CHAPTER XXIII
FRESH CONTROVERSIES WITH ERASMUS (1534, 1536) AND DUKE GEORGE († 1539)
1. Luther and Erasmus Again
In reply to Luther’s “De servo arbitrio” against Erasmus the latter had published, in 1526, a sharp retort entitled “Hyperaspistes,” which, in the following year, he enlarged by adding to it a second part. In this work the author’s able pen brings into the light of day the weakness of Luther’s objections, his distortion of the Church’s teaching, his frequent misrepresentations of Erasmus and his own self-contradictions.
Luther did not then reply to the work of the chief of the Humanists. In the ensuing years, however, he became painfully aware that the hostility of Erasmus had lost him many adherents belonging to the Erasmian school. A great cleavage had become apparent in the scholar’s circle of friends till then so closely united, the greater number taking their master’s side against the smaller group which remained true to Luther. It was in vain that several of Erasmus’s admirers intervened and besought Luther to spare the feelings of the elder man. The Wittenberg professor made many cutting allusions to his opponent and assumed more and more an attitude which foreboded another open outburst of furious controversy.
With the art peculiar to him, he came to persuade himself, that the champion of free-will was hostile to the idea of any Divine supremacy over the human will, scoffed at all religion, denied the Godhead and was worse than any persecutor of the Church; he was confirmed in this belief by the sarcastic sayings about his Evangel, to which Erasmus gave vent in his correspondence and conversations, and which occasionally came to Luther’s knowledge. It is true that if we look at the matter through Luther’s spectacles we can understand how certain darker sides of Erasmus and his Humanist school repelled him. Luther fixed on these, and, as was his wont, harshly exaggerated and misrepresented them. The too-great attention bestowed on the outward form, seemingly to the detriment of the Christian contents, displeased him greatly; still more so did the undeniable frivolity with which sacred things, still dear to him, were treated. At the same time it was strange to him, and rightly so, how little heed the Humanists who remained faithful to the Church paid to the principle of authority and of ecclesiastical obedience, preferring to follow the lax example set by Erasmus himself, more particularly during the first period of his career; they appeared to submit to the yoke of the Church merely formally and from force of habit, and showed none of that heart-felt conviction and respect for her visible supremacy which alone could win the respect of those without.
Schlaginhaufen has noted down the following remark made by Luther in 1532 when a picture of Erasmus was shown him. “The cunning of his mode of writing is perfectly expressed in his face. He does nothing but mock at God and religion. When he speaks of our Holy Christ, of the Holy Word of God and the Holy Sacraments, these are mere fine, big words, a sham and no reality.... Formerly he annoyed and confuted the Papacy, now he draws his head out of the noose.” In the same year, and according to the same reporter, he declared: “Erasmus is a knave incarnate.... Were I in good health, I should inveigh against him. To him the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are something ludicrous.... Erasmus is as sure there is no God as I am that I can see. Lucian himself was not so bold and impudent as Erasmus.”
At Easter of the following year Veit Dietrich, who lived in Luther’s house, announced in a letter to Nuremberg, that the storm was about to break: Luther was arming himself against Erasmus, reading his books carefully and gathering together his blasphemies. The same writer in a collection of Luther’s conversations not yet published quotes the following outbursts: “Erasmus makes use of ambiguities, intentionally and with malice, this I shall prove against him.... Were I to cut open Erasmus’s heart, I should find nothing but mockeries of the Trinity, the Sacraments, etc. To him the whole thing is a joke.”
And yet, at that very time, Erasmus, who, as years passed, had come to regret his earlier faults of the pen, was engaged in composing serious and useful works, in which, though not unfaithful to his older style, he sought to defend the dogmas of religion and the authority of the Church. In March his “Explanatio symboli, decalogi et dominicæ precationis” was issued at Basle by Froben; another important work of the same year, appearing in the guise of an exposition of Psalm lxxxiv., contained counsels how best to restore the unity of the Church and to root out abuses. Therein he does not deny the duty of submitting to the Church, but recommends both sides to be ready to give and take.
