These rather unseasonable words were written in a merry mood on Easter Sunday, just as Luther was on the point of leaving Wittenberg for Eisleben. As Luther had not yet made up his mind whether to marry or not, he evaded Spalatin’s invitation to do so immediately with the jest about being a “famous lover,” words probably applied to him by Spalatin in the letter to which this is an answer. He means to say: As a famous lover I have already given you the encouraging example you desire, and the proof of this is to be found in the “three women I loved so deeply as to lose them.” This refers doubtless to three aspirants to matrimony with whom Spalatin was acquainted, and whom common report had designated as likely to wed Luther; who they actually were we do not know. Some Protestants have suggested Ave Alemann and Ave Schönfeld (see above p. 139). The first, a native of Magdeburg, had been presented to Luther during his stay in that town as a likely wife. He would have preferred the second. But of neither could he have said in his letter that they would shortly have other bridegrooms, for Alemann had been married some time, and Schönfeld had to wait long for a spouse. Thus it is incorrect to class them amongst the “three wives,” and these must be sought among others who had intercourse with Luther. The third, at any rate, seems to have been Catherine von Bora, who was stopping at that time in Wittenberg and actually was engaged on matrimonial plans.
In any case, the husband who loses three wives through his “too great love” is a joke on a par with the wonder expressed by Luther, that, after having written so much about marriage and had so much to do with women, he had not himself been turned into a woman.
In his not very choice pleasantries when referring to the intercourse with women which resulted from his writings, Luther makes use of a very equivocal expression, for “misceor feminis,” taken literally in the context in which it stands, would imply sexual commerce with women, which is not at all what the writer intends to convey. It cannot be denied that the jest about the three women and the ambiguous word “misceor,” are out of place and not in keeping with the gravity and moral dignity which we might expect from a man of Luther’s position. Such jests betray a certain levity of character, nor can we see how certain Lutherans can describe the letter as “scrupulously decorous.”
It is nevertheless true, and more particularly of this letter, that the unrestrained humour which so often breaks out in Luther’s writings must be taken into account in order to judge fairly of what he says; it is only in this way that we are able to interpret him rightly. Owing to the fact that the jocose element which, in season and out of season, so frequently characterises Luther’s manner of speaking is lost sight of, his real meaning is often misunderstood.
Just as he had urged his friend Spalatin, so, though in more serious language, Luther exhorts the Elector Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, to matrimony.
This alone should be a sufficient reason for him, he writes, namely, that he is a male; “for it is God’s work and will that a man should have a wife.... Where God does not work a miracle and make of a man an angel, I cannot see how he is to remain without a wife, and avoid God’s anger and displeasure. And it is a terrible thing should he be found without a wife at the hour of death.” He points out to him that the downfall of the whole clergy is merely a question of time, since priests are everywhere scoffed at; “priests and monks are caricatured on every wall, on every bill, and even on the playing cards.” The sanguinary peasant risings which were commencing are also made to serve his ends; God is punishing His people in this way because “the bishops and princes will not make room for the evangel”; the Archbishop ought therefore to follow the “fine example” given recently by the “Grand Master in Prussia,” i.e. marry, and “turn the bishopric into a temporal principality.”[359]
This letter was printed in 1526. Dr. Johann Rühel received instructions to sound the Archbishop as to his views and seek to influence him. It is a well-known fact that Albert was more a temporal potentate than an ecclesiastical dignitary, and that his reputation was by no means spotless.
Archbishop Albert was said to have asked Dr. Rühel, or some other person, why Luther himself did not take a wife, seeing that he “was inciting everyone else to do so.” Should he say this again, Luther writes to Rühel, “You are to reply that I have always feared I was not fit for it. But if my marriage would be a help to his Electoral Grace, I should very soon be ready to prance along in front of him as an example to his Electoral Grace; before quitting this life I purpose in any case to enter into matrimony, which I regard as enjoined by God, even should it be nothing more than an espousal, or Joseph’s marriage.”[360] In what way he feared “not to be fit” for marriage, or why he contemplated nothing more than a “Joseph’s marriage,” Luther does not say. A “Joseph’s marriage” was certainly not calculated to satisfy the demands which he himself was accustomed to make, in the name of nature, concerning conjugal life. At any rate, his observation to Dr. Rühel is very remarkable, as being one of the first indications of his approaching marriage.
At this critical period of his life the free and unrestrained tone which he had employed at an earlier date becomes unpleasantly conspicuous in his letters, writings and sermons. It is sufficient to read the passages in his justification of the nuns’ flight where he treats of his pet conviction, viz. the need of marrying, in words which, from very shame, are not usually repeated. “Scandal, or no scandal,” he concludes his dissertation on the nuns who had forsaken their vow of chastity, “necessity breaks even iron and gives no scandal!”[361] He had already once before complained that our ears have become “much purer than the mouth of the Holy Ghost,” referring to certain sexual matters spoken of very openly in the Old Testament.[362] He himself, however, paid little heed to such conventions, and, especially when jesting, delighted to set them at defiance.