Life of Luther

who then reads these theses through, might perhaps be surprised at the importance of their results. They referred, in the first place, to only one particular point of Christian d

n that indulgences made the remission of sins to the individual complete on the part of God. Moreover, the ruling principles of the theology of the day, which defended the system of indulgences, though resting mainly on the authority of the great Scholastic teacher Thomas Aquinas, were not adopted by other Scholastics, and had never been erected into a dogma by any decree of the Church. Theologians before Luthe

n German. They found, indeed, the soil already prepared for them, through the indignation long since and generally aroused by the shameless doings they attacked; though till then nobody, as Luther expresses i

e, stood the whole powerful order of the Dominicans. And to this order Tetzel himself, the sub-commissioner of indulgences, belonged. Already other doctrines of the Pope's authority, of his power over the salvation of the human soul, and the infallibility of his decisions, had been as

Aquinas. But at the same time he took care to make the question of the Pope's position and power the cardinal point at issue; he and his patrons knew well enough, that for Luther, who in his theses had touched upon this question so significantly though so briefly, this was the most fatal blow that he could deal. 'Christians must be taught,' he declared, 'that in all that relates to faith and salvation, the judgment of the Pope is absolutely infallible, and that all observances connected with matters of faith on which the Papal see has expressed itself, are equivalent to Christian truths, even if they are not

e Tetzel, based his chief contention on the question of Papal authority, and was the first to carry that contention to an extreme. The Pope, he said, is the Church of Rome; the Romish Church is the Universal Christian Church; whoever disputes th

zealot in the affair about Reuchlin, which he was still prosecuting, now demanded, in his prefa

hilst troubling himself very little in reality about the high and sacred issues involved in the dispute. He sought to keep on friendly and useful relations with other circles than those of Scholastic theology, such as with learned Humanists, and a short time before, with Luther himself and his colleague Carlstadt, to whom he had been introduced through a jurist of Nüremberg named Scheuerl. Luther, after the publication of his theses, had written a friendly letter to Ec

lic, confronting the storm which he had aroused against himself. He did not conceal the fact, that now and then he felt strange and anxious about his position. But he had learned to take his stand singly and firmly on the word of Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities. The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him p

ian knowledge. He first addressed himself to German Christendom, in German, in his 'Sermon on Indulgences and Grace.' His inward excitement is shown by the vehemence and ruggedness of expression which now and henceforth marked his polemical writings. It recalls to mind the tone then commonly met with not only among ordinary monks, but even in the controversies of theologians and learned men, and in which Luther's own opponents, especially that high Roman theologian, had set

pter general of his Order at Heidelberg, where, according to the rules, a new Vicar was chosen after a triennial term of office. His friends

-'As you have required Martin Luder to attend a Chapter at Heidelberg, it is his wish, although we grudge giving him permission to leave our university, to go there and render due obedience. And as we are indebted to your suggestion for this excellent doctor of theology, in whom we are so well pleased, ... it is our desire that you will further his s

hapter. But at a disputation held in the convent, according to custom, Luther presided, and wrote for it some propositions embodying the fundamental points of his doctrines concerning the sinfulness and powerlessness of man, and righteousness, through God's grace, in Christ, and against the philosophy and theology of Aristotelian Scholasticism. He attracted the keen interes

ete a detailed explanation in Latin of the contents of his theses, under the title of 'Solu

dvance he had made, and had been compelled to make, in the course of his own self-reasoning and researches. New questions presented themselves: the in

urch, with auricular confession and the penances and satisfactions imposed by the priest, was based on God's command or the authority of the Bible

so should be disposed of by the Pope in this manner: the dispensation of indulgences rested simply on the Papal power of the keys. It was now objected to him that herein he was going counter to an express and duly recorded declaration of a pope, Clement VI., namely, that the merits of Christ were undoubtedly to be dispensed in indulgences. Luther, who in his theses against the abuse o

f the Church, the priest, but that the assurance of such forgiveness must lean simply on the promise of God, by virtue and on behalf of Whom the priest performed his office. And at the same time he declared that this promise could be conveyed to a troubled Christian by any brother-Christian, and that full forgiveness would be granted to him if he had faith. No enumeration of particular sins was necessary for that end; it was enough if the repentant and faithful yearning for the word of mercy was made known to the priest or brother from whom the message of comfort was sought. Hence it followed, on the one hand, that priestly absolution and the sacrament availed nothing to the receiver unless he turned with inward faith to his God and Saviour, received with faith the word spoken

In this external province at least he recognised in the Pope a power originating direct from God. Here, in his

attaching thereby to his decisions, however confidently asserted by the admirers of Aquinas and accepted by the Popes, was not erected into a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church until 1870. The other theory, that even the Pope can err, and that the supreme decision rests with a General Council, had been maintained by theologians whom, at the same time, no Pope had ever ventured to treat as heretics. It was on the ground of this latter theory that the University of Paris, then the first university in Europe, had just appealed from the Pope to a General Council. In Germany opinions were on the whole divided between this and the theory o

Moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance above the rest of Christendom. A Thomist indeed, who to him was only a Scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find no expression of a thought that the Church, assembled at a General Council, had ever erred, nor even that any future Council could pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute. Nay, he awaits the decision of such a Council against the charges of heresy already brought a

good disposition and an educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. He was none the less assured of his Divine credentials as the supreme earthly Shepherd of Christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. The duty of humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must, no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store for himself and his Christian brethren, have made Luther shrink from the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. He ventured to dedicate his 'Solutions' to the Pope himself. The letter of May 30, 1518, in which he did this, shows the peculiar, anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and schism brough