Anyone who has heard that the great movement of the Reformation in Germany, and with it the founding of the Evangelical Church, originated in the ninety-five theses of Luther, and who then reads these theses through, might perhaps be surprised at the importance of their results. They referred, in the first place, to only one particular point of Christian doctrine, not at all to the general fundamental question as to how sinners could obtain forgiveness and be saved, but merely to the remission of punishments connected with penance. They contained no positive declaration against the most essential elements of the Catholic theory of penance, or against the necessity of oral confession, or of priestly absolution, and such subjects; they presupposed, in fact, the existence of a purgatory. Much of what they attacked, not one of the learned theologians of the middle ages or of those times had ever ventured to assert; as, for instance, the notion that indulgences made the remission of sins to the individual complete on the part of God. Moreover, the ruling principles of the theology of the day, which defended the system of indulgences, though resting mainly on the authority of the great Scholastic teacher Thomas Aquinas, were not adopted by other Scholastics, and had never been erected into a dogma by any decree of the Church. Theologians before Luther, and with far more acuteness and penetration than he showed in his theses, had already assailed the whole system of indulgences. And, in regard to any idea on Luther's part of the effects of his theses extending widely in Germany, it may be noticed that not only were they composed in Latin, but that they dealt largely with Scholastic expressions and ideas, which a layman would find it difficult to understand.

Nevertheless the theses created a sensation which far surpassed Luther's expectations. In fourteen days, as he tells us, they ran through the whole of Germany, and were immediately translated and circulated in German. They found, indeed, the soil already prepared for them, through the indignation long since and generally aroused by the shameless doings they attacked; though till then nobody, as Luther expresses it, had liked to bell the cat, nobody had dared to expose himself to the blasphemous clamour of the indulgence-mongers and the monks who were in league with them, still less to the threatened charge of heresy.

On the other hand, the very impunity with which this traffic in indulgences had been maintained throughout German Christendom, had served to increase from day to day the audacity of its promoters. Ranged on the side of these doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, the chief mainstay of this trade, stood the whole powerful order of the Dominicans. And to this order Tetzel himself, the sub-commissioner of indulgences, belonged. Already other doctrines of the Pope's authority, of his power over the salvation of the human soul, and the infallibility of his decisions, had been asserted with ever-increasing boldness. The mediaeval writings of Thomas Aquinas had conspicuously tended to this result. And a climax had just been reached at a so-called General Council, which met at Rome shortly after Luther's visit there, and continued its sittings for several years.

Tetzel, who hitherto had only made himself notorious as a preacher, or rather as a bawling mountebank, now answered Luther with two series of theses of his own, drawn up in learned scholastic form. One Conrad Wimpina, a theologian of the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, whom the Archbishop Albert had recommended, assisted Tetzel in this work. The university of Frankfort immediately made Tetzel doctor of theology, and thus espoused his theses. Three hundred Dominican monks assembled round him while he conducted an academical disputation upon them. The doctrines he now advanced were the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas. But at the same time he took care to make the question of the Pope's position and power the cardinal point at issue; he and his patrons knew well enough, that for Luther, who in his theses had touched upon this question so significantly though so briefly, this was the most fatal blow that he could deal. 'Christians must be taught,' he declared, 'that in all that relates to faith and salvation, the judgment of the Pope is absolutely infallible, and that all observances connected with matters of faith on which the Papal see has expressed itself, are equivalent to Christian truths, even if they are not to be found in scripture.' With distinct reference to his opponent, but without actually mentioning him by name, he insists that whoever defends heretical error must be held to be excommunicated, and if he fails within a given time to make satisfaction, incurs by right and law the most frightful penalties. Furthermore, he argued—and this has always been held up against Luther and Protestantism—that if the authority of the Church and Pope should not be recognised, every man would believe only what was pleasing to himself and what he found in the Bible, and thus the souls of all Christendom would be imperilled.

Luther's theses now found another assailant, and one stronger even than Tetzel, in the person of a Dominican and Thomist, one Sylvester Mazolini of Prierio (Prierias), master of the sacred palace at Rome, and a confidant of the Pope. He too, like Tetzel, based his chief contention on the question of Papal authority, and was the first to carry that contention to an extreme. The Pope, he said, is the Church of Rome; the Romish Church is the Universal Christian Church; whoever disputes the right of the Romish Church to act entirely as she may, is a heretic. In this way he treated as contemptuously as he could the obscure German, whose theses, that 'bite like a cur,' as he expressed it, he only wished to dismiss with all despatch.

