LUTHER, MARTIN

LUTHER, MARTIN (1483–1546), German theologian and reformer of the Christian church. Luther was born in Eisleben on November 10, the son of Hans Luder, who was engaged in copper mining. After moving to nearby Mansfeld, the family increasingly acquired modest prosperity. Because Hans Luder appears prominently in Luther's later recollections as a stern and oppressive presence, the question has arisen whether the son's development was significantly affected by intense conflict with his father. No satisfactory answer to this question has been given.

After initial schooling in Mansfeld, Martin Luther attended the cathedral school in Magdeburg from 1497 to 1498, where he came into contact with the Brethren of the Common Life, one of the most spiritual of late medieval religious movements. Between 1498 and 1501 he attended school in Eisenach, and, in 1501, he matriculated at the University of Erfurt to pursue the customary study of the seven liberal arts. Luther was declared ineligible for financial aid, an indirect testimonial to the economic successes of his father. The philosophical climate at the university was that of Ockhamism, which undoubtedly exerted its influence upon the young student. Upon receiving the master's degree in 1505, Luther began the study of law in the summer of that year, in accordance with the wishes of his father. Less than two months later, however, the experience of a terrifying thunderstorm near Stotterheim prompted his vow to Saint Anne to become a monk, resulting in the abandonment of his legal studies.

Undoubtedly, spiritual anxiety and uncertainty about his vocational choice combined to precipitate the determination to carry out the vow. On July 17, 1505, Luther entered the Monastery of the Eremites of Saint Augustine in Erfurt. His choice of this monastic order is explained not only by its strictness but also by its philosophical and theological orientation, to which Luther had been exposed during his earlier studies.

Two years later, on February 27, 1507, Luther was ordained to the priesthood. In his later recollections his first celebration of the Mass stood out as an awesome experience. Afterward, at the behest of his monastic superior, Johann von Staupitz, Luther began graduate studies in theology, first at Erfurt and then, in the fall of 1508, at the recently founded university at Wittenberg, because of his transfer to the Augustinian monastery there. In accordance with custom, he served as philosophical lecturer in the liberal arts curriculum. In 1509 he received his first theological degree, the baccalaureus biblicus.

In the fall of 1509 Luther was transferred back to Erfurt, where he continued his theological studies. Sometime thereafter (the exact date is uncertain) he was sent to Rome on monastic business. In his reflections of later years, he attributed great significance to that trip: the Rome that he had presumed to be the epitome of spiritual splendor had turned out to be terribly worldly. Soon after his return from Rome, Luther transferred a second time to Wittenberg, completing his doctorate in theology there in October 1512. He then assumed the lectura in Biblia, the professorship in Bible endowed by the Augustinian order.

The first academic courses that Luther taught were on Psalms (1513–1515), Romans (1515–1516), Galatians (1516–1517), Hebrews (1517–1518), and another on Psalms (1519). His lecture notes, which have been analyzed intensively, chronicle his theological development: his shift from the traditional exegetical method, his increasing concentration on questions of sin, grace, and righteousness, his preoccupation with Augustine of Hippo, and—last but by no means least—his alienation from scholastic theology. At the same time Luther acquired increasing responsibilities in his monastic order. In 1515 he became preacher at the parish church in Wittenberg and was appointed district vicar of his order. The latter position entailed the administrative oversight of the Augustinian monasteries in Saxony.

In his later years Luther spoke of having had a profound spiritual experience or insight (dubbed by scholars his "evangelical discovery"), and intensive scholarly preoccupation has sought to identify its exact date and nature. Two basic views regarding the time have emerged. One dates the experience, which Luther himself related to the proper understanding of the concept of the "righteousness of God" (Rom. 1:17), as having occurred about 1514, the other in about 1518. The matter remains inconclusive, partly because nowhere do Luther's writings of the time echo the dramatic notions that the reformer in later years associated with his experience. The import of the issue lies both in the precise understanding of what it was that alienated Luther from the Catholic church, and in understanding the theological frame of mind with which Luther entered the indulgences controversy of 1517. The dating of the experience before or after 1517 is thus important. Placing the experience in 1518 seems to be the most viable interpretation.

The Ninety-five Theses of October 31, 1517 (the traditional notion that Luther nailed them to the door of the Wittenberg castle church has recently been questioned) catapulted Luther into the limelight. These theses pertained to the ecclesiastical practice of indulgences that had not as yet been dogmatically defined by the church. Luther's exploration of the practice was therefore a probing inquiry.

Almost immediately after the appearance of the Ninety-five Theses, a controversy ensued. Undoubtedly it was fanned by the fact that Luther had focused not merely on a theological topic but had also cited a number of the popular grievances against Rome, thus touching upon a political issue. In addition to sending copies of the theses to several friends, Luther sent a copy to Archbishop Albert of Hohenzollern, whom he held responsible for a vulgar sale of indulgences in the vicinity of Wittenberg, together with a fervent plea to stop the sale. Luther was unaware that the sale was part and parcel of a large fiscal scheme by which Albert hoped to finance his recent elevation to the politically important post of archbishop of Mainz. Albert's response was to ask the University of Mainz to assess the theses and, soon thereafter, to request the Curia Romana to commence the processus inhibitorius, the proceedings by which Luther's orthodoxy would be ascertained. Thus the theses and Luther became an official matter for the church. The commencement of official proceedings against Luther added far-reaching notoriety to the affair, as did the related accusation of heresy by several theological opponents. The ensuing debate therefore became a public one, eventually allowing for the formation of a popular movement.

In April 1518 Luther presented a summary of his theological thought, which he called the "theology of the cross," at a meeting of the Augustinian order in Heidelberg. In presenting a caricature of scholastic theology, Luther appropriately emphasized its one-sidednesses. Soon afterward he was ordered to appear in Rome in conjunction with the proceedings against him, but the intervention of his territorial ruler, Elector Frederick, caused the interrogation to take place in Augsburg, Germany. With Cardinal Legate Cajetan representing the Curia, the meeting proved unsuccessful, since Luther refused to recant. Luther fled from Augsburg and, upon his return to Wittenberg, issued an appeal to a general council.

Overwhelmed by the unexpected notoriety of the affair, Luther agreed to refrain from further participation in the controversy. All the same, he was inadvertently drawn into a disputation held in Leipzig in July 1519. In the context of a wide-ranging, if tedious, discussion of the fundamental issues in the controversy, Luther's opponent, Johann Eck, professor of theology at Ingolstadt, was intent on branding him a heretic and succeeded in eliciting Luther's acknowledgment that the church's general councils had erred. Luther posited a difference between the authority of the church and that of scripture, a notion that late medieval thinkers had never seen as problematic.

After the election of Charles V as the new emperor, which had preoccupied the Curia for some time, official proceedings against Luther were resumed. In June 1520 the papal bull Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord) condemned forty-one sentences from Luther's writings as "heretical, offensive, erroneous, scandalous for pious ears, corrupting for simple minds and contradictory to Catholic teaching." Luther was given sixty days to recant. His response was to burn the bull in a public spectacle on 10 December 1520. On January 3, 1521, the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem (It Pleases the Roman Pontiff) excommunicated Luther. It was now incumbent upon the political authorities to execute the ecclesiastical condemnation, but Luther was given the opportunity to appear before the German diet at Worms in April 1521.

Several factors converged to bring about the unusual citation. Luther had begun to precipitate a popular movement, in part playing on prevailing anti-Roman and anticlerical sentiment. There was apprehension about popular restlessness. Moreover, Luther claimed persistently that he had not received a fair hearing. To invite Luther to appear at Worms, and, indeed, give him an opportunity to recant, seemed to be to everyone's advantage. When he appeared before the diet, Luther acknowledged that he had been too strident in tone, but he refused to recant anything of theological substance. After several weeks of deliberation, and despite some reluctance, a rump diet promulgated an edict that declared Luther (and all of his followers) political outlaws and called for the suppression of his teachings.

