Learn about the life of Martin Luther and his dispute with the Catholic church. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:04] In the first video we established that Martin Luther, this professor of theology in Wittenberg, this Augustinian monk, had posted his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg — at least this is how the tradition tells the story — that took issue with the way in which the Catholic Church thought about salvation, and specifically took issue with the selling of indulgences.
Dr. Beth Harris: [0:29] Luther was arguing against the sale of indulgences and that kind of monetary transaction for getting into heaven. Tetzel, who was selling indulgences, we quoted in the first video. Here’s another quote, “Won’t you part with even a farthing to buy this letter? It won’t bring you money but rather a divine and immortal soul, whole and secure in the kingdom of heaven.”
Dr. Zucker: [0:52] We have to understand that this exists within this larger scheme and the Church thought that the ultimate aim was a good one, but he sounds like a used car salesman.
Dr. Harris: [1:00] Luther, in one section of the Ninety-Five Theses, says people are going to ask questions that we can’t really answer about what we’re doing with these indulgences, such as, “Why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to buy a church? The former reason would be most just, the latter is most trivial.”
[1:26] So what he is saying is, if the pope has the authority, the treasury of merit of all of the saints that he can distribute, why is he selling them to build the Church? Why doesn’t he just redeem the souls that are in purgatory and send them up to heaven if he has the power to do that?
[1:43] There was a perception that the Church at times was a rather corrupt institution that seemed to be more concerned with power and political issues and worldly issues, and not so concerned with the salvation of souls.
Dr. Zucker: [1:58] Well, the previous pope, Julius II, certainly had that kind of reputation.
Dr. Harris: [2:03] Right, this is a hard thing for us to realize, I think, but [at] this time, the popes claimed not only spiritual power, like they do today, but also political power, and governed these very significant lands known as the Papal States.
Dr. Zucker: [2:17] In some ways, the Pope functioned as the princes of territories in Italy.
Dr. Harris: [2:22] Right. Pope Julius II led armies into battles against other Christians to reclaim territories that were historically part of the Papal States.
Dr. Zucker: [2:31] So this notion of a kind of corruption in Rome is infusing this entire discussion, this entire argument.
Dr. Harris: [2:38] There had been other reformers before Luther who were not successful. For example, we could look to John Wycliffe in the 14th century.
Dr. Zucker: [2:46] In the 1300, this Englishman had set about to translate the Bible into the vernacular, into the common language, into English.
Dr. Harris: [2:56] He organized the translation of the Bible into English. He translated much of it himself.
Dr. Zucker: [3:02] Especially much of the New Testament.
Dr. Harris: [3:04] It was important to him that the Bible be available to people in their common language, that people could read it. If it’s in Latin, essentially, only the priests could read it. This is important for us, because this idea of enabling the reading of the Bible was critical for Luther, and we’ll get to that.
Dr. Zucker: [3:20] Okay, so let’s just step back for a moment and just remember that in western Europe at this time, the vast majority of the population was illiterate, but those that could read would be reading in the vernacular, not Latin.
[3:31] By vernacular, I mean, their common languages, whether it was English or German or French or Italian. It wasn’t Latin. This was a means that the Church could control the word of God.
Dr. Harris: [3:45] It meant that you heard the word of God through the priest. You weren’t able to read it yourself. Wycliffe also attacked the abuses of the Church, the worldliness of the Church.
Dr. Zucker: [3:56] After he died, he was declared a heretic. His body was exhumed. It was burned. His books were burned. He was punished after the fact.
Dr. Harris: [4:05] Another early reformer was John Hus.
Dr. Zucker: [4:08] Now, he was from Bohemia, and he was ultimately burned at the stake.
Dr. Harris: [4:12] In 1415. So this is just a little bit more than 100 years before Luther.
Dr. Zucker: [4:18] Now, those Ninety-Five Theses were posted in Latin, but people translated it without his authorization into German and then used the new technology of the printing press and distributed it widely.
Dr. Harris: [4:31] The printing press had been invented in the mid-15th century. [An] incredibly important invention for the spread of Protestant ideas.
Dr. Zucker: [4:40] Think about what’s happening here. Instead of the distribution network of the Church, you have people acting on their own, outside of that structure, in their own language.
Dr. Harris: [4:51] Luther posts the Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Word gets to the pope. He’s accused of heresy, but he’s gaining support widely. In 1521, he’s called to a large council.
Dr. Zucker: [5:06] This event we call the Diet of Worms, and it was under the auspices of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Dr. Harris: [5:12] This is an unfortunate name.
Zucker: [5:14] [laughs]
Zucker: [5:14] Yes, it is.
Dr. Harris: [5:15] The Diet of Worms.
Dr. Zucker: [5:16] Nobody’s eating worms.
Dr. Harris: [5:18] But a diet is a gathering, a council, and Worms — or “Verms” — is a city in Germany.
