Luther’s error is evident, though unfortunately not to all, as we can convince ourselves by reading the eulogies of Luther which are still so common under the pen of Protestant writers; for instance, that Luther had “deepened Augustine’s view of the State”; that he was ever moving forward “in a straight line,” expanding and perfecting the knowledge already acquired; and that even in his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” “he was already at his best,” etc.
It may, therefore, be all the more useful to look a little more closely into one side of the present subject which has not yet been dealt with but which leads to interesting disclosures, viz. into the question of the various circumstances, some outward, some inward and personal, which led Luther to evolve his theory of the patriarchal, absolutist State. Here the Visitation of 1527-28 stands out as a milestone on the road of his development.
Other Factors which assisted in the Establishment of the State-Church
It was a common phenomenon in all the earlier struggles against the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the separatists to seek for support and assistance from the secular power and the State. From the time of the earliest controversies in the Church this tendency had been noticed among those who broke away. Luther too, from the time of his first public rupture, had cast his eyes on the secular power; nay, even earlier, in his Commentary on Romans, he betrays a tendency to put the secular before the spiritual.[2257]
To these ideas he gave full play in the call to reform the Church which he addressed “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.”
For the next few years, however, the ideas are less to the fore. Luther was very well aware that a quiet and gradual procedure would appeal far more to the then Elector, Frederick the Wise, than any urging on of the innovations at high pressure and with State interference. The Elector was in fact so averse to taking any strong measures, that on the contrary he frequently impressed on the Wittenberg leaders the need there was for caution.
Matters assumed another aspect, when, in 1525, there came a change of ruler. The Elector Johann of Saxony was a zealous friend of Luther’s and soon became the real patron of Lutheranism. His attitude towards the innovations, taken with Luther’s new tendencies, constituted a prime factor in the rise of a State-governed Church.
Another factor was the condition of the Lutheran congregations which had so far sprung up. They were scattered and devoid of organisation. Not seldom they bore within them seeds of dissension born as they had been out of quarrels within the parishes, and maintained for the most part only by the violent action of a majority of the council. The petty rulers naturally sought to link themselves up with the greater powers so as to maintain both the ecclesiastical innovations and their newly acquired rights. The sovereign was a pillar of strength on whom they leaned, when in doubt, when it was a question of defending the preachers they had appointed, of removing persons they regarded with disfavour, or of allaying disputes amongst the burghers.
To all this, however, must be added a further circumstance which contributed to bring about the State supremacy of a later date, viz., the corruption of many of the newly formed congregations, a corruption which urgently called for a strong hand and adequate means of coercion. “When, after the Peasant War,” writes Carl Müller, “the dreadful decline in things ecclesiastical made itself felt, the parsonages and schools threatening to fall into ruins and the agricultural population to relapse into savagery, the time arrived for the rulers of the land to come into greater prominence. It was now no longer a question of individual congregations but rather of the whole country, and above all of the rising generation.”[2258]