20. The Life of Martin Luther (part 1)

so Martin Luther and the Reformation born 1483 if you've been here the last few weeks you know that Lorenzo de Medici Lorenzo the Great is basically the de facto ruler there in Florence so he's born right in the middle you would say of the high Renaissance in Italy it was born on November 10th he was named for Saint Martin of Tours so if you know anything about Saint Martin of Tours than you know that his kind of patron namesake was that character is born on his birthday and that's why he got that name his father Hans Luthor owned a small copper mine we've talked to the last few weeks about a kind of rising middle class over the last couple of centuries sparked probably primarily by the Crusades which opened up trade and trade require places of trade and out of that came these free cities and these free cities gave rise to a new basis for economy from the old feudal manners and so what we begin to see are a sort of a burgeoning expression of various kinds of economic activities in various quarters and as it turns out Hans Luther had been able just because of the circumstances of his life and by dint of hard work and enterprise and so on been able to acquire this small copper mine so we actually had some employees and was doing reasonably well he wasn't wealthy he certainly was an upper-class or Noble or anything like that but he was doing better than say the peasants had done in the centuries past so this was kind of the beginning of a new chapter of European history and he was very much a part of it Luther Martin Luther was born the second child of nine and Hans Luther who was quite quite the entrepreneur recognized immediately that his young son Martin might be the key to his own social security program he realized that Martin was brilliant and that if he played his educational cards right that Martin might be the next step up in this upward mobility of the social order of that day and so at considerable expense Hans Luthor invested heavily in Martin's education and he was given the very best education that a person could afford at that particular time in history that they could actually acquire he went to grammar school which was called grammar school from 1497 to 1501 and then entered the University of Erfurt in 1501 which was widely regarded as the finest university in what we would call Germany it would be something like the Harvard at least of that part of the world at that time it was very expensive and of course very selective but Martin had done so well in his studies just devouring every topic that was put before him with a kind of voracious academic appetite that he was certainly qualified to be part of this school in this educational program he writes later that this was the first time in his life he had ever seen a complete Bible it was of course in Latin it was chained to the wall in the library Bibles were very rare in those days and Luther had always sort of held in the back of his mind the prospect maybe someday of seeing a complete Bible because most of what he'd ever learned of the Bible was simply through the church through the priest and so on the stained-glass windows that kind of thing but never had an opportunity to actually read it for himself and have any kind of personal engagement with its content so he talks about how during his time at the university he would spend hours reading the Bible just just almost shocked at the humanity of the book and the stories and all of those interesting aspects of it that probably many of us take for granted for him this was kind of the first exposure to it he was kind of an accelerated student he made it through more rapidly than many students didn't actually graduated second in his class in 1502 I've always been encouraged by this I don't know who graduated first I don't know that anybody knows but whoever it was I doubt they had as much impact as the guy that came in second and so for all of us who have gone through life kind of being the ones in that class of also-ran you know I've also participated but Martin is sort of our great inspiration here so anyway second in his class in 1502 he stayed on at the University for three more years attending what we would call law school he got his MA in law in 1505 would be something like get a JD these days he had a law degree and that did qualify him then to hang out a shingle and become a practitioner of law which was in fact exactly what was supposed to happen he had always been a little bit uncomfortable with that and felt that it might be a bit self-serving but he was also obedient to his father's wishes his father had after all been putting up the money for all of this education and so Martin was prepared to do as his father had really insisted that he do and this lawyerly profession that Luther was supposed to enter was in fact going to elevate the entire family and so Hans Luther was quite excited about all of this and in fact just after Martin graduated he went home and there was a huge celebration in which all of the family all in the friends got together there were balloons you know and all this stuff and they were kind of really excited about this new achievement and the new prospects that were being opened up in the life of Martin Luther and for the whole family and as many of you may know if you know anything about his story one of the probably most famous little pieces of his story was his return back to the University after that celebration with his family in which he's riding along on horseback and all of a sudden a thunderstorm breaks out rather suddenly and he being a product of his time still had in spite of his education a quite superstitious view of the universe this was just taken for granted at the time we've commented on this before where you have witches and goblins and all kinds of strange creatures around in the shadows of nature and a belief that if you're in a thunderstorm that's got to be God's anger toward you and so this is making Martin quite nervous he's already a little nervous because