Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther: 1483-1546

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben (in Electoral Saxony) to Hans and Margarita Luther. At the time, in Electoral Saxony, the youngest son inherited, who wasn’t Hans, which didn’t suit him, so he moved (with everybody else) from Eisleben to Mansfeld (still in Electoral Saxony) to seek his fortune, which he found: he found great success as a copper smelter (the Luthers were a mining family, so the leap was perfectly logical), quickly moving up to “owner of several copper smelters”. So the Luthers are well off enough to educate Martin (the smart son). In 1501, he matriculates at the university at Erfurt; he gets his bachelor’s in 1502 and his masters in 1505. The plan was for him to read the law and become a notary, to improve his life and the lives of his (someday) kids.

July 2, 1505: Luther’s out for a stroll by the German village of Stotternheim, when he gets hit by a thunderstorm. He fears for his safety, so he appeals to Saint Anne (patron saint of Miners: the Church has a patron saint for EVERYTHING. Including prostitutes.), saying “Saint Anne, help me, I will become a monk!” This (beseeching saints for help) is a fairly common practice for this era, but most people don’t promise to become a member of the clergy (which tells us that he’s been giving it some thought: it could be that he’s using this moment to throw off his family’s expectations). So, he lives and joins the Augustinian Cloister in Erfurt. His parents are pissed, but there’s no getting people back from the Monks. He says his first mass on May 2, 1507 (meaning he’s been ordained as a priest, making him one of the best and brightest of the monks). So, yeah, rising star.

1510: The papacy finally notices a dispute brewing in the Augustinian order (and the German-speaking lands in general). The Pope decides to bring some representatives from the Augustinian Cloisters to Rome to sort everything out. Luther’s cloister sends two people, and Luther is one (again, he’s a big deal). Luther is stoked: he’s never left Electoral Saxony before, and how he’s going to Rome, where he can reap all the spiritual benefits (shrines, famous churches, etc). Upon arrival, he gets put in a Roman monastery. Luthar’s kinda provincial: He’s never left Saxony, and takes his vows (Chastity, Poverty, Obedience) seriously; He also likes to give Mass, which means he needs to have a confessor, so he gets a new one at the place he’s staying. And his confessor’s ignorance alarms him (said ignorance may not have been THAT extraordinary considering Luther’s intelligence). So he goes to a local Cathedral to get the gear to say Mass (which isn’t much; the cathedrals even have side altars for stuff like that), which he does pretty much every day. Sometimes, there’s another priest (being a cathedral priest, he’s called a Canon) saying Mass on the next alter over. More specifically, he’s saying Endowed Masses (paid-for masses said for a dead guy). And he’s speed-rapping the Mass, which Luther finds incredibly insincere. And he’s leaving out stuff (Luther can tell because it’s in Latin), and putting stuff in (like Latin jokes). Luther is, of course, appalled. So now he’s wondering what’s up here. Meanwhile, he’s visiting all the Spiritual Benefits (shrines, catacombs, etc). He does this for days, and notices a lot of clergy drifting in and out of Rome’s red light district. He concludes that they’re going there to attempt to violate their vows of chastity, which further bothers him. As his trip concludes, he decides to pay a visit to Pilate’s Stairs: legend is that if you go up on your knees and say an “our father” on each stair, you can get a soul out of purgatory. Luther decides to get his Grandpa out of Purgatory (since both his parents are alive).

So he says to himself “Who knows if it is so”, so that’s a serious expression of doubt in the faith of the Church (which isn’t terribly surprising: he’s walked in on the most corrupt incantation of the Christian Church EVER: Pope Leo II, who would eventually excommunicate Luther, had, for his coronation parade, naked girls painted gold on every street corner). So, the Church out of sync with Luther’s vision + Luther’s obsessive personality (he’s looking for a personal path to salvation: aka a way to get god’s Grace) = trouble.

William of Occam—pessimistic view of relationship b.t man and god. Influenced Luther

Johan Von Staupitz—Christian mystic thinker, Luther’s confessor, vicar general of augustinians

Gabriel Biel—influenced Luther Wittenberg—university founded by Frederik the Wise

Scholasticism—tradition Luther was educated in Tischreden—table talk in German. Two of the volumes of Luther’s work are called this. “Sitting around with Luther drinking beer.”

