Azadeh maghsoodi biography of martin luther

Katharina proved herself a more than a capable wife and ally, as she greatly increased their family's wealth by shrewdly investing in farms, orchards and a brewery. She also converted a former monastery into a dormitory and meeting center for Reformation activists. Luther later said of his marriage, "I have made the angels laugh and the devils weep.

From to his death in , Luther served as the dean of theology at University of Wittenberg. During this time he suffered from many illnesses, including arthritis, heart problems and digestive disorders. The physical pain and emotional strain of being a fugitive might have been reflected in his writings. Some works contained strident and offensive language against several segments of society, particularly Jews and, to a lesser degree, Muslims.

Luther died following a stroke on February 18, , at the age of 62 during a trip to his hometown of Eisleben. He was buried in All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, the city he had helped turn into an intellectual center. Luther's teachings and translations radically changed Christian theology. Thanks in large part to the Gutenberg press, his influence continued to grow after his death, as his message spread across Europe and around the world.

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Jesus Christ. Saint Nicholas. Jerry Falwell. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Saint Thomas Aquinas. History of the Dalai Lama's Biggest Controversies. Then in October , Martin Luther wrote 95 theses. He objected to the sale of indulgences documents written by the Church releasing individuals from punishment for their sins.

Indulgences could be bought by the living on behalf of the dead who were believed to be in purgatory. Copies of the 95 theses by Luther were distributed across Germany and then across Europe. He denied there were seven sacraments as taught by the Catholic Church. Luther also believed in the priesthood of all believers. Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in January But Luther was undaunted.

Then in April , he was called to appear before a secular assembly called the Diet of Worms. In May the Diet declared Luther an outlaw and a heretic and banned his writings. However, Martin Luther was protected by powerful friends and he hid in Wartburg Castle where he continued to write. The ideas soon took hold, and storm clouds began to loom on the horizon.

All at once, as if reading it for the first time, Luther came to understand the full meaning of Romans , which says. Salvation is by grace through faith — not by prayers or fasting or pilgrimages or sacraments. Righteousness before God was not earned by our works, but was a gift from God to us received by faith! Luther was overjoyed — But this Gospel truth of salvation by grace alone through faith alone and not of works immediately brought Luther into even greater contention with Catholic doctrine.

What was he to do? Should he ignore Scripture to obey the church, or should he challenge the church to obey Scripture? Rather than being subject to both sacred Scripture and sacred tradition, as the church taught, Luther believed that we are to be subject to Scripture alone — and that Scripture has the authority to correct the traditions when they are in error.

He said:. A war of words ensued. A papal bull, or edict, called Luther to repent and threatened him with excommunication. On December 10, , Luther burned it. This was tantamount to treason. Luther wrote more theological works, many of which spoke against the sacramental system of the Roman church. On April 17, , Luther was summoned to the Diet of Worms — an imperial council held in Worms, Germany which would decide the fate of this troublesome monk.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles the 5 th presided over the affair. The Roman officials demanded to know if these were his writings and whether or not he would recant. Luther had expected to debate his ideas, not be forced to recant them. He asked for a day to consider the matter. If he recanted, his life would be saved. If he did not, he would be declared a heretic, which was a death sentence in those days.

Although he had a letter granting him safe passage to and from Worms, when this expired he knew he could be killed by anyone and they would not be punished. The civil government would likewise put him to death, as they had countless others who crossed Rome. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason-for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves-I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Luther took a stand that his highest authority was going to be the Word of God, regardless of what the church taught. To protect his life, his friends kidnapped him and hid him away in Wartburg Castle. Here he hid for ten months in disguise. He grew a beard and took the name Junker Jorge, or Knight George.

He was not simply laying low. This teaching by Luther was clearly expressed in his publication On the Bondage of the Will , which was written in response to On Free Will by Desiderius Erasmus Against the teaching of his day that the righteous acts of believers are performed in cooperation with God, Luther wrote that Christians receive such righteousness entirely from outside themselves; that righteousness not only comes from Christ but actually is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to Christians rather than infused into them through faith.

The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification Romans — He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world John , and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all Isaiah All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood Romans — This is necessary to believe.

This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law, or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls Mark In , Johann Tetzel , a Dominican friar , was sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to sell indulgences to raise money in order to rebuild St.

Peter's Basilica in Rome. Albrecht obtained permission from Pope Leo X to conduct the sale of a special plenary indulgence i. On 31 October , Luther wrote to his bishop, Albrecht von Brandenburg, protesting against the sale of indulgences. He enclosed in his letter a copy of his "Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences", [ a ] which came to be known as the Ninety-five Theses.