By that time, however, Luther had disappeared from the public scene. At the instigation of his ruler Elector Frederick, he had been taken on his return to Wittenberg to a secluded castle, the Wartburg, where he was to spend almost a full year in hiding. A period of self-doubt, it was also an exceedingly creative time, part of which he spent in translating the New Testament from Greek into German. He returned to Wittenberg in March 1522 to calm the restlessness that had surfaced there over the nature of the reform movement. In a series of sermons he enunciated a conservative notion of ecclesiastical reform, and his stance left its imprint on the subsequent course of the Reformation.

Luther resumed his professorial responsibilities and continued his prolific literary activities, clarifying theological themes and offering guidelines for undertaking ecclesiastical reform. His own theological formation was essentially complete by 1521; his theological work thereafter consisted in amplification and clarification.

The year 1525 proved to be a major theological and personal watershed for Luther: he became embroiled in two major controversies—with Erasmus and Thomas Müntzer—that resulted in a marked division in the reform movement. On June 13 of that same year he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun who had left her convent the previous year. Even though the marriage—coming as it did on the heels of the German Peasants' War—was a subject of notoriety among Luther's enemies, it set the tone for a Protestant definition of Christian marriage for which the term "school for character" was aptly coined.

The next several years were overshadowed by Luther's growing controversy with Huldrych Zwingli over Communion. The controversy reached its culmination in October 1529 with a colloquy held at Marburg at the instigation of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse, who viewed the split of the Reformation movement over this issue as a major political liability. Luther was a reluctant participant in the colloquy, for he saw the theological differences between Zwingli and himself to be so fundamental as to make conciliation impossible. The major issue debated at Marburg was the bodily presence of Christ in the Communion elements. It is unclear whether for Luther the politically more prudent course of action would have been theological conciliation (which would have presented a unified Reformation movement) or intransigence (which by its separation from Zwingli would have underscored the proximity of the Lutheran and the Catholic positions). No agreement was reached at Marburg; as a result, at the diet at Augsburg the following year, the Protestants appeared divided.

As a political outlaw, Luther was unable to be present at Augsburg. He stayed at Coburg (as far south as he was able to travel on Saxon territory), and his close associate Philipp Melanchthon functioned as spokesman for the Lutherans. Several of Luther's most insightful publications appeared during that summer—a tract on translating, an exposition of Psalm 118, and Exhortation That Children Should Be Sent to School.

The unsuccessful outcome of the discussions at Augsburg and the subsequent formation of the League of Smalcald (1531) were accompanied by Luther's reconsideration of his views on the right of resistance to the emperor, which he had previously rejected. The 1530s brought Luther's extensive involvement in the reorganization of the University of Wittenberg (1533–1536). His extensive participation in the academic disputations that were now resumed were evidence of the richness and fullness of his thought.

Luther's final years were overshadowed by his growing antagonism toward the papal church, and the consequences of his well-meant but misunderstood counsel to Landgrave Philipp of Hesse that bigamy was permissible under certain circumstances. In addition, the Lutheran movement was torn by several internal conflicts, and Luther was concerned about the increasing role of the political authorities in ecclesiastical affairs.

Luther's recognition that his norm of authority—scripture—did not preclude disagreement in interpretation and that the papal church was unwilling to accept the primacy of the word of God undoubtedly serve to explain—along with his increasing physical ailments—the vehemence of his last publications, especially those against the papacy and the Jews. He was plagued by insomnia and, from 1525 onward, by kidney stones, which in 1537 almost led to his demise. In February 1546 Luther traveled, together with two of his sons and Philipp Melanchthon, to Luther's birthplace, Eisleben, to mediate in a feud among the counts of Mansfeld. There, having succeeded in that assignment, he died on 16 February.

Not surprisingly, Martin Luther has received considerable scholarly and theological attention throughout the centuries. Assessments of Luther have always been staunchly partisan, with a clear demarcation between Protestant and Catholic evaluations. The former, while uniformly positive, have tended to follow the intellectual or theological currents of their particular time, such as the eighteenth-century Enlightenment or nineteenth-century German nationalism.

