Valentine Ickelsamer, an Anabaptist opponent of Luther’s, reminds him in his writing in defence of Carlstadt in 1525,[326] that Holy Scripture says: “By their works you shall know them.” Even while studying at Wittenberg away, or got out of the difficulty by the help of some paltry gloss.” “You also,” he says to Luther, “loudly complained that we blamed only the faults on your side. No, we do not judge, or blame any sinner as you do; but what we do say is that where Christian faith is not productive of Christian works, there the faith is neither rightly preached nor rightly accepted.”
It is true that this corrector of the public morals could only point to a pretence of works among his own party, and in weighing his evidence against Luther allowance must be made for his prejudice against him. Still, his words give some idea of the character of the protests made against the Wittenberg preachers in the prints of that time. He approves of the marriage of the clergy who had joined Luther’s party, and refuses to open his eyes to what was taking place among the Anabaptists themselves: “They” [your preachers], he says, “threaten and force the poor people by fair, or rather foul and tyrannical, means, to feed their prostitutes, for these clerical fellows judge it better to keep a light woman than a wedded wife, because they are anxious about their external appearance.... Such declare that whoever accuses them of keeping prostitutes lies like a scoundrel.... But if such are not the worst fornicators and knaves, let the fiend fly away with me. I often wonder whether the devil is ever out of temper now, for he has the whole of the preacher folk on his side; on their part there has been nothing but deception.” Were the people to seize the preachers “by the scruff of their neck” on account of their wickedness, then they would call themselves martyrs, and say that Christ had foretold their persecution; true enough the other mad priests [the Catholics] were “clearly messengers and satellites of the devil”; nevertheless he could not help being angered by Luther’s “rich, uncouth, effeminate, whoremongering mob of preachers,” who were so uncharitable in their ways and “who yet pretended to be Christians.”[327]
It is obvious that Ickelsamer and his party went too far when they asserted that not one man who led an honest life was to be found among the Lutheran preachers, for in reality there was no lack of well-meaning men who, like Willibald Pirkheimer and Albrecht Dürer, were bent on making use of their powers in the interests of what they took to be the pure Gospel. This, however, was less frequently the case with the apostate priests and monks. The thoughts of the impartial historian revert of their own accord to the moral disorders prevalent in the older Church. We are not at liberty to ignore the fact that it was impossible for the Catholics at that time to point to any shining examples on their side which might have shamed the Lutherans. They were obliged to admit that the abuses rampant in clerical and monastic life had, as a matter of fact, prepared the way for and facilitated the apostasy of many of those who went over to Luther and became preachers of the new faith. The Church had to lament not only the fate of those who turned their back on her, but the earlier decay of many of her own institutions; under the influence of the spirit of the age this decay was hourly growing worse. At the same time the secession of so many undesirable elements was itself a reason for not despairing of recovery.
A great contrast to the lives of the apostate monks and clergy is nevertheless presented in an account which has been preserved by one of the adherents of the new faith of the conditions prevailing in certain monasteries where the friars, true to the Rule of their founder, kept their vows in the right spirit. The Franciscan Observants of the Province of Higher Germany were then governed by Caspar Schatzgeyer, a capable Bavarian Friar Minor, and, notwithstanding many difficulties, numbered in 1523 no less than 28 friaries and 560 members. In the course of the fifteenth century the Franciscan Observantines had spread far and wide as a result of the reform inaugurated within the Order and approved of by Rome. The Franciscan foundations at Heidelberg, Basle, Tübingen, Nuremberg, Mayence, Ulm, Ingoldstadt, Munich and other cities had one after the other made common cause with the Observants and, unlike the Conventuals, observed the old Rule in all its primitive strictness.
