History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 23

[Sidenote: PERSECUTIONS IN HUNGARY AND WURTEMBERG.]

At Buda in Hungary, an evangelical bookseller, named John, had circulated Luther's New Testament and other of his writings throughout that country. He was bound to a stake; his persecutors then piled his books around him, enclosing him as if in a tower, and then set fire to them. John manifested unshaken courage, exclaiming from the midst of the flames, that he was delighted to suffer in the cause of the Lord.[341] "Blood follows blood," cried Luther, when informed of this martyrdom, "but that generous blood, which Rome loves to shed, will at last suffocate the pope with his kings and their kingdoms."[342]

[341] Idem accidit Budae in Ungaria bibliopolae cuidam Johanni, simul c.u.m libris circa eum positis exusto, fortissimeque pa.s.so pro Domino.

Luther to Hausmann, ii. 563.

[342] Sanguis sanguinem tangit, qui suffocabit papam c.u.m regibus et regnis suis. Ibid.

Fanaticism grew fiercer every day; evangelical ministers were expelled from their churches; magistrates were banished; and at times the most horrible punishments were inflicted. In Wurtemberg, an inquisitor named Reichler caused the Lutherans, and above all the preachers, to be hanged upon trees. Barbarous ruffians were found who unfeelingly nailed the pastors by their tongues to a post; so that these unhappy victims, tearing themselves violently from the wood to which they were fastened, were horribly mutilated in attempting to recover their liberty, and thus deprived of that gift which they had long used to proclaim the Gospel.[343]

[343] Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. ii. 174.

[Sidenote: BAVARIAN PERSECUTIONS.]

Similar persecutions took place in the other states of the catholic league. An evangelical minister in the neighbourhood of Salzburg was led to prison, where he was to pa.s.s the rest of his days; whilst the police who had him in charge were drinking at an alehouse on the road, two young peasants, moved with compa.s.sion, eluded their vigilance, and delivered the pastor. The anger of the archbishop was inflamed against these poor people, and without any form of trial they were ordered to be beheaded. They were secretly led outside the town early in the morning; and when they arrived on the plain where they were to die, the executioner himself hesitated, for (said he) they have not been tried. "Do what I command you," harshly replied the archbishop's emissary, "and leave the responsibility to the prince!" and the heads of these youthful liberators immediately fell beneath the sword.[344]

[344] Zauner, Salzburger Chronik. iv. 381.

The persecution was most violent in the states of the Duke of Bavaria: priests were deprived of their office; n.o.bles driven from their castles; spies filled the whole country; and in every heart reigned mistrust and alarm. As Bernard Fichtel, a magistrate, was going to Nuremberg on the duke's business, on the high-road he fell in with Francis Burkhardt, professor at Ingolstadt, and one of Dr. Eck's friends. Burkhardt accosted him, and they travelled together. After supper the professor began to talk of religion; Fichtel, who was no stranger to his fellow-traveller, reminded him that the new edict prohibited such conversations. "Between us," replied Burkhardt, "there is nothing to fear."--Upon this Fichtel remarked: "I do not think this edict can ever be enforced." He then proceeded to express himself in an ambiguous manner on purgatory, and said it was a horrible thing to punish religious differences with death. At these words Burkhardt could not contain himself: "What is more just," said he, "than to cut off the heads of all these Lutheran rascals!" He took a friendly leave of Fichtel, but immediately denounced him. Fichtel was thrown into prison, and the wretched man, who had never thought of becoming a martyr, and whose religious convictions were not very deep, only escaped death by a shameful retractation. There was no security in any place, not even in the bosom of a friend.

But others met with that death from which Fichtel escaped. In vain was the Gospel preached in secret;[345] the dukes tracked it in its obscurity and mystery,--beneath the domestic roof and in the lonely fields.

[345] Verbi non palam seminati. L. Epp. ii. 559.

"The cross and persecution reign in Bavaria," said Luther; "these wild beasts are lashing themselves into madness."[346]

[346] In Bavaria multum regnat crux et persecutio. L. Epp. ii. 559.

Even the north of Germany was not free from these cruelties.

Bogislaus, duke of Pomerania, being dead, his son, who had been brought up at Duke George's court, persecuted the Gospel; Suaven and Knipstrow were compelled to flee.

But it was in Holstein that one of the most extraordinary instances of fanaticism occurred.

[Sidenote: HENRY VON ZUPHTEN.]

Henry von Zuphten, who had escaped, as we have seen, from the convent at Antwerp, was preaching the Gospel at Bremen; Nicholas Boye, pastor of Mehldorf in the Dittmarsh, and several pious men of that district, invited him to come and proclaim Jesus Christ among them. He complied with their wishes. Immediately the prior of the Dominicans and the vicar of the official of Hamburg consulted together. "If he preaches and the people listen to him," said they, "all is lost!" The prior, after pa.s.sing an agitated night, rose early and repaired to the barren and uncultivated heath where the forty-eight regents of the country were wont to hold their meetings. "The monk of Bremen is come to ruin all the Dittmarshers," said he to them. These forty-eight simple-minded and ignorant men, being persuaded that they would acquire great renown by delivering the world from the heretical monk, resolved on putting him to death, without having either seen or heard him.

