Luther, vol. 3 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

Luther himself had written as early as 1526: “The complaints of the parsons almost everywhere are beyond measure great. The peasants refuse to give anything at all, and there is such ingratitude amongst the people for the Holy Word of God that there can be no doubt a great judgment of God is imminent.... It is the fault of the authorities that the young receive no education and that the land is filled with wild, dissolute folk, so that not only God’s command but our common distress compel us to take some measures.”[82]

“Common distress” was, in point of fact, compelling recourse to the authorities who had confiscated the property of the Church; i.e. the heads of the various parishes or the Electoral Court. The magistrates had laid hands upon the smaller benefices, which, as a matter of fact, were for the most part in their own gift or in that of the families of distinction, whilst in case of dispute the Elector himself had intervened. The best of the plunder naturally went to the Ruler of the land.

Luther addressed the Elector as follows: “Now that an end has been made of the Papal and ecclesiastical tyranny throughout your Highness’s dominions, and now that all the religious houses and endowments have come into the power of your Electoral Highness as the supreme head, this involves the duty and burden of setting this matter in order, since no one else has taken it up, nor has a right to do so.”[83]—Nor was Luther backward in pointing out to the Court, when obliged to complain of the meagre support accorded to the churches, the great service he had done in enriching it: “Has the Prince ever suffered any loss through us?” he asks a person of influence with the Elector in 1520. “Have we not, on the contrary, brought him much gain? Can it be considered an insignificant matter, that not only your souls have been saved by the Evangel, but that also considerable wealth, in the shape of property, has begun to flow into the Prince’s coffers, a source of revenue which is still daily on the increase?”[84]

The appropriation of property by the Elector as Ruler of the land necessarily entailed far-reaching obligations with regard to the churches.

Hence, when, on November 22, 1526, Luther represented to the sovereign the financial distress of the pastors, he also told him, that a just ruler ought to prevail upon his subjects to support the schools, pulpits and parsonages.[85] Johann, in his reply, when agreeing to intervene for the better ordering of the churches, likewise appeals to his rights as sovereign of the country: “Because we judge, and are of opinion, that it beseems us as Ruler to attend to them.”[86]

Luther’s invitation to the Princes to effect by force a reformation of the ecclesiastical order had already thrown wide open the doors to princely aggression.

“The secular power,” Luther had said, “has become a member of the Christian body, and though its work is of the body, yet it belongs to the spiritual estate. Therefore its work shall go forward without let or hindrance amongst all the members of the whole body.” The Christian secular authority shall exercise its office in all freedom, if necessary even against Pope, bishop and priest, for ecclesiastical law is nothing but a fond invention of Roman presumption.[87]

If it was the duty of the rulers to intervene on behalf of the general public needs of Christendom, how much more were they bound to provide for the proper standing and pure doctrine of the pastors. It is they who must assist in bringing about a “real, free Council,” since the Pope, whose duty it was to convene it, neglected to do so; “this no one can do so effectively as the secular powers, particularly now that they have become fellow-Christians, fellow-priests and fellow-clergymen, sharing our power in all things; their office and work, which they have from God over all men, must be allowed free course wherever needful and wholesome.”[88]

Luther was wide-awake to the fact, and reckoned upon it, that the gain to be derived from the rich ecclesiastical property would act as a powerful incentive with those in power to induce them to open their lands to the innovations. What ruler would not be tempted by the prospect of coming so easily into possession of the Church’s wealth, that fabulous patrimony accumulated from the gifts previous ages had made on behalf of the poor, of the service of the altar, of the clergy and the churches? They heard Luther declare that he was going to tear Catholic hearts away from “monasteries and clerical mummery”; they also heard him add: “When they are gone and the churches and convents lie desolate and forsaken, then the rulers of the land may do with them what they please. What care we for wood and stone if once we have captured the hearts?”[89] The taking over of the Church property by the rulers was, according to him, simply the just and natural result of the preaching of the Evangel. This was the light in which he wished the very unspiritual procedure of confiscation to be regarded.