Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Martin Luther (2016)

  By arguing that Christians could not earn their way out of Purgatory through good works, viewing relics, or acquiring indulgences, Luther was assaulting the medieval Church’s claim to be able to grant forgiveness and facilitate salvation through the dispensation of the sacraments. For him, such practices showed a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sin, repentance, and salvation. The Protestant chronicler Friedrich Myconius later recorded that some of Luther’s parishioners had complained that he “would not absolve them, because they showed no true penitence nor reform” and had appeared with letters of indulgence from Tetzel as they “did not want to desist from adultery, whoredom, usury, unjust goods and such sins and evil.” 10 By attacking the understanding of penance, Luther was implicitly striking at the heart of the papal Church, and its entire financial and social edifice, which worked on a system of collective salvation that allowed people to pray for others and so reduce their time in Purgatory. It financed a whole clerical proletariat of priests paid to recite anniversary Masses for the souls of the deceased. It paid for pious laywomen in poorhouses who said prayers for the souls of the dead, to ease their path through Purgatory. It paid for brotherhoods that prayed for their members, said Masses, undertook processions, and financed special altars. In short, the system structured the religious and social lives of most medieval Christians. At its center was the Pope, who was the steward of a treasury of “merits”—grace that could be disbursed to others. Attacking indulgences, therefore, would sooner or later lead to a questioning of papal power. No one compelled people to buy indulgences, but there was a huge market for them. When the indulgence-sellers arrived at a town: the papal bull [the charter approving the indulgence, with the Pope’s lead seal affixed] would be carried about on a satin or golden cloth, and all the priests, monks, town council, schoolmaster, schoolboys, men, women, maidens and children all met it singing in procession with flags and candles. All the bells were rung, all the organs were played…[the indulgence-seller] was led into the churches and a red cross was erected in the middle of the church where the papal banner would be hung. 11 So efficiently organized was the system that the indulgences were even printed locally on parchment that could be filled in with the name of the person on whose behalf they were purchased. Part of the explosiveness of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses lay in the timing of their appearance. On the feast day of All Saints, the magnificent collection of relics belonging to the Elector Friedrich, ruler of Saxony and Luther’s sovereign, were displayed in Wittenberg’s Castle Church to pilgrims from miles around and indulgences granted to all who viewed them.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  On this issue, as on many others, Cochlaeus was not entirely wrong. Luther himself knew that he suffered from the sins of anger and pride. But for Luther, authority of interpretation was not an issue, because Scripture was unambiguous. It was a position he had first developed in his debate with Cajetan. Scripture must be invoked against the papists and decisions of the Church councils, and Scripture clearly showed that the Pope was the Antichrist. This did not mean that it did not require people learned in Hebrew and Greek to understand it; that was why the education of the clergy was so important. But then, Luther believed, after immersion in the Scripture and careful reflection, the meaning of God’s Word would be plain. It would not be long, however, before people on his own side began to read the self-evident truths of Scripture differently from the reformer. And it would be easy for his opponents to conclude that what Luther proclaimed to be the clear Word of God was just his interpretation. By denying that he had any authority, and attributing everything to the Word, Luther seemed to put his own authoritarianism beyond debate. Luther’s supporters were furious at Cochlaeus for attempting to trick Luther into giving up his safe conduct. Cochlaeus, who by his own account had begun as a Luther sympathizer, was excoriated by the “enraged” Lutherans who, he complained (writing in the third person), “published songs, or to speak more truly, accusations and slanders, which they sent out into other cities so quickly that these songs arrived in Nuremberg and Wittenberg before Cochlaeus had returned to Frankfurt.” His name had become a byword for treachery.63 Mocked as a “snail’s brood,” he was expelled forever from the learned circles to which he had once so proudly belonged, and forced to make his peace with the hated Eck. His passionate admiration rapidly turning to vituperation, Cochlaeus became obsessed with Luther and spent the rest of his life attacking the reformer’s writings.64 Luther soon decided not to respond, because “this way he will get much angrier, for if I were to answer him, he would only get proud.”65

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The imperial side sought to prevent at all costs a theological dispute that Luther might win, so they offered the evangelicals sight of the text only on condition that they promised neither to print it nor copy it, an offer they wisely refused. Judging by what they heard, it did not seem too threatening: Jonas was scornful of the “farrago,” and the Wittenberg party were convinced they had not been bested in argument. 44 When negotiations between the Lutherans and the Catholics began to explore the possibility of some kind of religious settlement, Luther received letters from Melanchthon pleading for advice, for the Wittenbergers needed urgently to know where they might compromise. Everything had been discussed in advance at the meeting of Luther and his companions at Torgau, Melanchthon conceded, but real-life encounters were always unpredictable. What was essential, and what could be negotiated? Luther, incensed by feeling that he had been ignored for several weeks, now took the opportunity to sulk. He sent word that he was furious with the Wittenberg delegation, but otherwise refused to respond. 