10
November 1483. Mr.
(Rev. Dr. Prof.) Martin Luther was born.
10
November Martin Luther
Martin
Luther had a small head-start on Tyndale, as Luther declared his
intolerance for the Roman Church’s corruption on Halloween in 1517, by
nailing his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Church door. Luther, who
would be exiled in the months following the Diet of Worms Council in 1521
that was designed to martyr him, would translate the New Testament into German
for the first time from the 1516 Greek-Latin New Testament of Erasmus, and
publish it in September of 1522. Luther also published a German
Pentateuch in 1523, and another edition of the
German New Testament in 1529. In the 1530’s he would go
on to publish the entire Bible in German.
Martin Luther (November 10,
1483 - February 18, 1546) was a Christian theologian and Augustinian monk whose
teachings inspired the Protestant Reformation and deeply influenced the
doctrines of Protestant and other Christian traditions. Martin Luther was born
to Hans and Margaretha Luder on 10 November 1483 in Eisleben, Germany and was
baptised the next day on the feast of St. Martin of Tours, after whom he was
named. Luther’s call to the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible
resulted in the formation of new traditions within Christianity and the
Counter-Reformation in the Roman Catholic Church, culminating at the Council of
Trent.
His translation of the
Bible also helped to develop a standard version of the German language and
added several principles to the art of translation. Luther's hymns sparked the
development of congregational singing in Christianity. His marriage, on June
13, 1525, to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, began the tradition of clerical
marriage within several Christian traditions.
Martin Luther's early
life
Martin Luther’s father
owned a copper mine in nearby Mansfeld. Having risen from the peasantry, his
father was determined to see his son ascend to civil service and bring further
honor to the family. To that end, Hans sent young Martin to schools in Mansfeld,
Magdeburg and Eisenach. At the age of seventeen in 1501 he entered the
University of Erfurt. The young student received his Bachelor's degree after
just one year in 1502! Three years later, in 1505, he received a Master's
degree. According to his father's wishes, Martin enrolled in the law school of
that university. All that changed during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1505.
A lightening bolt struck near to him as he was returning to school. Terrified,
he cried out, "Help, St. Anne! I'll become a monk!" Spared of his
life, but regretting his words, Luther kept his bargain, dropped out of law
school and entered the monastery there.
Luther's struggle to
find peace with God
Young Brother Martin fully
dedicated himself to monastic life, the effort to do good works to please God
and to serve others through prayer for their souls. Yet peace with God escaped
him. He devoted himself to fasts, flagellations, long hours in prayer and
pilgrimages, and constant confession. The more he tried to do for God, it
seemed, the more aware he became of his sinfulness.
Johann von Staupitz,
Luther's superior, concluded the young man needed more work to distract him
from pondering himself. He ordered the monk to pursue an academic career. In
1507 Luther was ordained to the priesthood. In 1508 he began teaching theology
at the University of Wittenberg. Luther earned his Bachelor's degree in
Biblical Studies on 9 March 1508 and a Bachelor's degree in the Sentences by
Peter Lombard, (the main textbook of theology in the Middle Ages) in 1509. On
19 October 1512, the University of Wittenberg conferred upon Martin Luther the
degree of Doctor of Theology.
Martin Luther’s
Evangelical Discovery
The demands of study for
academic degrees and preparation for delivering lectures drove Martin Luther to
study the Scriptures in depth. Luther immersed himself in the teachings of the
Scripture and the early church. Slowly, terms like penance and
righteousness took on new meaning. The controversy that broke loose with
the publication of his 95 Theses placed even more pressure on the reformer to
study the Bible. This study convinced him that the Church had lost sight of
several central truths. To Luther, the most important of these was the doctrine
that brought him peace with God.
With joy, Luther now believed
and taught that salvation is a gift of God's grace, received by faith and trust
in God's promise to forgive sins for the sake of Christ's death on the cross.
This, he believed was God's work from beginning to end.
Luther’s 95 Theses
On Halloween of 1517,
Luther changed the course of human history when he nailed his 95 Theses to the
church door at Wittenberg, accusing the Roman Catholic church of heresy upon
heresy. Many people cite this act as the primary starting point of the
Protestant Reformation… though to be sure, John
Wycliffe, John
Hus, Thomas
Linacre, John
Colet, and others had already put the life’s work and even their lives
on the line for same cause of truth, constructing the foundation of Reform upon
which Luther now built. Luther's action was in great part a response to the
selling of indulgences by Johann Tetzel, a Dominican priest. Luther's charges
also directly challenged the position of the clergy in regard to individual
salvation. Before long, Luther’s 95 Theses of Contention had been copied and
published all over Europe.
Here I Stand
Luther's Protestant views
were condemned as heretical by Pope Leo X in the bull Exsurge Domine in 1520.
Consequently Luther was summoned to either renounce or reaffirm them at the
Diet of Worms on 17 April 1521. When he appeared before the assembly, Johann
von Eck, by then assistant to the Archbishop of Trier, acted as spokesman for
Emperor Charles the Fifth. He presented Luther with a table filled with copies
of his writings. Eck asked Luther if he still believed what these works taught.
