In connection with the legend of his kindliness, Loesche refers to a remark made by Melanchthon, according to the “Dicta,” about the year 1553: “Whoever murders a tyrant, as did those who murdered N. in Lithuania, offers a holocaust to God.”[1189] Such views regarding the lawfulness of murdering tyrants he seems to have derived from his study of the classics. He had, moreover, already given expression to them long before this, referring to Henry VIII. of England, who had ceased to favour the Reformation as conducted in Germany. In a letter to his friend Veit Dietrich he wishes, that God would send a brave assassin to rid the world of the tyrant.[1190]
Melanchthon was in reality far from tolerant, and in his demands for the punishment of heretics he went to great lengths. It is generally known how he gave it as his opinion, in 1557, that the execution of the Spanish doctor, Michael Servetus, which took place at Geneva in 1553 at the instance of Calvin, was a “pious and memorable example for posterity.”[1191] He wrote to Calvin, on October 14, 1554, concerning the proceedings against Servetus, who had denied the Trinity as well as the divinity of Christ, as follows: “I agree entirely with your sentence; I also declare that your authorities have acted wisely and justly in putting this blasphemous man to death.”[1192] When the severity of the step was blamed by some, he expressed his surprise at the objectors in a letter of August 20, 1555, to Bullinger at Zürich, and sent him a little treatise defending and recommending similar sentences.[1193] He there proves that false doctrines should be treated as notorious blasphemies, and that the secular authorities were accordingly bound by the Divine law to punish them with the utmost severity; Divine chastisements were to be apprehended should the authorities, out of a false sense of pity, show themselves remiss in extirpating erroneous doctrines. Such was indeed the teaching at Wittenberg, as evinced, for instance, by a disputation at the University, where Melanchthon’s friend and colleague, George Major, branded the contrary opinion as “impudent and abominable.”[1194]
Characteristic of Melanchthon, though hitherto little noticed, were the severity and obstinacy with which he sought to carry his intolerance into practice. He relentlessly called in the assistance of the secular authorities against the canons of Cologne who had remained faithful to the religion of their fathers.[1195] As to his opponents within his own fold he demanded that the rulers should punish them, particularly the Anabaptists, not merely as sedition-mongers and rebels, but on account of their doctrinal peculiarities. Their rejection of infant baptism he regarded as one of those blasphemies which ought to be punished by death; the denial of original sin and the theory that the Sacraments were merely signs he looked upon as similar blasphemies. At least those Anabaptists, “who are the heads and leaders,” and who refuse to abjure their errors, “should be put to death by the sword as seditious men and blasphemers.” “Others, who have been led astray, and who, though not so defiant, refuse to recant, should be treated as madmen and sent to jail.”[1196]
Of these principles concerning the coercion of both Catholics and sectarians we have an enduring memorial in Melanchthon’s work dated 1539, and entitled “On the office of Princes.”[1197] Nor did he fail to incite the Lutheran authorities to adopt, in the interests of public worship, coercive measures against negligent Protestants: “I should be pleased were the authorities to make a stringent rule of driving the people to church, particularly on holidays.”[1198]
His fondness for the use of coercion in furthering his own religious views is apparent throughout his career, and how congenial it was to him is clear from the fact that he manifested this leaning at the very outset of the reforms at Wittenberg, even before Luther had seen his way to do the same.
As early as October 20, 1521, subsequent to the changes in public worship which had been effected by the apostate Augustinians supported by some Wittenberg professors such as Carlstadt, Amsdorf, and Jonas, Melanchthon in a written admonition told the Elector, that, as a Christian Prince, he should “make haste to abrogate the abuse of the Mass” in his country and principality, unmindful of the calumnies to which this might give rise, “in order that your Electoral Highness may not, like Capharnaum, be reproached by Christ on the Last Day on account of the great grace and mercy which, without any work of ours, has been shown in your Electoral Highness’s lands, the Holy Evangel being revealed, manifested, and brought to light, and yet all to no purpose”; God would require at his hands an account for the great grace of Luther’s mission.[1199]
In this admonition, brimful of the most bitter prejudice, we find for the first time the principle laid down, that the “salvation of his soul required of a Christian Prince” the prohibition of the olden Catholic worship.
In point of fact Melanchthon was frequently ahead of Luther in carrying the latter’s theories to their logical conclusion, utterly regardless of rights infringed. Thus, for instance, he was before Luther in reaching the conclusion that religious vows were invalid.