45 Melanchthon, seriously alarmed, fired off letter after letter. 46 How could Luther desert them at such a crucial time? They needed his advice. Melanchthon portrayed the dire situation the evangelicals faced, outnumbered by the Catholics. “Sophists and monks are constantly running to the emperor and inciting him against us….Those who were on our side before are not there now, and we hang in great danger and in contempt….Read our letters and help,” he pleaded. “We spend most of the time weeping, therefore I beg you for the glory of the gospel or for the public good to reply to us, because it seems that unless you are in charge [the ship] will go under in these terrible storms.” 47 Letters from Jonas told the same story: Melanchthon was doing well, but was suffering from “sadness.” 48 Luther never responded well to attempts to make him feel guilty: Being a martyr was his role. When, after an earlier gap in communication, mail had finally arrived on June 29, he dashed off a letter while the messenger waited, pouring out his bile: “In these letters you remind me of your work, danger, and tears in such a way that it appears that I, in an unfair way, add insult to injury by my silence, as if I did not know of these things, or sat here among roses and cared nothing. I wish my cause were such as to permit the flow of tears!” 49 Melanchthon, he wrote, should trust in the Lord and should not worry.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther had written his first tract on the Peasants’ War, the Admon- ition to Peace, published on 19 April 1525, in the idyllic surroundings of the garden of the Mansfeld chancellor Johann Diirr at Eisleben.** Now he encountered real hostility everywhere, travelling, as he put it, ‘in danger of life and limb’.” He wrote an account of what he had seen in a letter to Johann Riihel, which formed the basis of what would become one of his most infamous tracts, Against the Robbing Murdering Thieving Hordes of Peasants. In this highly intemperate work, which appeared in May, Luther likened the peasants to ‘mad dogs’ who did nothing but ‘pure devil’s work’ and were all driven by ‘that archdevil [ertzteuffel] who rules at Mihlhausen, and did nothing except stir up robbery, murder and bloodshed’. Because they had engaged in rebel- lion, every person was both their ‘judge and executioner’; and Luther urged them to let “everyone who can, smite, slay. And stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.’ Its urgent rhythms and tripling of verbs and adjectives were not unlike Miintzer’s incendiary rhetoric.” By the time Luther’s violent attack rolled off the press, the peasants had been defeated. Although it was printed together with his milder, previous Admonition to Peace, its bloodthirsty tone was tasteless after the deaths of many thousands, and was felt by many to be deeply offensive. Even Johann Riihel, who had written to Luther in such detail about Miintzer’s last days, was taken aback. Nikolaus von Amsdorf wrote to Luther that the Magdeburg preachers were now calling him a ‘flatterer of princes’; and Wenzeslaus Linck too felt THE PEASANTS’ WAR 267 compelled to tell him how it had shocked people.” Luther seems to have taken the response to heart, for he composed a letter of explan- ation to the Mansfeld chancellor Caspar Miiller, which he also had printed. Yet the letter, while it began mildly enough, hardly modified the message and the tone soon reverted to harshness: ‘So I still write: no one should have mercy on the stiff-necked, obstinate, deluded peasants, who won't listen to anything, but whoever can should hew, stab, strangle and lay about himself as if amongst mad dogs.” It seems that Luther had burned his bridges. The grandson of a peasant who liked to make much of his rural roots, Luther had set his face against them. Yet there was nothing surprising in his stand.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  To Luther, this was a matter of male honour. As he put it, a ‘robbery’ had been committed, and a woman stolen from her rightful husband by an unjust and overmighty ruler.” Luther undoubtedly saw the case through the lens of the Old Testament story of David’s theft of Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite. Of course, he had to admit that Hornung had chastised his wife by ‘stabbing her a bit with a blunt knife’, although he argued that this was ‘out of marital zeal’.* Katharina Blankenfeld — or perhaps MARRIAGE AND THE FLESH 299 her seducer Joachim — replied, giving as good as she got and telling ‘Bishop Luther’ to look in the mirror: he was fornicating with a nun, and he should ponder his own conduct when he went strolling with his lute in the Wittenberg streets of an evening, an insult which insinuated he was a serenading womaniser. Luther promptly published her letter, with a line-by-line commentary of his own which mocked her as an uppity woman. ‘And may God protect everyone from this Mrs Katharina Blankenfeld,’ he wrote, ‘unless a good pig-handler can get hold of her first with a sharp knife and castrate her.’* The affair rumbled on, and if Luther had at first been convinced that Katharina had been abducted against her will, he soon demonised her as the ultimate shrew. His passionate involvement was further coloured by the fact that Joachim’s wife, a Lutheran, had fled Brandenburg for Wittenberg in 1528. Not for the first time, it seemed that Luther had stolen a woman from a Catholic grandee and was thumbing his nose at him. His view of marriage could occasionally seem cavalier. His partisan upholding of Hornung’s marriage, for example, contrasts with his equally passionate insistence, in other cases, on allowing husbands like the pastors whose wives had deserted them to remarry. Ursula Topler, who married the preacher and ex-Dominican Jodokus Kern, had left her convent because she was persuaded of the truth of Luther's teachings, but she was determined to lead a non-sexual marriage with her husband, who, unfortunately for her, did not share her ideal. When he treated her roughly she fled to the Catholic Count Ernst Il of Mansfeld, while her husband went to law to get her back. Kern was minister at Allstedt, where he had been sent by Luther in late 1524 to counter the influence of Miintzer.