He never forgave Zwingli, and when some time later the Swiss reformer, acting as a chaplain to the Swiss Protestant Army in a battle with the Swiss Catholic cantons, was killed, Luther pronounced this event a special dispensation of Providence. He was fully persuaded that the special spirit of prophecy had come down over him and that he had been inspired to denounce Zwingli and to declare that his doom was not far off. After the news of Zwingli's sad, untimely end, he wrote to his friend Link:
"We see the judgment of God a second time--first in the case of Münzer, and now of Zwingli. I was a prophet when I said, God will not long endure these mad and furious blasphemies with which they overflow, laughing at our God-made bread, and calling us carnivora, savages, drinkers of blood, and other horrible names."
This exaggeration of his own importance and conviction of his intimate relations with the Deity became more and more manifest as time goes on. The spectacle is not at all unfamiliar, though it is usually pathological, and the surprise always is how many followers such characters are able to gather around them at any time in the history of the race. It is this aspect of Luther's life and the psychic development of his career that have attracted the special attention of historians in recent years and received ample illustration from hitherto unused original documents.
Some of the recent studies of Luther, written by those who are making out just as good a case as possible with all the contemporary information that now is available, have some very illuminating passages as to the character of the reformer, who has been traditionally set up as a great religious leader. For instance, the explanation of how Luther came to permit the Landgrave Philip of Hesse to take a second wife is very disturbing to those who think of him as a reformer of religion. McGiffert, in his "Martin Luther, the Man and His Work" (New York, 1912), has much to say with regard to the permit undoubtedly granted not only by Luther, but also by Melanchthon for this bigamy, and then the proposed denial of the marriage, which is, if possible, more disturbing to the modern world than the permit itself. McGiffert said (p. 364):
"The proposed denial of the marriage, which seems to throw so sinister a light upon the whole affair, Luther justified somewhat sophistically by an appeal to the traditional maxim of the inviolability of the confessional, requiring the priest, if necessary, to tell an untruth rather than divulge its secrets. He justified it also by the more fundamental principle that the supreme ethical motive is regard for our neighbor's good, and it is better to lie than to do him harm. To this principle, taught not by a few ethical teachers of our own as well as other ages, he gave frequent expression."
McGiffert, with all his obvious effort to defend Luther, frankly finds this whole incident too much. He said (p. 366):
"Regarded from any point of view, the landgrave's bigamy was a disgraceful affair, and Luther's consent the gravest blunder [!] of his career. He acted conscientiously [!], but with a lamentable want of moral discernment and a singular lack of penetration and foresight. To approve a relationship so derogatory to the women involved, and so subversive to one of the most sacred safeguards of society, showed too little fineness of moral feeling and sureness of moral conviction; while to be so easily duped by the dissolute prince was no more creditable to his perspicacity than thinking such an affair could be kept secret to his sagacity."
The same biographer has summed up the closing years of Luther's life, from which we have so many records in the shape of letters and documents of various kinds. As McGiffert says: "There is little sign of flagging powers in his later writings. The same Luther still speaks in them with all the racy humor, biting satire and coarse vituperation of his best days." He continues (p. 373):
"Despite the multiplicity of his occupations, his closing years were far from happy. As time passed, he became more censorious, impatient and bitter. He seems to have been troubled less frequently than in earlier life with doubts as to his own spiritual condition and divine mission, but he grew correspondingly despondent over the results of his labors and the unworthiness of his followers. Instead of finding the world transformed into a paradise by his gospel, he saw things continuing much as before, and his heart grew sick with [{253}] disappointment. The first flush of enthusiasm passed, and the joy of battle gone, he had time to observe the results of his work, and they were by no means to his liking.
"Conditions even in Wittenberg itself were little to his liking. In this centre of gospel light he felt there should be a devotion and purity seen nowhere else. Instead, as the town grew in size and importance, and manners lost somewhat of their earlier simplicity, it seemed to his exaggerated sensibilities that everything was going rapidly to the bad."