In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though, from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name. He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as “less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless about something of great importance and quite essential. To support every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972]Theramenes had perished on the scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage ([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has since become much worse.”[974]In later letters he likens Luther to the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]Although it was no easy task for Luther, whose irritability increased with advancing years, to conceal his annoyance with his friend for presuming to differ from him, yet, as we know, he never allowed matters to come to an open breach. Melanchthon, too, owing to his fears and pusillanimity, avoided any definite personal explanation. Both alike were apprehensive of the scandal of an open rupture and its pernicious effects on the common cause. Moreover, Luther was thoroughly convinced that Melanchthon’s services were indispensable to him, particularly in view of the gloomy outlook for the future.The matter, however, deserves further examination in view of the straightforwardness, clearness and inexorableness which Luther is usually supposed to have displayed in his doctrines.When important interests connected with his position seemed to call for it, Luther could be surprisingly lenient in questions of doctrine. Thus, for instance, we can hardly recognise the once so rigid Luther in the Concord signed with the Zwinglians, and again, when, for a while, the English seemed to be dallying with Lutheranism. In the case of the Zwinglian townships of South Germany, which were received into the Union by the Wittenberg Concord the better to strengthen the position of Lutheranism against the Emperor, Luther finally, albeit grudgingly, gave his assent to theological articles which differed so widely from his own doctrines that the utmost skill was required to conceal the discrepancy.[976]As for the English, Kolde says: “How far Luther was prepared to go [in allowing matters to take their course] we see, e.g. from the fact that, in his letter of March 28, 1536, to the Elector, he describes the draft Articles of agreement with the English—only recentlymade public and which (apart from Art. 10, which might at a pinch be taken in the Roman sense) are altogether on the lines of the ‘Variata’—as quite in harmony with our own teaching.”[977]The terms of this agreement were drawn up by Melanchthon. As a matter of fact “we find little trace of Luther’s spirit in the Articles. We have simply to compare [Luther’s] Schmalkalden Articles of the following year to be convinced how greatly Luther’s own mode of thought and expression differed from those Articles.” “They show us what concessions the Wittenberg theologians, as a body, were disposed to make in order to win over such a country as England.”[978]Concerning Luther’s attitude towards the alterations made by Melanchthon in the Confession of Augsburg (above, vol. iii., p. 445 f.) we must also assume “from his whole behaviour, that he was not at all pleased with Melanchthon’s action; yet he allowed it, like much else, to pass.”[979]This, however, does not exclude Luther’s violence andnarrowness having caused an estrangement between them, Melanchthon having daily to apprehend outbursts of anger, so that his stay became extremely painful. The most critical time was in the summer of 1544, in consequence of the Cologne Book of Reform (vol. iii., p. 447). Luther, who strongly suspected Melanchthon’s orthodoxy on the Supper, prepared to assail anew those who denied the Real Presence. Yet the storm which Melanchthon dreaded did not touch him; Luther’s “Kurtz Bekentnis vom heiligen Sacrament,” which appeared at the end of September, failed to mention Melanchthon’s name. On Oct. 7, Cruciger was able by letter to inform Dietrich, that the author no longer displayed any irritation against his old friend.[980]Here again considerations of expediency had prevailed over dogmatic scruples, nor is there any doubt that the old feeling of friendship, familiarity and real esteem asserted its rights. We may recall the kindly sympathy and care that Luther lavished on Melanchthon when the latter fell sick at Weimar, owing to the trouble consequent on his sanction given to the Hessian bigamy.[981]Indeed we must assume that the relations between the two were often more cordial than would appear from the letters of one so timid and faint-hearted as Melanchthon; the very adaptability of the latter’s character renders this probable. In Nov., 1544, Chancellor Brück declared: “With regard to Philip, as far as I can see, he and Martin are quite close friends”; in another letter written about that time he also says Luther had told him that he was quite unaware of any differences between himself and Melanchthon.[982]The latter, whenever he was at Wittenberg, also continued as a rule to put in an appearance at Luther’s table, and there is little doubt that, on such occasions, Luther’s frank and, open conversation often availed to banish any ill-feeling there may have been. We learn that Magister Philip waspresent at the dinner in celebration of Luther’s birthday in 1544, together with Cruciger, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Major, and that they exchanged confidences concerning the present and future welfare of the new religion.[983]When Melanchthon was away from Wittenberg engaged in settling ecclesiastical matters elsewhere he was careful to keep Luther fully informed of the course of affairs. He occasionally expressed his thanks to the latter for the charity and kindness of his replies; Luther in his turn kept him posted in the little intimacies of their respective families, in the occurrences in the town and University of Wittenberg, and almost always added a request for prayer for help in his struggles with “Satan.” This intimate correspondence was carried on until the very month before Luther’s death. Even in his last letters Luther calls the friend with whom he had worked for so many years “My Philip”; Melanchthon, as a rule, heads his communications in more formal style: “Clarissimo et optimo viro D. Martino Luthero, doctori theologiæ, instauratori puræ evangelicæ doctrinæ ac patri suo in Christo reverendo et charissimo.”[984]The great praise which Melanchthon bestows on the deceased immediately after his death is indeed startling, but we must beware of regarding it as mere hypocrisy.The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14, 1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now to devolve on him.The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence” of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or quarrelsome.[985]Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s death tothe students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]Melanchthon’s Last YearsAfter Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice. Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988]In this the “moot observances (Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments. By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’ssola fides, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with them was that Melanchthon graduallyceased to be the head of the Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all, they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine teaching of the Gospel.”[989]Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied, whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them; “we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990]The friends of Flacius Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference; the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman, pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible to arrive at any decision?[991]It was from Canisius, “who during the course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the Catholic party and later repeatedly provedhimself a sharp observer of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992]that the suggestion came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off. “The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus revealed to the whole world.”[993]“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996]His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997]He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998]Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into thosewonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999]He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.Review of Melanchthon’s Religious Position as a wholeMelanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,” which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of Protestantism.[1000]In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (satellites) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001]This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002]To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him.Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003]Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004]About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005]“Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007]Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive.His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary heis fond of using classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy” where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008]is a detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system, or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009]It would have fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557, he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘docti.’”[1010]A similar lack of any just and clear appreciation of the great truths of the faith is also apparent in Melanchthon’s letters to Erasmus, more particularly in the later ones. Here personal friendship and Humanist fellow-feeling vie with each other in explaining away in the most startling manner the religious differences.[1011]Many elements of theology were dissolved by Melanchthon’s subjective method of exegesis and by the system of philosophy he had built up from the classical authors, particularly from Cicero. Melanchthon’s philosophy was quite unfitted to throw lighton the doctrines of revelation. To him the two domains, of philosophy and theology, seemed, not only independent, but actually hostile to each other, a state of things absolutely unknown to the Middle Ages. If, as Melanchthon avers, reason is unable to prove the existence of God on philosophical grounds, then, by this very fact, the science of the supernatural loses every stay, nor is it possible any longer to defend revelation against unbelief.It is the merest makeshift, when, like other of his Humanist contemporaries, Melanchthon seeks to base our knowledge of God’s existence on feeling and on a vague inward experience.[1012]Thus we can quite understand how old-fashioned Protestantism, after having paid but little attention to Melanchthon either in the days of orthodox Lutheranism or of Pietism, began to have recourse to him with the advent of Rationalism. The orthodox had missed in him Luther’s sparkling “strength of faith” and the courageous resolve to twit the “devil” within and without; the Pietists failed to discern in him the mysticism they extolled in Luther. Rationalists, on the other hand, found in him many kindred elements. Even of quite recent years Melanchthon has been hailed as the type of the easy-going theologian who seeks to bridge the chasm between believing and infidel Protestantism; at any rate, Melanchthon’s positive belief was far more extensive than that of many of his would-be imitators.Melanchthon LegendsThe tale once current that, at the last, Melanchthon was a Lutheran only in name, is to-day rejected by all scholars, Protestant and Catholic.Concerning the “honesty of his Protestantism” “no doubts” are raised by Protestant theologians, who call his teaching a “modification and a toning down” of that of Luther; nor can we conclude that “he was at all shaky in his convictions,” even should the remarkable utterance about to be cited really emanate from him.