|
|
以上馬丁路德的言論引自這篇以前發過的舊帖：
馬丁路德和婚姻
在美一方摘自Peter F. Wiener 「Martin Luther--Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor」網路版
文中有些註釋作者原書的出版商不願一一列出，所以用編號給出。規則是這樣的：
In the references given, E refers to the Erlangen edition of Luther's works, W to the Weimar edition. The first figure indicates the volume, the second the page.
LUTHER AND MARRIAGE
As a general rule Luther is considered as the man who rescued western civilisation from the immorality which during the sixteenth century prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church. He is painted as the man who not only gave a shining example by his delightful family life of the rightful place of the family in Christian society, but (much more) as the man who put married life in its proper place, and by his teachings made it possible for the emancipation of woman to become an accomplished fact.
It is quite true that Luther said some very lovely and laudable things about women and married life. He himself was quite convinced that he was not merely a reformer of the Church but also of morals and ethics. 「Not one of the Fathers,」 he wrote with his usual lack of modesty, 「wrote anything notable or particularly good concerning the married state.」 He himself believed—as so many still do today—that he was the first to have restored married life 「to its rightful state as He had at first instituted and ordained it.」 「Before my day nothing was known, not even what parents or children were, or what wife and maid.」
But if we look in detail at Luther's writings and his own life, we find once more a most contradictory picture; and on the whole we are forced to say that just the very opposite of what Luther was supposed to say, think and do on the subject is much more prevalent than what I should like to call the legendary interpretation.
Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Luther himself lacked any self-control, and suffered from neurotic sex-troubles. When he was calm and normal, he wrote the very things we know and love. But at other times, we can merely shudder.
「I am but a man prone to let himself be swept off his feet by society, drunkenness, the torments of the flesh」(W9, 215, 13), I have quoted already. There are many similar passages. 「Instead of glowing in spirit, I glow in the flesh.」 「I burn with all the desires of my unconquered flesh」(Enders 3, 189). 「I rarely pray. . . . My unruly flesh doth burn me with devouring flame. In short, I who should be a prey to the spirit alone am eating my heart out through the flesh, through lust, laziness, idleness, and somnolence.」
Of course, our old friend the Devil was to blame for it. 「I know it well how it is when the Devil comes and invites the flesh.」 「It is a horrible struggle; I have known it well and you must know it too; oh, I know it well when the Devil excites and inflames the flesh」 (W9, 215, 46). What a painful confession when he exclaims, 「Pray for me for I am falling into the abyss of sin」 (Enders, 3, 193).
But, as we have seen before, he has always a very easy way out. It just does not matter whether we commit a sin or not. 「You owe nothing to God except faith and confession. In all other things He lets you do whatever you like. You may do as you please, without any danger of conscience whatsoever.」 Thus a remedy for his 「burning flesh」 is easily found. 「The sting of flesh may easily be helped so long as girls and women are to be found.」 「The body asks for a woman and must have it」; 「to marry is a remedy for fornication」 (see Grisar, 「Luther」, vol. iv, p. 145).
I am reluctant, more than reluctant, to quote some of his sayings; and yet I have to do it if I want to be complete. For the degradation of womanhood and the taking away of all the sacred character of marriage is one of the main reasons why Germany with Luther began its unchristian way down the hi.. 「Since wedlock and marriage are a worldly business, we clergy and ministers of the Church have nothing to order or decree about it, but must leave each town and country to follow its own usage and custom.」 In other words, Luther is not interested in it. Marriage is to him just like any other manual labour, something to be ruled by local traditions, without any kind of Christian standard. 「Marriage,」 he says, 「is an external bodily thing, like any other manipulation.」 「Know that marriage is an outward material thing like any other secular business.」
「The body has nothing to do with God. In this respect one can never sin against God, but only against one's neighbour」(W12, 131).
But here we come to one of his most contradictory attitudes. For what is usually called 「the matrimonial duty」, or 「the matrimonial act」, he considers—contrary to the ure and Christian ethics—as a great and everlasting sin. The true Christian attitude is best formulated by St. Augustine, who said: 「The matrimonial act in order to produce children or to comply with matrimonial duties contains neither guilt nor sin.」 This is only logical. For marriage, according to Christian teaching, has been instituted by God in order to propagate humanity, and the commandment of creating children has been given by God—a commandment which cannot be obeyed without a matrimonial act. From this it is quite clear that to obey the will of God can never be a sin in the Christian sense.
Luther is quite opposed to this. 「In spite of all the good I say of married life, I will not grant so much to nature as to admit that there is no sin in it . . no conjugal due is ever rendered without sin.」 「The matrimonial duty is never performed without sin.」 The matrimonial act is, according to Luther, 「a sin differing in nothing from adultery and fornication」 (W8, 654).
An unbelievable attitude! And since it is sinful, what then is its point? No love or the creation of a family, but merely the physical necessity of satisfying one's sexual cravings. 「Marriage ought to be contracted by a boy not later than the age of twenty, and a girl when she is from fifteen to eighteen years of age. Then they are still healthy and sound and they can leave it to God to see that their children are provided for.」 「A young fellow should be simply given a wife, otherwise he has no peace.」 「It is true that he who does not marry must lead an immoral life, for how could it be otherwise?」 「Though womenfolk are ashamed to confess it, yet it is proved by ure and experience that there is not one among many thousands to whom God gives the grace of chastity.」
Nothing sacred about marriage Luther knows of. But what he has to say about women is still worse. 「The word and work of God is quite clear, viz. That women were made either to be wives or prostitutes」 (W12, 94).
