Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  In connection with the eventual fate of the “Variata” we may here refer to the deep animosity which the more zealous Lutherans, with Flacius Illyricus at their head, displayed towards Melanchthon on account of the alterations in the Augsburg Confession. So serious did the rupture become that the dissension between the Protestant theologians actually rendered impossible any public negotiations with the Catholics. This fact proves how little Melanchthon, the then leader of the Protestants, had been successful in welding together with “chains of adamant” the theologians of his party.

  The standpoint of the amended Confession of 1540, however, enlisted all Bucer’s sympathies on Melanchthon’s behalf.

  With Bucer’s smooth ways Melanchthon had already found himself in harmony during the negotiations in view of the Wittenberg Concord. Mentally the two had much in common. Melanchthon had worked with Bucer at Bonn in 1543, making use of every kind of theological artifice and enlisting the service of those who were in revolt against the moral laws of the Church, in order to bring about the apostasy of Cologne, though their efforts were fruitless. Want of success here was, however, not due to any half-measures on Melanchthon’s part, for the latter repeatedly spoke against any toleration being shown to the ancient “errors.” In his reply to Eberhard Billick he attacked, for instance, the “idolatry” which prevailed in the Rhineland, witnessed to by the invocation of Saints, the veneration of images, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Processions of the Sacrament.

  By this attack on the citadel of Catholicism in the Rhine Province he again reaped a harvest of trouble and anxiety, in consequence of his and Bucer’s differences with Luther on the doctrine of the Supper.

  In the text of the “Cologne Book of Reform,” composed by both, Luther failed to find expressed his doctrine of the Presence of Christ, but rather the opposite. For this reason an outbreak on his part was to be feared, and Melanchthon trembled with anxiety, since, as he says in one of his letters, Luther had already begun to “stir up strife” in his sermons. He fully expected to have to go into exile. It was said that Luther was preparing a profession of faith which all his followers would have to sign. But, this time again, Melanchthon was spared, though Bucer was not so fortunate; in Luther’s furious writing against the deniers of the Sacrament, the latter was pilloried, but not Melanchthon. Outwardly Luther and Melanchthon remained friends. In the Swiss camp they were well aware of the difficulties of the scholar who refused to place himself blindly under the spell of Luther’s opinions. Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor at Zürich, invited him to come there and promised to see that the magistrates provided him with a suitable stipend. Calvin declared later, in 1560, that Melanchthon had several times told him sorrowfully, that he would much rather live in Geneva than in Wittenberg. Concerning Melanchthon’s views on the Eucharist, Calvin said: “I can assure you a hundred times over, that to make out Philip to be at variance with me on this doctrine is like tearing him away from his own self.” This explains why Melanchthon always sought to evade the theological question as to how Christ is present in the Sacrament.

  One of the last important works he carried out with Luther was the so-called “Wittenberg Reformation,” a writing drawn up at the Elector’s request. The document, which was presented by Luther and the Wittenberg theologians on January 14, 1545, was intended, in view of the anticipated Diet, to express theologically the position of the Reformers with regard to a “Christian Settlement.” Here Melanchthon found himself in his own element. In this work he distinguished himself, particularly by his cleverly contrived attempts to make out the new doctrine to be that of the old and real Church Catholic, by his stern aversion to Popish “idolatry” and by his repudiation of anything that might be regarded as a concession, also by the unfeasible proposal he made out of mockery, that the bishops, in order to make it possible for the Protestants to join their congregations, should “begin by introducing the pure evangelical doctrine and Christian distribution of the Sacraments,” in which case Protestants would obey them.

  The Wittenbergers, in other words, offered to recognise the episcopate under the old condition, upon which they were ever harping, though well aware that it was impossible for the bishops to accept it.

