Works of Martin Luther, Volume I
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 8 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~160,000 words · 752 passages
Cite this work
- APAMartin Luther. (n.d.). Works of Martin Luther, Volume I. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/works-of-martin-luther-volume-i
- MLAMartin Luther. Works of Martin Luther, Volume I. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/works-of-martin-luther-volume-i.
- ChicagoMartin Luther. Works of Martin Luther, Volume I. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/works-of-martin-luther-volume-i.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The first volume of the Philadelphia English edition of Luther's works, with the writings of 1517 to 1520 that opened the Reformation.
Context and history
Here are the ninety-five theses on indulgences — which Luther wrote to call an academic disputation, not to break with Rome — and his later and much more explicit explanation of them. Here too are the three great writings of 1520 that made the break irreversible: 'To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation', asking the princes to reform the Church because the clergy will not; 'The Babylonian Captivity', reducing the seven sacraments to two; and 'The Freedom of a Christian', the calmest of the three, with its double formula that a Christian is a free lord of all and a servant of all. They are best read in that order: they are a year in the life of a man who goes from proposing a debate to being excommunicated.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
"venial." [18] Mortal sins for which the offender had not received absolution were punished eternally, while venial sins were those which merited only some smaller penalty; but when a mortal sin was confessed and absolution granted, the guilt of the sin was done away, and with it the eternal penalty. And yet the absolution did not open the gate of heaven, though it closed the door of hell; the eternal penalty was not to be exacted, but there was a temporal penalty to be paid. The "satisfaction" was the temporal penalty, and if satisfaction was in arrears at death, the arrearage must be paid in purgatory, a place of punishment for mortal sins confessed and repented, but "unsatisfied," and for venial sins, which were not serious enough to bring eternal condemnation. The penalties of purgatory were "temporal," viz., they stopped somewhere this side of eternity, and their duration could be measured in days and years, though the number of the years might mount high into the thousands and tens of thousands. It was at this point that the practice of indulgences united with the theory of the Sacrament of Penance. The indulgences had to do with the "satisfaction." [19] They might be "partial," remitting only a portion of the penalties, measured by days or years of purgatory; or they might be "plenary," remitting all penalties due in this world or the next. _In theory_, however, no indulgence could remit the guilt or the eternal penalty of sin,[20] and the purchaser of an indulgence was not only expected to confess and be absolved, but he was also supposed to be _corde contritus_, i. e., "truly penitent." [21] A rigid insistence on the fulfilment of these conditions would have greatly restricted the value of the indulgences as a means of gain, for the right to hear confession and grant absolution belonged to the parish-priests. Consequently, it became the custom to endow the indulgence-vendors with extraordinary powers.…