The letters of Martin Luther ;

Front matter

BR ■ c^n

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

II

We shall give a few details of his numerous correspondents, for it would fill volumes to tell all that is interesting of these distinguished men. We shall not enter into his relations with his three Electors, those remarkable men, the first of whom founded Wittenberg University in 1502, to which Luther was called in 1508 through Staupitz, often called his spiritual father. Little did the good Frederick, with his great love of peace, dream that this modest High School, which was not to presume to vie with its accomplished sisters, Erfurt and Leipsic, and whose teachers were to be the monks in the Augustinian cloister, would one day set Germany ablaze and shake the Papal throne. Frederick never met Luther, wishing to remain unbiassed on the great religious questions agitating the Empire. The second, John the Steadfast, was his warm friend ; while the third, John Frederick, was his son in the faith, who, after Luther's xni death, went into exile, accompanied by Lukas Cranach, for the gospel's sake.

Luther numbered kings and queens, princes and princesses, popes, painters, such as Albrecht Diirer, poets like Coban Hesse, and warriors, as well as eminent humanists and theologians, among his correspondents ; and he was as much interested in the smallest affairs ot the smallest people as in the fate of empires.

Melanchthon ranks first among Luther's friends. Emil Frommel writes : " Even as our Saviour sent out His disciples two and two, so has He ever done in later ages. The son of the miner and that of the smith stand close together in God's kingdom. The one fetches the iron and coal out of the earth, the other polishes the weapons for warfare. Melanchthon was the great linguist of the Reformation. Luther glories in the ancient languages being the sheath in which the Word of God was hidden."

No one rejoiced in his great success as a lecturer more than Luther. " Perhaps I am Philip's forerunner," he writes, " the Elias to prepare the way for a greater, who will throw the servants of Israel and Ahab into confusion." Melanchthon said : "I would rather die than separate from Luther." When almost dead at Weimar in 1540 it was Luther's prayers that raised him up. On February 19,1 546, Melanchthon, bathed in tears, announced Luther's death to the students : " And now," he cried," we are like the forsaken orphans of a beloved father."

Spalatin may perhaps rank next in the portrait gallery of Luther's friends. They were of the same age, and studied in Erfurt together. Spalatin was Court chaplain to Frederick the Wise, and eventually preacher in Altenburg. Of the 2,324 letters in De Wette, 415 were to Spalatin. More letters were therefore written to him than to any other, for Luther told him everything. Spalatin, though xiv LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

gifted with greater natural talents and a more finished education, had less insight and self-reliance than Luther, and was therefore glad to follow his guidance. As he sat in the Council of Princes between Frederick and Luther, and understood both men, it is difficult to overestimate his services to the Reformation. Spalatin died in 1545.

Justus Jonas may be placed next. He was born in 1593. He took his doctor's degree in Erfurt, then studied law in Wittenberg, and was professor and provost there. Jonas translated and defended Luther's Ninety-five Theses. This was his first service to the Reformation. Jonas was an eloquent preacher, and on Sabbaths and Fastdays preached in the Stift's and Schloss churches. " What learning Wittenberg contains, Erfurt is frosty in comparison," he wrote to Coban Hesse. Jonas was at the head of the second Visitation; and in 1533 presided over the creation of the first Evangelical doctors, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, etc., at which the Elector John Frederick, with his wife Sibylla, our Anne of Cleve's sister, were present. Later Jonas became superintendent in Halle. It was in Jonas's church (in whose arms Luther may be said to have died) that Luther's body lay over the Sabbath on the way from Eisleben. When announcing his death to the Elector, Jonas begged him to write a letter of consolation to Bugenhagen, for a great love bound all of them together. Melanchthon said : " Bugenhagen is a grammatiker, I am a dialectician, Jonas is an orator, only Luther surpasses us all." After Luther's death Jonas was exiled, and died at Eisfeld, 1555.

Bugenhagen comes next. Born 1485, he studied in Greifswald, and was won to the truth by Luther's Babylonian Captivity, and came to Wittenberg in 1521 to be near his master. He became pastor of the Stadt Kirche, where Luther often preached for him when he was absent

XV on the Visitations. Bugenhagen had the gift of church organisation, and introduced the Reformation into Hamburg, Lubeck, Pomerania, and Denmark, where in 1537 he crowned King Christian IV. and his Queen, like a true bishop, as Luther wrote.

Next in order is the good pastor of Joachimsthal, Johann Matthesius, who was born in 1 504, and boarded for years with Luther, where he was received into the circle of his dearest friends. In 1526 he became acquainted with Luther's pamphlet on Good Works, "from which," he says, " I learned the elements of Christianity." Matthesius wrote the first complete and reliable life of Luther, a series of Sabbath evening lectures to his Bible class in 1562-64, one of the most charming books of Reformation times. In Lecture VII. Matthesius gives an interesting account of his first sojourn in W^ittenberg, which was cut short in 1529 by the Marburg Conference. Although placed in a remote parish he knew all that was going on ; for, he had friends in the great Reformation centres, NUrnberg, Strassburg, Regensburg, and even in Vienna. Melanchthon often wrote asking him for news, for letters were then the newspapers. One may gather that Matthesius was a person of note ; for, over a hundred portraits of him still exist, two in the National Gallery in London. Matthesius died on October 8, 1565.

