He exhorts Prince Joachim of Anhalt, who had much to suffer from the “Tempter” and from “melancholy,” to be always cheerful, since God has commanded us “to be glad in His presence.” “I, who have passed my life in sorrow and looking at the black side of things, now seek for joy, and find it whenever I can. We now have, praise be to God, so much knowledge [through the Evangel] that we can afford to be cheerful with a good conscience.” It was perfectly true—so he goes on in a strangely shamefaced manner, to tell the pious but faint-hearted Prince—that, at times, he himself still dreaded cheerfulness, as though it were a sin, just as the Prince was inclined to do; “but God-fearing, honourable, modest joy of good and pious people pleases God well, even though occasionally there be a word or merry tale too much.”[1272]
“Nothing does more harm than a sadness,” he declares in 1542. “It drieth up the bones, as we read in Prov. xvii.[22]. Therefore let a young man be cheerful, and for this reason I would inscribe over his table the words ‘Sadness hath killed many, etc.’” (Eccles. xxx. 25).[1273]—“Thoughts of fear,” he insists on another occasion, “are the sure weapons of death”; “Such thoughts have done me more harm than all my enemies and all my labours.” They were at times so insistent that my “efforts against them were in vain.” ... “So depraved is our nature that we are not then open to any consolation; still, they must be fought against by every means.”[1274]
For certain spells, particularly in earlier years, Luther nevertheless succeeded so well in assuming a cheerful air and in keeping it up for a considerable while, in spite of the oppression he felt within, that those who came into contact with him were easily deceived. Of this he once assures us himself; after referring to the great “spiritual temptations” he had undergone with “fear and trembling” he proceeds: “Many think that because I appear outwardly cheerful mine is a bed of roses, but God knows how it stands with me in my life.”[1275]
In a word, we frequently find Luther using jocularity as an antidote against depression. As he had come to look upon it as the best medicine against what he was wont to call his “temptations” and had habituated himself to its use, and as these “temptations” practically never ceased, so, too, he was loath to deprive himself of so welcome a remedy even in the dreariest days of his old age. In 1530, to all intents and purposes, he openly confesses that such was the case. In a letter to Spalatin, written from the Coburg at a time when he was greatly disturbed, he describes for his friend’s amusement the Diet which the birds were holding on the roof of the Castle. His remarks he brings to a conclusion with the words: “Enough of such jests, earnest and needful though they be for driving away the thoughts that worry me—if indeed they can be driven away.”[1276]
Still deeper is the glimpse we get into his inmost thoughts when, in his serious illness of 1527, he voiced his regret for his free and offensive way of talking, remarking that it was often due to his seeking “to drive away the sadness,” to which his “weak flesh” was liable.
One particular instance in which he resorted to jest as a remedy is related in the Table-Talk; “In 1541, on the Sunday after Michaelmas, Dr. Martin was very cheerful and jested with his good friends at table.... He said: Do not take it amiss of me, for I have received many bad tidings to-day and have just read a troublesome letter. Things are ever at their best,” so he concludes defiantly, “when the devil attacks us in this way.”[1277]—It is just the same sort of defiance, that, for all his fear of the devil, leads him to sum up all the worst that the devil can do to him, and then to pour scorn upon it. During the pressing anxieties of the Coburg days at the time of the Diet of Augsburg, it really seemed to him that the devil had “vowed to have his life.” He comforts himself with the words: “Well, if he eats me, he shall, please God, swallow such a purge as shall gripe his belly and make his anus seem all too small.”[1278]
It is a matter of common knowledge that people addicted to melancholy can at certain hours surpass others in cheerfulness and high spirits. When one side of the scale is weighed down with sadness many a man will instinctively mend things by throwing humour into the other; at first, indeed, such humour may be a trifle forced, but later it can become natural and really serve its purpose well. The story often told might quite well be true: an actor consulted a physician for a remedy against melancholy; the latter, not recognising the patient, suggested that he might be cheered by going to see the performance of a famous comedian—who was no other than the patient himself.
More on the Nature of Luther’s Jests
The character of Luther’s peculiar and often very broad and homely humour is well seen in his letter-preface to a story on the devil which he had printed in 1535 and which made the round of Germany.[1279]
The devil, according to this “historia ... which happened on Christmas Eve, 1534,” had appeared to a Lutheran pastor in the confessional, had blasphemed Christ and departed leaving behind a horrible stench. In the Preface Luther pretends to be making enquiries of Amsdorf, “the chief and true Bishop of Magdeburg,” as he calls him, as to the truth and the meaning of the apparition. He begs him “to paint and depict the pious penitent as he deserves,” though quite aware that Amsdorf, the Bishop, would refer back the matter to him as the Pope (“which indeed I am”). He had ready the proper absolution which Amsdorf was to give the devil: “I, by the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the most holy Father Pope Luther the First, deny you the grace of God and life everlasting and herewith consign you to hell,” etc. Meanwhile he himself gives his view of the tale, which he assumes to be true, and, as so often elsewhere when he has to do with the devil, proceeds to mingle mockery of the coarsest sort with bitter earnest. When the Evil One ventures to approach so close to the Evangel, every nerve of Luther is strung to hatred against the devil and his Roman Pope, both of whom he overwhelms with a shower of the foulest abuse.