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The marriage infuriated his opponents beyond measure. They soon turned their fire on Katharina herself, and in 1528 two young graduates from Leipzig wrote a couple of scurrilous pamphlets. Johann Hasenberg’s letter-cum-dialogue, addressed to “Martin Luther disturber of the peace and of piety,” called on him repeatedly to “convert, revert,” and was twinned with an offering by Joachim von der Heyde. His pamphlet called on Katharina to leave her “damned and shameful life,” and insulted her as a nun who had donned lay clothes and tripped off to the university at Wittenberg like a “dance girl.” Other nuns had been misled by her example, and gave up “true freedom” of body and soul for the “fleshly freedom” Luther advocated in his pestilential writings. They would end up, wrote the pamphleteer, not in their lovely convents with their good food but in “dishonorable brothels” where they would be beaten, their clothes sold, and they themselves pawned like common whores.36 Luther responded with a virtuoso display of invective, News from Leipzig, that far outclassed the young scholars’ feeble efforts. As was his wont, Luther used scatology to trump pornography. The letters, which he said were delivered in person to his house, had been taken to the toilet, where they had been “illuminated” with dung and used to wipe the bottoms of the household.37 Hasenberg gamely made another attempt, this time a set of four dialogues, Lvdvs lvdentem lvdervm lvdens, the first of which imagined the dialogue between Luther and Katharina, as Luther addresses his “delicium,” his Venus, his “unica voluptas” Katharina.38 It even had an illustrated cover, but lost impact because it was in Latin and so its audience was limited; and the illustrations were oddly respectful: Luther is well dressed but there is no implication of luxury, there is no beer mug, and Katharina, though she looks harried and bossy, is dressed as a respectable wife. The Catholics, it seemed, had not yet grasped the art of the popular polemic. [image "46. Johann Hasenberg, Lvdvs lvdentem lvdervm lvdens, Leipzig, 1530." file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_055_r1.jpg] [image "46. Johann Hasenberg, Lvdvs lvdentem lvdervm lvdens, Leipzig, 1530." file=images/Rope_9780812996203_epub3_055_r1.jpg] 46. Johann Hasenberg, Lvdvs lvdentem lvdervm lvdens, Leipzig, 1530.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The battle lines were now being drawn. The debate at Heidelberg was a turning point because it showed that Luther’s emerging theology was going beyond the criticism of indulgences. It had brought new followers, in particular Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, who would promote his ideas beyond the Nuremberg network to the humanists of southern Germany. As a Dominican, Bucer was a particularly surprising convert. A student at the University of Heidelberg and a passionate follower of Erasmus, he took careful notes on the disputation and would eventually leave his order—deeply moved by what he had witnessed, he wrote to his friend the humanist Beatus Rhenanus, “as if in a dream.”18 He became one of the most important theologians of the Reformation, and a powerful advocate of unity and compromise among the evangelicals. Capito, a Benedictine, was cathedral preacher and university professor at Basle, another important intellectual center; he was also a friend of Albrecht of Mainz. Other members of the audience at Heidelberg were Theobald Billican, Martin Frecht, and Johannes Brenz, who would all become future leaders of the Reformation in southern Germany.19 The disputation made a huge impression on each of them, changing their lives forever, even if they would not agree with all of Luther’s later teachings. But once back in Wittenberg, the optimism of the spring quickly dissipated. Trutfetter had written, repeating what he had said at Erfurt, but his tone was now much more bitter, Luther told Lang, “than what you heard at the meeting of the chapter.”20 Worse, Johannes Eck, one of Germany’s leading humanists and theologians, and a man whom Luther had counted a friend, had penned a refutation of the Ninety-five Theses. Luther had read Eck’s text, titled the “Obelisks” and circulating in manuscript, before his journey to Heidelberg. He had composed a reply he wittily named the “Asterisks,” but had put the matter aside to deal with until after his return.* Luther had evidently assumed that Eck was “one of us,” and he felt stabbed in the back, complaining that Eck should have followed the gospel and admonished his brother “in private.”21 His letter to Eck, written in May when his temper had cooled somewhat, was a controlled expression of anger and hurt. Insisting that he would not return evil with evil, Luther left it to Eck to decide whether to respond to the “Asterisks” in private, or in print—and in the latter case Luther would do likewise, and in force. Only toward the end did the mask slip, as he accused Eck of acting like an irritated prostitute, who “vomits up exactly the kind of curses and oaths that you have inflicted on me.”22

