And when after a while the girl whispered to me that the tavern must close because of the strict town council’s regulations and so she had time and desire left for me, the thought of a fresh maiden warmed me more than the beer. But suddenly in a loud voice the landlord called the maiden, who by strange chance was also called Anna, and made distinctly clear to her how she was to behave toward guests, especially someone distinguished like me.
With that I became a little more sober, and I thanked the heavenly God that in the form of the landlord the temptation of carnal pleasure had been made to pass over me. However, I will admit that my thanks were tinged with regret. And I add here that on one of the following days, or rather nights, it came to a pleasant deepening of my relationship with Anna.
I went home elated and looked forward to the coming time. As I lay in bed, well warmed under my eiderdown quilt, and in order to distract myself from the barmaid Anna, I thought over the statutes of the medical faculty at my new university, the “statuta collegii facultatis medicae in celebri academia Genensi,” which because of their strict order and great detail were very satisfactory. I also found that the promotion to status of doctor with all ancillary expenditures was about as expensive as in Wittenberg.
Furthermore, I found it remarkable that in the Jena form of the Oath of Hippocrates, the ban on assistance for suicide and abortion, unlike in Wittenberg, was missing. But I decided to abide by the words of my Wittenberg oath.
It pleased me greatly that the Jena faculty took as a model the Hippocratic struggle against the quacks who were trying to impede qualified doctors:
Among the bogus and presumed doctors are counted cutpurses, soothsayers, village priests, hermits, bankrupters, jugglers, urine prophets, Jews, calf doctors, vagabonds, barkers, executioners, pseudoparacelsists, quacks, ratters, devil exorcists, forest dwellers, and such rabble. Because these people, after they spent all their money on spirits, food, and whores, want to misuse the medical profession to make good their losses, they try to sell human fat, marmot lard, theriac, quintessences, hellebore, Juniperus sabina, and so on. And added to this are the bogus operations and operators.
The regular supervision of the pharmacies, which was the responsibility of the faculty, was applauded by me, and I decided in my medical activities to uphold this aspect of medical responsibility. My interest in pharmacy and herbalism and for medicinal-chemical problems in general has continued since my schooldays in Wittenberg.
As I awoke the next morning, my good mood continued. My breakfast of bread, lard, wurst, pickles, two boiled eggs, and a glass of beer was brought to my room by the landlady, and it remains even today a fond memory as I lie here old and decrepit in bed—very probably my deathbed, where I am barely able to consume a thin broth. I had just finished a little business with the chamber pot, which after a night enjoying beer was pretty full. The urine inspection that I did at once proved to be satisfactory, so I could decently meet the landlady. I dressed and prepared myself to leave when there was a knock on the door. It was the proctor’s man, Fritzsche, and he surprised me with a request from the dean of the faculty to visit him in the early afternoon of the same day.
The dean is not an unimportant person. He secures the seal of the faculty, the statutes, and the faculty book, in which he bona fide enters everything that relates to the faculty and that occurs in it. Surely he would also record the conversation with me, the son of the Reformer. The dean also has to make sure that no one who has not graduated to doctor or who has no explicit permission from the faculty to exercise the healing arts is allowed to practice medicine. The accurate keeping of the faculty book alone requires much time.
The dean is elected on the same day on which the rector is made public. He takes first part in all consultations and meetings, and after him the more senior professors. All faculty members are elected for the position in turn, unless the specific circumstances or conditions require someone older.
The dean greeted me in a friendly manner and asked me to take a seat. After I had sat down, there was a long pause. Obviously he did not quite know how to begin. So he took a detour. “You know,” he said, “that there was an exclusion from the faculty recently because a doctor from among the colleagues of the faculty had secretly interfered in the treatment of a patient, although another colleague had initiated the treatment. And, mind you, the urine indicated no danger to life, whereby the intervention would have been justified. With this, I don’t suggest that you, Dr. Luther, might do such a thing. Rather, I am reminding all faculty members of the passage in our statute.
