Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  This was no State-regulation of poor relief as we now understand it. Still, the way was paved for it in so far as the props of the olden ecclesiastical system of relief had been felled and had eventually to be replaced by something new. In this sense it may be said that Luther’s work “paved the way” for the new conditions.

  5. Luther’s Attitude towards Worldly Callings

  An attempt has been made to prove the truth of the dictum so often met with on the lips of Protestants, viz. that “Luther was the creator of those views of the world and life on which both the State and our modern civilisation rest,” by arguing, that, at least, he made an end of contempt for worldly callings and exalted the humbler as well as the higher spheres of life at the expense of the ecclesiastical and monastic. What Luther himself frequently states concerning his discovery of the dignity of the secular callings has elsewhere been placed in its true light (and the unhistoric accounts of his admirers are all in last resort based on his). This was done in the most suitable place, viz. when dealing with “Luther and Lying,” and with his spiteful caricature of the mediæval Church. Still, for the sake of completeness, the claims Luther makes in this respect, and some new proofs in refutation of them, must be briefly called to mind in the present chapter. It is not unusual for his admirers to speak with a species of awe of Luther’s achievements in this respect:

  “One of the most Momentous Achievements of the Reformation”

  The claims Luther makes in respect of his labours on behalf of the worldly callings are even greater than his admirers would lead one to suppose. His actual words reveal their hyperbolical character, or rather untruth, by their very extravagance.

  Luther we have heard say: “Such honour and glory have I by the grace of God, that, since the time of the Apostles no doctor … has confirmed and instructed the consciences of the secular estates so well and lucidly as I.” — It was quite different with the “monks and priestlings”! They “damned both the laity and their calling.” These “revolutionary blasphemers” condemned “all the states of life that God instituted and ordained”; on the other hand, they extol their self-chosen and accursed state as though outside of it no one could be saved.

  The phantom of a Popish, monkish holiness-by-works never left him. In his Commentary on Genesis, though he holds that he has already taught the Papists more than they deserve on the right appreciation of the lower callings and labours, yet he once more informs them of his discovery, “that the work of the household and of the burgher,” such as hospitality, the training of children, the supervision of servants, “despised though they be as common and worthless,” are also well-pleasing to God. “Such things must be judged according to the Word [of God], not according to reason!… Let us therefore thank God that we, enlightened by the Word, now perceive what are really good works, viz. obedience to those in authority, respect for parents, supervision of the servants and assistance of our brethren.” “These are callings instituted by God.” “When the mother of a family provides diligently for her family, looks after the children, feeds them, washes them and rocks them in the cradle,” this calling, followed for God’s sake, is “a happy and a holy one.”

  Luther is never tired of claiming as his peculiar teaching that even the most humble calling — that of the maid or day-labourer — may prove a high and exalted road to heaven and that every kind of work, however insignificant, performed in that position of life to which a man is called is of great value in God’s sight when done in faith. He is fond of repeating, that a humble ploughman can lay up for himself as great a treasure in heaven by tilling his field, as the preacher or the schoolmaster, by their seemingly more exalted labours.

  There is no doubt, that, by means of this doctrine, which undoubtedly is not without foundation, he consoled many of the lower classes, and brought them to a sense of their dignity as Christians. It is true that it was his polemics against monasticism and the following of the counsels of perfection which led him to make so much of the ordinary states of life and to paint them in such glowing colours. Nevertheless, we must admit that he does so with real eloquence and by means of comparisons and figures taken from daily life which could not but lend attraction to the truth and which differ widely from the dry, scholastic tone of some of his Catholic predecessors in this field.

  He does not, however, really add a single fresh element to the olden teaching, or one that cannot be traced back to earlier times.

  Either Luther was not aware of this, or else he conceals it from his hearers and readers. It would have been possible to confront him with a whole string of writers, ancient and mediæval, and even from the years when he himself began his work, whose writings teach the same truths, often, too, in language which leaves nothing more to be wished for on the score of impressiveness and feeling. So many proofs, from reason as well as from revelation, had always been forthcoming in support of these truths that it is hard for us now to understand how the idea gained ground that Christians had forgotten them. Those who, down to the present day, repeat Luther’s assertions make too little account of this psychological riddle.

  Here we shall merely add to what has already been brought forward a few further proofs from Luther’s own day.

  Andreas Proles (†1503), Vicar General of the Saxon Augustinian Congregation and founder of the reformed branch which Luther himself joined on entering the monastery, reminds the working classes in one of his sermons of the honour, the duty, and the worth of work. “Since man is born to labour as the bird to fly, he must work unceasingly and never be idle.” He warmly exhorts the secular authorities to prayer, but reminds them still more emphatically of the requirements and the dignity of their calling: “The life of the mighty does not consist in parade but in ruling and discharging their duties towards their people.” He praises voluntary chastity and clerical celibacy, but also points out powerfully that the married state “is for many reasons honourable and praiseworthy in the sight of God and all Christians.”

