Luther, whose heart was formed to taste the sweets of domestic life, honoured and loved the marriage state; it is even probable that he had some liking for Catherine Bora. For a long while his scruples and the thought of the calumnies which such a step would occasion had prevented his thinking of her; and he had offered the poor Catherine, first to Baumgartner of Nuremberg,[433] and then to Dr. Glatz of Orlamund. But when he saw Baumgartner refuse to take her, and when she had declined to accept Glatz, he asked himself seriously whether he ought not to think of marrying her himself.
LUTHER'S MOTIVES.
His aged father, who had been so grieved when he embraced a monastic life, was urging him to enter the conjugal state.[434] But one idea above all was daily present before Luther's conscience, and with greater energy: marriage is an institution of God,—celibacy an institution of man. He had a horror of every thing that emanated from Rome. He would say to his friends, "I desire to retain nothing of my papistical life."[435] Day and night he prayed and entreated the Lord to deliver him from his uncertainty. At last a single thought broke the last links that still held him captive. To all the motives of propriety and personal obedience which led him to apply to himself this declaration of God, It is not good that man should be alone,[436] was added a motive of a higher and more powerful nature. He saw that if he was called to the marriage-state as a man, he was also called to it as a reformer: this decided him.
"If this monk should marry," said his friend Schurff the lawyer, "he will make all the world and the devil himself burst with laughter, and will destroy the work that he has begun."[437] This remark made a very different impression on Luther from what might have been supposed. To brave the world, the devil, and his enemies, and, by an action which they thought calculated to ruin the cause of the Reformation, prevent its success being in any measure ascribed to him—this was all he desired. Accordingly, boldly raising his head, he replied, "Well, then, I will do it; I will play the devil and the world this trick; I will content my father, and marry Catherine!" Luther, by his marriage, broke off still more completely from the institutions of the Papacy; he confirmed the doctrine he had preached, by his own example, and encouraged timid men to an entire renunciation of their errors.[438] Rome appeared to be recovering here and there the ground she had lost; she flattered herself with the hope of victory; and now a loud explosion scattered terror and surprise through her ranks, and still more fully disclosed to her the courage of the enemy she fancied she had crushed. "I will bear witness to the Gospel," said Luther, "not by my words only, but also by my works. I am determined, in the face of my enemies who already exult and raise the shout of victory, to marry a nun, that they may see and know that they have not conquered me.[439] I do not take a wife that I may live long with her; but seeing the nations and the princes letting loose their fury against me, foreseeing that my end is near, and that after my death they will again trample my doctrine under foot, I am resolved for the edification of the weak to bear a striking testimony to what I teach here below."[440]
LUTHER'S MARRIAGE—SENSATION.
On the 11th of June 1525, Luther went to the house of his friend and colleague Amsdorff. He desired Pomeranus, whom he styled emphatically The Pastor, to bless his union. The celebrated painter Lucas Cranach and Doctor John Apella witnessed the marriage. Melancthon was not present.
No sooner was Luther married than all Europe was disturbed. He was overwhelmed with accusations and calumnies from every quarter. "It is incest," exclaimed Henry VIII. "A monk has married a vestal," said some.[441]—"Antichrist will be the offspring of such a union," said others; "for a prophecy announces that he will be born of a monk and a nun." To this Erasmus replied with a sarcastic smile: "If the prophecy is true, what thousands of antichrists do not already exist in the world!"[442] But while Luther was thus assailed, many wise and moderate men, whom the Roman Church still counted among her members, undertook his defence. "Luther," said Erasmus, "has taken a wife from the noble family of Bora, but she has no dowry."[443] A more valuable testimony was now given in his favour. The master of Germany, Philip Melancthon, whom this bold step had at first alarmed, said with that grave voice to which even his enemies listened with respect: "It is false and slanderous to maintain that there is anything unbecoming in Luther's marriage.[444] I think that in marrying he must have done violence to himself. A married life is one of humility, but it is also a holy state, if there be any such in the world, and the Scriptures everywhere represent it as honourable in the eyes of God."
Luther was troubled at first when he saw such floods of anger and contempt poured out upon him; Melancthon became more earnest in friendship and kindness towards him;[445] and it was not long before the reformer could see a mark of God's approbation in this opposition of man. "If I did not offend the world," said he, "I should have cause to fear that what I have done is displeasing to God."[446]
LUTHER'S DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.
Eight years had elapsed between the time when Luther had attacked the indulgences and his marriage with Catherine Bora. It would be difficult to ascribe, as is still done, his zeal against the abuses of the Church to an "impatient desire" for wedlock. He was then forty-two years old, and Catherine Bora had already been two years in Wittemberg.