Martin Luther

Not to be confused with Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther
Martin Luther, painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Religion	Christian
Church	Lutheran
Date of birth	(1483-11-10)November 10, 1483
Place of birth	Eisleben
Date of death	February 18, 1546(1546-02-18) (aged 62)
Place of death	Eisleben
Nationality	German
Known for	Starting the Protestant Reformation
Written works	The 95 Theses

Martin Luther (10 November 1483 in Eisleben - 18 February 1546 in Eisleben) was a German monk and theologian of Christianity who is credited with starting the Protestant Reformation. That was the Protestant churches leaving the Roman Catholic Church.

Luther started the Lutheran Church, the first Protestant church.

Early life

Luther studied philosophy at the University of Erfurt. In 1505, he entered into the Augustinian Order as a monk. Luther studied theology and ancient languages in Erfurt. In 1512 he became a doctor of theology in Wittenberg and began his lectures on the Psalms and Letters of Saint Paul.

Break with Catholicism

In October 1517, Luther wrote his 95 Theses. Many people think that he put them on the door of a church in Wittenberg, but no one said so at the time and so that may be a myth. Instead, he published a copy and presented it to church officials at Worms Cathedral. Luther called it The Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. It questioned the teaching of the Western Church, its ideas about penance, the authority of the Pope, and the usefulness of "indulgences." The Catholic Church was selling indulgences to get out of purgatory and to go right to heaven after death. Indulgences were sold for money for the dead so that they could go to heaven faster. Poor people could not be able to go to heaven as quickly, but the priests in the church could be rich from selling them. Luther thought that all of that was wrong and against the Bible.

After studying the Letters of Paul, especially the Letter to Romans, Luther came up with an idea called "sola fide". That means that only by faith, people can get salvation by God. That would mean that many of the Church's customs were useless and so should be cast away.

Luther at first believed that he could reform (improve) the Church from the inside and he wanted to stay part of it, but the papacy considered his Theses to be as heresy and excommunicated him on June 15, 1520 with a paper saying that he did not have its permission to go to heaven. In October, Luther burned the paper in public and showed he would not obey it unless it accepted his words.

Emperor Charles V opened the imperial Diet of Worms on 22 January 1521 to hear the case. For Luther, it was the last chance to say that he had been wrong. However, he did not change his mind and so the Diet declared Luther an outlaw.

Starts new church

With the help of a friend, Luther hid in Wartburg Castle, near Erfurt. There, he translated the Bible. First, he wrote the New Testament in German, instead of the original Greek. Later, he translated the Old Testament into German from Hebrew. Until then, the Mass and the Bible were usually in Latin, which very few people understood. That made most people going to Mass not understand what the priest was saying. Luther translated the Bible so that more people could read and understand it. They now no longer depended on the priest to tell them what was in the Bible, but they could read it themselves.

Luther started his own church, the Lutheran Church, with his friend Philip Melanchthon.

Luther strongly believed that his cause was righteous. He wrote harsh criticism against his enemies, especially Catholics and Jews, who he believed to be false prophets from the Devil. He rejected Jewish beliefs about the Old Testament and accused Jewish leaders of lying. He advised rulers to deal violently with the Jews in their realms. Those arguments make him controversial. Luther died in 1546.

Later Life

From the Bible, Luther formed firm ideas about families. Luther knew that what a child learned at home would greatly influence his life. He said in Table Talks, "Sermons very little edify children, who learn little thereby; it is more needful they be taught and well instructed in schools, and at home, and that they be learned and examined what they have learned; this way profits much; 'tis very wearisome, but very necessary." Luther also preached against the Catholic Church's refusal to let priests marry. After hearing his preaching, many nuns wrote to him to ask for help in escaping their convents. Luther helped nine nuns escape from a convent. On April 4, 1524, Luther had a friend help the nuns sneak over the wall and hid them in barrels on a wagon until they were out of the city. One of the nuns was Katherine von Bora.

After finding husbands for the nuns whose families would not accept them, Luther had to find a husband for Katherine von Bora. Katherine, however, rejected a match Luther arranged for her, and said that she would accept only Luther or another pastor, Amsdorf, as her husband.

At first, Luther did not really like Katherine and thought that "she was proud and haughty." His feelings changed, however, and they married on June 13, 1525. Luther later said, "And thank God it hath turned out well; for I have a pious (holy, God-loving) and faithful wife, to whom one may safely commit (give) his heart."

They had six children. On June 6, 1526, Luther wrote, "I am a happy husband... for from the most precious woman, my best of wives, I have received, by the blessing of God, a little son, John Luther, and, by God's wonderful grace, I have become a father."

The firstborn was John Luther. The next was a daughter, Elizabeth, but she died when she was just eight months old, and Luther wrote in a letter, "My little daughter Elizabeth is taken from me, and hath left me with a bleeding and almost womanly heart, so sad am I on her account. I never thought the heart of a father was so tender towards his children. Pray the Lord for me." A third child, Magdalene, also died young. Then came Martin, then Paul, and finally Margaret. It was for his children that Luther wrote the Small Catechism, a book showing the basics of Lutheran beliefs.

Movies

Since the time of the silent movies, there are 28 movies about Luther that have been made. The newest one, Luther, was released in 2003.

Martin Luther Media

• 

  Portraits of Luther's parents, Hans and Margarethe Luther, by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1527

• 

  In July 1505, Luther entered St. Augustine's Monastery in Erfurt

• 

  Luther's residence at the University of Wittenberg, where he began teaching theology in 1508

• 

  A 1520 engraving of Luther as a friar with a tonsure

• 

  A posthumous portrait of Luther as an Augustinian friar

• 

  Luther at Erfurt, an 1861 portrait by Joseph Noel Paton depicting Luther discovering the doctrine of sola fide (by faith alone)

• 

  The Catholic sale of indulgences shown in A Question to a Mintmaker, a woodcut by Jörg Breu the Elder of Augsburg, c. 1530

• 

  Luther's theses are engraved into the door of All Saints' Church, Wittenberg; the Latin inscription above informs the reader that the original door was destroyed by a fire, and that in 1857, King Frederick William IV of Prussia ordered that a replacement be made.

• 

  Pope Leo X's Bull against the errors of Martin Luther, 1521, commonly known as Exsurge Domine

• 

  Luther (right) meeting Cardinal Cajetan (left)

Related pages

• John Calvin
• Jan Hus
• Huldrych Zwingli

Other websites

• Martin Luther - Eine Bibliographie (German) Archived 2005-11-24 at the Wayback Machine
• Full text in English of the 95 theses Archived 2006-11-11 at the Wayback Machine
• Disputatione pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum (95 Theses, in Latin, at Wikisource)
• Project Wittenberg, a collection of Luther's text
• Repository of Luther's works at Project Gutenberg