  Gottschalk Hollen, the preacher of Westphalia, was also an Augustinian. In his sermons published at Hagenau in 1517 he displays the highest esteem for the worldly callings. Those classes who worked with their hands did not seem to him in the least contemptible, on the contrary the Christian could give glory to God even by the humblest work; ordinary believers frequently allowed their calling to absorb them in worldly things, but these are not evil or blameworthy. In a special sermon on work he represents such cares as a means of attaining to everlasting salvation. He insists everywhere on a man’s performing the duties of his calling and will not allow of their being neglected for the sake of prayer or of out-of-the-way practices, such as pilgrimages.

  Just before Luther made his public appearance two German works of piety described the dignity and the honour of the working state and at the same time insisted on the obligation of labour. They speak of the secular callings as a source of moral and religious duty and the foundation of a happy life well pleasing to God.

  The “Wyhegertlin,” printed at Mayence in 1509, says: “When work is done diligently and skilfully both God and man take pleasure in it, and it is a real good work when skilful artisans contribute to God’s glory by their handicraft, by beautiful buildings and images of every kind, and soften men’s hearts so that they take pleasure in the beautiful, and regard every art and handicraft as a gift of God for the profit, comfort and edification of man.”— “For seeing that the Saints also worked and laboured, so shall the Christian learn from their example that by honourable labour he can glorify God, do good and, through God’s mercy, save his own soul.”

  In an “Ermanung” of 1513, which also appeared at Mayence, we read: “To work is to serve God according to His command and therefore all must work, the one with his hands, in the field, the house or the workshop, others by art and learning, others again as rulers of the people or other authorities, others by fighting in defence of their country, others again as ghostly ministers of Christ in the churches and monasteries.… Whoever stands i
dle is a despiser of God’s commands.”

  These instances must suffice. Though many others could be quoted, Protestants will, nevertheless, still be found to repeat such statements as the following: “Any appreciation of secular work as something really moral was impossible in the Catholic Church.” “The Catholic view of the Church belittled the secular callings.” “The ethical appreciation of one’s calling is a significant achievement of the reformation on which rests the present division of society.” Luther it was who “discovered the true meaning of callings … which has since become the property of the civilised world.” “The modern ethical conception of one’s calling, which is common to all Protestant nations and which all others lack, was a creation of the reformation,” etc.

  Others better acquainted with the Middle Ages have argued, that, though the olden theologians expressed themselves correctly on the importance of secular callings, yet theirs was not the view of the people. — But the above passages, like those previously quoted elsewhere, do not hail from theologians quite ignorant of the world, but from sermons and popular writings. What they reflect is simply the popular ideas and practice.

  That errors were made is, of course, quite true. That, at a time when the Church stood over all, the excessive and ill-advised zeal of certain of the clergy and religious did occasionally lead them to belittle unduly the secular callings may readily be admitted; what they did furnished some excuse for the Lutheran reaction.

  What above all moved Luther was, however, the fact that he himself had become a layman.

  To assert that even the very words “calling” or “vocation” in their modern sense were first coined by him is not in agreement with the facts of the case.

  On the contrary, Luther found the German equivalents already current, otherwise he would probably not have introduced them into his translation of the Bible, as he was so anxious to adapt himself to the language in common use amongst the people so as to be perfectly understood by them. It is true that Ecclus. xi. 22, in the pre-Lutheran Bible, e.g. that of Augsburg dating from 1487, was rendered: “Trust God and stay in thy place,” whereas in Luther’s — and on this emphasis has been laid — we read: “Trust in God and abide by thy calling.” All that can be said is, however, that Luther’s translation here brings out the same meaning rather better. That the word was not coined by Luther, but was common with the people, is clear from what Luther himself says incidentally when speaking of 1 Cor. vii. 20, where the word vocatio (κλῆσις) is used of the call to faith. “And you must know,” he writes, “that the word ‘calling’ does not here mean the state to which a man is called, as when we say your calling is the married state, your calling is the clerical state, etc., each one having his calling from God. It is not of such a calling that the Apostle here speaks,” etc. The expression “as we say” shows plainly that Luther is speaking of a quite familiar term which there was no need for him to invent when translating Ecclus. xi. 22. Much less did he, either then or at any time, invent the “conception of a calling.”

  Luther’s Pessimism Regarding Various Callings. The Peasants

  When olden writers dealt with the relation between the Gospel and the worldly callings as a rule they pointed out with holy pride, that Christianity does not merely esteem every calling very highly but embraces them all with holy charity and cherishes and fosters the various states as sons of a common father. Nothing was so attractive in the great exponents of the Gospel teaching and renovators of the Christian people — for instance in St. Francis of Assisi — as their sympathy, respect and tenderness for every class without exception. The Church’s great men knew how to discover the good in every class, to further it with the means at their disposal and indulgently to set it on its guard against its dangers. They wished to place everything lovingly at the service of the Creator.

