Luther, vol. 6 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

In order to understand the victory over the lawyers of which he speaks it will be necessary to cast a glance back on the whole struggle.

As we have already pointed out in the words of a Protestant biographer of Luther the legal status of Lutheranism threatened to give rise to dire complications, while any downright abrogation of Canon Law, such as Luther wished for, was out of the question.[1340] The sober view of the situation taken by the lawyers did not deserve Luther’s offensive treatment. Moreover, under the leadership of Schurf, the lay professors of jurisprudence at the Wittenberg University had many objections to raise against Luther’s demands. They not only upheld clandestine marriages as valid, but, at the same time, defended the indissolubility of marriage, even in the case of adultery, in accordance with the laws of the olden Church; they also held that second marriages were not lawful to the clergy. Schurf likewise wanted the “Evangelical bishops” to be consecrated by papal bishops. A further cause of constant friction lay in the fact that the professors of law were obliged to base their lectures on the books of Canon Law in the absence of any others; whence it came that Luther had to listen to many disagreeable references to the questions of Church property, of the right of inheriting of the children of former monks, of the marriage of nuns, of the legal status of the monasteries, etc. Schurf was otherwise a good Lutheran and had assisted Luther with advice at the Diet of Worms. Melchior Kling, his pupil and colleague at Wittenberg, agreed with him in following the Canon Law on the question of clandestine marriages, according to which (before the Council of Trent had required for the validity of marriage, that it should be performed publicly in the presence of the parish-priest), they were regarded as valid, albeit wrong and forbidden, so that no new marriage could be entered into so long as the parties lived.

Luther hoped, by opposing such marriages, to bring about some improvement in the sad state of morals which the Visitations of 1528 and 1529 had disclosed in the Saxon Electorate. The facility with which such marriages were contracted by the Wittenberg students, and the bad effect they had on the peace of the burghers seemed to him a real blot on the New Evangel. He insisted very strongly that the consent of the parents was required as a condition for marriage; without the parents’ consent the marriages were in his eyes neither public nor valid; it was only where the parents refused their consent on insufficient grounds that he would admit that the bride had any right to enter into a real marriage contract. The decision as to whether the parents’ objections held good was, however, one on which opinions were bound to differ.

Shortly after the Visitations referred to above, in 1529, he wrote his “Von Ehesachen,” published early in 1530; in it he declared: “A secret betrothal simply constitutes no marriage whatsoever,” whilst, as a secret betrothal (i.e. invalid marriage) he regards “any betrothal which takes place without the knowledge and consent of those in authority, and who have the right and power to settle the marriage, viz. the father, mother or whoever stands in their stead.”[1341]

In 1532 he also proclaimed his views against the lawyers from the pulpit without, however, being able to alter thereby either their practice or their teaching. He lamented in 1538 the blindness of Schurf, who paid more attention to man-made laws than to God’s Word and authority.[1342]

After some new disputes he delivered a sermon on Feb. 23, 1539, in which he threatened to put on his horns. In it he called his opponents blockheads; they ought “to reverence our doctrine as the Word of God, coming from the mouth of the Holy Ghost.”[1343] He was not going to worship the Pope’s ordure for the sake of the jurists; “let them let our Church be”; but “now the lawyers are seeking to corrupt our young students of theology with their Papal filth.”[1344]

Schurf seems to have yielded so far as no longer to attempt to make his opinions public or official.

The greatest tussle, however, ensued on the establishment of the Consistories in 1539, as the lawyers who were entrusted with the matrimonial cases, treated the clandestine marriages as valid, and, in other ways, also took Schurf’s side.

Luther asserted that by countenancing the “espousals,” which were “an institution of the devil and the Pope,” the good name and the morals of Wittenberg were being undermined. “Many of the parents say that, when they send their boys to us to study, we hang wives round their necks and rob them of their children.” Not only the burghers and students but even the girls themselves “who have waxed bold” use their freedom most wantonly.[1345] In Jan., 1544, in the pulpit, he poured out his wrath in most unmeasured language, particularly on the second Sunday after the Epiphany; in his tragic delivery he said, for instance: “I, Martin Luther, preacher in this Church of Christ, take thee, secret promise and the paternal consent that follows, together with the Pope and the devil who instituted thee, I bind you all together and fling you into the abyss of hell, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.”[1346]