In 1505 Martin Luther joined the Black Cloister of the Observant Augustinians, a strict Catholic monastic order in Erfurt, Thuringia, part of modern-day Germany. He was encouraged to pursue a doctorate in theology at the University of Wittenberg where he continued his complex navigation of Christian concepts of salvation. It is during these years of study and teaching that Luther formed the foundation for his later reformist ideas of the priesthood of all believers and salvation by faith alone rather than through good works. According to lore and legend, Luther was moved to action in October 1517 upon hearing that Johan Tetzel, a Dominican friar, was in Wittenberg selling indulgences that offered remission of sin—even for souls in purgatory. Pope Leo X had ordered the sale of new plenary indulgences in 1515 as a way to pay for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Luther, who had already begun to question the value of good works for remission of sin and a soul’s salvation, was adamantly opposed to the sale of indulgences for this purpose. He composed his Ninety-five Theses (statements supporting his argument) challenging the Catholic practice of indulgences, questioning the value of good works, and critiquing the wealth and corruption of the church. The Theses were written in Latin and sent to the archbishop in Mainz as a private critique and, according to legend and local tradition, were also posted on the gate to Wittenberg Castle on the day before All Saint’s Day as a public statement. The document was quickly republished and translated into German and the ideas and the conflict with Church authority that they provoked began to spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Over the next three years the ideas of the reform movement began to circulate and both the Catholic Church and Luther prepared for a theological clash. When in 1520 the Pope issued a Papal Bull (the Exsurge domine) warning Luther that he would be excommunicated if he did not recant almost half of the statements in his Theses, Luther made the bold move of publicly burning the notice and explaining in published form why he had done so. In early January of 1521 Luther was excommunicated. By May of that year the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had named the still unrepentant Luther an outlaw. In an elaborately staged fake highway robbery Luther was whisked to safety by Frederick III and protected at Wartburg Castle. Here Luther translated the Bible into German and continued to expound upon his new theology and publish it for the people in German at an astounding rate. It was in these years that the conflict between Luther and the Church exploded into the European event known as the Protestant Reformation.
Scholars have explored a variety of questions about the Reformation but one question that links together several others is how Luther’s ideas were spread. This question ties into several scholarly discussions: whether the Reformation can be considered a print event, who the Reformation was intended to reach, and what role Luther himself played in the propagation of his ideas. The idea of the Reformation as a print event centers around the role of the printing press and its use, particularly by the reformers, to spread the message. Those who advocate the “Reformation by print alone” position suggest that without print propaganda, the Reformation would not have grown as quickly as it did. Those who argue against this position claim that the literacy rate of the sixteenth century was still quite low and most people received their messages through art, woodprints, songs, sermons, and other forms of oral and visual transmission rather than printed text. They warn readers too that the message Luther intended in his printed text might not have been what readers received from it. Thus we cannot fully attribute the spread of his ideas to the spread of his texts. Closely connected to this conversation is the related debate over the nature, transmission, reception, and appeal of the Reformation among the common man. Many here say Reformation ideas only appealed to the small portion of society that was literate and that the masses were generally indifferent. But others point to Luther’s intentional use of German to widen the appeal and transmission of his work and to the use of other types of propaganda methods including popular songs and printed images that explained his ideas in visual form, many of them created by his friend and fellow reformer, artist Lucas Cranach. This question of how Luther’s ideas were spread also brings into the discussion a third historiographical debate over the role that Luther himself played in the propagation of his own ideas. While many have seen Luther as a master propagandist and a prolific publicist of reform ideas, others have attributed more influence to lesser-known reformers who carried his message and adapted it throughout Europe. The primary sources in this section will provide an introduction to the basic ideas of Lutheran doctrine and the remainder of the collection will consider how these ideas were spread by means of the printing press, vernacular, imagery, songs, and individual reformers.