Another Dominican, James van Hoogstraten, prior at Cologne, who had already figured as the prime zealot in the affair about Reuchlin, which he was still prosecuting, now demanded, in his preface to a pamphlet on that subject, that Luther should be sent to the stake as a dangerous heretic.

But a far more important, and to Luther an utterly unexpected opponent, appeared in the person of John Eck, professor at the university of Ingolstadt, and canon at EichstÄdt. He was a man of very extensive learning in the earlier and later Scholastic theology of the Church; he was a sharp-witted and ready controversialist, and he knew how to use his weapons in disputations. He was fully conscious of these gifts, and made a bold push to advance himself by their means, whilst troubling himself very little in reality about the high and sacred issues involved in the dispute. He sought to keep on friendly and useful relations with other circles than those of Scholastic theology, such as with learned Humanists, and a short time before, with Luther himself and his colleague Carlstadt, to whom he had been introduced through a jurist of NÜremberg named Scheuerl. Luther, after the publication of his theses, had written a friendly letter to Eck. What then was his surprise to find himself attacked by Eck in a critical reply entitled 'Obelisks.' The tone of his remarks was as wounding, coarse, and vindictive as their substance was superficial. They aimed a well-meditated blow, by stigmatising Luther's propositions as Bohemian poison, mere Hussite heresy. Eck, when reproached for such a breach of friendship, declared that he had written the book for his bishop of EichstÄdt, and not with any view of publication.

Luther himself, loud as was his call to battle in his theses, had still no intention of engaging in a general contest about the leading principles of the Church. He had not yet realised the whole extent and bearings of the question about indulgences. Referring afterwards to the rapid circulation of his theses through Germany, and to the fame which his onslaught had earned him, he says, 'I did not relish the fame, for I myself was not aware of what there was in the indulgences, and the song was pitched too high for my voice.' People far and wide were proud of the man who spoke out so boldly in his theses, while the multitude of doctors and bishops kept silence; but he still stood alone before the public, confronting the storm which he had aroused against himself. He did not conceal the fact, that now and then he felt strange and anxious about his position. But he had learned to take his stand singly and firmly on the word of Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities. The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed to him particularly poor. In confident words Luther assures his friends of his conviction that what he taught was the purest theology, that what he upheld and his opponents attacked, was a revelation direct from God. He knew too, that, in the words of St. Paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the Jews was a stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the Greeks foolishness. He was none the less ready to do so, that Jesus Christ, his Lord, might say of him, as He said once of that Apostle, 'I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Luther's enemies in the Romish Church have thought to see in these words an instance of boundless self-assertion on the part of an individual subject.

From henceforth Luther, while pursuing with unabated zeal his active duties at the university and in the pulpit at Wittenberg, and taking up his pen again and again to write short pamphlets of a simple and edifying kind, occupied himself untiringly with controversial writings, with the object partly of defending himself against attacks, partly of establishing on a firm basis the principles he had set forth, and of further investigating and making plain the way of true Christian knowledge. He first addressed himself to German Christendom, in German, in his 'Sermon on Indulgences and Grace.' His inward excitement is shown by the vehemence and ruggedness of expression which now and henceforth marked his polemical writings. It recalls to mind the tone then commonly met with not only among ordinary monks, but even in the controversies of theologians and learned men, and in which Luther's own opponents, especially that high Roman theologian, had set him the example. In Luther we see now, throughout his whole method of polemics, as we shall see still more later on, a mighty, Vulcanic, natural power breaking forth, but always regulated by the humblest devotion to the lofty mission that his conscience has imposed upon him. Even in his most vehement outbursts we never fail to catch the tender expressions of a Christian warmth and fervour of the heart, and a loftiness of language corresponding to the sacredness of the subject.

In the midst of these labours and controversies, Luther had to undertake a journey in the spring of 1518 (about the middle of April) to a chapter general of his Order at Heidelberg, where, according to the rules, a new Vicar was chosen after a triennial term of office. His friends feared the snares that his enemies might have prepared for him on the road. He himself did not hesitate for a moment to obey the call of duty.

