Despite instances of anticlericalism and polemics against the church, most of the faithful remained loyal and found the church to be the vehicle of their eternal salvation. Nothing is more erroneous than the notion that, early in the 16th century, Europe was ripe for a reform of the church. Martin E. Marty The continental Reformation: Germany, Switzerland, and France The role of Luther
Luther said that what differentiated him from previous reformers was that they attacked the life of the church, while he confronted its doctrine. Whereas they denounced the sins of churchmen, he was disillusioned by the whole scholastic scheme of redemption. The church taught that man could atone for his sins through confession and absolution in the sacrament of penance. Luther found that he could not remember or even recognize all of his sins, and the attempt to dispose of them one by one was like trying to cure smallpox by picking off the scabs. Indeed, he believed that the whole man was sick. The church, however, held that the individual was not so sick that salvation could not be earned through faith and good works. The indulgence system
The church’s anthropology and soteriology (doctrine of salvation) allowed a system of indulgences to develop. Based on the notion that Jesus and the saints had built up a treasury of merit that could be shared with worthy Christians, the indulgence at first applied only to penalties imposed by the church on earth. One of the earliest examples of this practice was Pope Urban II’s grant of a plenary indulgence to the knights of the First Crusade. Over time the benefits of the indulgence were expanded to include penalties imposed by God in purgatory, and ultimately the means of acquiring an indulgence were so diluted that one could be purchased. The granting of indulgences proved to be a popular way of raising money for the church particularly because, unlike tithes, it was voluntary. By this means crusades, cathedrals, hospitals, and even bridges were financed. In Luther’s day immediate release from purgatory was offered, and the remission not only of penalties but even of sins was assured. Thus the indulgence encroached upon the sacrament of penance.
Luther was desperately earnest about his standing before God and Christ. The woodcuts of Christ the Judge on a rainbow consigning the damned to hell filled Luther with terror. He believed the monastic life was the best way to acquire the extra merits that would more than balance his account. Becoming a monk, he subjected himself to rigorous asceticism, but he felt that this effort would not enable a sinner like him to stand before the inexorable justice and majesty of God. Frequent confession simply convinced him of the fundamental sickness of the whole person, which caused him to question the goodness of a God who would make human beings so weak and then damn them for what they could not help. Relief for Luther came through the study of the Psalms, particularly the 22nd Psalm, which contains Christ’s words quoted on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). Evidently, Christ, who was without sin, so identified himself with sinful humanity that he felt estranged from God. Christ the Judge seated upon the rainbow had become Christ the Derelict upon the cross, and here the wrath and the mercy of God could find a meeting point that allowed God to forgive those utterly devoid of merit. He could justify the unjust, and humanity need only accept the gift of God in faith. This doctrine of justification by faith alone became the watchword of the Reformation.
The formulation of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone coincided with the expansion of his own duties. He had become professor of the newly founded University of Wittenberg and a vicar in his order with pastoral duties over 11 houses. At the same time, the new archbishop of Mainz, Albert, initiated the sale of indulgences—feverishly hawked by the Dominican Johann Tetzel—with half of the proceeds to be retained by him as reimbursement for his installation fee as archbishop, the other half to go to the pope to fund the building of the Basilica of St. Peter’s at Rome. For this indulgence Albert made unprecedented claims. If the indulgence were on behalf of the donor himself, he would receive preferential treatment in case of future sin, if for someone else already in purgatory, he need not be contrite for his own sin. Remission was promised not only of penalties but also of sins, and the vendor of the indulgences offered immediate release from purgatory. Luther was outraged by the sale of indulgences and claims made for them. His doctrine of justification not only was critical of the abuse of the doctrine of indulgences but denied the very idea that humans could earn salvation. Ninety-five Theses
Against the actions of Albert and Tetzel and with no intention to divide the church, Luther launched his Ninety-five Theses on October 31, 1517. In the theses he presented three main points. The first concerned financial abuses; for example, if the pope realized the poverty of the German people, he would rather that St. Peter’s lay in ashes than that it should be built out of the “skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.” The second focused attention on doctrinal abuses; for example, Luther argued that the pope had no jurisdiction over purgatory and if he did, he should empty the place free of charge. The third attacked religious abuses; for example, the treasury of the merits of the saints was denied by implication in the assertion that the treasury of the church was the gospel. This was the crucial point. When the papacy pronounced Luther’s position heretical, he countered by denying the infallibility of popes and for good measure that of councils also. Scripture was declared the only basis of authority.
Luther found support in many quarters. Already a widespread liberal Catholic evangelical reform sought to correct moral abuses such as clerical concubinage, financial extortion, and pluralism (i.e., the holding of several ecclesiastical benefices by one man). He also ridiculed the popular superstitions associated with the cult of the saints and their relics, religious pilgrimages, and the like. This movement had representatives throughout Europe, notably John Colet in England, Jacques Lefèvre in France, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros in Spain, Juan de Valdés in Naples, and, above all, Erasmus. Although he would come to oppose Luther, in 1519 Erasmus wrote to the elector Frederick III the Wise, Luther’s prince, telling him that as a Christian ruler he was obligated to see to it that his subject should have a fair hearing.
Yet despite this, Luther would have been speedily crushed had Pope Leo X and the curia not been over zealous in silencing the putative heretic. Leo’s difficulties were worsened by the contemporary political situation. At the moment when Luther appeared to be foredoomed, an election for the office of Holy Roman emperor was pending, and Henry VIII of England, Francis I of France, and Charles I of Spain were all candidates for the office. The pope opposed all three because the position entailed control over Germany, and the augmentation of power to one would destroy the balance of power. Instead he preferred a minor prince, and none fitted the role better than Luther’s protector, Frederick the Wise of Saxony. In consequence the pope dallied in his response to Luther, and even after Charles was elected, the pope was willing to play Frederick against the new emperor. Finally, on June 15, 1520, nearly three years after the Ninety-five Theses, Leo issued the bull Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord”), which condemned Luther’s teachings on 41 counts. Luther burned a copy of the bull in Wittenberg, declaring his action a trifle and that the pope and papal see should be burned. Luther’s manifesto
Luther employed the summer of 1520 to bring out some of the great manifestos of the Reformation. His Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation called upon the ruling class in Germany, including the emperor, in whom Luther had not yet lost confidence, to reform the church externally by returning it to apostolic poverty and simplicity. This appeal to the civil power to reform the church was a return to the earlier practice of the Middle Ages when emperors more than once had deposed and replaced unworthy popes. Luther also argued that the papacy of his day was only 400 years old, meaning that it was the Gregorian reform that had extended the church’s jurisdiction into secular and political matters and had asserted that the lowliest priest did more for mankind than the loftiest king. Luther countered with the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, including Christian magistrates. Any layman was spiritually a priest, though not vocationally a parson. The Christian ruler, then, being himself a priest, could reform the church in externals, as the church might excommunicate him in spirituals. The liberal Catholic reformers could sympathize with Luther’s program except for its identification of the papacy with Antichrist, which recalled the accusations of medieval heretics.