[1013]A Catholic historian of the highest standing agrees in saying of him: “Even though Luther’s teaching may not have completelysatisfied Melanchthon, yet there is no reason to doubt, that, on the whole, he was heart and soul on the side of the innovations.... We may now and then come upon actions on his part which arouse a suspicion as to his straightforwardness, but on the whole his convictions cannot be questioned.”[1014]In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day, we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother, speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “Hæc plausibilior, illa securior; Lutheranism is the more popular, but Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016]his mother, as a matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in her fifty-third year.[1017]Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind, and received from him the above reply.Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in his native place, andmayhave done so again in 1529 in the spring, when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018]though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten in the autumn of 1536.We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed conversation with the mother.K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019]dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historicalfoundation.”[1020]C. G. Strobel, in his “Melanchthoniana” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021]Against the account Strobel alleges severala prioriobjections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022]even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much withItalian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025]Here we do not meet the sentenceHæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026]The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothingobliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028]Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029]Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstancesrelated by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030]He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031]It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.”There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034]When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]4. Demonology and Demonomania“Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”[1036]Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman![1037]How little is left for God.[1038]“The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.”[1039]“Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”[1040]Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?“The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.”[1041]“The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.”[1042]“We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”;[1043]“but even with our last breath we mustfight against the monsters of Satan.”[1044]Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes.[1045]As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”;[1046]“they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”[1047]Luther’s letters during his later years are crammed with things of this sort.The thought of the devil and his far-spread sphere of action, to which Luther had long been addicted, assumes in his mind as time goes on a more serious and gloomy shape, though he continues often enough to refer to the Divine protection promised against the powers of darkness and to the final victory of Christ.In his wrong idea of the devil Luther was by no means without precursors. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages exaggerations had long prevailed on this subject, not only among the people but even among the best-known writers; on the very eve of Luther’s coming forward they formed no small part of the disorders in the ecclesiastical life of the people. Had people been content with the sober teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church on the action of the devil, the faithful would have been preserved from many errors. As it was, however, the vivid imagination of laity and clergy led them to read much into the revealed doctrine that was not really in it; witness, for instance, the startling details they found in the words of St. Paul (Eph. vi. 12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Great abuses had gradually crept intothe use of the blessings and exorcisms of the Church, more particularly in the case of supposed sorcery. Unfortunately, too, the beliefs and practices common among the people received much too ready support from persons of high standing in the Church. The supposition, which in itself had the sanction of tradition, that intercourse with the devil was possible, grew into the fantastic persuasion that witches were lurking everywhere, and required to have their malicious action checked by the authority of Church and State. That unfortunate book, “The Witches’ Hammer,” which Institoris and Sprenger published in 1487, made these delusions fashionable in circles which so far had been but little affected by them, though the authors’ purpose, viz. to stamp out the witches, was not achieved.It is clear that at home in Saxony, and in his own family, Luther had lived in an atmosphere where the belief in spirits and the harm wrought by the devil was very strong; miners are credited with being partial to such gloomy fancies owing to the nature of their dangerous work in the mysterious bowels of the earth. As a young monk he had fancied he heard the devil creating an uproar nightly in the convent, and the state of excitement in which he lived and which accompanied him ever afterwards was but little calculated to free him from the prejudices of the age concerning the devil’s power. His earlier sermons, for instance those to be mentioned below on the Ten Commandments, contain much that is frankly superstitious, though this must be set down in great part to the beliefs already in vogue and above which he failed to rise. Had Luther really wished to play the part of a reformer of the ecclesiastical life of his day, he would have found here a wide field for useful labour. In point of fact, however, he only made bad worse. His lively descriptions and the weight of his authority merely served to strengthen the current delusions among those who looked to him. Before him no one had ever presented these things to the people with such attractive wealth of detail, no one had brought the weight of his personality so strongly to bear upon his readers and so urgently preached to them on how to deal with the spirits of evil.Among non-Catholics it has been too usual to lay the whole blame on the Middle Ages and the later Catholic period. They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influencecounted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years. Yet Luther’s views and practice show plainly enough, that it was not merely the Catholic ages before his day that were dishonoured with such delusions concerning the devil, and that it was not the Catholics alone, of his time and the following decades, who were responsible for the devil-craze and the bloody persecutions of the witches in those dark days of German history in the 17th century.[1048]The Mischief Wrought by the DevilLuther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.”[1049]But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he had repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power.Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan.
In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though, from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name. He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as “less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless about something of great importance and quite essential. To support every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972]Theramenes had perished on the scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage ([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has since become much worse.”[974]In later letters he likens Luther to the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]Although it was no easy task for Luther, whose irritability increased with advancing years, to conceal his annoyance with his friend for presuming to differ from him, yet, as we know, he never allowed matters to come to an open breach. Melanchthon, too, owing to his fears and pusillanimity, avoided any definite personal explanation. Both alike were apprehensive of the scandal of an open rupture and its pernicious effects on the common cause. Moreover, Luther was thoroughly convinced that Melanchthon’s services were indispensable to him, particularly in view of the gloomy outlook for the future.The matter, however, deserves further examination in view of the straightforwardness, clearness and inexorableness which Luther is usually supposed to have displayed in his doctrines.When important interests connected with his position seemed to call for it, Luther could be surprisingly lenient in questions of doctrine. Thus, for instance, we can hardly recognise the once so rigid Luther in the Concord signed with the Zwinglians, and again, when, for a while, the English seemed to be dallying with Lutheranism. In the case of the Zwinglian townships of South Germany, which were received into the Union by the Wittenberg Concord the better to strengthen the position of Lutheranism against the Emperor, Luther finally, albeit grudgingly, gave his assent to theological articles which differed so widely from his own doctrines that the utmost skill was required to conceal the discrepancy.[976]As for the English, Kolde says: “How far Luther was prepared to go [in allowing matters to take their course] we see, e.g. from the fact that, in his letter of March 28, 1536, to the Elector, he describes the draft Articles of agreement with the English—only recentlymade public and which (apart from Art. 10, which might at a pinch be taken in the Roman sense) are altogether on the lines of the ‘Variata’—as quite in harmony with our own teaching.”[977]The terms of this agreement were drawn up by Melanchthon. As a matter of fact “we find little trace of Luther’s spirit in the Articles. We have simply to compare [Luther’s] Schmalkalden Articles of the following year to be convinced how greatly Luther’s own mode of thought and expression differed from those Articles.” “They show us what concessions the Wittenberg theologians, as a body, were disposed to make in order to win over such a country as England.”[978]Concerning Luther’s attitude towards the alterations made by Melanchthon in the Confession of Augsburg (above, vol. iii., p. 445 f.) we must also assume “from his whole behaviour, that he was not at all pleased with Melanchthon’s action; yet he allowed it, like much else, to pass.”[979]This, however, does not exclude Luther’s violence andnarrowness having caused an estrangement between them, Melanchthon having daily to apprehend outbursts of anger, so that his stay became extremely painful. The most critical time was in the summer of 1544, in consequence of the Cologne Book of Reform (vol. iii., p. 447). Luther, who strongly suspected Melanchthon’s orthodoxy on the Supper, prepared to assail anew those who denied the Real Presence. Yet the storm which Melanchthon dreaded did not touch him; Luther’s “Kurtz Bekentnis vom heiligen Sacrament,” which appeared at the end of September, failed to mention Melanchthon’s name. On Oct. 7, Cruciger was able by letter to inform Dietrich, that the author no longer displayed any irritation against his old friend.[980]Here again considerations of expediency had prevailed over dogmatic scruples, nor is there any doubt that the old feeling of friendship, familiarity and real esteem asserted its rights. We may recall the kindly sympathy and care that Luther lavished on Melanchthon when the latter fell sick at Weimar, owing to the trouble consequent on his sanction given to the Hessian bigamy.