Luther had, moreover, a special motive for drawing his creations from this polluted well. He wished to arouse the lower classes and to ingratiate himself with those who, the less capable they were of thinking for themselves or of forming a true judgment, were all the readier to welcome coarseness, banter and the tone of the gutter. Amidst their derisive laughter he flings his filth in the face of his opponents, of the Catholics throughout the world, the Pope, the hierarchy and the German past.
If at Rome they had to prove that the Keys had been given to St. Peter “the Pope’s nether garments would fare badly.”[1099] Of the Papal dispensation for the clergy to marry, which many confidently expected, Luther says, that it would be just the thing for the devil; “let him open his bowels over his dispensation and sling it about his neck.”[1100]—The Princes and nobles (those who were on the other side) “soiled their breeches so shamefully in the Peasant War that even now they can be smelt afar off.”[1101]—He declares of the head of the Church of Rome: “Among real Christians no one is more utterly despicable than the Pope ... he stinks like a hoopoe’s nest.”[1102] Of those generally who opposed the Divine Word he says: “No smell is worse than yours.”[1103]—“Good-bye, beloved Rome; let what stinks go on stinking.”[1104]
“It is stupid of the Papists to wear breeches. How if they were to get drunk and let slip a motion?”[1105] This concern we find expressed in Luther’s “Etliche Sprüche wider das Concilium Obstantiense” (1535). And it is quite in keeping with other utterances in the same writing. He there speaks of the “dragons’ heads that peep and spew out of the hind-quarters of the Pope-Ass,”[1106] and on the same page ventures to address our Saviour as follows: “Beloved Lord Jesus Christ, it is high time that Thou shouldst lay bare, back and front, the shame of the furious, bloodthirsty, purple-clad harridan and reveal it to the whole world in preparation for the dawn of Thy bright Coming.”
Naturally he is no less unrestrained in his attacks on all who defended Popery. Of Eck’s ideas on chastity he remarks: “Your he-goat to your nostrils smells like balsam.”[1107] Of Cardinal Albert of Mayence and his party he wrote, during the Schönitz controversy: These “knaves and liars” “bring out foul rags fit only for devils and men to use in the closet.”[1108] The epithet, merd-priest, merd-bishop, is several times applied by him to members of the Catholic hierarchy.[1109] “The poor merd-priest wanted to ease himself, but, alas, there was nothing in his bowels.”[1110]
The Jurists who still clung to Canon Law he declares “invade the churches with their Pope like so many swine; yet there is another place whither they might more seemingly betake themselves if they wish to wipe the fundament of their Pope.”[1111] The Italians think that “whatever a Cardinal gives vent to, however vile it be, is a new article of faith promulgated for the benefit of the Germans.”[1112] To the Papists who threaten him with a Council he says: “If they are angry let them ease themselves into their breeches and sling it round their neck; that will be real balsam and pax for such thin-skinned saints.”[1113]—The fanatics who opposed his teaching on the Sacrament were also twitted on the score that “they would surely ease themselves on it and make use of it in the privy.”[1114] The Princes and scoundrel nobles faithfully followed the devil’s lead, who cannot bear to listen to God’s Word “but shows it his backside.”[1115] How are we best to answer an opponent, even the Pope? As though he were a “despicable drunkard.” “Give them the fig” (i.e. make a certain obscene gesture with the fist).[1116]—Such is his own remedy in all hostility and every misfortune: “I give them the fig.”[1117] His usual counsel is, however, to turn one’s “posterior” on them.
The Pope is the “filth which the devil has dropped in the Church”; he is the “devil’s bishop and the devil himself.”[1118]—Commenting on the Papal formula “districte mandantes,” he adds: “Ja, in Ars.”[1119] They want “me to run to Rome and fetch forgiveness of sins. Yes, forsooth, an evacuation!”[1120]
Of the Pope’s Bull of excommunication he says “they ought to order his horrid ban to be taken to the back quarters where children of Adam go to stool; it might then be used as a pocket-handkerchief.”[1121]—We must seize hold of the “vices” of the Pope and his clergy and show them up as real lechers; thus should all those who hold the office of preacher “set their droppings under the very noses of the Pope and the bishops.”[1122] “The spirit of the Pope, the father of lies,” wishes to display his wisdom by so altering the Word of God, that it “reeks of his stale filth.”[1123]—These people, who, like the Pope, are so learned in the Scripture, are “clever sophists,” experts in equine anal functions.[1124] They have “taken it upon themselves to come to the assistance of the whole world with their chastity and good works,” but, in reality, they merely “stuff our mouths with horse-dung.”[1125]
Of the alleged Papal usurpations he exclaims: “Were such muck as this stirred up in a free Council, what a stench there would be!”[1126]—The same favourite figure of speech helps him against the Sacramentarians: “What useful purpose can be served by my raking up all the devil’s filth?”[1127]—This phrase was at least more in place when Luther, referring to Philip of Hesse’s bigamy, said, that he “was not going to stir up the filth under the public nose.”[1128]—After their defeat he refused to comply with the demand of the peasants, that he should support them in their lawlessness: They want us to lend them a hand in “stirring up thoroughly the filth that is so eager to stink, till their mouths and noses are choked with it.”[1129] But it is to the Pope and his followers that, by preference, he applies such imagery. “They have forsaken the stool of St. Peter and St. Paul and now parade their filth [concerning original sin]; to such a pass have they come that they no longer believe anything, whether concerning the Gospel, or Christ, or even their own teaching.”[1130]—“This is the filth they now purvey, viz. that we are saved by our works; this is the devil’s own poisonous tail.”[1131]—Of those who awaited the decision of a Council he writes: “Let the devil wait if he chooses.... The members of the body must not wait till the filth says and decrees whether the body is healthy or not. We are determined to learn this from the members themselves and not from the urine, excrement and filth. In the same way we shall not wait for the Pope and bishops in Council to say: This is right. For they are no part of the body, or clean and healthy members, but merely the filth of squiredom, merd spattered on the sleeve and veritable ordure, for they persecute the true Evangel, well knowing it to be the Word of God. Therefore we can see they are but filth, stench and limbs of Satan.”[1132]
At the time of the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, he informed the delegates of his party: “You are treating, not with men, but with the very gates of hell.... But they have fallen foul of the wisdom of God and [the final sentence of this Latin epistle is in German] soil themselves with their own filthy wisdom. Amen, Amen.”[1133]—The words “bescheissen” and “beschmeissen” (cp. popular French: “emmerder”) flow naturally from Luther’s pen. Neobulus, the Hessian defender of the bigamy, he describes as “a prince of darkness,” who “has ‘defiled’ himself with his wisdom”;[1134] the papal “Jackanapes” who “declare that the Lutherans have risen in revolt,” have likewise “‘defiled’ themselves with their sophistry.”[1135]
He asserts he can say “with a clear conscience that the Pope is a merd-ass and the foe of God.”[1136] “The Pope-Ass has emitted a great and horrible ordure here.... A wonder it did not tear his anus or burst his belly.” “There lies the Pope in his own dung.”[1137] “The Popes are so fond of lies and scurrilities that their paunch waxes fat on them”; they are waiting to see “whether the Pope’s motions will not ultimately scare the kings.... The Papal hypocrites—I had almost said the devil’s excrements—boast of being masters over the whole world.”[1138]