In the twentieth century, particularly in the latter part, the biographical and theological evaluation of Martin Luther focused on a number of specific aspects. There was a preoccupation with the "young" Luther, that is, Luther between 1512 and 1518, and particularly with Luther's "evangelical discovery," his formulation of a new understanding of the Christian faith. This new understanding has generated much speculation about Luther's relationship to the late Middle Ages, the medieval exegetical tradition, the significance of Augustine, Ockham, and mysticism. The "older" or "mature" Luther, generally defined as Luther after 1526, is only beginning to receive widespread attention; this part of his life has not attracted much scholarly interest because it lacks the excitement of Luther's earlier years. The general question is whether the "older" Luther should be seen in continuity or in discontinuity with the young Luther.

A key theme in Luther's theology is that of the sole authority of scripture, formulated as the notion of sola scriptura; this notion, because it implied the possibility of a divergence of tradition from scripture, raised a startling new question. Late medieval theology had formulated the issue of authority in terms of the possible divergency of pope and council. A related theme in Luther's theology was the relationship of law and gospel, which provided the key to the understanding of scripture. God reveals himself as both a demanding and a giving God, two qualities that Luther loosely assigned to the Old and New Testaments respectively; but in truth, so Luther asserted, grace is found in the Old Testament even as law is found in the New.

The notion of justification by faith is traditionally cited as the heart of Luther's thought. It is, in fact, his major legacy to the Protestant tradition. In contradistinction to the medieval notion of a cooperative effort between man and God, between works and grace, Luther only stressed grace and God. Such grace is appropriated by faith, which affirms the reality of the grace of forgiveness, despite the reality of sin. Luther's "theology of the cross" affirmed that God always works contrary to experience.

These themes must be considered in the context of Luther's general affirmation of traditional dogma. His sacramental teaching repudiated the medieval notion of transubstantiation and affirmed a "real presence" of Christ in the bread and wine of Communion. Besides the sacrament of Communion, only that of baptism was affirmed. At least in his early years, Luther advocated a congregationally oriented concept of the church, with the "priesthood of all believers," another key motif, as an important corollary. Luther's teaching of the "two kingdoms" sought to differentiate the Christian principles applicable in society.

See Also

Reformation.

Bibliography

The definitive Weimar edition of Luther's works, D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesammtausgabe, edited by J. K. F. Knaake and others (Weimar, 1883–1974), in more than a hundred volumes, continues to be the basic tool for Luther research. An exhaustive sampling of Luther in English can be found in his Works, 55 vols., edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis, 1955–1976). The Luther-Jahrbuch (Munich, 1919–) publishes an annual bibliography, as does, less comprehensively, the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte (Leipzig and Berlin, 1903–). A useful general introduction to facets and problems of Luther scholarship is found in Bernhard Lohse's Martin Luther: Eine Einführung (Munich, 1981). Of the numerous Luther biographies, the following deserve to be mentioned: Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand (Nashville, 1955); Heinrich Bornkamm, Martin Luther in der Mitte seines Lebens (Göttingen, 1979); H. G. Haile, Luther (Garden City, N. Y., 1980); and Eric H. Erikson, Young Man Luther (New York, 1958), a controversial psychoanalytic study. Two useful collections of sources are Martin Luther, edited by E. G. Rupp and Benjamin Drewery (New York, 1970), and Walther von Löwenich's Martin Luther: The Man and His Work (Minneapolis, 1983).

Important studies on specific aspects of Luther's life and thought are Erwin Iserloh's The Theses Were Not Posted (Boston, 1968); Wilhelm Borth's Die Luthersache (causa Lutheri) 1517–1524 (Lübeck, 1970); and Mark U. Edwards, Jr.'s Luther and the False Brethren (Stanford, Calif., 1975) and Luther's Last Battles (Ithaca, N. Y., 1983). A creative statement of Luther's theology is Gerhard Ebeling's Luther (Philadelphia, 1970).

Hans J. Hillerbrand (1987)