Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

THE REFORMER AGAINST THE FANATICS AND PEASANTS UP TO 1525.

In his new as in his old contests, Luther's experiences remained such as he described them to Hartmuth of Kronberg, on his return to Wittenberg. 'All my enemies, near as they have reached me, have not hit me as hard as I have now been hit by our own people.'

At first, indeed, Carlstadt kept silent, and continued quietly, till Easter 1523, his lectures at the university. But inwardly he was inclined to a mysticism resembling that of the Zwickau fanatics, and imbibed, like theirs, from mediæval writings; and he too, soon turned, with these views, to new and practical projects of reform.

He now began to unfold in writing his ideas of a true union of the soul with God. He too explained how the souls of all creatures should empty themselves, so to speak, and prepare themselves in absolute passiveness, in 'inaction and lassitude,' for a glorified state. His profession of learning, and his academical and clerical dignities he resigned, as ministering to vanity. He bought a small property near Wittenberg, and repaired thither to live as a layman and peasant. He wore a peasant's coat, and mixed with the other peasants as 'Neighbour Andrew.' Luther saw him there, standing with bare feet amid heaps of manure, and loading it on a cart.

He found a place for the exercise of his new work in the church at Orlamünde on the Saale, above Jena. This parish, like several others, had been incorporated with the university at Wittenberg, and its revenues formed part of its endowment, being specially attached to the archdeaconry of the Convent Church, which was united with Carlstadt's professorship. The living there, with most of its emoluments, had passed accordingly to Carlstadt, but the office of pastor could only be performed by vicars, as they were called, regularly nominated, and appointed by the Elector. Carlstadt now took advantage of a vacancy in the office, to go on his own authority as pastor to Orlamünde, without wishing to resign his appointment and its pay at Wittenberg. By his preaching and personal influence he soon won over the local congregation to his side, and ended by gaining as great an influence here as he had done at Wittenberg. Here also the images were abolished and destroyed, crucifixes and other representations of Christ no less than images of the saints. Carlstadt now openly declared that no respect was to be paid to any local authority, nor any regard to other congregations; they were to execute freely the commands of God, and whatever was contrary to God, they were to cast down and hew to pieces. And in interpreting and applying these commands of God he went to more extravagant lengths than ever. Must not the letter of the Old Testament be the law for other things as well as images? Acting on this idea, he demanded that Sunday should be observed with rest in all the Mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with God. He proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the Jews in the Old Testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of Orlamünde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. He began, at the same time, to dispute the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament—a doctrine which Luther steadfastly insisted on in his contest with the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation. By an extraordinary perversion, as is evident at a glance, of the meaning of Christ's words of institution, he maintained that when our Saviour said 'This is My Body,'—alluding, of course, to the bread which He was then distributing, He was not referring to the bread at all, but only to His own body, as He stood there.

The inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Kahla were seized with the same spirit. These mystical ideas and phrases assumed strange forms of expression among the common people, who jumbled together in wild confusion the supernatural and the material. Carlstadt kept up also a secret correspondence with Münzer.

The question of the authority of the Old Testament soon took a wider range. It seemed to be one of the authority of Scripture in general, which was contended for against the Papists. If the authority of God's Word in the Old Testament applied to the whole domain of civil life, should it not equally apply, as against particular regulations established by civil society? On these principles, for example, all taking of interest, as well as usury, was declared to be forbidden, just as it had been forbidden to God's people of old. A restoration of the Mosaic year of Jubilee was even talked of, when after fifty years all land which had passed into other hands should revert to its original owners. With eagerness the people took up these new ideas of social reform, so specious and so full of promises. The evangelical and earnest preacher, Strauss at Eisenach, worked zealously with word and pen in this direction. Even a court-preacher of Duke John, Wolfgang Stein at Weimar, espoused the movement.

Meanwhile Münzer came again to Central Germany. He had succeeded, at Easter 1523, in obtaining the office of pastor at Allstedt, a small town in a lateral valley of the Unstrut. In him, more than in any other, the spirit of the Zwickau prophets fermented with full force, and was preparing for a violent outburst. Alone, in the room of a church tower, he held secret intercourse with his God, and boasted of his answers and revelations. He affected the appearance and demeanour of a man whose soul was absorbed in tranquillity, devoid of all finite ideas or aspirations, and open and free to receive God's Spirit and inner Word. More violently than even the champions of Catholic asceticism, he reproached Luther for leading a comfortable, carnal life. But his whole energies were directed to establishing a Kingdom of the Saints,—an external one, with external power and splendour. His preaching dwelt incessantly on the duty of destroying and killing the ungodly, and especially all tyrants. He wished to see a practical application given to the words of the Mosaic dispensation, commanding God's people to destroy the heathen nations from out of the promised land, to overthrow their altars, and burn their graven images with fire. Community of property was to be a particular institution of the Kingdom of God, the property being distributed to each man according to his need: whatever prince or lord refused to do this, was to be hanged or beheaded. Meanwhile, Münzer sought by means of secret emissaries in all directions to enlist the saints into a secret confederacy. His chief associate was the former monk, Pfeifer at Mühlhausen, not far from Allstedt. The Orlamündians, however, whom also he endeavoured to seduce to his policy of violence, would have nothing to say to such overtures.

The Elector Frederick even now came only tardily to the resolve, to interpose, in these ecclesiastical matters and disputes, his authority as sovereign, nor did Luther himself desire his intervention so long as the struggle was one of minds about the truth. Duke John had been strongly influenced by the ideas of his court-preacher. The princes still hoped to be able to restore peace between Luther and his colleague, Carlstadt, who, with all his misty projects, was still of importance as a theologian.

Carlstadt consented, indeed, at Easter in 1524, to resume quietly his duties at Wittenberg university. But he soon returned to Orlamünde, to re-assert his position there as head and reformer of the Church.