Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his conscience.[941]The Count’s father had made the transfer on the condition that the monks should: “Keep their observance and above all preach the Gospel.” Upon taking over the cure of souls they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel (i.e. not according to Luther); thereupon he would have the “right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the livings away from them ... for it is not unjust, but an urgent duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold.... No preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief answer.” This was indeed the principle which he applied throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer succeeds in making people pious, “then the property no longer belongs to him.”Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however, of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new believers among the people had as yet failed to move them.Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging them to “yield to the poor people in this so essential and sacred a matter,” and to summon one of the two preachers whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these words: “It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be solicitous for the welfare of his people.”[942]The change of religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the Elector’s pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after, having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.General Phenomena accompanying the Religions ChangeIt not infrequently happened that the people were deceived by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith without being clearly aware of the fact. After having become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule, the strength to draw back. The want of religious instructionamong the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and also, the indolence of the episcopate.Mass still continued to be said in many places where Lutheranism had taken root, though in an altered form, a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the chief of Luther’s aims was to combat the Mass as a sacrifice.He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522: “If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass, as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and doctrines.... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil’s help, with false miracles and deceiving signs.”[943]In respect of the deception of the Mass, “I oppose all the pronouncements of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an appeal to ‘ancient custom and tradition’ nor to any man, but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge.” “This is God’s Word,” he vehemently exclaims of his denial of the sacrifice, “not ours. Here I stand, here I take my seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most sacred and deceitful of customs.”[944]It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere “sign and Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and assures us of it by a sign.”[945]Nor is the presence of Christ in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the result of a change of substance; Christ is in, with, and beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of receptionwas the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was nothing.[946]Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything depended on not making the change felt by the people in a way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy Luther advocated,[947]and by the retaining of the ceremonies, vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that it “must and shall be done away with.”[948]“The priest,” says Luther thoughtfully, when giving detailed instructions on the subject, “will easily be able to arrange that the common people learn nothing of it, and take no scandal.”[949]“How the priests are to behave with regard to the Canon,” he wrote in his Instruction for the Visitors in the Saxon Electorate, “they know well from other writings, and there is no need to preach much about this to the laity.” One would have thought, nevertheless, that the “common people,” no less than the learned, had a perfect right to the truth and to being instructed.Luther was also anxious that the innovation at communion should be introduced in an unobtrusive manner. “Avoid anything unusual or any attempt to oppose the masses.”[950]Although to receive under both kinds was regarded as the only “evangelical” way, agreeable “to Christ’s institution,” yet the weak were to be permitted to receive under the form of bread only and the reception of the chalice not to beprescribed “until we make the Evangel better known throughout the world.”[951]“But if anyone is so weak in this matter as rather to omit receiving the Sacrament altogether than to receive under one kind only, he was also to be indulged and allowed to live according to his conscience.”[952]In justification of all this Luther declared that the practice of the new religion must be introduced gently and “without detriment to charity.” That it was really a question of preventing disturbances and preserving charity, Cochlæus and others could not be made to see; this writer, in his work on Lutheranism, goes so far as to speak of Luther’s “hypocritical deception” of the masses.Later, the advocate of this sagacious method of procedure could declare: “Thank God, in indifferent matters our churches are so arranged that a layman, whether Italian or Spaniard, unable to understand our preaching, seeing our Mass, choir, organs, bells, chantries, etc., would surely say that it was a regular papist church, and that there was no difference, or very little, between it and his own.” He rejoiced that, in spite of the hot-heads, no more had been altered in the ritual than was absolutely necessary to conform it to his teaching.[953]Such is the course to pursue, he says, “If our churches are not to be shattered and confused and nothing to be effected among the Papists.”[954]As a matter of fact, the system he recommended did in some districts “effect much” among Papists who would otherwise have refused to have anything to do with him, the poor people not dreaming of the wide gulf which separated the new worship from the old. The people would not voluntarily have given up their faith in the truly sacrificial character of the Eucharist, in transubstantiation and sacrifice generally; as Melanchthon himself admitted: “The world is so much attached to the Mass that it seems well-nigh impossible to wrest people from it.”[955]We may here mention what occurred at a later date withinthe Lutheran fold. At the instigation of Wittenberg the adaptation of the Catholic worship was carried out very thoroughly in some places, the principle proving highly conducive to the acceptance of the new church system. In few countries, however, was this the case to such an extent as in Denmark, where Luther’s friend Bugenhagen was responsible for the change of religion. Even to-day, in the Protestant worship established in Denmark, Norway and the duchies formerly united to the Danish crown, there is to be found a surprising number of Catholic reminiscences, from the solemn Eucharistic service down to the ringing of the bells thrice daily for prayer. In the celebration of the solemn Eucharist the preachers even vest in a white linen alb and chasuble of red velvet; the elevation, too, is still preserved, for, after the “consecration,” which is pronounced from the middle of the altar according to immemorial custom, the Bread and Wine are shown to the people.Martin Weier, a young student of good family from Pomerania, took counsel of Luther as to how, on his return from Wittenberg, he was to behave with regard to his old father in the matter of Divine worship. Luther, according to his own account, told him “to conform to his father’s wishes in every way in order not to offend him; follow his example concerning fasting, prayer, hearing Mass and the veneration of the Saints, but at the same time instruct him in the Word of God and on the subject of justification, so as, if possible, to become his spiritual father without giving any offence.” Luther had declared concerning himself that he had offended God most horribly by his former celebration of Mass, more so than if he had been “a highwayman or kept a brothel”; yet he tells his aristocratic pupil that he will be committing no sin, if, “for the sake of his father, he is present at Mass and other acts by which God is dishonoured.”[956]A contrast to this system of accommodation and the gentle introduction of innovations is presented by the acts of violence which too often occurred on German soil at the time of the religious revolution. The excesses perpetrated by the people were, as can be proved, encouraged by the inflammatory speeches of the preachers, Luther’s own words being frequently appealed to; their effect in suchtimes of popular commotion was like that of oil poured on the flames. In “the streets and at every corner,” on all the walls, on placards, in broadsides, and even on playing cards the clergy and the monks were abused, to quote Luther’s own testimony.[957]“Turks” and “worse than Turks,” such were the descriptions applied to them by the populace in imitation of Luther. “We shall never be successful against the Turks,” he says later, reverting to his earlier style of language, “unless we fall upon them and the priests at the right moment and smite them dead.”[958]In the case of Luther himself such expressions were empty words, but the mob scrupled little about carrying them into effect. In many instances, however, lust for riches on the part of the great, who longed to possess themselves of Church property, and the long-standing antagonism of towns and Princes to the rights claimed by bishops and abbots, led to violence. The exaltation of their own power was for many of the authorities their principal reason for taking sides against the older Church. It must be borne in mind that, subsequent to 1525, Luther himself was no longer the sole head of the movement of apostasy. More and more he began to hand over the actual guidance of the movement to the secular power, a condition of things which had been preparing since the Diet of Worms. The direction of so far-reaching an undertaking was scarcely suited to his talents, which were not of the administrative order. To his followers, however, he remained the chief authority as pastor, preacher and writer; he continued to take an active part in all public affairs, and, on many occasions, exercised a direct and profound influence on the spread of the new Church.Many well-meaning and highly respected men supported the new establishment from no selfish motives, and became open and genuine promoters of Luther’s cause, because they looked upon it as just and true. The ideal character, which Wittenberg was successful in stamping on Luther’s aims, proved very seductive, especially in the then prevailingignorance of the real state of things, and in many places won for the cause devoted and enthusiastic workers.To take but one example: A knight, Hartmuth (Hartmann) von Cronberg, in the Taunus, glowing with zeal for the new Evangel, wrote a letter recommending the Lutheran congregational system to the inhabitants of Cronberg and Frankfurt.In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that “all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin.” I have heard, with heartfelt sympathy”, he says to Luther, of “your great pains and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German nation.” “It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the knowledge of Him.” “Fain would I speak to the German lands and say: O Germany! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive you your great sin.... Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil and accept the sweet yoke of Christ.” The writer beseeches God to grant “that we may not trust in ourselves or our works; rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine, Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised and magnified throughout the world.”[959]The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this, expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in spite of persecution.[960]The above-quoted letter, addressed by Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther’s from the Wartburg; both were printed together and made the round of Germany under the title “A missive to all those who suffer persecution for the Word of God.”Luther there says to his admirer: “It is plain that your words spring from the depths of your heart and soul,” and this testimony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, andin the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant fashion: “And even should Satan attempt greater and worse things he shall not weary us; he may as well attempt to drag Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin, death, the devil and every thing.”The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden, promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service with Sickingen in 1519.[961]The assistance he lent to Sickingen’s treacherous machinations against the Empire proved his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October 15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his property by a passionate devotion to his religious and political aims. After a life of “undismayed attachment to what he deemed his duty,” says H. Ulmann, this man, “whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism,” died at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.[962]This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he should convince the Pope by “irrefragable proofs” that he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist. But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority and was bound before God to proceed against him by force, as against “an apostate, heretic and Antichrist.”[963]Some of his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a “Knight after God’s own heart.” His fanaticism, however, went so far that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence, not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against church property which he declared everyone free to appropriate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-letter to Sickingen he wrote: “All ecclesiastical propertyhas been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may keep it with God’s help, and no creature whether Pope or devil can harm such property.” He warns the Frankfurt priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is converted to the “Evangel” any man may, with a good conscience, take action against him, “just as it is lawful to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and murderer, with word and deed.”[964]Wittenberg. The Saxon ElectorateThe abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want of consideration.Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely to transform this “Bethaven,” this place of idolatry, as he called the Church,[965]and in this matter the Prior and some of the Canons were on his side.After some unsuccessful negotiations, carried on with the Elector through Spalatin, Luther himself invited the Chapter, on March 1, 1523, to abolish all Catholic ceremonies, as abominations, which could only give scandal at Wittenberg. “The cause of the ‘Evangel,’ which Christ has committed to this city as a priceless gift,” forced him, so he declared, to speak. “My conscience can no longer keep silence owing to the office entrusted to me.” If they would not give way peaceably, then they must be prepared for “public insults” from him, seeing that they would have to be excluded from the congregation as non-Christians, and have their company shunned.[966]The Dean, who was faithful to the Church, and the Catholic members of the Chapter persisted in their resistance, urging that the Elector himself did not wish to see the Masses discontinued which his ancestors had founded for the repose of their souls.Luther, not in the least disconcerted, on July 11, 1523, repeated his written declaration, this time in a peremptory tone. “If we endure this any longer,” he writes, “it will fall upon our own heads and we shall be burdened with the sins of others.” The Canons were not to tell him that “the Elector commanded or did not command to do this or to alter that. I am speaking now to your own consciences. What has the Elector to do with such matters?” he asks, strangely contradicting his own theory. “You know what St. Peter says, Acts v. 29, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men,’ and St. Paul (Gal. i. 8), ‘Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.’” He summons them to “obey,” otherwise he will pray against them as he has hitherto prayed for them, and as Christ was “jealous” it might be that his “prayer would be powerful and you may have to suffer for it.” “Christ soon punishes those who are His, when they wax disobedient (cp. 1 Peter iv. 17).”[967]His violence in the pulpit gave reason for anticipating the worst when, on the very next day, he gave free rein to his eloquence against the Collegiate Church.On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against the Canons and their service.[968]He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even against him: “What does he matter to us?” he cried. “He commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say: “Your Grace, pray look after your own business.”[969]It was an unequivocal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in the same sermon, that they also would be “responsible for the sins of others” if they permitted the Popish disorder any longerin their midst. “I am afraid that this may also be the reason why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer such things to be.”[970]Yet he was careful prudently to admonish the people not to touch the Canons’ persons.This admonition seems to have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would “not go any further,” as there was quite enough “discontent at Wittenberg already.”[971]The offender in reply assured the Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult,[972]and, for the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told. We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that Luther did not act up to what he preached.[973]In the letter in question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from “Masses, vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel,” they would be forced to do so; he moreover asked for a “true, straight and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday”; what has happened is that “the devil has inspired you with a spirit of defiance and mischief.” The “great patience with which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and the idolatry in your Churches” is exhausted. He also hints that they could no longer be certain of the Elector’s protection.[974]Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was blasphemy, madness and a lie; its celebration was worse than unchastity, murder or robbery; princes, burgomasters, councillors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had received the sword from Him.[975]He exhorts “all princes and rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges” to summon the “blasphemous ministers” of the “whore of Babylon” and force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.The agitation intentionally fomented became, however, so great, that the Canons did not know what steps to take against the “rising excitement of the inhabitants” of Wittenberg,[976]for the saving of the Catholic services, and for the safety of their own persons. Even before this, students had perpetrated disorders at night in the Collegiate Church, and Luther had himself declared that he was obliged daily to restrain the people to prevent the committing of excesses. The Canons were now tormented by the singing of satires on the Mass outside their house, and had to listen to the curses which were showered on them. One night the Dean had his windows smashed. The Town Council, and also the University, now definitely took sides against the Chapter, and, after warning them in writing of God’s anger, sent representatives to advise the Canons of their excommunication. Although no actual tumult took place, yet the public declarations and the threatening attitude of the populace incited by Luther amounted to practical compulsion. The few Canons still remaining finally yielded to force, particularly when they saw that the Elector, Frederick “the Wise,” refused to give any but evasive replies to their appeals.On Christmas Day, 1524, for the first time, there was no Mass.Protestants themselves have recently admitted that, “contrary to the express wish of the sovereign and not without the employment of force against the Canons”[977]did “Luther succeed in carrying matters so far.”[978]“The Canons finally gave way before new outbursts of violence on the part of the students and the citizens,” when, according to Luther’s own account, there remained only “three hogs and paunches” of all the Canons formerly attached to this Church, not of “All Saints,” but rather of “All Devils.”[979]An echo of his tempestuous sermon of November 27 is to be found in the pamphlet which Luther published at the commencement of 1525: “On the abomination of Silent Masses” (against the Canon of the Mass). In the Preface he refers directly to the inglorious proceedings against the unfortunate Chapter. He finds it necessary to declare thathe, for his part, had aroused no revolt, for what was done by the established authorities could not be termed revolt; the “secular gentlemen,” who, according to him, constituted the established authorities, had, however, felt it their duty to take steps against the Catholic worship in the Collegiate Church.In that same year, 1525, under the auspices of the new Elector Johann, a great friend to Lutheranism, who succeeded the Elector Frederick upon his death on May 5, 1525, and whom Luther had long before won over to his cause, the order of Divine Service at Wittenberg was entirely altered. “The Pope” was at last, as Spalatin joyfully proclaimed throughout the city, “completely set aside.”[980]Under the rule of the Elector Johann, Luther at once carried out the complete suppression of Catholic worship throughout the Electorate.On October 1, 1525, Spalatin wrote to the Elector Johann: “Dr. Martin also says, that your Electoral Grace is on no account to permit anyone to continue the anti-Christian ceremonies any longer, or to start them again.”[981]With the object of helping him in his work at Court and of removing any scruples he might have, Luther explained to Spalatin, in a letter of November 11 of the same year, that by stamping out the Catholic worship rulers would not be forcing the faith on anyone, but merely prohibiting such open abominations as the Mass; if anyone, in spite of all, desired to believe in it privately, or to blaspheme in secret, no coercion would be exercised.[982]No attention was paid to the rights of Catholics to a Divine Worship, attendance at which was to them a matter of conscience. They were simply to be permitted to emigrate; if they chose to remain they were not to “perform or take any part in any public worship.”[983]It was on such principles as these that the Memorandum which Spalatin presented to the Elector on January 10, 1526, was based.[984]Luther himself appealed to the Elector on February 9, 1526, seeking to “fortify his conscience” and to encourage him “to attack the idolaters with even greater readiness.” He points out to him, first, how damnable is the blasphemous, idolatrous worship; were he to afford it any protection, then “all the abominations against God would eventually weigh upon his, the Prince’s, conscience”; secondly, that differences in religious worship would inevitably give rise to “revolt and tumults”; hence the ruler must provide that “in each locality there be but one doctrine.”[985]To the force of such arguments Johann could not but yield.He answered in a friendly letter to Luther on February 13, 1526, that he had been pleased to take note of the difficulty, and would for the future know how to comport himself in these matters in a Christian and irreproachable manner.[986]Subsequent to this assurance he acted as an apt pupil of the Wittenberg Professor.In accordance with the instructions given by the Elector in 1527 for the general Visitation of the Churches in the Saxon Electorate, an “inquisition” was to be held everywhere by the ecclesiastical Visitors as to whether any “sect or schism” existed in the country. Whoever was “suspected of error in respect of the sacraments or some doctrine of faith” was to be “summoned and interrogated, and, if the occasion required, hostile witnesses were to be heard”; if any refused to give up their “error,” they were commanded to sell their possessions within a given time and to quit the country.[987]One thing only was still wanting, viz. that the people should be compelled by the Ruler to attend the Lutheran sermons and services. Even this was, however, implied in the regulations, since those who did not attend were classed among the “suspects.” As time went on Luther demanded the exercise of such coercion, and it wasactually introduced in the Electorate and, later, in the Protestant Duchy of Saxony.[988]The proceedings on the introduction of the innovations in other districts were similar to those in the Electorate of Saxony. Wherever a small group of persons were willing to throw in their lot with the first local representatives of the new faith—generally clerics—they were backed up by the State authorities, who reconstructed the religious system as they thought best. “Nowhere was the primitive Lutheran ideal realised of a congregation forming itself in entire independence.... Thus at an early date Lutheranism took its place among the political factors, and its development was to a certain extent dependent upon the tendencies and inclinations of the authorities and ruling sovereigns of that day.”[989]The Electors Frederick and Johann of Saxony were gradually joined by a number of other Princes who introduced the innovations into their lands, and the magistrates of the larger, and even of some of the smaller, Imperial cities soon followed suit. Thus the whole movement, having owed its success so largely to the authorities, was governed and exploited by them and assumed a strongly political character, needless to say, much to the detriment of its religious aspect.What part the “inclinations of the ruling sovereigns” played, even in opposition to Luther’s own wishes, is plain from the example of the Margrave Philip of Hesse, who, next to the Elector of Saxony, was the most powerful, and undoubtedly the most determined, promoter of the great apostasy. This Prince, whose leanings were towards Zürich, as early as 1529 was anxious to extend the alliance he had concluded in the interests of the innovations with the Saxon Electorate, so as to embrace also the Zwinglians. Attracted by Zwingli’s denial of the sacrament, he also sought, with the assistance of theologians of his own way of thinking, to amalgamate the Swiss doctrine with that ofWittenberg; in this he was not, however, successful. The great religious alliance with Wittenberg aimed at by Zwingli himself as well as by Philip, and which it was hoped to settle at the Conference of Marburg (see vol. iii., xix. 1), was never realised, Luther refusing to give in on any point. In Hesse, however, the Zwinglian influence was maintained through the agency of theologians of Bucer’s school, which had the favour of the Court, while at Strasburg and other South German cities the authorities, leaning even more to the Swiss Confession, set up their “reformed” view as the actual rule of faith in their domains.NurembergThe history of the apostasy of Nuremberg, which may be considered separately here, exhibits another type of the proceedings at the general religious revolution.Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther’s own Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council. Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob. Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of St. Ægidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas the town-council—the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus Ebner, Caspar Stützel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the Town Clerk—formally decided to join Luther’s party, many among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided; here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden falling away of the people as a whole.What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other towns: “I frequently hear that there are many people in this city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons, but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever listened to it.”[990]The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures, sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable, stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. Ægidius surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the monks became Lutherans.All these changes took place in 1525.The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving Friars surrendered their convent to the magistrates in 1543. The Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand, enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer, a lady equally clever and pious.The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and confessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament. The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bamberg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion; those who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read in the “Memoirs” of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward peace which nothing could destroy; how they worked actively for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife, where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital, proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city. The “Word” was despised, he writes, immorality was on the increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and he himself when he went out had the name “parson” derisively hurled at him; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention, and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication. Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspondentand sought to encourage him: it grieved him deeply, he wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God; such a state of things was the third great temptation in the history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occasioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the Gospel, will also pass over happily. “Should this not be the case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to think of quitting this Babylon. ‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9]; let us forsake her.’”[991]It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe to Luther all the deeds of violence or injustice which took place in great number on the spread of the new ecclesiastical system. It is notorious how much the unruly, turbulent spirit of that day contributed to the distressing phenomena of the struggle then being carried on. Such a far-reaching revolution naturally set free forces and passions in both the higher and lower spheres, which could only with difficulty be brought once more under control. Now and then, too, faithful Catholics, laymen, priests and religious, by a misuse of the power they happened to possess, gave occasion to renewed acts of oppression on the part of the Lutherans.It is, nevertheless, right to point out the turbulent stamp which Luther impressed upon the movement. His own share in the work, some examples of which we have considered above, were utterly at variance with his advice to Gabriel Zwilling, viz. “to leave everything to God, to avoid introducing innovations and to guide the people solely by faith and charity” (above, p. 314).Luther and the Introduction of the New Teaching at ErfurtThe most powerful impulse to the introduction of the new teaching in Erfurt proceeded from the Augustinian house in that town. Its former Prior, Johann Lang, became an apostle of Lutheranism after having prepared the way for the innovation as a Humanist of modern views closely allied with the Humanist group at Erfurt.We find Lang, in the summer of 1520, still Rural Vicar of his Order, and he may have retained the dignity for some time longer when Wenceslaus Link was elected as Staupitz’s successor at the Chapter held at Eisleben in that year. The fourteen monks of the Augustinian Congregation—at one time so faithful to the Church—who quitted the Order before Lang, remind us of the sad fact, that in his work Luther met with support in many places from those who were originally Catholics, and that the innovation was often heartily welcomed by members of the clergy, secular and regular.The Saxon Augustinian Congregation, which was strongly represented at Erfurt, had been undermined by Luther’s spirit no less than by the struggle between the Conventuals and the Observantines. At the convention of the Order, held at Wittenberg on the Feast of the Three Kings in 1522, it was decided that begging would henceforth be no longer allowed,[992]“because we follow Holy Scripture.” At that time many had already apostatised. It was further ordained, that, by virtue of the evangelical freedom of the servants of God, everyone was free to leave his monastery. “Among those who are Christ’s there is neither monk nor layman. Whoever is not yet able to comprehend this freedom may act as he thinks fit, but must not give scandal to others by his conduct, in order that the Holy Evangel be not blasphemed.” On this the Protestant historian of the Augustinian Congregation remarks: “This [i.e. the giving of no scandal] was more easily commended than put into effect.” And, speaking of the time when the Erfurt Augustinian house was already almost empty (Usingen, Nathin and a few others alone remaining faithful), he writes: “Lang and his companions were in great danger of seeing the triumph of the Evangel rather in the rooting out of Popery than in the promoting of the new evangelical life.... Usingen, exposed to the mockery and insults of his own pupils, which he had certainly never deserved, at last quitted in anger the spot where he had worked for many years,” “an honest man.”[993]He withdrew in 1525 to the Augustinian monastery at Würzburg.Factors favourable to the spread of Lutheranism inErfurt were: The Humanism, antagonistic to the Church, which was all-powerful at the University; the restlessness of the common people, who were dissatisfied with their condition; the jealousy existing between the secular and regular clergy, the struggle which the town was carrying on with its chief pastor, the Archbishop of Mayence, concerning rights and property; last, but not least, the hatred of the laity for the opulent and far too numerous clergy. Here, therefore, we find the selfsame elements present which elsewhere so ably seconded the preaching of the new evangelists.Erfurt affords an example of how pious foundations of former ages had multiplied to an excessive and burdensome extent, a condition of things which was no longer any real advantage to the Church, and simply tended to arouse the jealousy of the laity and working man.There were more than three hundred vicariates (livings, or benefices), twenty-one parish churches or churches of the same standing, thirty chapels and six hospitals; the number of secular clergy was in proportion to the work entailed in serving the above, and there was an even greater number of monks and nuns. In every corner there were monastic establishments. Benedictines, the Scottish Brotherhood, the Canons Regular, Carthusians, Dominicans and Franciscans, Servites and Augustinians, all were represented. In addition to this were four or five convents of women. Erfurt perhaps possessed more ecclesiastical foundations and institutions than any other town in Germany, with the possible exception of Cologne and Nuremberg.[994]The rich possessions of the convents and churches at Erfurt were made the pretext for the religious innovations. The immunity they enjoyed from the burdens borne by the citizens was to be made an end of, the ecclesiastical property was to be handed over to the town, and the town itself was to be withdrawn from the temporal sway of the Archbishop of Mayence.When Luther, who was already under the ban, preached at Erfurt, on April 7, 1521, in the Church of the Augustinians (see above, p. 63), he represented the religious change, the way for which had already been paved,in the light of that evangelical freedom which his view of faith and works was to bring to the inhabitants of Erfurt.[995]
Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his conscience.[941]The Count’s father had made the transfer on the condition that the monks should: “Keep their observance and above all preach the Gospel.” Upon taking over the cure of souls they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel (i.e. not according to Luther); thereupon he would have the “right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the livings away from them ... for it is not unjust, but an urgent duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold.... No preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief answer.” This was indeed the principle which he applied throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer succeeds in making people pious, “then the property no longer belongs to him.”Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however, of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new believers among the people had as yet failed to move them.Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging them to “yield to the poor people in this so essential and sacred a matter,” and to summon one of the two preachers whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these words: “It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be solicitous for the welfare of his people.”[942]The change of religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the Elector’s pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after, having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.General Phenomena accompanying the Religions ChangeIt not infrequently happened that the people were deceived by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith without being clearly aware of the fact. After having become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule, the strength to draw back. The want of religious instructionamong the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and also, the indolence of the episcopate.Mass still continued to be said in many places where Lutheranism had taken root, though in an altered form, a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the chief of Luther’s aims was to combat the Mass as a sacrifice.He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522: “If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass, as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and doctrines.... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil’s help, with false miracles and deceiving signs.”[943]In respect of the deception of the Mass, “I oppose all the pronouncements of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an appeal to ‘ancient custom and tradition’ nor to any man, but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge.” “This is God’s Word,” he vehemently exclaims of his denial of the sacrifice, “not ours. Here I stand, here I take my seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most sacred and deceitful of customs.”[944]It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere “sign and Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and assures us of it by a sign.”[945]Nor is the presence of Christ in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the result of a change of substance; Christ is in, with, and beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of receptionwas the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was nothing.[946]Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything depended on not making the change felt by the people in a way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy Luther advocated,[947]and by the retaining of the ceremonies, vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that it “must and shall be done away with.”[948]“The priest,” says Luther thoughtfully, when giving detailed instructions on the subject, “will easily be able to arrange that the common people learn nothing of it, and take no scandal.”[949]“How the priests are to behave with regard to the Canon,” he wrote in his Instruction for the Visitors in the Saxon Electorate, “they know well from other writings, and there is no need to preach much about this to the laity.” One would have thought, nevertheless, that the “common people,” no less than the learned, had a perfect right to the truth and to being instructed.Luther was also anxious that the innovation at communion should be introduced in an unobtrusive manner. “Avoid anything unusual or any attempt to oppose the masses.”[950]Although to receive under both kinds was regarded as the only “evangelical” way, agreeable “to Christ’s institution,” yet the weak were to be permitted to receive under the form of bread only and the reception of the chalice not to beprescribed “until we make the Evangel better known throughout the world.”[951]“But if anyone is so weak in this matter as rather to omit receiving the Sacrament altogether than to receive under one kind only, he was also to be indulged and allowed to live according to his conscience.”[952]In justification of all this Luther declared that the practice of the new religion must be introduced gently and “without detriment to charity.” That it was really a question of preventing disturbances and preserving charity, Cochlæus and others could not be made to see; this writer, in his work on Lutheranism, goes so far as to speak of Luther’s “hypocritical deception” of the masses.Later, the advocate of this sagacious method of procedure could declare: “Thank God, in indifferent matters our churches are so arranged that a layman, whether Italian or Spaniard, unable to understand our preaching, seeing our Mass, choir, organs, bells, chantries, etc., would surely say that it was a regular papist church, and that there was no difference, or very little, between it and his own.” He rejoiced that, in spite of the hot-heads, no more had been altered in the ritual than was absolutely necessary to conform it to his teaching.[953]Such is the course to pursue, he says, “If our churches are not to be shattered and confused and nothing to be effected among the Papists.”[954]As a matter of fact, the system he recommended did in some districts “effect much” among Papists who would otherwise have refused to have anything to do with him, the poor people not dreaming of the wide gulf which separated the new worship from the old. The people would not voluntarily have given up their faith in the truly sacrificial character of the Eucharist, in transubstantiation and sacrifice generally; as Melanchthon himself admitted: “The world is so much attached to the Mass that it seems well-nigh impossible to wrest people from it.”[955]We may here mention what occurred at a later date withinthe Lutheran fold. At the instigation of Wittenberg the adaptation of the Catholic worship was carried out very thoroughly in some places, the principle proving highly conducive to the acceptance of the new church system. In few countries, however, was this the case to such an extent as in Denmark, where Luther’s friend Bugenhagen was responsible for the change of religion. Even to-day, in the Protestant worship established in Denmark, Norway and the duchies formerly united to the Danish crown, there is to be found a surprising number of Catholic reminiscences, from the solemn Eucharistic service down to the ringing of the bells thrice daily for prayer. In the celebration of the solemn Eucharist the preachers even vest in a white linen alb and chasuble of red velvet; the elevation, too, is still preserved, for, after the “consecration,” which is pronounced from the middle of the altar according to immemorial custom, the Bread and Wine are shown to the people.Martin Weier, a young student of good family from Pomerania, took counsel of Luther as to how, on his return from Wittenberg, he was to behave with regard to his old father in the matter of Divine worship. Luther, according to his own account, told him “to conform to his father’s wishes in every way in order not to offend him; follow his example concerning fasting, prayer, hearing Mass and the veneration of the Saints, but at the same time instruct him in the Word of God and on the subject of justification, so as, if possible, to become his spiritual father without giving any offence.” Luther had declared concerning himself that he had offended God most horribly by his former celebration of Mass, more so than if he had been “a highwayman or kept a brothel”; yet he tells his aristocratic pupil that he will be committing no sin, if, “for the sake of his father, he is present at Mass and other acts by which God is dishonoured.”