  They thus showed plainly how much store was to be set on the tolerance of certain externals promised by the wily Melanchthon. In this document he “retained certain outward forms to which the people were accustomed, proposing, however, to render them innocuous by imbuing them with a new spirit, and to use them as means of religious and moral education in the interests of the Evangelical cause. It was in the same sense that he was ready to recognise the episcopate.” In reality it was the merest irony to demand, that all the bishops of Christendom should prepare the way for and welcome the innovations. Such was, however, the spirit and tone of Melanchthon’s “very mild reform,” as Brück the Chancellor described it to the Elector. Luther, however, in order as it were to furnish a commentary on its real sense, at that very time put his pen to his last and most revolting work against the Papacy.

  VOL. IV. THE REFORMER (II)

  CHAPTER XXI

  PRINCELY MARRIAGES

  1. Luther and Henry VIII of England. Bigamy instead of Divorce

  In King Henry the Eighth’s celebrated matrimonial controversy the Roman See by its final decision was energetically to vindicate the cause of justice, in spite of the fear that this might lead to the loss of England to Catholicism. The considered judgment was clear and definite: Rather than countenance the King’s divorce from Queen Catherine, or admit bigamy as lawful, the Roman Church was prepared to see the falling away of the King and larger portion of the realm.

  In the summer, 1531, Luther was drawn into the controversy raging round the King’s marriage, by an agent of King Henry’s. Robert Barnes, an English Doctor of Divinity who had apostatised from the Church and was residing at Wittenberg, requested of Luther, probably at the King’s instigation, an opinion regarding the lawfulness of his sovereign’s divorce.

  To Luther it was clear enough that there was no possibility of questioning the validity of Catherine’s marriage. It rightly appeared to him impossible that the Papal dispensation, by virtue of which Catherine of Aragon had married the King after having been the spouse of his deceased brother, should be represented as sufficient ground for a^ divorce. This view he expressed with praiseworthy frankness in the written answer he gave Barnes.

  At the same time, however, Luther pointed out to the King a loophole by which he might be able to succeed in obtaining the object of his desire; by this concession, unfortunately, he branded his action as a pandering to the passions of an adulterous King. At the conclusion of his memorandum to Barnes he has the following: “Should the Queen be unable to prevent the divorce, she must accept the great evil and most insulting injustice as a cross, but not in any way acquiesce in it or consent to it. Better were it for her to allow the King to wed another Queen, after the example of the Patriarchs, who, in the ages previous to the law, had many wives; but she must not consent to being excluded from her conjugal rights or to forfeiting the title of Queen of England.”

  It has been already pointed out that Luther, in consequence of his one-sided study of the Old Testament, had accustomed himself more and more to regard bigamy as something lawful. That, however, he had so far ever given his formal consent to it in any particular instance there is no proof. In the case of Henry VIII, Luther felt less restraint than usual. His plain hint at bigamy as a way out of the difficulty was intended as a counsel (“suasimus”). Hence we can understand why he was anxious that his opinion should not be made too public. When, in the same year (1531), he forwarded to the Landgrave of Hesse what purported to be a copy of the memorandum, the incriminating passage was carefully omitted.

  Melanchthon, too, had intervened in the affair, and had gone considerably further than Luther in recommending recourse to bigamy and in answering possible objections to polygamy.

  In a memorandum of Aug. 23, Melanchthon declared
that the King was entirely justified in seeking to obtain the male heirs with whom Catherine had failed to present him; this was demanded by the interests of the State. He endeavours to show that polygamy is not forbidden by Divine law; in order to avoid scandal it was, however, desirable that the King “should request the Pope to sanction his bigamy, permission being granted readily enough at Rome.” Should the Pope refuse to give the dispensation, then the King was simply and of his own authority to have recourse to bigamy, because in that case the Pope was not doing his duty, for he was “bound in charity to grant this dispensation.” “Although I should be loath to allow polygamy generally, yet, in the present case, on account of the great advantage to the kingdom and perhaps to the King’s conscience, I would say: The King may, with a good conscience (‘tutissimum est regi’), take a second wife while retaining the first, because it is certain that polygamy is not forbidden by the Divine law, nor is it so very unusual.” Melanchthon’s ruthless manner of proceeding undoubtedly had a great influence on the other Wittenbergers, even though it cannot be maintained, as has been done, that he, and not Luther, was the originator of the whole theory; there are too many clear and definite earlier statements of Luther’s in favour of polygamy to disprove this. Still, it is true that the lax opinion broached by Melanchthon in favour of the King of England played a great part later in the matter of the bigamy of the Landgrave of Hesse.

