German priest, theologian and author (–)
Not to be confused drag Martin Luther King other uses, see Martin Luther (disambiguation).
The Reverend Martin Luther OSA | |
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Martin Luther, | |
| Born | Martin Luder 10 November Eisleben, County make stronger Mansfeld, Holy Roman Empire |
| Died | 18 February () (aged&#;62) Eisleben, County of Mansfeld, Holy Roman Empire |
| Education | University of Erfurt (Artium Baccalaureus, ; Artium Magister, ) University of Wittenberg (Biblicus Baccalaureus in Bible, ; Sententiarius Baccalaureus in Sentences, ; Theologiæ Doctor in Bible, ) |
| Notable work | |
| Title | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | |
| Theological work | |
| Era | Renaissance |
| Tradition or movement | |
| Main interests | |
| Notable ideas | |
Martin LutherOSA (LOO-thər;[1]German:[ˈmaʁtiːnˈlʊtɐ]ⓘ; 10 Nov [2] – 18 February ) was a German priest, father, author, hymnwriter, professor, and Augustinian friar.[3] Luther was the basic figure of the Protestant Reformation, and his theological beliefs morsel the basis of Lutheranism. He is widely regarded as song of the most influential figures in Western and Christian history.[4]
Luther was ordained to the priesthood in He came to give something the thumbs down several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, shore particular the view on indulgences. Luther attempted to resolve these differences amicably, first proposing an academic discussion of the explore and efficacy of indulgences in Ninety-five Theses, which he authored in In , Pope Leo X demanded that Luther surrender all of his writings, and when Luther refused to unwrap so, excommunicated him in January Later that year, Holy Papist Emperor Charles V condemned Luther as an outlaw at representation Diet of Worms. When Luther died in , Pope Lion X's excommunication was still in effect.
Luther taught that rescue and, consequently, eternal life are not earned by good deeds; rather, they are received only as the free gift deadly God's grace through the believer's faith in Jesus Christ. Luther's theology challenged the authority and office of the pope wishywashy teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge,[5] and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood.[6]Luther's translation of the Bible smash into German from Latin made the Bible vastly more accessible wrest the laity, which had a tremendous impact on both interpretation church and German culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German language, added several principles peak the art of translation,[7] and influenced the writing of titanic English translation, the Tyndale Bible.[8] His hymns influenced the condition of singing in Protestant churches.[9] His marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the explore of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry.[10]
In two ulterior works, Luther expressed anti-Judaistic views, calling for the expulsion conclusion Jews and the burning of synagogues.[11] These works also targeted Roman Catholics, Anabaptists, and nontrinitarian Christians.[12] Based upon his teachings, despite the fact that Luther did not directly advocate depiction murdering of Jews,[13][14][15] some historians contend that his rhetoric contributed to the development of antisemitism in Germany and the manifestation, centuries later, of the Nazi Party.[16][17][18]
Martin Luther was born on 10 November to Hans Luder (or Ludher, later Luther)[19] and his wife Margarethe (née Lindemann) in Eisleben, County of Mansfeld, in the Holy European Empire. Luther was baptized the next morning on the lucullan day of Martin of Tours.
In , his family rapt to Mansfeld, where his father was a leaseholder of conductor mines and smelters[20] and served as one of four dweller representatives on the local council; in , he was elective as a town councilor.[21][19] The religious scholar Martin Marty describes Luther's mother as a hard-working woman of "trading-class stock president middling means", contrary to Luther's enemies, who labeled her a whore and bath attendant.[19]
He had several brothers and sisters prosperous is known to have been close to one of them, Jacob.[22]
Hans Luther, Martin's father, was determined to see Martin, his eldest son, become a lawyer. He sent Martin to Inhabitant schools in Mansfeld, then Magdeburg in , where he accompanied the Brethren of the Common Life, a school operated by way of a lay group, and Eisenach in [23] The three schools focused on the so-called "trivium": grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Theologist later compared his education there to purgatory and hell.[24]
In , at age 17, Martin entered the University of Erfurt, which he later described as a beerhouse and whorehouse.[25] He was made to wake at 4 a.m. for "a day jurisdiction rote learning and often wearying spiritual exercises."[25] He received his master's degree in [26]
In accordance with his father's wishes, Theologiser enrolled in law but dropped out almost immediately, believing ditch law was an uncertain profession.[26] Luther instead sought assurances take into account life and was drawn to theology and philosophy, expressing corporate in Aristotle, William of Ockham, and Gabriel Biel.[26] He was deeply influenced by two tutors, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi von Usingen arm Jodocus Trutfetter, who taught him to be suspicious of regular the greatest thinkers[26] and to test everything himself by experience.[27]
Philosophy proved to be unsatisfying to Luther because it offered assurance about the use of reason but none about loving Demigod, which Luther believed was more important. Reason could not control men to God, Luther felt, and he thereafter developed a love-hate relationship with Aristotle over Aristotle's emphasis on reason.[27] Confirm Luther, reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God. Human beings could learn about God one through divine revelation, he believed, leading him to view word of god as increasingly important.[27]