[956]A contrast to this system of accommodation and the gentle introduction of innovations is presented by the acts of violence which too often occurred on German soil at the time of the religious revolution. The excesses perpetrated by the people were, as can be proved, encouraged by the inflammatory speeches of the preachers, Luther’s own words being frequently appealed to; their effect in suchtimes of popular commotion was like that of oil poured on the flames. In “the streets and at every corner,” on all the walls, on placards, in broadsides, and even on playing cards the clergy and the monks were abused, to quote Luther’s own testimony.[957]“Turks” and “worse than Turks,” such were the descriptions applied to them by the populace in imitation of Luther. “We shall never be successful against the Turks,” he says later, reverting to his earlier style of language, “unless we fall upon them and the priests at the right moment and smite them dead.”[958]In the case of Luther himself such expressions were empty words, but the mob scrupled little about carrying them into effect. In many instances, however, lust for riches on the part of the great, who longed to possess themselves of Church property, and the long-standing antagonism of towns and Princes to the rights claimed by bishops and abbots, led to violence. The exaltation of their own power was for many of the authorities their principal reason for taking sides against the older Church. It must be borne in mind that, subsequent to 1525, Luther himself was no longer the sole head of the movement of apostasy. More and more he began to hand over the actual guidance of the movement to the secular power, a condition of things which had been preparing since the Diet of Worms. The direction of so far-reaching an undertaking was scarcely suited to his talents, which were not of the administrative order. To his followers, however, he remained the chief authority as pastor, preacher and writer; he continued to take an active part in all public affairs, and, on many occasions, exercised a direct and profound influence on the spread of the new Church.Many well-meaning and highly respected men supported the new establishment from no selfish motives, and became open and genuine promoters of Luther’s cause, because they looked upon it as just and true. The ideal character, which Wittenberg was successful in stamping on Luther’s aims, proved very seductive, especially in the then prevailingignorance of the real state of things, and in many places won for the cause devoted and enthusiastic workers.To take but one example: A knight, Hartmuth (Hartmann) von Cronberg, in the Taunus, glowing with zeal for the new Evangel, wrote a letter recommending the Lutheran congregational system to the inhabitants of Cronberg and Frankfurt.In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that “all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin.” I have heard, with heartfelt sympathy”, he says to Luther, of “your great pains and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German nation.” “It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the knowledge of Him.” “Fain would I speak to the German lands and say: O Germany! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive you your great sin.... Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil and accept the sweet yoke of Christ.” The writer beseeches God to grant “that we may not trust in ourselves or our works; rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine, Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised and magnified throughout the world.”[959]The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this, expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in spite of persecution.[960]The above-quoted letter, addressed by Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther’s from the Wartburg; both were printed together and made the round of Germany under the title “A missive to all those who suffer persecution for the Word of God.”Luther there says to his admirer: “It is plain that your words spring from the depths of your heart and soul,” and this testimony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, andin the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant fashion: “And even should Satan attempt greater and worse things he shall not weary us; he may as well attempt to drag Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin, death, the devil and every thing.”The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden, promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service with Sickingen in 1519.[961]The assistance he lent to Sickingen’s treacherous machinations against the Empire proved his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October 15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his property by a passionate devotion to his religious and political aims. After a life of “undismayed attachment to what he deemed his duty,” says H. Ulmann, this man, “whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism,” died at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.[962]This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he should convince the Pope by “irrefragable proofs” that he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist. But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority and was bound before God to proceed against him by force, as against “an apostate, heretic and Antichrist.”[963]Some of his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a “Knight after God’s own heart.” His fanaticism, however, went so far that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence, not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against church property which he declared everyone free to appropriate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-letter to Sickingen he wrote: “All ecclesiastical propertyhas been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may keep it with God’s help, and no creature whether Pope or devil can harm such property.” He warns the Frankfurt priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is converted to the “Evangel” any man may, with a good conscience, take action against him, “just as it is lawful to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and murderer, with word and deed.”[964]Wittenberg. The Saxon ElectorateThe abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want of consideration.Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely to transform this “Bethaven,” this place of idolatry, as he called the Church,[965]and in this matter the Prior and some of the Canons were on his side.After some unsuccessful negotiations, carried on with the Elector through Spalatin, Luther himself invited the Chapter, on March 1, 1523, to abolish all Catholic ceremonies, as abominations, which could only give scandal at Wittenberg. “The cause of the ‘Evangel,’ which Christ has committed to this city as a priceless gift,” forced him, so he declared, to speak. “My conscience can no longer keep silence owing to the office entrusted to me.” If they would not give way peaceably, then they must be prepared for “public insults” from him, seeing that they would have to be excluded from the congregation as non-Christians, and have their company shunned.[966]The Dean, who was faithful to the Church, and the Catholic members of the Chapter persisted in their resistance, urging that the Elector himself did not wish to see the Masses discontinued which his ancestors had founded for the repose of their souls.Luther, not in the least disconcerted, on July 11, 1523, repeated his written declaration, this time in a peremptory tone. “If we endure this any longer,” he writes, “it will fall upon our own heads and we shall be burdened with the sins of others.” The Canons were not to tell him that “the Elector commanded or did not command to do this or to alter that. I am speaking now to your own consciences. What has the Elector to do with such matters?” he asks, strangely contradicting his own theory. “You know what St. Peter says, Acts v. 29, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men,’ and St. Paul (Gal. i. 8), ‘Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.’” He summons them to “obey,” otherwise he will pray against them as he has hitherto prayed for them, and as Christ was “jealous” it might be that his “prayer would be powerful and you may have to suffer for it.” “Christ soon punishes those who are His, when they wax disobedient (cp. 1 Peter iv. 17).”[967]His violence in the pulpit gave reason for anticipating the worst when, on the very next day, he gave free rein to his eloquence against the Collegiate Church.On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against the Canons and their service.[968]He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even against him: “What does he matter to us?” he cried. “He commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say: “Your Grace, pray look after your own business.”[969]It was an unequivocal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in the same sermon, that they also would be “responsible for the sins of others” if they permitted the Popish disorder any longerin their midst. “I am afraid that this may also be the reason why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer such things to be.”[970]Yet he was careful prudently to admonish the people not to touch the Canons’ persons.This admonition seems to have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would “not go any further,” as there was quite enough “discontent at Wittenberg already.”[971]The offender in reply assured the Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult,[972]and, for the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told. We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that Luther did not act up to what he preached.[973]In the letter in question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from “Masses, vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel,” they would be forced to do so; he moreover asked for a “true, straight and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday”; what has happened is that “the devil has inspired you with a spirit of defiance and mischief.” The “great patience with which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and the idolatry in your Churches” is exhausted. He also hints that they could no longer be certain of the Elector’s protection.[974]Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was blasphemy, madness and a lie; its celebration was worse than unchastity, murder or robbery; princes, burgomasters, councillors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had received the sword from Him.[975]He exhorts “all princes and rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges” to summon the “blasphemous ministers” of the “whore of Babylon” and force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.The agitation intentionally fomented became, however, so great, that the Canons did not know what steps to take against the “rising excitement of the inhabitants” of Wittenberg,[976]for the saving of the Catholic services, and for the safety of their own persons. Even before this, students had perpetrated disorders at night in the Collegiate Church, and Luther had himself declared that he was obliged daily to restrain the people to prevent the committing of excesses. The Canons were now tormented by the singing of satires on the Mass outside their house, and had to listen to the curses which were showered on them. One night the Dean had his windows smashed. The Town Council, and also the University, now definitely took sides against the Chapter, and, after warning them in writing of God’s anger, sent representatives to advise the Canons of their excommunication. Although no actual tumult took place, yet the public declarations and the threatening attitude of the populace incited by Luther amounted to practical compulsion. The few Canons still remaining finally yielded to force, particularly when they saw that the Elector, Frederick “the Wise,” refused to give any but evasive replies to their appeals.On Christmas Day, 1524, for the first time, there was no Mass.Protestants themselves have recently admitted that, “contrary to the express wish of the sovereign and not without the employment of force against the Canons”[977]did “Luther succeed in carrying matters so far.”[978]“The Canons finally gave way before new outbursts of violence on the part of the students and the citizens,” when, according to Luther’s own account, there remained only “three hogs and paunches” of all the Canons formerly attached to this Church, not of “All Saints,” but rather of “All Devils.”[979]An echo of his tempestuous sermon of November 27 is to be found in the pamphlet which Luther published at the commencement of 1525: “On the abomination of Silent Masses” (against the Canon of the Mass). In the Preface he refers directly to the inglorious proceedings against the unfortunate Chapter. He finds it necessary to declare thathe, for his part, had aroused no revolt, for what was done by the established authorities could not be termed revolt; the “secular gentlemen,” who, according to him, constituted the established authorities, had, however, felt it their duty to take steps against the Catholic worship in the Collegiate Church.In that same year, 1525, under the auspices of the new Elector Johann, a great friend to Lutheranism, who succeeded the Elector Frederick upon his death on May 5, 1525, and whom Luther had long before won over to his cause, the order of Divine Service at Wittenberg was entirely altered. “The Pope” was at last, as Spalatin joyfully proclaimed throughout the city, “completely set aside.”[980]Under the rule of the Elector Johann, Luther at once carried out the complete suppression of Catholic worship throughout the Electorate.On October 1, 1525, Spalatin wrote to the Elector Johann: “Dr. Martin also says, that your Electoral Grace is on no account to permit anyone to continue the anti-Christian ceremonies any longer, or to start them again.”