History of the Reformation, vol. 3

Chapter 13

The Nuns of Nimptsch—Luther’s Sentiments—The Convent dissolved—Luther’s Marriage—Domestic Happiness

In the monastery of Nimptsch, near Grimma in Saxony, dwelt in the year 1523 nine nuns, who were diligent in reading the Word of God, and who had discovered the contrast that exists between a christian and a cloistered life. Their names were Magdalen Staupitz, Eliza Canitz, Ava Grossen, Ava and Margaret Schonfeldt, Laneta Golis, Margaret and Catherine Zeschau, and Catherine Bora. The first impulse of these young women, after they were delivered from the superstitions of the monastery, was to write to their parents. “The salvation of our souls,” said they, “will not permit us to remain any longer in a cloister.” Their parents, fearing the trouble likely to arise from such a resolution, harshly rejected their prayers. The poor nuns were dismayed. How can they leave the monastery? Their timidity was alarmed at so desperate a step. At last, the horror caused by the papal services prevailed, and they promised not to leave one another, but to repair in a body to some respectable place, with order and decency. Two worthy and pious citizens of Torgau, Leonard Koppe and Wolff Tomitzsch, offered their assistance, which they accepted as coming from God himself, and left the convent of Nimptsch without any opposition, and as if the hand of the Lord had opened the doors to them. Koppe and Tomitzsch received them in their wagon; and on the 7th of April 1523, the nine nuns, amazed at their own boldness, stopped in great emotion before the gate of the old Augustine convent in which Luther resided. HRSCV3 387.1

“This is not my doing,” said Luther, as he received them; “but would to God that I could thus rescue all captive consciences and empty all the cloisters!—the breach is made!” Many persons offered to receive these nuns into their houses, and Catherine Bora found a welcome in the family of the burgomaster of Wittenberg. HRSCV3 387.2

If Luther at that time thought of preparing for any solemn event, it was to ascend the scaffold, and not to approach the altar. Many months after this, he still replied to those who spoke to him of marriage: “God may change my heart, if it be his pleasure; but now at least I have no thought of taking a wife; not that I do not feel any attractions in that estate; I am neither a stock nor a stone; but every day I expect the death and the punishment of a heretic.” HRSCV3 387.3

Yet everything in the Church was advancing. The habits of a monastic life, the invention of man, were giving way in every quarter to those of domestic life, appointed by God. On Sunday the 9th of October 1524, Luther, having risen as usual, laid aside the frock of the Augustine monk, and put on the dress of a secular priest; he then made his appearance in the church, where this change caused a lively satisfaction. Renovated Christendom hailed with transport everything that announced that the old things were passed away. HRSCV3 387.4

Shortly after this, the last monk quitted the convent; but Luther remained; his footsteps alone re-echoed through the long galleries; he sat silent and solitary in the refectory that had so lately resounded with the babbling of the monks. An eloquent silence, attesting the triumphs of the Word of God! The convent had ceased to exist. About the end of December 1524, Luther sent the keys of the monastery to the elector, informing him that he should see where it might please God to feed him. The elector gave the convent to the university, and invited Luther to continue his residence in it. The abode of the monks was destined erelong to be the sanctuary of a christian family. HRSCV3 387.5

Luther, whose heart was formed to taste the sweets of domestic life, honored and loved the marriage state; it is even probable that he had some liking for Catherine Bora. For a long while his scruples and the thought of the calumnies which such a step would occasion had prevented his thinking of her; and he had offered the poor Catherine, first to Baumgartner of Nuremberg; and then to Dr. Glatz of Orlamund. But when he saw Baumgartner refuse to take her, and when she had declined to accept Glatz, he asked himself seriously whether he ought not to think of marrying her himself. HRSCV3 387.6

His aged father, who had been so grieved when he embraced a monastic life, was urging him to enter the conjugal state. But one idea above all was daily present before Luther’s conscience, and with greater energy: marriage is an institution of God,—celibacy an institution of man. He had a horror of every thing that emanated from Rome. He would say to his friends, “I desire to retain nothing of my papistical life.” Day and night he prayed and entreated the Lord to deliver him from his uncertainty. At last a single thought broke the last links that still held him captive. To all the motives of propriety and personal obedience which led him to apply to himself this declaration of God, It is not good that man should be alone, was added a motive of a higher and more powerful nature. He saw that if he was called to the marriage-state as a man, he was also called to it as a reformer; this decided him. HRSCV3 387.7