he's had misgivings for some time about this lawyer career and whether it was too self-serving and but he didn't want to buck his father and so he's been in this sort of precarious state of a troubled conscience and now here he is just after this big celebration of his achievements riding along and he feels nature and maybe God behind nature just expressing a certain degree of anger and then it happened now this is a woodcut drawing out of an old textbook which depicts Luther here having been thrown from his horse back because lightning struck within just a few feet if you've ever been in that situation you know how terrifying that is Luther fell to the ground into the mud and the rain and so on in this moment of panic he cries out one of the most famous prayers of terror ever heard help me say Dan I will become a monk and all of history changed so Martin Luther in 1505 made a rash vow to become a monk because he thought that lightning golden comes straight from God and God had simply missed the first time and the second one was on the way and so before the second one hit Martin took that oath and he joined an Augustinian monastery that happened to be there in Erfurt two weeks later his father was furious Hans Luther had high regard for the church held in high esteem was a devout Roman Catholic himself held the personnel of the church in relatively low esteem as did many people at that time we have talked about the erosion of the moral capital of the highest leadership of the church which had been for some time monks were generally viewed as sort of religious beggars you know they took a vow of poverty which turned them basically into a kind of dependent class and your form of good works was in part supporting them at least that was the perception that certainly wasn't universal but that was a wide perception especially among people who worked hard like Hans and he looked at this class of clergy and religious types out there who just didn't seem to be contributing much that was really essential to life as they were living it so anyway this decision by Martin to become a monk didn't meet at with Hans approval at all and there was a quite a tragic rift that took place in the family between Martin and his father at that moment because of his decision to join the monastery for his parts while he was in these early years of being a monk Martin Luther went through the most agonizing experiences of trying to unburden his conscience he later said of this time that if anyone could have been saved by monk eree it would have been Martin you know because he did all the stuff that we associate with late medieval monastic life it was fast it was lengthy prayers he did do this kind of self-flagellation you know where you take a whip and beats her back till it starts bleeding he did that he would spend hours a day in the confessional booth this was almost humorous in the monastery because these father confessors would see Martin going in oh no no not brother Martin it's your turn today you know they kind of try to avoid this guy because most I mean let's face it just between you and me how many sins can you commit in a monastery in one day and three thank you so you know most of these monks they're in there every day they'd you know they might take five ten minutes or if they're really going to be penetrating maybe fifteen minutes to confess all their sins from the previous day Luther would literally spend two to three hours and this is part of his genius that many times religious geniuses in history have been practically neurotic you know and Luther was neurotic I think that's the right word for it he was such a genius he had such powers of insight and having studied law he understood that there is not simply the external action but the internal motive motive plays into the seriousness of the crimes and so Luther knew that at least to some degree an examination of the prior day required that he sift through his motives and as he did so he found himself uncovering the doors of Hell and he was constantly riddled with this feeling of the depth of his corruption and he wanted somehow to have some sense of conscience unburdened and so he would confess his sins as he believed as they all did that if you didn't confess all your sins if you left some out if I omitted them then your forgiveness wasn't complete so he had to be exhaustive and exhausting and so he would confess his and then for one moment he would feel the relief when the priest would say t absolve oh I forgive you and then just as he walked out of the confessional booth within five minutes he felt his own depth of corruption rising up once again he wanted to run right back in and say oh wait a minute there's more you know at one point his father superior there in this monastery a man by the name of stout Fitz who was a who was a influence in Luther's life all his life even after the Reformation started this man still had a significant role to play but stop it's took Luther aside and said then you're taking yourself too seriously you got to lighten up you know and Luther famously said to him as he records himself later I have no peace I have no peace and so in spite of the fact that he'd become a monk in spite of the fact that it abandoned his very luminous career that seemed to be you know so promising for him even now in these circumstances he still had this deep sense of the trauma of God's righteousness and God's justice well stop it's encouraged Luther to occupy himself with further studies hoping of course it would distract Luther somewhat from these internal psychological difficulties and so Luther in 1507 was ordained to the priesthood he went through the further training to become a priest that itself became somewhat traumatic for him by this time he mended fences with his father his father had sort of you know accommodated himself to the new Martin that it was going to be his son from this point on and so once again the family showed up for the occasion of Martin Luther celebrating his first mass but this turned