  Had Luther in reality brought back to humanity the Gospel true and undefiled, as he was so fond of saying, then he should surely have striven, in the spirit of charity and good will, to make known its supernatural social forces to all classes of men, and to become, as the Apostle says, “All things to all men.”

  Now, although Luther uses powerful words to describe the dignity of the different worldly callings, on the other hand, he tends at times to depreciate whole classes, this being especially the case when he allows his disappointment to get the better of him. Nor is the contempt openly expressed here counterbalanced by any sufficient recognition of the good, such as might have mollified his hearers and made them forget the ungracious abuse he thundered from his pulpit.

  He speaks bitterly of the common people, the proletariate of to-day, to which, according to him, belonged all the lower classes in the towns. Although himself of low extraction he displays very little sympathy for the people. “We must not pipe too much to the mob, for they are fond of raging.… They have no idea of self-restraint or how to exercise it, and each one’s skin conceals five tyrants.” “A donkey must taste the stick and the mob must be ruled by force; of this God was well aware, hence in the hands of the authorities He placed, not a fox’s brush, but a sword.”

  He only too frequently accuses the artisan and merchant class, as a whole, of cheating, avarice and laziness. At Wittenberg they may possibly have been exceptionally bad, yet he does not speak sufficiently of their less blameworthy side.

  For the soldiers, it is true, he has friendly words of appreciation of their calling; it was for them that he wrote in 1526 a special work, where he replied in the affirmative to the question contained in the title: “Can even men-at-arms be in a state of grace?” Yet even here he does not shrink from bringing forward charges against their calling: “A great part of the men-at-arms are the devil’s own and some of them are actually crammed with devils.… They imagine themselves fire-eaters because they swear shamefully, perpetrate atrocities, and curse and defy the God of Heaven.”

  Of the nobles he says in 1523, wishing to promote more frequent marriages between them and those of lower birth: “Must all princes and nobles who are born princes and nobles remain for ever such? What harm is there if a prince takes a burgher’s daughter to wife and contents himself with a burgher’s modest dowry? Or, why should not a noble maid give her hand to a burgher? In the long run it will not do for the nobles always to intermarry with nobles. Although we are not all equal in the sight of the world yet before God we all are equal, all of us children of Adam, creatures of God, and one man as good as another.” These words certainly do not express any lively conviction of the importance of the existing distinctions of rank for society.

  It is perfectly true, that, occasionally, Luther has words of praise and recognition for the good qualities of the “fine, pious nobles,” if only on account of those who were inclined to accept his teaching. But far more often he trounces them unmercifully because they either failed to respond or were set on thwarting him. The language in which he writes of them sometimes becomes unspeakably coarse. “They are called nobles and ‘von so-and-so.’ But merd also comes ‘von’ the nobles and might just as well boast of coming from their noble belly, though it stinks and is of no earthly use. Hence this too has a claim to nobility.” Then follows his favourite saying: “We Germans are Germans and Germans we shall remain, i.e. swine and senseless brutes.”

  The rulers and the great ones of the Empire were the first to win his favour. The writing “An den Adel,” the first of his so-called “reformation writings,” he addresses to the nobles in the hope of thus attaining his aims by storm. When, however, he was disappointed, and they refused to meet him half-way, he abused the princes and all the secular authorities in Germany and wrote: “God Almighty has made our princes mad”; “such men were formerly rated as knaves, now we are obliged to call them obedient, Christian princes.” To him they were “fools,” simply because they were against him and thus belonged to the multitude who “blasphemed” the Divine Majesty.

  After the defeat of the peasants in 1525 he supported those princes favourable to his teaching at the expe
nse of the peasants, so that the latter were loud in their complaints of him. In this connection, looking back at the overthrow of the Peasant Revolt, he wrote to those in power: “Who opposed the peasants more vigorously by word and writing than I? … and, if it comes to boasting, I do not know who else was the first to vanquish the peasants, or to do so most effectually. But now those who did the least claim all the honour and glory of it.”

  After the Peasant War he was so filled with hatred of the peasant class and so conscious of their dislike for himself personally, as to be hardly able to speak of them without blame and reproach. “The peasants do not deserve,” he says, “the harvests and fruits that the earth brings forth and provides.”

  Of all classes the peasants around Wittenberg incurred his displeasure most severely. “They are all going to the devil,” he says when lamenting that, “out of so many villages, only one man taught his household from the Word of God”; with the young country folk “something” could be done, but the old peasants had been utterly corrupted by the Pope; this was also the complaint of the Evangelical deacons who came in touch with them.— “I am very angry with the peasants,” he wrote in 1529, “who are anxious to govern themselves and who do not appreciate their good fortune in being able to sleep in peace owing to the help and protection of the rulers. You helpless, boorish yokels and donkeys,” he says to them, “will you never learn to understand? May the lightning blast you! — You have the best of it.… You have the Mark and yet are so ungrateful as to refuse to pray for the rulers or to give them anything.”