[981]With the object of helping him in his work at Court and of removing any scruples he might have, Luther explained to Spalatin, in a letter of November 11 of the same year, that by stamping out the Catholic worship rulers would not be forcing the faith on anyone, but merely prohibiting such open abominations as the Mass; if anyone, in spite of all, desired to believe in it privately, or to blaspheme in secret, no coercion would be exercised.[982]No attention was paid to the rights of Catholics to a Divine Worship, attendance at which was to them a matter of conscience. They were simply to be permitted to emigrate; if they chose to remain they were not to “perform or take any part in any public worship.”[983]It was on such principles as these that the Memorandum which Spalatin presented to the Elector on January 10, 1526, was based.[984]Luther himself appealed to the Elector on February 9, 1526, seeking to “fortify his conscience” and to encourage him “to attack the idolaters with even greater readiness.” He points out to him, first, how damnable is the blasphemous, idolatrous worship; were he to afford it any protection, then “all the abominations against God would eventually weigh upon his, the Prince’s, conscience”; secondly, that differences in religious worship would inevitably give rise to “revolt and tumults”; hence the ruler must provide that “in each locality there be but one doctrine.”[985]To the force of such arguments Johann could not but yield.He answered in a friendly letter to Luther on February 13, 1526, that he had been pleased to take note of the difficulty, and would for the future know how to comport himself in these matters in a Christian and irreproachable manner.[986]Subsequent to this assurance he acted as an apt pupil of the Wittenberg Professor.In accordance with the instructions given by the Elector in 1527 for the general Visitation of the Churches in the Saxon Electorate, an “inquisition” was to be held everywhere by the ecclesiastical Visitors as to whether any “sect or schism” existed in the country. Whoever was “suspected of error in respect of the sacraments or some doctrine of faith” was to be “summoned and interrogated, and, if the occasion required, hostile witnesses were to be heard”; if any refused to give up their “error,” they were commanded to sell their possessions within a given time and to quit the country.[987]One thing only was still wanting, viz. that the people should be compelled by the Ruler to attend the Lutheran sermons and services. Even this was, however, implied in the regulations, since those who did not attend were classed among the “suspects.” As time went on Luther demanded the exercise of such coercion, and it wasactually introduced in the Electorate and, later, in the Protestant Duchy of Saxony.[988]The proceedings on the introduction of the innovations in other districts were similar to those in the Electorate of Saxony. Wherever a small group of persons were willing to throw in their lot with the first local representatives of the new faith—generally clerics—they were backed up by the State authorities, who reconstructed the religious system as they thought best. “Nowhere was the primitive Lutheran ideal realised of a congregation forming itself in entire independence.... Thus at an early date Lutheranism took its place among the political factors, and its development was to a certain extent dependent upon the tendencies and inclinations of the authorities and ruling sovereigns of that day.”[989]The Electors Frederick and Johann of Saxony were gradually joined by a number of other Princes who introduced the innovations into their lands, and the magistrates of the larger, and even of some of the smaller, Imperial cities soon followed suit. Thus the whole movement, having owed its success so largely to the authorities, was governed and exploited by them and assumed a strongly political character, needless to say, much to the detriment of its religious aspect.What part the “inclinations of the ruling sovereigns” played, even in opposition to Luther’s own wishes, is plain from the example of the Margrave Philip of Hesse, who, next to the Elector of Saxony, was the most powerful, and undoubtedly the most determined, promoter of the great apostasy. This Prince, whose leanings were towards Zürich, as early as 1529 was anxious to extend the alliance he had concluded in the interests of the innovations with the Saxon Electorate, so as to embrace also the Zwinglians. Attracted by Zwingli’s denial of the sacrament, he also sought, with the assistance of theologians of his own way of thinking, to amalgamate the Swiss doctrine with that ofWittenberg; in this he was not, however, successful. The great religious alliance with Wittenberg aimed at by Zwingli himself as well as by Philip, and which it was hoped to settle at the Conference of Marburg (see vol. iii., xix. 1), was never realised, Luther refusing to give in on any point. In Hesse, however, the Zwinglian influence was maintained through the agency of theologians of Bucer’s school, which had the favour of the Court, while at Strasburg and other South German cities the authorities, leaning even more to the Swiss Confession, set up their “reformed” view as the actual rule of faith in their domains.NurembergThe history of the apostasy of Nuremberg, which may be considered separately here, exhibits another type of the proceedings at the general religious revolution.Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther’s own Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council. Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob. Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of St. Ægidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas the town-council—the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus Ebner, Caspar Stützel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the Town Clerk—formally decided to join Luther’s party, many among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided; here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden falling away of the people as a whole.What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other towns: “I frequently hear that there are many people in this city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons, but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever listened to it.”[990]The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures, sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable, stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. Ægidius surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the monks became Lutherans.All these changes took place in 1525.The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving Friars surrendered their convent to the magistrates in 1543. The Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand, enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer, a lady equally clever and pious.The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and confessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament. The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bamberg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion; those who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read in the “Memoirs” of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward peace which nothing could destroy; how they worked actively for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife, where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital, proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city. The “Word” was despised, he writes, immorality was on the increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and he himself when he went out had the name “parson” derisively hurled at him; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention, and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication. Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspondentand sought to encourage him: it grieved him deeply, he wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God; such a state of things was the third great temptation in the history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occasioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the Gospel, will also pass over happily. “Should this not be the case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to think of quitting this Babylon. ‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9]; let us forsake her.’”[991]It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe to Luther all the deeds of violence or injustice which took place in great number on the spread of the new ecclesiastical system. It is notorious how much the unruly, turbulent spirit of that day contributed to the distressing phenomena of the struggle then being carried on. Such a far-reaching revolution naturally set free forces and passions in both the higher and lower spheres, which could only with difficulty be brought once more under control. Now and then, too, faithful Catholics, laymen, priests and religious, by a misuse of the power they happened to possess, gave occasion to renewed acts of oppression on the part of the Lutherans.It is, nevertheless, right to point out the turbulent stamp which Luther impressed upon the movement. His own share in the work, some examples of which we have considered above, were utterly at variance with his advice to Gabriel Zwilling, viz. “to leave everything to God, to avoid introducing innovations and to guide the people solely by faith and charity” (above, p. 314).Luther and the Introduction of the New Teaching at ErfurtThe most powerful impulse to the introduction of the new teaching in Erfurt proceeded from the Augustinian house in that town. Its former Prior, Johann Lang, became an apostle of Lutheranism after having prepared the way for the innovation as a Humanist of modern views closely allied with the Humanist group at Erfurt.We find Lang, in the summer of 1520, still Rural Vicar of his Order, and he may have retained the dignity for some time longer when Wenceslaus Link was elected as Staupitz’s successor at the Chapter held at Eisleben in that year. The fourteen monks of the Augustinian Congregation—at one time so faithful to the Church—who quitted the Order before Lang, remind us of the sad fact, that in his work Luther met with support in many places from those who were originally Catholics, and that the innovation was often heartily welcomed by members of the clergy, secular and regular.The Saxon Augustinian Congregation, which was strongly represented at Erfurt, had been undermined by Luther’s spirit no less than by the struggle between the Conventuals and the Observantines. At the convention of the Order, held at Wittenberg on the Feast of the Three Kings in 1522, it was decided that begging would henceforth be no longer allowed,[992]“because we follow Holy Scripture.” At that time many had already apostatised. It was further ordained, that, by virtue of the evangelical freedom of the servants of God, everyone was free to leave his monastery. “Among those who are Christ’s there is neither monk nor layman. Whoever is not yet able to comprehend this freedom may act as he thinks fit, but must not give scandal to others by his conduct, in order that the Holy Evangel be not blasphemed.” On this the Protestant historian of the Augustinian Congregation remarks: “This [i.e. the giving of no scandal] was more easily commended than put into effect.” And, speaking of the time when the Erfurt Augustinian house was already almost empty (Usingen, Nathin and a few others alone remaining faithful), he writes: “Lang and his companions were in great danger of seeing the triumph of the Evangel rather in the rooting out of Popery than in the promoting of the new evangelical life.... Usingen, exposed to the mockery and insults of his own pupils, which he had certainly never deserved, at last quitted in anger the spot where he had worked for many years,” “an honest man.”[993]He withdrew in 1525 to the Augustinian monastery at Würzburg.Factors favourable to the spread of Lutheranism inErfurt were: The Humanism, antagonistic to the Church, which was all-powerful at the University; the restlessness of the common people, who were dissatisfied with their condition; the jealousy existing between the secular and regular clergy, the struggle which the town was carrying on with its chief pastor, the Archbishop of Mayence, concerning rights and property; last, but not least, the hatred of the laity for the opulent and far too numerous clergy. Here, therefore, we find the selfsame elements present which elsewhere so ably seconded the preaching of the new evangelists.Erfurt affords an example of how pious foundations of former ages had multiplied to an excessive and burdensome extent, a condition of things which was no longer any real advantage to the Church, and simply tended to arouse the jealousy of the laity and working man.There were more than three hundred vicariates (livings, or benefices), twenty-one parish churches or churches of the same standing, thirty chapels and six hospitals; the number of secular clergy was in proportion to the work entailed in serving the above, and there was an even greater number of monks and nuns. In every corner there were monastic establishments. Benedictines, the Scottish Brotherhood, the Canons Regular, Carthusians, Dominicans and Franciscans, Servites and Augustinians, all were represented. In addition to this were four or five convents of women. Erfurt perhaps possessed more ecclesiastical foundations and institutions than any other town in Germany, with the possible exception of Cologne and Nuremberg.[994]The rich possessions of the convents and churches at Erfurt were made the pretext for the religious innovations. The immunity they enjoyed from the burdens borne by the citizens was to be made an end of, the ecclesiastical property was to be handed over to the town, and the town itself was to be withdrawn from the temporal sway of the Archbishop of Mayence.When Luther, who was already under the ban, preached at Erfurt, on April 7, 1521, in the Church of the Augustinians (see above, p. 63), he represented the religious change, the way for which had already been paved,in the light of that evangelical freedom which his view of faith and works was to bring to the inhabitants of Erfurt.[995]
Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his conscience.[941]The Count’s father had made the transfer on the condition that the monks should: “Keep their observance and above all preach the Gospel.” Upon taking over the cure of souls they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel (i.e. not according to Luther); thereupon he would have the “right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the livings away from them ... for it is not unjust, but an urgent duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold.... No preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief answer.” This was indeed the principle which he applied throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer succeeds in making people pious, “then the property no longer belongs to him.”Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.
Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his conscience.[941]The Count’s father had made the transfer on the condition that the monks should: “Keep their observance and above all preach the Gospel.” Upon taking over the cure of souls they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel (i.e. not according to Luther); thereupon he would have the “right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the livings away from them ... for it is not unjust, but an urgent duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold.... No preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief answer.” This was indeed the principle which he applied throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer succeeds in making people pious, “then the property no longer belongs to him.”
Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the property and rights which his father had made over by charter to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.
In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however, of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new believers among the people had as yet failed to move them.
Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging them to “yield to the poor people in this so essential and sacred a matter,” and to summon one of the two preachers whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these words: “It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be solicitous for the welfare of his people.”[942]The change of religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the Elector’s pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after, having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.
It not infrequently happened that the people were deceived by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith without being clearly aware of the fact. After having become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule, the strength to draw back. The want of religious instructionamong the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and also, the indolence of the episcopate.
Mass still continued to be said in many places where Lutheranism had taken root, though in an altered form, a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the chief of Luther’s aims was to combat the Mass as a sacrifice.
He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522: “If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass, as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and doctrines.... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil’s help, with false miracles and deceiving signs.”[943]In respect of the deception of the Mass, “I oppose all the pronouncements of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an appeal to ‘ancient custom and tradition’ nor to any man, but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge.” “This is God’s Word,” he vehemently exclaims of his denial of the sacrifice, “not ours. Here I stand, here I take my seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most sacred and deceitful of customs.”[944]
It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere “sign and Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and assures us of it by a sign.”[945]Nor is the presence of Christ in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the result of a change of substance; Christ is in, with, and beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of receptionwas the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was nothing.[946]
Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything depended on not making the change felt by the people in a way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy Luther advocated,[947]and by the retaining of the ceremonies, vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that it “must and shall be done away with.”[948]
“The priest,” says Luther thoughtfully, when giving detailed instructions on the subject, “will easily be able to arrange that the common people learn nothing of it, and take no scandal.”[949]“How the priests are to behave with regard to the Canon,” he wrote in his Instruction for the Visitors in the Saxon Electorate, “they know well from other writings, and there is no need to preach much about this to the laity.” One would have thought, nevertheless, that the “common people,” no less than the learned, had a perfect right to the truth and to being instructed.
Luther was also anxious that the innovation at communion should be introduced in an unobtrusive manner. “Avoid anything unusual or any attempt to oppose the masses.”[950]
Although to receive under both kinds was regarded as the only “evangelical” way, agreeable “to Christ’s institution,” yet the weak were to be permitted to receive under the form of bread only and the reception of the chalice not to beprescribed “until we make the Evangel better known throughout the world.”[951]“But if anyone is so weak in this matter as rather to omit receiving the Sacrament altogether than to receive under one kind only, he was also to be indulged and allowed to live according to his conscience.”[952]In justification of all this Luther declared that the practice of the new religion must be introduced gently and “without detriment to charity.” That it was really a question of preventing disturbances and preserving charity, Cochlæus and others could not be made to see; this writer, in his work on Lutheranism, goes so far as to speak of Luther’s “hypocritical deception” of the masses.
Later, the advocate of this sagacious method of procedure could declare: “Thank God, in indifferent matters our churches are so arranged that a layman, whether Italian or Spaniard, unable to understand our preaching, seeing our Mass, choir, organs, bells, chantries, etc., would surely say that it was a regular papist church, and that there was no difference, or very little, between it and his own.” He rejoiced that, in spite of the hot-heads, no more had been altered in the ritual than was absolutely necessary to conform it to his teaching.[953]
Such is the course to pursue, he says, “If our churches are not to be shattered and confused and nothing to be effected among the Papists.”[954]As a matter of fact, the system he recommended did in some districts “effect much” among Papists who would otherwise have refused to have anything to do with him, the poor people not dreaming of the wide gulf which separated the new worship from the old. The people would not voluntarily have given up their faith in the truly sacrificial character of the Eucharist, in transubstantiation and sacrifice generally; as Melanchthon himself admitted: “The world is so much attached to the Mass that it seems well-nigh impossible to wrest people from it.”[955]
We may here mention what occurred at a later date withinthe Lutheran fold. At the instigation of Wittenberg the adaptation of the Catholic worship was carried out very thoroughly in some places, the principle proving highly conducive to the acceptance of the new church system. In few countries, however, was this the case to such an extent as in Denmark, where Luther’s friend Bugenhagen was responsible for the change of religion. Even to-day, in the Protestant worship established in Denmark, Norway and the duchies formerly united to the Danish crown, there is to be found a surprising number of Catholic reminiscences, from the solemn Eucharistic service down to the ringing of the bells thrice daily for prayer. In the celebration of the solemn Eucharist the preachers even vest in a white linen alb and chasuble of red velvet; the elevation, too, is still preserved, for, after the “consecration,” which is pronounced from the middle of the altar according to immemorial custom, the Bread and Wine are shown to the people.
Martin Weier, a young student of good family from Pomerania, took counsel of Luther as to how, on his return from Wittenberg, he was to behave with regard to his old father in the matter of Divine worship. Luther, according to his own account, told him “to conform to his father’s wishes in every way in order not to offend him; follow his example concerning fasting, prayer, hearing Mass and the veneration of the Saints, but at the same time instruct him in the Word of God and on the subject of justification, so as, if possible, to become his spiritual father without giving any offence.” Luther had declared concerning himself that he had offended God most horribly by his former celebration of Mass, more so than if he had been “a highwayman or kept a brothel”; yet he tells his aristocratic pupil that he will be committing no sin, if, “for the sake of his father, he is present at Mass and other acts by which God is dishonoured.”[956]
A contrast to this system of accommodation and the gentle introduction of innovations is presented by the acts of violence which too often occurred on German soil at the time of the religious revolution. The excesses perpetrated by the people were, as can be proved, encouraged by the inflammatory speeches of the preachers, Luther’s own words being frequently appealed to; their effect in suchtimes of popular commotion was like that of oil poured on the flames. In “the streets and at every corner,” on all the walls, on placards, in broadsides, and even on playing cards the clergy and the monks were abused, to quote Luther’s own testimony.[957]“Turks” and “worse than Turks,” such were the descriptions applied to them by the populace in imitation of Luther. “We shall never be successful against the Turks,” he says later, reverting to his earlier style of language, “unless we fall upon them and the priests at the right moment and smite them dead.”[958]
In the case of Luther himself such expressions were empty words, but the mob scrupled little about carrying them into effect. In many instances, however, lust for riches on the part of the great, who longed to possess themselves of Church property, and the long-standing antagonism of towns and Princes to the rights claimed by bishops and abbots, led to violence. The exaltation of their own power was for many of the authorities their principal reason for taking sides against the older Church. It must be borne in mind that, subsequent to 1525, Luther himself was no longer the sole head of the movement of apostasy. More and more he began to hand over the actual guidance of the movement to the secular power, a condition of things which had been preparing since the Diet of Worms. The direction of so far-reaching an undertaking was scarcely suited to his talents, which were not of the administrative order. To his followers, however, he remained the chief authority as pastor, preacher and writer; he continued to take an active part in all public affairs, and, on many occasions, exercised a direct and profound influence on the spread of the new Church.
Many well-meaning and highly respected men supported the new establishment from no selfish motives, and became open and genuine promoters of Luther’s cause, because they looked upon it as just and true. The ideal character, which Wittenberg was successful in stamping on Luther’s aims, proved very seductive, especially in the then prevailingignorance of the real state of things, and in many places won for the cause devoted and enthusiastic workers.
To take but one example: A knight, Hartmuth (Hartmann) von Cronberg, in the Taunus, glowing with zeal for the new Evangel, wrote a letter recommending the Lutheran congregational system to the inhabitants of Cronberg and Frankfurt.
In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that “all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin.” I have heard, with heartfelt sympathy”, he says to Luther, of “your great pains and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German nation.” “It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the knowledge of Him.” “Fain would I speak to the German lands and say: O Germany! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive you your great sin.... Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil and accept the sweet yoke of Christ.” The writer beseeches God to grant “that we may not trust in ourselves or our works; rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine, Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised and magnified throughout the world.”[959]The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this, expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in spite of persecution.[960]The above-quoted letter, addressed by Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther’s from the Wartburg; both were printed together and made the round of Germany under the title “A missive to all those who suffer persecution for the Word of God.”Luther there says to his admirer: “It is plain that your words spring from the depths of your heart and soul,” and this testimony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, andin the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant fashion: “And even should Satan attempt greater and worse things he shall not weary us; he may as well attempt to drag Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin, death, the devil and every thing.”