Hans Hillerbrand writes that Luther had no intention of confronting the church but saw his disputation as a scholarly objection to church practices, and the tone of the writing is accordingly "searching, rather than doctrinaire. Peter with the money of poor believers rather than with his own money? Luther objected to a saying attributed to Tetzel that, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory also attested as 'into heaven' springs.

Christians, he said, must not slacken in following Christ on account of such false assurances. The Latin Theses were printed in several locations in Germany in Luther's writings circulated widely, reaching France , England , and Italy as early as Students thronged to Wittenberg to hear Luther speak. He published a short commentary on Galatians and his Work on the Psalms.

This early part of Luther's career was one of his most creative and productive. Archbishop Albrecht did not reply to Luther's letter containing the Ninety-five Theses. He had the theses checked for heresy and in December forwarded them to Rome. As Luther later notes, "the pope had a finger in the pie as well, because one half was to go to the building of St.

Peter's Church in Rome". Pope Leo X was used to reformers and heretics, [ 61 ] and he responded slowly, "with great care as is proper. First, the Dominican theologian Sylvester Mazzolini drafted a heresy case against Luther, whom Leo then summoned to Rome. Anne's Priory , Luther defended himself under questioning by papal legate Cardinal Cajetan.

The pope's right to issue indulgences was at the centre of the dispute between the two men. More than writing his theses, Luther's confrontation with the church cast him as an enemy of the pope: "His Holiness abuses Scripture", retorted Luther. In January , at Altenburg in Saxony, the papal nuncio Karl von Miltitz adopted a more conciliatory approach.

Luther made certain concessions to the Saxon, who was a relative of the Elector and promised to remain silent if his opponents did. From that moment, he devoted himself to Luther's defeat. On 15 June , the Pope warned Luther with the papal bull edict Exsurge Domine that he risked excommunication unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the Ninety-five Theses , within 60 days.

That autumn, Eck proclaimed the bull in Meissen and other towns. Von Miltitz attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the pope a copy of On the Freedom of a Christian in October, publicly set fire to the bull and decretals in Wittenberg on 10 December , [ 74 ] an act he defended in Why the Pope and his Recent Book are Burned and Assertions Concerning All Articles.

The enforcement of the ban on the Ninety-five Theses fell to the secular authorities. On 17 April , Luther appeared as ordered before the Diet of Worms. This was a general assembly of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms , a town on the Rhine. Johann Eck, speaking on behalf of the empire as assistant of the Archbishop of Trier , presented Luther with copies of his writings laid out on a table and asked him if the books were his and whether he stood by their contents.

Luther confirmed he was their author but requested time to think about the answer to the second question. He prayed, consulted friends, and gave his response the next day:. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves , I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

I cannot and will not recant anything since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. At the end of this speech, Luther raised his arm "in the traditional salute of a knight winning a bout. Martin, there is no one of the heresies which have torn the bosom of the church, which has not derived its origin from the various interpretation of the Scripture.

The Bible itself is the arsenal whence each innovator has drawn his deceptive arguments. It was with Biblical texts that Pelagius and Arius maintained their doctrines. Arius, for instance, found the negation of the eternity of the Word—an eternity which you admit, in this verse of the New Testament— Joseph knew not his wife till she had brought forth her first-born son ; and he said, in the same way that you say, that this passage enchained him.

When the fathers of the Council of Constance condemned this proposition of Jan Hus— The church of Jesus Christ is only the community of the elect , they condemned an error; for the church, like a good mother, embraces within her arms all who bear the name of Christian, all who are called to enjoy the celestial beatitude. Luther refused to recant his writings.

He is sometimes also quoted as saying: "Here I stand. I can do no other". Recent scholars consider the evidence for these words to be unreliable since they were inserted before "May God help me" only in later versions of the speech and not recorded in witness accounts of the proceedings.

Azadeh maghsoodi biography of martin luther

Over the next five days, private conferences were held to determine Luther's fate. The emperor presented the final draft of the Edict of Worms on 25 May , declaring Luther an outlaw , banning his literature, and requiring his arrest: "We want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic. It permitted anyone to kill Luther without legal consequence.

Luther's disappearance during his return to Wittenberg was planned. Frederick III had him intercepted on his way home in the forest near Wittenberg by masked horsemen impersonating highway robbers. They escorted Luther to the security of the Wartburg Castle at Eisenach. These included a renewed attack on Albert of Brandenburg , Archbishop of Mainz , whom he shamed into halting the sale of indulgences in his episcopates, [ 86 ] and a Refutation of the Argument of Latomus , in which he expounded the principle of justification to Jacobus Latomus , an orthodox theologian from Louvain.

