K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019] dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historical foundation.”[1020] C. G. Strobel, in his “Melanchthoniana” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021] Against the account Strobel alleges several a priori objections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.
Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022] even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]
It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).
Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.
Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.
It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much with Italian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]
Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025] Here we do not meet the sentence Hæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.
All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026] The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothing obliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]
Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.
The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028] Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029] Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstances related by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030] He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.