§ 100. Protestant Martyrs.
§ 100. Protestant Martyrs.
No great cause in church or state, in religion or science, has ever succeeded without sacrifice. Blood is the price of liberty. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity." Persecution develops the heroic qualities of human nature, and the passive virtues of patience and endurance under suffering. Protestantism has its martyrs as well as Catholicism. In Germany it achieved a permanent legal existence only after the Thirty Years’ War. The Reformed churches in France, Holland, England, and Scotland, passed through the fiery ordeal of persecution. It has been estimated that the victims of the Spanish Inquisition outnumber those of heathen Rome, and that more Protestants were executed by the Spaniards in a single reign, and in a single province of Holland, than Christians in the Roman empire during the first three centuries.807 Jews and heathens have persecuted Christians, Christians have persecuted Jews and heathens, Romanists have persecuted Protestants, Protestants have persecuted Romanists, and every state-church has more or less persecuted dissenters and sects. It is only within a recent period that the sacred rights of conscience have been properly appreciated, and that the line is clearly and sharply drawn between church and state, religious and civil offenses, heresy and crime, spiritual and temporal punishments.
The persecution of Protestants began at the Diet of Worms in 1521. Charles V. issued from that city the first of a series of cruel enactments, or "placards," for the extermination of the Lutheran heresy in his hereditary dominion of the Netherlands. In 1523 two Augustinian monks, Henry Voes and John Esch, were publicly burnt, as adherents of Luther, at the, stake in Brussels. After the fires were kindled, they repeated the Apostles’ Creed, sang the "Te Deum laudamus," and prayed in the flames, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon us." The heroic death of these Protestant proto-martyrs inspired Luther’s first poem, which begins, —
"Ein neues Lied wir heben an."808
The prior of their convents Lampert Thorn, was suffocated in prison. The martyrdom of Henry of Zütphen has already been noticed.809 Adolph Klarenbach and Peter Flysteden suffered at the stake in Cologne with constancy and triumphant joy, Sept. 28, 1529.810
George Winkler, a preacher in Halle, was cited by the Archbishop of Cologne to Aschaffenburg for distributing the communion in both kinds, and released, but murdered by unknown hands on his return, May, 1527.811
Duke George of Saxony persecuted the Lutherans, not by death, but by imprisonment and exile. John Herrgott, a traveling book-peddler, was beheaded (1527) for revolutionary political opinions, rather than for selling Lutheran books.812
In Southern Germany the Edict of Worms was more rigidly executed. Many executions by fire and sword, accompanied by barbarous mutilations, took place in Austria and Bavaria. In Vienna a citizen, Caspar Tauber, was beheaded and burnt, because he denied purgatory and transubstantiation, Sept. 17, 1524.813 In Salzburg a priest was secretly beheaded without a trial, by order of the archbishop, for Lutheran heresy.814 George Wagner, a minister at Munich, was burnt Feb. 8, 1527. Leonard Käser (or Kaiser) shared the same fate, Aug. 18, 1527, by order of the bishop of Passau. Luther wrote him, while in prison, a letter of comfort.815
But the Anabaptists had their martyrs as well, and they died with the same heroic faith. Hätzer was burnt in Constance, Hübmaier in Vienna. In Passau thirty perished in prison. In Salzburg some were mutilated, others beheaded, others drowned, still others burnt alive.816 Unfortunately, the Anabaptists were not much better treated by Protestant governments; even in Zürich several were drowned in the river under the eyes of Zwingli. The darkest blot on Protestantism is the burning of Servetus for heresy and blasphemy, at Geneva, with the approval of Calvin and all the surviving Reformers, including Melanchthon (1553). He had been previously condemned, and burnt in effigy, by a Roman-Catholic tribunal in France. Now such a tragedy would be impossible in any church. The same human passions exist, but the ideas and circumstances have changed.
Deutsche Geschichte, etc., vol. II. 46 (6th ed.).