This was on Sat.u.r.day, and the prior wished to prevent Henry from preaching on the following day. He arrived at the pastor Boye's dwelling in the middle of the night with the letter of the forty-eight regents. "If it be G.o.d's will that I should die among the Dittmarshers," said Henry von Zuphten, "heaven is as near me there as elsewhere;[347] I will preach."

[347] Der Himmel ware da so nahe als anderswo. L. Opp. xix. 330.

He went up into the pulpit and preached with great energy. His hearers, moved and excited by his christian eloquence, had scarcely left the church when the prior handed them the letter of the forty-eight regents, forbidding the monk to preach. They immediately sent their representatives to the heath; and, after a long discussion, the Dittmarshers agreed that, considering their great ignorance, they would wait until Easter. But the incensed prior went up to some of the regents and inflamed their zeal afresh. "We will write to him," said they.--"Mind what you are about," replied the prior; "if he begins to speak, we shall be able to do nothing with him. We must seize him during the night, and burn him before he can open his mouth."

They determined to adopt this course. At nightfall on the day after the Festival of the Conception, the _Ave Maria_ bell was rung. At this signal, all the neighbouring villagers a.s.sembled, to the number of five hundred, and their leaders having broached three b.u.t.ts of Hamburg beer, by this means inspired them with great courage. It was striking midnight when they reached Mehldorf;--the peasants were armed;--the monks carried torches;--all marched in disorder, exchanging shouts of fury. As they entered the village, they kept deep silence for fear Henry should escape.

On a sudden the gates of the parsonage were burst open; the drunken peasants rushed in, striking everything they saw; dishes, kettles, flagons, clothing, were tossed about pell-mell; they seized on all the gold and silver they could find, and falling on the poor pastor, they beat him, with loud cries of "Kill him! kill him!" and then flung him into the mud. But it was Henry they were seeking; they pulled him out of bed, tied his hands behind his back, and dragged him after them, without clothing, and in a piercing cold night "Why did you come here," said they. As Henry answered mildly, they cried out, "Down with him! down with him! if we listen to him we shall become heretics also!" They had dragged him naked through the ice and snow; his feet were bleeding; he entreated to be set on horseback. "Yes, indeed,"

replied they, mocking him, "we will find horses for heretics!......

March!"--And they continued hurrying him towards the heath. A woman, standing at the door of her cottage as the servant of G.o.d was pa.s.sing, began to weep. "My good woman," said Henry, "do not weep for me." The bailiff p.r.o.nounced his condemnation. Upon this one of the madmen who had dragged him hither struck the preacher of Jesus Christ on the head with a sword; another gave him a blow with a club; after which they brought him a poor monk to receive his confession. "Brother," said Henry, "have I ever done you any wrong?"--"None," replied the monk.--"In that case I have nothing to confess to you," resumed Henry, "and you have nothing to forgive me." The monk retired in confusion.

Several ineffectual attempts were made to kindle the pile; the logs would not catch fire. For two hours the martyr remained thus before the furious peasantry,--calm, and raising his eyes to heaven. While they were binding him to throw him into the flames, he began the confession of his faith. "Burn first," said a peasant, striking him on the mouth with his fist, "and then you may speak!" They tried to fling him on the pile, but he fell on one side. John Holme, seizing a club, struck him upon the breast, and he was laid dead on the burning heap.

"Such is the true history of the sufferings of the holy martyr, Henry von Zuphten."[348]

[348] Das ist die wahre Historie, &c. L. Opp. L. xix. 333.

CHAPTER VI.

Divisions--The Lord's Supper--Two Extremes--Hoen's Discovery--Carlstadt--Luther--Mysticism of the enthusiasts--Carlstadt at Orlamund--Luther's Mission--Interview at Table--The Conference of Orlamund--Carlstadt banished.

While the Roman party was everywhere drawing the sword against the Reformation, this work underwent new developments. It is not at Zurich or at Geneva, but in Wittemberg, the focus of the Lutheran revival, that we should look for the commencement of that reformed Church, of which Calvin became the chief doctor. These two great families had slept in the same cradle. Union ought in like manner to have crowned their mature age. But when the question of the Lord's Supper was once started, Luther violently rejected the reformed element, and bound himself and his Church in an exclusive Lutheranism. The vexation he felt at this rival doctrine caused him to lose much of his natural kindness of disposition, and aroused in him a mistrust, an habitual discontent and irritation, to which he had hitherto been a stranger.

[Sidenote: THE TWO EXTREMES.]

The controversy broke out between the two old friends, the two champions who had fought side by side at Leipsic against Rome,--between Carlstadt and Luther. In each of them their attachment to contrary doctrines originated in a turn of mind that merits our esteem. In fact, there are two extremes in questions of religion; the one materializes, the other spiritualizes everything. The former of these two extremes is that of Rome; the latter, of the Mystics.

