[147] A free translation of the Vulgate, Nemo militans Deo.
[148] The kissing of the pope's feet was a part of the "adoration" which he claimed as his right. See above, p. 108.
[149] The three paragraphs enclosed in brackets were added by Luther to the 2d edition; see Introduction, p. 59.
[150] The holy places of Rome had long been favorite objects of pilgrimage, and the practice had been zealously fostered by the popes through the institution of the "golden" or "jubilee years." Cf. Vol. I, p. 18, and below, p. 114.
[151] Cf. the Italian proverb, "God is everywhere except at Rome; there He has a vicar."
[152] Cf. Hutten's saying in Vadiscus: "Three things there are which those who go to Rome usually bring home with them, a bad conscience, a ruined stomach and an empty purse." (Ed. Böcking, IV, p. 169.)
[153] The "golden" or "jubilee years" were the years when special rewards were attached to worship at the shrines of Rome. The custom was instituted by Boniface VIII in 1300, and it was the intention to make every hundredth year a jubilee. In 1343 the interval between jubilees was fixed at fifty, in 1389 at thirty-three, in 1473 at twenty-five years. Cf. Vol. I, p. 18.
[154] Cf. the statements in the Treatise on Baptism and the Discussion of Confession, Vol. I, pp. 68 ff., 98.
[155] The houses, or monasteries, of the mendicant or "begging" orders—the "friars." The members of these orders were sworn to support themselves on the alms of the faithful.
[156] The three leading mendicant orders were the Franciscan (the Minorites, or "little brothers"), founded by St. Francis of Assisi (died 1226), the Dominican (the "preaching brothers"), founded by St. Dominic (died 1221), and the Augustinian Hermits, to which Luther himself belonged, and which claimed foundation by St. Augustine (died 430).