I "Selbstherrschender, gewaltiger ist wohl nie ein Schriftsteller aufgetreten, in keiner Nation der Welt. Auch dürfte kein anderer zu nennen sein, der die vollkommenste Verständlichkeit und Popularität, gesunden, treuherzigen Menschenverstand mit so vielechtem Geist, Schwung und Genius vereinigt hätte. Er gab der Literatur den Charakter den sie seitdem behalten, der Forschung, des Tiefsinns, der Polemik." Ranke, II. 56. "Fesselnder, ergreifender und packender hat kein Deutscher geschrieben. Dabei beherrschte er seine Muttersprache mit solcher Gewalt, dass er sie zur Schriftsprache zu erheben vermochte." Fr. Kapp, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels, vol. I. p. 407.
Janssen dwells, we may say, exclusively on the lower motives, and by omitting the higher spiritual motives and aims utterly misrepresents the Reformers and the Reformation.
For these figures and several facts in this paragraph I am indebted to the instructive work of Friedrich Kapp, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels (published by the "Börsenverein der deutschen Buchhändler," Leipzig, 1886), vol. I. 407 sq. The statistics of Ranke (II. 56) are taken from Panzer’s Annalen der älteren deutschen Literatur (1788 and 1802) and are superseded by the more recent and fuller investigations of Weller, Kuczynski, and Kapp.
This was the complaint of Cochlaeus, see p. 350. Luther called him Kochlöffel and Rotzlöffel (cochlear = spoon).
He called such printers thieves and highway robbers, and their work Bubenstück, den gemeinen Mann zu betrügen"(September, 1525).
Kapp (I. 318) mentions that the electors of Saxony from 1571-1670 received no less than a hundred and ninety-two "most humble" (alleruntherthänigste) dedications from various authors, and that the magistrate of Zürich received thirty-eight from 1670-1685.
On the history of the book censorship (Büchercensur) and press persecutions, compare the ninth and tenth chapters of Kapp, I. 522 sqq.
The bull is not given in the Bullarium, but by Raynaldus ad a. 1501, No. 36, Zaccaria, and Reusch (I. 54), in part also by Kapp (l.c. p. 530).
The bull "Inter solicitudines" was promulgated in the fifth Lateran Council. Labbe, XIV. 257, and Reusch, I. 55 sq.
The bull "Exurge, Domine," is printed in full, p. 235 sqq.
Kapp, l.c., p. 536 sqq., shows that the Edict of Worms, drawn up by the papal legate Aleander, is the beginning of the German book-censorship, and not, as usually supposed, the recess of the Nürnberg Diet of 1524. "Wie Rom," he says (539), "die Wiege der Büchercensur für die ganze Welt, so ist Worms ihre Geburtsstätte für Deutschland." The restriction of the press, however, was begun in Germany, as we have seen, already in 1486, by Elector Berthold of Mainz.
"Derselbe Luther," says Kapp, p. 552, "welcher das Papstthum für noch lange nicht genug zerscholten, zerschrieben, zersungen, zerdichtet Und zermalet hielt, rief schon 1525 die Censur für seinen nunmehrigen Standpunkt zur Hilfe." He refers to his attempt to secure a prohibition of Carlstadt’s writings in Saxony.
Fr. Heinrich Reusch (old catholic Prof. at Bonn): Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, Bonn, 1883-85, 2 vols. Of older works we mention, Fr. Zaccaria, Storia polemica delle proibizioni de’ libri, Rom., 1777; and Jos. Mendham, The Literary Policy of the Church of Rome exhibited in an account of her damnatory Catalogues or indexes, both prohibitory and expurgatory, London, 1826, 3d ed. 1844.
One of them, Johann Herrgott, was executed in Leipzig, 1527 (not 1524) for selling Lutheran books, or rather for complicity with the Peasants’ War, and for agrarian socialistic doctrines. See A. Kirchhoff, Johann Herrgott, Buchführer von Nürnberg, und sein tragisches Ende, 1527, and Kapp, l.c., I. 438 sq. and 594.
After George’s death Luther said: "I would rather that he lived and be converted now he has gone into the eternal fire [!], if the gospel is true." Köstlin, II. 424.