out to be quite a moment as well Luther was just in the middle of reciting the words of the mass you know in the Catholic view of things the words of consecration are spoken in Latin and the miracle of transubstantiation takes place in which the substance of bread and wine becomes a substance of the body and brought of blood of Christ and Luther did that believed it and then all of a sudden that hit him he was holding the very body and blood of Christ and he froze he panicked right there on the spot he couldn't finish the mass he was so traumatized at the thought of the holy body and blood of Christ being held in his hands he actually had to be helped through the rest of it it was kind of an embarrassing awkward moment but that's just how deep was his sense of the presence of God and the threat of God's presence that seemed to dominate in his life at that time in 1508 a man by the name of Duke Frederick elector of he wanted to start a university now I've talked in the last couple of weeks about the rise of what are called free universities during the feudal system if you wanted an education if you wanted to escape relief from being a peasant you went to the monastery and there you could become a monk you could be educated you could have a very different life still be laboring that life but it wouldn't be the same kind of thing as being a peasant out in the fields but with the rise of trade came the rise of medieval free towns and out of the three towns came universities and there were various people around Europe in the Holy Roman Empire and elsewhere who were wanting to establish these universities and Duke Frederick was one of them he was the ruling nobleman over Saxony which was a province in the Holy Roman Empire he was called elector of Saxony because he was one of that class of people who had the power to elect the Emperor when the previous Emperor died and so he's called Duke Frederick elector of Saxony but what he wanted to do was start a university the University of Wittenberg and he was shopping around for prospective faculty members he sent an email to stomp it's and said hey you got anybody over there that would make a good original you know initial faculty for my university staff it's thought this is perfect you know get Martin out there into the real world and you know maybe he can sort of feel better about himself so staff is immediately recommended Martin Luther to be the part of the original faculty and that's what he did so within the first year or so of the university existing Martin was on the faculty there and of course you know that Martin Luther Luther's entire career is associated to the University of Wittenberg Sonny the game began teaching there he wasn't qualified yet academically to teach Bible or theology but he did teach a kind of classic work in Catholic theology called the sentences of Lombard and so that was his main task and he taught philosophy orest Italian philosophy and certain other topics in 1510 he was schooling just of Justice slightly in 1510 he was commissioned to go to Rome on official search business with a kind of a little cluster of other monks and they were going to go to Rome and engage in whatever business was their obligation at that point but he was very much excited about this because Rome was of course the city of the martyrs Rome was the great capital the central sanctuary of the Christian religion worldwide he kind of thought this was like going to the very heart of that holy place and again he was sort of hoping that he could go if he could go through the religious regimen regimen that would be a part of his experience there that that might give him some sense of the relief he'd been looking for and so he went to Rome intending to do all the things that a religious pilgrim you may know some of the story of this he was going up cathedrals kissing each step that kind of thing you know and so on and he didn't really find that that route that did much for his conscience but at the same time he was deeply disillusioned by his experience of surveying what was happening in Rome it was very similar to someone going to Jerusalem in the first century and expecting a house of prayer for the nation nations and finding it to be a den of thieves you know that's kind of what he experienced in Rome he saw a very Pharisee achill kind of professional attitude not much concern about the true deep spiritual welfare of the flock a lot of people having a lot of opulent very very luxurious lives of the expense of the money flowing in from various parts of the Catholic world and immorality was rampant even among the clergy all of this was so conspicuous that Luther found himself very deeply deflated by the entire experience some would say this may be the true beginning of the Reformation when he went to Rome and was so disappointed in his experience there I don't know if that's the case but certainly he was bitterly disappointed I mentioned last week that while he was in Rome in 1510 he did meet Michelangelo who was working on the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the time and he also met Raphael the other famous Renaissance artist there's been some speculation as I intimated last week that Luther and Michelangelo maintained something of a quiet correspondence over the years there is no definitive answer to this yet it's certainly not original research on my part but there are people who are looking at this and who have suggested this and are continuing to explore it so I'm just simply saying that as a possibility but certainly not anything that's proven to anyone's historical you know certainty but he certainly met Michelangelo at this point and they form some kind of acquaintance at the time in 1512 Luther completed studies to become a doctor of theology he enjoyed the studies he wasn't so sure he wanted the degree because once you had conferred upon you the degree Doctor of theology you became a public person you're expected to be someone who would stand out front and represent the Catholic Church and