When Luther’s little son Hans had, in his Latin lessons, to study some works composed by Erasmus for the young, his father wrote out for him the following warning: “Erasmus is a foe to all religion and an arch-enemy of Christ; he is the very type of an Epicurus and Lucian. This I, Martin Luther, declare in my own handwriting to you, my very dear son Johann, and, through you, to all my children and the holy Church of Christ.”
Luther’s pent-up wrath at length vented itself in print. He had received a letter sent him from Magdeburg, on Jan. 28, 1534, by Nicholas Amsdorf, the old friend who knew so well how to fan the flames of enthusiasm for the new teaching, and who now pointed out Erasmus as the source whence George Wicel had drawn all his material for his latest attack on Lutheranism. It was high time, he wrote, that Luther should paint Erasmus “in his true colours and show that he was full of ignorance and malice.” This he would best do in a tract “On the Church,” for this was the Erasmians’ weak point: They stick to the Church, because “bishops and cardinals make them presents of golden vessels,” and then “they cry out: Luther’s teaching is heresy, having been condemned by Emperor and Pope.” “I, on the other hand, see all about me the intervention and the wonders of God; I see that faith is a gift of God Who works when and where He wills, just as he raised His Son Christ from the dead. Oh, that you could see the country folk here and admire in them the glory of Christ!”
The letter pleased Luther so well that he determined to print it, appending to it a lengthy answer to Amsdorf, both being published together.
In this answer, before launching out into invective against Erasmus he joins in his friend’s enthusiastic praise of the Evangel which has dawned: “Our cause was heard at Augsburg before the Emperor and the whole world, and has been found blameless; they could not but recognise the purity of our teaching.... We have confessed Christ before the evil generation of our day, and He too will confess us before God the Father and His angels.” “Wicel, I shall vanquish by silence and contempt, as my custom is. How many books I have disposed of and utterly annihilated merely by my silence, Eck, Faber, Emser, Cochlæus and many others could tell. Had I to fight with filth, I should, even if victorious, get dirty in the process. Hence I leave them to revel in their blasphemy, their lying and their calumny.”
He might, he proceeds, leave Erasmus too to dissolve into smoke like those others. For a long time past he had looked on him as one crazy (“delirus”); since he had given birth to the “viperaspides” (i.e. “brood of vipers,” a play on the title of the “Hyperaspistes”) he had given up all hopes of his theology, but would follow Amsdorf’s advice and expose his malice and ignorance to the world.
In contradiction to the facts he goes on to declare, that, in his “Explanatio symboli,” of 1533, Erasmus had “slyly planned” to undermine all respect for the Christian doctrines, and for this purpose ingratiated himself with his readers and sought to befool them, as the serpent did in Paradise. The Creed was nothing to him but a “fable,” — in support of which Luther adduces what purports to be a verbal quotation — nothing but the “mouthpiece and organ of Satan”; his method was but “a mockery of Christ”; according to him, the Redeemer had come into the world simply to give an example of holiness; His taking flesh of a virgin Erasmus described in obscene and blasphemous language; naturally the Apostles fared no better at his hands, and he even said of John the Evangelist, “meros crepat mundos” (because he mentions the “world” too often): there were endless examples of this sort to be met with in the writi
ngs of Erasmus. He was another Democrites or Epicurus; even what was doubtful in his statements had to be taken in the worst sense, and he himself (Luther) would be unable to believe this serpent even should he come to him with the most outspoken confession of Christianity.
All this he wrote seemingly with the utmost conviction, as though it were absolutely certain. At about that same time he sent a warning to his friend Amsdorf not to allege anything against Erasmus, which was not certain, should he be tempted to write against him. Yet Luther’s fresh charges were undoubtedly unjust to his opponent, although his letter really does forcibly portray much that was blame-worthy in Erasmus, particularly in his earlier work, for instance, his ambiguous style of writing, so often intentionally vague and calculated to engender scepticism.