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  23. But soon Luther was hearing rumors that Michael Keller and his supporters in Augsburg said that the Wittenbergers had gone over to the Zwinglian view of the sacrament; WB 6, 1799, March 28, 1531. In Augsburg, there were renewed and very bitter disputes between the pro-Bucer and the Lutheran preachers, with Frosch and Johann Agricola refusing to meet their new colleagues from Strasbourg, Bonifacius Wolfart and Wolfgang Musculus. The following year, Luther was warning the Augsburgers that they faced the same fate as Müntzer and Zwingli; WB 6, 1894, Jan. 3, 1532 (Caspar Huber), 244:3–5; he also exclaimed, “Watch out Augsburg!” in his letter to Linck. In January 1533, he published a warning to the city of Frankfurt not to be fooled by the sacramentarians who were pretending to teach, like the Wittenbergers, that Christ was truly present in the bread and wine but who actually meant spiritually and not physically. This was playing with words according to Luther: Ein brieff an die zu Franckfort am Meyn, Nuremberg, 1533 [VD 16 L 4164]. 24. Kolde, ed., Analecta Lutherana, 216–30, Musculus; and 214–16, correspondence; Friedrich Myconius, EPISTOLA SCRIPTA AD D. Vitum Theodorum…DE CONCORDIA inita VVitebergae inter D. D. Martinum Lutherum, & Bucerum anno 36 (Leipzig, 1581); Walch, XVII, 2090–99. Representatives from Augsburg, Memmingen, Ulm, Reutlingen, Esslingen, Fürfeld, and Frankfurt also attended but were not admitted to the key intimate discussions. 25. Walch, XVII, 2093, 2094, 2096 (Myconius). Whether Christ was present to unbelievers, or whether they received just bread and wine, was left undecided. Greschat, Bucer, 132–39. 26. Walch, XVII, 2098–99. 27. WB 8, 3191, Dec. 1, 1537, in response to a letter he received on Jan. 12, 1537; Bucer had written begging him to reply; WB 8, 3192, Dec. 3, 1537. 28. The man Luther recommended, Johann Forster, was impossible, according to the Augsburg council: He attacked the other pastors, drank to excess, and alienated people; WB 8, 3250, Aug. 19, 1538, 3251, Aug. 29, 1538; WB 8, 616, 3418, Dec. 1, 1539. Blaurer was eventually also forced to leave; Köhler, Zürcher Ehegericht, II, 318–19. 29. LW 41, 5–178; WS 50, 509–653, On the Councils and the Church. In this work Luther also explicitly sets out his view that women are to be excluded from the ministry of the Church: LW 41, 154; WS 50, 633. 30. WB 8, 3383, Aug. 30, 1539; they also reminded Luther of the peace they had agreed to. 31. LW 43, 220; WS 51, 587. 32. WS 54, 143. Luther averred that if Zwingli believed what he had written in Christianae fidei expositio, which was published after his death, then “one must have (and still must) despair of the salvation of his soul, if he died with such an attitude”; and he would have become a heathen (143).

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Karlstadt, facing the crowd of assembled dignitaries, began by objecting that Luther had attacked him in the same breath as the “riotous murdering spirits” who were followers of Thomas Müntzer. Müntzer, whom we will meet again later, had originally been inspired by Luther’s ideas, but developed a radical theology that called for social as well as religious change; he was starting to worry the Saxon authorities and had recently been forced to leave the town of Allstedt. Luther’s charge, Karlstadt insisted, was unjust, for although he held different views on the sacrament from Luther, he did not agree with Müntzer. “He who wants to…put me in the same pot with such murdering spirits ascribes that to me without truth and not as an honest man,” Karlstadt declared. This was a stinging rebuke, for in a society that depended on people giving their word, to insult someone as dishonest was to attack their manhood and respectability. Karlstadt also accused Luther of stopping him from preaching and publishing. In words that evoked Christ’s flagellation, he said: “Was I not bound and struck when you alone wrote, printed and preached against me and arranged that my books were taken from the press and that I was forbidden to write and preach?”3 The two men argued for a long time, sometimes falling silent. They knew each other well, and their jibes hit home. You “go about in a grandiose fashion, boast grandly, and want only yourself to be exalted and noticed,” Luther told Karlstadt. “You must always speak in such a way that you maintain your reputation and stir up hatred for other people,” Karlstadt replied. In the midst of these highly emotional exchanges, Karlstadt turned to the audience and declared: “Dear brothers, I pray you, don’t pay attention to my harsh speech. Such harsh speech is a matter of my complexion but my heart is not on that account wicked or angry.” With anger being a deadly sin, Karlstadt here drew on the theory of the humors to explain that he was a choleric individual, but his “heart” was not therefore full of anger, nor was it wicked.4 Luther taunted Karlstadt with not daring to attack him in public; Karlstadt retorted that it was Luther who was preventing him from doing so. Then, taking a coin from his pocket, Luther announced: “If you do, I will present you with a guilder for it.” Karlstadt accepted the challenge, took the coin, “showed it to all bystanders,” and declared: “Dear brothers, this is a pledge, a sign, that I have authority to write against Dr. Luther.” Karlstadt bent the guilder and put it in his purse. The two men shook hands and Luther drank a toast to Karlstadt. Then they parted.5

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Foxtails stood for flattery and deceit, so the message was clear: The proposed council was nothing but a trick, and the Church really worshipped not Christ but the Pope. 1 Next, Luther personally commissioned a mock coat of arms of the papacy, remarking that the Pope “banned me and burnt me and stuck me in the behind of the Devil, so I will hang him on his own keys.” 2 As preparations began for another attempt to reconcile Catholics and Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg, Luther abandoned any residual willingness to compromise, and his polemic lost all restraint. In 1545 he produced the virulent, rambling Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil. 3 The treatise lambastes Pope Paul III as a sodomite and transvestite, “the holy virgin, Madame Pope, St. Paula III,” and accuses all the popes through history of being “full of all the worst devils in hell—full, full, and so full that they can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils.” Using the rhetoric of oppositions that had characterized Melanchthon’s and Cranach’s Passional Christi und Antichristi in 1521, Luther contrasts Jesus’s refusal of the Devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world with the Pope’s lust for power: “Come here, Satan!” he has the Pope say. “And if you had more worlds than this, I would accept them all, and not only worship you, but also lick your behind.” Luther concluded, “All of this is sealed with the Devil’s own dirt, and written with the ass-pope’s farts.” A few extracts can barely give a flavor of the whole work: Even more extreme was the set of ten images intended to accompany this antipapal extravaganza, produced by the Cranach workshop, and designed by Luther himself. 