and God’s judgments, and to desire the Kingdom of Heaven; ever with the Word of God and His judgments on their lips, so that they appear to be well-versed in Scripture, and to be carrying out in their whole life and practice what they teach. … Countless godly men have entered this state; from all ranks, places and countries, people have hastened to join this Order; every corner of Christendom is full of Franciscan friaries.”[328]
3. Reaction of the Apostasy on its Author. His Private Life (1522–1525)
The moral results of Luther’s undertaking and its effect upon himself have been very variously represented. The character of the originator of so gigantic a movement in the realm of ideas could not escape experiencing deeply the reaction of the events in progress; yet the opinion even of his contemporaries concerning Luther’s morals in the critical years immediately preceding his marriage differ widely, according to the view they take of his enterprise. While by his adherents he is hailed as a second Elias,[329] some of his opponents do not hesitate to accuse him of the worst moral aberrations. Ickelsamer, however, one of the spokesmen of the “fanatics,” who did not scruple to raise an angry voice against Luther’s preachers, and even against Luther himself, was unable to adduce against him any evidence of sexual misconduct during those years. It is also very remarkable that Ickelsamer’s friend, Thomas Münzer, in his violent and bitter controversial attack upon Luther dating from that time, was also unable to bring forward charges of immorality. Both would doubtless have gladly availed themselves of any offences against the moral code of which Luther might have been guilty between 1522 and 1524, but in spite of their watchfulness they failed to detect any such.
Nevertheless, accusations of Ickelsamer’s, in which he speaks more in detail of Luther’s “faulty life,” are not lacking.
He finds fault with his “defiant teaching and his wilful disposition,” also with the frightful violence of the abuse with which in his writings he overwhelms his adversaries; recklessly and defiantly he flung abroad books filled with blasphemies. He blames him for the proud and tyrannical manner in which he sets up a “Papal Chair” for himself so as to suppress without mercy the new teachers who differ from him. Concerning his administration, he admits that Luther “exerted himself vigorously to put down evil living, in which efforts it was easy to detect the working of the Christian faith,” but he adds that the “public fornication” of certain masters and college fellows, as well as others who were in high favour, was winked at;[330] he, Ickelsamer, would say of the Wittenberg Professors what had long before been said of Rome: the nearer they live to Wittenberg the worse Christians are. He also reminds Luther of the “scandal and offence” the latter had given him by his excuses for the “mad and immoral goings on” at Wittenberg: “You said, ‘We can’t be angels.’ ” Of his private life he merely remarks that it annoyed him that Luther, “neglectful of so many urgent matters,” “could sit in the pleasant room overlooking the water,” “drinking cheerfully,” “among the beer-swillers.” Finally, with the usual hypocritical severity of the Anabaptists, he reproaches him concerning other matters, his extravagance in dress, and the pomp displayed at the promotion of Doctors.[331]
Thomas Münzer in his violent “Schutzrede”[332] speaks at great length of Luther’s pride, who, he says, wished to be a new Pope while making a show of humility; he “excited and urged on the people like a hound of hell,” though protesting that he did not wish to raise a revolt, “like a serpent that glides over the rocks.” Luther, in the very title of his work, he describes, as “that dull, effeminate lump of flesh at Wittenberg.” In the course of the same work he speaks of him scornfully as “Martin, the virgin,” and exclaims, “Ah, the chaste Babylonian virgin.” He classes him, on account of his sermons on “freedom,” with those teachers “who are pleasing to the world, which likes an easy life”; he speaks of him sarcastically as a “new Christ” with a “fine subject for his preaching,” viz. “that priests may take wives.”[333] He does not accuse him of any particular moral excess, but nevertheless remarks that “the disgraced monk” was not likely to suffer very severely under the persecution of which he boasted “when enjoying good Malvasian and feasting with light women.”[334] The latter allusion probably refers merely to Luther’s love of a good dinner, and his merry ways at his meals, which, to a strict Anabaptist like Münzer, seemed as deserving of execration as feasting with dissolute women.
It has recently been asserted by an eminent Protestant controversialist that Luther’s contemporaries never accused him of moral laxity or of offences against chastity, and that it was only after his death that people ventured to bring forward such charges; so long as he lived “the Romans,” so we read, “accused him of one only deed against the sixth commandment, viz. with his marriage”; Pistorius, Ulenberg and “Jesuits like Weislinger who copied them,” were the first to enter the lists with such accusations.
To start with, we may remark that Weislinger was not a Jesuit and that Ulenberg does not mention any moral offence committed by Luther apart from his matrimony. In fact the whole statement of the controversialist just quoted must be treated as a legend. As a matter of fact, serious charges regarding this matter were brought against Luther even in his lifetime and in the years previous to his union with Catherine von Bora.
In 1867 a less timorous Protestant writer, who had studied Luther’s history, brought forward the following passage from a manuscript letter written in 1522 by a Catholic, Count Hoyer von Mansfeld, to Count Ulrich von Helfenstein: “He had been a good Lutheran before that time and at Worms, but had come to see that Luther was a thorough scoundrel, who drank deeply, as was the custom at Mansfeld, liked the company of beautiful women, played the lute and led a frivolous life; therefore he [the Count] had abandoned his cause.”[335] From that time Hoyer von Mansfeld resolutely opposed Luther, caused a disputation to be held against him in 1526, and, to the end of his life (1540), kept a part of the Mansfeld estates loyal to the Catholic faith. Hoyer was an opponent of Luther when he wrote the above, but he must have received a very bad impression of Luther’s private life during the period subsequent to the latter’s stay at the Wartburg if this was the reason of his deserting Luther’s cause. It is conceivable that at the time of the Diet of Worms, when Hoyer declares he was still a “good Lutheran,” the contrast between Luther’s behaviour and the monastic habits of his earlier life had not yet become so conspicuous. (See above, p. 79.) After his stay at the Wartburg and subsequent to his attacks both literary and practical on the vow of chastity and on celibacy, a change such as that which Hoyer so distinctly refers to may have taken place. Wittenberg, the rallying point of so many questionable allies and escaped nuns in search of a refuge, was, in view of Luther’s social, not to say jovial, disposition, scarcely a suitable place for him. His want of self-restraint and the levity of his bearing were censured at that time by others, and even by Melanchthon. (See below, p. 144.)
The following year, 1523, after the arrival at Wittenberg of the nuns who had been “liberated” from their convents, there is no doubt that grave, though grossly exaggerated reports, unfavourable to Luther’s life and behaviour, were circulated both in Catholic circles and at the Court of Ferdinand the German King. Luther’s attacks upon the Church caused these reports to be readily accepted. An echo from the Court reached Luther’s ears, and he gives some account of it in a letter of January 14, 1524. According to this, it had been said in the King’s surroundings “that he frequented the company of light women, played dice and spent his time in the public-houses”; also that he was fond of going about armed and accompanied by a stately retinue; likewise, that he occupied a post of honour at the Court of his sovereign Prince. The tale regarding his bearing arms and occupying posts of honour Luther was able easily to repudiate by the testimony of his friends. He also confidently declared the remaining statements to be merely lies.[336]
Proof is wanting to substantiate the charge of “fornication” contained in a letter written from Rome by Jacob Ziegler to Erasmus on February 16, 1522. Ziegler there relates that he had been invited by a bishop to dinner and that the conversation turned on Luther: “The opinion was expressed that he was given to fornication and tippling, vices to which the Germans were greatly addicted.”[337]