Martin Luther 1483-1546

"Magisterial Reformer"; Magisterial: "Master, teacher"

1515, Johann Tetzel was preaching an indulgence in Germany, designed to raise money to rebuild St. Peter's.

October, 1517, Luther posted 95 theses against indulgences on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.

1519, Luther was drawn to deny the authority of church councils; then Luther was drawn to deny the authority of popes.

1520, Luther published three great treatises.

Address to the German Nobility: Luther called upon noblemen to reform the church in their territories:

• Abolish payments to Rome
• Ban clerical celibacy
• End masses for the dead
• Put an end to pilgrimages
• Put an end to religious orders

On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520)

opposed Transubstantiation (how the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist of Catholic Church), taking the consecrating role of the priest

On the Freedom of a Christian Man (1520)

Salvation depended on faith and grace.

June, 1520, Rome condemned 41 of Luther's theses.

1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.

In Imperial Diet (assembly)in Worms in 1521, Luther refused to recant, "here I stand, I cannot do otherwise".

Then he got protected by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony.

1522, intervened in Wittenberg to control what he saw as the damage that persons much more radical than himself were causing.

1529, Colloquy of Marburg, made overtures to Rome. Although in vain, but Luther slammed the back door against the Swiss reform.

1524, Luther married a former Cistercian nun, Catherine von Bora; Provided support for the destruction of the German peasants.

He translated the Bible to German. He also wrote theological treatises, biblical commentaries, polemical works, poetries and hymns, laying down basic doctrines of Protestantism.

Protestant, "They protest"

The Three "Onlys"

1. Salvation is "by faith alone" (sola fide), faith is a free, mysterious and unmerited (unearned) gift of God.
2. Salvation depends on "grace alone" (sola gratia), the grace of God that makes man just in God's eyes is a free gift wholly independent of human actions. Grace was made available once and for all in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Grace is not something continuously over the course of one's life earned by good works.
3. The "Bible alone" (sola scriptura) teaches what many need to know, and it is the single source of authority in matters of religion.

Free will, the nature of humanity and the nature of the relationship between man and the deity are at stake in this debate

• From the perspective of Catholicism, humans had been endowed with free will that in this will, they could call upon God's aid and in doing so earn merit in God's eye, and then be supplied with divine grace to accomplish what they have been seeing.
• From the perspective of Luther and other reformers, man is in the first place too burdened by sin, too flawed in character to be able to have the capacity to call upon God. God's aid and assistance therefore is a free gift and not one for which people can take credit, and not one which any human actions will bring.

Luther's teachings were not new, but he presented for the first time in somewhat favorable circumstances a more comprehensive alternative to Catholicism. He prepared crucial texts in German and the new printing technology helped him. He was a gifted and powerful writer protected politically by the Elector of Saxony.

Christianity had been riven down the middle since then.