See § 74, p. 434 sqq.
On Jacob Sturm see the monograph of H. Baumgarten, Strassburg. 1876. Of John Sturm (who died 1589, in his eighty-second year), there are several biographies, by C. Schmidt (in French, 1855), Rieth (1864), Kückelhahn (1872), and Zaar (1872).
Butzer in German, Bucerus in Latin.
"Wir sind Christgläubig, nicht kirchgläubig."
Seckendorf, I. 246. Wolter, Gesch. der Stadt Magdeburg (1845); Hoffmann, Chronik der Stadt Magdeb. (1850, 3 vols.); Rathmann, Gesch. Magdeb.; Preger, Matth. Flacius Illyricus und seine Zeit (Erlangen, 1859-1861).
Of this disputation Luther reported to Spalatin, May 11, 1524 (De Wette, II. 511): "Vratislaviæ disputatio Joannis Hess processit feliciter, frustra resistentibus tot legatis regum et technis episcopi."
Professor Hartranft, D. D., of Hartford, Conn., a descendant of the Pennsylvania Schwenkfelders, has investigated the Schwenkfeld literature at Breslau, and issued a prospectus for its publication (1887).
Köstlin, biography of Hess in the "Zeitschrift des schlesischen Geschichtsvereins," vol. VI. Gilett, Crato von Crafftheim und seine Freunde, Frankfurt-a.-M. 1860, 2 parts. A very learned work. To Ursinus we shall return in the history of the Reformation in the Palatinate. In the cities of the Hanseatic League the Reformation was introduced at an early period.
Vom Bruder Heinrich in Ditmar verbrannt, Wittenberg, 1525, in the Erl. ed. XXVI. 313-337; in Walch, XXI. 94 sqq. Comp. Paul Crocius, Das grosse Martyrbuch, Bremen, 1682. Klaus Harms, Heinrich von Zütphen, in Piper’s "Evang. Kalender," 1852.
Printed in Richter, Die evang. Kirchenordnungen, vol. I. C. Bertheau, Bugenhagen’s Kirchenordnung für die Stadt Hamburg vom J. 1529, 1885. L. Hänselmann, B.’s Kirchenordnung f. d. Stadt Braunschweig, 1885. Frantz, Die evangelische Kirchenverfassung in den deutschen Städten des 16. Jahrh., Halle, 1876. Vogt, Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus, Elberfeld, 1867. The year 1885, the fourth centennial of Bugenhagen’s birth, called out several popular sketches of his life by Knauth, Petrich, Zitzlaff, and Hering (1888). See also O. Vogt, Bugenhagen’s Briefwechsel, Stettin, 1888.
So he spells his name (Rieger in German), not Regius (König).
Rhegius, Opera latine edita, Norimb. 1561; Deutsche Bücher und Schriften, Nürnb. 1562, and again Frankf. 1577. Döllinger, Die Reform. II. 58 sqq. Uhlhorn, Urbanus Rhegius, Elberfeld, 1862, and his sketch in Herzog2, XIII. 147-155.
Friedrich Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte, 1517-1527. München, 1881.
See the description of the congregation of the "Apostolic Brethren," as the Anabaptists called themselves, in Ludwig Keller, Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer (i.e., Hans Denck), Leipzig, 1882, ch. VI. 94-119.
Römer, Kirchliche Geschichte Württembergs, Stuttg. 1848. Keim, Schwäbische Reformationsgeschichte. Tübingen, 1855. Schneider, Württemb. Reformationsgesch. Stuttgart, 1887.
Ranke, II. 121.