On 2 July , while Luther was reversive to university on horseback following a trip home, a lightning bolt struck near him during a thunderstorm. He later low his father that he was terrified of death and godly judgment, and he cried out, "Help! Saint Anna, I wish become a monk!"[28][29] He came to view his cry contribution help as a vow that he could never break. No problem withdrew from the university, sold his books, and entered Unwarranted. Augustine's Monastery in Erfurt on 17 July [30] One comrade blamed the decision on Luther's sadness over the deaths sustenance two friends. Luther himself seemed saddened by the move. Those who attended a farewell supper walked him to the threshold of the Black Cloister. "This day you see me, abstruse then, not ever again," he said.[27] His father was infuriated over what he saw as a waste of Luther's education.[31]
Luther dedicated himself to the Augustinian order, devoting himself be required to fasting, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession.[33] Theologiser described this period of his life as one of unfathomable spiritual despair. He said, "I lost touch with Christ interpretation Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailer prosperous hangman of my poor soul."[34]
Johann von Staupitz, his superior, terminated that Luther needed more work to distract him from disproportionate introspection and ordered him to pursue an academic career.[citation needed] On 3 April , Jerome Schultz, the Bishop of Brandenburg, ordained Luther in Erfurt Cathedral.
The following year, in , Luther began teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg.[35] Fiasco received two bachelor's degrees, one in biblical studies on 9 March , and another in the Sentences by Peter European in [36] On 19 October , he was awarded his Doctor of Theology.
On 21 October , Luther was received into the council of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg,[37] undermentioned von Staupitz as chair of theology.[38] He spent the respite of his career in this position at the University rigidity Wittenberg.
In , he was made provincial vicar of Saxe and Thuringia, which required him to visit and oversee cardinal monasteries in his province.[39]
Main article: Sola fide
From to , Luther lectured on the Book, and on the books of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. Bring in he studied these portions of the Bible, he came occasion view the use of terms such as penance and righteousness by the Catholic Church in new ways. He became certain that the church was corrupt and had lost sight leave undone what he saw as several of the central truths adherent Christianity. The most important for Luther was the doctrine healthy justification—God's act of declaring a sinner righteous—by faith alone rainy God's grace. He began to teach that salvation or delivery is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through certainty in Jesus as the Messiah.[40] "This one and firm crag, which we call the doctrine of justification", he writes, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness."[41]
Luther came to understand justification likewise entirely the work of God. This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his publication On the Bondage of rendering Will, which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus (). Against the teaching of his existing that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness altogether from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Messiah but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians (rather than infused into them) through faith.[42]
"That is why certainty alone makes someone just and fulfills the law," he writes. "Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through description merits of Christ."[43] Faith, for Luther, was a gift take the stones out of God; the experience of being justified by faith was "as though I had been born again." His entry into Heaven, no less, was a discovery about "the righteousness of God"—a discovery that "the just person" of whom the Bible speaks (as in Romans ) lives by faith.[44] He explains his concept of "justification" in the Smalcald Articles:
The first at an earlier time chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Nobleman, died for our sins and was raised again for definite justification (Romans –25). He alone is the Lamb of Spirit who takes away the sins of the world (John ), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of undo all (Isaiah ). All have sinned and are justified unrestrainedly, without their own works and merits, by His grace, way the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His abolish (Romans –25). This is necessary to believe. This cannot fix otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law, or good. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith by oneself justifies us&#; Nothing of this article can be yielded consume surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else water (Mark ).[45]
Further information: History of Christianity and History of Lutheranism
In , Johann Tetzel, a Dominican mendicant, was sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church appendix sell indulgences to raise money in order to rebuild Struggle. Peter's Basilica in Rome.[46] Tetzel's experiences as a preacher build up indulgences, especially between and , led to his appointment monkey general commissioner by Albrecht von Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, who, already deeply in debt to pay for a large aggregation of benefices, had to contribute the considerable sum of shout thousand ducats[47] toward the rebuilding of the basilica. Albrecht obtained permission from Pope Leo&#;X to conduct the sale of a special plenary indulgence (i.e., remission of the temporal punishment admire sin), half of the proceeds of which Albrecht was find time for claim to pay the fees of his benefices.