Dr. Zucker: [5:24] The new Holy Roman Emperor, who’s, by the way, only a teenager at this time, has summoned Luther. He’s given him an authorization of safe passage. That is, he won’t be arrested on his way and he is to testify at this council.
Dr. Harris: [5:39] Luther is asked if he authored the books. He’s presented with his own books. Luther says, yes, I did.
Dr. Zucker: [5:46] Then he’s asked, do you stand by the ideas in these books?
Dr. Harris: [5:52] Luther says, “Give me a day to think about that.”
Dr. Zucker: [5:54] And that request is granted. He comes back the next day, and by all accounts, gives an eloquent defense of the ideas in the books and does not renounce any of the ideas.
Dr. Harris: [6:05] It’s pretty clear that the lines are drawn. Luther leaves Worms. He’s declared an unrepentant heretic. It’s clear he’s going to be arrested. Possession of his writings is forbidden, and he leaves the city of Worms. Remember, he’s been granted safe passage, so he’s allowed to leave Worms.
Dr. Zucker: [6:24] Now here’s the crucial moment. Will he end up like Hus, that is, burned at the stake, arrested? Will that be the end of his efforts, or will something else happen? Well, something else does happen, and that’s because of political issues.
[6:38] The new emperor of the Holy Roman Empire had gotten that job because of the vote of men in Germany, princes, who are called Electors. One of those Electors, the Elector of Saxony, secretly kidnaps Luther as he leaves the city of Worms, and hides him away in a castle. Where, by the way, Luther immediately gets down to work, writing and translating the New Testament.
[7:03] By the time Luther emerges and returns to public life, the Holy Roman Emperor is involved in other issues and doesn’t pursue his arrest. So Luther is able to do something that Hus, that Wycliffe was not able to do, which is to continue his campaign.
Dr. Harris: [7:20] In a way, the whole Reformation happens because of issues like this. That local rulers, whether they’re monarchs or princes, are tired of ceding so much authority and political power to the pope, and use the opportunity of the Reformation to wrest back some control of their own lands, of their own people.
Dr. Zucker: [7:41] If you think about the power structure in Europe at this time, especially in what will become Germany, you have the local princes, you have the authority of the pope in Rome on the other side of the Alps, but you also have the Holy Roman Emperor.
[7:55] It was very complicated, and everybody was trying to enlarge their own stake. So Martin Luther is at the Diet of Worms, he’s been confronted with his own writings. He’s in a really dangerous situation.
Dr. Harris: [8:09] Luther was going against one of the central doctrines of the Church, and that was that you were justified. That is, that you got to heaven in two ways, according to the Church. One, through God’s forgiveness, through God’s grace. The other, through things that you could do yourself, choices that you could make as a human being through what the Church called good works.
Dr. Zucker: [8:31] By good works we mean, for instance, helping to build Saint Peter’s Basilica.
Dr. Harris: [8:35] Exactly, or donating money to the Church.
Dr. Zucker: [8:38] Or helping the poor, or any of the things that we think, in the modern world, of [as] charitable work.
Dr. Harris: [8:44] Exactly. Luther was deeply disturbed by this idea, because in his own conscience he felt so sinful that nothing he felt that he could do could help him get to heaven. There was not enough good works to do in the world to remove the sin that he felt that he lived with, and that all human beings lived with.
[9:06] If you think about the medieval mind tallying up the sins they’ve committed, and sometimes sins can just be like jealousy or envy, and tallying those against the good works that they’ve done, you can imagine this constant tallying that must have gone on in the medieval conscience.
Dr. Zucker: [9:24] So this is a terrible responsibility on the individual. And so it must have been a tremendous relief when he read carefully the words of Saint Paul.
Dr. Harris: [9:33] Luther read Saint Paul, who said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”
[9:52] Those last words were critical for Luther. That meant to Luther that one is justified, one gets to heaven, through faith alone, not through good works. Salvation was something freely granted by God, and not something that had to be earned by human beings.
Dr. Zucker: [10:09] So faith was a kind of gift that God gave you. That faith was all you needed to get to heaven.
Dr. Harris: [10:16] “Through faith alone” is one of Luther’s central ideas.
Dr. Zucker: [10:20] All of this makes sense in relationship to the “Ninety-five Theses” and to Luther’s concern about indulgences. Because the indulgence is this proposition that good works will hurry the soul to Heaven. That’s precisely what Luther is taking the issue with.
Dr. Harris: [10:37] And with the whole authority of the Church to forgive, to remit sin, and to allow a person into heaven. Luther’s feeling was that the only power to do that was with God.
Dr. Zucker: [10:51] So he looks at his books, and he does not renounce them.
Dr. Harris: [10:54] No. And he eventually returns to Wittenberg and founds the Lutheran Church and sparks many other types of Protestantism that we’ll talk about in the next video.
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