Not even in Luther’s immediate circle did this letter meet with general approval. Melanchthon wrote, on March 11, 1534, to Camerarius: “Our Arcesilaus [Luther] is starting again his campaign against Erasmus; this I regret; the senile excitement of the pair disquiets me.” On May 12, 1535, he even expressed himself as follows to Erasmus, referring to the fresh outbreak of hostilities: “The writings published here against you displease me, not merely on account of my private relations with you, but also because they do no public good.”
Boniface Amerbach, a friend of Erasmus’s, sent Luther’s letter to his brother, calling it a “parum sana epistola,” and adding, “Hervagius [the Basle printer] told me recently that Luther, for more than a year, had been suffering from softening of the brain (‘cephalæa’), I think the letter proves this, and also that he has not yet recovered, for in it there is no trace of a sound mind.”
Recent Protestant historians speak of the letter as “on the whole hasty and dictated by jealousy,” and as based “in part on inaccurate knowledge and a misapprehension of Erasmus’s writings.”
Shortly after this Luther expressed himself with rather more moderation in a Preface which he composed for Anton Corvinus’s reply to Erasmus’s proposals for restoring the Church to unity. In this writing he sought to make his own the more moderate tone which dominated Corvinus’s works. He represented as the chief obstacle to reunion the opinion prevalent amongst his opponents of the consideration due to the Church. Their one cry was “the Church, the Church, the Church”; this has confirmed Erasmus in his unfounded opposition to the true Evangel, in spite of his having himself thrown doubt on all the doctrines of the Church. He could not as yet well undertake a work on the subject of the Church, such as Amsdorf wished, as he was fully occupied with his translation of the Bible. In the Preface referred to above he announced, however, his intention of doing so later. The result was his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” of 1539, which will be treated of below.
Erasmus was unwilling to go down to the grave bearing the calumnies against his faith which Luther had heaped upon him. He owed it to his reputation to free himself from these unjust charges. This he did in a writing which must be accounted one of the most forcible and sharpest which ever left his pen. The displeasure and annoyance which he naturally felt did not, however, interfere with his argument or prevent him from indulging in sparkling outbursts of wit. Amerbach had judged Luther’s attack “insane”; Erasmus, for his part, addressed his biting reply to “one not sober.” The title of the writing, published at Basle in 1534, runs: “Purgatio adversus epistolam non sobriam M. Lutheri.”
It was an easy matter for Erasmus to convict the author of manifest misrepresentation and falsehood.
He repeatedly accuses the writer of downright lying. What he charges me with concerning my treatment of the Apostle John, “is a palpable falsehood. Never, even in my dreams, did the words which he quotes as mine enter my mind.” Such a lie he can have “welded together” only by joining two expressions used in other contexts.
As for his alleged blasphemy concerning Christ’s birth from the Virgin Mary, Erasmus protests: “I can swear I never said anything of the kind either in a letter, as Luther makes out, though he fails to say which, or in any of my writings.” Moreover he was a little surprised to find Luther, whose own language was not remarkable for modesty, suddenly transformed into a champion of cleanliness of speech: “Everything, bridegroom, bride and even best man, seems of a sudden to have become obscene to this Christian Luther,” etc.
Erasmus also points out that the passage concerning the Creed being a mere fable had been invented by Luther himself by means of deliberate “distortion” and shameful misinterpretation: “No text,” he exclaims, “is safe from his calumny and misrepresentation.” As for what Luther had said, viz. that “whoever tells untruths lies even when he speaks the truth,” and that he would refuse to believe Erasmus even were he to make an orthodox profession of faith, Erasmus’s retort is: “Whoever spoke this bit of wisdom was assuredly out of his senses and stood in need of hellebore” (the remedy for madness). As to the charge of deliberately leading others into infidelity he does not shrink from telling Luther, that “he will find it easier to persuade all that he has gone mad out of hatred, is suffering from some other form of mental malady, or is led by some evil genius.”
Luther took good care to say nothing in public about the rebuff he had received from Erasmus; nor did he ever make any attempt to refute the charge of having “lied.”
In the circle of his intimate friends, however, he inveighed all the more against the leader of the Humanists as a sceptic and seducer to infidelity.
