The divergencies were so considerable and far-reaching, and the falling away from Luther’s doctrine so great, that Aurifaber, who boasted of having closed the eyes of his immortal master and of being soaked in his spirit, prefaced as follows the collection of the Table-Talk, which he gave to the world in 1566: “His doctrine is now so despised, and, in the German lands men have become so tired, weary and sick of it, that they no longer care to hear his name mentioned, nor do they much esteem the testimony of his books. It has come about that, if one wishes to find Dr. Martin Luther’s doctrine pure and unfalsified anywhere in the German lands, one has to put on strong spectacles and look very closely; this is a dreadful thing to learn.” Aurifaber has this sole consolation, viz. that Luther, because he had foreseen this state of things, had proved himself a “true prophet.”[1534]
Another writer speaks in the following terms of the decay of Luther’s doctrines and the utter contempt for his person: The endless benefits Luther brought to Germany—of these the author enumerates eighteen—those who now profess the Evangel treat with the “most shocking and gruesome unthank,” doing so not merely by their “evil life” but by “scorning, decrying and condemning” both his benefits and his faith. People refuse any longer to follow the great teacher in his chief doctrines “about the Law and the true knowledge of sin,” “true justice,” “the distinction between Law and Gospel,” and about the holy sacraments. “This worthy sendsman of God” meets with “shameful contempt,” nay, with something worse than contempt, seeing that, “to boot, he is abused, reviled and defamed by most people,” which “is all the more hard in that not only his person but also the wholesome doctrine and divine truth revealed to us by Luther the man of God, is too often contemptuously rejected by the greater number.” The author, in his concern, also fears that as people were also bent on introducing changes in the language “in a few years not much will be left of Luther’s pure German speech.”[1535]
At the Court at Dresden, however, the opposition to the Cryptocalvinism described above gradually gathered strength. Finally the Elector August, too, was won over, partly on political, partly on theological grounds. As early as 1573 August declared: “It would not take much to make him send all the rogues to the devil,”[1536] and, on another occasion that, “for the sake of three persons he would not expose his lands to the harm wrought by the Sacramentarians.”[1537] When at last an unmistakably Calvinistic writing by Joachim Curæus on the Supper was published by a Leipzig printer, known to be well disposed to the Wittenberger party, the fury of the Elector broke loose and he declared at a meeting at Torgau “The venomous plant must now be torn up by the roots.”[1538] In his name the so-called Articles of Torgau denoting more or less a return to Luther’s doctrines were drawn up by an ecclesiastical court. All the theologians who refused to subscribe to them were to be “arrested.” On this the Leipzig theologians all signed the Articles, that they agreed in their hearts to all the things contained in Luther’s writings including his controversial writings against the Heavenly Prophets and his “Kurtz Bekentnis” on the Supper.[1539] Among the many Cryptocalvinists who submitted without any protest was Nicholas Selnecker, the editor of Luther’s Table-Talk. In matters of faith he followed the bidding of the secular authorities, and on one occasion, wrote to the Elector that “he would gladly crawl on hands and knees to Dresden only to escape the suspicion which had been cast on him.”[1540]
Among the Wittenbergers, on the other hand, four theologians refused their assent: “Luther’s books,” they said, “were not positive; sometimes he wrote one way, sometimes another; besides which there were dirty spots and objectionable things in his controversial writings.”[1541] Such was the opinion of Widebram, Pezel, Moller and, particularly, Caspar Cruciger. The latter, a personal friend of Luther’s, called the Articles of Torgau “a medley of all sorts of things which Luther himself, had he been alive, would not have signed.” His fate like that of the three others was removal from his office and banishment from the country.
Of the four former favourites at Court Stössel the Superintendent though he craved pardon was kept a prisoner until his death; the Court-preacher Schütz, in spite of his promise to hold his tongue, was shut up in prison for twelve years; the Privy Councillor Craco was flung into the filthiest dungeon of the Pleissenburg at Leipzig, tortured on the rack for four hours and died with mangled limbs on a miserable layer of straw (March 16, 1575).[1542] Finally Peucer, professor of medicine and history, who, owing to his influence, had once controlled the University, because he declared he would not “abjure the doctrine of the Sacrament that had been rooted in his heart for thirty-three years and adopt Luther’s instead,” was left pining in a damp, dirty dungeon in the Pleissenburg and was constantly harried with injunctions “to desist from his devilish errors” and “not to fancy himself wiser and more learned than His Highness the Elector and his distinguished theologians, who had also searched into and pondered over this Article [of the Sacrament].”[1543] He continued to languish in prison, after the death of his wife, Magdalene, Melanchthon’s daughter, sorrowing over his motherless children, until after wellnigh twelve years of captivity he was released at the instance of a prince. “The behaviour of the Elector and Electress and their advisers towards him gives us a glimpse into an abyss of injustice, brutality and malice made all the more revolting by the hypocritical religious cant and pretended zeal for the Church under which they were disguised. In spite of all the attempts made of old as well as later to excuse the course of the so-called cryptocalvinistic controversies, it remains—especially the case of Peucer—one of the darkest pages in the annals of the Lutheran Church and of civilisation in the 16th Century.”[1544]
But the intolerance displayed by orthodoxy in that struggle had been taught it by Luther. As has been shown already, he had urged that, whoever advocated blasphemous articles, even if not guilty of sedition, should be put to death by the authorities; the sovereign must take care that “there is but one religion in each place”; above all, such was the opinion of his friends,—the sovereign should “put a Christian bit in the mouth of all the clergy.”[1545]
The so-called formula of concord (1580)
Owing partly to the wish of the secular authorities for some clearer rule, partly to the sight of the confusion in doctrine and the bad effects of the quarrels on faith, there arose a widespread desire for greater unity based on some new and thoroughly Lutheran formulary.