When we get involved in Internet theological discussions, it's all too easy to get personal. We all fail at this. Sometimes it may be the person we're in discussion with is completely unreasonable, if not silly, and thus very difficult to take seriously. I've often stated that there is an unavoidable level of polemic.
With Luther and those writing in the Sixteenth Century (both Catholic and Protestant), using personal attack was a typical tactic. Bellow is a partial list of Luther's "pet" names for his opponents.
Dr. Emser: because he has a goat in his coat-of-arms, at once becomes himself the Leipzig goat.
Johannes Cochlaeus: (cochlea == snail; cochlear = spoon) appears suddenly as Rotzloffel (snotty)
Dr. Eck: Dr. Geek (fool) or Dreck (muck)
The Ritter Schwenckfeld: as Herr von Stenkfeld (stinkfield)
Dr. Usingen: as Dr. Unsingen
Dr.Crotus: as Dr. Krote (toad)
The Franciscan Schatzgeyer : Master Schatzfresser (treasure-eater)
The Franciscan Alveld: as the miller's grey ass that always cries "Ika, Ika"
Duke Heinrich of Brunswick- Wolfenbiittel as Jack Pudding, as sausage-devil, as a cow on a walnut-tree, as a sow twangling on a harp
The Jurists: ignorists, nequists, plank-doctors— for they cure everything with gallows-wood
Dr. N.Buch : a poodle whose coat is crawling and swarming with fleas, his "book" being full, not of printing-errors, but thinking-errors.
Source: Heinrich Boehmer, Luther & the Reformation in the Light of Modern Research (London: G. Bell and Sons, LTD., 1930) pp. 181-182
Boehmer explains:
But the reformer has a very special preference for bringing "her serene highness the white beast," the sow, on to the scene. How the dear creature gorges itself, licks its chops and scrapes in the muck, how it snorts and grunts, how it spends its mild, safe, quiet life snoring away on its " down feather bed," how it laughs through its nose at the piglets— all this he observes very prettily; but for polemical purposes he sometimes teaches the sow special tricks. It appears like a clown now with a lemon in its mouth, now with a string of pearls round its neck, now wearing a coat of mail, now with a spinning-wheel, now with a harp.
Luther the polemical writer cannot therefore be understood at all unless one has a feeling for the humour of the sixteenth century. This humour was not a subtle humour. In Luther's hands it often turns very rudely against his own person, for often enough he mocks at himself unsparingly as " fat Doctor," "lazy stinking carcase," and "sack full of rotten flesh." But in spite of all its wild somersaults it never, in his case, takes the form of obscenity for its own sake as it does with Emser, Cochlaeus and Lemnius. Luther may indeed be cited as a proof that a German can be coarse and vulgar to the point of grossness, without ever becoming wantonly licentious.
With Luther and those writing in the Sixteenth Century (both Catholic and Protestant), using personal attack was a typical tactic. Bellow is a partial list of Luther's "pet" names for his opponents.
Dr. Emser: because he has a goat in his coat-of-arms, at once becomes himself the Leipzig goat.
Johannes Cochlaeus: (cochlea == snail; cochlear = spoon) appears suddenly as Rotzloffel (snotty)
Dr. Eck: Dr. Geek (fool) or Dreck (muck)
The Ritter Schwenckfeld: as Herr von Stenkfeld (stinkfield)
Dr. Usingen: as Dr. Unsingen
Dr.Crotus: as Dr. Krote (toad)
The Franciscan Schatzgeyer : Master Schatzfresser (treasure-eater)
The Franciscan Alveld: as the miller's grey ass that always cries "Ika, Ika"
Duke Heinrich of Brunswick- Wolfenbiittel as Jack Pudding, as sausage-devil, as a cow on a walnut-tree, as a sow twangling on a harp
The Jurists: ignorists, nequists, plank-doctors— for they cure everything with gallows-wood
Dr. N.Buch : a poodle whose coat is crawling and swarming with fleas, his "book" being full, not of printing-errors, but thinking-errors.
Source: Heinrich Boehmer, Luther & the Reformation in the Light of Modern Research (London: G. Bell and Sons, LTD., 1930) pp. 181-182
Boehmer explains:
But the reformer has a very special preference for bringing "her serene highness the white beast," the sow, on to the scene. How the dear creature gorges itself, licks its chops and scrapes in the muck, how it snorts and grunts, how it spends its mild, safe, quiet life snoring away on its " down feather bed," how it laughs through its nose at the piglets— all this he observes very prettily; but for polemical purposes he sometimes teaches the sow special tricks. It appears like a clown now with a lemon in its mouth, now with a string of pearls round its neck, now wearing a coat of mail, now with a spinning-wheel, now with a harp.
Luther the polemical writer cannot therefore be understood at all unless one has a feeling for the humour of the sixteenth century. This humour was not a subtle humour. In Luther's hands it often turns very rudely against his own person, for often enough he mocks at himself unsparingly as " fat Doctor," "lazy stinking carcase," and "sack full of rotten flesh." But in spite of all its wild somersaults it never, in his case, takes the form of obscenity for its own sake as it does with Emser, Cochlaeus and Lemnius. Luther may indeed be cited as a proof that a German can be coarse and vulgar to the point of grossness, without ever becoming wantonly licentious.
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