The Elector Frederick, who owed him at least a debt of gratitude for having helped to keep his territory free from the rapacious Tetzel, but who, both now and afterwards, conscientiously held aloof from the contest, gave proof on this occasion of his undiminished kindness and regard for him, in a letter he addressed to Staupitz. He writes as follows:—'As you have required Martin Luder to attend a Chapter at Heidelberg, it is his wish, although we grudge giving him permission to leave our university, to go there and render due obedience. And as we are indebted to your suggestion for this excellent doctor of theology, in whom we are so well pleased, … it is our desire that you will further his safe return here, and not allow him to be delayed.' He also gave Luther cordial letters of introduction to Bishop Laurence of Wurzburg, through whose town his road passed, and to the Count Palatine Wolfgang, at Heidelberg. From both of these, though many had already declaimed against him as a heretic, he met with a most friendly and obliging reception.

His relations, moreover, at Heidelberg with his fellow-members of the Order, and, above all, with Staupitz, remained unclouded. Staupitz was re-elected here as Vicar of the Order; the office of provincial Vicar passed from Luther to John Lange, of Erfurt, his intimate friend and fellow-thinker. The question about indulgences had not entered at all into the business of the chapter. But at a disputation held in the convent, according to custom, Luther presided, and wrote for it some propositions embodying the fundamental points of his doctrines concerning the sinfulness and powerlessness of man, and righteousness, through God's grace, in Christ, and against the philosophy and theology of Aristotelian Scholasticism. He attracted the keen interest of several young inmates of the convent who afterwards became his coadjutors, such as John Brenz, Erhardt Schnepf, and Martin Butzer. They marvelled at his power of drawing out the meaning from the Scriptures, and of speaking not only with clearness and decision, but also with refinement and grace. Thus his journey served to promote at once his reputation and his influence.

On his return to Wittenberg on May 15, after an absence of five weeks, he hastened to complete a detailed explanation in Latin of the contents of his theses, under the title of 'Solutions,' the greatest and most important work that he published at this period of the contest.

The most valuable fruit of the controversy so far as regards Luther and his later work, and evidence of which is given in these 'Solutions,' was the advance he had made, and had been compelled to make, in the course of his own self-reasoning and researches. New questions presented themselves: the inward connection of the truth became gradually manifest: new results forced themselves upon him: his anxiety to solve his difficulties still continued.

Luther in his theses, when speaking of the call of Jesus to repentance, had never indeed admitted that the sacrament of penance enjoined by the Church, with auricular confession and the penances and satisfactions imposed by the priest, was based on God's command or the authority of the Bible. He now openly acknowledged and declared that these ecclesiastical acts were not enjoined by Christ at all, but solely by the Pope and the Church.

The contest about the indulgences granted by the Pope in respect of these acts, opened up now the doctrine of the so-called treasures of the Church, on which the Pope drew for his bounty. Luther, while conceding to the Pope the right of dispensing indulgences in the sense understood by himself, guarded himself against admitting that the merits of Christ constituted that treasure, and so should be disposed of by the Pope in this manner: the dispensation of indulgences rested simply on the Papal power of the keys. It was now objected to him that herein he was going counter to an express and duly recorded declaration of a pope, Clement VI., namely, that the merits of Christ were undoubtedly to be dispensed in indulgences. Luther, who in his theses against the abuse of indulgences had abstained as yet from propounding anything which might be inconsistent with the ascertained meaning of the Pope, now insisted without hesitation on this contradiction. That Papal pronouncement, he declared, did not bear the character of a dogmatic decree, and a distinction was to be drawn between a decree of the Pope and its acceptance by the Church through a Council.

How then, Luther proceeded to inquire, should the Christian obtain forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, righteousness before God, peace and holiness in God? And in answering this question he reverted to the key-note of his doctrine of salvation, which he had begun to preach before the contest about indulgences commenced. He had already declared that salvation came through faith; in other words, through heartfelt trust in God's mercy, as announced by the Bible, and in the Saviour Christ. How was that consistent with the acts of ecclesiastical penance, such as absolution in particular, which must be obtained from the priest? Luther now declared that God would assuredly allow his offer of forgiveness to be conveyed to those who longed for it, by His commissioned servant of the Church, the priest, but that the assurance of such forgiveness must lean simply on the promise of God, by virtue and on behalf of Whom the priest performed his office. And at the same time he declared that this promise could be conveyed to a troubled Christian by any brother-Christian, and that full forgiveness would be granted to him if he had faith. No enumeration of particular sins was necessary for that end; it was enough if the repentant and faithful yearning for the word of mercy was made known to the priest or brother from whom the message of comfort was sought. Hence it followed, on the one hand, that priestly absolution and the sacrament availed nothing to the receiver unless he turned with inward faith to his God and Saviour, received with faith the word spoken to him, and through that word let himself be raised to greater faith. It followed also, on the other hand, that a penitent and faithful Christian, holding fast to that word, to whom the priest should arbitrarily refuse the absolution he looked for, could, in spite of such refusal, participate in God's forgiveness to the full. Herewith was broken at once the most powerful bond by which the dominant Church enslaved the souls to the organs of her hierarchy. Luther has humbled man to the lowest before God, through Whose grace alone the sinner, in meek and believing trustfulness, can be saved. But in God and through this grace he teaches him to be free and certain of salvation. Christ, he says, has not willed that man's salvation should lie in the hand or at the pleasure of a man.