After Erasmus’s death he declared that, till his end (1536), he lived “without God.” He refused to give any credence to the report that he had displayed faith and piety at the hour of death. Erasmus’s last words were: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. I will extol the mercies of the Lord and His judgments.” Luther, on the other hand, in his Latin Table-Talk says: “He died just as he lived, viz. like an Epicurean, without a clergyman and without comfort.... ‘Securissime vixit, sicut etiam morixit,’” he adds jestingly. “Those pious words attributed to him are, sure enough, an invention.”
Erasmus, he says, — revealing for once the real ground of all his hatred— “might have been of great service to the cause of the Evangel; often was he exhorted to this end.... But he considered it better that the Gospel should perish and not be preached than that all Germany should be convulsed and all the Princes be troubled with risings.” “He refuses to teach Christ,” he said of him during his lifetime; “he does not take it seriously, that is the way with all Italians and with them he has had much intercourse. One page of Terence is better than his whole ‘Dialogus’ or his ‘Colloquium’; he mocks not only at religion but even at politics and at public life. He has no other belief than the Roman; he believes what Clement VII believes; this he does at his command, and yet at the same time sneers at it.... I fear he will die the death of the wicked.” After the scholar’s decease, Luther naturally desired to find his prophecy fulfilled.
An obvious weapon, one constantly employed against Luther by his foes, was to twit him with his lies; a reply addressed to him in 1531 by a friend of George of Saxony, Franz Arnoldi of Cöllen, near Meissen, was no exception to the rule. In this little work entitled “Antwort auf das Büchlein,” etc., it is not merely stated that Luther, in his “Auff das vermeint Keiserlich Edict,” had put forward “as many lies as there were words,” but it is also pointed out that the Augsburg Edict, “which is truly Christian and requires no glosses,” had been explained by him most abominably and shamefully, and given a meaning such as His Imperial Majesty and those who promulgated or executed it had never even dreamt of. “He promises us white and gives us black. This has come down to him from his ancestor, the raging devil, who is the father of lies.... With such lies does Martin Luther seek to deck out his former vices.”
2. Luther on George of Saxony and George on Luther
The hostile relations between Luther and Duke George of Saxony found expression at the end of 1525 in a correspondence, which throws some light on the origin and extent of the tension and on the character o
f both men. The letters exchanged were at once printed and spread rapidly through the German lands, one serving to enlist recruits to Luther’s standard, the other constituting a furious attack on the innovations.
Luther’s letter of Dec. 21, 1525, to the Duke, “his gracious master,” was “an exhortation to join the Word of God,” as the printed title runs. Sent at a time when the peasants, after their defeat, had deserted Luther, and when the latter was attaching himself all the more closely to those Royal Courts which were well disposed towards him, the purpose of the letter was to admonish the chief opponent of the cause, “not so barbarously to attack Christ, the corner-stone,” but to accept the Evangel “brought to light by me.” He bases his “exhortation” on nothing less than the absolute certainty of his mission and teaching. “Because I know it, and am sure of it, therefore I must, under pain of the loss of my own soul, care, beg and implore for your Serene Highness’s soul.” He had already diligently prayed to God to “turn his heart,” and he was loath now “to pray against him for the needs of the cause”; his prayers and those of his followers were invincibly powerful, yea, “stronger than the devil himself,” as the failure of all George’s and his friends’ previous persecutions proved, “though men do not see or mark God’s great wonders in me.”
It is hard to believe that the author, in spite of all he says, really expected his letter to effect the conversion of so energetic and resolute an opponent; nevertheless, his assurances of his peaceable disposition were calculated to promote the Lutheran cause in the public eye, whatever the answer might be. He will, he says in this letter, once again “beseech the Prince in a humble and friendly manner, perhaps for the last time”; George and Luther might soon be called away by God; “I have now no more to lose in this world but my carcase, which each day draws closer to the grave.” Formerly he had, it is true, spoken “harshly and crossly” to him, as God also does “to those whom He afterwards blesses and consoles”; he had, however, also published “many kindlier sermons and booklets in which everyone might discern that I mean ill to no one but desire to serve every man to the best of my ability.”
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 733