“Furthermore, I call to mind that there are three full professors on our faculty, tres ordinarii professores, under whom the subjects of study are divided as follows: The first covers physiology, in which the professor is allowed to read Hippocrates or Galen or Avicenna, whichever he prefers. The second covers pathology, the third, therapy; both interpret the writings of the above classics. You see, Dr. Luther, you are, so to say, somewhat superfluous but nevertheless a professor, but classified with the rank of assessor to the faculty, with a correspondingly lower honorarium. You may, of course, continue your lectures and disputations and make the patient visits with the students and also have a seat on the faculty meetings. But you are also free at any time to seek a more lucrative position at another academy, in which we will support you.”
The dean must have seen the grieved look on my face, because he hastened to add, “If it comforts you, one might call you professor extraordinarius, but of course that is no official title. And, naturally, this would not help you much.”
Only when I was once again on the street did it become clear to me what I had heard. I scolded myself for being a fool for having been so ignorant as to come to Jena without any precise knowledge of the prevailing conditions in the professors’ hierarchy and of the assignment allocations. In the letter in which the position was offered to me, it was spoken of as a professor of medicine, and in my excitement I had not looked into further details.
Still I decided not to give up, rather to ask Anna (my wife, not the barmaid, who against my will I could not easily forget) to be patient for a while and remain in Wittenberg until the financial situation improved and I could support a family. Currently Anna was living with our daughter very cheaply at the Black Monastery. Also, it seemed to me that an academic career with the opportunity of continuing my own education—docendo discimus—and also the opportunity to gain practical experience through accompanying the students on the required patient visits was very enticing. After all, I was just at the start of my career with my twenty-five years. So I consoled myself and got back down to work.
I started at the time to consider more closely the properties of the substances and elements, because I was convinced that their chemical transmutation, as it frequently occurs in nature and finally leads to the plurality of the substances as we find it today, is possible. I thought and still believe today that God created a primary substance at the creation and then put rules in effect from which the diversity of the world was developed out of the primary substance and that the main path is from the less noble to nobler.
One had to find and to use correctly the appropriate method, so to say the quintessence, which could be all things and would make the transmutation possible. I was anyway clear that I could hardly here as faculty assessor muster the financial support to begin the corresponding experiments. But perhaps it is possible that the time and opportunity might still come. Meanwhile, I would do the obvious, which was to instruct the students.
Then it happened that on 15th of March, 1559—I have here in my notes unfortunately not listed the day of the week—I was requested by the theological faculty to appear before a commission to contribute to a clarification on certain issues.
It must be added here that the new University of Jena, founded by the will of Born Elector and Duke John Frederick, named the Magnanimous, and his jointly reigning sons, was understood to be the successor of the University of Wittenberg, even to be
considered the single true Lutheran university, which defended with fury the strict teachings of the Reformer against the followers of my revered instructor, Magister Philippus, and against him himself. Melanchthon had shamefully—as his opponents said—stayed in Wittenberg and therefore in hostile Saxony instead of following the invitation of our duke and the new university in Thuringia to come to Jena.
The sun had just risen on this 15th of March as I entered the great hall of the university. Today I remember that I sensed what the theologians wanted of me, because I had not been left unaware of the dispute among the Lutherans about the pure doctrine of my father. And of course it was also clear to me that the old sentence of Petrus Damiani, “philosophia ancilla theologiae,” had today more validity than ever. This principle of philosophy as handmaiden of theology—also including medicine—ascribed the dominant position of the university to the theologians. And it also ascribed to them the unspoken but self-evident right and duty to guard the truth and Christian character of all teachers of all faculties. And Christian character in Jena meant struggling against any divergence from the theology of my father.
The sun shone through the window at the end of the hall so that at first I could not recognize who sat behind a large table that had come from the abandoned Dominican cloister.