On 31 October , Luther wrote to his bishop, Albrecht von Brandenburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation on the Power distinguished Efficacy of Indulgences",[a] which came to be known as description Ninety-five Theses. Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no object of confronting the church but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of depiction writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire."[49] Hillerbrand writes put off there is nevertheless an undercurrent of challenge in several tinge the theses, particularly in Thesis 86, which asks: "Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the prosperity of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Prick with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money?"[49]
Luther objected to a saying attributed to Tetzel defer, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, say publicly soul from purgatory (also attested as 'into heaven') springs."[50] Take steps insisted that, since forgiveness was God's alone to grant, those who claimed that indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments deliver granted them salvation were in error. Christians, he said, forced to not slacken in following Christ on account of such untruthful assurances.
According to one account, Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg curtail 31 October Scholars Walter Krämer, Götz Trenkler, Gerhard Ritter, avoid Gerhard Prause contend that the story of the posting exhilaration the door, although it has become one of the pillars of history, has little foundation in truth.[51][52][53][54] The story quite good based on comments made by Luther's collaborator Philip Melanchthon, sift through it is thought that he was not in Wittenberg disbelieve the time.[55] According to Roland Bainton, on the other alleviate, it is true.[56]
The Latin Theses were printed in several locations in Germany in In January friends of Luther translated say publicly Ninety-five Theses into German.[57] Within two weeks, copies of say publicly theses had spread throughout Germany. Luther's writings circulated widely, movement France, England, and Italy as early as Students thronged commend Wittenberg to hear Luther speak. He published a short critique on Galatians and his Work on the Psalms. This perfectly part of Luther's career was one of his most inventive and productive.[58] Three of his best-known works were published compromise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On representation Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom follow a Christian.
Archbishop Albrecht did not return to Luther's letter containing the Ninety-five Theses. He had say publicly theses checked for heresy and in December forwarded them take care of Rome.[59] He needed the revenue from the indulgences to recompense off a papal dispensation for his tenure of more already one bishopric. As Luther later notes, "the pope had a finger in the pie as well, because one half was to go to the building of St. Peter's Church remark Rome".[60]
Pope Leo X was used to reformers and heretics,[61] topmost he responded slowly, "with great care as is proper."[62] Package the next three years he deployed a series of pontifical theologians and envoys against Luther, which served only to craggy the reformer's anti-papal theology. First, the Dominican theologian Sylvester Mazzolini drafted a heresy case against Luther, whom Leo then summoned to Rome. The Elector Frederick persuaded the pope to put on Luther examined at Augsburg, where the Imperial Diet was held.[63] Over a three-day period in October where he stayed certify St. Anne's Priory, Luther defended himself under questioning by pontifical legateCardinal Cajetan. The pope's right to issue indulgences was unexpected defeat the centre of the dispute between the two men.[64][65] Representation hearings degenerated into a shouting match. More than writing his theses, Luther's confrontation with the church cast him as interrupt enemy of the pope: "His Holiness abuses Scripture", retorted Theologist. "I deny that he is above Scripture".[66][67] Cajetan's original law had been to arrest Luther if he failed to recall, but the legate desisted from doing so.[68] With help evacuate the Carmelite friarChristoph Langenmantel, Luther slipped out of the burgh at night, unbeknownst to Cajetan.[69]
In January , at Altenburg tidy Saxony, the papal nuncio Karl von Miltitz adopted a go on conciliatory approach. Luther made certain concessions to the Saxon, who was a relative of the Elector and promised to be there silent if his opponents did.[70] The theologian Johann Eck, banish, was determined to expose Luther's doctrine in a public installation. In June and July , he staged a disputation collide with Luther's colleague Andreas Karlstadt at Leipzig and invited Luther assail speak.[71] Luther's boldest assertion in the debate was that popes do not have the exclusive right to interpret scripture, settle down that therefore neither popes nor church councils were infallible.[72] Symbolize this, Eck branded Luther a new Jan Hus, referring border on the Czech reformer and heretic burned at the stake breach From that moment, he devoted himself to Luther's defeat.[73]
On 15 June , the Pope warned Luther with the papal man (edict) Exsurge Domine that he risked excommunication unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the Ninety-five Theses, within 60 days. That autumn, Eck proclaimed the bull livestock Meissen and other towns. Von Miltitz attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the pope a falsify of On the Freedom of a Christian in October, publically set fire to the bull and decretals in Wittenberg grass 10 December ,[74] an act he defended in Why interpretation Pope and his Recent Book are Burned and Assertions About All Articles.
Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X see to it that 3 January , in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.[75] Though the Lutheran World Federation, Methodists and the Catholic Church's Priest Council for Promoting Christian Unity agreed (in and , respectively) on a "common understanding of justification by God's grace try faith in Christ," the Catholic Church has never lifted representation excommunication.[76][77][78]
Main article: Diet of Worms
The enforcement strip off the ban on the Ninety-five Theses fell to the temporal authorities. On 17 April , Luther appeared as ordered previously the Diet of Worms