Friedrich Myconius, the beloved Mecuni of Luther's letters, eventually first Evangelical superintendent in Gotha, was born in 1591 at Lichtenfels. His spiritual experience as a monk closely resembled Luther's in Erfurt. In 1 546 he related, as fresh as if it had happened the day before, how the way of salvation had been so far revealed to him in the now famous dream of July 14, 15 10, on his first night in the Franciscan cloister in Annaberg, which he entered solely to serve God perfectly. But 15T7 dawned before peace visited his soul. Little did the pious monk know, xvi LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

while groping after the light all these years, that another youth had already found the pearl of great price in the Augustinian cloister at Erfurt, and was to be the means of imparting it to multitudes. In 1518 the news that Luther was to sleep in the Barefoot cloister penetrated to Myconius's cell in Weimar, but although under the same roof with him the poor priest was not to see him. Could he only have known how often he was to stand by Luther in days to come it might have stilled his aching heart. Myconius was at the Reformer's bedside, along with his Elector, when Luther lay at death's door in Schmalkalden, and, with Bugenhagen and Spalatin, accompanied him to Tambach, his "Peniel."

In 1539 Myconius was in London arranging religious matters by invitation of Henry VIII., who received the deputation warmly. But as months passed, the King's courtiers warned the Embassy of the King's duplicity, so negotiations were broken off. It was Luther's beautiful letter of consolation to Myconius, when he was at the gates of death, that was the means of raising him up. He survived Luther a few months.

Von Amsdorf, Professor in Wittenberg, and later Bishop of Naumburg, one of Luther's most intimate friends, was the same age as Luther. He, with Caspar Cruciger, was the richest of the Reformers, the latter having a large house in Wittenberg and iron-works in Joachimsthal. Jonas once said at Luther's table : " God be praised that pious theologians can also become rich ! " " Ah ! " cried Luther, " we would all be rich enough in the riches of Christ, but, alas, we prize an earthly treasure more."

Cruciger was professor in Wittenberg and preacher in the Schloss Kirche, and stood very close to Luther. He was the stenograph of the Reformation, writing many of Luther's sermons. Often when Luther was ill and the xvu

J- others away on the Visitations and at Diets, Cruciger was the only theologian in the town. In 1533 he was rector of the University for six months. Luther loved him for his learning, piety, and modesty. Cruciger was also the most versatile of the Reformers. He was always delicate, and died after an illness of three months in 1548. The day before he died Cruciger finished Luther's Lasl JVords of David. Cruciger's daughter married Luther's son Johannes.

Two of Luther's lifelong friends were Link, with whom he was at school in Magdeburg, and John__Lange, uT""^. Luther's fellow-student in Erfurt. In Lange's church in ^ Erfurt, still standing, the first Evangelical sermon was r*^ preached. Some of Luther's most interesting letters in v rr-J^^^^^ 1 5 16-17 ^""^ ^^ Lange, in one of which he says that he is cloister preacher, inspector of Leitzkau fish-pond, daily lecturer in parish church, eleven times prior, expounder of St. Paul, lecturer on the Psalms, besides having most of his time taken up with letter-writing. But one has only to peruse Luther's letters in order to see the number of his correspondents. He numbered Albrecht Diirer and Erasmus, that monarch in the realm of letters, among them.

Ill

In Luther's letters the Reformer too is to be seen in all his moods ; for, it has been truly said that Luther's heart is seen in his letters, which he did not dream would see the light of day, while his talents may be seen from his other works. But these letters do not hide his faults, as those to Herzog George, of whom he said he would enter Leipzig if it rained Herzog Georges nine days running, and to the Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, the prime VY;;'^^ mover in the Indulgences, also to Charles V., testify, but => N^^^^-'^^" these all belong to history.

xviii LETTERS OF MARTIN LUTHER

It is interesting to note that Luther's unalterable opinion of the Turk coincides with that of the Sultan's greatest foes in this twentieth century, and then, as now. His Sultanic Majesty tried to propitiate his distinguished foe, but with less success than he often meets with in this enlightened age.

From these letters may also be seen the two greatest blots on Luther's career : the part he took in the peasant insurrection and in the Landgrave Philip's double marriage. But Luther's immense respect for constitutional authority, and his horror of insubordination, may partly explain the former, while the personal influence of his much loved Prince, who stood by him both at Worms and in the Augsburg days, may account for the latter ; but both errors bore bitter fruit in days to come.

Luther's great breadth of view regarding ritual, vestments, etc., must interest many in the present day. But it will astonish them to see how immaterial he considered pictures, and candles burning on the altar, when compared with the pure preaching of the Word. The only advantage which he saw in these things was that they might arrest the attention of the illiterate, the weak-minded, and children, tiU their knowledge of Divine things increased.

The Swiss divines, when in Wittenberg in 1536, were horrified at these relics of Popery, and it required all Bugenhagen's assurances that no one now worshipped any picture, to pacify Bucer and Capito, who, like our own John Knox, put away everything tainted with Popery, while Luther retained all not expressly forbidden in the Bible.