  In the same year, however, there appeared a work on matrimony by the Lutheran theologian Johann Brenz in which, speaking generally and without reference to this particular case, he expressed himself very strongly against the lawfulness of polygamy. “The secular authorities,” so Brenz insists, “must not allow any of their subjects to have two or more wives,” they must, on the contrary, put into motion the “penalties of the Imperial Laws” against polygamy; no pastor may “bless or ratify” such marriages, but is bound to excommunicate the offenders. Strange to say, the work appeared with a Preface by Luther in which, however, he neither praises nor blames this opinion.

  The Strasburg theologians, Bucer and Capito, as well as the Constance preacher, Ambrosius Blaurer, also stood up for the lawfulness of bigamy. When, however, this reached the ears of the Swiss theologians, Œcolampadius, in a letter of Aug. 20, exclaimed: “They were inclined to consent to the King’s bigamy! But far be it from us to hearken more to Mohammed in this matter than to Christ!”

  In spite of the alluring hint thrown out at Wittenberg, the adulterous King, as everyone knows, did not resort to bigamy. It was Henry the Eighth’s wish to be rid of his wife, and, having had her removed, he regarded himself as divorced. After the King had repudiated Catherine, Luther told his friends: “The Universities [i.e. those which sided with the English King] have declared that there must be a divorce. We, however, and the University of Louvain, decided differently.... We [viz. Luther and Melanchthon] advised the Englishman that it would be better for him to take a concubine than to distract his country and nation; yet in the end he put her away.”

  When Clement VII declared the first marriage to be valid and indissoluble, and also refused to countenance any bigamy, Henry VIII retorted by breaking with the Church of Rome, carrying his country with him. For a while Clement had hesitated on the question of bigamy, since, in view of Cardinal Cajetan’s opinion to the contrary, he found it difficult to convince himself that a dispensation could not be given, and because he was personally inclined to be indulgent and friendly; finally, however, he gave Bennet, the English envoy, clearly to understand that the dispensation was not in his power to grant. That he himself was not sufficiently versed in Canon Law, the Pope repeatedly admitted. “It will never be possible to allege the attitude of Clement VII as any excuse for the Hessian affair” (Ehses). It is equally impossible to trace the suggestion of bigamy back to the opinions prevailing in mediæval Catholicism. No mediæval pope or confessor can be instanced who sanctioned bigamy, while there are numbers of theologians who deny the Pope’s power to grant such dispensations; many even describe this negative opinion as the “sententia communis.”

  Of Cardinal Cajetan, the only theologian of note on the opposite side (see above, vol. iii., ), W. Köhler remarks, alluding particularly to the recent researches of N. Paulus: “It never entered Cardinal Cajetan’s head to deny that the ecclesiastical law categorically forbids polygamy.” Further: “Like Paulus, we may unhesitatingly admit that, in this case, it would have been better for Luther had he had behind him the guiding authority of the Church.”

  Henry VIII, as was only natural, sought to make the best use of the friendship of the Wittenberg professors and Princes of the Schmalkalden League, against Rome and the Emperor. He despatched an embassy, though his overtures were not as successful as he might have wished.

  We may describe briefly the facts of the case.

