Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  The letter of censure which he wrote on Luther’s marriage is a strange mixture of annoyance that this step should be taken at so critical a juncture, of displeasure at Luther’s thoughtless buffoonery and frivolous behaviour, and, on the other hand, of forbearance, nay, admiration, for the man who, in other respects, still appeared to him so great. “That his friends [Melanchthon and Camerarius] had privately criticised Luther’s behaviour is proved beyond a doubt from a remark in the letter on Luther’s marriage.”

  The contrast between their wives was also unfavourable to the amity existing between Luther and Melanchthon. The daughter of the Burgomaster of Wittenberg, Catherine Krapp, whom Melanchthon had married, seems to have been a rather haughty patrician, who was disposed to look down on Catherine von Bora, whose family, though aristocratic, had fallen on evil days. In a letter of a friend of Luther the “tyranny of women” is once referred to as a disturbing factor, and the context shows that the complaint was drawn forth by Melanchthon’s wife and not by Bora.

  Melanchthon’s troubles were, however, mostly caused by the differences, literary and theological, which sprang up between Luther and himself, and by his experiences and disappointments in Church matters and questions of conscience.

  Luther’s violent and incautious manner of proceeding led him to surmise, to his great regret, that many had attached themselves to the cause of the innovations merely from a desire for the freedom of the flesh, and that the rising against the older Church had let loose a whole current of base elements. The virulence with which Luther attacked everything could, in Melanchthon’s opinion, only tend to alienate the better sort, i.e. the very people whose help was essential to the carrying out of any real reform.

  As early as 1525 he began to find fault with Luther’s too turbulent ways. In 1526, on the appearance of Erasmus’s “Hyperaspistes,” the scholar’s incisive and brilliant rejoinder to Luther’s “De servo Arbitrio,” Melanchthon feared some unhappy outbreak, and, accordingly, he urgently begged the latter to keep silence in the interests of truth and justice, which he thought to be more likely on the side of Erasmus. To Camerarius he wrote, on April 11, 1526: “Oh, that Luther would hold his tongue! I had hoped that advancing years and his experience of the prevailing evils would have quietened him, but now I see that he is growing even more violent (‘subinde vehementiorem fieri’) in every struggle into which he enters. This causes me great pain.” Erasmus himself he assured later by letter, that he had “never made any secret of this at Wittenberg,” i.e. of his displeasure at the tracts Luther had published against the great Humanist, for one reason “because they were not conducive to the public welfare.”

  It was inevitable that a certain coolness should spring up between them, for though Melanchthon was supple enough to be cautious in his personal dealings with Luther, yet there can be no doubt that many of his strictures duly reached the ears of his friend. The more determined Lutherans, such as Aquila and Amsdorf, even formed a party to thwart his plans. Melanchthon also complains of opponents at the Court. Those who had been dissatisfied with his doings at the Visitation “fanned the flames at Court,” and so much did he suffer through these intrigues that, according to a later statement of his, his “life was actually in danger” (“ut vita mea in discrimen veniret”).

  So greatly was he overwhelmed that, in 1527, he even declared he would rather his son should die than occupy a position of such sore anxiety as his own.

  In spite of the growing independence displayed by Melanchthon, Luther continued to show him the greatest consideration and forbearance, and even to heap literary praise on him, as he did, for instance, in his Preface to Melanchthon’s very mediocre Exposition of the Epistle to the Colossians. He was all the more set on attaching Melanchthon to himself and his cause by such eulogies, because he dreaded lest his comrade’s preference for his Humanistic labours should one day deprive the new faith of his so powerful support.

