VI. Münzer in Allstätt

From Bohemia Münzer returned to Saxony, staying a short time in Nordhausen, and finally going to Allstätt. Like Zwickau, this place was situated close to a great mining district – the copper, silver, and gold mines of Mansfeld. We may assume that the miners, bold and trained to the use of arms, supported the proletarian tendencies of Allstätt, and that Münzer’s agitation was favoured by their proximity. Hunted as he was from place to place, Münzer certainly found Allstätt a spot where he could work under encouraging conditions. He soon gained a firm footing as a preacher, and we may consider it as a sign of his confidence in the future that he married one of the nuns, named Otilie von Gersen, who had quitted the cloister (Easter, 1523).

In the midst of these personal matters, however, Münzer did not forget the object to which he had devoted himself. He arranged an order of Divine Service entirely in German, being the first among the German reformers who did so, and permitted all the books of the Bible to be read aloud and taken as subjects for sermons, and not the New Testament only. The Old Testament, republican as it is in many of its parts, suited the democratic sects better than the New Testament, which is the product of a Roman imperial association,; and this predilection for the Old Testament can be traced from the Taborites down to the Puritans.

The “hypocritical papistic confessional” was abolished, and the Holy Communion administered in both kinds.

The whole of the congregation were to assist in Divine Service, the privileged position of the priest being done away with. “Our adversaries say that we teach the plough-boys from the field to celebrate Mass,” says Münzer himself.

We find this remark in the first extant pamphlet of his which treats of the new order of Divine Service just mentioned: Ordnung und Berechnung des teutschen ampts zu Alstädt durch Toman Münzer, &c., Alstedt 1524.

Two other publications deal with the same subject, the Deutsch Evangelische Messe and Deutzsch Kirchenampt, &c., Alstädt, probably 1524. In addition to these, Münzer published in Allstätt two propagandist pamphlets, the Protestation and Erdichteten Glauben.

There are also two letters of that time worthy of mention. One (which was to be circulated), dated the 18th of July, 1523: “an earnest epistle to his dear brother at Stolberg to avoid unbecoming tumult,” and exhorting the Fraternity to be patient, as they had not yet attained to a right frame of mind. “It is an exceeding folly that so many of the chosen friends of God should suppose that He would haste to do good to Christendom and come instantly to its help, when no one longs for it, or is really striving to become poor in spirit through suffering and steadfastness.” The people were still too well off. It must be worse with them before it could be better, for “God ordains that tyrants should rage in order that the elect may be filled with a fervent desire to seek Him. The man who has not believed against belief, hoped against hope, hated contrary to the love of God, knows not that God Himself will show mankind what is necessary for them.” In conclusion, he blames the brothers for their luxury and want of firmness. “I understand that you are vainglorious, idle in study, and are shirking your duties. When you drink, you chatter about our cause, but when you are sober you are as frightened as cowards. Mend your lives, dearest brothers, in these things. Shun riotous living; flee the flesh with all its desires be bolder than you have been, and write to me how you have traded with your pound.”

The other letter, an exposition of the 19th Psalm, he wrote in May, 1524; and it was published in 1525 by Johannes Agricola of Eisleben, in order to prejudice the people against Münzer and prove to them “that all the world may perceive how the devil intends to make himself equal with God.” It does not contain any remarkable ideas which had not been expressed under different forms in Münzer’s writings at that time.

The exposition of the second chapter of Daniel, which also appeared at Allstätt, will be noticed in due course.

The first of these publications (the Ordnung des deutschen Amts) contains all the essential characteristics of the Münzer philosophy; his mysticism, disdain of the Bible, contempt of learned men, and finally his pantheism and religious tolerance. But he disdained the Bible only in so far as it is not supported by the voice of interior revelation, which could only be won through suffering – through asceticism.

We have already given examples of his mysticism.

The following passage shows his pantheism clearly enough: “He” (man) “must and ought to know that God is in him he is not to imagine Him to be a thousand. miles away, but that heaven and earth are full, full of God; that the Father unceasingly forms the Son in us; and the Holy Spirit, through heart-felt sorrow, interprets in us none other than the Crucified.”

Münzer’s religious tolerance is evident from the following injunction: “No one ought to be surprised that we celebrate the Mass in German at Allstätt. We are not the only ones who make use of a ritual differing from the Roman; at Mediolan [Milan] in Lombardy, many have a mode of celebrating Mass different from that in use at Rome. The Croats, Bohemians, Armenians, &c., celebrate Mass in their own tongue the Russians have quite other genuflexions, and yet they are not devils on that account. Ah? what blind, ignorant beings we are, that we should dare to be Christians in external pomp only, and quarrel with one another over it, like mad, brute creatures.” Even the heathen and Turk are not worse than Christians. God will “not despise our retrograde, dull Roman brothers.”

