260 Chapter 14
Martin Luther and the Outbreak
of the Protestant Reformation
The first and in many ways the most influential of these
movements was the one created in Germany by Martin
Luther (1483–1546). A monk of the Augustinian Ob-
servant order and professor of the New Testament at
the University of Wittenberg in electoral Saxony,
Luther experienced a profound spiritual crisis that even-
tually brought him into open conflict with the church
(see illustration 14.2). Like many of his contemporaries,
Luther was troubled by an overwhelming sense of sin
and unworthiness for which the teachings of the
church provided no relief. Neither the rigors of monas-
tic life nor the sacrament of penance could provide him
with assurance of salvation. In the course of his biblical
studies, he gradually arrived at a solution. Based on his
reading of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and on his
growing admiration for the works of St. Augustine, he
concluded that souls were not saved by religious cere-
monies and good works but by faith alone. Human be-
ings could never be righteous enough to merit God’s
forgiveness, but they could be saved if only they would
believe and have faith in the righteousness of Christ.
Luther felt himself transformed by this insight.
Even as he formulated it, he was confronted by the is-
sue of indulgences. In 1517 a special indulgence was
made available in the territories surrounding electoral
Saxony. Its purpose was to raise money for the con-
struction of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome and to retire the
debt incurred by Albrecht of Mainz in securing for
himself through bribery the archbishoprics of Mainz
and Magdeburg and the bishopric of Halberstadt. Al-
brecht had committed not only pluralism but also si-
mony (the illegal purchase of church offices). To
Luther, however, this was not the central issue. To him,
as to many other clerics, the sale of indulgences was a
symbol of the contractualism that beset medieval piety
and blinded lay people to the true path of salvation. On
October 31, 1517, he posted ninety-five theses con-
demning this practice to the door of Wittenberg’s Cas-
tle Church.
His action was in no way unusual. It was the tradi-
tional means by which a professor offered to debate all
comers on a particular issue, and the positions taken by
Luther were not heretical. Furthermore, the sale of in-
dulgences was later condemned by the Council of
Trent. However, Luther’s action unleashed a storm of
controversy. Spread throughout Germany by the print-
ing press, the theses were endorsed by advocates of re-
form and condemned by the pope, the Dominican
order, the archbishop of Mainz, and the Fugger bank of
Augsburg, which had loaned Albrecht the money for
the elections.
In the debates that followed, Luther was forced to
work out the broader implications of his teachings. At
Leipzig in June 1519, he challenged the doctrinal au-
thority of popes and councils and declared that Scrip-
ture took precedence over all other sources of religious
truth. In 1520 he published three pamphlets that drew
him at last into formal heresy. In his Address to the Chris-
tian Nobility of the German Nation,he encouraged the
princes to demand reform (see document 14.3). On the
Babylonian Captivity of the Churchabolished five of the
seven sacraments and declared that the efficacy of bap-
tism and communion were dependent on the faith of
the recipient, not the ordination of the priest. He alsoIllustration 14.2
Martin Luther.This portrait of Luther as a young monk was
painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder about a year before the Diet
of Worms and shows the reformer as he must have looked when
he confronted the Imperial Diet.