Luther, vol. 1 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

We cannot here refrain from drawing attention to a fact which stands for all time as a solemn warning to the pastors of the Church. Just as the sight of the corruption, both ecclesiastical and moral, in Rome under Julius II, and the remembrance of an Alexander VI, had filled Luther with bitter prejudice on his journey to Italy, so the extremely worldly and regrettable action of the Curia, and episcopal toleration of actual abuses in the promulgation of the Indulgence, supplied him with welcome matter for his charges and with a deceitful pretext for the seducing of countless souls.

Luther learned many discreditable particulars concerning the arrangement arrived at between Rome and Mayence for the preaching of the Indulgence and the use to which half of the spoils was to be applied. What provoked Luther and many others was not only the abuses which prevailed in the use of Indulgences, about which there was much grumbling, and the constantly recurring collections which were a burden both to the rulers and their people, but also the tales current regarding the behaviour of the monk acting as Indulgence-preacher. Tetzel did not exactly shine as an example of virtue, although the charges against his earlier life are as baseless as the reproach of gross ignorance. He was, as impartial historians have established, forward and audacious and given to exaggeration. In his sermons, mainly owing to his popular style of address, he erred by using expressions only to be styled as strained and ill-considered. He even employed phrases of a repulsive nature in his attempts to extol the power of the Indulgence preached by him. In addition to this, in explaining how the Indulgence might be applied to the departed, he made his own the wrong, exaggerated and quite unauthorised opinions of certain isolated theologians, putting them on an equal footing with the real teaching of the Church. Such private opinions, it is true, had also found their way into some of the official instructions on Indulgences. At any rate, Tetzel, with misplaced zeal, mingled what was true with what was false or uncertain. The great concourse of people who gathered to hear the celebrated preacher also led to many disorders, more particularly when, as was the case at Annaberg, the occasion of the yearly fair was turned to account in order to publish the Indulgence.

Shortly after the sermon already spoken of Luther preached again at Wittenberg on the Indulgence and its abuses, but without expressly referring to Tetzel. Another sermon on the same subject was delivered at the Castle in the presence of the Elector on the occasion of the exposition of the rich collection of relics belonging to the Castle Church. He still openly admitted the value of Indulgences, but more and more he was disposed to find fault with the formalism into which the system had degenerated. Later he declared that he had begun, already in 1516, “to dispute about Indulgences and to write against the Pope”; only the first part of this clause is, however, true, and that only in a certain sense. He had as yet written nothing against the Primacy or against Indulgences as such. There is also no foundation for the statement that, as soon as he heard from Staupitz (at Grimma) of Tetzel’s behaviour, he exclaimed: “Please God, I will knock a hole in his drum.”

It was on the question of Indulgences that the wider controversy around his new doctrines, which were now complete, was to commence. In October, 1517, he decided to make a public attack on Tetzel. This he did when, on the Eve of All Saints, October 31, 1517, he nailed up his 95 theses on Indulgences on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. As All Saints was the Titular Feast of the Church[861] and as, on that day, numbers would be flocking thither to celebrate the festival, he counted on securing wide publicity for his theses. As a matter of fact, by this means, and thanks to the efforts of Luther and his friends, the printed theses were soon known everywhere. Their very boldness and impudence also contributed to their popularity. They were soon being read throughout Germany, exciting general surprise and even admiration of the Monk’s language. The number of those who sincerely applauded the theses, or who, at any rate, approved of the greater part of their contents, was much greater than has been generally believed.

The theses, of course, contained things which were incomprehensible to non-theologians, but the very tone in which they were written showed all the stupendous importance of the step which had been taken. The more timid were pacified by an introductory explanation of the author embodied in the paper containing the theses, which stated that the propositions did not determine anything definite, but that “out of love and zeal for the ascertaining of the truth” a public Disputation on these questions would be held by Luther at Wittenberg, and that those who were precluded from taking a personal part in the debate might state their objections in writing.[862]

If we examine the theses more closely and watch the behaviour of their author after they were made public, there appears to be no doubt that they were considered by him as settled beforehand and not merely as tentative propositions. Many of them, from the theological point of view, go far beyond a mere opposition of the abuse of Indulgences. Luther, stimulated by contradiction, had to some extent altered his previous views on the nature of Indulgences, and brought them more into touch with the fundamental principles of his erroneous theology.

A practical renunciation of the doctrine of Indulgences, as it had been held up to that time, is to be found in the theses, where Luther states that Indulgences have no value in God’s sight, but are merely to be regarded as the remission by the Church of the canonical punishment (theses 5, 20, 21, etc.). This destroys the theological meaning of Indulgences, for they had always been considered as a remission of the temporal punishment of sin, but as a remission which held good before the Divine Judgment-seat.[863] In some of the theses (58, 60) Luther likewise attacks the generally accepted teaching with regard to the Church’s treasury of grace, on which Indulgences are based. Erroneous views concerning the state of purgation of the departed occur in some of the propositions (18, 19, 29). Others appear to contain what is theologically incorrect, and connected with his opinion regarding grace and justification; this opinion is not, however, clearly set forth in the list of theses.

Many of the statements are mere irritating, insulting and cynical observations on Indulgences in general, no distinction being made between what was good and what was perverted. Thus, for instance, thesis 66 declares the “treasures of Indulgences” to be simply nets “in which the wealth of mankind is caught.” Others again scoff and mock at the authority of the Church, as, for example, thesis 86. “Why does not the Pope build the Basilica of St. Peter with his own money and not with that of the poverty-stricken faithful, seeing that he possesses to-day greater riches than the most wealthy Crœsus?”

In order that a certain echo of the author’s mystical Theologia Crucis may not be wanting even in this public document, the last two theses contain a protest against the formalism of the system of Indulgences: “Let Christians be exhorted to follow Christ, their Head, through suffering and through the pains of death and hell,” “in order the better to reach heaven they should put their trust in much tribulation rather than in the certainty of peace.”