Martin Luther

Later years
MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY
PROF. M. M. NINAN
https://www.britannica.com gives the following details of his last years
Sympathetic rulers and city councils became the protagonists for Luther’s cause and the cause of
reform. When Charles V convened a Diet to meet at Augsburg in 1530 to address unresolved
religious issues, Luther himself could not be present, though he managed to travel as far south as
Coburg—still some 100 miles north of Augsburg—to follow developments at the Diet. In Augsburg it
fell to Luther’s young Wittenberg colleague Philipp Melanchthon to represent the Protestants.
Melanchthon’s summary of the reformers’ beliefs, the Augsburg Confession, quickly became the
guiding theological document for the emerging Lutheran tradition.
Luther’s role in the Reformation after 1525 was that of theologian, adviser, and facilitator but not
that of a man of action. Biographies of Luther accordingly have a tendency to end their story with
his marriage in 1525. Such accounts gallantly omit the last 20 years of his life, during which much
happened. The problem is not just that the cause of the new Protestant churches that Luther had
helped to establish was essentially pursued without his direct involvement, but also that the Luther
of these later years appears less attractive, less winsome, less appealing than the earlier Luther
who defiantly faced emperor and empire at Worms. Repeatedly drawn into fierce controversies
during the last decade of his life, Luther emerges as a different figure—irascible, dogmatic, and
insecure. His tone became strident and shrill, whether in comments about the Anabaptists, the
pope, or the Jews. In each instance his pronouncements were virulent: the Anabaptists should be
hanged as seditionists, the pope was the Antichrist, the Jews should be expelled and their
synagogues burned. Such were hardly irenic words from a minister of the gospel, and none of the
explanations that have been offered—his deteriorating health and chronic pain, his expectation of
the imminent end of the world, his deep disappointment over the failure of true religious
reform—seem satisfactory.
In 1539 Luther became embroiled in a scandal surrounding the bigamy of Philip, landgrave of
Hesse. Like many other crowned heads, Philip lived in a dynastically arranged marriage with a wife
for whom he had no affection. Engaging in extramarital relationships disturbed his conscience,
however, so that for years he felt unworthy to receive communion. His eyes fell on one of his wife’s
ladies-in-waiting, who insisted on marriage. Philip turned to Luther and the Wittenberg theologians
for advice. In his response, which he amply augmented with biblical references, Luther noted that
the patriarchs of the Old Testament had been married to more than one wife and that, as a special
dispensation, polygamy was still possible. Philip accordingly entered into a second marriage
secretly, but before long it became known—as did Luther’s role in bringing it about.
From the mid-1530s Luther was plagued by kidney stones and an obvious coronary condition.
Somewhat sheepishly, he attributed his poor health to the severity of his life in the monastery. He
nevertheless continued his academic teaching—from 1535 to 1545 he lectured on the book of
Genesis, one of his most insightful biblical expositions—and preached regularly at the city church
until his colleague Johannes Bugenhagen assumed that responsibility. Even then, Luther
continued to preach in the Augustinian monastery. After the death of one of his oldest friends,
Nikolaus Hausmann, in 1538 and that of his daughter Magdalene four years later, references to
death became increasingly abundant in Luther’s correspondence. Thus he wrote in a June 1543
letter to a friend:
I desire that there be given me a good little hour when I can move onward to God. I
have had enough. I am tired. I have become nothing. Do pray earnestly for me so that
the Lord may take my soul in peace.
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