It was Johann Eberlin of Günzburg, a Franciscan who had apostatised to Lutheranism, who, in 1523, in a tract “Against those spurious clergymen of the Christian flock known as barefooted friars or Franciscans,” was compelled to bear witness to the pure and mortified life of these monks with whom he was so well acquainted, though he urges that the devil was artfully using for his own purposes their piety, which was altogether devoid of true faith, “in order to entangle the best and most zealous souls in the meshes of his diabolical net.” “They lead a chaste life in words, works and behaviour,” says Eberlin, speaking of them generally; “if amongst a hundred one should act otherwise, this is not to be wondered at. If he transgresses [in the matter of chastity], he is severely punished as a warning to others. Their rough grey frock and hempen girdle, the absence of boots, breeches, vest, woollen or linen shirt, their not being allowed to bathe, being obliged to sleep in their clothes and not on feather-beds but on straw, their fasts which last half the year, their lengthy services in choir, etc., all this shows everyone that they have little or no care for their own body. Their simplicity in dress and adornment, their great obedience, their not assuming any titles at the University however learned they may be, their seldom riding or driving luxuriously, shows that they are not desirous of pomp or honour. Their possessing nothing, whether in common or individually, their taking no money and refusing even to touch it, their not extorting offerings or dues from the people, but living only on alms with which the people supply them of their own accord; this shows their contempt for the riches of the world. The world is astonished at these men who do not indulge in any of the pleasures of feminine company, or in eating and drinking—for they fast much and never eat flesh meat—or in soft clothing, or long sleep, etc. Hence the world believes them to be more than human; it also sees how these virtuous men preach and hear confessions, scare others from sin, exhort them to virtue, move them to fear hell and God’s judgments, and to desire the Kingdom of Heaven; ever with the Word of God and His judgments on their lips, so that they appear to be well-versed in Scripture, and to be carrying out in their whole life and practice what they teach.... Countless godly men have entered this state; from all ranks, places and countries, people have hastened to join this Order; every corner of Christendom is full of Franciscan friaries.”[328]
3. Reaction of the Apostasy on its Author. His Private Life (1522-1525)
The moral results of Luther’s undertaking and its effect upon himself have been very variously represented. The character of the originator of so gigantic a movement in the realm of ideas could not escape experiencing deeply the reaction of the events in progress; yet the opinion even of his contemporaries concerning Luther’s morals in the critical years immediately preceding his marriage differ widely, according to the view they take of his enterprise. While by his adherents he is hailed as a second Elias,[329] some of his opponents do not hesitate to accuse him of the worst moral aberrations. Ickelsamer, however, one of the spokesmen of the “fanatics,” who did not scruple to raise an angry voice against Luther’s preachers, and even against Luther himself, was unable to adduce against him any evidence of sexual misconduct during those years. It is also very remarkable that Ickelsamer’s friend, Thomas Münzer, in his violent and bitter controversial attack upon Luther dating from that time, was also unable to bring forward charges of immorality. Both would doubtless have gladly availed themselves of any offences against the moral code of which Luther might have been guilty between 1522 and 1524, but in spite of their watchfulness they failed to detect any such.
Nevertheless, accusations of Ickelsamer’s, in which he speaks more in detail of Luther’s “faulty life,” are not lacking.
He finds fault with his “defiant teaching and his wilful disposition,” also with the frightful violence of the abuse with which in his writings he overwhelms his adversaries; recklessly and defiantly he flung abroad books filled with blasphemies. He blames him for the proud and tyrannical manner in which he sets up a “Papal Chair” for himself so as to suppress without mercy the new teachers who differ from him. Concerning his administration, he admits that Luther “exerted himself vigorously to put down evil living, in which efforts it was easy to detect the working of the Christian faith,” but he adds that the “public fornication” of certain masters and college fellows, as well as others who were in high favour, was winked at;[330] he, Ickelsamer, would say of the Wittenberg Professors what had long before been said of Rome: the nearer they live to Wittenberg the worse Christians are. He also reminds Luther of the “scandal and offence” the latter had given him by his excuses for the “mad and immoral goings on” at Wittenberg: “You said, ‘We can’t be angels.’” Of his private life he merely remarks that it annoyed him that Luther, “neglectful of so many urgent matters,” “could sit in the pleasant room overlooking the water,” “drinking cheerfully,” “among the beer-swillers.” Finally, with the usual hypocritical severity of the Anabaptists, he reproaches him concerning other matters, his extravagance in dress, and the pomp displayed at the promotion of Doctors.[331]
Thomas Münzer in his violent “Schutzrede”[332] speaks at great length of Luther’s pride, who, he says, wished to be a new Pope while making a show of humility; he “excited and urged on the people like a hound of hell,” though protesting that he did not wish to raise a revolt, “like a serpent that glides over the rocks.” Luther, in the very title of his work, he describes, as “that dull, effeminate lump of flesh at Wittenberg.” In the course of the same work he speaks of him scornfully as “Martin, the virgin,” and exclaims, “Ah, the chaste Babylonian virgin.” He classes him, on account of his sermons on “freedom,” with those teachers “who are pleasing to the world, which likes an easy life”; he speaks of him sarcastically as a “new Christ” with a “fine subject for his preaching,” viz. “that priests may take wives.”[333] He does not accuse him of any particular moral excess, but nevertheless remarks that “the disgraced monk” was not likely to suffer very severely under the persecution of which he boasted “when enjoying good Malvasian and feasting with light women.”[334] The latter allusion probably refers merely to Luther’s love of a good dinner, and his merry ways at his meals, which, to a strict Anabaptist like Münzer, seemed as deserving of execration as feasting with dissolute women.