Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) was a German priest, theologian, and professor whose objections to the doctrine and practice of the Roman Catholic Church set off the Protestant Reformation. [1] His insistence that salvation comes through faith alone, and that scripture rather than church tradition is the final authority, broke the religious unity of Western Europe and produced the Protestant churches. [2] His German translation of the Bible shaped the development of the modern German language. [3]
Early life and education
Luther was born on 10 November 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony, the son of a copper miner who later acquired smelting interests and intended his son for the law. He studied at the University of Erfurt, taking a master's degree in 1505, and began legal studies the same year. [1]
Within months he abandoned them and entered an Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, a decision tradition connects to a vow made during a violent thunderstorm. He was ordained a priest in 1507, continued theological study, and in 1512 received a doctorate in theology, after which he taught biblical studies at the newly founded University of Wittenberg for the rest of his career. [2]
The Ninety-five Theses
Luther's study of Paul's epistles led him to conclude that human beings are justified before God by faith rather than by works or merit. This conviction sharpened his objection to the sale of indulgences, certificates held to remit temporal punishment for sin, which were being promoted in German lands to help finance the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. [1]
In 1517 he set out ninety-five theses for academic disputation on the subject, addressed to the Archbishop of Mainz and, according to long-standing tradition, posted on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Printed and circulated rapidly, they made him a public figure and drew Rome's attention.
Break with Rome
In 1520 Luther published three programmatic treatises setting out his theology of the church, the sacraments, and Christian freedom. Pope Leo X issued a bull threatening excommunication, which Luther publicly burned, and the excommunication followed in January 1521. [1]
Summoned before the Diet of Worms later that year and ordered to recant, he refused, in a stand that made him famous across Europe. Declared an outlaw by the Emperor Charles V, he was sheltered at the Wartburg castle by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony. There he translated the New Testament into German in a matter of months; the complete Bible followed in 1534. [3]
Later years
Returning to Wittenberg, Luther organised the new evangelical churches, writing catechisms, a German liturgy, and hymns, several of which he composed himself. In 1525 he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun; their household became a model for the Protestant clergy family. The same year he condemned the rebelling peasants of the German Peasants' War in severe terms, siding with the princes. [2]
His later writings include violent polemics against Jews, which have been studied extensively for their influence on subsequent German antisemitism, and which Lutheran bodies have since repudiated. He died at Eisleben, his birthplace, on 18 February 1546. [1]
Legacy
The movement Luther began fractured Western Christendom permanently and gave rise to the Lutheran churches and, indirectly, to the wider Protestant tradition. His translation established a literary standard for written German. [3] The Reformation he set in motion also had far-reaching political consequences, contributing to the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and to the reordering of authority in early modern Europe. [4]
