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458 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
Catharina had been attached and almost engaged to a former student of Wittenberg from Niirnberg; but he changed his mind, to her great grief, and married a rich wife (1523). After this Luther arranged a match between her and Dr. Glatz of Orlamiinde (who was afterwards deposed) ; but she refused him, and intimated to Amsdorf, that she would not object to marry him or the Reformer. Amsdorf remained single. Luther at first was afraid of her pride, but changed his mind. On May 4, 1525, he wrote to Dr. Rithel (councilor of Count Albrecht of Mansfeld, and of Cardinal Albrecht of Mainz), that he would “take his Katie to wife before he died, in spite of the Devil.”! He left his friends ignorant of the secret, deeming it unwise to talk much about such delicate matters. “A man,” he said, “must ask God for counsel, and pray, and then act accordingly.”
On the evening of June 18, on Tuesday after Trinity Sunday, he invited Bugenhagen, Jonas, Lucas Cranach and wife, and a professor of jurisprudence, Apel (an ex-dean of the Cathedral of Bamberg, who had himself married a nun), to his house, and in their presence was joined in matrimony to Catharina von Bora in the name of the Holy Trinity. Bugenhagen performed the ceremony in the customary manner. On the following morning he entertained his friends at breakfast. Justus Jonas reported the marriage to Spalatin through a special messenger. He was affected by it to tears, and saw in it the wonderful hand of God.?
On June 27 Luther celebrated his wedding in a more public, yet modest style, by a nuptial feast, and invited his father
1 De Wette, II. 655. On June 2, 1525, he advised Cardinal Archbishop and Elector Albrecht of Mainz, in an open letter, to marry, and to secularize the archbishopric. Ibid., p. 673. .
2 “ Tutherus noster duxit Catharinam de Bora. Heri adfui rei et vidi sponsum in thalamo jacentem. [An indecent German custom of the time; see Késtlin, I. 767.] Non potui me continere, adstans huic spectaculo, quin
illachrymarem, nescio quo affectu animum percellente ... mirabilis Deus in consiliis et operibus suis.’
\
δ 77. LUTHER'S MARRIAGE. 1525. 459
and mother and his distant friends to “seal and ratify” the union, and to “ pronounce the benediction.” ! He mentioned with special satisfaction that he had now fulfilled an old duty to his father, who wished him to marry. The university presented him with a rich silver goblet (now in possession of the University of Greifswald), bearing the inscription: “The honorable University of the electoral town of Wittenberg presents this wedding gift to Doctor Martin Luther and his wife Kethe von Bora.” The magistrate provided the pair with a barrel of Eimbeck beer, a small quantity of good wine, and twenty guilders in silver. What is very remarkable, Archbishop Albrecht sent to Katie through Rihel a wedding gift of twenty guilders in gold; Luther declined it for himself, but let Katie have it.2. Several wedding-rings of doubtful genuineness have been preserved, especially one which bears the image of the crucified Saviour, and the inscription, ς Ὁ. Martino Luthero Catharina v. Boren, 13 Jun. 1525.” It has been multiplied in 1817 by several copies. They lived together in the old Augustinian convent, which was now empty. He was not much interrupted in his studies, and at the end of the same year he published his violent book against Erasmus, who wondered that marriage had not softened his temper.
The event was a rich theme for slander and gossip. His enemies circulated a slander about a previous breach of the vow of chastity, and predicted that, according to a popular tradition, the ex-monk and ex-nun would give birth to Antichrist. Erasmus contradicts the slander, and remarked that if that tradition was true, there must have been many thousands of antichrists before this. Melanchthon (who had been in-
1 See his letters of invitation in De Wette, III. 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
2 Tbid., 111. 103, 104. Tischreden, IV. 308. Kostlin, I. 772.
8 Jn his letter to Franciscus Sylvius (1526): ‘‘ De conjugio Lutheri certum est, de partu maturo sponse vanus erat rumor, nunc tamen gravida esse dicitur. Si vera est vulgi fabula Antichristum nasciturum ex monacho et monacha quemadmodum isti jactitant, quot Antichristorum millia jam olim