer that the prison had already been built in 1540.[318] Thus the account given by Mathesius in the “Historien” and quoted by him in sermons at a later date must be amended and amplified accordingly.

Even Luther’s own followers looked askance at many of the recruits from the clergy and the monasteries, who came to swell the ranks of the preachers and adherents of the new Evangel. We are in possession of statements on this subject made by Eberlin, Hessus and Cordus.

“Scarcely has a monk or nun been three days out of the convent,” writes Eberlin of Günzburg, “than they make haste to marry some woman or knave from the streets, without any godly counsel or prayer; in the same way the parsons too take whom they please, and then, after a short honeymoon, follows a long year of trouble.”[319]

Eobanus Hessus, the Humanist, writes in 1523 from Erfurt to J. Draco that the runaway monks neglected education and learning and preached their own stupidities as wisdom; the number of such priests and nuns was increasing endlessly. “I cannot sufficiently execrate these fugitives. No Phyllis is more wanton than our nuns.”[320]

A third witness, also from Erfurt, Euritius Cordus, complains in similar fashion in a letter written in 1522 to Draco: No one here has been improved one little bit by the evangel; “on the contrary, avarice has increased and likewise the opportunities for the worst freedom of the flesh”; priests and monks were everywhere set upon marrying, which in itself is not to be disapproved of, and the young students were more lawless than soldiers in camp.[321]

Protestant historians are fond of limiting the moral evils to the period which followed the Peasant Wars of 1525 as though they had been caused by the disorders of the time. The above accounts, given by followers of the new movement, extend, however, to earlier years, and to these many others previous to 1525 will be added in the course of our narrative.

It has also frequently been said that the confusion which always accompanies popular movements which stir men’s minds must be taken into account when considering the disastrous moral effects so evident in the camp of the Reformers. But this view of the matter, if not false, is at least open to doubt. The disorders just described were not at all creditable to a work undertaken in the name of religion. The results were also felt long after. If all revolutions easily led to such consequences, in this instance the lamentable moral outcome was all the more inevitable, seeing that “freedom” was the watchword.

The undeniable fact of the existence of such a state of things was all the more disagreeable to its authors, i.e. Luther and his friends, since they were well aware that the great ecclesiastical movements in former days, which had really been inspired by God, usually exhibited, more particularly in their beginnings, abundant moral benefits. “The first fruits of the Spirit,” as they had been manifested in the Church, were very different from those attending the efforts of the Wittenberg Professor, who, nevertheless, had himself designated this period as the “primitiæ spiritus.”[322] It was but poor comfort in their difficulty to strive to reassure themselves by considerations such as Cordus brings forward to meet the complaints we quoted above: “Maybe the Word of God has only now opened our eyes to see clearly, to recognise as sin, and abhor with fear, what formerly we scarcely heeded.” This strange fashion of soothing his conscience he had learnt from Luther. (See vol. iv., xxiv.)

It is worth while to observe the impression which the facts just mentioned made on Luther’s foes.

Erasmus, who at the commencement was not unfavourably disposed towards the movement, turned away from it with disgust, influenced, in part at least, by the tales he heard concerning the apostate priests and religious. “They seek two things,” he wrote, “an income (censum) and a wife; besides, the evangel affords them freedom to live as they please.”[323] In a letter to the Strasburg preacher, Martin Bucer, he said: “Those who have given up the recital of the Canonical Hours do not now pray at all; many who have laid aside the pharisaical dress are really worse than they were before.”[324] And again: “The first thing that makes me draw back from this company is, that I see so many among this troop becoming altogether estranged from the purity of the Gospel. Some I knew as excellent men before they joined this sect; what they are now, I know not, but I hear that many have become worse, and none better.”—The evangel now prospers, he says elsewhere, “because priests and monks take wives contrary to human laws, or at any rate contrary to their vow. Look around and see whether their marriages are more chaste than those of others upon whom they look as heathen.”[325]