On Christmas Day, our father preached two sermons in the city church. We children attended the second service with Mother and were already impatient because dinner was waiting at home. And the presents. And the singing. And the nativity play.
At our Christmas dinner there were various dishes, depending upon what the elector or other well-meaning princes and rich people had sent us as presents, often a deer or a wild pig. Most of all, however, I liked the imitation roast venison and, before that, the spicy beef soup. After that, there were all kinds of stewed fruit, softened dried plums with honey, and various tarts, among them the tasty butter stollen.
After the many dishes had been cleared away, everyone, the entire household included, joined in singing the beautiful song written and composed by my father on the occasion of the birth of our sister, Margarethe, in December AD 1534, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come,” which poetically brings to mind the story of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This song of our father’s—really a children’s song with the little manger, the baby Jesus, the little children—which did not follow the strict rules of poetry (as my teacher Melanchthon once pointed out without wanting to deny its heartwarming effect), was soon printed, and now I hear it sung everywhere, even by the Catholics and other old believers. Though my father would certainly have preferred they were converted to the new Gospel.
This song warms your heart and makes you feel happy at the same time. And perhaps, when Father wrote the text and composed the melody, he felt the truth of his saying: “A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass.”
Music and singing were for my father vital elements of life, and I have heard him say that if it was not by theology, then certainly by music would he have earned his living. “Music makes people cheerful and contemplative and is a gift of God, for which we Christians should daily thank Jesus. One of the most beautiful and splendid gifts of God is Musica. Satan is the enemy of music, because it dispels many temptations and evil thoughts. Musica is one of the finest arts. The notes bring the text to life. Musica banishes the spirit of sadness. I myself,” Father said, “have always been fond of it. Whoever masters this art has a good heart and is capable of most things.”
I have unfortunately been little involved in it, although as a child and also as a student, I always enjoyed singing. But later my serious profession of a doctor gave me few opportunities to indulge in it.
After the song had been sung, the sharing of presents began. All of us children had been preparing for this through our Christmas fast, as Father had interpreted Psalm 147 to say, “One should teach the children to fast before Christ or St. Nicholas bestow their gifts.” Adults should also fast, not to gain grace and favor with God by this supposedly good deed—that would be a papist idea—but rather to prepare oneself for the coming of Christ. Besides, so said my father in his sermon on works of mercy, everyone should fast in a way that is wholesome. I will not mention that many so fast that they make up for it in drink, that many fast so richly with fish and other delicacies that they would have come closer to fasting had they eaten meat, eggs, and butter. If a man finds that fish causes more wantonness in his flesh than meat and eggs, he should eat meat and eggs and not fish. By contrast, if a man finds that fasting disturbs the head and devastates the body, then he should cease fasting and eat, sleep, and be idle as much as is necessary for his health.
In Father’s new belief, fasting took on a different form and meaning and has gradually become less important, which I as a physician regret, because it is not only in the tradition of Christianity, it is also healthful to the body when it is practiced with moderation and reason.
Of course, the fasting period reminds us of the Gospel and the heartfelt story of the temptation of Christ, as is described in Matthew 4: “There was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungered. And when the tempter came to him he said: If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said: It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Not from bread alone, said Christ. So at least a man needs bread so that the Devil’s challenge—change stone into bread—does not seem to be completely unreasonable. Perhaps Christ here should have answered with more clarity.
We children, who were many at times, received, depending on our age, trumpets, drums, crossbows, hobbies, ginger nuts, honey, gingerbread, dolls, clothes, sometimes a knife to use at the table, writing paper, pens, and books. If then Father’s dog, Tölpel, who obeyed no one, began romping around among the presents and causing confusion, our joy was complete.
The maids received linen and the like for their dowries, which they eagerly accumulated in order to be well supplied when they offered themselves to their future husbands, and the male servants mainly received money.
Whether our parents exchanged presents, I can no longer remember.
Then came the nativity play. An angel appeared—one of the girls, provided with a glorious white dress and goose wings—and announced: “Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”
Others of us were dressed as shepherds, singing, “O Little One Sweet, O Little One Mild,” as we walked to the manger, which stood behind a curtain. When it opened, we all knelt before the manger and worshipped the sweet Christ Child. In truth, this was but just a little doll, dressed in nightgown and even diapers, but I was so excited that it seemed the Christ Child was even smiling at me. Then we all joined hands and began to sing and dance around the manger.
The living rooms, which in addition to the kitchen were warmly heated while the other chambers remained cold, were decorated with branches from apple and cherry trees, having seemingly died in the bitter winter outside yet miraculously, in the warm rooms, starting to bloom.
Father’s famulus, Anton Lauterbach, noted what my father, one Christmas, expressed about all the festivities: “Oh, poor all of us being so cold and dull with respect to joy, which after all has been given to us for our own good. It is the greatest benefit, far surpassing all other works of creation. The singing of the angels announcing the birth of Christ is wondrous and contains all Christian teaching because the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is the highest form of worship, which is brought to us by the angels in Christo.”