These are assuredly great and deep thoughts for that era but they are not peculiar to Münzer. We find pantheistic mysticism in earlier times among the brothers and sisters of the Free-Spirit.

Even Münzer’s religious tolerance had its forerunners, for we know that it had astonished Æneas Sylvius among the Taborites, and was also advocated by the Bohemian Fraternity. This religious tolerance was, nevertheless, interpreted in a very limited sense. It was impossible that it could extend to every religious question, at an epoch when all the great causes of contentions in the State and in society appeared under the garb of religion. Münzer hated all hypocritical tolerance behind which timidity and lack of character concealed themselves. “There is nothing upon earth,” he exclaims, “that has a better shape and mask than imaginary goodness, and this is the reason why all corners of the earth are full of hypocrites, amongst whom none are bold enough to venture to speak the truth. The godless have no right to live, except in so far as they are permitted to do so by tine elect.” This passage seems a contradiction to the other which shows Münzer’s toleration, but the contradiction vanishes when one considers to what this toleration is applied. It applies simply to international relations it is the result of his acknowledgment of the sovereignty of the people. Every nation, he declares, may organise its religion as it thinks proper it is a matter of indifference to us. What concern is it of ours if the Turks and heathen believe what they please, or if the “ retrograde Roman brothers” celebrate the Mass in their own way. We wish for nothing except that we should be allowed to regulate our own affairs according to our necessities. No animosity therefore ought to exist against foreign nations. Münzer’s proclamation of relentless class-war in their own country is not by any means in contradiction to this opinion.

But this statement is taken from one of his later writings; those hitherto given are of a peaceful character – as peaceful as is possible to a fiery soul. They are propagandist writings, dealing principally with questions of religion and church organisation, and containing no revolutionary threats or appeals. Münzer was not yet a rebel, nor even in open opposition to authority. He had, however, quarrelled with Luther, personal rivalry being apparently the cause.

Perhaps no period proved so distinctly how little Luther’s personal initiative gave rise to the Reformation as the years 1522 and 1523.

He not only allowed himself to be driven by circumstances without recognising their inner connection, but he was even outstripped in the career on which he had entered by others. While he remained in quiet contemplation on the Wartburg and translated the Bible, the energetic elements of Wittenberg, led by Karlstadt, and influenced by the Zwickau enthusiasts who happened to be in that town, forestalled the practical results of a conflict with Rome by abolishing celibacy, monastic vows, fasting, the adoration of pictures, private Masses, &c., so that later on Luther had nothing to do but to accept and sanction these reforms that is in so far as he did not abrogate them.

One year after these occurrences at Wittenberg, the man who already considered himself to be the leader in the struggle for “Gospel truth,” allowed himself to be surpassed by Münzer in one matter – the order of Divine Service in German for the latter introduced it into Allstätt and with such success that there was nothing for Luther to do but to copy it. He did not wish, however, to appear before the world as an imitator Münzer’s innovation must be kept out of sight till his own copy of it was established. There was a simple way of securing this end, of which Münzer himself speaks in his apology (Schutzrede) wherein he accuses Luther of having, through jealousy, “induced his Prince not to permit my Service to be printed.”

This accusation Luther never answered.

The rivalry of the two reformers did not tend to make their intercourse more friendly. But the true ground of their differences lay deeper.

Luther had not yet taken any decided action with regard to the democracy, not being certain of the side to which the reins of power would fall. But his civic instinct was too much developed for him not to see that communistic sectarians should in no case be permitted to thrive.

He had recognised this as early as 1522, when the Zwickau enthusiasts had begun to gain influence in Wittenberg but as neither Melancthon nor the Prince Elector had taken any decided stand, it became impossible for him to remain any longer on the Wartburg. Hastening, therefore, to Wittenberg early in 1522, he dispersed these dangerous people, Storch going to South Germany, where he disappeared. Luther sought to silence Karlstadt in the same way as he had silenced Münzer, and caused his writings to be confiscated by the authorities. In consequence of this, Karlstadt betook himself first to the country near Wittenberg, where he bought a property and wished to live as a peasant among peasants, desiring them no longer to call him doctor, but neighbour Andreas. We soon find him again, however, actively agitating and organising with great success in Orlamünda, where he regulated the Church community on wholly democratic principles, and made a clean sweep of all Catholic ceremonies.

When Münzer appeared again in Allstätt, Luther, who knew of his connection with the people of Zwickau, could not but look upon him with distrust, which increased in proportion to Münzer’s importance. Moreover, the stings of jealousy contributed greatly to render Luther extremely indignant. But the man was difficult to get at. In vain Luther summoned him to Wittenberg for the purpose of examining him Münzer declared that he would only appear among a community in which he was in no danger.