[981]Indeed we must assume that the relations between the two were often more cordial than would appear from the letters of one so timid and faint-hearted as Melanchthon; the very adaptability of the latter’s character renders this probable. In Nov., 1544, Chancellor Brück declared: “With regard to Philip, as far as I can see, he and Martin are quite close friends”; in another letter written about that time he also says Luther had told him that he was quite unaware of any differences between himself and Melanchthon.[982]The latter, whenever he was at Wittenberg, also continued as a rule to put in an appearance at Luther’s table, and there is little doubt that, on such occasions, Luther’s frank and, open conversation often availed to banish any ill-feeling there may have been. We learn that Magister Philip waspresent at the dinner in celebration of Luther’s birthday in 1544, together with Cruciger, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Major, and that they exchanged confidences concerning the present and future welfare of the new religion.[983]When Melanchthon was away from Wittenberg engaged in settling ecclesiastical matters elsewhere he was careful to keep Luther fully informed of the course of affairs. He occasionally expressed his thanks to the latter for the charity and kindness of his replies; Luther in his turn kept him posted in the little intimacies of their respective families, in the occurrences in the town and University of Wittenberg, and almost always added a request for prayer for help in his struggles with “Satan.” This intimate correspondence was carried on until the very month before Luther’s death. Even in his last letters Luther calls the friend with whom he had worked for so many years “My Philip”; Melanchthon, as a rule, heads his communications in more formal style: “Clarissimo et optimo viro D. Martino Luthero, doctori theologiæ, instauratori puræ evangelicæ doctrinæ ac patri suo in Christo reverendo et charissimo.”[984]The great praise which Melanchthon bestows on the deceased immediately after his death is indeed startling, but we must beware of regarding it as mere hypocrisy.The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14, 1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now to devolve on him.The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence” of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or quarrelsome.[985]Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s death tothe students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]Melanchthon’s Last YearsAfter Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice. Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988]In this the “moot observances (Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments. By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’ssola fides, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with them was that Melanchthon graduallyceased to be the head of the Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all, they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine teaching of the Gospel.”[989]Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied, whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them; “we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990]The friends of Flacius Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference; the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman, pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible to arrive at any decision?[991]It was from Canisius, “who during the course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the Catholic party and later repeatedly provedhimself a sharp observer of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992]that the suggestion came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off. “The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus revealed to the whole world.”[993]“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996]His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997]He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998]Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into thosewonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999]He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.Review of Melanchthon’s Religious Position as a wholeMelanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,” which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of Protestantism.[1000]In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (satellites) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001]This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002]To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him.Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003]Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004]About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005]“Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007]Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive.His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary heis fond of using classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy” where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008]is a detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system, or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009]It would have fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557, he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘docti.’”[1010]A similar lack of any just and clear appreciation of the great truths of the faith is also apparent in Melanchthon’s letters to Erasmus, more particularly in the later ones. Here personal friendship and Humanist fellow-feeling vie with each other in explaining away in the most startling manner the religious differences.[1011]Many elements of theology were dissolved by Melanchthon’s subjective method of exegesis and by the system of philosophy he had built up from the classical authors, particularly from Cicero. Melanchthon’s philosophy was quite unfitted to throw lighton the doctrines of revelation. To him the two domains, of philosophy and theology, seemed, not only independent, but actually hostile to each other, a state of things absolutely unknown to the Middle Ages. If, as Melanchthon avers, reason is unable to prove the existence of God on philosophical grounds, then, by this very fact, the science of the supernatural loses every stay, nor is it possible any longer to defend revelation against unbelief.It is the merest makeshift, when, like other of his Humanist contemporaries, Melanchthon seeks to base our knowledge of God’s existence on feeling and on a vague inward experience.[1012]Thus we can quite understand how old-fashioned Protestantism, after having paid but little attention to Melanchthon either in the days of orthodox Lutheranism or of Pietism, began to have recourse to him with the advent of Rationalism. The orthodox had missed in him Luther’s sparkling “strength of faith” and the courageous resolve to twit the “devil” within and without; the Pietists failed to discern in him the mysticism they extolled in Luther. Rationalists, on the other hand, found in him many kindred elements. Even of quite recent years Melanchthon has been hailed as the type of the easy-going theologian who seeks to bridge the chasm between believing and infidel Protestantism; at any rate, Melanchthon’s positive belief was far more extensive than that of many of his would-be imitators.Melanchthon LegendsThe tale once current that, at the last, Melanchthon was a Lutheran only in name, is to-day rejected by all scholars, Protestant and Catholic.Concerning the “honesty of his Protestantism” “no doubts” are raised by Protestant theologians, who call his teaching a “modification and a toning down” of that of Luther; nor can we conclude that “he was at all shaky in his convictions,” even should the remarkable utterance about to be cited really emanate from him.[1013]A Catholic historian of the highest standing agrees in saying of him: “Even though Luther’s teaching may not have completelysatisfied Melanchthon, yet there is no reason to doubt, that, on the whole, he was heart and soul on the side of the innovations.... We may now and then come upon actions on his part which arouse a suspicion as to his straightforwardness, but on the whole his convictions cannot be questioned.”[1014]In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day, we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother, speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “Hæc plausibilior, illa securior; Lutheranism is the more popular, but Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016]his mother, as a matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in her fifty-third year.[1017]Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind, and received from him the above reply.Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in his native place, andmayhave done so again in 1529 in the spring, when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018]though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten in the autumn of 1536.We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed conversation with the mother.K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019]dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historicalfoundation.”[1020]C. G. Strobel, in his “Melanchthoniana” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021]Against the account Strobel alleges severala prioriobjections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022]even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much withItalian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025]Here we do not meet the sentenceHæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026]The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothingobliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028]Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029]Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstancesrelated by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030]He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031]It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.”There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034]When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]4. Demonology and Demonomania“Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”[1036]Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman![1037]How little is left for God.[1038]“The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.”[1039]“Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”[1040]Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?“The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.”[1041]“The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.”[1042]“We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”;[1043]“but even with our last breath we mustfight against the monsters of Satan.”[1044]Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes.[1045]As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”;[1046]“they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”[1047]Luther’s letters during his later years are crammed with things of this sort.The thought of the devil and his far-spread sphere of action, to which Luther had long been addicted, assumes in his mind as time goes on a more serious and gloomy shape, though he continues often enough to refer to the Divine protection promised against the powers of darkness and to the final victory of Christ.In his wrong idea of the devil Luther was by no means without precursors. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages exaggerations had long prevailed on this subject, not only among the people but even among the best-known writers; on the very eve of Luther’s coming forward they formed no small part of the disorders in the ecclesiastical life of the people. Had people been content with the sober teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church on the action of the devil, the faithful would have been preserved from many errors. As it was, however, the vivid imagination of laity and clergy led them to read much into the revealed doctrine that was not really in it; witness, for instance, the startling details they found in the words of St. Paul (Eph. vi. 12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Great abuses had gradually crept intothe use of the blessings and exorcisms of the Church, more particularly in the case of supposed sorcery. Unfortunately, too, the beliefs and practices common among the people received much too ready support from persons of high standing in the Church. The supposition, which in itself had the sanction of tradition, that intercourse with the devil was possible, grew into the fantastic persuasion that witches were lurking everywhere, and required to have their malicious action checked by the authority of Church and State. That unfortunate book, “The Witches’ Hammer,” which Institoris and Sprenger published in 1487, made these delusions fashionable in circles which so far had been but little affected by them, though the authors’ purpose, viz. to stamp out the witches, was not achieved.It is clear that at home in Saxony, and in his own family, Luther had lived in an atmosphere where the belief in spirits and the harm wrought by the devil was very strong; miners are credited with being partial to such gloomy fancies owing to the nature of their dangerous work in the mysterious bowels of the earth. As a young monk he had fancied he heard the devil creating an uproar nightly in the convent, and the state of excitement in which he lived and which accompanied him ever afterwards was but little calculated to free him from the prejudices of the age concerning the devil’s power. His earlier sermons, for instance those to be mentioned below on the Ten Commandments, contain much that is frankly superstitious, though this must be set down in great part to the beliefs already in vogue and above which he failed to rise. Had Luther really wished to play the part of a reformer of the ecclesiastical life of his day, he would have found here a wide field for useful labour. In point of fact, however, he only made bad worse. His lively descriptions and the weight of his authority merely served to strengthen the current delusions among those who looked to him. Before him no one had ever presented these things to the people with such attractive wealth of detail, no one had brought the weight of his personality so strongly to bear upon his readers and so urgently preached to them on how to deal with the spirits of evil.Among non-Catholics it has been too usual to lay the whole blame on the Middle Ages and the later Catholic period. They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influencecounted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years. Yet Luther’s views and practice show plainly enough, that it was not merely the Catholic ages before his day that were dishonoured with such delusions concerning the devil, and that it was not the Catholics alone, of his time and the following decades, who were responsible for the devil-craze and the bloody persecutions of the witches in those dark days of German history in the 17th century.[1048]The Mischief Wrought by the DevilLuther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.”[1049]But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he had repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power.Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan.
In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though, from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name. He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as “less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless about something of great importance and quite essential. To support every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972]Theramenes had perished on the scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage ([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has since become much worse.”[974]In later letters he likens Luther to the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]
In a letter of 1535 to Johann Sturm he finds fault with the harshness of Luther’s doctrine and with his manner of defending it, though, from motives of caution, he refrains from mentioning Luther by name. He himself, however, was looked upon at the Court of the Elector as “less violent and stubborn than some others”; it was just because they fancied him useful as a sort of valve, as they called it, that they refused to release him from his professorial chair at Wittenberg. And such is really the case. “I never think it right to quarrel unless about something of great importance and quite essential. To support every theory and extravagant opinion that takes the field has never been my way. Would that the learned were permitted to speak out more freely on matters of importance!” But, instead of this, people ran after their own fancies. There was no doubt that, at times, even some of their own acted without forethought. “On account of my moderation I am in great danger from our own people ... and it seems to me that the fate of Theramenes awaits me.”[972]Theramenes had perished on the scaffold in a good cause—but before this had been guilty of grievous infidelity and was a disreputable intriguer. Of this Melanchthon can scarcely have been aware, otherwise he would surely have chosen some less invidious term of comparison. He was happier in his selection when, in 1544, he compared himself to Aristides on account of the risk he ran of being sent into exile by Luther: “Soon you will hear that I have been sent away from here as Aristides was from Athens.”[973]
Especially after 1538, i.e. during the last eight years of Luther’s life, Melanchthon’s stay at Wittenberg was rendered exceedingly unpleasant. In 1538 he reminds Veit Dietrich of the state of bondage ([Greek: doulotês]) of which the latter had gleaned some acquaintance while in Wittenberg (1522-35); “and yet,” he continues, “Luther has since become much worse.”[974]In later letters he likens Luther to the demagogue Cleon and to boisterous Hercules.[975]
Although it was no easy task for Luther, whose irritability increased with advancing years, to conceal his annoyance with his friend for presuming to differ from him, yet, as we know, he never allowed matters to come to an open breach. Melanchthon, too, owing to his fears and pusillanimity, avoided any definite personal explanation. Both alike were apprehensive of the scandal of an open rupture and its pernicious effects on the common cause. Moreover, Luther was thoroughly convinced that Melanchthon’s services were indispensable to him, particularly in view of the gloomy outlook for the future.
The matter, however, deserves further examination in view of the straightforwardness, clearness and inexorableness which Luther is usually supposed to have displayed in his doctrines.
When important interests connected with his position seemed to call for it, Luther could be surprisingly lenient in questions of doctrine. Thus, for instance, we can hardly recognise the once so rigid Luther in the Concord signed with the Zwinglians, and again, when, for a while, the English seemed to be dallying with Lutheranism. In the case of the Zwinglian townships of South Germany, which were received into the Union by the Wittenberg Concord the better to strengthen the position of Lutheranism against the Emperor, Luther finally, albeit grudgingly, gave his assent to theological articles which differed so widely from his own doctrines that the utmost skill was required to conceal the discrepancy.[976]As for the English, Kolde says: “How far Luther was prepared to go [in allowing matters to take their course] we see, e.g. from the fact that, in his letter of March 28, 1536, to the Elector, he describes the draft Articles of agreement with the English—only recentlymade public and which (apart from Art. 10, which might at a pinch be taken in the Roman sense) are altogether on the lines of the ‘Variata’—as quite in harmony with our own teaching.”[977]The terms of this agreement were drawn up by Melanchthon. As a matter of fact “we find little trace of Luther’s spirit in the Articles. We have simply to compare [Luther’s] Schmalkalden Articles of the following year to be convinced how greatly Luther’s own mode of thought and expression differed from those Articles.” “They show us what concessions the Wittenberg theologians, as a body, were disposed to make in order to win over such a country as England.”[978]
Concerning Luther’s attitude towards the alterations made by Melanchthon in the Confession of Augsburg (above, vol. iii., p. 445 f.) we must also assume “from his whole behaviour, that he was not at all pleased with Melanchthon’s action; yet he allowed it, like much else, to pass.”[979]This, however, does not exclude Luther’s violence andnarrowness having caused an estrangement between them, Melanchthon having daily to apprehend outbursts of anger, so that his stay became extremely painful. The most critical time was in the summer of 1544, in consequence of the Cologne Book of Reform (vol. iii., p. 447). Luther, who strongly suspected Melanchthon’s orthodoxy on the Supper, prepared to assail anew those who denied the Real Presence. Yet the storm which Melanchthon dreaded did not touch him; Luther’s “Kurtz Bekentnis vom heiligen Sacrament,” which appeared at the end of September, failed to mention Melanchthon’s name. On Oct. 7, Cruciger was able by letter to inform Dietrich, that the author no longer displayed any irritation against his old friend.[980]Here again considerations of expediency had prevailed over dogmatic scruples, nor is there any doubt that the old feeling of friendship, familiarity and real esteem asserted its rights. We may recall the kindly sympathy and care that Luther lavished on Melanchthon when the latter fell sick at Weimar, owing to the trouble consequent on his sanction given to the Hessian bigamy.[981]
Indeed we must assume that the relations between the two were often more cordial than would appear from the letters of one so timid and faint-hearted as Melanchthon; the very adaptability of the latter’s character renders this probable. In Nov., 1544, Chancellor Brück declared: “With regard to Philip, as far as I can see, he and Martin are quite close friends”; in another letter written about that time he also says Luther had told him that he was quite unaware of any differences between himself and Melanchthon.[982]
The latter, whenever he was at Wittenberg, also continued as a rule to put in an appearance at Luther’s table, and there is little doubt that, on such occasions, Luther’s frank and, open conversation often availed to banish any ill-feeling there may have been. We learn that Magister Philip waspresent at the dinner in celebration of Luther’s birthday in 1544, together with Cruciger, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Major, and that they exchanged confidences concerning the present and future welfare of the new religion.[983]
When Melanchthon was away from Wittenberg engaged in settling ecclesiastical matters elsewhere he was careful to keep Luther fully informed of the course of affairs. He occasionally expressed his thanks to the latter for the charity and kindness of his replies; Luther in his turn kept him posted in the little intimacies of their respective families, in the occurrences in the town and University of Wittenberg, and almost always added a request for prayer for help in his struggles with “Satan.” This intimate correspondence was carried on until the very month before Luther’s death. Even in his last letters Luther calls the friend with whom he had worked for so many years “My Philip”; Melanchthon, as a rule, heads his communications in more formal style: “Clarissimo et optimo viro D. Martino Luthero, doctori theologiæ, instauratori puræ evangelicæ doctrinæ ac patri suo in Christo reverendo et charissimo.”[984]
The great praise which Melanchthon bestows on the deceased immediately after his death is indeed startling, but we must beware of regarding it as mere hypocrisy.