4 62. Martin Luther, Ratschlag von der Kirchen , eins ausschus etlicher Cardinel , Bapst Paulo des namens dem dritten , auff seinen Befelh geschrieben vnd vberantwortet. Mit einer vorrede D. Mart. Luth., Wittenberg, 1538. Such works preached only to the converted—no Catholic would have been persuaded by these words and imagery of such violence—and Luther used every weapon at his disposal: scatology, images of demons and witches, sexual denigration, and animal imagery. Text and image were designed to create a sense of identity among the evangelical audience, united through hatred of the enemy.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Luther seemed to have won a complete victory, but it was a hollow triumph. Bucer had got the Upper German cities to agree to the Augsburg confession, a major diplomatic coup that would strengthen and protect the Reformation within the empire. He then tried to persuade the Swiss to accept the concord, even letting it be known that Karlstadt wanted to agree with the Wittenbergers, for he was sick of the whole dissension. Luther, however, was implacable; when at last the Swiss wrote him a conciliatory letter in January 1537, he waited until December before replying and was decidedly offhand when he did. His sickness, he explained, had held him up, and the fact “that there is so much business in my head, not to speak of thoughts, that I can’t speak and deal with each individual as though I had nothing but one or two things to do.”27 He went on to insist on a clear acceptance of his position, the result being that by autumn 1538, the clergy of Zurich, Basle, and Bern had all concluded that the project of gaining union with the Wittenbergers had failed. Other cities fell away as well: In Augsburg, whose adherence to the concord was crucial, Johann Forster was appointed on Luther’s recommendation, but overplayed his hand by vehemently accusing the former Zwinglian preacher Michael Keller and others of deviating from the concord, to such an extent that he alienated the council and was eventually forced to leave; the council then appointed Ambrosius Blaurer, a sacramentarian.28 Even in his own Strasbourg, Bucer was not able to hold the line. Matthäus Zell, one of the most important of the Strasbourg reformers, continued to preach the sacramentarian doctrine, and there were deep divisions among the city clergy. For Luther, since the Wittenberg concord was not a reconciliation or a compromise, but rather to establish that the beliefs of the sacramentarians were heretical, it was imperative to assert the truth against the forces of Satan. Although both sides had undertaken not to attack one another in print, in 1539 he issued his On the Councils and the Churches, a long tract that argued that any future Church council must be bound by the Word of God and finally marked the founding of his own church. In it, he also accused Zwingli of being guilty of the Nestorian heresy.29 This was a caricature of Zwingli’s actual beliefs, and not surprisingly, the Swiss were furious. The Zurich pastors wrote emphatically rejecting the slur.30

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  As preparations began for another attempt to reconcile Catholics and Protestants at the Diet of Regensburg, Luther abandoned any residual willingness to compromise, and his polemic lost all restraint. In 1545 he produced the virulent, rambling Against the Roman Papacy an Institution of the Devil.‘ The treatise lambasts Pope Paul III as a sodomite and transvestite, ‘the holy virgin, Madame Pope, St Paula III’ and accuses all the popes through history of being ‘full of all the worst devils in hell — full, full, and so full that they can do nothing but vomit, throw, and blow out devils’. Using the rhetoric of oppositions that had characterised Melanchthon’s and Cranach’s Passional Christi und Anti- christi in 1521, Luther contrasts Jesus's refusal of the Devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world with the Pope’s lust for power: ‘Come here, Satan!’ he has the Pope say. ‘And if you had more worlds than this, I would accept them all, and not only worship you, but also lick your behind.’ Luther concluded that ‘All of this is sealed with the Devil's own dirt, and written with the ass-pope’s farts.’ A few extracts can 382 MARTIN LUTHER we or KatPPHlag von der coat eh ausicbus etlicber ‘Cardinel /Bapft Paulo des namens dem bliin feinen befetbh gefchrieben ynd pberantevortet. git einer portebe B®. Matt, €nth. eras Chry fis ippi. _ §/ mentiris,etiam quod uerum dicis,mentiris. 62. Martin Luther, Ratschlag von der Kirchen, eins ausschus etlicher Cardinel, Bapst Paulo des namens dem dritten, auff seinen Befelh geschrieben vnd vberantwortet. Mit einer vorrede D, Mart. Luth., Wittenberg, 1538. barely give a flavour of the whole work: even more extreme was the set of ten images intended to accompany this antipapal extravaganza, produced by the Cranach workshop, and designed by Luther himself. Such works preached only to the converted — no Catholic would have been persuaded by these words and imagery of such violence — and Luther used every weapon at his disposal: scatology, images of demons and witches, sexual denigration, and animal imagery. Text and image were designed to create a sense of identity amongst the evangelical audience, united through hatred of the enemy. But it was also intended to provoke laughter, as Luther used coarse humour to destroy the papal aura of holiness. HATREDS 383 63. The Papal Coat of Arms, 1538. This shows the shattered crossed keys of the