The Roman Monster by Buck Lawrence P. Melanchthon Philipp

Author:Buck, Lawrence P.,Melanchthon, Philipp [Lawrence P. Buck]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / History; RELIGION / Christian Church / History
ISBN: 9781612481074
Publisher: TrumanStateUP
Published: 2014-03-14T05:00:00+00:00

[Coerced] Chastity100

Luther’s attitude towards “secret sins” reveals his judgment that sexuality is an essential part of human nature, which cannot be denied or successfully repressed. Confession should, therefore, be made only regarding those secret sins “which involve full consent to the deed.”101 Luther condemns clerical celibacy, which he characterizes as all but impossible: “For human frailty does not {128} permit a man to live chastely, but only the strength of angels and the power of heaven.”102 He charges that the pope, through his “intolerable and destructive law of celibacy for all priests . . . causes them of necessity to fornicate.”103 The pope forces his priests to do the impossible and then “permits their fornication with impunity whereby he has increased fornication and sodomy and filled the world with these sins.”104

Though Luther views clerical celibacy as self-defeating, he nevertheless calls for a chaste lifestyle for all believers. He insists that “gluttony, drunkenness, lying late abed, loafing, and being without work” are all vices by which chastity is quickly overcome.105 He wants brothels closed106 and he condemns the sale of obscene pilgrim badges: “What is it that they [the Romanists] sell? Vulvas and genitals . . . , the pudenda of both sexes, or (as the Scriptures say) ‘shame and nakedness.’”107 He also calls for reform of laws relating to adultery among relatives. If a man had relations with a sister-in-law or someone else related to him with any degree of consanguinity, he was no longer allowed to have sexual relations with his wife, but he was also not allowed to leave his wife’s bed: “they [the clergy] put a man into the lap of a naked woman and forbid him to touch her or to know her.”108 The reformers’ attitude on chastity might best be described as strict morality tempered with common sense.

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