Did Martin Luther start the Protestinism?

[wwolverine]

What would the Christianity be today if Martin Luther had not changed? Was he also the main person to drop the 7 books from the Catholic Bibles and what was found wrong by the people of Protestant faith?

 

[Totterman]

Jesus,our Lords peace be with You.
Dear friend,and first,sorry for my bad english. To ansver that question would be to comment on other christians faith and can’t therefor be ansvered without breaking the rules of this forum.
As a former Lutherian (I live in Finland) I can only say that there are so many ways to look at things that it is almost impossible to say what would have happend if…There are many christian churches along with the Catholic Church,and I tink it is good to remember what Jesus said:“Those who are with us,are not against us”.

 

[IowaJay]

What would the Christianity be today if Martin Luther had not changed? Was he also the main person to drop the 7 books from the Catholic Bibles and what was found wrong by the people of Protestant faith?

Those are some pretty big questions, but to just touch on a few points:

• Regarding the question of whether he “started” Protestantism, there were periodically other protests and breakaways from the Church of Rome in previous centuries, including the movement started by Jan Hus a century before (modern day Moravians claim descent from this movement).
• As has been discussed in other threads, Luther’s translation of the Bible included the 7 books, so he did not “drop them,” although he did accord them lesser status than the others. For whatever reasons, beginning about 200 years ago, many Protestant translations did not include those books.

 

[Hesychios]

What would the Christianity be today if Martin Luther had not changed? Was he also the main person to drop the 7 books from the Catholic Bibles and what was found wrong by the people of Protestant faith?

Later in his career Father Martin Luther OSA went too far theologically, which is a shame. I by no means wish to minimize that problem.

But what motivated father Martin to action originally was rampant corruption in the church, with the higher level of church hierarchy refusing to deal with it.

Apparently the issues he touched upon had been bothering Roman Catholics for a long time beforehand. Father Erasmus Desiderius (a friend of St Thomas More) at one point early on called Luther “a mighty trumpet of gospel truth” (this was before they came to disagree on Free Will).

Printing had by now been invented and literacy rates were slowly climbing, so the publications of men like Luther, Erasmus and More were receiving some wide attention. This got a lot of laypeople thinking about social justice and religious matters for themselves. Luther and Erasmus’s positions on church corruption proved to be a great embarassment to the church hierarchy, which nonetheless resisted reform efforts for the next two generations.

I am told ( I don’t know if this is true or not) that if father Martin’s 95 thesis were posted for debate today none of his complaints would be justified, the church has by now corrected them all. It seems that father Martin’s great sin in those days was that he would not be silenced. It is not clear that if he had remained silent that any of the abuses would have been corrected at any time in the future.

In addition, FWIW the Roman Catholic church and the Lutheran churches have come to an agreement and made a joint statement on the concept of justification. Which has to be seen as a huge step toward reconciliation, since theologically the two sides have never been so far apart as the polemics might make it seem.

Father Martin gets a bad rap for starting the Protestant Reformation, but if one considers it, no one today would have heard of him had the church not descended into such a dismal state to begin with, and refused to reform even in the face of public outrage. One could say the church hierarchy, including no small number of Popes, started the Protestant Reformation. They tilled the garden and made it ready for planting. Those men must bear equal responsibility for the scandals which shook the people’s Faith and fractured the Body of Christ.

 

[JM3]

What would the Christianity be today if Martin Luther had not changed? Was he also the main person to drop the 7 books from the Catholic Bibles and what was found wrong by the people of Protestant faith?

If not Luther, then it would have been someone else.

The ‘Protestant’ faith actually started in the 12 century with Peter Waldo (the Waldensians), furthered along by Joachim of Fiore, John Wyclif and John Hus.

As for the Bible, Luther was the first to use the Hebrew Old Testament instead of the Greek (thus the 7 books that were dropped, as the Jews did not accept them as Scripture).

 

[JonNC]

If not Luther, then it would have been someone else.

The ‘Protestant’ faith actually started in the 12 century with Peter Waldo (the Waldensians), furthered along by Joachim of Fiore, John Wyclif and John Hus.

As for the Bible, Luther was the first to use the Hebrew Old Testament instead of the Greek (thus the 7 books that were dropped, as the Jews did not accept them as Scripture).