When we finally went to bed on Christmas evening, it was not easy to go to sleep. The Christmas story, the Christ Child, the gifts, the general mood of expectancy we had felt for so long, the stories of the animals that were able to speak on the holy night—which all believe but no one has ever seen or heard—had excited us so that we would secretly gather in one of our bedrooms with the tallow candle burning and nibble on spice cookies, which was forbidden, of course, and tell frightening stories. One of us boys, I believe it was my brother Martin, scared us not for first time with the tale of the unfathomable hole in the basement of our house, the Black Monastery, which led directly to purgatory, he said. If one believed him, there was in the far corner of the beer cellar a large loose stone lying on the ground. If one lifted the stone and put one’s ear to the hole, then one heard in the deep an eerie hiss and roar as though from a fire. At night, according to my brother, there comes out of the hole a sooty, coal-black angel of the lower species with small and scorched stub wings who drags sinners from their beds and takes them down to the fire, where, depending on the amount of their sins, they burn for a thousand years because they may not come to heaven with unclean souls.
It gave us a frightful scare, even though one would come straight to heaven after sufficient burning time and thus avoid the eternity of hell. Our sister Magdalena, whom everyone called Lenchen and who unfortunately was soon to die, rebuked my brother Martin for such stories. She said our father had abolished purgatory with the following words: “Therefore purgatory with all its ado
is to be looked at as nothing better than an invention of the Devil.”
And Lenchen then explained to us what she was taught at an early age, and for which Father would become famous: “When the Lord Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, died, and went for a while to hell, then had he atoned for all our sins. Who now believes in purgatory, like the Papists, doubts the saving effects of Christ’s sacrificial death.”
Christmas did not end right away. It traveled on through New Year, as we continued to receive gifts and presents and to eat and drink heartily.
What people accept of God’s gifts and eat and drink is very important for their health, and as a doctor and a Christian, I recommend my readers to remember that sins against God’s creation, our own bodies, begin with an unhealthy eating.
The season determined the bill of fare in our cloister, too. That means in winter there was much preserved food like green kernel, peas, lentils, and millet, dried fruit, nuts, dried mushrooms, also tubers and beets, which in the cellar were kept fresh in sand.
Naturally in winter we trapped birds with lime twigs, including blackbirds, thrushes, finches, and starlings, and we had geese, chickens, and ducks smoked or salted as well as beef and pork. Apart from a few fresh fish that were caught through ice holes in the Elbe and in the ponds, we had to be content with salted or smoked fish, which the fishmongers brought from the coast.
Our mother had always, as she had learned when still in the convent, a good stock of spices such as pepper from the East, salted or pickled garlic, and dried herbs and seeds (which had to be brought from Nuremberg), such as caraway, marjoram, mint, rosemary, sage, borage, and all those herbs that were used in preserving food. And if the meats or fish were a little past fresh, a few sharp spices could make them edible again. Sometimes, however, it did not help, and now and again we got sick. Food gone bad particularly affected Father, who had an especially sensitive stomach and whose rich enjoyment of wine and beer did not help the matter.
A stock of salted bacon and pickled eggs and lard was available throughout the winter. In addition, Mother preserved sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, and various jams in the cellar. The baker did not get much business from us because we baked our own bread, and we also had the right to brew our own beer. There was wine for the older people, but it was sometimes rather sour and then would have to be sweetened with honey.
The time between Christmas and the New Year was a time of good eating, or rather feasting, and I confess that for me the joy and pleasure of food and even its preparation have never deserted me. I will not now decide whether that did not occasionally outweigh my joy at the coming of Christ.
Chapter 9
. . . makes clear that the abundant mention made in chapters 7 and 8 of rich meals and happy feasts could lead the reader to unchristian wantonness or frivolity. As an antidote, it seems fitting in this chapter to talk about famine, drought, and pestilence, all of which I lived through in my childhood or heard people talk about.
Our brother Johannes, the eldest of us children, was only little older than one year when in AD 1527 pestilence befell Wittenberg and the land. God wanted Father at this time to lie prostrate in bed, so sick that he saw his own end and wrote, “My dear son and beloved Käthe, I will leave you nothing, but I have a rich God who watches over the fatherless and is a judge of the widows, as we read in Psalm 68, and this God I leave you. He will support you well.”
Our mother was certainly a good Christian, but this comfort from Father did not reduce her anxiety for the future and, if it should arise, her widowhood, especially in view of the malice and enmity toward her in the town, in the land, and even at the electoral court. One need only consider that the renowned Erasmus felt justified in asserting, even publicly, that Johannes was begotten before marriage, then had to retract it when the child came into the world at the proper time.
