Remembering the Reformation, by Stephen Bates (CSR Honorary Research Fellow)

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 12:47:00 GMT

We are entering a great phase of remembrance: the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation or, to be more precise, of Martin Luther’s Thesenanschlag – his nailing up of the Ninety-five Theses on the door of Wittenberg’s Schlosskirche or Castle Church. This event almost certainly never happened, but owes its popularity to Philipp Melanchthon’s Vita Lutheri, published following Luther’s death in 1546. Luther did write the Ninety-five Theses on 31 October 1517, but he put them in a letter to his primate, Albrecht, Archbishop of Magdeburg. Writing a letter is not nearly as dramatic a symbol as hammering a nail into a door. The physicality of the anschlag (the attack) gave the moment enormous potency; Luther might have been hammering a nail into the coffin of the medieval papacy. Yet, in truth, the Ninety-five Theses reveal Brother Martin circa 1517 as a loyal critic of the Church. From his covering letter to Albrecht it is clear that Luther assumed that the Archbishop would join him in denouncing the vulgar salesmanship and exaggerated theological claims of Johann Tetzel’s campaign to sell indulgences across Saxony. He was in for an unpleasant surprise.

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Remembering the Reformation, by Stephen Bates (CSR Honorary Research Fellow)