On 1 August , Luther wrote to Melanchthon on the same theme: "Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. In the summer of , Luther widened his target from individual pieties like indulgences and pilgrimages to doctrines at the heart of Church practice.

In On the Abrogation of the Private Mass , he condemned as idolatry the idea that the mass is a sacrifice, asserting instead that it is a gift, to be received with thanksgiving by the whole congregation. He assured monks and nuns that they could break their vows without sin, because vows were an illegitimate and vain attempt to win salvation.

Luther made his pronouncements from Wartburg in the context of rapid developments at Wittenberg, of which he was kept fully informed. Andreas Karlstadt, supported by the ex-Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling , embarked on a radical programme of reform there in June , exceeding anything envisaged by Luther. The reforms provoked disturbances, including a revolt by the Augustinian friars against their prior, the smashing of statues and images in churches, and denunciations of the magistracy.

Luther secretly returned to Wittenberg on 6 March He wrote to the Elector: "During my absence, Satan has entered my sheepfold, and committed ravages which I cannot repair by writing, but only by my personal presence and living word. In these sermons, he hammered home the primacy of core Christian values such as love, patience, charity, and freedom, and reminded the citizens to trust God's word rather than violence to bring about necessary change.

Do you know what the Devil thinks when he sees men use violence to propagate the gospel? He sits with folded arms behind the fire of hell and says with malignant looks and frightful grin: "Ah, how wise these madmen are to play my game! Let them go on; I shall reap the benefit. I delight in it. The effect of Luther's intervention was immediate.

After the sixth sermon, the Wittenberg jurist Jerome Schurf wrote to the elector: "Oh, what joy has Dr. Martin's return spread among us! His words, through divine mercy, are bringing back every day misguided people into the way of the truth. Luther next set about reversing or modifying the new church practices. By working alongside the authorities to restore public order, he signaled his reinvention as a conservative force within the Reformation.

Despite his victory in Wittenberg, Luther was unable to stifle radicalism further afield. There had been revolts by the peasantry on smaller scales since the 15th century. Luther sympathised with some of the peasants' grievances, as he showed in his response to the Twelve Articles in May , but he reminded the aggrieved to obey the temporal authorities.

In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants , written on his return to Wittenberg, he gave his interpretation of the Gospel teaching on wealth, condemned the violence as the devil's work, and called for the nobles to put down the rebels like mad dogs:. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel For baptism does not make men free in body and property, but in soul; and the gospel does not make goods common, except in the case of those who, of their own free will , do what the apostles and disciples did in Acts 4 [—37].

They did not demand, as do our insane peasants in their raging, that the goods of others—of Pilate and Herod—should be common, but only their own goods. Our peasants, however, want to make the goods of other men common, and keep their own for themselves. Fine Christians they are! I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants.

Their raving has gone beyond all measure. Without Luther's backing for the uprising, many rebels laid down their weapons; others felt betrayed. Luther married Katharina von Bora , one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April , when he arranged for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels. Some priests and former members of religious orders had already married, including Andreas Karlstadt and Justus Jonas, but Luther's wedding set the seal of approval on clerical marriage.

Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex for I am neither wood nor stone ; but my mind is averse to wedlock because I daily expect the death of a heretic. Luther and his wife moved into a former monastery, " The Black Cloister ," a wedding present from Elector John the Steadfast. They embarked on what appears to have been a happy and successful marriage, though money was often short.

By , Luther found himself increasingly occupied in organising a new church. His biblical ideal of congregations choosing their own ministers had proved unworkable. If he were forced to choose, he would take his stand with the masses, and this was the direction in which he moved. From to , he established a supervisory church body, laid down a new form of worship service , and wrote a clear summary of the new faith in the form of two catechisms.

He also did not wish to replace one controlling system with another. He concentrated on the church in the Electorate of Saxony , acting only as an adviser to churches in new territories, many of which followed his Saxon model. He worked closely with the new elector, John the Steadfast, to whom he turned for secular leadership and funds on behalf of a church largely shorn of its assets and income after the break with Rome.

The elector authorised a visitation of the church, a power formerly exercised by bishops. For example, the Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony , drafted by Melanchthon with Luther's approval, stressed the role of repentance in the forgiveness of sins, despite Luther's position that faith alone ensures justification.

In response to demands for a German liturgy , Luther wrote a German Mass , which he published in early Luther and his colleagues introduced the new order of worship during their visitation of the Electorate of Saxony, which began in Luther devised the catechism as a method of imparting the basics of Christianity to the congregations. In , he wrote the Large Catechism , a manual for pastors and teachers, as well as a synopsis, the Small Catechism , to be memorised by the people.

