600 ORIENTATION.
death; every one should be allowed to believe what he pleases. If he believes wrongly, he will have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell. Why should they be tortured in this life also?” * If heretics were to be punished by death, the hangman would be the best (the most orthodox) theologian. “TI can in no way admit,” he wrote to his friend Link in 1528, “that false teachers should be put to death: it is enough that they should be banished.” ?
To this extent, then, he favored punishment of heretics, but no further. He wanted them to be silenced or banished by the government. He spent his violence in words, in which he far outstripped friends and foes, and spared neither papists, nor Zwinglians, nor Anabaptists, nor even temporal princes like Henry VIII., Duke George of Saxony, and Duke Henry of Brunswick.* But his acts of intolerance are few. He refused
1 Von der Wiedertaufe, an zwet Pfarrherrn, written in Dec., 1527 or Jan., 1528, and addressed to two pastors in a Roman Catholic country (probably under the rule of Duke George of Saxony). See Walch XVII, 2644, and the Erl. Frankf. ed. xxvi., or of the Reformations-historische Schriften III. (2d ed. 1885), p. 288, from which I quote the whole passage: “Doch ist’s nicht recht, und ist mir wahrlich leid, dass man solche elende Lente so jémmerlich ermordet, verbrennet und greulich umbringt ; man sollte ja einen jeglichen lassen glaéuben, was er wollt. Gldubet er unrecht, so hat er gnug Strafen an dem ewigen Feur in der Hollen. Waruwmb will man sie denn auch noch zeitlich martern, soferne sie allein im Glauben irren, und nicht auch daneben aufruhrisch oder sonst der Oeberkeit widerstreben? Leber Gott, wie bald ists geschehen, dass einer irre wird und dem Teufel in Strick fillet! Mit der Schrift und Grottes Wort sollt man thn wehren und widerstehen; mit Feuer wird man wenig ausrichten.’»
2 Briefe, de Wette III., 347 sq.: “Quod queris, an liceat magistratut occidere pseudoprophetas? Ego ad judicium sanguints tardus sum, etiam ubi meritum abundat .... Nullo modo possum admittere, falsos doctores occidi: satis est eos relegari.” He gives as a reason that the law of the death penalty among the Jews and Papists was made a pretext for killing true prophets and saints.
3 His coarse attack on Henry VIILI., “by God’s disfavor (or, disgrace, Ungnade) king of England,” is well known. In his book, Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, which is dedicated to his own prince, Duke John, he ventures the opinion that wise and pious rulers have from the beginning of the world been rare birds, and that princes are usually the greatest fools or worst boobies on earth (sie sind gemeiniglich die gréssten Narren oder die drgsten Buben auf Erden). Walch X., 460 and 464. “Es sind gar wenig Fiirsten, die man nicht fiir Narren und Buben halt. Das macht, sie beweisen sich auch also, und der gemeine Mann wird verstandig.” Ibid., 464.
§ 11. PROTESTANTISM AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 6]
the hand of fellowship to Zwingli, and would not have tolerated him at Wittenberg. He begged the elector, John, to prevent a certain Hans Mohr from spreading Zwinglian opinions in Coburg. He regretted the toleration of the Zwinglians in Switzerland after their defeat, which he uncharitably interpreted as a righteous judgment of God.’ A few words on his views concerning the toleration of the Jews who had to suffer every indignity from Christians, as if they were personally responsible for the crime of the crucifixion. Luther was at first in advance of public opinion. In 1523 he protested against the cruel treatment of the Jews, as if they were dogs, and not human beings, and counseled kindness and charity as the best means of converting them. Ifthe apostles, he says, who were Jews, had dealt with the heathen, as we heathen Christians deal with the Jews, no heathen would ever have been converted, and I myself, if I were a Jew, would rather become anything else than a Christian. But in 1543 he wrote two violent books against the Jews.’ His intercourse with several Rabbis filled him with disgust and indignation against their pride, obstinacy, and» blasphemies. He came to the conclusion that it was useless to dispute with them and impossible to convert them. Moses could do nothing with Pharaoh by warnings, plagues and miracles, but had to let him drown in the Red Sea. The Jews would crucify their expected Messiah, if he ever should come, even worse than
1Tn a letter to Albrecht of Brandenburg, a. 1532, after he heard of Zwingli’s death. De Wette IV., 349-355. In the same letter he speaks of Zwingli’s salvation only problematically, as having possibly occurred in the last moment! He lays there the greatest stress on the real presence as a fundamental article of faith.
2See his tract entitled Dass Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sei, in the Erl. Frkf. ed. Bd. XIX., p. 45-75. He says that if 1 were a Jew and suffered what the Jews had to suffer from popes, bishops and monks, “ so wire ich eher eine Sau worden denn ein Christ. Denn sie haben mit den Jiiden gehandelt, als wéiren es Hunde, und nicht Menschen” (p. 47).
3 Von den Jiiden und ihren Liigen, Wittenb., 1543, and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi, Wittenb., 1543. 1n the ΕΠ]. Frkf. ed. Bd. XXXII, 99-274, and 275-358.