About a year later a Hessian preacher, by the name of Johann Lening, undertook to justify the bigamy of the Landgrave. Under the pseudonym "Huldricus Neobulus" he published a "Dialogus," that is, "an amicable conversation between two persons on the question whether it is in accordance with, or contrary to, divine, natural, imperial, and spiritual laws for a person to have more than one wife at a time," etc. The writer defended bigamy. In an unfinished reply to this book Luther takes strong grounds against him. Referring to the author's argument that bigamy was sanctioned by Moses, Luther says: "The reference to the fathers of whom Moses speaks is irrelevant: Moses is dead. Granted, however, that bigamy was legal in the days of the fathers and Moses, —which can never be established,—still they had God's word for it that such a permission was given them. That we have not. And although it was permitted to the Jews and tolerated by God, while God Himself considered it wrong, . . . it was merely a dispensation. . . . Now, there is a great difference between a legal right and a dispensation, or something that is tolerated or permitted. A legal right is not a dispensation, and a dispensation is not a legal right; whoever does, obtains, or holds something by a dispensation does not do, obtain, or hold it by legal right." Luther then enters upon a brief discussion of the bigamous relationships which were created by the Mosaic laws, and explains that legislation as emergency legislation. He says: "What need is there why we should try to find all sorts of reasons to explain why the fathers under Moses were permitted to have many wives? God is sovereign; He may abrogate, alter, mitigate a law as He pleases, for emergency's sake or not. But it does not behoove us to imitate such instances, much less to establish them as a right. But this Tulrich [so Luther calls the unknown author] rashly declares carnal lust free, and wants to put the world back to where it was before the Flood, when they took them wives, not like the Jews by God's permission, or because of an emergency or for charity's sake towards homeless women, as Moses directs, but, as the text says, 'which they chose' (Gen. 6, 2). That is the way nowadays to rise to the stars. In this way we have Moses and the fathers with their examples as beautiful cloaks for carnal liberty; we say with our lips that we are following the examples of the fathers, but in very deed we act contrary to them. Lord, have mercy! If the world continues, what all may we not expect to happen these times, if even now shameless fellows may print what they please." (21b, 2691 f.)
One might go more exhaustively into the evidence, but the materials here submitted will suffice to convince most men that, while Luther's advice to Philip did create a bigamous relation, Luther was not a defender of bigamy. Every one who has had to deal with questions relating to married life knows that situations arise in the matrimonial relation which simply cannot be threshed out in public, and in which the honest advice of a pious person is invoked to find a way out of a complication. That was the situation confronting Luther: what he advised was meant as an emergency measure to prevent something that was worse. In the same manner Luther had expressed the opinion that it would have been easier to condone a bigamous relation in Henry VIII of England than the unjust divorce which the king was seeking. As a matter of fact, however, Luther and his Wittenberg colleagues were grossly hoodwinked in the matter, both by the Landgrave himself and, what is worse, by the Landgrave's court-preacher, Bucer. Had the true facts been known, the advice, as Luther clearly states, would never have been given. But we can well understand how Luther can declare that under the circumstances under which he thought he was acting he could not have given any different advice. Personally, we have always resented the veiled threat in the Landgrave's request that he would apply to the Pope or the Emperor. Perhaps the remark was not understood as a threat, but as an expression of despair. At any rate, Philip was confident of getting from Rome what he was not sure of obtaining from Luther.
Ought not this remark of the Landgrave caution Luther's Catholic critics to be very careful in what they say about the heinousness of Luther's offense in granting a dispensation from a moral precept? Have they really no such thing as a "dispensation" at Rome? Has not the married relationship come up for "dispensation" in the chancelleries of the Vatican innumerable times? Has not one of the canonized saints of Rome, St. Augustine, declared that bigamy might be permitted if a wife was sterile? Was not concubinage still recognized by law in the sixteenth century in Ireland? Did not King Diarmid have two legitimate wives and two concubines? And he was a Catholic. What have Catholics to say in rejoinder to Sir Henry Maine's assertion that the Canon Law of their Church brought about numerous sexual inequalities? Or to Joseph MacCabe's statement that not until 1060 was there any authoritative mandate of the Church against polygamy, and that even after this prohibition there were numerous instances of concubinage and polygamic marriages in Christian communities? Or to Hallam in his Middle Ages, where he reports concubinage in Europe? Or to Lea, who proves that this evil was not confined to the laity? (See Gallighan, Women under Polygamy, pp. 43. 292. 295. 303. 330. 339.)
All that has so far been said about Luther's views on the subject of polygamy could be most powerfully reinforced by a review of Luther's teaching on matrimony as a divine institution, which Luther consistently throughout his writings regards as monogamous. But this is too well known to require restatement, and is really outside of the scope of this review, which must content itself with submitting the direct argument in rebuttal of the Catholic charge of Luther's advocacy of polygamy. This polygamous Luther, too, is a vision that is rendered possible only through spectacles of hopeless bias.
27. Luther Announces His Death.
Mark Twain awoke one morning to find himself reported dead. He did not accept the invitation suggested in the report, but wired to his friends: "Reports of my death grossly exaggerated." Luther was placed in a similar predicament by Catholics who were deeply interested in the question how long he was to continue to live. One day, in the early part of March, 1545, he was handed a printed letter in Italian which contained the news of his demise under curious circumstances. He thought that he ought not to withhold this interesting information from the world: he had a German translation made of the document, which he published with his remarks as follows:
"Copy of a Letter of the Ambassador of the Most Christian King regarding a Horrible Sign which Occurred in the Shameful Death of Martin Luther.
"A horrible and unheard-of miracle which the blessed God has wrought in the shameful death of Martin Luther, who went to hell, soul and body, as may be clearly seen from a chapter of the letter of the ambassador of the Most Christian King, to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ and the confirmation and comfort of the faithful.
"Copy of the Letter.
"1. Martin Luther, having been taken ill, desired the holy Sacrament of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. He died immediately upon receiving it. When he saw that his sickness was very violent and he was near death, he prayed that his body might be placed on an altar and worshiped as Cod. But the goodness and providence of God had resolved to put an end to his great error and to silence him forever. Accordingly, God did not omit to work this great miracle, which was very much needed, to cause the people to desist from the great, destructive, and ruinous error which the said Luther has caused in the world. As soon as his body had been placed in the grave, an awful rumbling and noise was heard, as if hell and the devils were collapsing. All present were seized with a great fright, terror, and fear, and when they raised their eyes to heaven, they plainly saw the most holy host of our Lord Jesus Christ which this unworthy man was permitted to receive unworthily. I affirm that all who were present saw the most holy host visibly floating in the air. They took the most holy host very devoutly and with great reverence, and gave it a decent place in the sanctuary.