Richard jean herard biography of martin luther

Aided by the printing press , copies of the 95 Theses spread throughout Germany within two weeks and throughout Europe within two months. The Church eventually moved to stop the act of defiance. In October , at a meeting with Cardinal Thomas Cajetan in Augsburg, Luther was ordered to recant his 95 Theses by the authority of the pope. Luther said he would not recant unless scripture proved him wrong.

The meeting ended in a shouting match and initiated his ultimate excommunication from the Church. Following the publication of his 95 Theses , Luther continued to lecture and write in Wittenberg. In June and July of Luther publicly declared that the Bible did not give the pope the exclusive right to interpret scripture, which was a direct attack on the authority of the papacy.

Finally, in , the pope had had enough and on June 15 issued an ultimatum threatening Luther with excommunication. On December 10, , Luther publicly burned the letter. In March , Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms , a general assembly of secular authorities. Again, Luther refused to recant his statements, demanding he be shown any scripture that would refute his position.

There was none. Friends helped him hide out at the Wartburg Castle. Though still under threat of arrest, Luther returned to Wittenberg Castle Church, in Eisenach, in May to organize a new church, Lutheranism. He gained many followers, and the Lutheran Church also received considerable support from German princes. When a peasant revolt began in , Luther denounced the peasants and sided with the rulers, whom he depended on to keep his church growing.

Thousands of peasants were killed, but the Lutheran Church grew over the years. In , Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun who had abandoned the convent and taken refuge in Wittenberg. Born into a noble family that had fallen on hard times, at the age of five Katharina was sent to a convent. His father was relatively wealthy and paid for his son to gain an education in Magdeburg and Eisenach.

In , Martin Luther became a student at the University of Erfurt. At the request of his father, he took law, but he soon abandoned law, preferring to study Aristotle and the subjects of philosophy and theology. Despite admiring aspects of Aristotle and the classics, he was unsatisfied with just reason and intellectual studies and decided to become a monk so he could devote his life to God.

His time as a monk was challenging. Luther engaged in severe austerities — fasting, long hours of prayer and frequent confession, but he felt an inner spiritual dryness. He became very critical of his own failings and felt his sinful nature becoming magnified rather than transformed. As well as being aware of his own failing, he became increasingly concerned about malpractice within the church, which he felt was not in keeping with Biblical scripture.

In , he visited Rome on behalf of Augustinian monasteries and was shocked at the level of corruption he found. In , Martin Luther first protested to the Catholic church about the sale of indulgences. Buying an indulgence gave the person full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. Martin Luther argued that is was faith alone that could provide the remission of sin and not monetary payments to the church.

He was used mightily by God to usher in the Protestant Reformation, which would serve to recover the core truths of the Gospel that had been obscured by medieval religion and superstition. Hans worked in the mining industry, even owning a few copper mines, but he wanted something better for his son. Martin was sent off to boarding school and then to the University of Erfurt.

He was an excellent student. The storm grew more intense and Luther became afraid for his life. Suddenly, a lightning bolt struck near him, throwing him violently to the ground.

Richard jean herard biography of martin luther

I will become a monk! As a monk, Luther sought earnestly to find acceptance from God. But Luther had no confidence in his ability to remain in a state of Grace. What could he do to try and ease his troubled conscience? Well, work harder it seemed. I earnestly thought to acquire righteousness by my works. He began to see Christ not as a loving Savior, but as a harsh and terrible judge.

This is why Luther wearied himself — and others — nearly to death. He would be in the confessional for hours at a time and then, after leaving, would return again due to some unconfessed sin or to confess that he had not quite been sorrowful enough in his previous confession. Luther was as diligent a monk as you could hope to find. The decision was made in to send Luther to Rome.

The trip was intended to restore his spirits and allow him to visit the sacred sites and holy relics. This would serve to rejuvenate him, and venerating the relics would give him an opportunity to earn indulgences. A partial indulgence would reduce time in purgatory; a plenary indulgence would eliminate it altogether. However, as excited as Luther was when he began his journey, he was quickly disillusioned by the gaudy wealth and sinful lifestyles of the priests in Rome.

Visiting the relics and sacred sites did not help either. He returned to Erfurt more despondent than ever. Even so, he was transferred to the University in Wittenberg to become a professor. Here he began to truly study Scripture, and he began to search diligently for how sinful man could be made right before God. From he studied and taught through the books of Psalms, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews.

Meanwhile, the question of indulgences continued to bother Luther. For Luther, this was just too much. From this, you could release us with a few alms. We have created you, fed you, cared for you and left you our temporal goods. Why do you treat us so cruelly and leave us to suffer in the flames, when it takes only a little to save us? He was ordained in , began teaching at the University of Wittenberg and in was made a doctor of Theology.

In he visited Rome on behalf of a number of Augustinian monasteries, and was appalled by the corruption he found there. Luther became increasingly angry about the clergy selling 'indulgences' - promised remission from punishments for sin, either for someone still living or for one who had died and was believed to be in purgatory. On 31 October , he published his '95 Theses', attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences.

Luther had come to believe that Christians are saved through faith and not through their own efforts. This turned him against many of the major teachings of the Catholic Church. Thanks to the printing press, Luther's '95 Theses' and his other writings spread quickly through Europe.