Church, representing the Church’s power over souls, the issue which had first sparked Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  At the same time, his anti-papal rhetoric became increasingly bitter. His denunciation of the Pope as the Antichrist hardened to a fundamental axiom of his theology, and his declining years were further marked by violent disputes with erstwhile followers and furious diatribes against the Jews. After Luther’s death, splits emerged between different wings of his own movement, leading to a legacy of division within Lutheranism where each side passionately claimed his authority. * These are the external facts, but they do not convey Luther’s inner development, which is the abiding focus of this book. How did he have the inner strength to resist the emperor and estates at Worms? What drove him to this point? Why did he break with Andreas Karl- stadt, his close supporter in the early years of the Reformation? Why did Luther, time after time, fall out with those with whom he had worked most closely, creating searing enmities and leaving his followers terrified that they might also incur his wrath? How did the man who had been convinced that ‘they won’t wish a wife on me’ become the model of the married pastor? This book charts the emotional trans- formations wrought by the religious changes Luther set in motion. For Luther’s personality had huge historical effects — for good and ill. It was his remarkable courage and sense of purpose that created the Reformation; and it was his stubbornness and capacity to demonise his opponents that nearly destroyed it. 10 MARTIN LUTHER Psycho-history has long had a bad press due to its tendency to explain complex personalities and historical processes in terms of basic patterns set in early childhood. Luther’s life has inspired some of the most famous psycho-biographies, including Erik Erikson’s Young Man Luther and Erich Fromm’s chapter on the reformer in his The Fear of Freedom. Both men were psychoanalysts.* Erikson was also a develop- mental psychologist who worked with adolescents, and his lively book, published in post-war America, remains a classic; but one of the most important features of Luther’s Reformation is that it was not that of a young man. As this book will argue, although Luther’s relationship to his father was fundamental to his personality and his religiosity, and although his understanding of paternal relations pervades his theology, father figures were only part of what shaped him. It may seem foolhardy to attempt a psychoanalytically influenced biography of the very man whose biography has become a byword for the worst kinds of reductionist history.”

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The secretary of the bishop of Trier asked Luther whether the books were his, and whether he would recant. At this, Hieronymus Schurff, the professor of law at Wittenberg acting for Luther shouted, ‘Let the titles of the books be read.’ The extraordinary list of titles, which together constituted such a printing sensation, were then read aloud to the estates of the German nation and the emperor, reminding those assembled of the issues at stake. It demonstrated as nothing else could the depth and range of Luther’s attack on the papacy and the established Church.* Luther was expected to answer the questions with a simple yes or no, and the procedure was not designed to allow him to make a speech. He took his time to reply, and his voice, so onlookers said, was barely audible in the large room. Yes, the books were indeed his and he would never deny them, but he could not say immediately THE DIET OF WORMS 181 whether he would defend them or recant, ‘because this is a question of faith and the salvation of souls, and because it concerns the divine Word, which we are all bound to reverence, for there is nothing greater in heaven or on earth’. He went on that it would therefore ‘be rash and at the same time dangerous for me to put forth anything without proper consideration’, and so he requested an adjournment.” This must have been a huge anticlimax for those gathered in the crowded hall. It was also an inspired tactic, because it defused the tension and slowed matters down, giving Luther a second opportunity to speak. Luther never reacted well to being silenced.*” His fury at being muzzled was still evident afterwards, when he wrote to Cranach (slightly twisting the truth) that he had expected a proper hearing and at least one, perhaps fifty doctors of theology, all ready to refute his views. But instead all that was said was: ‘Are these your books? Yes. Do you want to renounce them or not? No. Then go away!'* Luther got his adjournment and was ordered to return the next day. According to the account of events written by his supporters, they admonished him to ‘act manfully, and not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul’.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  64. WB 9, 3509, July 2, 1540; Brecht, Luther, III, 209–10; WT 5, 5407 and 5565. Three people had been brought back to life through prayer: Katharina von Bora, Luther himself at Schmalkalden, and Melanchthon at Weimar. Myconius also claimed to have been saved from death by Luther’s prayer; WB 9, 3566, Jan. 9, 1541. 65. WB 10, 4028, Sept. 9, 1544, and Beilage. 66. WB 10, 4007, June 23, 1544; 4014, early Aug. 1544; and see also WS 54, 123ff, editor’s preface to Kurzes Bekenntnis vom heiligen Sakrament, 1544. As Luther wrote this doctrinal statement, which was directed ostensibly against the Zwinglians and not (as they feared) Bucer or Melanchthon, he had to hand his most powerful writings against the sacramentarians, Against the Heavenly Prophets, Sermon on the Holy Sacrament (Sermon vom Sakrament, Dass diese Worte Christi “Das ist mein Leib” noch feste stehn [“That these words of Christ, ‘this is my body,’ still stand firm”]) and the Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper (Grosses Bekenntnis, also known as Vom Abendmahl Christi, Bekenntnis). He was intentionally returning to these older works and to formulations that he, and not Melanchthon, had made; these were also the works (especially the Grosses Bekenntnis) that, after Luther’s death, ultraloyalist Lutherans would regard as nonnegotiable, encapsulating their position: WS 26, 249. 