And yet, 2 things:

1. He felt strongly enough about them to translate them into German, and include them in his German tranlation. He even translated the Prayer of Manasses and included it. Why bother, if he thought them unimportant?
2. He was not alone in his concern about the Dueterocanon. There were many from the time of Jerome.

As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it also read these two volumes (Wisdom of Solomon and Eccesiasticus) for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church…

Cardinal Cajetan, a Luther contemporary:

“Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage.”

Jon

 

[JM3]

And yet, 2 things:

1. He felt strongly enough about them to translate them into German, and include them in his German tranlation. He even translated the Prayer of Manasses and included it. Why bother, if he thought them unimportant?
2. He was not alone in his concern about the Dueterocanon. There were many from the time of Jerome.
   Jon

1. Where did I say that he thought they were unimportant?
2. Yes, there have been many people throughout history that have had trouble accepting the authority of the Catholic Church.

 

[JonNC]

=JM3;7239296]1) Where did I say that he thought they were unimportant?

I didn’t say you did. I was simply adding to the conversation, in response to your claim that: *"As for the Bible, ***Luther was the first **to use the Hebrew Old Testament instead of the Greek (thus the 7 books that were dropped, as the Jews did not accept them as Scripture)."

1. Yes, there have been many people throughout history that have had trouble accepting the authority of the Catholic Church.

So St. Jerome and many other Catholics had trouble in this way? No.
They were exercising what was permitted by the Catholic Church until Trent in this regard. The disposition of the dueterocanon was debated even at Trent. Simply by the name dueterocanon, there is an implication that they were in dispute within the Catholic Church, which was not a matter of accepting the authority of the Catholic Church, as the matter was not closed for the Catholic Church until Trent.

Jon

 

[Janet1983]

Later in his career Father Martin Luther OSA went too far theologically, which is a shame. I by no means wish to minimize that problem.

But what motivated father Martin to action originally was rampant corruption in the church, with the higher level of church hierarchy refusing to deal with it.

Apparently the issues he touched upon had been bothering Roman Catholics for a long time beforehand. Father Erasmus Desiderius (a friend of St Thomas More) at one point early on called Luther “a mighty trumpet of gospel truth” (this was before they came to disagree on Free Will).

Printing had by now been invented and literacy rates were slowly climbing, so the publications of men like Luther, Erasmus and More were receiving some wide attention. This got a lot of laypeople thinking about social justice and religious matters for themselves. Luther and Erasmus’s positions on church corruption proved to be a great embarassment to the church hierarchy, which nonetheless resisted reform efforts for the next two generations.

I am told ( I don’t know if this is true or not) that if father Martin’s 95 thesis were posted for debate today none of his complaints would be justified, the church has by now corrected them all. It seems that father Martin’s great sin in those days was that he would not be silenced. It is not clear that if he had remained silent that any of the abuses would have been corrected at any time in the future.

In addition, FWIW the Roman Catholic church and the Lutheran churches have come to an agreement and made a joint statement on the concept of justification. Which has to be seen as a huge step toward reconciliation, since theologically the two sides have never been so far apart as the polemics might make it seem.

Father Martin gets a bad rap for starting the Protestant Reformation, but if one considers it, no one today would have heard of him had the church not descended into such a dismal state to begin with, and refused to reform even in the face of public outrage. One could say the church hierarchy, including no small number of Popes, started the Protestant Reformation. They tilled the garden and made it ready for planting. Those men must bear equal responsibility for the scandals which shook the people’s Faith and fractured the Body of Christ.

I agree with most of what you are saying.
Considering the fact that the papal bull “Exsurge Domine” only criticized 41 of the 95 thesis, I’d say that even back then some of his complaints were considered valid, even by the pope. There were a lot of things that went wrong. Maybe not in doctrine, but in the way it was put into action. If it hadn’t been for Luther there would have been another one who would have spoken up sooner or later. We don’t know whether these issues would have been resolved within the Catholic Church without the Reformation.
I doubt that Luther wanted to split the Church. I tend to assume that he wanted to get rid of the things that he saw as wrong within the Catholic Church and I wonder whether or not he would have any complaints if he was to be transferred in time from the 15th of October 1517 into today and be confronted with what the Catholic Church teaches today.
His accusations were not unfounded back then, but today? I am not absolutely certain about that.
If I remember correctly I saw a book in a library 10 years ago that was about an ecumenical declaration concerning justification. As far as I remember it was signed in Augsburg on Reformation Day in 1999… Pope John Paul II did talk about it in the Angelus on the 31st of October 1999.

