declared that he would live and die a bachelor.  Besides, Ave had now been happily married to another.  At this juncture the influence of another woman enters into the private life of Luther.  Argula von Staufen, a noblewoman who had been won over to the cause of the Reformation and was actively engaged in breaking down the power of the hierarchy even by her pen, wrote to Luther, expressing her surprise that he who had written so ably and so well on the holy estate of matrimony was still single.  Among the peasants, too, the question was being debated whether Luther would follow up his preaching with the logical action.  Luther was ruminating on these matters when the Peasants’ Revolt broke out, and with them in his mind went to Mansfeld.  He soon reached the conclusion that he owed it to his profession as a preacher of the divine Word, to his Creator, to himself, and to the lonely Catherine to marry.  He foresaw that the celibate clergy of Rome would raise a hue and cry about the act, but he considered it a noble work to offend these men, because they had by their law of celibacy offended the most holy God.  He would marry to spite all of them, and the Pope, and the devil.  This resolution was promptly carried out, for Luther was not in the habit of dallying long with serious matters.  If he had asked his timid friend Melanchthon, he would most likely have been advised against his marriage.  Faint-hearted Philip was not the man to advise in a matter which at the time required a heroic faith.  Philip, therefore, was duly shocked when he heard about it.  His consternation is now used by Catholics to prove that he regarded Luther’s marriage as a wanton act prompted by lust.  This is utterly unhistorical:  Philip was only afraid of the wild talk that would now be started against all of them.  On the right and duty of the clergy to marry he believed with Luther.

And now a word about the chastity of Rome, particularly that peculiar brand which was inaugurated by Gregory VII for the Roman clergy and the religious of both sexes, and riveted upon them by the Council of Trent-the chastity of the celibate state.  That the unnatural principle had never worked out toward true chastity, that the robbery which it has perpetrated on men and women had to be compensated for by connivance at, and open permission of, concubinage, is a matter of current knowledge.  Luther’s advice to priests and bishops who had opened their hearts to him on the state of their chastity to marry their cooks, even if they had to do it secretly; rather than maintain the other relation to them, was a good man’s effort to meet a grave difficulty as best he could.  This advice is now used to show that Luther was ready to approve any kind of cohabitation.  The very opposite is true:  it was because he did not approve of any kind of sexual intercourse, but because he desired to obtain some kind of a legal character for that relation, that he gave the advice to which we have referred.