67. WB 10, 3984, April 21, 1544, 556:14–16; 34. 68. WS 59, “Sermons 1544” [Aug. 3], 529ff: this sermon condemns holy living, chastity and so on as pure fleshly thinking and argues that the sacramentarians, who seem to be spiritual, are actually fleshly. 69. WB 10, 4014, [early Aug. 1544], 616, Editor’s Introduction, Melanchthons Briefwechsel—Regesten online, 3646, Aug. 8, [1544]; in this letter to Veit Dietrich he also mentioned Amsdorf’s criticism of his draft of the Cologne Reformation, which Luther had thought mild, so he expected a new dispute to blow up; and see 3648, Aug. 8, 1544, where he praises mild sermons and describes being himself in danger because of his measured views. In letters to Camerarius and Dietrich (3652, 3653, Aug. 11, [1544]; 3658, Aug. 12 [1544]; and see 3667, Aug. 28, [1544]; 3669 [Aug. 28, 1544]), Melanchthon mentioned Amsdorf ’s bitter critique again, repeating that Luther thought it “mild.” Luther, he wrote, had declared war in his sermons on 1 Corinthians; and he feared a whole new dispute over the sacrament; he might have to leave Wittenberg. Luther, he worried, was writing a new work on the sacrament attacking both Melanchthon and Bucer. Bucer, to whom Melanchthon also wrote, reported all this to Landgrave Philip of Hesse, trying to get him to calm the storm by talking to the Elector. 70. WB 11, 4139, July 28, 1545, 149:15–16; 19; 8. This was not the first time he had had enough of the Wittenbergers. In late 1529 he had simply stopped preaching in the city church for several months, and did not resume until late March; WB 5, 1521, Jan. 18, 1530. 71. WB 11, 4143, Aug. 5, 1545, esp. 163ff.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Ulrich von Hutten, the German knight and humanist, identified so closely with the event that he wrote two letters to his “amico sancto,” exhorting Luther to stand firm but warning of the “dogs,” his opponents, and talking of the need for swords, bows, and arrows. Both letters were soon printed, joining a flood of pamphlets Hutten had authored that bemoaned the burning of Luther’s books and called for “manly” resistance against the “effeminate” bishops. 56 Luther also had the enthusiastic support of the knight Franz von Sickingen, who made his living as a mercenary and by levying “protection” money from the rich towns along the Rhine. Opportunistic attacks on merchants by armed knights and bandits were a frequent occurrence—in fact, one such raid had occurred not far from Worms itself earlier on during the Diet. 57 By a fine irony Sickingen had undertaken a feud against the city of Worms almost a decade before. Hutten had convinced Sickingen of the rightness of Luther’s cause, and Sickingen now offered the monk sanctuary at Ebernburg, one of his castles. Luther, however, was careful to keep his distance. These knights not only offered armed protection but were willing to take up arms in support of the gospel. In the autumn of 1522, they would take on the archbishop of Trier, who had been prominent in attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with Luther in the wake of the Diet, expecting the peasants to flock to their support. But the peasants did not rise up, and within a week Sickingen ran out of gunpowder. The knight was forced to retreat, first to Ebernburg and then to his castle at Landstuhl, where in May 1523 he was besieged by Philip of Hesse and the Palatine Elector. He counted on being able to hold out for four months in his newly reinforced castle, but modern artillery blew it to bits in short order, and Sickingen perished from a wound soon afterward. Hutten too died that year. Their revolt was not quite the last hurrah of the power of the knights, a group that found itself becoming marginalized as the wealth and political reach of the princes increased, and as the cities grew richer and stronger: Such feuds were to continue throughout Luther’s lifetime. Their defeat in 1523, however, did mark the end of the ideal of the united “Christian nobility” of which Luther had dreamed three years before, when he wrote To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation . — O N the evening of April 18, 1521, in Worms, Emperor Charles himself composed a reply to Luther in his own hand. 58 He was careful not to pretend to have theological knowledge of the issues Luther had raised, stating simply, “Our ancestors, who were also Christian princes, were nevertheless obedient to the Roman Church which Dr.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  The recriminations, the insults, and the obsession with “envy” on both sides suggest that the debate raised disturbing emotions in all the participants. Reflecting on the events in 1538 shortly before he died, Eck wondered why it had all been so unpleasant: His later debates with the Swiss and south German evangelicals had been nowhere near as hostile.36 Johannes Cochlaeus, writing about the disputation years later, repeatedly drew attention to Luther’s anger. When he did not get his way over who was to judge the disputation, Luther’s face was “wrathful,” and he was “overcome by anger”; and when Eck accused him of being a supporter of Hus, Luther “exclaimed angrily, in German, that this was a lie.”37 To slip into German during an academic debate was bad form. Even Mosellanus remarked on Luther’s tendency to refute his opponent “a little too uncaringly and more bitingly” than was appropriate for a theologian, probably because he had come to learning late in life—a comment that may betray how much of an intellectual outsider Luther still was, and how unformed his public persona. He did not know how to look the part: Johannes Rubius described seeing him in the main square at Leipzig, clutching a posy of flowers, as if he were awaiting a lover or clutching a victory wreath.38 When the debate finally ended in mid-July, Luther and Karlstadt quietly slipped out of town while Eck stayed on to relish his triumph, before leisurely returning to Ingolstadt. His only error of judgment had been to pen a letter commenting on Leipzig’s “women of pleasure,” which, once it had been passed from hand to hand, suggested to his enemies that his acquaintance with the ladies of Leipzig was not platonic.