  The command of the Elector was afterwards to send the learned but timid man to the Diets, notwithstanding that he was quite unsuited for political labours on the great stage of the world. We know already what his feelings were at Spires and then again at Augsburg. His most recent biographer says of the earlier Diet: “The depression induced in him by the Protest of Spires and the growth of Zwinglianism, increased still more during his journey home and the first days after his return; he felt profoundly downcast and looked forward to the future with the utmost anxiety. From his standpoint he certainly had good reason for his fear.” At Augsburg he suffered so much that Luther wrote to him: “You torment yourself without respite.... It is not theology, however, which torments you but your philosophy, and therefore your fears are groundless.” And later: “I have been through greater inward torments than I trust you will ever experience, and such as I would not wish any man, not even our bitterest opponents there. And yet, amidst such troubles, I have often been cheered up by the words of a brother, for instance, Pomeranus, yourself, Jonas, or some other. Hence, why not listen to us, who speak to you, not according to the flesh or world, but undoubtedly according to God and the Holy Ghost?” But you prefer to lean on your philosophy; “Led away by your reason you act according to your own foolishness and are killing yourself ... whereas this matter is really beyond us and must be left to God.” Luther felt convinced that his “prayer for Melanchthon was most certainly being answered.”

  The hope that Melanchthon would get the better of his depression after the momentous Diet was over was only partially realised.

  The conviction that there was no chance of reunion with the existing Church, which he had reached at Augsburg, pierced him to the depths of his soul. “In his quality of theologian,” says Kawerau, “the thought of the Church’s oneness caused him to endure the bitterest agonies, particularly between 1530 and 1532”; if certain of the Catholic leaders sought to draw him over to their side, there was “some justification for their attempts,” to be accounted for by the impression he had given at Augsburg, viz. of not being quite at home among the Evangelicals. What seemed to confirm this impression, adds Kawerau, was “that Melanchthon in his printed, and still more in his epistolary communications, repeatedly gave occasion to people to think that it might be worth while approaching him with fresh proposals of conciliation.”

  Of the psychological struggle hinted at by Kawerau, through which he, who, after Luther, was the chief promoter of the innovations, had to pass, it is possible to gain many a glimpse from contemporary documents.

  The wrong idea which he came more and more to cherish amounted to this: The true doctrine of the Catholic Church of Christ, as against the Roman Catholic Church of the day, is that to be found “in the Epistles of the Apostles and in the recognised ecclesiastical writers.” Without succeeding in finding any position of real safety, he insists on the necessity of sharing the “consensus of the Catholic Church of Christ” and of belonging to the true, ancient and “sublime ‘cœtus ecclesiæ’ over which rules the Son of God.” Hence comes what we find in the Wittenberg certificates of Ordination which he drew up, in which the “doctrina catholicæ ecclesiæ,” taken, of course, in the above uncertain and wholly subjective sense, is declared to have been accepted by the “ordinandi” and to be the best testimony to their office. In this conception of the Church “we find the explanation of the great struggle which it cost him, when, after 1530, he had to face the fact that the schism was real and definitive.... In his conception, the true faith was thus no longer the new Lutheran understanding of the Gospel, but rather the ancient creeds.”

  Cordatus was not so far wrong when he declared, referring to Melanchthon, that at Wittenberg there were men “learned in languages who would rather read and listen to a dead Erasmus than a living Luther.”

  Erasmus himself saw in Melanchthon’s exposition of Romans and in the dedication of the same which the author privately sent him on October 25, 1532, a “clear corroboration of the suspicion that he had come to dislike his own party” (“se suorum pigere”). In
the aforesaid dedication Melanchthon had complained, as he often did, of the religious “controversies and quarrels” which were quite repugnant to him: “As neither side cares for moderation, both have refused to listen to us.” These and such-like admissions “caused Erasmus to think that he was desirous of forsaking the evangelical camp.” In the very year of Erasmus’s death he wrote to him: “I cordially agree with you on most of the questions under discussion.” The fondness of the Wittenbergers for the crude and paradoxical, so he adds, discreetly veiling his meaning in Greek, failed entirely to appeal to him; he was anxious to find “better-sounding” formulæ in which to embody doctrine, but here he was faced by “danger.” He bad reached an age when lie had learnt to treat questions of faith more gingerly than of yore. “Thus, in the presence of Erasmus, he here repudiates the Melanchthon of the early years of the Reformation.”