He requested time to think about his answer. Granted an extension, Luther
prayed, consulted with friends and mediators and presented himself before the
Diet the next day.
When the counselor put the
same question to Luther the next day, the reformer apologized for the harsh
tone of many of his writings, but said that he could not reject the majority of
them or the teachings in them. Luther respectfully but boldly stated, "Unless
I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and
arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do
anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.
Amen."
On May 25, the Emperor
issued his Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.
Luther in Exile at
the Wartburg Castle
Luther had powerful friends
among the princes of Germany, one of whom was his own prince, Frederick the
Wise, Elector of Saxony. The prince arranged for Luther to be seized on his way
from the Diet by a company of masked horsemen, who carried him to the castle of
the Wartburg, where he was kept about a year. He grew a wide flaring beard;
took on the garb of a knight and assumed the pseudonym Jörg. During this period
of forced sojourn in the world, Luther was still hard at work upon his
celebrated translation of the Bible, though he couldn't rely on the isolation
of a monastery. During his translation, Luther would make forays into the
nearby towns and markets to listen to people speak, so that he could put his
translation of the Bible into the language of the people.
Although his stay at the
Wartburg kept Luther hidden from public view, Luther often received letters
from his friends and allies, asking for his views and advice. For example,
Luther’s closest friend, Philipp Melanchthon, wrote to him and asked how to
answer the charge that the reformers neglected pilgrimages, fasts and other
traditional forms of piety. Luther's replied: "If you are a preacher of
mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you
must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who
are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let
your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over
sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life
is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13)
are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign."
[Letter 99.13, To Philipp Melanchthon, 1 August 1521.]
Martin Luther's
German Bible
Martin Luther was the first
person to translate and publish the Bible in the commonly-spoken dialect of the
German people. He used the recent 1516 critical Greek edition of Erasmus, a text
which was later called textus receptus. The Luther German New Testament
translation was first published in September of 1522. The translation of the
Old Testament followed, yielding an entire German language Bible in 1534.
Luther is also know to have
befriended William
Tyndale, and given him safe haven and assistance in using the same 1516
Erasmus Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament that had been the source text for
his German New Testament of 1522, as the trustworthy source text for Tyndale’s
English New Testament of 1525-26.
Luther's Writings
The number of books
attributed to Martin Luther is quite impressive. However, some Luther scholars
contend that many of the works were at least drafted by some of his good friends
like Philipp Melanchthon. Luther’s books explain the settings of the epistles
and show the conformity of the books of the Bible to each other. Of special
note would be his writings about the Epistle to the Galatians in which he
compares himself to the Apostle Paul in his defense of the Gospel. Luther also
wrote about church administration and wrote much about the Christian home.
Luther's work contains a
number of statements that modern readers would consider rather crude. For
example, Luther was known to advise people that they should literally “Tell
the Devil he may kiss my ass.” It should be remembered that Luther received
many communications from throughout Europe from people who could write
anonymously, that is, without the specter of mass media making their
communications known. No public figure today could write in the manner of the
correspondences Luther received or in the way Luther responded to them. Luther
was certainly a theologian of the middle-ages. He was an earthy man who enjoyed
his beer, and was bold and often totally without tact in the blunt truth he
vehemently preached. While this offended many, it endeared him all the more to
others.
He was open with his
frustrations and emotions, as well. Once, when asked if he truly loved God,
Luther replied “Love God? Sometimes I hate Him!” Luther was also
frustrated by the works-emphasis of the book of James, calling it “the Epistle
of Straw, and questioning its canonicity. Also irritated with the complex
symbolism of the Book of Revelation, he once said that it too, was not canon,
and that it should be thrown into the river! He later retracted these
statements, of course. Luther was a man who was easily misquoted or taken out
of context. While a brilliant theologian, and a bold reformer, he would not
have made a good politician. But then, he never aspired to any career in
politics.
Martin Luther and
Judaism
Luther initially preached
tolerance towards the Jewish people, convinced that the reason they had never
converted to Christianity was that they were discriminated against, or had
never heard the Gospel of Christ. However, after his overtures to Jews failed
to convince Jewish people to adopt Christianity, he began preaching that the
Jews were set in evil, anti-Christian ways, and needed to be expelled from
German politics. In his On the Jews and Their Lies, he repeatedly quotes
the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:34, where Jesus called them "a brood of
vipers and children of the devil"
Luther was zealous toward
the Gospel, and he wanted to protect the people of his homeland from the Jews
who he believed would be harmful influences since they did not recognize Jesus
as their Saviour. In Luther's time, parents had a right and a duty to direct
their children's marriage choices in respect to matters of faith. Likewise,
Luther felt a duty to direct his German people to cling to the Jesus the Jews
did not accept. It should be noted that church law was superior to civil law in
Luther's day and that law said the penalty of blasphemy was death. When Luther
called for the deaths of certain Jews, he was merely asking that the laws that
were applied to all other Germans also be applied to the Jews. The Jews were
exempt from the church laws that Christians were bound by, most notably the law
against charging interest.
Martin Luther's Death
Martin Luther escaped
martyrdom, and died of natural causes. His last written words were, "Know
that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has
governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and
Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles... We are beggars: this is
true."
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