Religion, like man himself, is compounded of body and soul; the pure idealists as well as the materialists, in religious views no less than in philosophical systems, are equally mistaken.

Such is the great question hidden under the discussion about the Lord's Supper. While on a superficial glance we see nothing but a trivial dispute about words, a deeper observation discloses to us one of the most important controversies that can occupy the human mind.

Here the reformers divide into two parties; but each carries away with it a portion of the truth. Luther and his followers intend opposing an exaggerated spiritualism; Carlstadt and the reformed attack a hateful materialism. Each of them arraigns the error which in his view appears the most fatal, and, in a.s.sailing it, possibly goes beyond the truth.

But this is of no importance; each of them is true in his general tendency, and although belonging to two different hosts, these two ill.u.s.trious teachers both take their stand under one common banner,--that of Jesus Christ, who alone is Truth in its infinite extent.

Carlstadt thought that nothing could be more injurious to real piety than confidence in outward ceremonies and in a certain magical influence of the sacraments. The outward partic.i.p.ation in the Lord's Supper, according to Rome, was sufficient for salvation, and this principle had materialized religion. Carlstadt saw no better way of restoring its spirituality than by denying all presence of Christ's body: and he taught that this holy feast was to believers simply a pledge of their redemption.

Did Carlstadt arrive at these opinions unaided? No: all things are bound together in the Church; and the historical filiation of the reformed doctrine, so long overlooked, now appears clearly established. Unquestionably we cannot fail to see in this doctrine the sentiments of several of the Fathers; but if we search in the long chain of ages for the link which more immediately connects that of Carlstadt and the Swiss reformers, we shall find it in John Wessel, the most ill.u.s.trious doctor of the fifteenth century.[349]

[349] See Vol. I. p. 100.

[Sidenote: HOEN'S DISCOVERY.]

A christian lawyer of Holland, Cornelius Hoen (Honius), a friend of Erasmus, and who had been thrown into prison in 1523 for his attachment to the Gospel, found among the papers of James Hoek, dean of Naeldwik, and a great friend of Wessel, several treatises by this ill.u.s.trious doctor touching the Lord's Supper.[350] Hoen, convinced of the truth of the spiritual sense ascribed by Wessel to this sacrament, thought it his duty to communicate to the reformers these papers written by his fellow-countryman. He therefore transmitted them to two of his friends, John Rhodius, president of the brethren of the Common-life at Utrecht, and George Sagarus or Saga.n.u.s, together with a letter on the same subject, and desired them to lay all of them before Luther.

[350] See Hardenberg _Vita Wessli_; Gerdes. _Hist. Evang. renov._ i.

228-230; Gieseler, Kirchen G. iii. 190; Ulman Joh. Wessel (2d edit.), p. 564.

About the close of the year 1520, the two Dutchmen arrived at Wittemberg, where they seem to have been favourably received by Carlstadt from the first moment; while Luther, as was his custom, invited these foreign friends to meet some of his colleagues at dinner. The conversation naturally fell on the treasure these Netherlanders had brought with them, and particularly on the writings of Wessel concerning the Lord's Supper.

Rhodius invited Luther to receive the doctrine that the great doctor of the fifteenth century had so clearly set forth, and Carlstadt entreated his friend to acknowledge the spiritual signification of the Eucharist, and even to write against the carnal eating of Christ's body. Luther shook his head and refused, upon which Carlstadt exclaimed warmly: "Well, then, if you will not do it, I will, although far less fitted than yourself." Such was the beginning of the division that afterwards occurred between these two colleagues.[351] The two Netherlanders, being rejected in Saxony, resolved to turn their steps towards Switzerland, where we shall meet with them again.

[351] Hardenberg, _Vita Wesseli_; W. Opp. Amsterdam, p. 13. Hardenberg refers to Rhodius, Goswin, Melancthon, and Th. Blaurer, from whom he says that he received his account, and adds: Interim velim illis credi, ut viris bonis; mihi saltem, ut fideli relatori.

[Sidenote: CARLSTADT AND LUTHER--MYSTICISM.]

Luther henceforward took a diametrically opposite direction. At first, he had apparently contended in favour of the opinion we have just pointed out. In his treatise on the ma.s.s, which appeared in 1520, he said: "I can every day partake of the sacraments, if I only call to mind the words and promises of Christ, and if I nourish and strengthen my faith with them." Neither Carlstadt, Zwingle, nor Calvin, have ever used stronger language than this. It would even appear that the idea frequently occurred to him at this period, that a symbolical explanation of the Lord's Supper would be the most powerful weapon to overturn the papal system from top to bottom; for he said in 1525, that five years previously he had undergone many severe temptations for this doctrine,[352] and that the man who could have proved to him that there was only bread and wine in the eucharist, would have done him the greatest service.

[352] Ich habe wohl so harte Anfechtungen da erlitten. L. Epp. ii.

577.