  At Wittenberg there was then a rumour that Melanchthon intended to migrate elsewhere, because he no longer agreed with Luther and his set. That such was actually his intention has since been confirmed.

  Only in 1900 was a letter unearthed — written by Melanchthon in this critical period (1532), to Andreas Cricius, Catholic bishop of Plozk, and an ardent Humanist — in which he deplores in touching language the “unhappy fate” which had embroiled him in the religious “quarrels.” In the beginning he had taken part in the movement started by Luther under the impression that “certain points connected with piety would be emphasised, and this had, all along, been his object”; his efforts had ever been to “moderate” and to “put an end to controversy”; he also exerted himself “to vindicate the importance of the Church’s constitution.” He expresses his readiness to accept a post of professor which the Bishop might see fit to offer, in which he might find a refuge from the storms at Wittenberg: “If you will point out to me a haven of refuge where I can promote and advance the learning so dear to us both, and in which I have acquired some little proficiency, then I will submit to your authority.” In the same letter, however, he points out that he could never approve of the “cruelty of the opponents” of the Protestant cause, nor would the public decision to be expected fall out in accordance with their ideas; yet neither did he agree with those who wished to destroy the substance of the Church. Cricius appears to have pointed out to him, in a letter now no longer extant, that, before he, the Bishop, could do anything it would be necessary for Melanchthon to sever his connection with the Evangelicals. This he could not bring himself to do. “If you have a more feasible proposal to make, then I will accept it as a Divine call.”

  Shortly before this, on January 31, 1532, Melanchthon had expressed the wish to Duke Magnus of Mecklenburg, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the University of Rostock, that a “quiet spot might be found for him,” lamenting that his time was taken up in matters “altogether repugnant to my character and the learned labours I have ever loved.”

  Hence there is no doubt that, at that time, utterly sick of his work at Luther’s side, he was perfectly ready to change his lodgings. “It was a joyless life that Melanchthon led at Wittenberg. His admiration for Luther was indeed not dead, but mutual trust was wanting.”

  In 1536 the repressed discontent of the ultra-Lutherans broke out into open persecution of Melanchthon. At the head of his assailants was Conrad Cordatus, who had sniffed heresy in the stress Melanchthon laid on the will and on man’s co-operation in the work of Justification; his first step was to begin a controversy with Cruciger, Melanchthon’s friend. At about that time, Luther, in his annoyance with Melanchthon, declared: “I am willing enough to admit Master Philip’s proficiency in the sciences and in philosophy, nothing more; but, with God’s help, I shall have to chop off the head of philosophy, for so it must be.” Nevertheless, to retain the indispensable support of so great a scholar and to preserve peace at the University, Luther preferred to seek a compromise, on the occasion of a solemn Disputation held on June 1, 1537. At the same time, it is true, he characterised the thesis on the “necessity of good works for salvation” as reprehensible and misleading.

  Further difficulties were raised in 1537 by Pastor Jacob Schenk, who would have it that Melanchthon had made treasonable concessions in the interests of the Catholics in the matter of the giving of the chalice. This strained still further his relations with Luther, who had already long been dimly suspicious of Melanchthon’s Zwinglian leanings concerning the Supper. The Elector, who was also vexed, consulted Luther privately concerning Melanchthon; Luther, however, again expressed his regard for him, and deprecated his “being driven from the University,” adding, nevertheless, that, should he seek to assert his opinion on the Supper, then “God’s truth would have to be put first.”

  The intervention of the Elector in this case, and, generally, the interference of the great Lords in ecclesiastical affairs — which frequently marred his plans for conciliation — embittered him more and more as years passed.

  He was perfectly aware that the influential patrons of the innovations were animated by mere egoism, avarice and lust for power. “The rulers have martyred me so long,” he once declared, “that I have no wish to go on living amid such suffering.”