Since Münzer would not go to Wittenberg, the Saxon Princes (Frederick, with his brother and co-regent, the Duke John) came to Allstätt, induced to do so by the disturbances which had taken place in the neighbourhood of that town. They not only attempted nothing against Münzer, however, but even permitted him to deliver an oration before them, which was bolder than had ever been made before reigning princes. This speech alone suffices to contradict the gossip about Münzer’s cowardice, which is traceable through all the anti-democratic statements concerning his movements.

Far from disavowing his revolutionary views, Münzer in his oration declared revolution necessary, adding that it was best for the Princes to place themselves at its head, otherwise the rebellious people would stride over them. This discourse displayed no very great confidence that the reigning Princes would act upon the appeal, but it nevertheless proves that Münzer did not consider it as wholly impossible to gain at least the Prince Elector to his side.

The Prince Elector indeed showed great indulgence towards these popular movements, as we have seen in the case of the Zwickau enthusiasts. To this circumstance it is possibly due that Münzer was dismissed unhurt by the Regents, though perhaps this may have been also owing to the consideration which Münzer enjoyed in Allstätt. Duke John possessed far more class-feeling than his brother Frederick, and when Münzer published his discourse fell into such a rage that he exiled Nicholas Widemar of Eilenburg, the printer of Münzer’s pamphlets, from Saxon territories. In vain Münzer protested against this in a letter dated July 13th. Widemar was prohibited from printing anything whatsoever without the sanction of the authorities at Weimar.

The only effect on Münzer’s resolute nature was that he had a new propagandist pamphlet printed in the neighbouring town of Mühlhausen, where a popular movement had just been victorious it was entitled, An unveiling of the False Beliefs of the Faithless World.

On the title-page he calls himself “Münzer with the Hammer”, in allusion to a passage in Jeremiah xxiii. 29, in which the Lord says, “Is not My word ... like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” “Dear brethren,” he continues, further on in the title-page, “let us also make the hole wider, to the end that all the world may see and understand who are those great ones of the earth who talk so blasphemously of God, and have made Him like to a painted dummy.”

This shows the whole character of the pamphlet. It begins with a polemic against the clergy, who deceive the poor and advises the latter to emancipate themselves from priestly rule. “Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Whoever taketh honours and goods into possession will be eternally lost to God at the last, as God declares in the 5th Psalm, that their heart ‘is very wickedness’. For this shall the violent and sullen men be thrust from their seats. The government and authority of godless, foolish men storm and rage against God and His Anointed,” yea, some few are now beginning to “put their people into the stocks, into the pillory, and to scourge and flog them, and, worse than all, to threaten all Christians, and to torture and ignominiously put to death their own people as well as strangers, so that, after all the troubles of the elect, God will neither be able nor willing to behold such misery any longer.” God puts more on His own people than they are able to bear, and it must and will end very soon.

The Princes are the scourges with which God punishes the world in His wrath. “Therefore they are nothing else than executioners and warders. That is their whole office.”

It is not they who are to be feared, but God. But no one need despair of God. With Him nothing is impossible, not even the triumph of communistic revolution. “Many people may fancy it to be a very wild delusion. It seems to them impossible that such an undertaking should be set on foot and accomplished as the putting down the godless from the seat of judgment, and exalting them of low degree. Indeed it is a grand belief notwithstanding, and will yet do a great deal of good.” The impossible will become possible, “and it may establish a refined society such as was contemplated by Plato the Philosopher (De Republica), and Apuleius of the Golden Ass.”

The remainder of the pamphlet is only repetition. If we compare it with Münzer’s earlier publications in Allstätt, a marked difference is observable. The Exposition of the second chapter of Daniel forms a transition stage between the latter and the former. The question now for Münzer was rather how to urge on and incite his associates, than to convince and persuade those who did not share his views. And it is no longer ecclesiastical, but political and social revolution to which he attaches the greater importance. The Exposition was an attempt to enlist the Princes in favour of the subject of revolution; but now the Princes are the chief enemy and not the Pope, and the question was no longer of vague conceptions of the “Gospel,” but of pure communism “such as was contemplated by Plato the Philosopher,” whose work on the State, Münzer must therefore have known.

This change of purport and tone in Münzer’s agitation had certainly been brought about in part through his conflict with the Princes, which plainly showed him that he could accomplish his designs only by resisting his rulers. But perhaps in a considerably greater degree the cause for this change probably lies deeper still, being based upon the general change of conditions for just at that time the first feeble flicker of the Peasant War was showing itself. It was now becoming a question of acting, not merely of preaching.

Chapter 4 (cont’d) |