“It was the Reformation,” so O. Gierke says, “that brought about the energetic revival of the theocratic ideal. In spite of all their differences Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli and Calvin agree in emphasising the Christian call, and, consequently, the divine right of the secular authority. Indeed, on the one hand by subordinating the Church more or less to the State, and on the other by making the State’s authority dependent on its fulfilling its religious duties, they give to the Pauline dictum ‘All authority comes from God’ a far wider scope than it had ever had before.”[2247]
Luther’s Real Merit and his Claims
If anyone ever really believed that the modern State was in any way embodied in Luther’s ideal or that he paved the way for it, the easiest way to disprove such an assumption would be to show that the most essential feature of the modern State is entirely wanting in the Lutheran, patriarchal one, viz. freedom and the political co-operation of the people, and, above all, the vital atmosphere of personal and corporate independence in religious matters.
In point of fact the most that can be argued is that Luther to some extent, though in an entirely negative way, paved the road for the modern conception of the State.
This he did by his relentless opposition to the Church, which had so long held sway. As early as the days of Boniface VIII attempts had been made to curtail her action in politics. The efforts of some of the Catholic sovereigns, who, without denying the inherent rights of the spiritual authority, laboured to establish State-Churches also tended in the same direction. Luther was, however, the first who sought to destroy all ecclesiastical authority, as a mere symbol of Antichrist. Hence, for those rulers who took his part, one of the chief obstacles that had withstood the growth of modern conditions was swept away. Nevertheless, wellnigh three hundred years, full of gloomy experiences, had to elapse before a way could be found out of the new labyrinth of despotism, indolence and disorder; and, all this while, the theocratic patriarch of Lutheranism almost invariably stood as an obstacle in the way of development.
Frank Ward may indeed assert, that it is possible “to appeal at least to the spirit of his theory of the State, if not to its every detail.”[2248] This, however, is only possible if by “its spirit” we understand not what was new but the old, wholesome, traditional elements which Luther retained, i.e. the political ideas handed down by antiquity and the Christian philosophy of the past, on which he so skilfully impressed his own drastic touch. To these olden elements Luther was, however, scarcely fair.
According to what he says and reiterates there had devolved on him alone the incredibly onerous task of finding a way out of the gruesome darkness into which the relations between prince and hierarchy, State and Church, spiritual and temporal order had been plunged in the past: “This is how things stood then. No one had heard or taught, nor did anyone know anything concerning the secular authority, whence it came, what its office or work was, or how it should serve God. The most learned men—I will not name them—looked upon the secular power as a heathen, human and ungodly thing, as a state dangerous to salvation.... In short princes and lords, even such as wished to be pious, regarded their station and office as of no account.... Thus the Pope and the clergy were at that time all in all, over all and in all, like a very god in the world, and the secular power lay unknown and uncared for in the darkness.”[2249]
Yet he himself had abased the authorities by reducing them in his writing of 1523 to the position of “jailers and hangmen,” working in a domain foreign to all that was spiritual.[2250] This, of course, was at a time when he had not as yet found patrons amongst the rulers as he was to do later. According to him, those who wielded the secular power, i.e. the princes, were no Christians. In 1522 he complains of the princes to whom he had appealed in vain: “Now they let everything go and one stands in the way of the other. Some even help and further the cause of Antichrist. They are at loggerheads and do not show themselves at all willing to help matters on.”[2251] Thus, according to him, Christ is left to Himself; but “He is the Lord of life and death.... Together with Him we too shall conquer and despise even the princes.”[2252] “God Himself will shortly make an end of Popery by His Word.... A new Church will arise but not by the doing of the princes but of those in whom the Word of God has really taken root.”[2253] Luther then wished, as we have already shown, to bring about the establishment of a Congregational Church; later on he even dreamed of assembling together only the true believers. As, however, the Congregational Churches did not thrive and as it proved impossible to carry out the scheme of a Church apart, he allowed the State to intervene, and, with its help, there came the National Church; this soon grew into a State-Church with the sovereign at its head.
Luther still remained, however, the great teacher. He continued to vaunt his ambiguous “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt.” In 1529 he even related how Duke Frederick had caused this writing to be copied and “specially bound; he was very fond of it because it showed him what his position was.”[2254] In 1533, looking back on the whole of his writings concerning the authorities he says: “In Popery such views of the secular power lay under the bench”; “since the time of the Apostles no doctor or scribe” has instructed the worldly estates so “well and outspokenly” as he, not even “Ambrose and Augustine.”[2255]
We may here recall the sober and perfectly true remark of Fr. v. Bezold. Luther may have plumed himself on having been the first to revive a right understanding of and respect for the secular authority, but that “the indefensibility of this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated.”[2256]