See pp. 308 and 481; Seckendorf’s Excursus on the bigamy, III. 277-281; Ranke, IV. 186 sqq.; Köstlin, Bk. VIII., ch. 1. (II. 533 sqq.); and Janssen III. 57, 439 sqq. This nasty subject lies beyond our period, but may be disposed of here in a few remarks. Philip was a man of powerful sensuality, and married very young a daughter of Duke George of Saxony. As she was unattractive, and gave him little satisfaction, he indulged freely and long before his bigamy in his carnal passions to the injury of his health; and for this reason his conscience would not allow him to partake of the holy communion more than once in fifteen years (from 1525 to 1540), as he confessed himself in a letter to Luther, April 5, 1540 (Lenz, Briefwechsel Philipp’s mit Bucer, I. 361, and Ranke, IV. 186, note). If Fräulein Margaretha von der Sale, who captivated his passions, had consented to become his mistress, he would not have fallen upon the extraordinary device of bigamy. The worst feature in this shameful affair is the weak connivance of the Reformers, which furnished the Romanists a keen weapon of attack. See Janssen. But Protestantism is no more responsible for the sins of Philip of Hesse, than Romanism is for the sins of Louis XIV.
In Kurhessen (which in 1866 was annexed to Prussia). Homberg must not be confounded with the better-known watering-place Homburg near Frankfort on the Main.
He mentions him under the assumed name of Johannes Serranus in letters to Spalatin, Dec. 20 and 26, 1522, and Jan. 12 and 23, 1523 (in De Wette, II. 263, 272, 299, 302). In the last letter, after he had made his personal acquaintance, he writes, "AdestJohannes ille Serranus, vero nomine Franciscus Lambertus … De integritate viri nulla est dubitatio: testes sunt apud nos, qui illum et in Francia et in Basilea audierunt. … Mihi per omnia placet vir, et satis spectatus mihi est ... ut dignus sit quem in exilio paululum feramus et juvemus." Then he asks Spalatin to secure for him from the Elector a contribution of twenty or thirty guilders for his support. In a letter of Feb. 25, 1523 (De Wette, II. 308), he repeats this request as a beggar for a poor exile of Christ. A last request he made Aug. 14, 1523 (II. 387).
Farrago omnium fere rerum theologicarum. It was translated into English, 1536. This book and his De Fidelium vocatione in Regnum Christi contain the views which he defended in Homberg.
Hase says (p. 387): "Die Mönche und Prälaten verstummten vor der glühenden Beredtsamkeit des landflüchtigen Minoriten." But he was opposed by Ferber, the guardian of the Marburg Franciscans, who denounced him as a "runaway monk," and denied the legal competency of the synod. Lambert in turn called him a champion of Antichrist and a blasphemer, and exclaimed, "Expellatur ex provincia!" which Ferber misunderstood, "Occidatur bestia!" He confessed afterwards that he lost his temper. Hassencamp, Fr. Lambert, p. 39 sq., and Hencke, l.c. I. 103 sq.
See above, pp. 518 and 538. Ritschl and Meier assert that Lambert borrowed his church ideal from his own order of the Minorites.
The Latin original of the constitution is lost, but two copies are extant from which the printed editions of Schminke, Richter, and Credner are derived. Janssen (III. 54) calls it, not quite accurately, "ein vollständig ausgebildetes, rein demokratisches Presbyterialsystem."
Letter to the Landgrave, Monday after Epiphany, 1527 (in the Erl. ed., vol. LVI. 170 sq.). He was reluctant to give an answer, from fear that nonapproval might be construed as proceeding from Wittenberg jealousy of any rivalry. He does not mention Lambert, but cautions against rash proceedings. "Fürschreiben und Nachthun ist weit von einander" (theory and practice are wide apart). Köstlin (II. 50) says: "Gegen die Principien des Entwurfs an sich wandte Luther nichts ein. Der Grund, weshalb er ihn ablehnte, war das Bedürfniss allmählicher Entwicklung im Gegensatz zur plötzlichen gesetzlichen Durchführung umfassender Ideen, für welche die Gegenwart nicht vorbereitet sei."
