As for the concealment, and the secrecy in which the sanction of the bigamy was shrouded, G. Ellinger considers, that the decision of Luther and his friends “became absolutely immoral only through the concealment enjoined by the reformers.” In consequence of the matter being made a secret of conscience, “the second wife would seem to the world a concubine”; hence not only the first wife, but also the second would suffer degradation. The second wife’s relatives had given their consent “only on the hypothesis of a real marriage”; this too was what Philip intended; yet Luther wished him to tell the Emperor that she was a mere concubine; the Landgrave, however, refused to break the word he had given, and “repudiated Luther’s suggestion that he should tell a lie.”[188]
Another Protestant, the historian Paul Tschackert, has recently characterised the Hessian affair as “a dirty story.” “It is, and must remain,” he says, “a shameful blot on the German Reformation and the life of our reformers. We do not wish to gloss it over, still less to excuse it.”[189]
Yet, notably in modern theological literature, some Protestants have seemed anxious to palliate the affair. An attempt is made to place the Wittenberg advice and Luther’s subsequent conduct in a more favourable light by emphasising more than heretofore the secrecy of the advice given, which Luther did not consider himself justified in revealing under any circumstances, and the publication of which the Landgrave was unjustly demanding. It is also urged, that the ecclesiastical influence of the Middle Ages played its part in Luther’s sanction of the bigamy. One author even writes: “the determining factor may have been,” that “at the critical moment the reformer made way for the priest and confessor”; elsewhere the same author says: “Thus the Reformation begins with a mediæval scene.” Another Protestant theologian thinks that “the tendency, taken over from the Catholic Church,” to treat the marriage prohibitions as aspects of the natural law was really responsible; in Luther’s evangelical morality “there was a good lump of Romish morality, worthless quartz mingled with good metal”; “Catholic scruples” had dimmed Luther’s judgment in the matter of polygamy; to us the idea of bigamy appears “simply monstrous,” “but this is a result of age-long habits”; in the 16th century people thought “very differently.”
In the face of the detailed quotations from actual sources already given in the present chapter, all such opinions—not merely Luther’s own appeal to a “secret of confession,” invented by himself—are seen to be utterly unhistorical. Particularly so is the reference to the Catholic Middle Ages. It was just the Middle Ages, and the ecclesiastical tradition of earlier times, which excited among Luther’s contemporaries, even those of his own party, such opposition to the bigamy wherever news of the same penetrated in any shape or form.[190]
In the following we shall quote a few opinions of 16th-century Protestants not yet mentioned. With the historian their unanimous verdict must weigh more heavily in the scale than modern theories, which, other considerations apart, labour under the disadvantage of having been brought forward long after the event and the expressions of opinion which accompanied it, to bolster up views commonly held to-day.[191]
The bigamy was so strongly opposed to public opinion and thus presumably to the tradition handed down from the Middle Ages, that Nicholas von Amsdorf, Luther’s friend, declared the step taken by Philip constituted “a mockery and insult to the Holy Gospel and a scandal to the whole of Christendom.”[192] He thought as did Justus Jonas, who exclaimed: “Oh, what a great scandal!” and, “Who is not aghast at so great and calamitous a scandal?”[193] Erasmus Alber, preacher at Marburg, speaks of the “awful scandal” (“immane scandalum”) which must result.[194] In a letter to the Landgrave in which the Hessian preacher, Anton Corvinus, fears a “great falling away” on account of the affair, he also says, that the world will not “in any way” hear of such a marriage being lawful; his only advice was: “Your Serene Highness must take the matter to heart and, on occasion, have recourse to lying.”[195] To tell a deliberate untruth, as already explained (pp. 29, 53), appeared to other preachers likewise the only possible expedient with which to meet the universal reprobation of contemporaries who judged of the matter from their “mediæval” standpoint.
Justus Menius, the Thuringian preacher, in his work against polygamy mentioned above, appealed to the universal, Divine “prohibition which forbids and restrains us,” a prohibition which applied equally to the “great ones” and allowed of no dispensation. He also pointed out the demoralising effect of a removal of the prohibition in individual cases and the cunning of the devil who wished thereby “to brand the beloved Evangel with infamy.”[196]
Philip had defiled the Church with filth (“fœdissime”), so wrote Johann Brenz, the leader of the innovations in Würtemberg. After such an example he scarcely dared to raise his eyes in the presence of honourable women, seeing what an insult this was to them.[197]
Not to show how reprehensible was the deed, but merely to demonstrate anew how little ground there was for throwing the responsibility on the earlier ages of the Church, we may recall that the Elector, Johann Frederick of Saxony, on first learning of the project through Bucer, expressed his “horror,” and two days later informed the Landgrave through Brück, that such a thing had been unheard of for ages and the law of the land and the tradition of the whole of Christendom were likewise against it. It is true that he allowed himself to be pacified and sent his representative to the wedding, but afterwards he again declared with disapproval, that the whole world, and all Christians without distinction, would declare the Emperor right should he interfere; he also instructed his minister at the Court of Dresden to deny that the Elector or the Wittenberg theologians had had any hand in the matter.[198] Other Princes and politicians belonging to the new faith left on record strong expressions of their disapproval; for instance: Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg, King Christian III of Denmark, the Strasburg statesman Jacob Sturm and the Augsburg ambassador David Dettigkofer.[199] To the latter the news “was frightful tidings from which would result great scandal, a hindrance to and a falling away from the Holy Evangel.”[200]