In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that “all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin.” I have heard, with heartfelt sympathy”, he says to Luther, of “your great pains and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German nation.” “It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the knowledge of Him.” “Fain would I speak to the German lands and say: O Germany! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive you your great sin.... Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil and accept the sweet yoke of Christ.” The writer beseeches God to grant “that we may not trust in ourselves or our works; rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine, Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised and magnified throughout the world.”[959]
The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this, expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in spite of persecution.[960]The above-quoted letter, addressed by Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther’s from the Wartburg; both were printed together and made the round of Germany under the title “A missive to all those who suffer persecution for the Word of God.”
Luther there says to his admirer: “It is plain that your words spring from the depths of your heart and soul,” and this testimony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, andin the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant fashion: “And even should Satan attempt greater and worse things he shall not weary us; he may as well attempt to drag Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin, death, the devil and every thing.”
The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden, promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service with Sickingen in 1519.[961]The assistance he lent to Sickingen’s treacherous machinations against the Empire proved his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October 15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his property by a passionate devotion to his religious and political aims. After a life of “undismayed attachment to what he deemed his duty,” says H. Ulmann, this man, “whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism,” died at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.[962]
This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he should convince the Pope by “irrefragable proofs” that he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist. But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority and was bound before God to proceed against him by force, as against “an apostate, heretic and Antichrist.”[963]Some of his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a “Knight after God’s own heart.” His fanaticism, however, went so far that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence, not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against church property which he declared everyone free to appropriate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-letter to Sickingen he wrote: “All ecclesiastical propertyhas been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may keep it with God’s help, and no creature whether Pope or devil can harm such property.” He warns the Frankfurt priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is converted to the “Evangel” any man may, with a good conscience, take action against him, “just as it is lawful to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and murderer, with word and deed.”[964]
The abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want of consideration.
Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely to transform this “Bethaven,” this place of idolatry, as he called the Church,[965]and in this matter the Prior and some of the Canons were on his side.
After some unsuccessful negotiations, carried on with the Elector through Spalatin, Luther himself invited the Chapter, on March 1, 1523, to abolish all Catholic ceremonies, as abominations, which could only give scandal at Wittenberg. “The cause of the ‘Evangel,’ which Christ has committed to this city as a priceless gift,” forced him, so he declared, to speak. “My conscience can no longer keep silence owing to the office entrusted to me.” If they would not give way peaceably, then they must be prepared for “public insults” from him, seeing that they would have to be excluded from the congregation as non-Christians, and have their company shunned.[966]
The Dean, who was faithful to the Church, and the Catholic members of the Chapter persisted in their resistance, urging that the Elector himself did not wish to see the Masses discontinued which his ancestors had founded for the repose of their souls.
Luther, not in the least disconcerted, on July 11, 1523, repeated his written declaration, this time in a peremptory tone. “If we endure this any longer,” he writes, “it will fall upon our own heads and we shall be burdened with the sins of others.” The Canons were not to tell him that “the Elector commanded or did not command to do this or to alter that. I am speaking now to your own consciences. What has the Elector to do with such matters?” he asks, strangely contradicting his own theory. “You know what St. Peter says, Acts v. 29, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men,’ and St. Paul (Gal. i. 8), ‘Though an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.’” He summons them to “obey,” otherwise he will pray against them as he has hitherto prayed for them, and as Christ was “jealous” it might be that his “prayer would be powerful and you may have to suffer for it.” “Christ soon punishes those who are His, when they wax disobedient (cp. 1 Peter iv. 17).”[967]
His violence in the pulpit gave reason for anticipating the worst when, on the very next day, he gave free rein to his eloquence against the Collegiate Church.
On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against the Canons and their service.[968]He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even against him: “What does he matter to us?” he cried. “He commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say: “Your Grace, pray look after your own business.”[969]It was an unequivocal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in the same sermon, that they also would be “responsible for the sins of others” if they permitted the Popish disorder any longerin their midst. “I am afraid that this may also be the reason why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer such things to be.”[970]Yet he was careful prudently to admonish the people not to touch the Canons’ persons.This admonition seems to have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would “not go any further,” as there was quite enough “discontent at Wittenberg already.”[971]The offender in reply assured the Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult,[972]and, for the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told. We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that Luther did not act up to what he preached.[973]In the letter in question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from “Masses, vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel,” they would be forced to do so; he moreover asked for a “true, straight and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday”; what has happened is that “the devil has inspired you with a spirit of defiance and mischief.” The “great patience with which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and the idolatry in your Churches” is exhausted. He also hints that they could no longer be certain of the Elector’s protection.[974]Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was blasphemy, madness and a lie; its celebration was worse than unchastity, murder or robbery; princes, burgomasters, councillors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had received the sword from Him.[975]He exhorts “all princes and rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges” to summon the “blasphemous ministers” of the “whore of Babylon” and force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.
On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against the Canons and their service.[968]
He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even against him: “What does he matter to us?” he cried. “He commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say: “Your Grace, pray look after your own business.”[969]It was an unequivocal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in the same sermon, that they also would be “responsible for the sins of others” if they permitted the Popish disorder any longerin their midst. “I am afraid that this may also be the reason why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer such things to be.”[970]Yet he was careful prudently to admonish the people not to touch the Canons’ persons.
This admonition seems to have been more than counterbalanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would “not go any further,” as there was quite enough “discontent at Wittenberg already.”[971]The offender in reply assured the Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult,[972]and, for the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told. We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that Luther did not act up to what he preached.[973]In the letter in question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from “Masses, vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel,” they would be forced to do so; he moreover asked for a “true, straight and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday”; what has happened is that “the devil has inspired you with a spirit of defiance and mischief.” The “great patience with which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and the idolatry in your Churches” is exhausted. He also hints that they could no longer be certain of the Elector’s protection.[974]
Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was blasphemy, madness and a lie; its celebration was worse than unchastity, murder or robbery; princes, burgomasters, councillors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had received the sword from Him.[975]He exhorts “all princes and rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges” to summon the “blasphemous ministers” of the “whore of Babylon” and force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.
The agitation intentionally fomented became, however, so great, that the Canons did not know what steps to take against the “rising excitement of the inhabitants” of Wittenberg,[976]for the saving of the Catholic services, and for the safety of their own persons. Even before this, students had perpetrated disorders at night in the Collegiate Church, and Luther had himself declared that he was obliged daily to restrain the people to prevent the committing of excesses. The Canons were now tormented by the singing of satires on the Mass outside their house, and had to listen to the curses which were showered on them. One night the Dean had his windows smashed. The Town Council, and also the University, now definitely took sides against the Chapter, and, after warning them in writing of God’s anger, sent representatives to advise the Canons of their excommunication. Although no actual tumult took place, yet the public declarations and the threatening attitude of the populace incited by Luther amounted to practical compulsion. The few Canons still remaining finally yielded to force, particularly when they saw that the Elector, Frederick “the Wise,” refused to give any but evasive replies to their appeals.
On Christmas Day, 1524, for the first time, there was no Mass.
Protestants themselves have recently admitted that, “contrary to the express wish of the sovereign and not without the employment of force against the Canons”[977]did “Luther succeed in carrying matters so far.”[978]“The Canons finally gave way before new outbursts of violence on the part of the students and the citizens,” when, according to Luther’s own account, there remained only “three hogs and paunches” of all the Canons formerly attached to this Church, not of “All Saints,” but rather of “All Devils.”[979]
An echo of his tempestuous sermon of November 27 is to be found in the pamphlet which Luther published at the commencement of 1525: “On the abomination of Silent Masses” (against the Canon of the Mass). In the Preface he refers directly to the inglorious proceedings against the unfortunate Chapter. He finds it necessary to declare thathe, for his part, had aroused no revolt, for what was done by the established authorities could not be termed revolt; the “secular gentlemen,” who, according to him, constituted the established authorities, had, however, felt it their duty to take steps against the Catholic worship in the Collegiate Church.
In that same year, 1525, under the auspices of the new Elector Johann, a great friend to Lutheranism, who succeeded the Elector Frederick upon his death on May 5, 1525, and whom Luther had long before won over to his cause, the order of Divine Service at Wittenberg was entirely altered. “The Pope” was at last, as Spalatin joyfully proclaimed throughout the city, “completely set aside.”[980]
Under the rule of the Elector Johann, Luther at once carried out the complete suppression of Catholic worship throughout the Electorate.
On October 1, 1525, Spalatin wrote to the Elector Johann: “Dr. Martin also says, that your Electoral Grace is on no account to permit anyone to continue the anti-Christian ceremonies any longer, or to start them again.”[981]
With the object of helping him in his work at Court and of removing any scruples he might have, Luther explained to Spalatin, in a letter of November 11 of the same year, that by stamping out the Catholic worship rulers would not be forcing the faith on anyone, but merely prohibiting such open abominations as the Mass; if anyone, in spite of all, desired to believe in it privately, or to blaspheme in secret, no coercion would be exercised.[982]No attention was paid to the rights of Catholics to a Divine Worship, attendance at which was to them a matter of conscience. They were simply to be permitted to emigrate; if they chose to remain they were not to “perform or take any part in any public worship.”[983]It was on such principles as these that the Memorandum which Spalatin presented to the Elector on January 10, 1526, was based.[984]
Luther himself appealed to the Elector on February 9, 1526, seeking to “fortify his conscience” and to encourage him “to attack the idolaters with even greater readiness.” He points out to him, first, how damnable is the blasphemous, idolatrous worship; were he to afford it any protection, then “all the abominations against God would eventually weigh upon his, the Prince’s, conscience”; secondly, that differences in religious worship would inevitably give rise to “revolt and tumults”; hence the ruler must provide that “in each locality there be but one doctrine.”[985]
To the force of such arguments Johann could not but yield.
