Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany, the
son of Hans Luther, who worked in the copper mines, and his wife
Margarethe. He went to school at Magdeburg and Eisenach, and
entered the University of Erfurt in 1501, graduating with a BA
in 1502 and an MA in 1505. His father wished him to be a lawyer,
but Luther was drawn to the study of the Scriptures, and spent
three years in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt. In 1507 he
was ordained a priest, and went to the University of Wittenberg,
where he lectured on philosophy and the Scriptures, becoming a
powerful and influential preacher.
On a mission to Rome in 1510-11 he was appalled
by the corruption he found there. Money was greatly needed at
the time for the rebuilding of St Peter's, and papal emissaries
sought everywhere to raise funds by the sale of indulgences. The
system was grossly abused, and Luther's indignation at the
shameless traffic, carried on in particular by the Dominican
Johann Tetzel, became irrepressible. As professor of biblical
exegesis at Wittenberg (1512-46), he began to preach the
doctrine of salvation by faith rather than works; and on 31
October 1517 drew up a list of 95 theses on indulgences denying
the pope any right to forgive sins, and nailed them on the
church door at Wittenberg. Tetzel retreated from Saxony to
Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, where he published a set of
counter-theses and burnt Luther's. The Wittenberg students
retaliated by burning Tetzel's, and in 1518 Luther was joined in
his views by Phillipp Melanchthon.
The pope, Leo X, at first took little notice of
this disturbance, but in 1518 summoned Luther to Rome to answer
for his theses. His university and the elector interfered, and
ineffective negotiations were undertaken by Cardinal Cajetan and
by Miltitz, envoy of the pope to the Saxon court. The scholar
Johann Eck and Luther held a memorable disputation at Leipzig
(1519); and Luther began to attack the papal system more boldly.
In 1520 he published his famous address An den christlichen Adel
deutscher Nation (Address to the Christian Nobility of the
German Nation), followed by a treatise De captivitate
Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium (A Prelude concerning the
Babylonian Captivity of the Church), which also attacked the
doctrinal system of the Church of Rome.
A papal bull containing 41 theses was issued
against him. He burned it before a multitude of doctors,
students, and citizens in Wittenberg. He was excommunicated, and
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, convened the first Diet at Worms
in 1521, before which Luther was called to retract his
teachings. Luther refused to relent. An order was issued for the
destruction of his books, and he was put under the ban of the
Empire. On his return from Worms he was seized, at the
instigation of the elector of Saxony, and lodged (for his own
protection) in the Wartburg, the elector's fortress. During the
year he spent there, he translated the Scriptures and composed
his cogent controversial treatise, "Refutation of the Argument
of Latomus'.
Civil unrest called Luther back to Wittenberg in
1522. He rebuked the unruly elements, and made a stand against
lawlessness on the one hand, and tyranny on the other. In the
same year Luther published his acrimonious reply to Henry VIII's
attack on him in Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum
Lutherum (1521) about the nature of the seven sacraments.
A divergence had gradually taken place also
between the views of the Humanist scholar Erasmus and Luther.
There was an open breach in 1525, when Erasmus published De
libero arbitrio (1524, Discourse on Free Will), and Luther
followed with De Servo arbitrio (Concerning the Bondage
of Will). In the same year he married Katherine von Bora, a nun
who had withdrawn from convent life.
In 1529 he engaged with the controversial
question of transubstantiation in the famous conference at
Marburg with Zwingli and other Swiss theologians; he obstinately
maintained his view that Christ is present in the bread and wine
of the Eucharist. The drawing up of his theological views in the
Augsburg Confession (1530) by Melanchthon, ably representing
Luther at the Diet of Augsburg, marks the culmination of the
German Reformation.
Luther died in Eisleben, and was buried at
Wittenberg, 1546.
Reprinted from http://www.covenanter.org/Luther/martinluther.htm