The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14, 1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now to devolve on him.The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence” of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or quarrelsome.[985]Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s death tothe students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]
The news of Luther’s death which took place at Eisleben on Feb. 14, 1546, was received by Melanchthon the very next day. In spite of all their differences it must have come as a shock to him, the more so that the responsibility for the direction of his friend’s work was now to devolve on him.
The panegyric on Luther which Melanchthon delivered at Wittenberg boldly places him on the same footing with Isaias, John the Baptist, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and Augustine of Hippo. In it the humanistic element and style is more noticeable than the common feeling of the friend. He hints discreetly at the “great vehemence” of the departed, but does not omit to mention that everyone who was acquainted with him must bear witness that he had always shown himself kind-hearted towards his friends, and never obstinate or quarrelsome.[985]Though this is undoubtedly at variance with what he says elsewhere, still such a thing was expected in those days in panegyrics on great men, nor would so smooth-tongued an orator have felt any scruple about it. In his previous announcement of Luther’s death tothe students he had exclaimed: “The chariot of Israel and the driver thereof have been taken from us, the man who ruled the Church in these days of the world’s senile decay.”[986]
After Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice. Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988]In this the “moot observances (Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments. By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’ssola fides, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with them was that Melanchthon graduallyceased to be the head of the Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all, they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine teaching of the Gospel.”[989]Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied, whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them; “we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990]The friends of Flacius Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference; the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman, pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible to arrive at any decision?[991]It was from Canisius, “who during the course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the Catholic party and later repeatedly provedhimself a sharp observer of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992]that the suggestion came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off. “The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus revealed to the whole world.”[993]“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996]His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997]He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998]Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into thosewonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999]He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.
After Luther’s death Melanchthon had still to endure fourteen years of suffering, perhaps of even more bitter character than he had yet tasted. Whilst representing Lutheranism and taking the lead amongst his colleagues he did so with the deliberate intention of maintaining the new faith by accommodating himself indulgently to the varying conditions of the times. Our narrative may here be permitted to anticipate somewhat in order to give a clear and connected account of Melanchthon’s inner life and ultimate fate.[987]
His half-heartedness and love of compromise were a cause of many hardships to him, particularly at the time of the so-called Interims of Augsburg and Leipzig. It was a question of introducing the Augsburg Interim into the Saxon Electorate after the latter, owing to the War of Schmalkalden, had come under the rule of the new Elector Maurice. Melanchthon had at first opposed the provisions of this Interim, by means of which the Emperor hoped gradually to bring the Protestants back to the fold. In Dec., 1548, however, he, together with other theologians, formally accepted the Leipzig articles, which, owing to their similarity with the Augsburg Interim, were dubbed by his opponents the “Leipzig Interim,”[988]In this the “moot observances (Adiaphora), i.e. those which may be kept without any contravention of Divine Scripture,” were extended by Melanchthon so as to include the reintroduction of fasting, festivals, not excluding even Corpus Christi, images of the Saints in the churches, the Latin liturgy, the Canonical Hours in Latin and even a sort of hierarchy. Melanchthon also agreed to the demand for the recognition of the seven sacraments. By strongly emphasising his own doctrine of synergism, he brought the Wittenberg teaching on Justification much nearer to Catholic dogma; he even dealt a death-blow to the genuine doctrine of Luther by appending his signature to the following proposition: “God does not deal with man as with a block of wood, but so draws him that his will also co-operates.” In addition to this the true character of Luther’ssola fides, or assurance of salvation, was veiled by Melanchthon under the formula: “True faith accepts, together with other articles, that of the ‘Forgiveness of Sins.’”
Hence when Flacius Illyricus, Amsdorf, Gallus, Wigand, Westphal and others loudly protested against Melanchthon as though he had denied Luther’s doctrine, they were not so very far wrong. The result of their vigorous opposition and of the number of those who sided with them was that Melanchthon graduallyceased to be the head of the Lutheran Church, becoming merely the leader of a certain party.
Later on, in 1552, when the position of public affairs in Germany was more favourable to Protestantism, Melanchthon admitted that he had been wrong in his views concerning the Adiaphora, since, after all, they were not so unimportant as he had at first thought. In order to pacify his opponents he included the following proposition in his form of examination for new preachers: “We ought to profess, not the Papal errors, Interim, etc. ... but to remain faithful to the pure Divine teaching of the Gospel.”[989]
Opposition to the “Papal errors” was indeed the one thing to which he steadfastly adhered; this negative side of his attitude never varied, whatever changes may have taken place in his positive doctrines.
Nevertheless during the ensuing controversies he was regarded as a traitor by the stricter Lutherans and treated with a scorn that did much to embitter his last years. The attitude of his opponents was particularly noticeable at the conference of Worms in 1557. Even before this, they, particularly the Jena theologians, had planned an outspoken condemnation of all those who “had departed from the Augsburg Confession,” as Melanchthon had done. They now appeared at Worms with others of the same way of thinking. “I desire no fellowship with those who defile the purity of our doctrine,” wrote one of them; “we must shun them, according to the words of the Bible: ‘If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you.’”[990]The friends of Flacius Illyricus at the very first meeting made no secret of their unanimous demand, so that Melanchthon in his justificatory statement could well say: “I see plainly that all this is directed solely against me.” He opposed any condemnation of Zwingli or of Calvin on account of their doctrine on the Supper; this, he said, was the business of a synod.
