Luther

Martin, a noted German religious reformer. He was born at Eisleben, Saxony, November 10, 1483. He died at the same place February 18, 1546. His father, Hans Luther, was a slate cutter in humble circumstances. Martin showed so much aptitude for learning that his father determined to make him a lawyer and managed to send him to a school at Eisenach. Martin had a fine tenor voice and gentle manners. After the fashion of the time, he, with other poor scholars, sang under the windows of the wealthy for alms. He studied Latin, Greek, and philosophy at the University of Erfurt, taking his master's degree in 1505. The cathedral preacher, Dr. Weinmann, gave him a love for the study of the Scriptures.

Various circumstances, including, no doubt, his personal inclinations, led Luther, to his father's despair, to give up the study of law and become a monk. He entered the Augustinian Convent of Erfurt in 1505, taking with him his Plautus and his Virgil. Here he secured for the first time a complete edition of the Bible. In 1508, at the suggestion of his superiors, he was appointed professor in the University of Wittenberg, then an institution but five years old. He lectured first on Aristotle. In 1509 he gave lectures on the Bible. His class room was thronged with students. In 1511 he made a trip to Rome, and on his return was made a doctor of divinity. He continued to expound the Scriptures, which, it should be remembered, were at this time little known outside of monastic circles. He appears to have made numerous short tours, preaching in the various churches in Thuringia.

In 1515 John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, passed through Saxony, selling indulgences. Luther was much stirred up. He wrote to the various princes, urging that permission be refused Tetzel. When the latter reached the vicinity of Wittenberg, Luther drew up ninety-five objections, statements, or theses, denouncing indulgences, and on Hallowe'en, October 31st, nailed the paper to the door of the castle church where clergy, citizens, and students might read. The indulgences were pardons for trifling sins. They were sold by an express authorization of the archbishop of Mainz, in imitation of former sales of the same. Luther's course was one of open defiance and rebellion, not so much against the church as against an eminent authority. Whatever view be taken of Luther's theology, the act was a bold one. Copies of his theses were multiplied and spread abroad.

It does not appear as yet, however, that he contemplated secession from the church. He was still an Augustinian monk and a professor in a Catholic university. He preached in various cities of Germany, defending his theses. He was soon, however, accused of heresy, and commanded to appear before the pope at Rome. The elector of Saxony, a patron of the university, arranged, however, for Luther's appearance before the papal legate at Augsburg instead. The interview was not satisfactory. The cardinal wrote, "I can dispute no longer with this beast. It has two wicked eyes and marvelous thoughts in its head." Luther stole away, fearing arrest. Later Luther met a more conciliatory representative of the pope, and wrote the Holy Father a letter in which he "freely confessed that the authority of the church was superior to everything, and that nothing in heaven nor earth can be preferred before it, save only Jesus Christ, who is the lord of all."

It was understood that the question of the indulgences should be dropped on both sides. John Eck, however, an old antagonist of Luther, published thirty theses attacking him. This led, in 1519, to a public disputation at Leipsic between Eck and Luther. Eck accused Luther of arguments and a course of conduct similar to those of Wyclif and Huss. Luther replied with much heat. At this time it became apparent to both parties that a serious controversy was at hand. The papal college at Rome felt that it would be necessary to put down Luther and his sympathizers with a strong hand; while north of the Alps the sentiment was, "Germany for the Germans." Zwingli, a Swiss reformer in sympathy with Luther's doctrines, raised the cry, "Why should 300,000 florins be sent every year from Germany to Rome?" As a matter of fact, the controversy took on in part the form of a struggle between the Italian and the German branches of the church.