See his letter to Myconius in Hassencamp, Lamb. v. A., p. 50 sq., and Döllinger, Die Reform. II. 18 sq. The latter quotes the Latin (from Strieder, Hessische Gelehrtengesch. VII. 386): "Dolens et gemens vivo, quod paucissimos videam recte uti evangelii libertate, et quod caritas ferme nulla sit, sed plena sint omnia obtrectationibus mendaciis, maledicentia, invidia." In a letter to Bucer, Lambert says, "Horreo mores populi hujus ita ut putem me frustra in eis laborare." Herminjard (II. 242) adds in a note an extract from the letter of a student of Zürich, Rudolph Walther, who wrote to Bullinger from Marburg, June 17, 1540 (the year of the bigamy of the Landgrave): "Mores [huius regionis] omnium corruptissimi. Nullum in hac Germaniae parte inter Papistas et Evangelicae doctrinae professores discrimen cernas, si morum et vitae censuram instituas."
Dr. Vilmar of Marburg (originally Reformed) tried to prove that the Hessians were Lutherans, but did not know it. His colleague, Dr. Heppe, with equal learning tried to prove the opposite. A German proverb speaks of the "blind Hessians," and this applies at least to those unfortunate twenty thousand soldiers who allowed themselves to be sold by their contemptible tyrant (Frederick II., a convert to the Church of Rome, d. 1785), like so many heads of cattle, for twenty-one million thalers, to the king of England to be used as powder against the American colonies. Hence the ugly meaning of the term "Hessians" in America, which does great injustice to their innocent countrymen and descendants.
De Symbolo Foederis, etc., published at Strassburg after his death, 1530. He says in the preface: "Volo ut mundus sciat me sententiam circa Coenam Domini demutasse." Herminjard, II. 240.
Letter to Bucer, March 14, 1530, ib. II. 242.
Dr. Döllinger, II. 18, uses his complaints of the prevailing immorality as a testimony against the Reformation, but judges favorably of his writings.
His name is entered on the University Album of the year 1527, together with two other Scotchmen, John Hamilton and Gilbert Winram. See Jul. Cæsar, Catalogus Studiorum scholae Marpurgensis, Marb. 1875, p. 2. Comp. Lorimer, Patrick Hamilton, Edinb. 1857, and the careful sketch of Professor Mitchell of St. Andrews, in the Schaff-Herzog "Encycl." II. 935 sqq.
The fact of Tyndale’s sojourn in Marburg has been disputed without good reason by Mombert in the preface to his facsimile edition of Tyndale’s Pentateuch, New York, 1884 (p. XXIX.). He conjectures that "Marborow" is a fictitious name for Wittenberg. Tyndale’s name does not appear in the University Register, but he may not have entered it. Hans Luft was the well-known printer of Luther’s Bible in Wittenberg in Saxony, but he may have had an agent in Marburg "in the land of Hesse."
"Bei weitem die merkwürdigste und durchgreifendste Veränderung fand in Preussen statt." Ranke, II. 326. Janssen can see in the Reformation of Prussia only a change for the worse. The best refutation of his view is the subsequent history and present condition of Prussia. The history of the past must be read in the light of the present. "By their fruits ye shall know them."
Prussia proper is a division of the kingdom of Prussia, and comprises East or Ducal Prussia and West or Royal Prussia, with a total area of 24,114 square miles, and a population of about three millions and a half. East Prussia was united with Brandenburg by the Elector John Sigismund, 1618 West Prussia was severed from Poland by Frederick the Great in the first division of that kingdom, 1772.
"Der deutsche Orden," says Ranke (II. 334), "und seine Herrschaft in Preussen war ohne Zweifel das eigenthümlichste Product des hierarchischritterlichen Geistes der letzen Jahrhunderte in der deutschen Nation; er hatte eine grossartige Weltenwirkung ausgeübt und ein unermessliches Verdienst um die Ausbreitung des deutschen Namens erworben; aber seine Zeit war vorüber."
An die Herren deutsches Ordens, dass sie falsche Keuschheit meiden und zur rechten ehelichen Keuschheit greifen, Ermahnung. Wittenberg, den 28 März, 1523. In the Erl. ed. XXIX. l6-33. Walch, XIX. 2157 sqq.
He published several sermons. Extracts in Seckendorf, I. 272. See the article "Briesmann" by Dr. Erdmann in Herzog2, II. 629-631, with literature.
Letter to John Briesmann, July 4, 1524, in De Wette, II. 526 sq.