At the very outset of the disputations with the Catholics it became evident anew that the divergency of the Protestants in the interpretation of Holy Scripture was too great to allow of the points under discussion being satisfactorily settled in conference; the abrogation of an ecclesiastical authority for the exposition of Scripture had resulted in an ever-growing want of unity in the interpretation of the Bible. Peter Canisius, the Catholic spokesman, pointed out emphatically what obstacles were presented by the contradictory opinions on doctrine amongst the Protestants; where every man traced his opinions back to Scripture, how was it possible to arrive at any decision?[991]It was from Canisius, “who during the course of the conference distinguished himself as the leader of the Catholic party and later repeatedly provedhimself a sharp observer of the religious conditions in Germany,”[992]that the suggestion came, that the Protestants should define their position more clearly by repudiating certain divergent sects. This led the followers of Flacius to demand that all the Evangelicals should unite in condemning Zwinglianism, Osianderism, Adiaphorism and Majorism, and also Calvin’s doctrine on the Supper. To this Melanchthon and his friends absolutely refused to agree. The result was that the followers of Flacius departed greatly incensed, and the conference had to be broken off. “The contradictions in the very heart of Protestantism were thus revealed to the whole world.”[993]
“No greater disgrace befell the Reformation in the 16th century.”[994]
From that time Melanchthon was a broken man. His friend Languet wrote to Calvin, “Mr. Philip is so worn out with old age, toils, calumnies and intrigues that nothing is left of his former cheerfulness.”[995]
Melanchthon characterised the Book of Confutation published by the Duke of Saxony in 1558, and finally revised by Flacius, as a “congeries of sophisms” which he had perused with great pain, and as “venomous sophistry.” He therefore once more begged for his dismissal.[996]
His longing for death as a happy release from such bitter affliction we find expressed in many of his letters. To Sigismund Gelous of Eperies in Hungary he wrote, on May 20, 1559, that he was not averse to departing this life owing to the attacks on his person, and in order that he might behold “the light of the Heavenly Academy” and become partaker of its wisdom.[997]He looked forward, so he writes to another, to that light “where God is all in all and where there is no more sophistry or calumny.”[998]Only a few days before his death he solaced himself by drawing up some notes entitled: “Reasons why you should fear death less.” On the left of the sheet he wrote: “You will escape from sin, and will be delivered from all trouble and the fury of the theologians (‘liberaberis ab ærumnis et a rabie theologorum’)”; and, on the right: “You will attain to the light, you will behold God, you will look on the Son of God, you will see into thosewonderful mysteries which you have been unable to comprehend in this life, such as why we are created as we are, and how the two natures are united in Christ.”[999]He finally departed this life on April 19, 1560, from the results of a severe cold.
Melanchthon’s last work was a “strong protest against Catholicism,” which at the same time embodied an abstract of his whole doctrine—such as it had become during the later years of his life. This work he calls his “Confession”; it is professedly aimed at the “godless Articles of the Bavarian Inquisition,” i.e. was intended to counteract the efforts of Duke Albert of Bavaria to preserve his country from the inroads of Protestantism.[1000]
In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (satellites) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001]This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002]To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him.Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003]Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004]About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005]“Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007]Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive.His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.
In this “Confession,” dating from the evening of his days, the “so-peaceful” Melanchthon bluntly describes the Pope and all his train (satellites) as “defenders of idols”; according to him they “withstand the known truth, and cruelly rage against the pious.”[1001]This book, with its superficial humanistic theology, justifies, like so many of his earlier works, the opinion of learned Catholic contemporaries who regretted that the word of a scholar devoid of any sound theological training should exercise so much influence over the most far-reaching religious questions of the day.
Writing to Cardinal Sadoleto, Johann Fabri, Bishop of Vienna, says, “Would that Melanchthon had pursued his studies on the lines indicated by his teacher Capnion [Reuchlin]! Would that he had but remained content with the rhetoric and grammar of the ancients instead of allowing his youthful ardour to carry him away, to turn the true religion into a tragedy! But alas ... when barely eighteen years of age he began to teach the simple, and, by his soft speeches, he has disturbed the whole Church beyond measure. And even after so many years he is still unable to see his error or to desist from the doctrines once imbibed and from furthering such lamentable disorders.”[1002]To this letter Fabri appended excerpts from various writings of Melanchthon’s as “specimens of what his godless pen had produced against the truth and the peace of the Church.”
Others, for instance Eck and Cochlæus, in their descriptions of Melanchthon dwell on the traits that displeased them in their personal intercourse with him.
Johann Eck compares the way in which Melanchthon twice outwitted Cardinal Campeggio to the false arts of Sinon the Greek, known to us from Virgil’s account of the introduction of the wooden horse into Troy.[1003]Johann Cochlæus, who had met him at Augsburg, calls him the “fox,” and once warns a friend: “Take care lest he cheat you with his deceitful cunning, for, like the Sirens, he gains a hearing by sweet and honeyed words; he makes a hypocritical use of lying; he is ever planning how he may win men’s hearts by all manner of wiles, and seduces them with dishonest words.”[1004]About the same time in a printed reply to Melanchthon’s “Apologia,” he drew an alarming picture of the latter’s trickery at the Diet of Augsburg. By worming himself into the confidence of the Princes and great men present, Melanchthon learned, so he says, things that were little to the credit of the Catholic Church; these he afterwards retailed to Luther, who at once, after duly embellishing them, flung the tales broadcast amongst the people by means of the press. Melanchthon made not the slightest attempt to correct his statements, as he was in duty bound to do, and his honeyed words merely fed the flames.[1005]“Most people,” he writes elsewhere, “if not all, have hitherto supposed Melanchthon to be much milder and more moderate than Luther”; such persons should, however, study his writings carefully, and then they would soon see how unspeakably bitter was his feeling against Catholics.[1006]
The latter assertion is only too fully confirmed by the extracts already put before the reader, particularly by those from his Schmalkalden tract on the Pope, from his Introduction to the new edition of Luther’s “Warnunge” and from the “Confession” just alluded to.[1007]Here there glows such deep hatred of the faith and practices of the Catholic Church that one seeks in vain for the common ground on which his professed love for union could thrive.
His conciliatory proposals were, however, in fact nothing more than the vague and barren cravings of a Humanist.
In connection with this a characteristic, already pointed out, which runs through the whole of Melanchthon’s religious attitude and strongly differentiates him from Luther, merits being emphasised anew. This is the shallow, numbing spirit which penetrates alike his theology and his philosophy, and the humanistic tendency to reduce everything to uniformity. That, in his theological vocabulary heis fond of using classical terms (speaking, for instance, of the heavenly “Academy” where we attend the “school” of the Apostles and Prophets)[1008]is a detail; he goes much further and makes suspiciously free with the whole contents of the faith, whether for the sake of reducing it to system, or for convenience, or in order to promote peace.[1009]It would have fared ill with Melanchthon had he applied to himself in earnest what Luther said of those who want to be wiser than God, who follow their crazy reason and seek to bring about an understanding between Christ and ... the devil. But Melanchthon’s character was pliant enough not to be unduly hurt by such words of Luther’s. He was able, on the one hand, to regard Bucer and the Swiss as his close allies on the question of the Supper and, on the other, while all the time sticking fast to Luther, he could declare that on the whole he entirely agreed with the religious views of Erasmus, the very “antipodes of Luther.” It was only his lack of any real religious depth which enabled him so to act. In a sketch of Erasmus which he composed for one of his pupils in 1557, he even makes the former, in spite of all his hostility to Luther, to share much the same way of thinking, a fact which draws from Kawerau the complaint: “So easy was it for Melanchthon to close his eyes to the doctrinal differences which existed even amongst the ‘docti.’”[1010]
A similar lack of any just and clear appreciation of the great truths of the faith is also apparent in Melanchthon’s letters to Erasmus, more particularly in the later ones. Here personal friendship and Humanist fellow-feeling vie with each other in explaining away in the most startling manner the religious differences.[1011]Many elements of theology were dissolved by Melanchthon’s subjective method of exegesis and by the system of philosophy he had built up from the classical authors, particularly from Cicero. Melanchthon’s philosophy was quite unfitted to throw lighton the doctrines of revelation. To him the two domains, of philosophy and theology, seemed, not only independent, but actually hostile to each other, a state of things absolutely unknown to the Middle Ages. If, as Melanchthon avers, reason is unable to prove the existence of God on philosophical grounds, then, by this very fact, the science of the supernatural loses every stay, nor is it possible any longer to defend revelation against unbelief.