BTW… on the time of Martin Luther it was “Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini”, O.E.S.A.

Edit: I found the document. “JOINT DECLARATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION, by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church”

 

[Hesychios]

So St. Jerome and many other Catholics had trouble in this way? No.
They were exercising what was permitted by the Catholic Church until Trent in this regard. The disposition of the dueterocanon was debated even at Trent. …

I agree with you here.

This point concerning the Biblical canon was not a question of authority at that time, but many modern RC immediately frame the issue in this way. I think it is just a knee-jerk reaction, or assumption.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You’re right. Think about the things Luther was angry about at that time that are now corrected: communion in both kinds was denied the laity now the body AND blood in the form of bread AND wine are offered to the laity. Take the ‘selling’ of indulgences. Indulgences, unfortunately, still exist but they’re not ‘sold.’ Or look at the language of justification that the new catechism has. It stresses FAITH and grace and the free gifts from God being paramount and justifying and it emphasizes the work of God through and in us as opposed to the works-based hoops and ladders of Luther’s day. Look at Luther’s complaint about the language of the Latin liturgy of his day. What do we have now? The language of the locals is the language of the Mass. And like you said, the joint Lutheran-Catholic statement on the Eucharist and other issues…

The Catholics don’t like to admit how much of Luther’s “protests” and complaining had substance and relevence and it’s interesting how much the Catholic Church adopted his concerns into reality. For being called by Catholics “the deformation,” by implication, since the Catholics have co-opted much of the Reformation’s principles, they too would then be deformed, right?

Later in his career Father Martin Luther OSA went too far theologically, which is a shame. I by no means wish to minimize that problem.

But what motivated father Martin to action originally was rampant corruption in the church, with the higher level of church hierarchy refusing to deal with it.

Apparently the issues he touched upon had been bothering Roman Catholics for a long time beforehand. Father Erasmus Desiderius (a friend of St Thomas More) at one point early on called Luther “a mighty trumpet of gospel truth” (this was before they came to disagree on Free Will).

Printing had by now been invented and literacy rates were slowly climbing, so the publications of men like Luther, Erasmus and More were receiving some wide attention. This got a lot of laypeople thinking about social justice and religious matters for themselves. Luther and Erasmus’s positions on church corruption proved to be a great embarassment to the church hierarchy, which nonetheless resisted reform efforts for the next two generations.

I am told ( I don’t know if this is true or not) that if father Martin’s 95 thesis were posted for debate today none of his complaints would be justified, the church has by now corrected them all. It seems that father Martin’s great sin in those days was that he would not be silenced. It is not clear that if he had remained silent that any of the abuses would have been corrected at any time in the future.

In addition, FWIW the Roman Catholic church and the Lutheran churches have come to an agreement and made a joint statement on the concept of justification. Which has to be seen as a huge step toward reconciliation, since theologically the two sides have never been so far apart as the polemics might make it seem.

Father Martin gets a bad rap for starting the Protestant Reformation, but if one considers it, no one today would have heard of him had the church not descended into such a dismal state to begin with, and refused to reform even in the face of public outrage. One could say the church hierarchy, including no small number of Popes, started the Protestant Reformation. They tilled the garden and made it ready for planting. Those men must bear equal responsibility for the scandals which shook the people’s Faith and fractured the Body of Christ.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Hmm, it seems to me, from this thread only (I only know the basic facts of the Reformation) that Luther’s big mistake was splitting from the Church because of the (very real) issues he found.

Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to reform the Church from within? Or perhaps make more of an effort to reform the Church from within? A split, IMHO, was in nobody’s best interests.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Didn’t Martin Luther actually try to reform the Church from within? That was what the 99 Theses were about and Luther’s many writings and criticisms of the Church. That was what the debates were about. Luther wanted change and met with mammoth resistence and excommunication. It’s tough to reform when you’ve been thrown to the devil and nobody will listen to you. The guy had to go into hiding in a castle in cognito changing his name for goodness sake. I don’t think there would’ve been a Reformation, or at least it would’ve been halted for a long time, if the pope and magisterium would’ve possibly listened to Luther, given him their ear without the condescention, and would’ve sought some reforms. I’ve observed that the Catholic Church usually cannot and does not reform herself. She needs outside sources just like Israel required the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Philistines as checks and balances at times to put them in their place. The Catholic Church needs the media pounding and pounding them until they do something about child molestors. When left to their own designs and power structure, they’ll sweep it under the rug for fear of scandal. Well, in the time of Luther, they didn’t reform or have their Trent until enough protestants bailed and represented a real threat.

Hmm, it seems to me, from this thread only (I only know the basic facts of the Reformation) that Luther’s big mistake was splitting from the Church because of the (very real) issues he found.

Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to reform the Church from within? Or perhaps make more of an effort to reform the Church from within? A split, IMHO, was in nobody’s best interests.

 

[Bluegoat]

Luther, as Gurney said, did try to reform the Church from within, and was excommunicated for his trouble.

I think by that time, the thing had really taken on a life of its own. Luther was not the only one seriously upset by these things. People were really doubting the Catholic Church was what it claimed. And the political leaders were also very motivated to somehow break away from the Catholic Church because of the mess being made in the political sphere.

If Luther hadn’t been in the mix, all these things would still have come to a head.

 

[Hesychios]

Didn’t Martin Luther actually try to reform the Church from within? That was what the 99 Theses were about and Luther’s many writings and criticisms of the Church. That was what the debates were about. Luther wanted change and met with mammoth resistence and excommunication. It’s tough to reform when you’ve been thrown to the devil and nobody will listen to you. The guy had to go into hiding in a castle in cognito changing his name for goodness sake. I don’t think there would’ve been a Reformation, or at least it would’ve been halted for a long time, if the pope and magisterium would’ve possibly listened to Luther, given him their ear without the condescention, and would’ve sought some reforms. I’ve observed that the Catholic Church usually cannot and does not reform herself. She needs outside sources just like Israel required the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Philistines as checks and balances at times to put them in their place. The Catholic Church needs the media pounding and pounding them until they do something about child molestors. When left to their own designs and power structure, they’ll sweep it under the rug for fear of scandal. Well, in the time of Luther, they didn’t reform or have their Trent until enough protestants bailed and represented a real threat.

You are right.

The position seems to have been “if the situation is scandalous - hide it for the sake of those whose faith is weak” and so problems do not necessarily get immediate correction, although the issue might be immediately silenced.

One such (I call it shameful) case had to do with married priests in the eastern rites. This was suppressed in places like France and the USA because it “scandalized” the Latin Catholic laity. Imagine that, a longstanding tradition of the eastern Catholic churches was deemed scandalizing by the Vatican (read: Pope) and suppressed, not to protect the church or help the Eastern Catholics, but to hide the tradition from the eyes of Roman (Latin rite) Catholics who might somehow be scandalized.

What a wonderful teaching opportunity it could have been, showing all those Irish and German Catholics in America the eastern rite churches in full flower. Instead the church hierarchy acted as if it was ashamed of them. The result, needless to say, was not one but two full blown schisms. A price some must have thought worth paying to protect the Latin rite Catholics from learning about married priests in the Catholic church.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

When did all this happen, Michael?

You are right.

The position seems to have been “if the situation is scandalous - hide it for the sake of those whose faith is weak” and so problems do not necessarily get immediate correction, although the issue might be immediately silenced.

One such (I call it shameful) case had to do with married priests in the eastern rites. This was suppressed in places like France and the USA because it “scandalized” the Latin Catholic laity. Imagine that, a longstanding tradition of the eastern Catholic churches was deemed scandalizing by the Vatican (read: Pope) and suppressed, not to protect the church or help the Eastern Catholics, but to hide the tradition from the eyes of Roman (Latin rite) Catholics who might somehow be scandalized.

What a wonderful teaching opportunity it could have been, showing all those Irish and German Catholics in America the eastern rite churches in full flower. Instead the church hierarchy acted as if it was ashamed of them. The result, needless to say, was not one but two full blown schisms. A price some must have thought worth paying to protect the Latin rite Catholics from learning about married priests in the Catholic church.

 

[Hesychios]

When did all this happen, Michael?