"At last," he wrote to Spalatin, Feb. 1, 1524, "even a bishop has given the glory to the name of Christ, and proclaims the gospel in Prussia, namely the bishop of Samland, encouraged and instructed by John Briesmann, whom I sent, so that Prussia also begins to give farewell to the kingdom of Satan." De Wette, II. 474.
Erl. ed., Op. Lat. XIII. The dedicatory letter dated April, 1525, is printed also in De Wette, II. 647-651. In this letter occurs the notable passage (p. 649): "Vide mirabilia, ad Prussiam pleno cursu plenisque telis currit Evangelion." Comp. the passage quoted p. 539, note 2.
Professor Tschackert, his best biographer, says (l.c., p. 187): "The correspondence of Bishop Georg von Polentz, as far as known, contains not a syllable nor even an allusion to a letter of his to Luther. Even the name of Luther occurs after the reformatory mandate of 1524 only once, in a postscript to a letter to Paul Speratus, Aug. 22, 1535." In this letter he requested his colleague, Bishop Speratus of Pomesania, to give some noble students from Lithuania letters of introduction to Luther and Melanchthon ("literis tuis Martino et Philippo commendes.") See the letter, l.c., p. 191.
"Coacti sumus," he said, "alienum officium, i.e., episcopate in nos sumere, ut omnia ordine, et decenter fierent." Preface to the Articuli ceremoniarum, published by a general synod at Königsberg, May 12, 1530.
Arnoldt, Historie der königsberger Universität, 1746.
See above, p. 570. Osiander’s son-in-law, Funke, Albrecht’s chaplain and confessor, continued the controversies, but was at last beheaded with two others, 1566, as "Ruhestörer, Landesverräther und Beförderer der osiandrischen Ketzerei."
Several English translations; one by Miss Winkworth, "Jesus my Redeemer lives." The hymn has a long and interesting history. See A. F. W. Fischer, Kirchenlieder-Lexicon, I. 390-396.
For fuller information, see Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 554 sqq. To the literature there given should be added Ranke, Zwölf Bücher Preuss. Geschichte, Leipz. 1874, I. 185-192; Kawerau in Herzog2, XIV. 227-232; and Wangemann, Joh. Sigismund und Paul Gerhard, Berlin, 1884. The literature on the Prussian Union refers to the history after 1817, and is very large. We mention Nitzsch, Urkundenbuch der evangelischen Union, Berlin, 1853; Jul. Müller, Die evangel. Union, ihr Wesen und göttliches Recht, Berlin, 1854; Brandes, Geschichte der kirchlichen Politik des Hauses Brandenburg, 1872,’ 73, 2 vols.; Mücke, Preussen’s landeskirchliche Unionsentwicklung, 1879; Wangemann, Die preussische Union in ihrem Verhältniss zur Una Sancta, Berlin, 1884.
The Cabinetsordre of Feb. 18, 1834, declares: "Die Union bezweckt und bedeutet kein Aufgeben des bisherigen Glaubensbekenntnisses; auch ist die Autorität, welche die Bekenntnisschriften der beiden evangelischen Confessionen bisher gehabt, durch sie nicht aufgehoben worden."
See Schaff, Church and State in the United States, New York, 1888, p. 97 sq.
807 See Schaff, Church Hist. II. 78.
808 See above, p. 505, and Ranke, II. 119.
809 § 96, p. 574, sq.
810 See their biography in Piper’s Evang. Kalender, VII. 408, and article "Klarenbach" by C. Krafft, in Herzog2, VIII. 20-33.
811 Luther wrote a letter of comfort to the Christians at Halle on the death of their minister. Walch, X. 2260. See also his letter, April 28, 1528, in De Wette, III. 305.
812 See § 93, p. 567, note.
813 Ranke, II. 117 sq.
814 Ibid. p. 117.
815 Letter dated May 20, 1527, in De Wette, III. 179 sq. But Käser seems to have been an Anabaptist, which Luther did not know. See Cornelius, Gesch. des Münsterschen Aufruhrs, II. 56.
816 Ranke, III. 369.