As for the outward acts and punishments which the Church and the Pope imposed, he did not seek to abolish them. In this external province at least he recognised in the Pope a power originating direct from God. Here, in his opinion, the Christian was bound to put up with even an abuse of power and the infliction of unjust punishment.

The whole contest turned ultimately on the question as to who should determine disputes about the truth, and where to seek the highest standard and the purest source of Christian verity. Gradually at first, and manifestly with many inward struggles on the part of Luther, his views and principles gained clearness and consistency. Even within the Catholic Church the doctrine as to the highest authority to be recognised in questions of belief and conduct was by no means so firmly established as is frequently represented by both Protestants and Roman Catholics. The doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope, and of the absolute authority attaching thereby to his decisions, however confidently asserted by the admirers of Aquinas and accepted by the Popes, was not erected into a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church until 1870. The other theory, that even the Pope can err, and that the supreme decision rests with a General Council, had been maintained by theologians whom, at the same time, no Pope had ever ventured to treat as heretics. It was on the ground of this latter theory that the University of Paris, then the first university in Europe, had just appealed from the Pope to a General Council. In Germany opinions were on the whole divided between this and the theory of Papal absolutism. Again, the view that neither the decisions of a Council nor of a Pope were ipso facto infallible, but that an appeal therefrom lay to a council possibly better informed, had already been advanced with impunity by writers of the fifteenth century. The only point as to which no doubt was expressed, was that the decisions of previous General Councils, acknowledged also by the Pope, contained absolutely pure Divine truth, and that the Christian Universal Church could never fall into error; but even then, with reference to this Church, the question still remained as to who or what was her true and final representative.

Luther now followed what he found to be the teaching of the Bible, so far as that teaching presented itself to his own independent and conscientious research, and as, traced home in the New Testament and especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, it shaped itself to his perception. But for all this, he would not yet abandon his agreement with the Church of which he was a member. The very man whom Eck had branded as full of 'Bohemian poison,' complained of the Bohemian Brethren or Moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance above the rest of Christendom. A Thomist indeed, who to him was only a Scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find no expression of a thought that the Church, assembled at a General Council, had ever erred, nor even that any future Council could pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute. Nay, he awaits the decision of such a Council against the charges of heresy already brought against him, though without ever admitting his readiness, if such a Council should assemble, to submit beforehand and unconditionally to its decision, whatever it might be. Above and before any such decision he held firm to the authority of his own conviction: his conscience, he said, would not allow him to yield from that resolve; he was not standing alone in this contest, but with him stood the truth, together with all those who shared his doubts as to the virtue of indulgences.

Still, while rejecting the doctrine of the infallibility of the Popes, it was a hard matter for Luther to reproach them also with actual error in their decisions. We have seen how necessity forced him to do so in the case of Clement VI. Towards the existing Head of the Church he desired to remain, as far as possible, in concord and subjection. It was not for mere appearance' sake, that in his ninety-five theses he represented his own view of indulgences as being also that of the Pope. He hoped, at all events, and wished with all his heart that it was so; and later on, towards the close of his life, he tells us how confidently he had cherished the expectation that the Pope would be his patron in the war against the shameless vendors of indulgences. Even after those hopes had failed, he spoke of Leo X. with respect as a man of good disposition and an educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. He was none the less assured of his Divine credentials as the supreme earthly Shepherd of Christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. The duty of humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must, no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store for himself and his Christian brethren, have made Luther shrink from the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. He ventured to dedicate his 'Solutions' to the Pope himself. The letter of May 30, 1518, in which he did this, shows the peculiar, anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and schism brought against himself. He who would much prefer to live in peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as they were by a public scandal, but simply in Christian zeal, or, as others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation of them under the patronage and protection of the Pope himself. But at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'Retract I cannot.' He concludes by humbly casting himself at the Pope's feet with the words, 'Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.' He will recognise the Papal voice as that of the Lord Jesus Himself. He will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. But that declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand.