luther

LUTHERThe European World

Recap: Church in 1500 thriving: vibrant, flexible and

more popular than ever before at a parish level.

Despite this there were voices which were critical of the ‘material’ aspect of medieval piety. Did they act as a seed-bed for Protestantism? Or were they evidence of a late medieval

Church which was self-reflecting and capable of housing divergent opinions?

Lecture Structure: Luther’s ‘Crisis’ Early Lutheranism German pre-conditions Lutheranism Popular Lutheranism

Luther’s ‘Crisis’

TWO QUESTIONS?ARE HUMANS ‘JUSTIFIED’ (PARDONED BY GOD) ON ACCOUNT OF FAITH OR WORKS?

WHAT ARE THE RESPECTIVE ROLES OF HUMANS AND GOD IN THE PROCESS OF SALVATION?

Luther’s ‘Crisis’: 1518‘I hated that word, "justice of God," which, I had been taught to understand as referring to formal or active justice – that justice by which God is just and by which he punishes sinners and the unjust’.

‘But I felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I hated the just God who punishes sinners. I said, "Isn't it enough that we miserable sinners, lost for all eternity because of original sin, are oppressed by every kind of calamity through the Ten Commandments? Why does God heap sorrow upon sorrow through the Gospel and through the Gospel threaten us with his justice and his wrath?" This was how I was raging with wild and disturbed conscience’.

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE:The words ‘righteous’ and ‘righteousness of God’ struck my conscience like lightning. When I heard them I was exceedingly terrified. If God is righteous [I thought], he must punish. But when by God’s grace I pondered, in the tower and heated room of this building, over the words, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live’ [Rom. 1:17] and ‘the righteousness of God’ [Rom. 3:21], I soon came to the conclusion that if we, as righteous men, ought to live from faith and if the righteousness of God contributes to the salvation of all who believe, then salvation won’t be our merit but God’s mercy. My spirit was thereby cheered. For it’s by the righteousness of God that we’re justified and saved through Christ. These words [which had before terrified me] now became more pleasing to me. The Holy Spirit unveiled the Scriptures for me in this tower.

WHAT ABOUT FREE WILL?

Faith Alone - Ramifications:• Problem – the ability to believe not down to the individual.• Given to them by God, who has predestined who will be

saved.• Nothing mankind can do to avoid it, or to assist own

salvation.• Falls out with Erasmus on extent of Free Will

• Whole edifice of the Church now undercut.• Means of accruing grace – pilgrimages, venerating

saints, praying for dead in purgatory – redundant• More than that – idolatrous.• Suggest man need to do things to be saved is to

diminish Christ’s actions for salvation on the Cross.• Whole edifice of Christian Church a ‘confidence

trick’, vast conspiracy perpetrated by Antichrist to rob men of money and souls.

So What? Europe’s first real experience of formal religious divisions, exported

into age of Empires. Formation of nascent national identities – Catholic/Protestant Redefined Europe’s territorial boundaries – 1550s and – more

extensively – in the 30 years war 1618-48, which engulfed all of Europe and was the bloodiest war in history until the First World War.

Redefines the nature of what it means to be a monarch – control of state and church

Formation of vernacular languages – English & German Ramifications for the relationships between genders. And – perhaps most significantly of all – changing the nature of the

relationship between mankind and God altered the nature of subjectivity, of being and what it meant to be human.

Moves to a less numinous and ‘magical’ world, and arguably a more ‘rational’ form of thinking.

Early Lutheranism:

The Indulgence Controversy & the 95 Theses:

Indulgence Controversy:

Pope could make grants to the faithful from treasury of merits accumulated by the saints over and above what needed for salvation.

1517 indulgence issued by Leo X for St Peter’s Basilica.

Preached in Germany by Johan Tetzel to benefit of Albrecht of Brandenburg. Luther horrified – dishonour

Christ/delude populace

Question was broader than indulgences: did works have any merit towards salvation?

95 Theses: Academic debate.

Nailed to the door of the Church in Wittenberg.

An emblem of defiance.

Capturing a moment:Myth & History: Lego Luther:

LUTHER’S ‘RADICALISM’: Luther does not set out to cause of schism in the

Church: Hoped to purify the Church But series of events pushed him to break from it.

‘Protestantism’ not planned: Emerges in reaction to events

Break, certainly - but not ‘new’: Return to the purity of Christianity after the death of

Christ Roman Church had gradually become more and more

corrupt and moved away from this over a period of 1500 years.

LEIPZIG 1519 - LUTHER’S KEY IDEAS: Rejects Papal authority. Sole authority in the Church should be scripture:

Sola scriptura Not tradition, not authority of priests, or papacy. If not in bible – not practiced. Led to questioning sacramental system, papal authority,

purgatory. Priesthood of All Believers:

Not need a priest to mediate between man and God. All had a direct relationship with Him.

Rejection of the Church as the institution which regulated salvation – only God could do so.

1520 TRACTS: To the Christian Nobility of the German

Nation (secular authority to reform Church)

The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (only 3 sacraments)

The Freedom of a Christian (Faith Alone)

GERMAN PRECONDITIONS:

‘GREAT MAN’ SYNDROME: Luther certainly charismatic and prolific. But ideas exist in a context.

Reform initiatives had existed in the Church before but: Lacked political backing. Or the technology to disseminate.

WHY DOES LUTHER NOT SHARE THE FATE OF OTHER MEDIEVAL HERETICS?

GERMAN PECULIARITIES 1: PRINCES & CITIES Elector Frederick of Saxony – patron.

Condemned in 1521 (Diet of Worms). ‘Kidnapped’ – works on a German bible.

Structure of the Holy Roman Empire: Cities Principalities an aspect of independence

not felt elsewhere in Europe Buffering from central authority/ partial

autonomy over constitutions.

GERMAN PECULIARITIES 2: THE STATE OF RELIGION? Spiritual anxiety?

Late-medieval Church popular at the parish level. But Humanist criticisms – yearning?

Anticlericalism? Not a ‘cause’ but ever-present. More pronounced in the Holy Roman Empire.

Nationalism? Feeling of Papacy encroaching upon the German lands.

1/3 of lands in hands of Bishops/monasteries. Most other territories/powers in Europe secured deals re:

taxation/ appointment of Bishops.

THE PRINTING PRESS: Germany:

Advanced De-centralised

Luther: Prolific Engaging Popular & Populist.

LUTHERANISM:

REFORMATION = PROCESS NOT EVENT: 1) WILD GROWTH: 1517-1525

Questioning of church = questioning of other aspects of tradition.

Peasants read social messages into Luther’s writings: Scripture to questions other aspects of society

If God had entrusted the community to choose and appoint its own pastor, surely communities had rights to lands, woods, rivers and other natural resources?

Sparked ‘Peasants War’ 1525-26: Frightened authorities, tainted Lutheranism:

Against the robbing and murderous hordes of peasants (1525) 2) ‘PRINCELY REFORMATION’ & ‘THE REFORMATION IN THE

CITIES’.

CONSOLIDATION: 3) CONFESSIONALISATION.

Politics & Religion meet in ‘State Building’. Protestantism becomes entrenched in

individual German states, and helped to forge the ways in which those states were composed.

Education programme Language Legal codes Calendar/ national memory National identity.

Not just ‘Luther’s Reformation’

Shaped by the environment in which it occurred and the powers

and authorities who implemented it

AN URBAN EVENT? 65 Reichstädte (50 of them adopt reform). ‘Saved’ the Reformation post 1525. Essentially de facto sovereign states – ruled small

hinterlands/ had small armies: Conflict with Bishops over clerical appointments Sense of corporate responsibility and mutual aid in conflict

with clerical responsibility Gradual process:

Popular agitation Town governments take control Abolition of old order and introduction of Protestant worship

and doctrine Confession of Augsburg (1530)

VARIETY OF URBAN REFORMATIONS:

Lutheran in the North:• Quite conservative in

pace and extent• Liturgy and structure

owed much to the Catholic Church.

Adiaphora (things indifferent).

Swiss in the South:

Martin Bucer (Strasbourg) More hostile to the visual

aspects of Catholic order – iconoclasm.

• Nearer to Switzerland – therefore Swiss (Reformed) theology.

• Often structures of those cities - in which guilds played a large part – suited the Zwinglian model better.

PRINCELY REFORMATION: POLITICS OR PRINCIPLE? Nature of the HRE:

Independent principalities loosely ruled over by an Emperor.

Opportunity to plunder? Convincing?

Very slow to take up Not many of them did until 1530 ‘Protestation’ of Princes at the Diet of

Speyer in 1529 against Emperor’s measures to quell Lutheranism: Only 6 signed up.

Catholic Princes could do the same. Noble women active prosletyzers.

HUGE political risks: John Frederick of Saxony captured by

the Emperor during war, offered a pardon and return of lands in renounce Catholicism.

Refused.

Princely Reformation 1530s onwards: secular authority replace collapsing Church

structures. Princes became secular & religious powers. Emperor Charles V waged war (duty to

protect Christendom). Schmalkaldic League:

league to defend protestant states. Emperor fighting a war on three fronts Periodic burst of reconciliation – allowed

Lutheranism to become more entrenched. By the time Charles V really gains the upper

hand in the late 1540s, Protestants and Catholic were now too far apart to be reconciled.

Peace of Augsburg 1555: ‘cuius regio, eius religio’. Ended war – but Charles V seen as greatest

failure as Emperor (duty as secular arm of the Church)

Abdicated.

POPULAR LUTHERANISM:

A ‘RELIGION OF THE WORD’ IN AN AGE OF MASS ILLITERACY Relatively easy to alter

ecclesiastical structures Much more difficult to implant

new beliefs into souls. What about the people? Printing press:

‘Religion of the Word’ – exacting Vast majority of the population

illiterate – were they excluded? Reading different in our time:

silent/ individual vs aloud and in groups

Preaching – sermon-based – rather than late-medieval Catholicism’s ritual based – going to Church an educational experience.

R. W. Scribner, For The Sake of Simple Folk (1981): Visual propaganda,

Flugschriften. Single-sheet images –

known as ‘broadsides’ – utilised visual codes and symbols drawn from popular culture to make the Reformation’s message more palatable.

Gregory the Great – ‘books for the illiterate’.

THE ‘LONG’ REFORMATION: 1970s – historiography overturns ‘Whig’ views of the

Reformation as ‘inevitable’.

Gerald Strauss – up to 1600 Reformation not a success: Records of church courts, bishops and ministers bemoan the

lack of understanding of the central tenets of faith. Largest problem numbers of ministers – long time to get

sufficient numbers university trained.

‘Success/Failure’ helpful terms?

Whose standards?