LITTHXE 451 LtJTBXB
- ' masses seeins to have been limited to thoae occasions sterili^ which marked Germany during the Utter
when he saw in them a useful weapon to hold over the part of the sixteenth cefntury (ibid.)» and just as headsof his enemies (ibid., 193). The tragic failure of naturally we find "as many new Churches as there the Peasants' War now makes him underso an abrupt were pnndpAlities or republics " (Menzel, op. cit. , 739). transition, and this at a moment when wey stood m A tneological event, the first of any r^ magnitude, helpless discomfiture and pitiful weakness, the especial that had a marked influence in shapmg the destiny <h objects of counsel and sympathv (Meniel, ** Gescn. der the reform movement, even more than the Peasants' Deutschen", 581). He and Melanchthon, now pro- War, was caused by the brooding discontent aroused claim for the first time the hitherto unknown doctrine by Luther's peremptory condemnation and suppres- of the unlimited power of the ruler over the subject; sioq of every umovation, doctrinal or disciplinary, that demand unquestioning submission to authority: was not in the fullest accord with his. Tnis weakness preach and formallv teach the spirit of servility ana of character was well-known to his admirers then, as it d^potism (Tliudichum, op. cit., II, 60-61; fieard, isfully admitted now (Planck, op. cit., II. 131). Carl- '^ The Reformation ", 101). The object lesson which stadt, who by a strange irony, was forbidden to preach was to bring the enforcement of the full rigour of the or publish in Saxony, from whom a recantation was law to the attention of the princes was the Peasants' forced (Thudichum, op. dt., 11^ 68-69), and who was War. The masses were to be laden down with burdens exiled from his home for his opmions — ^to the enforce- to curb their refractoriness; the poor man was to be ment of all which disabilities Luther personally gave
- ' forced and driven, as we force and drive pigs or wild his attention — now contumeliously set them at de-
cattle " (S&mmtl. W., XV, 276). Meluichthon found fiance. What degree of culpability there was between the (Annans such a wild, incorrigible, bloodthirsty Luther doing the same with even greater recklessness people" (CoTD. Ref., VII, 432-433) that their liberties and audadty while under the ban of the Empire, — or should by all means be abridged and more drastic CarLstadt domg it tentatively while imder the ban of a severity measured out (Cambridge Hist.', II, 193). territorial lord, did not seem to have caused any The same autocratic power was not to be confined to suspicion of incon^ruitv. However, Carlstadt pre- mere political concerns, but the "Gospel" was to be- cipitated a contention that shook the whole reform come the instrument of the princes to extend it into fabric to its very centre. The controversy was the the domain of religious affairs. first decisive conflict that changed the separatists' Luther by the creation of his " universal priesthood camp into an internecine Imttleground of hostile com- bf all Christians", by delegating the auuiority "to batants. The casxis belli was the doctrine of the judge a}\ doctrines" to the "Christian assembly or Eucharist. Carlstadt in his two treatises (26 Feb. and congregation", by empowering it to appoint or dis- 16 March, 1525), after assailing "the new Pope", gave miss teacher or preacher, sought the overthrow of the an exhaustive statement of his doctrine <^ the Lcra's old Catholic order. It did not strike him, that to ea- Supper (see Barge, "Karlstadt", II, 144-296; Thu- tablish a new Church,to ground an ecclesiastical orj^ani- dicnum, op. dt., II, 65-68; Hausrath, op. cit., II, 198r- zation on so precarious and volatile a basis, was m its 201). The literal interpretation of the institutional very nature impossible (Maurenbrecher, "Studien u. woids of Christ "this is my body" is rejected, the Skizzen", 334-336). The seeds of inevitable anarchy bodily presence flatly denied. Luther's doctrine of lay dormant in such principles. Momentarily this was consubstantiation, that the body is in, with, and under clear to himself, when at this very time (1525) he does the bread, was to nim devoid of all Scriptural support, not hesitate to make the confession, that there are Scripture neither says the bread "Ib" my body, nor " nearly as many sects as there are heads" (De Wette, " in the bread is my bodv, in fact it says nothing op. cit.. Ill, 61). This anarchvin faith was concomit- about bread whatever. The demonstrative pronoun ant with the decay of spiritual, charitable, and educa- " this", does not refer to the bread at all, but to the tional activities. Of this we have a fairly staggering body of Christ, present at the table. When Jesus said array of evidence from Luther himself (BeiEird, op. cit., " this is my boay", He pointed to Himself, and said 145; "^Dollin^er," Die Reformation ",1,280-348). The "this body shall be offered up, this blood shall be shed, whole situation was such, that imperative necessity for you." The words " take and eat" refer to the prof- forced the leaders of the reform movement to invoke fered bread, — ^the words " this is my body" to the cxxl v the aid of the temporal power. Thus "the whole of Jesus. He goes further, and maintains that "this is' Reformation was a triumph of the temporal power reallymeans" this signifies". Aoc(»xlingly grace shoukl over the spiritual. Luther nimself, to escape anarchy, be sought in Christ crucified, not in the sacrament, placed all authority in the hands of the princes" Among all the arguments advanced none proved more (Menzel, op. cit., 623). This aid was all the more embarrassing than the deictic "this is". It was the readily given, since there was placed at the disposition insistence on the identical interpretation of "this" of the temporal power the vast possessions of the old referring to the present Christ, that Luther used as his Church, and only involved the pledge, to accept the most dendiing argument in setting aside the primacy new opinions and introduce them as a state or territo- of the pope (Matt., xvi, 18) at the Leipzig Disputa- rial religion. The Free dtiea could not resist the lure tion (Ldseher, "Reformations Acta , III, 369; of the same advances. They meant the exemption Hausrath, "Luthers Leben", II, 200). Carlstadt's from all taxes to bishops and ecclesiastical corpora- writings were prohibited, with the result that Saxony, tions, the alienation of chureh property, the suspen- as well as Strasburg, Basle, and now Zurich forbade sion of episcopal authority, and its trieinsfer to the their sale and drculation. This brought the leader of temporal power. Here we find the foimdation of the the Swiss reform movement. Zwingli, into the fray, as national enactment of the Diet of Au^pBburg, 1A65, the apologist of Carlstadt, the advocate of free speech " eternally branded with the curse of history" (Men- and unfettered thought, and ipao facto Luther's adver- zel, op. cit., 615) embodied in the axiom Cujua ffffio, sary.
ejus religiOf the religion of the country is determined 'The reform movement now presented the speo- by the religion of its ruler, "a foundation which was tade of Rome's two most formidable opponents, but the consequence of Luther's well-known politics" the two most masterful minds and authoritative ex- (Idem, loc. cit.). Freedom of religion became the ponents of contemporary separatistic thought, meet- monopoly of the ruling princes, it made Geimany ing in open conflict, with the Lord's Supper as the "little more than a geographical name, and a vague gage of war. Zwingli shared Carlstadt's doctrines in one withal" (Cambridge Hist., II, 142); naturSly the main, with some further divergencies, that need no "serfdom lingered there longer than in any civiliied amplification here. But what gave a mystic, semi- country save Russia" (ibid., 191), and was "one of inspiraticmal importance to his doctrine of the Lord's the causes of the national weakness and inteUeotual Supper, was the account he gave ol V2t&&<^^«SSN5tN^^6^&^%s^
