LUTHER, MARTIN

German Reformer; b. Eisleben, village in Thuringia, Nov. 10, 1483; d. there, Feb. 18, 1546. His parents, Hans Luder and Margaret Ziegler, had recently emigrated from the farming community of Möhra, where the Luder family had lived for many generations. As was the practice of the time, the child was baptized the following day by the pastor, Bartholomew Rennebecher; and since it was the feast of St. Martin of Tours, he was named after the sainted Roman soldier.

Early Years. Within a year after his birth the family moved to Mansfield, where the father was employed as a laborer in the copper mines. Luther's father was a strict disciplinarian and in his early childhood the family was beset by poverty. There is little evidence to argue, as Erik Erikson once did, that the atmosphere of the household was abnormal. By the turn of the 16th century his father's financial situation had improved, and in 1511 he became owner in a number of mines and foundries in the area. He had been elected to the city council in 1491. Young Martin was enrolled in the local Latin day school in 1488 and there began the traditional study of Latin grammar. In 1496 he was sent to Magdeburg, where he remained until Easter of the following year at a school conducted by the brethren of the common life. The next semester he transferred to Eisenach because he had relatives there.

Student at Erfurt. In April 1501 Luther matriculated at the University of Erfurt and enrolled in the bursa of St. George. Two of his professors, Jodocus Trutvetter and Bartholomew Arnold von Usingen, were followers of the via moderna. Whether Luther was deeply influenced by nominalism is still disputed. The picture drawn by Heinrich denifle, OP, that portrays Luther as an ossified Ockhamite is no longer tenable. Although Luther, in his later life, remarked that he belonged to the school of William of Ockham, he did not, on other occasions, hesitate to refer to the nominalists as"hoggish theologians." Nor was Luther, as his Dominican biographer contends, a "crass ignoramus." He received his baccalaureate in 1502 and immediately began the required studies for a master's degree. In January 1505 he passed the examinations after the shortest period of study possible, standing second in his class. Although the young Luther had but a slight knowledge of Greek, he was well acquainted with the classical Latin authors. Ovid, Vergil, Plautus, and Horace were well known to him. He was also fairly well acquainted with humanism. The humanist Hieronymus emser had lectured at Erfurt during the summer of 1504; and Luther was familiar with the Eclogues of the Latin humanist Baptista Mantuanus. Grotius Rubeanus, a close friend of young Luther, was painfully shocked at his decision to enter the monastery.

The Call to Religion. In the summer of 1505 Luther, influenced no doubt by his father, began the study of law. Sometime in July of the same year, while returning to Erfurt from a visit to Mansfield, he encountered a severe thunderstorm near the village of Stotternheim; as a lightning bolt threw him to the ground, he vowed to St. Anne in a sudden panic that he would become a monk. To assume that the decision to enter the monastery was as impromptu as it is often depicted does Luther an injustice. His strict religious upbringing, his natural bent toward piety, and above all the experiences of the last few years at the university were unquestionably factors of his move. In 1503 he had severely wounded himself by accidentally cutting the artery in his thigh and had spent many weeks in meditative recuperation. In the same year one of his closest friends, a fellow student, had died suddenly. The plague that struck the city of Erfurt in 1505 made him keenly aware of the preeminence of death. All of this indicates that a call to religion was something that had been in his thoughts for a long period.

Nor is it without significance that he chose to enter the monastery of the Hermits of St. Augustine. The city of Erfurt boasted a Dominican, a Franciscan, and a Servite monastery in addition to the Black Cloister, a member of the Observant, or stricter Augustinian, congregation of Saxony, which was by far the most severe religious house in the city. On July 16, 1505, much to the chagrin of his parents, who were already selecting a bride for the student of law, Luther entered the novitiate. Soon after his profession, the exact date of which is not known, he was told to prepare himself for the reception of Holy Orders. He was ordained a deacon by the suffragan bishop, Johann von Laasphe of Erfurt, on Feb. 27, 1507; he received the priesthood in the Erfurt cathedral on the following April 4th.

Professor at Wittenberg. Soon after ordination, Luther was sent to wittenberg, where the order held two professorships at the Elector Frederick's newly founded university. Johann von staupitz, vicar-general of the Saxon congregation of the Augustinians, held the chair of scriptural theology; Luther was given the chair of moral philosophy in the arts faculty. In addition to lecturing on the Nicomachean Ethics, Luther was also obliged to continue his theological studies. He received his baccalaureate in theology in the spring of 1509. The following autumn he returned again to Erfurt, where he continued with his study of the Sentences of Peter of Lombard and lectured on …