I had read about Martin Luther, primarily in Will Durant’s Story of Civilization, Part 6- The Reformation. But I had never actually read any of his works until this volume 36 of the Harvard Classics series. Along with Machiavelli’s The Prince, a bio of Thomas More, and More’s Utopia, Luther’s writings here are the 95 Theses, his Address to the German Nobility, and Concerning Christian Liberty.
The 95 Theses were pinned to the door of the church in Wittenburg in 1517, and became the starting point of the Protestant reformation. The focal point of the 95 Theses was Rome’s sale of papal indulgences. Indulgences were a formal way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins, typically understood to be the time spent in purgatory. The recipient of an indulgence had to perform an action to receive it, but under Leo X, it was used as a way to raise money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Luther argued this was merely an aggressive marketing campaign (not in those words) and had no place in the church. He argued that the Pope had no authority to lessen the effects of sins of individuals already passed, and that all attempts to claim such were 1) naked attempts to raise money to satiate Rome’s avarice, and 2) harmful to actual Christianity and Christians, who would naively believe they were absolved from sins by simply paying money.
The next letter was his Address to the German Nobility, where he essentially argues for a revolt from Rome on the basis of the depravity and worldliness of the Church. The depravity of the church was well-known, and I remember one funny story from the Decameron- where there was a rich, upright merchant living in Paris, who was a man full of integrity and a solid Christian. He is worried about a friend, a man as himself but Jewish, because he knows that if the Jew does not confess Christ, he will go to hell. He thinks the Jew an upright man, full of good works, so he tries to convert the Jew, who doesn’t want to listen. Finally the Jewish man says he will investigate by going to the seat of Christianity- Rome. He says that if the leaders are decent people, he’ll know the gospel must be true. The man is heart-broken because everyone knew Rome was a viper’s pit of evil. So the Jew goes, and comes back and his friend asks him what he found. The Jew tells him: Look, there is no holiness there, no devotion, no good works or models of life, only avarice, gluttony, fraud, envy, pride, and the place seemed a forge of diabolical works. Yet the church advances everywhere- only the Holy Spirit could cause this, so I want to be a Christian too.
It’s a funny story, but it illustrates how widely known the depravity at Rome was. Anyway, Luther wrote this letter in 1520, 3 years after the start of the reformation, and the church had not backed down, it had resisted even harder.
Luther lists three walls the Romanists had erected to protect themselves.
The first is that the church is a spiritual power, the countries temporal powers, and as such, the countries had no authority over the church, where the church had authority over them. Luther counters that every believer is consecrated as a priest equally, meaning every Christian is part of this spiritual kingdom, including all the believers in each country, and therefore Rome’s dichotomy is false.
The second wall was that no one could interpret Scriptures but the Pope. Luther simply goes through the scriptures themselves and demolishes that argument.
The third wall was that no one could call a council but the Pope. This was so that no councils to reform the church could be called. Luther argues that if the first two fall, this one does too. The pope was acting contrary to the scriptures, therefore he was in no position to tell other believers what could be done.
He then goes on to list 27 matters to be considered. This is his most ‘German’ writing- he appeals to the more nationalist sentiments that Germans not be taken advantage of by Rome, who he says had already ruined Rome by sucking all the resources of the nation to itself, and would gladly leech Germany too if the Germans didn’t stand up to the church. But it’s not merely a nationalist appeal, he opposes the practices with scriptures and explains why the Church is wrong.
The third letter is Concerning Christian Liberty, which is a robust defense of basic Protestant doctrine.
He addresses the question of salvation by faith v works, defending salvation through faith. He then explains the position of works in the life of believers, and finally addresses those that would deduce license from the faith-alone position.