Martin Luther: Lecture Outline

European World: Martin Luther- Lecture Outline

Part 1: biographical outline

1. Luther (1483-1546), born in Saxony, son of a miner of prosperous, ambitious peasant stock. Intended for the law, and educated at Erfurt University, but after a brush with death in 1505 entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt and dedicated his life to religion. A zealous (obsessive) monk, obsessed with fears of damnation. Professor of theology at the new Univ. of Wittenberg from 1511. His biblical studies (lecture preparation) led him to a ‘new’ theology of salvation by faith alone. His aim, initially, was not to break with the church but to set it back on the right course.

2. The clash with Rome. Promoted by indulgences- the practice by which the church wiped out sins in return for some notable religious action (e.g. going on crusade) or, by Luther’s time, going on a pilgrimage. Luther objected to this as deceiving the gullible and endangering their souls. In 1516 he attacked the indulgences for pilgrims to the collection of holy relics (nearly 20,000) amassed by his own prince, the Elector Frederick of Saxony, held to be worth 1,902,202 years off time in purgatory. In 1517 attacked indulgences sold by Tetzel for the archbp of Mainz and the pope, and drew up the ‘95 Theses’ which became public and aroused huge controversy. A cardinal sent by Rome met Luther at the Diet of Augsburg 1518: Luther polite but firm. 1521 Diet of Worms: Emperor Charles V confronted Luther, with the same outcome. Now condemned as a heretic, he was soon condemning the pope as antichrist. L’s career thereafter was part of the Reformation story: Lecture 2.

Part 2: Luther’s beliefs

1. Religious: central concern with salvation. Rejects Catholic teaching of salvation through the sacraments and good works, and stresses salvation by faith alone, given freely by God to those who will be saved, the ‘elect’. Sin no longer condemns mankind to hell or purgatory (purgatory is rejected as unscriptural). Luther’s teaching gives no role to human effort, and ultimately implies predestination (an omnipotent, omniscient God has always known whom he would save), but Luther saw his ‘discovery’ as liberating, and many others saw it in the same light: freedom from purgatory and fear of the weight of sin.

2. The clergy. No longer mediators between man and God (cf ‘priesthood of all believers’). No longer a separate ‘caste’: clergy can now marry (as Luther did), but are still crucial as preachers and teachers.

3. Church services: in the vernacular. L translates the Bible into German. Reduces the sacraments to 2 (baptism and the mass); the laity now receive both bread and wine (formerly the wine was for clerics only).

4. Political and social teaching. L not a revolutionary: his instincts were for obedience to princes and all proper political authority. He found it hard even to justify Lutheran princes resisting the Catholic Emperor. Luther was seen by many as a radical, anti-authoritarian figure in the early years, but this was never true of his social/economic thinking. His condemnation of the Peasants’ Revolt (1524-5) was consistent with his earlier teaching.

5. Origins of Luther’s theology. I) Luther said the scriptures, esp. St Paul’s epistles, and the writings of St Augustine. II) Other possible influences, inc. William of Occam, 14th century teacher who had also stressed divine power and human weakness; Occamism was still alive in Erfurt. III) Humanism. Luther was not a humanist, but may have been influenced by German humanist thinking, e.g. in his readiness to question traditional attitudes and go back to the original sources (the scriptures) and also in his German ‘nationalism’.