basically be one who was both a theologian thinker for the church and an apologist on its behalf and all of this while Luther was certainly a faithful Roman Catholic at this point put him into a situation that he didn't really feel very comfortable with to be in the limelight like that he didn't feel that he had the requisite competence to hold that kind of office but nevertheless once again Stout that's more or less prevailed upon him and he acceded to that pressure and took the degree of doctor of theology and that was in 1512 he began lecturing therefore publicly from that point on both in the university and in publicly available lectures for anyone who wished to come in 1513 he wrote his first biblical commentary which was on the Book of Psalms and it's still out there so if you're like I am I'd like to kind of poke around in dusty old used bookstores you may come across a volume or two of there's commentaries on Psalms and if you do it if you flip it open and it cost 50 cents buy it buy several you know it's it's really quite a classic work and it's well worth reading what's interesting about it is its pre-reformation Luther so it's still very much Catholic Martin Luther you know nevertheless giving a very competent treatment of the Psalms interesting reading in 1510 however we have this incident I was alluding to earlier in which he was commissioned to write a commentary on Paul's letter to the Romans and so he plows in he's doing his research and he's working through verse by verse and he gets to the first roadblock in his thinking which is as I was saying earlier Paul's thesis statement for the entire book of Romans I'm not ashamed of the gospel it's the power of God for salvation to all who believe in it the righteousness of God is revealed and that's where Luther got stuck he couldn't quite wrap his brain around those two ideas I am not ashamed and the righteousness of God because for him it was the righteousness of God that provoked the greatest shame in his life when he thought of the righteousness of God he thought of all the lights in the universe being turned on white-hot searing examination of his inner life and being exposed for what he thought he was the hypocrite the duplicitous person you see who was so tainted at the deepest core of his being and he would have preferred Paul would have said I'm not ashamed of the gospel because in it the righteousness of God is concealed you see hidden then there'd be a place to hide there'd be a safe corner to avoid this gaze of God but how could Paul say I'm not ashamed the righteousness of God is revealed and he was stuck there for some time in his own writings he gives this explanation of what happened to him in 15 15 this is a later discussion of it he says quote the words righteous and righteousness of God were like a bolt of lightning in my conscience whenever I heard them I was terrified for if God is righteous then he must also punish yet by the grace of God when I was reflecting one time in this very tower and chamber on the words of Romans 1:17 quote he who through faith is righteous shall live and the just shall live by faith and the phrase the righteousness of God the thought suddenly came to me if it is through our faith that we are to live as righteous ones and if the righteousness of God is to avail for salvation to everyone who believes then this righteousness will be ours not because of our merit but because of God's mercy thus was my spirit lifted up for the righteousness of God is that by which we are justified and redeemed by Christ and those words became more pleasing to me it was in this tower that the Holy Spirit revealed to me the scriptures and that was in Luther's own words as he wrote later the moment when the heavens opened the light came in and I was ushered into paradise and I want to drop down to a little asterisk footnote here I'm putting my Sunday School lesson right in the middle of this Sunday school presentation this morning because my hope for every one of us in this room is that we have been ushered into that same paradise this is the gospel the gospel is that what we could never do on our own no matter how many hours we confessed in no matter how much we beat our back and oma how much almsgiving we did or how many other good works we piled up none of it would count for anything except by a free gift of righteousness from God through Christ to us received by faith and it's on that basis that we have this wonderful opportunity to be free in conscience before him this is properly speaking the beginning of the Reformation of course 1515 Luther went ahead cheerfully happily cranking out his commentary on Romans from that point on and continuing his ministry there in Wittenberg and you begin to see a little change of course in the content of his ministry it was in the same year 15 15 that Pope Leo the tenth Giovanni de Medici had bankrupted the papacy we talked about that last week needed money he didn't want to just go out and send indulgences salesman out to collect money to refill the coffers he had he needed some greater grand design of course the rebuilding of st. Peter's seemed to fit the bill and so we talked about this last week 15 15 the same year that these indulgences sales would go out fanned out across all of Europe selling indulgences one of the indulgences salesman was a guy by the name of Johann Tetzel he was a Dominican friar he was a Salesman par excellence you know all the old expressions sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo and all of that that's the kind of guy he was he could sell anything and he really liked the product that had been given him to sell here in indulgences so just about two years later he made it to Wittenberg and he was selling indulgences like hotcakes you know and he had all kinds of little ditties and Rhymes and and so on as he would he would preach these very clever sermons inducing people then to spend you know their money to buy indulgences for a variety of benefits but he'd have little sayings like every time a coin