It is the merest makeshift, when, like other of his Humanist contemporaries, Melanchthon seeks to base our knowledge of God’s existence on feeling and on a vague inward experience.[1012]
Thus we can quite understand how old-fashioned Protestantism, after having paid but little attention to Melanchthon either in the days of orthodox Lutheranism or of Pietism, began to have recourse to him with the advent of Rationalism. The orthodox had missed in him Luther’s sparkling “strength of faith” and the courageous resolve to twit the “devil” within and without; the Pietists failed to discern in him the mysticism they extolled in Luther. Rationalists, on the other hand, found in him many kindred elements. Even of quite recent years Melanchthon has been hailed as the type of the easy-going theologian who seeks to bridge the chasm between believing and infidel Protestantism; at any rate, Melanchthon’s positive belief was far more extensive than that of many of his would-be imitators.
The tale once current that, at the last, Melanchthon was a Lutheran only in name, is to-day rejected by all scholars, Protestant and Catholic.
Concerning the “honesty of his Protestantism” “no doubts” are raised by Protestant theologians, who call his teaching a “modification and a toning down” of that of Luther; nor can we conclude that “he was at all shaky in his convictions,” even should the remarkable utterance about to be cited really emanate from him.[1013]A Catholic historian of the highest standing agrees in saying of him: “Even though Luther’s teaching may not have completelysatisfied Melanchthon, yet there is no reason to doubt, that, on the whole, he was heart and soul on the side of the innovations.... We may now and then come upon actions on his part which arouse a suspicion as to his straightforwardness, but on the whole his convictions cannot be questioned.”[1014]
In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day, we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother, speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “Hæc plausibilior, illa securior; Lutheranism is the more popular, but Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016]his mother, as a matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in her fifty-third year.[1017]Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind, and received from him the above reply.Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in his native place, andmayhave done so again in 1529 in the spring, when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018]though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten in the autumn of 1536.We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed conversation with the mother.K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019]dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historicalfoundation.”[1020]C. G. Strobel, in his “Melanchthoniana” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021]Against the account Strobel alleges severala prioriobjections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022]even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much withItalian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025]Here we do not meet the sentenceHæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026]The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothingobliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]
In Catholic literature, nevertheless, even down to the present day, we often find Melanchthon quoted as having said to his mother, speaking of the relative value of the old and the new religion: “Hæc plausibilior, illa securior; Lutheranism is the more popular, but Catholicism is the safer.”[1015]
This story concerning Melanchthon assumed various forms as time went on. We must dismiss the version circulated by Florimond de Raemond in 1605, to the effect that the words had been spoken by Melanchthon on his death-bed to his mother who had remained a Catholic, when the latter adjured him to tell her the truth;[1016]his mother, as a matter of fact, died at her home at Bretten in the Lower Palatinate long before her son, in 1529, slightly before July 24, being then in her fifty-third year.[1017]
Nor is there much to be said in favour of another version of the above story which has it that Melanchthon’s mother, after having been persuaded by him to come over, visited him in great distress of mind, and received from him the above reply.
Melanchthon called on her at Bretten in May, 1524, during his stay in his native place, andmayhave done so again in 1529 in the spring, when attending the Diet of Spires. A passage in his correspondence construed as referring to this visit is by no means clear,[1018]though the illness and death of his mother would seem to make such a flying visit likely. On a third occasion Melanchthon went to Bretten in the autumn of 1536.
We shall first see what Protestant writers have to say of the supposed conversation with the mother.
K. Ed. Förstemann, who, in 1830,[1019]dealt with the family records of the Schwarzerd family, says briefly of the matter: “Strobel was wrong in declaring this story to be utterly devoid of historicalfoundation.”[1020]C. G. Strobel, in his “Melanchthoniana” (1771), had expressed his disbelief in the tale under the then widespread form, according to which Melanchthon had spoken the words, when visiting his dying mother in 1529; he had been much shocked to hear it told in rhetorical style by M. A. J. Bose of Wittenberg in a panegyric on Melanchthon. Bose, whose leanings were towards the Broad School, had cited the story approvingly as an instance of Melanchthon’s large-mindedness in religion.[1021]Against the account Strobel alleges severala prioriobjections of no great value; his best argument really was that there was no authority for it.
Förstemann’s brief allusion was not without effect on the authors of the article on Melanchthon in the “Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie”; there we read: “The tale is at least not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty”;[1022]even G. Ellinger, the latest of Melanchthon’s biographers, declares: “We may assume that Melanchthon treated the religious views of his mother, who continued till the end of her life faithful to the olden Church, with the same tender solicitude as he displayed towards her in the later conversation in 1529.”[1023]
It is first of all necessary to settle whether the conversation actually rests on reliable authority. Förstemann, like Strobel, mentions only Melchior Adam († 1622), whose “Vitæ theologorum” was first published in 1615 (see next page).
Adam, a Protestant writer, gives no authority for his statement. Ægidius Albertinus, a popular Catholic author, writing slightly earlier, also gives the story in his “Rekreation” (see next page), published in 1612 and 1613, likewise without indicating its source.
Earlier than either we have Florimond de Raemond, whose “Histoire,” etc. (above, p. 270, n. 3) contains the story even in the 1605 edition; he too gives no authority. So far no earlier mention of the story is known. It seems to have been a current tale in Catholic circles abroad and may have been printed. Strange to say the work of the zealous Catholic convert and polemic, de Raemond (completed and seen through the press by his son), contains the story under the least likely shape, the dying Melanchthon being made to address the words to his mother, who really had died long before.
It is quite likely that Ægidius Albertinus, the well-read priestly secretary to the Munich Council, who busied himself much withItalian, Spanish and Latin literature, was acquainted with this passage. He nevertheless altered the narrative, relating how Melanchthon’s “aged mother came to him” after he had “lived long in the world and seen many things, and caused many scandals by his life.” He translates as follows the Latin words supposed to have been uttered by Melanchthon: “The new religion is much pleasanter, but the old one is much safer.”[1024]
Next comes the Protestant Adam. The latter gives a plausible historical setting to the story by locating it during the time of Melanchthon’s stay at Spires, though without mentioning that the mother was then at death’s door. “When asked by her,” so runs his account, which is the commonest one, “what she was to believe of the controversies, he listened to the prayers [she was in the habit of reciting] and, finding nothing superstitious in them, told her to continue to believe and to pray as heretofore and not be disturbed by the discussions and controversies.”[1025]Here we do not meet the sentenceHæc plausibilior, illa securior. The fact that Adam, who as a rule is careful to give his authorities, omits to do so here, points to the story having been verbally transmitted; for it is hardly likely that he, as a Protestant, would have taken over the statements of the two Catholic authorities Albertinus and Raemond, which were so favourable to Catholicism and so unfavourable to Protestantism. Probably, besides the Catholic version there was also a Protestant one, which would explain here the absence of the sentence ending with “securior.” Both may have risen at the time of the Diet of Spires, where Catholics and Protestants alike attended, supposing that the visit to Bretten took place at that time.