The catechism is one of Luther's most personal works. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the Bondage of the Will and the Catechism. Luther's Small Catechism proved especially effective in helping parents teach their children; likewise the Large Catechism was effective for pastors. He rewrote each article of the Creed to express the character of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.

Luther's goal was to enable the catechumens to see themselves as a personal object of the work of the three persons of the Trinity, each of which works in the catechumen's life. Luther's treatment of the Apostles' Creed must be understood in the context of the Decalogue the Ten Commandments and The Lord's Prayer, which are also part of the Lutheran catechetical teaching.

Luther had published his German translation of the New Testament in , and he and his collaborators completed the translation of the Old Testament in , when the whole Bible was published. He continued to work on refining the translation until the end of his life. Luther's translation used the variant of German spoken at the Saxon chancellery, intelligible to both northern and southern Germans.

As such, it contributed a distinct flavor to the German language and literature. Luther did not include First Epistle of John , [ ] the Johannine Comma in his translation, rejecting it as a forgery. It was inserted into the text by others after Luther's death. His tool of choice for this connection was the singing of German hymns in connection with worship, school, home, and the public arena.

Luther's hymns were frequently evoked by particular events in his life and the unfolding Reformation. Messenger's translation by the title and first line "Flung to the Heedless Winds" and sung to the tune Ibstone composed in by Maria C. Luther's hymn, adapted and expanded from an earlier German creedal hymn, gained widespread use in vernacular Lutheran liturgies as early as Sixteenth-century Lutheran hymnals also included "Wir glauben all" among the catechetical hymns, although 18th-century hymnals tended to label the hymn as Trinitarian rather than catechetical, and 20th-century Lutherans rarely used the hymn because of the perceived difficulty of its tune.

Luther's hymnic version of the Lord's Prayer , " Vater unser im Himmelreich ", corresponds exactly to Luther's explanation of the prayer in the Small Catechism. The hymn functions both as a liturgical setting of the Lord's Prayer and as a means of examining candidates on specific catechism questions. The extant manuscript shows multiple revisions, demonstrating Luther's concern to clarify and strengthen the text and to provide an appropriately prayerful tune.

Other 16th- and 20th-century versifications of the Lord's Prayer have adopted Luther's tune, although modern texts are considerably shorter. Luther wrote " Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir " "From depths of woe I cry to You" in as a hymnic version of Psalm and sent it as a sample to encourage his colleagues to write psalm-hymns for use in German worship.

In a collaboration with Paul Speratus , this and seven other hymns were published in the Achtliederbuch , the first Lutheran hymnal. In Luther developed his original four-stanza psalm paraphrase into a five-stanza Reformation hymn that developed the theme of "grace alone" more fully. Because it expressed essential Reformation doctrine, this expanded version of "Aus tiefer Not" was designated as a regular component of several regional Lutheran liturgies and was widely used at funerals, including Luther's own.

Along with Erhart Hegenwalt's hymnic version of Psalm 51 , Luther's expanded hymn was also adopted for use with the fifth part of Luther's catechism, concerning confession. He wrote for Pentecost " Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist ", and adopted for Easter " Christ ist erstanden " Christ is risen , based on Victimae paschali laudes. He paraphrased the Te Deum as " Herr Gott, dich loben wir " with a simplified form of the melody.

It became known as the German Te Deum. Luther's hymn " Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam " "To Jordan came the Christ our Lord" reflects the structure and substance of his questions and answers concerning baptism in the Small Catechism. Luther adopted a preexisting Johann Walter tune associated with a hymnic setting of Psalm 67 's prayer for grace; Wolf Heintz's four-part setting of the hymn was used to introduce the Lutheran Reformation in Halle in Preachers and composers of the 18th century, including J.

Bach , used this rich hymn as a subject for their own work, although its objective baptismal theology was displaced by more subjective hymns under the influence of lateth-century Lutheran pietism. Luther's hymns were included in early Lutheran hymnals and spread the ideas of the Reformation. He supplied four of eight songs of the First Lutheran hymnal Achtliederbuch , 18 of 26 songs of the Erfurt Enchiridion , and 24 of the 32 songs in the first choral hymnal with settings by Johann Walter, Eyn geystlich Gesangk Buchleyn , all published in Luther's hymns inspired composers to write music.

In contrast to the views of John Calvin [ ] and Philipp Melanchthon , [ ] throughout his life Luther maintained that it was not false doctrine to believe that a Christian's soul sleeps after it is separated from the body in death. In his Smalcald Articles , he described the saints as currently residing "in their graves and in heaven.