In 1542 Wicel, in his Postils, speaking of the preachers, says: “The words of St. Paul, ‘Art thou loosed from a wife, seek not a wife,’ 1 Cor. vii. 27, have a very unevangelical sound on the lips of these Evangelists. How then must it be? Quick, take a wife or a husband; whether you be young or old, make haste; should one die, don’t delay to take another. Celebrate the wedding, if it turns out ill, then let the maid come! Divorce this one and take in marriage that one, whether the first be living or dead! For chambering and wantonness shall not be neglected,”—“Since the coming of Christ,” says the same writer elsewhere, “there have never been so many divorces as under Luther’s rule.”[511]
Of the unlooked-for effects produced among Luther’s preachers by the above saying, Sebastian Flasch, an ex-Lutheran preacher and native of Mansfeld, complained in 1576: “Although the preachers are married, yet they are so ill-content with their better halves, that, appealing to Luther’s advice, they frequently, in order to gratify their insatiable concupiscence, seduce their maids, and, what is even more shameful, do not blush to misconduct themselves with other men’s wives or to exchange wives among themselves.” He appeals to his long experience of Lutheranism and relates that such a “commutatio uxorum” had been proposed to him by a preacher of high standing.[512]—Much earlier than this, in 1532, Johann Mensing, the Dominican, wrote sadly, that the state of matrimony was dreadfully disgraced by the new preachers; “for they give a man two wives, a woman two husbands, allow the man to use the maid should the wife not prove compliant, and the wife to take another husband should her own prove impotent.” “When they feel disposed or moved to what is sin and shameful, they say the Holy Spirit urges them. Is not that a fine tale that all the world is telling about Melchior Myritsch of Magdeburg, of Jacob Probst of Bremen and of others in the Saxon land. What certain mothers have discovered concerning their daughters and maids, who listened to such preaching, it is useless to relate.”[513]—The name of the ex-Augustinian, Melchior Myritsch, or Meirisch, recalls the coarseness of the advice given by Luther, on Feb. 10, 1525, to the latter’s new spouse. (See vol. ii., p. 144.)
Respect for the Female Sex in Luther’s Conversations.
Had Luther, as the legend he set on foot would make us believe, really raised the dignity of woman and the married state to a higher level, we might naturally expect, that, when he has to speak of matters sexual or otherwise repugnant to modesty, he would at least be reticent and dignified in his language. We should expect to find him surrounded at Wittenberg by a certain nobility of thought, a higher, purer atmosphere, a nobler general tone, in some degree of harmony with his extraordinary claims. Instead we are confronted with something very different. Luther’s whole mode of speech, his conversations and ethical trend, are characterised by traits which even the most indulgent of later writers found it difficult to excuse, and which, particularly his want of delicacy towards women, must necessarily prove offensive to all.[514]
Luther was possibly not aware that the word “nun” comes from the Low Latin “nonna,” i.e. woman, and was originally the name given to those who dwelt in the numerous convents of Upper Egypt; he knew, however, well enough that the word “monk” was but a variant of “monachus.” He jestingly gives to both the former and the latter an odious derivation. “The word nun,” he says, “comes from the German, and cloistered women are thus called, because that is the term for unsexed sows; in the same way the word monk is derived from the horses [viz. the gelded horses]. But the operation was not altogether successful, for they are obliged to wear breeches just like other people.”[515] It may be that Catherine, the ex-nun, was present when this was said; at any rate she is frequently mentioned in the Table-Talk as assisting.[516]
He could not let slip the opportunity of having a dig at the ladies who were sometimes present at his post-prandial entertainments. In 1542 conversation turned on Solomon’s many wives and concubines. Luther pointed out,[517] that the figures given in the Bible must be taken as referring to all the women dwelling in the palace, even to such as had no personal intercourse with Solomon. “One might as well say,” he continues, “Dr. Martin has three wives; one is Katey, another Magdalene, the third the pastoress; also a concubine, viz. the virgin Els.[518] This made him laugh [writes the narrator, Caspar Heydenreich]; and besides these he has many girls. In the same way Solomon had three hundred queens; if he took only one every night, the year would be over, and he would not have had a day’s rest. That cannot be, for he had also to govern.”[519]
He advised that those who were troubled with doubts concerning their salvation should speak of improper subjects (“loquaris de venereis”), that was an infallible remedy.[520] In one such case he invited a pupil to jest freely with his own wife, Catherine. “Talk about other things,” Luther urges him, “which entirely distract your thoughts.”[521]
As we know, Luther himself made liberal use of such talk to cheer up himself and others. Thus, in the presence of his guests, in 1537, he joked about Ferdinand, the German King, his extreme thinness and his very stout wife who was suspected of misconduct: “Though he is of such an insignificant bodily frame,” he says, “others will be found to assist him in the nuptial bed. But it is a nuisance to have the world filled with alien heirs.”[522]—This leads him to speak of adulteresses in other districts.[523]
A coarser tale is the one he related about the same time. A minister came to him complaining of giddiness and asking for a remedy. His answer was: “Lass das Loch daheime,” which, so the narrators explain, meant, “that he should not go to such excess in chambering.”[524]—A similar piece of advice is given by Luther in the doggerel verses which occur in his Table-Talk: “Keep your neck warm and cosy,—Do not overload your belly.—Don’t be too sweet on Gertie;—Then your locks will whiten slowly.”[525]—On one occasion he showed his friends a turquoise (“turchesia”), which had been given him, and said, following the superstition of the day, that when immersed in water it would make movements “sicut isti qui eveniunt juveni cum a virgine in chorea circumfertur,” but, that, in doing so, it broke.[526] On account of the many children he had caused to be begotten from priests and religious, he, as we already know, compared himself to Abraham, the father of a great race: He, like Abraham, was the grandfather of all the descendants of the monks, priests and nuns and the father of a mighty people.[527]