Primary Sources
Martin Luther, Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz (1517)
Albert of Brandenberg, born to a noble family, was given the position of Archbishop of Mainz at the age of 24 and became cardinal at age 28. The archbishop had borrowed a large sum of money to gain this position and to rebuild part of the cathedral in Mainz. He began selling indulgences in order to make this money back, with half of the proceeds going to the pope. Martin Luther protested against this sale in a letter in 1517.
May your Highness deign to cast an eye upon one speck of dust, and for the sake of your pontifical clemency to heed my prayer. Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter’s are circulating under your most distinguished name, and as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from them; to wit, the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory; furthermore, that these graces [i.e., the graces conferred in the indulgences] are so great that there is no sin too great to be absolved, even, as they say—though the thing is impossible—if one had violated the Mother of God; again, that a man is free, through these indulgences, from all penalty and guilt.
. . . For this reason I have no longer been able to keep quiet about this matter, for it is by no gift of a bishop that man becomes sure of salvation, since he gains this certainty not even by the “inpoured grace” of God, but the Apostle bids us always “work out our own salvation in fear and trembling,” and Peter says, “the righteous scarcely shall be saved.” Finally, so narrow is the way that leads to life, that the Lord, through the prophets Amos and Zechariah, calls those who shall be saved “brands plucked from the burning,” and everywhere declares the difficulty of salvation. Why, then, do the preachers of pardons, by these false fables and promises, make the people careless and fearless?
- What does Luther write to the Archbishop to complain about?
a. The sale of Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter’s
b. How narrow the path to salvation and life is
c. The carelessness and fearlessness of the people - What does he say people believe about purchasing indulgences?
a. They believe that they have ensured their salvation and that of any souls in purgatory.
b. They believe it will provide them with the impoured grace of God
c. They believe they will be brands plucked from the burning - Why does he say purchasing indulgences is wrong?
a. Bishops cannot assure salvation to man, only God can determine this.
b. Amos and Zechariah have said salvation is so simple that they should not need to pay for it.
c. Because indulgences should be given away to those who have sinned for free.
Martin Luther, Open Letter to the Christian Nobility (1520)
By 1520 Luther’s position was more antagonistic toward the Catholic Church and he had developed his idea of the priesthood of all believers. He wrote this open letter in German, rather than Latin, and challenged the pope’s claim to be the only source for interpretation of scripture.
The Romanists, with great adroitness, have built three walls about them, behind which they have hitherto defended themselves in such wise that no one has been able to reform them; and this has been the cause of terrible corruption throughout all Christendom.
First, when pressed by the temporal power, they have made decrees and said that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the other hand, that the spiritual is above the temporal power. Second, when the attempt is made to reprove them out of the Scriptures, they raise the objection that the interpretation of the Scriptures belongs to no one except the pope. Third, if threatened with a council, they answer with the fable that no one can call a council but the pope. . . .
Against the first wall we will direct our first attack.
It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be called the “spiritual estate”; princes, lords, artisans, and farmers the “temporal estate.” That is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy. Yet no one should be frightened by it; and for this reason—viz., that all Christians are truly of the “spiritual estate,” and there is among them no difference at all but that of office, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, We are all one body, yet every member has its own work, where by it serves every other, all because we have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all alike Christians; for baptism, Gospel and faith alone make us “spiritual” and a Christian people.
But that a pope or a bishop anoints, confers tonsures, ordains, consecrates, or prescribes dress unlike that of the laity, this may make hypocrites and graven images, but it never makes a Christian or “spiritual” man. Through baptism all of us are consecrated to the priesthood,
To make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen were taken captive and set down in a wilderness , and had among them no priest consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they were to agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to charge him with the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as though all bishops and popes had consecrated him. That is why in cases of necessity any one can baptize and give absolution, which would be impossible unless we were all priests.