Late-Medieval nominalism When the Reformation was underway, Luther got an empty monastery to live in. He got married, and his wife rented out rooms to students. He’d sit around drinking beer with the student tenants, and they’d write down everything he said

contingences Fredreic the wise, Elector of Saxony—Luther’s prince

Luther himself was not raised in the Humanist tradition (it started Italy and took a while to reach the rest of Europe): he himself was raised in the Scholastic tradition, especially influenced by the nominialists (especially William of Occam and Gabriel Biel). Occam said there was an unbridgeable gap b/t man and god, which confused Luther (whose focus, remember, was finding salvation for himself), though his view of humanity is also pretty dim. At this point, Christian teaching focused on the idea that works (monks’ vows, pilgrimages, fasting, sacraments) merit grace, but Luther disagrees (due to his dim view of humanity: how can flawed works merit grace?). So Luther has some problems: For one, he’s spent too time reading the old testament (so I guess modern American? Protestantism’s over-focus on the Old Testament goes all the way back), so he’s focused on the vengeful god paradigm, which he has trouble relating to. For another problem, Jesus doesn’t really seem to click with him (did he even READ the New Testament?): he’s locked on to a common medieval woodcutting of Christ consigning the souls of the damned to hell, so he perceives Christ as a judge (DAMMIT LUTHER), rather than a Pretty Hip Guy.

Biel was another nominalist who influenced Luther. Unlike Occam (a standard flighty philosopher), Biel was a pastoral priest, with an actual congregation and everything! So he understood that Occam’s message was a really lousy pastoral message to give a congregation (and doesn’t really mesh with the Gospels as written), so he comes up with a better one: “Facienti quod in seest Deus non denegat gratiam”: “If we do what is in us, God will not deny us grace”; Basically a contingency b/t man and god (an idea that also shows up in Islamic and Jewish theology, as well as nature and contract law). Luther, of course, also has a problem with this, both because of his view of human nature and because

of his dislike of contingencies. So his retort is “if we do what is in us, we sin”; he also points a lot of stuff in scripture where God doesn’t play by the rules (meaning that he’s not bound by human contingencies).

So now Luther’s broken with both Occam and Biel, but has no explanation of his own of how you get to heaven (which is pretty bad for a priest). So Luther would go to Johan von Staupitz to confess for HOURS, minutely examining his conscience for the slightest tendency of sin (so he’d spend hours ruminating on the possibility that he might sin). Von Staupitz tries to get Luther to chill a bit (probably at least in part to get the confessions to stop), but he’s stuck in a rut until fate intervenes.

Frederick the Wise’s university at Wittenberg is having growth problems, so he decides to add more faculty. So he asks the Augustinians and Franciscans to each send him three monks. Von Staupitz makes sure Luther gets sent: Luther’s perfect for the job, and getting his Doctorate (mandatory for faculty) will distract Luther from his obsessions (and von Stapitz won’t have to listen to him anymore, since he’ll be in Wittenberg). It takes Professor Luther a year to earn his PHD.

So now he’s lecturing on Psalms, Romans, and Galatians. Sometime before 1315-1316 he has an epiphany on the whole ‘salvation issue’ (for a long time German scholars viewed this as a lightbulb moment, but it was probably slower): He picks up on Romans 1:16-17 “…he who through faith is righteous shall live”, which Luther comes to understand that humans are justified not by their works, but by their faith in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. This idea, ‘Justification by faith’ becomes (and remains) the central tenant of Protestantism. He doesn’t really articulate it until later (and it’s not what gets him in trouble with the Catholics anyway: that’s the 95 Thesis he writes against indulgences). Luther’s stubbornness + Frederick’s support is what fuels the fires and keeps Luther out of the Church’s hands.

Traditional church vs Luther teachings

Traditional: Righteousness Works = Grace

Luther: Faith Grace = righteousness

These are PRETTY obviously not in sync. The traditional position assumes (for some reason; it doesn’t really mesh with the Church’s pessimism) that humankind has innate righteousness, causing them to perform works that merit grace. Luther, on the other hand, assumes that you get grace through faith, and that the grace makes you righteous. This is a really big deal in theology-land. (BTW: Protestants get their name because that’s what the Catholics called ‘em).

1517: Luther Gets In Trouble: the 95 Theses (Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences). [Indulgence—the remission of/for the temporal punishment for sin, granted by the Church and effective before God]. Indulgences came as the result of Pope Urban II (First Crusade Guy)’s actions in the 12th century: He offered an ‘indulgence’ for any knight who joined his crusade (basically, it was an ‘indulgence’ that would forgive them, a priori, for any atrocities they committed during the Crusade). The problem with that was that Urban II had no theological basis for doing that, which left the Church scrambling to figure out how the Pope had that power. They figured it out in the 14th Century:

Pope Clement II announced that he had a basis: the Church is in possession of a ‘reservoir of good works’ because of (1)all the good works done by the saints were so plentiful that they ‘rolled over’ to the Church AND (2) one drop of Christ’s blood was enough to redeem all of mankind, but he shed MORE; the reservoir is Extra Jesus Blood that the Church can use to dispense indulgences. This is BAAAAAD theology.

ConfessionContrition absolution: (eternal penalty temporal penaltypenance)

History bit: before going to Communion, Catholics have to go to Confession. In Luther’s time (and subsequently), you go into a confessional (a booth with a screen b/t you and a priest and a kneeling rail), kneel down, and say ‘bless me father, for I have sinned’, then confess their sins. After that, the priest asks them to make an Act of Contrition (a formulaic prayer of ‘sorry-ness’ for having offended God by sinning). After that the priest grants absolution, which transforms the enteral penalty of Sin into a temporal penalty, which is then fulfilled by acts of penance (which are proportionate to the sins). Indulgences cut off the process at the ‘temporal’ part, meaning that people with indulgences don’t need to commit acts of penance. So it’s basically a free pass. And then the Church decides that it can sell indulgences. And THEN the Church decided you could buy indulgences for dead people, getting them out of Purgatory. Those things lead to Indulgence Preachers, who preached (sold) indulgences. Johan Tetsel, a Dominican Indulgence Preacher who Luther hated, said “when the coin hits the box, the soul springs out of purgatory” (it rhymes in German).

Pope Julius II (the one Erasmus said was going to hell, Michelangelo’s patron) announced a plenary (aka: anybody could buy it) indulgence. Pope Leo X (the naked gold girls pope) renewed it (1505-1521): it was basically a license to sell indulgences in western Europe to finance the restoration of St. Peter’s Basilica. These were getting sold all over, including in the Margrave of Brandenburg (capital, Berlin), a region bordering Electoral Saxony (where Luther is, serving as a Pastoral Priest for the Castle AND a professor). Luther notices his congregation crossing the border to buy Indulgences. So he writes the 95 theses, which he nails to the Church door (which, at the time, were basically a kiosk: if you had an announcement, it went on the door of the Church, making it the perfect place to invite other academics to debate); he’s basically inviting people to an academic disputation. Nobody actually takes him up. THIS is what gets him in trouble in Rome. The Theses have three main lines of argument:

(1) The first is about the ostensible intent to spend the money on St peter’s basilica: “The revenues of all Christendom, are being sucked into this insatiable basilica. The pope would do better to appoint one priest than to a parish than to sell indulgences to all of them. Before long, all the churches, walls, bridges, and roads of Rome will be built out of our [Germans, who, ATM are fed up with the church] money. … [the Pope] would do better to sell St Peter’s and give the money to the poor who are being fleeced by these hawkers of Indulgences.” So he knows his audience (Germans who are fed up with the Catholic Church, due to things like Italian Bishops and Priests who get assigned to Germany and get paid, but never show up for work).

(2) Luther denies the power of the Pope over purgatory (for the remission of Sin or Penalty). That’s denying the Plenitude of Papal Power. That will ALWAYS get you noticed, and he’s doing stuff on top of

that. He’s like ‘absolution exists and it’s FREE, and THAT’S what you’re supposed to do’. “Papal indulgences do not remove guilt. Beware of those who say that indulgences affect reconciliation with god.” So, yeah, he skewers the Bad Theology underpinning indulgences.

(3) Beyond arguing that indulgences don’t remit sin, he argues that they “impede salvation by [preventing] charity and granting a false sense of security.” So, he’s basically arguing that people who THINK they’re cleared by indulgences are going to go to hell because they didn’t clear their sins. The line reduces to ‘people who buy indulgences THINK they’re buying a “stairway to heaven”, but they’re actually buying a “highway to hell”. That was the professor’s joke, not mine.

So Luther gets excommunicated (thus making him an Outlaw, who should be turned over to the Church) by Leo X in 1520 (it takes effect in 1521), by Papal Bull (decree): Decet romanem pontificitem “Thus Speaks the Roman Pontiff”. Luther is typically defiant: “as for me, the die is cast.” He gets summoned to appear before the Diet of Worms (and the Holy Roman Emperor) in 1521 to recant his writings and teachings. He refuses (causing a huge uproar). The Holy Roman Emperor at the time (Charles V) refuses to act against Luther, since the Pope opposed his candidacy for Emperor. Everything devolves into chaos, and Charles V, not really understanding what’s going on, walks out. So Luther, who thought he was doomed to a Jan Hus-style burning at the stake, gets on his horse and leaves… and gets kidnapped on the road… By goons of Frederic the Wise, who hides him in one of his castles to keep him out of the hands of the Church. Why? While Frederic the Wise lived and died Catholic, he had two reasons to keep Luther safe: Firstly, he didn’t think Luther’s teachings were in error. His second reason is more political: he’s a German prince, and therefore jealous of his power over Electoral Saxony (the German princes have been at odds with the Emperor and Church as long as there’s been a Holy Roman Empire), so he keeps him around since he’s trouble for both the Emperor and the Church, thusly keeping them out of his business. So he makes DAMN sure nobody gets their hands on Luther; which, ironically, means he facilitated the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in Germany: since the Church couldn’t get to Luther, they couldn’t shut him up. So the Reformation gets its start here (and in Sweden, with Zwingli, Luther’s civic reformer contemporary (2 months younger than Luther)). So, yeah, this kicks off 100 years of religious war, ending with the devastation of the Thirty Years War. To put that war in perspective, a German magazine took a poll in the ‘60’s asking what the most devastating war in the history of Germany was. They said the Thirty Years War. Yeah.