To trust in God as Father did was Christian, but my mother had already learned in the cloister that one must often help God along, not only through prayers, as Father believed, in order to convince Him the time was right for assistance. In view of His own eternalness, one can understand that for the year, the day, and the hour, He might not have the right sense of proportion.
Now was the time, as pestilence came upon us with the high summer heat. But obviously God first wanted to punish His children, as always, with blood and thunder and sickness. One of His representatives on earth, though, our good elector, different from the loving God, was worried and wrote from Torgau that Luther should quickly move to Jena, as the entire university had done, since the city was still pest free. But Luther persisted and with faith in God remained with his family in Wittenberg.
There were wild rumors about: the Jews poisoned the wells or breathed on people with their poisonous breath. But even then a few asked why it was that numerous appearances of rats with fleas always preceded the plague. This question is not answered even today.
People believed the Black Monastery offered protection and moved in in crowds, among them the parish pastor Bugenhagen.
At this time Johannes, just one and a half years old, was afflicted by a severe fever so that Father himself was almost in despair. At the beginning he was not certain if it was the pest, which also makes its appearance with fever, head, and limb pain. He wrote to Justus Jonas:
My dear Jonas, I don’t actually know what I should write. My Käthe remains strong in faith and health despite advanced pregnancy. My little Hans lies prostrate now already eight days with an unknown sickness, it should be the teeth, so one believes. After the wife of the chaplain, there have been no deaths yesterday and today. May Christ help and cause this pestilence to cease. In the suburb of the fishermen, it is indeed already subsiding, and they are beginning again there with weddings and enjoying life as well as possible. Anything certain, however, one cannot say. Because eight days ago the pestilence had almost stopped, so days went by without a single death. But suddenly the wind changed. Within two days, the deaths were twelve a day, though most of them children. The wife of Augustin lay for eight days and longer with an inner ulcer. One naturally supposed nothing other than pestilence, but she recovered again. Margarethe von Mochau lies equally prostrate in our house; one speaks of menstrual sickness but fears the pest.
Käthe and I live now only in one of our rooms, all the rest being filled with the sick and the visitors. Our little Hans lies in my study, where he is unmolested. Pray for his health. Today is the twelfth day he has eaten nothing, and only through drink has he been reasonably nourished. Now he begins again to eat a little. It moves the heart how he wants in his way to be happy and strong but is yet too weak for it. My wife, Käthe, greets you, and knowing that peace prevails on our borders, complains that you do not visit us. Pomeranus also greets you, who in order to purge himself has taken a laxative today.
Today, reader, as I write this, and even assisted by a medical mind, I note that in our investigations of this terrible, if also conveniently biblical, sickness and its possible cure, we have not made much progress.
God in His wrath has used pestilence repeatedly against His own people of Israel and against the Christians as a terrible scourge. First He incited David to count his people, as we read in the second book of Samuel, chapter 24. Then He gave David a choice of punishments for doing the counting as he had been commanded to do, the righteousness of which, in spite of God’s order, David was not convinced of. In spite of a warning from Joab, his general, he had been driven by his own vanity and ambition. Of the three possible punishments—seven years of famine, three months fleeing from his enemies, or three days of pestilence—David chose, understandably—although as king, not very caring—the pestilence, whereupon God ordered an angel to stretch out his hand so that He could destroy Israel. The angel complied, and seventy thousand people were killed with much suffering and pain and misery before God repented His sentence and commanded the angel to stop. Would it not have been sufficient if only one thousand or ten thousand had died? In the First Book of Chronicles
, chapter 21, also translated faithfully by Father, it is at least Satan who incites David to number Israel.
When today the pestbells begin to ring, the people become ice-cold with fear, because there is nothing worse than to die so suddenly, unprepared, and in this condition to go before God, namely, in the condition of sin. God does not like this at all, that such dingy and unwashed wretches gather before Him and expect to be blessed at once without at least in death having repented. So the wife of Tilo Denes, burgomaster of Wittenberg, could consider herself lucky expiring in Father’s arms, surely mildly consoled and prepared expertly for the Kingdom of Heaven.
That was not necessary for the five pigs, which at the same time died in their pens, as they did not need to fear the loss of salvation, although there are various opinions among theologians about the souls of animals, some of which rely on Paul, who wrote in a letter to the Romans: “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now.”
Also in Isaiah 11 is found such thought: “In the new heaven and the new earth the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”
Of pigs and their eternal salvation it is not written here, perhaps because they cannot ruminate like cows and are therefore considered unclean, which again makes them unfit for heaven. Though one must concede that they in a way have cloven hoofs.
But studying per exemplum Moshe ben Maimon thoroughly, one finds this need not be a sufficient reason. But at least the loss of our pigs was not a spiritual one. Today I know what Father was not aware of at that time, that pigs are not very susceptible to the rat plague and the human plague but, however, have their own concerns with the swine fever.
Shadows of My Father Page 8