June 15, 1520, the pope published a bull at Rome excommunicating Luther. Luther answered with a pamphlet in which he called the pope Anti-Christ. December 10th of the same year, he headed a procession of professors and students and passed out of the Wittenberg city gate to an open place where he laid a copy of the bull on a bonfire. An assistant professor threw copies of the rules of the church into the same fire. Public proclamation was made that the University of Wittenberg had broken away from the Church of Rome. The example was followed in many parts of Germany. The pope appealed to the emperor, Charles V, to suppress the heresy. The latter summoned Luther to appear before a diet to be held in the city of Worms, giving him a safe conduct for that purpose. Luther's friends urged him not to go to Worms, fearing that he might suffer the fate experienced by Huss and Jerome at Constance 100 years earlier. The Parliament of the empire met in January, 1521. The Italian legate suggested that Luther be condemned unheard, as one already under sentence by the pope's bull of excommunication. In return the German princes presented a list of 100 grievances of the German nation against Rome, thus exposing the national character of the controversy.

April 16th, Luther was brought before the Diet. His books and writings were piled up on a table before him. He was asked whether the writings were his, and, if so, whether he would retract them. Instead of retracting, he made a long speech declaring it a matter of conscience not to take back what he believed. He was permitted to retire. The Diet pronounced an edict of condemnation, which meant that as soon as his safe conduct expired, he would be an outlaw. On his way homeward through a vale in the vicinity of Eisenach, he was seized by a party of horsemen with an apparent show of violence. They were really his friends in disguise, sent by the Elector of Saxony. They conducted him to the Wartburg, a fortress on a high hill overlooking Eisenach. Here he was concealed for ten months. His room, writing table, inkstand, and other personal belongings are still shown.

Here he began the translation of the Scriptures from Hebrew, Latin, and Greek into German. The New Testament appeared September 21, 1522. We may anticipate a little by saying that the Old Testament appeared a few years later. Luther stated from the first that the translation must be couched in the homely language of the German people, so as to be understood by the mother, the children, and the goodman of the house. "We are laboring hard," wrote he, "to bring out the prophets in the mother tongue. Ach, Gott! what a great and difficult work it is to make the Hebrew writers speak German. They resist it so, and are unwilling to give up their Hebrew existence and become like Germans." The language used by Luther in his German Bible has become the literary language of Germany. Other forms of German have become dialects.

In the spring of 1522 Luther resumed his chair at Wittenberg. A diet held at Nuremberg in the same year reversed the Edict of the Diet of Worms. Events moved on rapidly. Rioting arose in various parts of the empire. A peasants' war broke out. Southern Germany decided to adhere to the Roman Church. The Reformation was crushed out in Austria-Hungary and Bavaria. Luther's later life was devoted to preaching and writing. In 1522 alone, he issued, it is said, 130 treatises and eighty-three in the year later. In fact, though not in name, he became a sort of pope for north Germany. He issued catechisms, directions for public and private worship, a church hymn book, directions for baptism, the communion, marriage, and other sacraments. The peasantry were illiterate and miserable beyond all description. They had been subjected to the extortion of princes and petty lords for centuries. He issued addresses and made personal appeals to the citizens and princes everywhere to provide schools for the children of the common people. He prepared a popular edition of Aesop's Fables for school use.

Luther was fond of music and was a poet of no mean order. Ein Feste Burg and Aus Tiefer Noth are found in all standard collections of German hymns. In 1525 Luther married Katharina von Bora, a nun who had left a cloister as he had left a monastery. As the vows of a priest and monk, as well as those of a nun, pledge the taker to remain unmarried through life, he has been criticized severely by his opponents for this act.

At Luther's death his remains were brought to Wittenberg, where they now rest beneath a brazen slab in the old Castle Church. The wooden doors of the church were burned in 1760. In 1858 Frederick William IV replaced them with bronze doors, ten feet high, bearing the text of the ninety-five theses. The house in which Luther lived was converted into a Luther Museum in 1883. The spot where the bull of excommunication was burned is still pointed out. A statue of Luther under a Gothic canopy bears the inscription: "Ist's Gottes Werk, so wird's bestehen; ist's Menschen Werk, wird's untergehen." If it be God's work, it will endure; if it be man's work, it will perish.

See Germany; Wittenberg; Melanchthon; Zwingli; Wartburg