These attempts at explanation and subterfuge to which the sadly embarrassed authors of the “testimony” had recourse were keenly criticised by Feige, the Hessian Chancellor, in the sober, legal replies given by him at the Conference.[138] He pointed out, that: The Landgrave, his master, could not now “regard or admit his marriage to be a mere ‘liaison’”; he would indeed keep it secret so far as in him lay, but deny it he could not without prejudice to his own honour; “since it has become so widely known”; those to whom he had appealed, “as the chiefs of our Christian Churches, for a testimony,” viz. Luther and his theologians, must not now leave him in the lurch, “but bar witness, should necessity arise, that he had not acted unchristianly in this matter, or against God.” Philip, moreover, from the very first, had no intention of restricting the matter to the private tribunal of conscience; the request brought by Bucer plainly showed, that he “was publicly petitioning the tribunal of the Church.” The fact is that the instructions given to Bucer clearly conveyed the Prince’s intention of making public the bigamy and the advice by which it was justified.
Hence, proceeded Feige: Out with it plainly, out with the theological grounds which “moved the theologians to grant such a dispensation!” If these grounds were not against God, then the Landgrave could take his stand on them before the secular law, the Emperor, the Fiscal and the Courts of Justice. Should the theologians, however, really wish to “repudiate” their advice, nothing would be gained; the scandal would be just as great as if they had “admitted” it; and further, it would cause a split in their own confession, for the Prince would be obliged to “disclose the advice.” Luther wanted to get out of the hole by saying he had acted foolishly! Did he not see how “detrimental this would be to his reputation and teaching”? He should “consider what he had written in his Exposition of Genesis twelve years previously, and that this had never been called into question by any of his disciples or followers.” He should remember all that had been done against the Papacy through his work, for which the Bible gave far less sanction than for the dispensation, and which “nevertheless had been accepted and maintained, in opposition to the worldly powers, by an appeal to a Christian Council.”
Hence the Landgrave must urgently request, concludes Feige, that the theologians would, at least “until the Council,” take his part and “admit that what he had done had been agreeable to God.”
The Saxon representatives present at the Conference were, however, ready to follow the course indicated by Luther in case of necessity, viz. to tell a downright lie; rather than that the Prince should be forced to vindicate openly his position it was better to deny it flatly. They declared, without, however, convincing the Conference, “that a flat denial was less culpable before God and in conscience—as could be proved by many examples from Scripture—than to cause a great scandal and lamentable falling away of many good people by a plain and open admission and vindication.”[139]
Philip of Hesse was not particularly edified by the result of the Eisenach Conference. Of all the reports which gradually reached him, those which most aroused his resentment were, first, that Luther should expect him to tell a lie and deny the second marriage, and, secondly, his threat to withdraw the testimony, as issued in error.
Luther had, so far, avoided all direct correspondence with the Landgrave concerning the disastrous affair. Now, however, he was forced to make some statement in reply to a not very friendly letter addressed to him by the Prince.[140]
In this Philip, alluding to the invitation to tell a lie, says: “I will not lie, for lying has an evil sound and no Apostle or even Christian has ever taught it, nay, Christ has forbidden it and said we should keep to yea and nay. That I should declare the lady to be a whore, that I refuse to do, for your advice does not permit of it. I should surely have had no need of your advice to take a whore, neither does it do you credit.” Yet he declares himself ready to give an “obscure reply,” i.e. an ambiguous one; without need he would not disclose the marriage.
Nor does Luther’s threat of retracting the advice and of saying that he had “acted foolishly” affright him. The threat he unceremoniously calls a bit of foolery. “As to what you told my Councillors, viz. that, rather than reveal my reasons, you would say you had acted foolishly, please don’t commit such folly on my account, for then I will confess the reasons, and, in case of necessity, prove them now or later, unless the witnesses die in the meantime.” “Nothing more dreadful has ever come to my ears than that it should have occurred to a brave man to retract what he had granted by a written dispensation to a troubled conscience. If you can answer for it to God, why do you fear and shrink from the world? If the matter is right ‘in conscientia’ before the Almighty, the Eternal and Immortal God, what does the accursed, sodomitic, usurious and besotted world matter?” Here he is using the very words in which Luther was wont to speak of the world and of the contempt with which it should be met. He proceeds with a touch of sarcasm: “Would to God that you and your like would inveigh against and punish those in whom you see such things daily, i.e. adultery, usury and drunkenness—and who yet are supposed to be members of the Church—not merely in writings and sermons but with serious considerations and the ban which the Apostles employed, in order that the whole world may not be scandalised. You see these things, yet what do you and the others do?” In thus finding fault with the Wittenberg habits, he would appear to include the Elector of Saxony, who had a reputation for intemperance. He knew that Luther’s present attitude was in part determined by consideration for his sovereign. In his irritation he also has a sly hit at the Wittenberg theologians: At Eisenach his love for the “lady” (Margaret) had been looked upon askance; “I confess that I love her, but in all honour.... But that I should have taken her because she pleased me, that is only natural, for I see that you holy people also take those that please you. Therefore you may well bear with me, a poor sinner.”
Luther replied on July 24,[141] that he had not deserved that the Landgrave should write to him in so angry a tone. The latter was wrong in supposing, that he wanted to get his neck out of the noose and was not doing all that he could to “serve the Prince humbly and faithfully.” It was not no his own account that he wished to keep his advice secret; “for though all the devils wished the advice to be made public, I would give them by God’s Grace such an answer that they would not find any fault in it.”
It was, so Luther says in this letter, a secret counsel as “all the devils” knew, the keeping secret of which he had requested, “with all diligence,” and which, even at the worst, he would be the last to bring to light. That he, or the Prince himself, was bound to silence by the Seal of Confession, he does not say, though this would have been the place to emphasise it. He merely states that he knew what, in the case of a troubled conscience, “might be remitted out of mercy before God,” and what was not right apart from this necessity. “I should be sorry to see your Serene Highness starting a literary feud with me.” It was true he could not allow the Prince, who was “of the same faith” as himself, “to incur danger and disgrace”; but, should he disclose the counsel, the theologians would not be in a position to “get him out of the bother,” because, in the eyes of the world, “even a hundred Luthers, Philips and others” could not change the law; the secret marriage could never be publicly held as valid, though valid in the tribunal of conscience. He wished to press the matter before the worldly authorities; but here the Prince’s marriage would never be acknowledged; he would only be exposing himself to penalties, and withdrawing himself from the “protection and assistance of the Divine Judgment” under which he stood so long as he regarded it as a marriage merely in conscience.