All things considered we may well accept the statement of the “Realenzyklopädie,” that the story, as given by Adam, apart from the time it occurred, is “not unlikely, though it cannot be proved with certainty.” Taking into account the circumstances and the character of Melanchthon, neither the incident nor his words involve any improbability. He will have seen that his beloved mother—whether then at the point of death or not—was in perfect good faith; he had no wish to plunge her into inward struggles and disquiet and preferred to leave her happy in her convictions; the more so since, in her presence and amid the recollections of the past, his mind will probably have travelled to the days of his youth, when he was still a faithful son of the Church. He had never forgotten the exhortation given by his father, nine days before his death, to his family “never to quit the Church’s fold.”[1026]The exact date of the incident (1524 or 1529) must however remain doubtful. N. Müller in his work on Melanchthon’s brother, Jakob Schwarzerd, says rightly: “Nothingobliges us to place the conversation between Melanchthon and his mother—assuming it to be historical—in 1529, for it may equally well have taken place in 1524.”[1027]
Two unsupported stories connected with Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession must also be mentioned here. The twofold statement, frequently repeated down to the present day, takes the following shape in a recent historical work by a Protestant theologian: “When the Confession was read out, the Bishop of Augsburg, Christoph von Stadion, declared, ‘What has just been read here is the pure, unvarnished truth’; Eck too had to admit to the Duke of Bavaria, that he might indeed be able to refute this work from the Fathers of the Church, but certainly not from Scripture.” So convincing and triumphant was Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet of Augsburg.
The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028]Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029]Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstancesrelated by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030]He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031]It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.”There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034]When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]
The information concerning Stadion is found only in the late, Protestant history of the Diet of Augsburg written by George Cœlestinus and published in 1577 at Frankfurt; here moreover the story differs slightly, relating, that, during the negotiations on the Confession on Aug. 6, Stadion declared: “It was plain that those who inclined to the Lutheran views had, so far, not infringed or overthrown a single article of the faith by what they had put forward in defence of their views.”[1028]Any decisive advocacy of the Catholic cause was of course not to be expected from this bishop, in view of his general bearing. A good pupil of Erasmus, he had made the latter’s reforming ideas his own. He was in favour of priestly marriage, and was inclined to think that Christ had not instituted auricular confession. There is, however, no proof that he went so far in the direction of the innovations as actually to approve the Lutheran teaching. It is true that the words quoted, even if really his, do not assert this; it was one thing to say that no article of the faith had been infringed by the Confession or by what had been urged in vindication of Lutheranism, and quite another to say that the Confession was nothing but the pure, unvarnished truth. At any rate, in the one form this statement of Stadion’s is not vouched for by any other authority before Cœlestinus and, in the other, lacks any proof whatever. F. W. Schirrmacher, who relates the incident in his “Briefen und Akten zur Geschichte des Reichstags zu Augsburg” on the authority of Cœlestinus, admits that “its source is unknown.”[1029]Moreover an historian, who some years ago examined into Stadion’s attitude at Augsburg, pointed out, that, in view of the further circumstancesrelated by Cœlestinus, the story “sounds a little fabulous.”[1030]He tells us how on the same occasion the bishops of Salzburg and Augsburg fell foul of one another, the former, in his anger at Stadion’s behaviour, even going so far as to charge the latter before the whole assembly with immorality in his private life. All this, told at great length and without mention of any authority, far from impressing us as historically accurate, appears at best as an exaggerated hearsay account of some incident of which the truth is no longer known.
As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031]It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.
Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.
According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]
What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.”There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]
Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034]When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]
“Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”[1036]
Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman![1037]How little is left for God.[1038]“The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.”[1039]“Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”[1040]
Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?
“The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.”[1041]“The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.”[1042]“We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”;[1043]“but even with our last breath we mustfight against the monsters of Satan.”[1044]Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes.[1045]As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”;[1046]“they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”[1047]
Luther’s letters during his later years are crammed with things of this sort.
The thought of the devil and his far-spread sphere of action, to which Luther had long been addicted, assumes in his mind as time goes on a more serious and gloomy shape, though he continues often enough to refer to the Divine protection promised against the powers of darkness and to the final victory of Christ.
In his wrong idea of the devil Luther was by no means without precursors. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages exaggerations had long prevailed on this subject, not only among the people but even among the best-known writers; on the very eve of Luther’s coming forward they formed no small part of the disorders in the ecclesiastical life of the people. Had people been content with the sober teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church on the action of the devil, the faithful would have been preserved from many errors. As it was, however, the vivid imagination of laity and clergy led them to read much into the revealed doctrine that was not really in it; witness, for instance, the startling details they found in the words of St. Paul (Eph. vi. 12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” Great abuses had gradually crept intothe use of the blessings and exorcisms of the Church, more particularly in the case of supposed sorcery. Unfortunately, too, the beliefs and practices common among the people received much too ready support from persons of high standing in the Church. The supposition, which in itself had the sanction of tradition, that intercourse with the devil was possible, grew into the fantastic persuasion that witches were lurking everywhere, and required to have their malicious action checked by the authority of Church and State. That unfortunate book, “The Witches’ Hammer,” which Institoris and Sprenger published in 1487, made these delusions fashionable in circles which so far had been but little affected by them, though the authors’ purpose, viz. to stamp out the witches, was not achieved.
It is clear that at home in Saxony, and in his own family, Luther had lived in an atmosphere where the belief in spirits and the harm wrought by the devil was very strong; miners are credited with being partial to such gloomy fancies owing to the nature of their dangerous work in the mysterious bowels of the earth. As a young monk he had fancied he heard the devil creating an uproar nightly in the convent, and the state of excitement in which he lived and which accompanied him ever afterwards was but little calculated to free him from the prejudices of the age concerning the devil’s power. His earlier sermons, for instance those to be mentioned below on the Ten Commandments, contain much that is frankly superstitious, though this must be set down in great part to the beliefs already in vogue and above which he failed to rise. Had Luther really wished to play the part of a reformer of the ecclesiastical life of his day, he would have found here a wide field for useful labour. In point of fact, however, he only made bad worse. His lively descriptions and the weight of his authority merely served to strengthen the current delusions among those who looked to him. Before him no one had ever presented these things to the people with such attractive wealth of detail, no one had brought the weight of his personality so strongly to bear upon his readers and so urgently preached to them on how to deal with the spirits of evil.
Among non-Catholics it has been too usual to lay the whole blame on the Middle Ages and the later Catholic period. They do not realise how greatly Luther’s influencecounted in the demonology and demonomania of the ensuing years. Yet Luther’s views and practice show plainly enough, that it was not merely the Catholic ages before his day that were dishonoured with such delusions concerning the devil, and that it was not the Catholics alone, of his time and the following decades, who were responsible for the devil-craze and the bloody persecutions of the witches in those dark days of German history in the 17th century.[1048]
Luther’s views agree in so far with the actual teaching of the olden Church, that he regards the devils as fallen angels condemned to eternal reprobation, who oppose the aims of God for the salvation of the world and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind. “The devil undoes the works of God,” so he says, adding, however, in striking consonance with the teaching of the Church and to emphasise the devil’s powerlessness, “but Christ undoes the devil’s works; He, the seed [of the woman] and the serpent are ever at daggers drawn.”[1049]But Luther goes further, and depicts in glaring and extravagant colours the harm which the devil can bring about. He declares he himself had had a taste of how wrathful and mighty a foe the devil is; this he had learned in the inward warfare he was compelled to wage against Satan. He was convinced that, at the Wartburg, and also later, he had repeatedly to witness the sinister manifestations of the Evil One’s malignant power.
Hence in his Church-postils, home-postils and Catechism, to mention only these, he gives full vent to his opinions on the hostility and might of Satan.