I know of no more loathsome saying. Throughout Luther's writings I have found the same spirit. 「God does not take from man and woman their special fashioning, sexual organs, seed and its fruit; a Christian body must generate, multiply, and behave like those of birds and all animals; he was created by God for that, thus where God performs no miracle, man must unite with woman and woman with man.」
What happens to the woman is of no consequence to Luther. 「Even though they grow weary and wear themselves out with child-bearing, it does not matter; let them go on bearing children till they die, that is what they are there for」(E20, 84). (天哪！讀到這兒，哪個女性能不背心發涼？)
But the Reformer surpasses himself when he says: 「If you do not want, someone else does. If the wife does not want, take your servant」 (E20, 72).
From this is only a step to Luther's permitting his followers 「to satisfy their desires outside marriage, when they were not married, in order to give relief to natural feelings which they could not resist.」 He says quite plainly: 「It is not forbidden that a man should have more than one wife」 (E33, 327.).
These teachings Luther did not fail to translate into practice in his own life. In accordance with his teachings against monasteries and convents, he and his disciples began systematically to undermine the mentality of the nuns. We have authentic proof that those who pretended to free the nuns from the bondage of the Catholic Church were inspired by anything but humanitarian or Christian motives. 「After a rape of nuns which took place on the night of Holy Saturday, 1523, Luther calls the citizen Koppe, who organised the exploit, a `holy and blessed robber'」.
Luther himself has several of these escaped nuns living with him. But he does not intend to marry. In November, 1524, he writes: 「Not as though I do not feel my flesh and my sex, for I am neither of wood nor of stone, but I have no inclination to marry.」 One of these nuns, Catherine von Bora, tried to marry one of Luther's friends. But it is clear that his own relations to her were anything but blameless. In April, 1525, he refers to himself as 「a famous lover」 who has 「three wives」 but 「no intention whatsoever to marry」.
Less than two months later, without any warning, he most suddenly decided to marry Catherine von Bora. Why, can only be left to the imagination. 「The Lord plunged me suddenly while I still clung to quite other views into matrimony,」 he confesses. 「God willed that I should take pity on her,」 is another of his explanations. He is even frank enough to say that he had 「no love nor passion for her」. Lastly, his usual excuse for his strangest actions is not lacking. 「I married in order to spite the Devil」.
It is quite obvious that there was a good deal of scandal about Luther's relations with Catherine before they married. 「Your example is permanently quoted by those who visit brothers,」 is one of the typical comments. Even his best friend, Melanchthon, has to admit with a sigh that 「Luther was more than a reckless man」.
Some time later Luther explains: 「I have shut the mouth of those who slandered me and Catherine von Bora.」 Though, at other times, the Devil is once more the main explanation of this unholy marriage. 「I too am married, and to a nun. I could have refrained had I not special reasons to decide me. But I did it to defy the Devil and his host, the objectors, the princes and bishops, since they were all foolish enough to forbid the clergy to marry. And I would with willing heart create an even greater scandal, if I knew of anything else better calculated to please God and to put them in a rage.」
I give few comments. I let the Reformer speak for himself. I shall not give any details of the way he behaved after he was married. But surely Luther's attitude in his writings and his personal behaviour towards women and marriage are rarely found even in the most depraved men, never in any human being who pretended to lead anything like a Christian life—not to speak of a 「reformer」.
The results of this teaching in Luther's own times were obvious. As Heinrich Heine said, German history at that time was, thanks to Luther's example, almost entirely composed of sensual disturbances. Looking at the devastated state of Germany, one of Luther's contemporaries spoke the truth when he shouted at the Reformer: 「This is due to your carnal teaching and stinking example.」 To enumerate or give a clear picture of the abhorrent state of affairs of the morals in Germany, would take pages and volumes. The important factor is that "「Luther not merely robbed marriage of its sacramental character, but also declared it to be a purely outward carnal union, which has nothing whatsoever to do with religion and church」 (Janssen: 「History of the German People」, vol.16, page 137).
This view has prevailed in Germany ever since. As I have already said, to my mind Christianity has to be taken in its entirety. By denying and negativing one of the most important aspects of Christian ethics, Luther paved the way for a new religion, which to the everlasting confusion of the development of mankind still called itself 「Christianity」, but not only had it nothing to do with Christianity but it was indeed contrary to its teaching and practice in respect of one of its most fundamental principles. This is why I am investigating these points, which may appear petty, unimportant, and slanderous. I cannot repeat it often enough. Christianity, if ever it should work, cannot be applied in convenient bits and pieces—such as going to Church and Holy Communion. It is a total code of life and morals, thought, and action. Nothing is 「important」 or 「less important」. Either we lead, or try to lead a thoroughly Christian life—or we quite frankly admit that we are not interested in Christianity. Luther's views on sin, temperance, sex, are not small and minor points; with his attitude to these, he cannot claim to be a Christian, much less a Christian reformer. However contradictory, however lovely some of the things he wrote and thought, said and sung—he cannot get away from the quotations (which are by no means isolated) I have given. He abandoned Christianity, and gave something new. A new religion, which was taken up by his fellow-countrymen. But before we come to a definite conclusion on the question whether Luther, in his own life and actions, could claim to be a Christian, let us end our investigation of Luther's character by trying to see which attitude the Reformer took towards one of the most fundamental commands of Christian ethics, that to be truthful and honest. |
|
狗仔卡
提升卡
置頂卡
沉默卡
喧囂卡
變色卡
搶沙發
樓主
