MARTIN LUTHER, the greatest of the Protestant reformers of the 16 th century, was born at Eisleben, on the 10 th of November 1483. His father was a miner in humble circumstances; his mother, as Melancthon records, was a woman of exemplary virtue, and esteemed in her walk of life. Shortly after Martin’s birth, his parents removed to Mansfield, where their circumstances ere long improved by industry and perseverance. Their son was sent to school; and both at home and at school his training was of a severe and hardening character.
When he reached his eighteenth year, he entered the university at Erfurt, with a view of qualifying himself for the legal profession. He went through the usual studies in the classics and the schoolmen, and took his degree as Doctor of Philosophy, or Master of Arts, in 1505, when he was twenty-one years of age. Previous to this, however, a profound change of feeling had begun in him. Chancing one day to examine the vulgate version of the Bible in the University Library, he saw with astonishment that there were more gospels and epistles than in the lection aries. He was arrested by the contents of his newly found treasure.
His heart was deeply touched, and he resolved to devote himself to a spiritual life. He separated himself tom his friends and fellow-students, and withdrew into the Augustine convent at Erfurt. Here he spent the next three years of his life – years of peculiar interest and significance, for it was during this period that he laid in the study of the Bible and of Augustine, the foundation of those doctrinal convictions which were afterwards to rouse and strengthen him in his struggles against the papacy. He describes very vividly the crisis through which he passed, the burden of sin which so long lay upon him, ‘too heavy to be borne;’ and the relief that he at length found in the clear understanding of the ‘forgiveness of sins’ through the grace of Christ. In the year 1507, Luther was ordained a priest, and in the following year he moved to Wittenberg, destined to derive its chief celebrity from his name. He became a teacher in the new university, founded there by the Elector Frederick of Saxony.
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In 1510 or 1511, he was sent on a mission to Rome, and he has described yer y vividly what he saw and heard there. On his return from Rome, he was made a Doctor of the Holy Scriptures, and his career as a reformer may be said to have commenced. Money was largely needed at Rome, to feed the extravagances of the papal court; and its numerous missionaries sought everywhere to raise funds by the sale of ‘indulgences,’ as they were called, for the sins of frail humanity; the principal of these was John Tetzel, a Dominican friar, who had established himself at Juterboch, on the borders of Saxony. Luther’s indignation at the shameless traffic which the man carried on, soon became irrepressible; ‘God willing,’ he exclaimed, ‘I will beat a hole in his drum.’ He drew out 95 theses on the doctrine of indulgences, which he nailed up on the gate of the church at Wittenberg, and which he offered to defend in the university against all opponents. The general thrust of these was to deny to the pope all right to forgive sins. ‘If a sinner was truly contrite, he received complete forgiveness.
The pope’s absolution had no value in and for itself.’ This sudden and bold step of Luther’s was all that was necessary to awaken a widespread excitement. The news of it spread far and wide. At first, the pope, Leo X, took little heed of the disturbance. Some of the cardinals, however, saw the real character of the movement, which gradually assumed a seriousness evident even to the pope, and Luther received a summons to appear at Rome, and answer for.
The Term Paper on Martin Luther 4
... to preferred not to answer Luther, but rather identified heretical phrases then sent the letter to Rome. Pope Leo X overlooked the letter ... believing that it was not a grievous issue; to him Luther was only ... did in a synopsis. As a result, Luther was called to meet the Pope in Rome so that he could give a detailed ...