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Zwingli died as a citizen of Zurich, fighting alongside the members of his community and fulfilling the oath that he, like all citizens, had sworn to defend their freedoms; twenty more clergy died alongside him at Kappel. 7 Luther still regarded the clergy as a separate group, set apart by their calling, whose role was never to fight. The son of a man who knew how to defend his honor with his fists, Luther remained a theologian and pastor, while Zwingli died a citizen and a man of action. Luther wrote his epitaph on the Zwinglian party in a letter to his friend Amsdorf: “This is the result of the fame that they sought through blasphemies against the Communion of Christ.” Luther now claimed Osiander’s prophecy as his own: “I was a prophet, when I said that God would not allow these rabid…blasphemies.” He quoted Jesus to his table companions: “He who takes the sword will die by the sword.” 8 Yet for all that he might rejoice at Zwingli’s downfall, the Lutherans’ own cause looked bleak. — L UTHER felt surrounded by enemies of the gospel and now the Anabaptists were added to their number. He had always treated the Anabaptists as if they were simply new followers of Müntzer and Karlstadt: They too were Schwärmer, enthusiasts like those he had repudiated in 1524, in Against the Heavenly Prophets . “Anabaptists” was a term of abuse given to them by their opponents, and meant “rebaptizers,” but they did not in fact believe in repeating the sacrament. Most considered infant baptism to be invalid and advocated the baptism of adult believers in line with gospel teaching; some suspended baptism altogether. Some had earlier taken part in the Peasants’ War and had been inspired by Müntzer’s ideas of millenarian violence; others were pacifists who refused to swear oaths. For the most part, they were small, isolated knots of believers, good at communicating with one another over long distances, on the margins of their communities, and used to avoiding conflict with the authorities. 9 For reformers like Luther, who insisted that the Word of God must be the sole religious authority, it was not easy to counter beliefs that derived so firmly from the letter of Scripture. Luther’s argument that godparents could make profession of faith on behalf of the infant had no basis in the Gospels, and instead rested on Church tradition—this from the man who at Worms rejected any argument derived from a nonscriptural source. On the whole, though, he did not spill much ink refuting Anabaptism itself, perhaps because he felt uncomfortable about his argument, perhaps because the prime concern was fighting the sacramentarians. In 1528 he wrote a pamphlet in the form of a letter to two pastors who had asked for help refuting Anabaptism. Written at speed, its argument is contradictory, mainly claiming that the Anabaptists took a spiritualist approach to baptism.

• From Satyricon (1)

  “What fury,” she exclaims, “turns peace to war? What evil deed Was by these hands committed? Trojan hero there is none Absconding in this ship with bride of Atreus’ cuckold seed Nor crazed Medea, stained by life’s blood of her father’s son! But passion scorned, becomes a power: alas! who courts his end By drawing sword amidst these waves? Why die before our time? Strive not with angry seas to vie and to their fury lend Your rage by piling waves upon its savage floods sublime !” CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH.

• From Satyricon (1)

  Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the morning toilette. When our unwonted absence was noted, Lycas sent out runners to comb the sea-shore, for he suspected that we had been to the wreck, but he was still unaware of the robbery, which was yet unknown because the stern of the wreck was lying away from the beach, and the master had not, as yet, gone back aboard. Lycas flew into a towering rage when our flight was established for certain, and railed bitterly at Doris, whom he considered as the moving factor in it. Of the hard words and the beating he gave her I will say nothing, for the particulars are not known to me, but I will affirm that Tryphaena, who was the sole cause of the unpleasantness, persuaded Lycas to hunt for his fugitives in the house of Lycurgus, which was our most probable sanctuary. She volunteered to accompany him in person, so that she could load us with the abuse which we deserved at her hands. They set out on the following day and arrived at the estate of Lycurgus, but we were not there, for he had taken us to a neighboring town to attend the feast of Hercules, which was there being celebrated. As soon as they found out about this, they hastened to take to the road and ran right into us in the portico of the temple. At sight of them, we were greatly put out, and Lycas held forth violently to Lycurgus, upon the subject of our flight, but he was met with raised eyebrows and such a scowling forehead that I plucked up courage and, in a loud voice, passed judgment upon his lewd and base attempts and assaults upon me, not in the house of Lycurgus alone, but even under his own roof: and as for the meddling Tryphaena, she received her just deserts, for, at great length, I described her moral turpitude to the crowd, our altercation had caused a mob to collect, and, to give weight to my argument, I pointed to limber-hamed Giton, drained dry, as it were, and to myself, reduced almost to skin and bones by the raging lust of that nymphomaniac harlot. So humiliated were our enemies by the guffaws of the mob, that in gloomy ill-humor they beat a retreat to plot revenge. As they perceived that we had prepossessed the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, they decided to await his return, at his estate, in order that they might wean him away from his misapprehension.