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The first bestseller in world history
The ultimate, epic saga of love, war, death, destruction, hope, power and faith. Excerpts from Stephan Füssel`s introduction to 'The Luther Bible of 1534'
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Luther's new theological approach is particularly apparent in his appraisal of the justice of God and his theory of the justification of man. He taught that the justice of God was no longer one of punishment but a gift that could be received only by the believer; he therefore not only challenged scholastic theology but also the religious practice of his own time. His first text published in German, Die Sieben Bußpsalmen (The Seven Penitential Psalms, 1519), consequently focused on the seriousness of penitence and judgement, in anticipation of his attack on the "justification by works" put forward by scholastic theology.
This argumentation comes to a head in his Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam of September 1517, in which he attacks the playing down of sin so typical of his own time and the theory that every "natural" man can find God of his own free will. He speaks about the radical sinfulness of man and the necessity of grace for salvation. From this point on, it was only a small step to the vehement charges against the indulgence practice of the Church, which, according to him, lulled people into a false sense of security by assuring that salvation could be bought by everyone; according to Luther people must bow before God's judgment: this was the only way to partake of his grace. In his well-known 95 theses of 31 October 1517-which he sent to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht of Brandenburg, the person responsible for preaching the indulgence, and which are considered to have triggered the Reformation-he laments the false and pernicious sense of security that indulgences induced (Theses 31, 49, 52), as opposed to the works of love and prayer that he considers to be of much higher value (Theses 41, 74).
The 95 theses (written in Latin) spread quickly, contrary to Luther's original wish. To formulate them for a wider public, he published the Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade (Sermon of Indulgence and Grace) in March 1518, a work that met with such great acclaim that it had to be reprinted 25 times within only two years. True Christians who repent their sins would of course do "works of satisfaction"; by contrast the indulgence practice gives rise merely to "lazy and imperfect Christians", declared Luther in catchy phrases. Those who would call him a heretic because of his theses were "dark brains that had never put their noses into the Bible, never read the Christian teachers, never understood their own teachers but putrefy in their own riddled and rotten opinions ...".
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Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Luther's new theological approach is particularly apparent in his appraisal of the justice of God and his theory of the justification of man. He taught that the justice of God was no longer one of punishment but a gift that could be received only by the believer; he therefore not only challenged scholastic theology but also the religious practice of his own time. His first text published in German, Die Sieben Bußpsalmen (The Seven Penitential Psalms, 1519), consequently focused on the seriousness of penitence and judgement, in anticipation of his attack on the "justification by works" put forward by scholastic theology.
This argumentation comes to a head in his Disputatio contra scholasticam theologiam of September 1517, in which he attacks the playing down of sin so typical of his own time and the theory that every "natural" man can find God of his own free will. He speaks about the radical sinfulness of man and the necessity of grace for salvation. From this point on, it was only a small step to the vehement charges against the indulgence practice of the Church, which, according to him, lulled people into a false sense of security by assuring that salvation could be bought by everyone; according to Luther people must bow before God's judgment: this was the only way to partake of his grace. In his well-known 95 theses of 31 October 1517-which he sent to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albrecht of Brandenburg, the person responsible for preaching the indulgence, and which are considered to have triggered the Reformation-he laments the false and pernicious sense of security that indulgences induced (Theses 31, 49, 52), as opposed to the works of love and prayer that he considers to be of much higher value (Theses 41, 74).
The 95 theses (written in Latin) spread quickly, contrary to Luther's original wish. To formulate them for a wider public, he published the Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade (Sermon of Indulgence and Grace) in March 1518, a work that met with such great acclaim that it had to be reprinted 25 times within only two years. True Christians who repent their sins would of course do "works of satisfaction"; by contrast the indulgence practice gives rise merely to "lazy and imperfect Christians", declared Luther in catchy phrases. Those who would call him a heretic because of his theses were "dark brains that had never put their noses into the Bible, never read the Christian teachers, never understood their own teachers but putrefy in their own riddled and rotten opinions ...".
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Revelation, fol. CLXXXVIv: The four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Revelation, fol. CLXXXVIIIv: The second angel sounds, causing a huge burning mountain to fall into the sea