In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagration raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes, formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.
The precipitancy of his action was the more remarkable because at that time Luther himself was living in a state of keen anxiety concerning the outcome of the great social and religious upheaval.
Seeing that he was looked upon, by both lord and peasant, as the prime instigator of the trouble, he had grave cause to fear for his own safety. About five weeks later, writing from Seeburg, near Mansfeld, after a preaching tour through the rebels’ country, he says: “I, who am also affected by it, for the devil is intent upon my death, know that he is angered because so far he has been unable either by cunning or by force to harm me and is determined to be rid of me even should he be forced to do his worst and set the whole world in an uproar; so that I really believe, and it appears to me, that it is on my account that he does such things in the world in order that God may plague the world. If I reach home safe and sound, I shall, with God’s help, prepare myself for death.”[482]
Whereas he had written not long before, that he was not thinking of marrying because he awaited death, i.e. the death-penalty for heresy,[483] according to his statements after his marriage it was the thought of death which had led him to contract the union; God’s work was unmistakable, God was shaming his adversaries. He repeatedly makes statements to this effect, which we shall gather together with some of his other assertions to form a picture of his mental state then.
In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he writes: “The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and threaten me with death; well, as they are so mad and foolish I shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony] ordained by God.”[484] He is forced, however, to brace himself up in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of the people from him; “to resign favour, honour and followers”[485] caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.