 Luther's Ninety-Five Theses |
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| From Luther,
Martin. The Ninety-Five Theses. As
reproduced in Documents
Illustrative of the Continental Reformation, trans.
Kidd, ed. Kidd (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1911), Introduction: The Protestant Reformation permanently divided western Christendom along religious lines and helped to foster modern Europe's collection of often mutually antagonistic nation-states. Many scholars have argued that the Reformation's significance was not only religious, but that it also had a major political, social and economic impact on western history. Protestantism generally rejected the Church's mediating role between God and humankind, instead placing the individual believer alone before the judgment and mercy of God. Therefore, Protestantism may well have appealed to those with little invested in the traditional structures of authority and society. But Protestantism was never a monolithic movement. The Protestant leaders quickly fell out among themselves over matters of religious belief and practice, and over the social and political implications of faith. After Martin Luther's death in 1545, the leadership of aggressive international Protestantism came increasingly from John Calvin's Geneva, while the Lutherans became more insular, and were mostly restricted to northern Germany and Scandanavia. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which granted official toleration to Lutherans in the Holy Roman Empire, accentuated this trend. (Mosaic) Martin Luther (1483-1545) was an Augustinian monk who taught theology at the University of Wittenberg when he posted Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church on October 31, 1517. His original aim was simply to promote and participate in a theological disputation over indulgences at the university. His argument received much more attention than he expected; within a matter of years, Luther was at the center of a storm of controversy which did not ebb even upon his death in 1545. For, as Luther and his followers pondered the theological salvoes he launched with Ninety-Five Theses, it became increasingly difficult for them to harmonize the authority of the Bible with that of the Roman Catholic Church. (Mosaic) |
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| A
disputation of Master Martin Luther, Theologian, for the elucidation of
the virtue of Indulgences.
From a zealous desire to bring to light the truth, the following theses will be maintained at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Rvd. Fr. Martin Luther, Master of Arts, Master of Sacred Theology and official Reader therein. He therefore asks that all who are unable to be present to dispute with him verbally will do so in writing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying "Repent ye, etc.," meant the whole life of the faithful to be an act of repentance. 2. This saying cannot be understood of the sacrament of penance (i.e. of confession and absolution) which is administered by the priesthood. 5. The pope has neither the wish nor the power to remit any penalties save those which he has imposed at his own will or according to the will of the canons. 6. The pope has no power to remit guilt, save by declaring and confirming that it has been remitted by God; or, to be sure, by remitting the cases reserved to himself. If he neglected to observe these limitations the guilt would remain. 16. . . . the difference between Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven seems to be the same as the difference between despair, almost despair, and confidence. 27. Those who assert that a soul straightway flies out (of purgatory) as a coin tinkles in the collection-box, are preaching an invention of man (hominem praedicant). 40. True contrition asks for penance and accepts it with love; but the bounty of indulgences relaxes the penalty and induces hatred of it . . . . 45. Christians are to be taught that a man who sees a brother in need and passes him by to give his money for the purchase of pardon wins for himself not the indulgences of the pope but the indignation of God. 50. Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the preachers of indulgences he would rather have S. Peter's basilica reduced to ashes than built with the skin, flesh and bones of his sheep. 52. Confidence in salvation through letters of indulgence is vain . . . . 62. The true measure of the Church is the sacrosanct Gospel of the glory and grace of God. 63. But this is . . . hated, since it makes the first last. 66. The treasures of indulgences are nets . . . which . . . fish for the riches of men. 68. They [indulgences] are . . . of little account as compared with the grace of God and the piety of the cross. 72. Blessed be he that strives against the wanton and disorderly preaching of the sellers of pardons. 76. . . . Papal pardons cannot take away the least of venial sins, as regard guilt. 81. This wanton preaching of pardons makes it hard even for learned men to defend the honour of the pope against calumny, or at least against the shrewd questions of the laity. They ask: Why does not the pope empty purgatory on account of most holy charity and the great need of souls, the most righteous of causes, seeing that he redeems an infinite number of souls on account of sordid money, given for the erection of a basilica, which is a most trivial cause? 90. To suppress these careful arguments of the laity merely by papal authority, instead of clearing them up by a reasoned reply, is to expose the Church and the pope to the ridicule of the enemy and to render Christians unhappy. 91. Now if pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope all these questions would easily be disposed of; nay, they would not arise. 92. And so let all those prophets depart who say to Christ's people 'Peace, peace,' and there is no peace. 93. And farewell to all those prophets who say to Christ's people 'the cross, the cross' and there is no cross. 94. Christians are to be exhorted to endeavor to follow Christ, their head, through pains, deaths, and hells. 95. And so let them trust to enter heaven rather through many tribulations than through the false confidence of peace. |