I took a few uncertain steps forward when I heard a sharp voice.
“Come nearer, Dr. Luther.”
I approached the table and then was able see who sat behind it. It gave me quite a scare, and I felt how my pulse quickened, and I suddenly had to suppress an urge to rush back out the door to the privy. The relationship between mental excitation, fear even, and tenesmus I was already aware of from the study of the writings of Galen, but now it had practical effects that I had to resist with an effort.
Behind the table sat four people, of whom I recognized the faces of two. I could see on the left side a little table at which sat a scribe with a copybook and a bottle of ink. He held a quill in his hand and appeared quite full of himself.
In the center of the large table was the spokesman, Matthias Flacius, called Illyricus because he came from Istria. He had arrived in Wittenberg in 1541 and had studied under my father and Magister Philippus and not infrequently had taken part in our midday meals at the Black Monastery.
On his right sat Simon Musaeus, who was also well known to me. He had been in Wittenberg from 1545 to 1547. As is known, when he left Wittenberg after the death of my father, I was fourteen years old. I could remember him well because he could not refrain at table from pointing out that though he was of Sorbian origin, he was a good German and Lutheran. Both of these theologians, instead of giving me encouraging looks because of our earlier acquaintance, regarded me severely.
Flacius began. “Dr. Luther, Professor Musaeus and I are well known to you. There now is sitting Johannes Wigand, who next year will start his professorship here in Jena but who, at the wish of our duke, is allowed to appear here as a true believing Lutheran, as well as Matthäus Judex. Both are—in order to put their qualifications before your view—concerned with the editing of a history of the church, Ecclesiastica Historica, also named the Magdeburger Centurien. Even you as a layman will admit that this history of the restoration of the true faith has to serve to identify the papacy and its church as an aberration and that this can be achieved only by the strictest observance of the principles that your father established.”
I nodded in agreement, and the pressure in my anus eased somewhat.
Then Musaeus began: “And for the sake of the unity and purity of our teachings, Paul Luther, we can take no account of our earlier acquaintance. On the contrary, our Lutheran faith, the faith of your father, forces on us the duty to suppress our personal feelings in this matter altogether.”
I glanced at the scribe, who was eagerly scratching away with his quill.
I said, after clearing my throat, which I often had to do when I was nervous, “What, worthy gentlemen, has provided me with the honor of this invitation and this conversation?”
Flacius said, “Someone has told us—who that was is of no importance here, only that they are considered reliable and faithful informers—that you, both in your lectures, where you seem happy at times to digress from medicine to talk about general subjects and faith-related issues, and also in private with students and friends, talk in a way that is dangerously close to papistry. So you are said to have referred to the Leipzig Articles as quite reasonable because they speak of a certain reconciliation with the popish church. I quote here from a report of one of our faithful students.
“In his lecture of the 2nd of February this year, Dr. Luther said: ‘It is important in medicine to investigate the causes of diseases to which the symptoms point and to evaluate the latter only as signs while one fights against the first. And the symptoms are not always unique to the disease. Also, our new Christian belief interprets the questions whether a priest should wear a surplice, whether the Mass in Latin is also pleasing to God, and whether feast days can be celebrated in the new church without readily indicating popism. One can adhere to the doctrine of justification of Dr. Martin Luther and with it be Protestant but still honor the Mother of God or even renounce the chalice for the laity. For the latter, the medical view is that by drinking out of the same cup, disease is disseminated, which cannot be pleasing to God. Also at times there are pieces of the host in the cup from previous drinkers, especially from the toothless, which reduces one’s appetite for the blood of Christ.’”
My privy needs were sharpened by Flacius’s words. Quite often I had expressed the view that unless one recognizes in all science that it is the essentials that matter and not the appearances, one remains a bungler. Before I could answer, Musaeus spoke.
“We know of your continuing correspondence with Magister Philippus and must therefore assume that you are in agreement with him and his friends—in agreement that one can be indifferent to the adiaphora since they are not essential to the Christian faith.”
Now exclaimed Johann Wigand, who wanted to show himself equal in the strength of his faith, because he was not a professor yet but urgently wanted to become one: “But there are for the true Protestant no adiaphora, no middle positions, to which one can be indifferent.”
Now Matthäus Judex had to demonstrate he was the equal of Wigand and therefore repeated and amplified the claim: “Understand, Dr. Luther, there are no indifferent things in the matter of confessional avowal. Who here would reach the smallest finger to the Devil will lose his entire hand, and immediately he is popish.”
Now Flacius seized the opportunity to speak again. About Flacius I learned later that he, through his aggressive arguments and coarse speech, the so-called Jena tone, was designated as “Fläz,” a word that quickly reached the people of Thuringia and Saxony and was used for uncouth people, and that he already in 1561 along with Simon Musaeus, Johann Wigand, und Matthäus Judex, forfeited his office, resided then in Regensburg, Antwerp, and Strasbourg, everywhere in dispute with the clergy, and finally by even his strong Lutheran cohorts was accused of Manichaeism, that is, the most impertinent of all the heretic beliefs. After that, until his death, he had to lead an unsettled and insecure life, which served him right, God forgive me these pitiless words.
Here in Jena, however, he sat safely in his position and could fight for the unity and purity of his Lutheran party and pursue his opponents. He succeeded even in the imprisonment and suspension from service of his colleague Viktorin Strigel because of Philippism, but he could not, however, obtain his conviction. And I am convinced that the brave and highly famous rhetorician, Johann Stigel, crowned poeta laureatus by Emperor Charles V at the imperial diet in Augsburg, died at the right time and so escaped the new Protestant Inquisition and its main enforcer, the Protestant Control Commission. The latter was not a firm body; rather, depending on local and political conditions, it consisted of alternating members, whose influence and finally even correcting power relied less on police means than moods, trends,
fears, and elaborate zealotry. It was an elusive and more spiritual phenomenon that materialized in a specific form as required, intent on maintaining their power and their influence and continuance of their group.
So Flacius said, while I began to sweat, “Understand, Dr. Luther, that in our new doctrine, supported by the love of truth, revealed through Jesus Christ, there is no this-as-well-as-that, rather only either-or. You are, as professor, albeit only in medicine and only in the rank of an assessor, charged with the responsibility for the purity of the doctrine and for the struggle against the popish and Calvinistic influencing of the young. The Papists try to tempt people by making them believe it is easy to get rid of their sins by being absolved by a Roman priest. And this corruption comes under the cover of all sorts of laxness and so-called tolerance, which is represented by Magister Philippus and his friends.”
Here Flacius was loud and sprayed some saliva so that I stood up and moved back, which the Fläz misunderstood.
“Yes, step back and repent. We are giving you three days’ time to reflect; then you will justify yourself before the entire faculty. Should the justification satisfy the faculty, which you can help by naming us heretical students and faculty members, then would we strongly support that you, as soon as a position is available, become a full professor. Now go.”
I went as quickly as I could out the entrance of the courtyard, crapped, and cleaned my pants and rear with the sponges provided.
What had happened to me here? I left the courtyard and decided to organize my thoughts in the presence of God’s natural world. Walking, I soon came to the Löbdertor, through which I wanted to escape the fuss of the town. This gate had been rebuilt a few years earlier and carried on an inner section the inscription Turris fortissima verbum domini. I drew some comfort from these words, which reminded me of the defiant song of my father’s, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, a Trusty Shield and Weapon.” Stepping over the stone bridge above the water-filled moat, I went up the Haynberg Hill, on which the city had built a gallows as a sign of possessing the ius gladii or high justice. I passed, happy that currently there was no one hanging there, though under the gallows there was a fresh mound.
Shadows of My Father Page 18