A second messenger now came in with the Elector’s letter, conveying the expected summons to proceed to Weimar. On the reader the news it contained concerning the Landgrave fell like the blows of a sledge-hammer. After attentively perusing the letter “with an earnest mien,” he said: “Philip the Landgrave is cracked; he is now asking the Emperor to let him keep both wives.”
The allusion to the Landgrave’s mental state is explained by a former statement of Luther’s made in connection with some words uttered by the Landgrave’s father: “The old Landgrave [William II] used to say to his son Philip: ‘If you take after your mother, then you won’t come to much; if you take after me, you will have nothing about you that I can praise; if you take after both of us, then you will be a real demon.’” Luther had added: “I fear he is also mad, for it runs in the family.”[108] “And Philip [Melanchthon] said: ‘This [the bigamy] is the beginning of his insanity.’”[109]
When Luther re-entered, so the narrator continues, “he was as cheerful as could be, and he said to us: ‘It is grand having something to do, for then we get ideas; otherwise we do nothing but feed and swill. How our Papists will scream! But let them howl to their own destruction. Our cause is a good one and no fault is to be found with our way of life, or rather [he corrects himself] with the life of those who take it seriously. If the Hessian Landgrave has sinned, then that is sin and a scandal. That we have frequently discounselled by good and holy advice; they have seen our innocence and yet refuse to see it. Hence they [the Papists] are now forced to look the Hessian in anum[110] (i.e. are witnesses of his shame). But they will be brought to destruction by [our] scandals because they refuse to listen to the pure doctrine; for God will not on this account forsake us or His Word, or spare them, even though we have our share of sin, for He has resolved to overthrow the Papacy. That has been decreed by God, as we read in Daniel, where it is foretold of him [Antichrist] who is even now at the door: “And none shall help him” (Dan. xi. 45). In former times no power was able to root out the Pope; in our own day no one will be able to help him, because Antichrist is revealed.’”
Thus amidst the trouble looming he finds his chief consolation in his fanatical self-persuasion that the Papacy must fall and that he is the chosen instrument to bring this about, i.e. in his supposed mission to thwart Antichrist, a Divine mission which could not be contravened. Hence his pseudo-mysticism was once again made to serve his purpose.
“If scandals occur amongst us,” he continues, “let us not forget that they existed in Christ’s own circle. The Pharisees were doubtless in glee over our Lord Christ on account of the wickedness of Judas. In the same way the Landgrave has become a Judas to us. ‘Ah, the new prophet has such followers [as Judas, cried the foes of Christ!] What good can come of Christ?’—But because they refused to open their eyes to the miracles, they were forced to see ‘Christum Crucifixum’ and ... later to see and suffer under Titus. But our sins may obtain pardon and be easily remedied; it is only necessary that the Emperor should forbid [the bigamy], or that our Princes should intercede [for the Hessian], which they are at liberty to do, or that he should repudiate the step he took.”
“David also fell, and surely there were greater scandals under Moses in the wilderness. Moses caused his own masters to be slain.... But God had determined to drive out the heathen, hence the scandals amongst the Jews availed not to prevent it. Thus, too, our sins are pardonable, but not those of the Papists; for they are contemners of God, crucify Christ and, though they know better, defend their blasphemies.”
“What advantage do they expect of it,” he goes on to ask in an ironical vein; “they put men to death, but we work for life and take many wives.” This he said, according to the notes, “with a joyful countenance and amidst loud laughter.”[111] “God has resolved to vex the people, and, when my turn comes, I will give them hard words and tell them to look Marcolfus ‘in anum’ since they refuse to look him in the face.” He then went on: “I don’t see why I should trouble myself about the matter. I shall commend it to our God. Should the Macedonian [the Landgrave] desert us, Christ will stand by us, the blessed Schevlimini [כש ליםיבי : Sit at my right hand (Ps. cix. 1)]. He has surely brought us out of even tighter places. The restitution of Würtemberg puts this scandal into the shade, and the Sacramentarians and the revolt [of the Peasants]; and yet God delivered us out of all that.” What he means to say is: Even greater scandal was given by Philip of Hesse when he imposed on Würtemberg the Protestant Duke Ulrich, heedless of the rights of King Ferdinand and of the opposition of the Emperor and the Church;[112] in the same way the ever-recurring dissensions on the Sacrament were an even greater scandal, and so was the late Peasant War which threatened worse things to the Evangelical cause than the Hessian affair.
“Should the Landgrave fall away from us.”—This fear lest Philip should desert their party Luther had expressed in some rather earlier utterances in 1540, when he had described more particularly the Landgrave’s character and attitude. “A strange man!” he says of him. “He was born under a star. He is bent upon having his own way, and so fancies he will obtain the approval of Emperor and Pope. It may be that he will fall away from us on account of this affair.... He is a real Hessian; he cannot be still nor does he know how to yield. When once this business is over he will be hatching something else. But perhaps death will carry him, or her (Margaret), off before.” A Hessian Councillor who was present quite bore out what Luther had said: Nothing was of any avail with the Landgrave, “what he once undertakes he cannot be induced to give up.” In proof of this those present instanced the violence and utter injustice of the raid made on Würtemberg. “Because he is such a strange character,” Luther remarked, “I must let it pass. The Emperor, moreover, will certainly not let him have his way.”[113] “No sensible man would have undertaken that campaign, but he, carried away by fury, managed it quite well. Only wait a little! It [the new scandal] will pass!” Luther was also ready to acknowledge that the Landgrave, in spite of the promises and offers of the Emperor and Duke of Saxony, had remained so far “very faithful” to the Evangel.[114]
In the conversation on June 18, Luther adopts a forcedly light view of the matter: “It is only a three-months’ affair, then the whole thing will fizzle out. Would to God Philip would look at it in this light instead of grieving so over it! The Papists are now Demeas and I Mitio”; with these words commences a string of word-for-word quotations from Terence’s play “Adelphi,” all concerning the harsh and violent Demeas, whom Luther takes as a figure of the Catholic Church, and the mild and peaceable Mitio, in whom Luther sees himself. In the Notes the sentences are given almost unaltered: “The prostitute and the matron living in one house.” “A son is born.” “Margaret has no dowry.” “I, Mitio, say: ‘May the gods direct all for the best!’” “Man’s life is like a throw of the dice.”[115]
“I overlook much worse things than this,” he continues. “If anyone says to me: Are you pleased with what has taken place? I reply: No; oh, would that I could alter it. Since I cannot, I am resolved to bear it with equanimity. I commit it all to our dear God. Let Him preserve His Church as it now stands in order that it may remain in the unity of faith and doctrine and the pure confession of the Word; all I hope for is that it may never grow worse!”