“If this monk should marry,” said his friend Schurff the lawyer, “he will make all the world and the devil himself burst with laughter, and will destroy the work that he has begun.” This remark made a very different impression on Luther from what might have been supposed. To brave the world, the devil, and his enemies, and, by an action which they thought calculated to ruin the cause of the Reformation, prevent its success being in any measure ascribed to him—this was all he desired. Accordingly, boldly raising his head, he replied, “Well, then, I will do it; I will play the devil and the world this trick; I will content my father, and marry Catherine!” Luther, by his marriage, broke off still more completely from the institutions of the Papacy; he confirmed the doctrine he had preached, by his own example, and encouraged timid men to an entire renunciation of their errors. Rome appeared to be recovering here and there the ground she had lost; she flattered herself with the hope of victory; and now a loud explosion scattered terror and surprise through her ranks, and still more fully disclosed to her the courage of the enemy she fancied she had crushed. “I will bear witness to the Gospel,” said Luther, “not by my words only, but also by my works. I am determined, in the face of my enemies who already exult and raise the shout of victory, to marry a nun, that they may see and know that they have not conquered me. I do not take a wife that I may live long with her; but seeing the nations and the princes letting loose their fury against me, foreseeing that my end is near, and that after my death they will again trample my doctrine under foot, I am resolved for the edification of the weak to bear a striking testimony to what I teach here below.” HRSCV3 388.1

On the 11th of June 1525, Luther went to the house of his friend and colleague Amsdorff. He desired Pomeranus, whom he styled emphatically The Pastor, to bless his union. The celebrated painter Lucas Cranach and Doctor John Apella witnessed the marriage. Melancthon was not present. HRSCV3 388.2

No sooner was Luther married than all Europe was disturbed. He was overwhelmed with accusations and calumnies from every quarter. “It is incest,” exclaimed Henry VIII. “A monk has married a vestal,” said some.—“Antichrist will be the offspring of such a union,” said others; “for a prophecy announces that he will be born of a monk and a nun.” To this Erasmus replied with a sarcastic smile: “If the prophecy is true, what thousands of antichrists do not already exist in the world!” But while Luther was thus assailed, many wise and moderate men, whom the Roman Church still counted among her members, undertook his defense. “Luther,” said Erasmus, “has taken a wife from the noble family of Bora, but she has no dowry.” A more valuable testimony was now given in his favor. The master of Germany, Philip Melancthon, whom this bold step had at first alarmed, said with that grave voice to which even his enemies listened with respect: “It is false and slanderous to maintain that there is anything unbecoming in Luther’s marriage. I think that in marrying he must have done violence to himself. A married life is one of humility, but it is also a holy state, if there be any such in the world, and the Scriptures everywhere represent it as honorable in the eyes of God.” HRSCV3 388.3

Luther was troubled at first when he saw such floods of anger and contempt poured out upon him; Melancthon became more earnest in friendship and kindness towards him; and it was not long before the reformer could see a mark of God’s approbation in this opposition of man. “If I did not offend the world,” said he, “I should have cause to fear that what I have done is displeasing to God.” HRSCV3 388.4

Eight years had elapsed between the time when Luther had attacked the indulgences and his marriage with Catherine Bora. It would be difficult to ascribe, as is still done, his zeal against the abuses of the Church to an “impatient desire” for wedlock. He was then forty-two years old, and Catherine Bora had already been two years in Wittenberg. HRSCV3 388.5

Luther was happy in this union. “The best gift of God,” said he, “is a pious and amiable wife, who fears God, loves her family, with whom a man may live in peace, and in whom he may safely confide.” Some months after his marriage he informed one of his friends of Catherine’s pregnancy, and a year after they came together she gave birth to a son. The sweets of domestic life soon dispersed the storms that the exasperation of his enemies had at first gathered over him. His Ketha, as he styled her, manifested the tenderest affection towards him, consoled him in his dejection by repeating passages from the Bible, exonerated him from all household cares, sat near him during his leisure moments, worked his portrait in embroidery, reminded him of the friends to whom he had forgotten to write, and often amused him by the simplicity of her questions. A certain dignity appears to have marked her character, for Luther would sometimes call her, My Lord Ketha. One day he said playfully, that if he were to marry again, he would carve an obedient wife for himself out of a block of stone, for, added he, “it is impossible to find such a one in reality.” His letters overflowed with tenderness for Catherine; he called her “his dear and gracious wife, his dear and amiable Ketha.” Luther’s character became more cheerful in Catherine’s society, and this happy frame of mind never deserted him afterwards, even in the midst of his greatest trials. HRSCV3 388.6

The almost universal corruption of the clergy had brought the priesthood into general contempt, from which the isolated virtues of a few faithful servants of God had been unable to extricate it. Domestic peace and conjugal fidelity, those surest foundations of happiness here below, were continually disturbed in town and country by the gross passions of the priests and monks. No one was secure from those attempts at seduction. They took advantage of the access allowed them into every family, and sometimes even of the confidence of the confessional, to instil a deadly poison into the souls of their penitents, and to satisfy their guilty desires. The Reformation, by abolishing the celibacy of the ecclesiastics, restored the sanctity of the conjugal state. The marriage of the clergy put an end to an immense number of secret crimes. The reformers became the models of their flocks in the most intimate and important relations of life; and the people were not slow in rejoicing to see the ministers of religion once more husbands and fathers. HRSCV3 389.1