  The Schmalkalden Leaguers, from the very inception of the League, had been seeking the support both of England and of France. In 1535 they made a determined effort to bring about closer relations with Henry VIII, and, at the Schmalkalden meeting, the latter made it known that he was not unwilling to “join the Christian League of the Electors and Princes.” Hereupon he was offered the “title and standing of patron and protector of the League.” The political negotiations nevertheless miscarried, owing to the King’s excessive demands for the event of an attack on his Kingdom. The project of an alliance with the King of Denmark, the Duke of Prussia, and with Saxony and Hesse, for the purpose of a war against the Emperor, also came to nothing.

  In these negotiations the Leaguers wanted first of all to reach an agreement with Henry in the matter of religion, whereas the latter insisted that political considerations should have the first place.

  In the summer, 1535, Robert Barnes, the English plenipotentiary, was raising great and exaggerated hopes in Luther’s breast of Henry’s making common cause with the Wittenberg reformers.

  Into his plans Luther entered with great zest, and consented to Melanchthon’s being sent to England as his representative, for the purpose of further negotiations. As we now know from a letter of recommendation of Se, 1535, first printed in 1894, he recommended Barnes to the Chancellor Brück for an interview with the Elector, and requested permission for Melanchthon to undertake the journey to England. Joyfully he points out that “now the King offers to accept the Evangel, to join the League of our Princes and to allow our ‘Apologia’ entry into his Kingdom.” Such an opportunity must not be allowed to slip, for “the Papists will be in high dudgeon.” Quite possibly God may have something in view.

  In England hopes were entertained that these favourable offers would induce a more friendly attitude towards the question of Henry’s divorce. Concerning this Luther merely says in the letter cited: “In the matter of the royal marriage, the ‘suspensio’ has already been decided,” without going into any further particulars; he, however, reserves the case to be dealt with by the theologians exclusively.

  In August, 1535, Melanchthon had dedicated one of his writings to the King of England, and had, on this occasion, lavished high praise on him. It was probably about this time that the King sent the presents to Wittenberg, to which Catherine Bora casually alludes in the Table-Talk. “Philip received several gifts from the Englishman, in all five hundred pieces of gold; for our own part we got at least fifty.”

  Melanchthon took no offence at the cruel execution of Sir Thomas More or at the other acts of violence already perpetrated by Henry VIII; on the contrary, he gave his approval to the deeds of the royal tyrant, and described it as a commandment of God “to use strong measures against fanatical and godless men.” The sanguinary action of the English tyrant led Luther to express the wish, that a similar fate might befall the heads of the Catholic Church at Rome. In the very year of Bishop Fisher’s execution he wrote to Melanchthon: “It is easy to lose our tempers when we see what traitors, thieves, robbers, nay devils incarnate the Cardinals, the Popes and their Legates are. Alas that there are not more Kings of England to put them to death!�
�� He also refers to the alleged horrors practised by the Pope’s tools in plundering the Church, and asks: “How can the Princes and Lords put up with it?”

  In Dec., 1535, a convention of the Schmalkalden Leaguers, at Melanchthon’s instance, begged the envoys despatched by Henry, who were on their way to Wittenberg, to induce their master to promote the Confession of Augsburg — unless, indeed, as they added with unusual consideration, “they and the King should be unanimous in thinking that something in the Confession might be improved upon or made more in accordance with the Word of God.”

  Just as in the advances made by the King to Wittenberg “the main point had been to obtain a favourable pronouncement from the German theologians in the matter of his divorce,” so too in consenting to discuss the Confession of Augsburg he was actuated by the thought that this would lead to a discussion on the Papal power and the question of the divorce, i.e. to those points which the King had so much at heart.

  On the arrival immediately after of the envoys at Wittenberg they had the satisfaction of learning from Luther and his circle, that the theologians had already changed their minds in the King’s favour concerning the lawfulness of marriage with a brother’s widow. Owing to the influence of Osiander, whom Henry VIII had won over to his side, they now had come to regard such marriages as contrary to the natural moral law. Hence Henry’s new marriage might be considered valid. They were not, however, as yet ready to draw this last inference from the invalidity of the previous marriage between the King and Catherine.