Ching's a soul from purgatory Springs you know that kind of thing and it was just he was just class he was just good and so he was there and he was getting quite a following of course it's in the city of Wittenberg where Luther himself is is laboring and he becomes aware soon enough of what's going on and so as a result of that Luther decides to pin 95 theological propositions questioning the legitimacy of the entire idea of selling indulgences which we know of as the 95 theses sometimes people think this is this very dramatic moment you know Luther goes down but kind of flair and tax that thing up on there like some kind of gauntlet you know he's throwing that nothing like that at all first of all the 95 pieces were written in Latin so nobody could read them unless they were already educated in classical languages they were also not intended for some kind of big public sort of event this was an invitation to the other faculty members at the university to engage in a dispute ation which was a common way of in you know doing educational labors over the 95 propositions that Luther had written so he tacks it up on the church door at Wittenberg by the way that was a public bulletin board he tacked it up right beside another sign that said reward lost cat you know and on the other side it said something about a rummage sale it was just a bulletin board and so this was not again some sort of highly dramatic moment is it sometimes styled it was it was not intended to be that at all but he tacks up these 95 theses everybody's heard of the 95 theses very few people have read them you are going to become part of that elite class of people this morning who've already at least some of them so if you'll bear with me this is going to take us about four minutes all right but I want you to always get a flavor for some of these 95 theses the preamble said this out of love and zeal for truth and the desire to bring truth to light the following theses will be publicly discussed at Wittenberg under the chairmanship of Reverend Father Martin Luther Master of Arts and sacred theology and regularly appointed lecturer on these subjects at that place he requests that those who cannot be present to debate orally with us will do so by letter in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen not exactly an inflammatory kind of you know introduction that was kind of the force of it but the 95 theses themselves did have a little bit of bite and so I just want to give you a flavor for them it's only 95 sentences the whole documents not that long but just a few of them for your interest here number one when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said repent he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance number two this word cannot be understood as referring to the Sacrament of Penance that his confession and satisfaction is administered by the clergy number five the Pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority as opposed to God's authority and by those of the canons the Pope cannot remit any guilt except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God or to be sure by remitting guilt in cases reserved to his judgment if this right to grant remission in these cases were disregarded the guilt would certainly remain Unforgiven the tenth one these priests act ignorantly and wickedly who in the case of the dying reserve canonical penalties for purgatory he doesn't deny by the way the doctrine of purgatory in the ninety-five theses he did ultimately but at this point he's still working within the framework of that Catholic idea but he is questioning of course the efficacy of indulgences to affect people's circumstances in purgatory number 11 those tears of changing the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory were evidently sown while the bishops slept there's always a little bit of humor in Martin Luther's writings number 20 therefore the Pope when he uses the words plenary remission of all penalties does not actually mean all penalties but only those imposed by himself 21 though thus those indulgences preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences as a matter of fact the Pope remits two souls in purgatory no penalty we according to canon law they should have paid in this life 27 they preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks in the money chest the soul flies out of purgatory we know who he was talking about there it is certain however that when the money clinks in the money chest greed and avarice can be increased but when the church intercedes the result is in the hands of God alone 32 those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned together with their teachers 33 men must especially be on guard against those who say that the Pope's pardons the post importance are those that inestimable I'm sorry I can already see this in Espoo gift of God by which man is reconciled to him I hope you could read this better than I can read mine you're 36 any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt even without indulgences letters 37 any true Christian whether living or dead participates in all the blessings of Christ in the church and this is granted him by God even without indulgences letters 43 Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences 44 because love grows by works of love man their fight their mite becomes better man does not however become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties it's the old problem of being sorry for the consequences of sin and buying an indulgence rather than being sorry for the sin itself which leads to true repentance that's the point there 45 Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by yet gives money for indulgences does not buy papal indulgences but buys God's wrath 81 this unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learning and to rescue the reverence which is due the Pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity like 82 why does not the Pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church