  Yet Melanchthon’s own inclination was more and more in the direction of leaving ecclesiastical affairs to the secular authorities. In his practice he abandoned the idea of an invisible Church even more completely than did Luther. The rigid doctrinal system for which he came to stand in the interests of the pure preaching of the faith, the duty which he assigned to the State of seeing that the proclamation of the Gospel conformed to the standard of the Augsburg Confession, and finally the countenance he gave to the persecution of sectarians by the State, and to State regulation of the Church, all this showed that he was anxious to make of the Church a mere department of the State. The Princes, as principal members of the Church, must, according to him, see “that errors are removed and consciences comforted”; above all they were of course to assist in “checking the encroachments of the Popes.” “To us at the present day it appears strange — though at the time of the Reformation this was not felt at all — that Melanchthon, in the Article of the Augsburg Confession concerning priestly marriage, should have [in the ‘Variata’] made the appeal to the Emperor so comprehensive that the ecclesiastical privileges of the Princes practically became an article of faith.”

  It also displeased him greatly that Luther in his writings should so frequently employ vile and abusive epithets when speaking of great persons. He was loath to see the Catholic Princes thus vilified, particularly when, as in the case of Albert, Elector of Mayence, he had hopes of their assistance. On June 16, 1538, Luther read aloud from the pulpit, and afterwards published in print, a statement of “frightful violence” against this Prince, moved thereto, as it would appear, by the respectful manner in which the Archbishop had been treated by Melanchthon. The latter made no secret of his entire disapproval, and it is to be hoped that others at Wittenberg shared his opinion of this document in which Luther speaks of the German Prince as a false and perjured man, town-clerk and merd-bishop of Halle.

  The fact is, however, that it was in many instances Melanchthon’s own pusillanimity and too great deference to the Protestant Princes which caused him to sanction things which afterwards he regretted. For instance, we hear him complaining, when alluding to the cruelty of Henry VIII. of England, of the “terrible wounds” inflicted on him by a “tyrant.” The “tyrant” to whom he here refers was the bigamist, Philip of Hesse. Melanchthon had been too compliant in the case of both these sovereigns. When Henry VIII., who had fallen out with his spouse, made overtures to the Wittenbergers, it was Melanchthon, who, in view of the king’s desire to contract a fresh marriage, suggested he might take a second wife. Concerning Philip of Hesse’s bigamy he had at the outset had scruples, but he set them aside from the following motive which he himself alleged not long after: “For Philip threatened to apostatise unless we should assist him.” His conscience had reason enough to complain of the �
�terrible wounds” inflicted upon it by this tyrant, but for this Melanchthon himself was answerable. He even assisted personally at the marriage of the second wife, though, possibly, his presence was secured by means of a stratagem. When later, he, even more than his friends, was troubled with remorse concerning his part in the business — especially when the Landgrave, wilfully and “tyrannically,” threatened the theologians with the publication of their permission — he fell a prey to a deadly sickness, due primarily to the depth of his grief and shame. Luther hastened to Weimar where he lay and, in spite of his own depression, by the brave face he put on, and also by his loving care, was able to console the stricken man so that he ultimately recovered. “Martin,” so Melanchthon gratefully declared, “saved me from the jaws of death.”

  By Philip of Hesse, Melanchthon had once before been taken to task over a falsehood of his. It had fallen to Melanchthon to draw up a memorandum, dispatched on September 1, 1538, by the Elector Johann Frederick and the Landgrave Philip, conjointly, to King Henry VIII. of England. In the draft, which was submitted to both Princes, he asserted, contrary to the real state of the case, that, in Germany, there were no Anabaptists “in those districts where the pure doctrine of the Gospel is preached,” though they were to be found “where this doctrine is not preached”; this he wrote though he himself had assisted Luther previously in drawing up memoranda for localities in the immediate vicinity of Wittenberg, directed against the Anabaptists established there in the very bosom of the new Church. The Landgrave refused to agree to such a misrepresentation, even for the sake of predisposing King Henry for Lutheranism. He candidly informed the Elector that he did not agree with this passage, “for there are Anabaptists in those parts of Germany where the pure Gospel is preached just as much as in those where it is not rightly preached.” In consequence the passage in question was left out, merely a general reference to the existence of Anabaptists in Germany being allowed to remain.