All there now remains to do is to illustrate, by statements made by Protestants in earlier and more recent times, two important points connected with the Hessian episode; viz. the unhappy part which politics played in Luther’s attitude, and what he said on lying. Here, again, during the last ten years there has been a movement in Luther’s favour amongst many Protestant theologians.
Concerning the part of politics W. Rockwell, the historian of the bigamy, openly admits, that: “By his threat of seeking protection from the Emperor for his bigamy, Philip overcame the unwillingness of the Wittenbergers to grant the requested dispensation.”[201] “It is clear,” he also says, “that political pressure was brought to bear on the Wittenbergers by the Landgrave, and that to this pressure they yielded.”[202]
That consideration for the effect his decision was likely to have on the attitude of the Landgrave weighed heavily in the balance with Luther in the matter of his “testimony,” it is scarcely possible to deny, after what we have seen. “The Hessian may fall away from us” (above, p. 46), such was one of the fears which undoubtedly had something to do with his compliance. To inspire such fear was plainly the object of Philip’s threat, that, should the Wittenbergers not prove amenable, he would make advances to the Emperor and the Pope, and the repeated allusions made by Luther and his friends to their dread of such a step, and of his falling away, show how his threat continued to ring in their ears.[203]
Bucer declared he had himself agreed to the bigamy from fear lest Philip should otherwise be lost to the Evangelical cause,[204] and his feelings were doubtless shared at Wittenberg. Melanchthon speaks not merely of a possible attempt on Philip’s part to obtain the Emperor’s sanction to his marriage, but of an actual threat to leave the party in the lurch.[205] Johann Brenz, as soon as news reached him in Würtemberg of the Landgrave’s hint of an appeal to the Emperor, saw in it a threat to turn his back on the protesting party.[206] All three probably believed that at heart the Landgrave would remain true to the new faith, but what Luther had chiefly in view was Philip’s position as head of the Schmalkalden League.
The result was all the more tragic. The compliance wrung from the Wittenbergers failed to protect the party from the evil they were so desirous of warding off. Philip’s reconciliation with the Emperor, as already pointed out, was very detrimental to the Schmalkalden League, however insincere his motives may have been.
On this point G. Kawerau says:[207] “In the Landgrave’s resolution to address himself to the Emperor and the Pope, of which they were informed, they [Luther and Melanchthon] saw a ‘public scandal,’ a ‘publica offensio,’ which they sought to obviate by demanding absolute secrecy.”[208] “But the disastrous political consequences did, in the event, make their appearance.... The zealously promoted alliance with François I, to which even the Saxon Elector was not averse, came to nothing and Denmark and Sweden’s overtures had to be repelled. The prime-mover in the Schmalkalden League was himself obliged to cripple the League. ‘The dreaded champion of the Evangel became the tool of the Imperial policy’ (v. Bezold). From that time forward his position lacked precision and his strong initiative was gone.”
G. Ellinger, in his study on Melanchthon, writes: “It can scarcely be gainsaid that Luther and Melanchthon allowed themselves in a moment of weakness to be influenced by the weight of these considerations.” The petition, he explains, had been warmly urged upon the Wittenbergers from a political point of view by Bucer, the intermediary. “If Bucer showed himself favourable to the Landgrave’s views this was due to his wish to preserve thereby the Evangelical cause from the loss of its most doughty champion; for Philip had told him in confidence, that, in the event of the Wittenbergers and the Saxon Electorate refusing their consent, he intended to address himself directly to the Emperor and the Pope in order to obtain sanction for his bigamy.” The Landgrave already, in the summer of 1534, had entertained the idea of approaching the Emperor, and in the spring of 1535 had made proposals to this end. “It can hardly be doubted that in Bucer’s case political reasons turned the scale.” Ellinger refers both to the admission made by Melanchthon and to the significant warning against the Emperor with which the letter of Dispensation closes.[209]
The strongest reprobation of the evil influence exerted over Luther by politics comes, however, from Adolf Hausrath.[210] He makes it clear, that, at Wittenberg, they were aware that Protestantism “would assume quite another aspect were the mighty Protestant leader to go over to the Pope or the Emperor”; never has “the demoralising character of all politics” been more shamefully revealed; “eternal principles were sacrificed to the needs of the moment”; “Philip had to be retained at any cost.” Hence came the “great moral defeat” and Luther’s “fall.”
This indignant language on the part of the Heidelberg historian of the Church has recently been described by a learned theologian on the Protestant side as both “offensive” and uncalled for. Considering Luther’s bold character it is surely very improbable, that an attempt to intimidate him would have had any effect except “to arouse his spirit of defiance”; not under the influence of mere “opportunism” did he act, but, rather, after having, as a confessor, heard “the cry of deep distress” he sought to come to “the aid of a suffering conscience.”—In answer to this we must refer the reader to what has gone before, where this view, which seems a favourite with some moderns, has already sufficiently been dealt with. It need only be added, that the learned author says of the bigamy, that “a fatal blunder” was made by Luther ... but only because the mediæval confessor intervened. “The reformer was not able in every season and situation to assert the new religious principle which we owe to him; hence we have merely one of many instances of failure, though one that may well be termed grotesque and is scarcely to be matched.” “Nothing did more to hinder the triumphal progress of the Reformation than the Landgrave’s ‘Turkish marriage.’” As to the argument drawn from Luther’s boldness and defiance, a Protestant has pointed out, that we are not compelled to regard any compliance from motives of policy as “absolutely precluded”; to say that “political expediency played no part whatever in Luther’s case” is “going a little too far.” “Did then Luther never allow any room to political considerations? Even, for instance, in the question of armed resistance to the Emperor?”[211]