the former reason would be most just the latter most trivial the Pope claimed to have power over purgatory Luther's asking why doesn't he just empty purgatory then you know if he's got that power and why is he doing it at the expense of these selling of these indulgences away then the last three year for a way then with those prophets who say to the people of Christ peace peace when there is no peace blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ cross cross and there is no cross no gospel you see Christians should be exhorted to be diligent and following Christ their head through penalties death and hell and finally and thus be confident of entering into heaven through many tribulations rather than through the fault security of peace so the ninety-five theses written in Latin up on the church door of the Wittenberg Cathedral there was a guy that came walking down the street who happened to speak Latin he read the 95 theses and immediately recognized the inflammatory character of them without Luther's knowledge or permission he took the 95 theses down and trotted down to that local newfangled Gutenberg press guy and said hey take a look at this the 95 theses were of course there was no copyright laws then there was no violation here of any law that would have prevented this so he ran off you know copies of this within two weeks the 95 theses had spread through all of Germany by the way they were translated into German first that did facilitate the dissemination of them by about three months the 95 theses had swept through all of Europe it's one of the most amazed expressions of rapid dissemination of a document that's ever been happened in history given the technology of the time and so Europe I think it's safe to say was absolutely a flame with this 95 theses and nobody was more surprised than Martin Luther that he was catapulted in this sort of overnight sensation into the public eye in such a remarkable way so that all took place in 1517 it launches what's commonly called the indulgences controversy the indulgences controversy began with polio not taking it very seriously he thought here's a labored monk it's not all that uncommon we have these dissenting voices from time to time Leo thought that he could simply put a little pressure on Martin and he would cave in and all would be well and if not just burn him you know that was his view because that was the standard in all of the time four dissenting voices so Luther at least had an opportunity from a couple of K actually four or five occasions on this during this whole period to meet with Catholic scholars and discuss and debate these issues and the first major one was with a guy named Cardinal Kaja ttan and this was took place at Augsburg in 1518 now Augsburg was outside of Saxony and Luther would never have been stupid enough to go there unless he was given safe passage from the Emperor and so the emperor actually granted to Luther Imperial protection so that he could leave Saxony where he was basically protected and go and meet cotton there at Augsburg but as it turns out Kasdan didn't know that Luther had the safe passage and that's the background for the beginning there's cashton by the way he does look kind of scary doesn't so anyway this is Luther reporting later what happened at this colloquy in Augsburg he says quote in the meantime the Imperial Senate informed the Cardinal through the Bishop of Trent that I had been given of the Emperor safe conduct and that they should undertake nothing against me at this point even the Rhine burst into flame when thereafter I returned to him he wanted me simply to recant then I became very angry and addressed him without his simple without his title simply as you and said I cannot recant unless someone teaches me something that is better I cannot abandon the Scriptures then when he got nowhere with me with his rebukes he shouted to me fryer fryer yesterday you were very reasonable but today you are completely mad then he confronted me with the papal bull extravaganza of Plymouth vi however I said that the Pope had misinterpreted the scriptures and I argued against the Pope kajan and at this point became exceedingly angry and said recant or don't ever return I took the words don't ever return to heart and I left he left on horseback by the way because notwithstanding the safe conduct he remembered John Huss who also had a safe conduct to the Council of Constance it was worded to state there and so he knew that that's had its limits and so he fled on horseback back to Sac City where Duke Frederick much at his own personal risk protected Luther he believed in Luther's cause to Frederick's always kind of an ambivalent character and it's not a neat story but he basically liked Luther and he put his stuck his neck out there more than once to protect him so even though there was huge pressure for Frederick to turn him over to to have inverted the snake or whatever which would have been standard fare because of Frederick's protection basically Luther was able to go from one day to the next so he's protected by Luther by uh Frederick in that way the next major hearing was at 1590 the next year at Leipzig against probably the most formidable Canon lawyer in the world at the time a guy by the name of John Eck John Eck was not simply a you know a person with theological education but was a extremely competent lawyer and so they had a gathering and basically John X succeeded in getting Luther to sign his own death warrant he got Luther painted into a corner where he agreed that the Pope's that herb councils that heard and so on and that it was the Holy Scriptures alone that were his authority and that he claimed a right to interpret the Scriptures contrary to the teaching of Holy Mother Church and so on all of these things were just maneuvering Lutheran to really capital offenses of the day which sort of spelled his doom we certainly would have expected it strategically at this moment the emperor died and so as I was saying Duke Frederick had the opportunity along with others to elect the new emperor and interestingly enough Frederick himself was elected the subsequent Emperor and he declined the job we don't know what course history would have taken if Duke Frederick had accepted it he was an older man he wanted the responsibility and so he declined it and on the next ballot the guy that was actually elected to that post was Maximilian who was the grandson Charles the fifth of Isabella and Ferdinand I mentioned three weeks ago we would come back to this moment and as advertised here we are so here is the grandson deeply Catholic obviously and deeply loyal to his own parentage and grandparent egde and so this is the young man he's in his late teens now who becomes the Emperor in 1519 1520 pop leo issued the papal bull call an excerpt J Domini here's our friend we saw him last week kind of a little recitation of his life I want to give you a little flavor for this this is the papal Bowl that actually banned Martin Luther doesn't excommunicate him yet but it does put him under the ban which is the next best thing and here's the language of it at least part of this is an excerpt I'll quote bishop leo servant of the servants of God arise O Lord that's what exergy terminate Domini means and horizon Ord judge die cause remember how fools scoff at thee all day incline thine ear to our prayer for foxes have come to spoil the vineyard whose winepress thou has a lone dragon and when thou didst desire to ascend into heaven to the Father thou didst commit to the care government and administration of this vineyard Peter as the head and by Vicar and to his successors as the church triumphant now a wild boar this has become a nickname by the way for martin luther wild boar now a wild boar from the forest threatens to ravage the vineyard indeed a wild animal threatens to pluck its fruit arise Peter and in accord with your position as protector and guardian with which you have been charged by God attend with zeal the cause of the holy roman church arise also Paul we entreat you for you have enlightened the church both by your doctrine and by your martyrdom and finally rise up communitive Saints and fellowship for the whole Christian Church that which we hardly dare to express because of the fear and anguish of our soul has now been told to us in the reports of credible persons and information based on widespread rumors in fact we have unfortunately seen and heard with our own eyes many and manifold errors some of which have already been condemned in the past by the counsels and decrees of our predecessors and which obviously contained the heresies of the Greeks and the moe he means the Moe he means is a reference to John HUS others are clearly heretical or false are offensive harmful to Christians Christian Aries or a deceptive of simple Souls all stemming from the prophetess servants of the faith whose arrogance impels them to seek the world's glory and desire to be a desire to be contrary to the doctrine of st. Paul wiser than they have a right to be beyond this we herewith condemned by virtue of this decree the same Martin his assent errs patrons followers supporters and demanded command that they be considered such by all Christian believers both male and female in addition we forbid all Christian believers under any circumstances to read express preach praise or print the writings of the same Martin so that his memory may be completely obliterated from the Fellowship of Christian believers yes they are to burn them and in order to increase the disgrace of the same Martin and those in accord with him they are under every penalty of the law - personally to seize Luther and his ascenders patrons followers and supporters and are requested to hold them captive and send them to us in payment of which good deed they will receive a suitable reward and remuneration from us and from the papal throne so there's a price on his head bounty hunters are out there looking for Martin Luther his books are banned by the way he was excommunicated about a month later in January this this bull was issued in December Luther threw it into a band bonfire in the streets of Wittenberg just kind of celebrated the following month he excommunicated his final opportunity to stand before the Church of course the very famous diet of forms I'm going to leave you with this moment he had come to the hoping once again to have a conversation there was no conversation to be had this was strictly a last opportunity for Luther to recant or to face the prospects of it the diet of forms that was the only question on the floor will you recant Luther famously took a day to think about it you know I mean this was kind of awesome one monk against the whole assembled brass of church and state very regal kind of assembly and here he is one guy all by himself and what's he going to do and after a night of agonizing prayer he comes back the next day and gives one of the most famous speeches in the history of the church with which I will leave you at this point so Luther said quote since then your serene majesty and your lordship seek a simple answer I will give it in this manner neither horn nor tooth which is what they were accusing about unless I am convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by evident reason for I do not trust either in the Pope or in counsels alone since it is well known that they have often earned and contradicted themselves I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God I cannot and I will not retract anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience I cannot do otherwise here I stand may God help me amen amen well what happened to Martin boys and girls you have to come back in a week to find out what happened

Channel: Bruce Gore

Views: 35,739

Rating: 4.7848101 out of 5

Keywords: Martin, Luther, Ninety, Five, Theses, Bruce, Gore, Reformation, Pope, Leo, Whittenberg, Wittenberg, Johann, Tetzel, Duke, Frederick

Id: 56iHIhtGl4Q

Length: 49min 29sec (2969 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 18 2013