He answered in a friendly letter to Luther on February 13, 1526, that he had been pleased to take note of the difficulty, and would for the future know how to comport himself in these matters in a Christian and irreproachable manner.[986]Subsequent to this assurance he acted as an apt pupil of the Wittenberg Professor.
In accordance with the instructions given by the Elector in 1527 for the general Visitation of the Churches in the Saxon Electorate, an “inquisition” was to be held everywhere by the ecclesiastical Visitors as to whether any “sect or schism” existed in the country. Whoever was “suspected of error in respect of the sacraments or some doctrine of faith” was to be “summoned and interrogated, and, if the occasion required, hostile witnesses were to be heard”; if any refused to give up their “error,” they were commanded to sell their possessions within a given time and to quit the country.[987]One thing only was still wanting, viz. that the people should be compelled by the Ruler to attend the Lutheran sermons and services. Even this was, however, implied in the regulations, since those who did not attend were classed among the “suspects.” As time went on Luther demanded the exercise of such coercion, and it wasactually introduced in the Electorate and, later, in the Protestant Duchy of Saxony.[988]
The proceedings on the introduction of the innovations in other districts were similar to those in the Electorate of Saxony. Wherever a small group of persons were willing to throw in their lot with the first local representatives of the new faith—generally clerics—they were backed up by the State authorities, who reconstructed the religious system as they thought best. “Nowhere was the primitive Lutheran ideal realised of a congregation forming itself in entire independence.... Thus at an early date Lutheranism took its place among the political factors, and its development was to a certain extent dependent upon the tendencies and inclinations of the authorities and ruling sovereigns of that day.”[989]
The Electors Frederick and Johann of Saxony were gradually joined by a number of other Princes who introduced the innovations into their lands, and the magistrates of the larger, and even of some of the smaller, Imperial cities soon followed suit. Thus the whole movement, having owed its success so largely to the authorities, was governed and exploited by them and assumed a strongly political character, needless to say, much to the detriment of its religious aspect.
What part the “inclinations of the ruling sovereigns” played, even in opposition to Luther’s own wishes, is plain from the example of the Margrave Philip of Hesse, who, next to the Elector of Saxony, was the most powerful, and undoubtedly the most determined, promoter of the great apostasy. This Prince, whose leanings were towards Zürich, as early as 1529 was anxious to extend the alliance he had concluded in the interests of the innovations with the Saxon Electorate, so as to embrace also the Zwinglians. Attracted by Zwingli’s denial of the sacrament, he also sought, with the assistance of theologians of his own way of thinking, to amalgamate the Swiss doctrine with that ofWittenberg; in this he was not, however, successful. The great religious alliance with Wittenberg aimed at by Zwingli himself as well as by Philip, and which it was hoped to settle at the Conference of Marburg (see vol. iii., xix. 1), was never realised, Luther refusing to give in on any point. In Hesse, however, the Zwinglian influence was maintained through the agency of theologians of Bucer’s school, which had the favour of the Court, while at Strasburg and other South German cities the authorities, leaning even more to the Swiss Confession, set up their “reformed” view as the actual rule of faith in their domains.
The history of the apostasy of Nuremberg, which may be considered separately here, exhibits another type of the proceedings at the general religious revolution.
Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther’s own Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council. Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob. Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of St. Ægidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas the town-council—the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus Ebner, Caspar Stützel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the Town Clerk—formally decided to join Luther’s party, many among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided; here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden falling away of the people as a whole.What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other towns: “I frequently hear that there are many people in this city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons, but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever listened to it.”[990]The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures, sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable, stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. Ægidius surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the monks became Lutherans.All these changes took place in 1525.The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving Friars surrendered their convent to the magistrates in 1543. The Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand, enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer, a lady equally clever and pious.The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and confessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament. The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bamberg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion; those who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read in the “Memoirs” of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward peace which nothing could destroy; how they worked actively for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife, where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital, proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city. The “Word” was despised, he writes, immorality was on the increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and he himself when he went out had the name “parson” derisively hurled at him; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention, and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication. Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspondentand sought to encourage him: it grieved him deeply, he wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God; such a state of things was the third great temptation in the history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occasioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the Gospel, will also pass over happily. “Should this not be the case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to think of quitting this Babylon. ‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9]; let us forsake her.’”[991]
Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther’s own Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council. Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob. Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of St. Ægidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas the town-council—the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus Ebner, Caspar Stützel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the Town Clerk—formally decided to join Luther’s party, many among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided; here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden falling away of the people as a whole.
What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other towns: “I frequently hear that there are many people in this city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons, but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever listened to it.”[990]
The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures, sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable, stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. Ægidius surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the monks became Lutherans.
All these changes took place in 1525.
The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving Friars surrendered their convent to the magistrates in 1543. The Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand, enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer, a lady equally clever and pious.
The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and confessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament. The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bamberg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion; those who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read in the “Memoirs” of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward peace which nothing could destroy; how they worked actively for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.
Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife, where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital, proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city. The “Word” was despised, he writes, immorality was on the increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and he himself when he went out had the name “parson” derisively hurled at him; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention, and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication. Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspondentand sought to encourage him: it grieved him deeply, he wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God; such a state of things was the third great temptation in the history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occasioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the Gospel, will also pass over happily. “Should this not be the case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to think of quitting this Babylon. ‘We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9]; let us forsake her.’”[991]
It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe to Luther all the deeds of violence or injustice which took place in great number on the spread of the new ecclesiastical system. It is notorious how much the unruly, turbulent spirit of that day contributed to the distressing phenomena of the struggle then being carried on. Such a far-reaching revolution naturally set free forces and passions in both the higher and lower spheres, which could only with difficulty be brought once more under control. Now and then, too, faithful Catholics, laymen, priests and religious, by a misuse of the power they happened to possess, gave occasion to renewed acts of oppression on the part of the Lutherans.
It is, nevertheless, right to point out the turbulent stamp which Luther impressed upon the movement. His own share in the work, some examples of which we have considered above, were utterly at variance with his advice to Gabriel Zwilling, viz. “to leave everything to God, to avoid introducing innovations and to guide the people solely by faith and charity” (above, p. 314).
The most powerful impulse to the introduction of the new teaching in Erfurt proceeded from the Augustinian house in that town. Its former Prior, Johann Lang, became an apostle of Lutheranism after having prepared the way for the innovation as a Humanist of modern views closely allied with the Humanist group at Erfurt.
We find Lang, in the summer of 1520, still Rural Vicar of his Order, and he may have retained the dignity for some time longer when Wenceslaus Link was elected as Staupitz’s successor at the Chapter held at Eisleben in that year. The fourteen monks of the Augustinian Congregation—at one time so faithful to the Church—who quitted the Order before Lang, remind us of the sad fact, that in his work Luther met with support in many places from those who were originally Catholics, and that the innovation was often heartily welcomed by members of the clergy, secular and regular.
The Saxon Augustinian Congregation, which was strongly represented at Erfurt, had been undermined by Luther’s spirit no less than by the struggle between the Conventuals and the Observantines. At the convention of the Order, held at Wittenberg on the Feast of the Three Kings in 1522, it was decided that begging would henceforth be no longer allowed,[992]“because we follow Holy Scripture.” At that time many had already apostatised. It was further ordained, that, by virtue of the evangelical freedom of the servants of God, everyone was free to leave his monastery. “Among those who are Christ’s there is neither monk nor layman. Whoever is not yet able to comprehend this freedom may act as he thinks fit, but must not give scandal to others by his conduct, in order that the Holy Evangel be not blasphemed.” On this the Protestant historian of the Augustinian Congregation remarks: “This [i.e. the giving of no scandal] was more easily commended than put into effect.” And, speaking of the time when the Erfurt Augustinian house was already almost empty (Usingen, Nathin and a few others alone remaining faithful), he writes: “Lang and his companions were in great danger of seeing the triumph of the Evangel rather in the rooting out of Popery than in the promoting of the new evangelical life.... Usingen, exposed to the mockery and insults of his own pupils, which he had certainly never deserved, at last quitted in anger the spot where he had worked for many years,” “an honest man.”[993]He withdrew in 1525 to the Augustinian monastery at Würzburg.
Factors favourable to the spread of Lutheranism inErfurt were: The Humanism, antagonistic to the Church, which was all-powerful at the University; the restlessness of the common people, who were dissatisfied with their condition; the jealousy existing between the secular and regular clergy, the struggle which the town was carrying on with its chief pastor, the Archbishop of Mayence, concerning rights and property; last, but not least, the hatred of the laity for the opulent and far too numerous clergy. Here, therefore, we find the selfsame elements present which elsewhere so ably seconded the preaching of the new evangelists.
Erfurt affords an example of how pious foundations of former ages had multiplied to an excessive and burdensome extent, a condition of things which was no longer any real advantage to the Church, and simply tended to arouse the jealousy of the laity and working man.
There were more than three hundred vicariates (livings, or benefices), twenty-one parish churches or churches of the same standing, thirty chapels and six hospitals; the number of secular clergy was in proportion to the work entailed in serving the above, and there was an even greater number of monks and nuns. In every corner there were monastic establishments. Benedictines, the Scottish Brotherhood, the Canons Regular, Carthusians, Dominicans and Franciscans, Servites and Augustinians, all were represented. In addition to this were four or five convents of women. Erfurt perhaps possessed more ecclesiastical foundations and institutions than any other town in Germany, with the possible exception of Cologne and Nuremberg.[994]The rich possessions of the convents and churches at Erfurt were made the pretext for the religious innovations. The immunity they enjoyed from the burdens borne by the citizens was to be made an end of, the ecclesiastical property was to be handed over to the town, and the town itself was to be withdrawn from the temporal sway of the Archbishop of Mayence.
When Luther, who was already under the ban, preached at Erfurt, on April 7, 1521, in the Church of the Augustinians (see above, p. 63), he represented the religious change, the way for which had already been paved,in the light of that evangelical freedom which his view of faith and works was to bring to the inhabitants of Erfurt.[995]