- What three walls does Luther say the Church has built to prevent critique?
a. They claim the spiritual power of the Church trumps earthly political (temporal) power, that only the Pope can interpret Scripture, and no one can call a council except the Pope therefore no one can critique it.
b. They claim the Pope does not become involved in politics, the Pope does not alter the scripture, and the Pope was chosen by God therefore no one can critique him.
c. They claim that baptism, Gospel , and faith make them a Christian people and therefore no one can critique them. - What are all baptized Christians part of?
a. All Christians are equally part of a spiritual estate (class) of the priesthood of all believers.
b. All Christians are part of the Catholic Church and subject to the Pope
c. All Christians are part of the laity and can be hypocrites until they have been baptized - What can all believers do in case of necessity and why?
a. They could baptize, give absolution, or preach because they all have the same spiritual authority priests do.
b. They can all challenge the Pope’s claim that spiritual power is above temporal power.
c. They can all call for a council of bishops to meet because they are all spiritual equals of the Pope.
Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty with Preface to Pope Leo X (1520)
By 1520 Luther had clarified his doctrine of salvation by faith alone and explored its tenets in his work Concerning Christian Liberty which he sent to Pope Leo X with an open letter encouraging him to ignore Luther’s detractors and free himself from what Luther claimed was the corruption of Rome.
Preface
Is it not true that there is nothing under the vast heavens more corrupt, more pestilential, more hateful, than the Court of Rome? She incomparably surpasses the impiety of the Turks, so that in very truth she, who was formerly the gate of heaven, is now a sort of open mouth of hell, and such a mouth as, under the urgent wrath of God, cannot be blocked up; one course alone being left to us wretched men: to call back and save some few, if we can, from that Roman gulf. . . . Therefore, Leo, my Father, beware of listening to those sirens who make you out to be not simply a man, but partly a god, so that you can command and require whatever you will. It will not happen so, nor will you prevail. You are the servant of servants, and more than any other man, in a most pitiable and perilous position. Let not those men deceive you who pretend that you are lord of the world; who will not allow any one to be a Christian without your authority; who babble of your having power over heaven, hell, and purgatory. These men are your enemies and are seeking your soul to destroy it, as Isaiah says, “My people, they that call thee blessed are themselves deceiving thee.” They are in error who raise you above councils and the universal Church; they are in error who attribute to you alone the right of interpreting Scripture. All these men are seeking to set up their own impieties in the Church under your name, and alas! Satan has gained much through them in the time of your predecessors.
Concerning Christian Liberty:
… But you ask how it can be the fact that faith alone justifies, and affords without works so great a treasure of good things, when so many works, ceremonies, and laws are prescribed to us in the Scriptures? I answer, Before all things bear in mind what I have said: that faith alone without works justifies, sets free, and saves, as I shall show more clearly below. . . .
Now, since these promises of God are words of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace, and are full of universal goodness, the soul, which cleaves to them with a firm faith, is so united to them, nay, thoroughly absorbed by them, that it not only partakes in, but is penetrated and saturated by, all their virtues. For if the touch of Christ was healing, how much more does that most tender spiritual touch, nay, absorption of the word, communicate to the soul all that belongs to the word! In this way therefore the soul, through faith alone, without works, is from the word of God justified, sanctified, endued with truth, peace, and liberty, and filled full with every good thing, and is truly made the child of God, as it is said, “To them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John i. 12). From all this it is easy to understand why faith has such great power, and why no good works, nor even all good works put together, can compare with it, since no work can cleave to the word of God or be in the soul. Faith alone and the word reign in it; and such as is the word, such is the soul made by it, just as iron exposed to fire glows like fire, on account of its union with the fire. It is clear then that to a Christian man his faith suffices for everything, and that he has no need of works for justification.
- How does Luther describe the Church to the Pope?
a. It is corrupt, pestilential, hateful and more impious than the Muslim Turks.
b. It is lord of the world and no one can be Christian without its authority
c. It is the model of holiness, truth, righteousness, liberty, and peace.
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