In the 1890’s Rome sent a letter to the French hierarchy prohibiting married eastern Catholic priests from serving there. Some few short years later it was applied to the USA as well. Meanwhile, father Toth had come from the kingdom of Hungary to minister to eastern Catholics in Minneapolis. He was a widower and his only child (I think a daughter) had died, but bishop Ireland refused to allow him to serve and insulted him (and his eastern Catholic church) roundly.

It turns out that other EC missioners present all over the USA had had similar experiences, while the Latin rite bishops were appealing to Rome to get rid of them. Thus the letter first sent to France was now applied to the USA and the eastern Catholic priests were learning that they were going to be recalled. Gradually there was an exodus of Eastern Catholics into the Russian Metropolia, which affected parishes all over the USA and gutted the Ruthenian church in the USA. This growing exodus continued well into the first decade of the 20th century. In the meantime the Catholic church stopped enforcing the ban on married priests, perhaps because of the schism. More married men were ordained in the USA for the Byzantine Catholics and the situation began to stabilize.

Then of course, the Bolshevik revolution happened and by 1918 the suppression of Russian Orthodoxy in the homeland commenced. Conversion to Orthodoxy did not seem very attractive and there were precious few further movements in that direction. In fact the opposite began to happen, with some Orthodox priests from Russia becoming attracted by Roman Catholicism (one famous priest-writer particularly attracted was father Sergius Bulgakov).

The bishops in the USA made another appeal to get rid of the married Byzantine Catholic priests, and the Vatican obliged when the Pope issued Cum Data Fuerit in 1929AD. This was a full suppression of the married priesthood. In addition Rome demanded that any parish which wanted a priest was to turn over the deed to the property (one Croatian Catholic parish in Chicago held out for two solid years, but eventually caved in).

As a result, another schism took place which occurred in the decade of the 1930’s, this time there were just a few parishes which went over to the Russian Metropolia (we have a couple of those parishes in my area) and most of the others went over to the Ecumenical patriarchate. These were not incorporated into the Greek Orthodox church, but were set up as a separate diocese as the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox diocese under the EP with a bishop of their own choosing.

Rome is no longer enforcing Cum Data Fuerit, but the Byzantine Catholic church has to go to the Vatican for approval of every married candidate (there haven’t been many, the church is now in an aggravated state of decline and vocations are down).

This kind of opposition by Latin bishops just keeps happening around the world. The Latin Catholic church hierarchy in various places has continued to appeal to Rome and ask that married eastern Catholic priests be sent packing. It happened (unsuccessfully) in Poland in the 1990’s and more recently the hierarchy in Italy asked the Pope to do the same thing, although I doubt that they were successful.

 

[Gabriel_of_12]

What would the Christianity be today if Martin Luther had not changed? Was he also the main person to drop the 7 books from the Catholic Bibles and what was found wrong by the people of Protestant faith?

Reformation was already underway before Luther when “humanism” came on the scene with its counterpart “Renaissance” or rebirth which had a negative prejudice judgement on the preceding age. These gave way to much needed reform within the Church that dealt with the morality of man not the Apostolic Catholic Doctrines. St.Thomas More (an English man loyal to the Pope and the teachings up to his martyrdom) a contemporary of Luther and others wanted to correct the abuses not do away with the Pope and the magisterium, but to reform the lax ed morality in the clergy.

Luther an Augustinian monk, introduced from his “Nominalism” philosophy (which denied that there were such things as universals) which conflicted with his Catholicism of morality and law. Luther believed “God is a mighty fortress” that God could make adultery a good thing and we would have to practice it as we avoid it now.

This philosophy of men (by William of Ockham) lead Luther into his man made theologies of So-la Scriptura and Justification by faith. Luther believed that his new theology could be saved through an “external relationship”. For example; Luther stated that human beings were a pile of manure, which conflicted with the Church teachings that man was created good in the image of God, that Luther which this pile of “blank” was then covered over by the snow of grace.

St.Thomas Aquinas teachings countered Luther’'s, which teaches that the "human being is a pile of snow that becomes dirty after a time. Grace comes like a new snowfall and renews the original snow pile.

The reason I mentioned this is because Luther’s reformation derived from a philosophy of men which introduced man made theologies that refused the authority of the Church Jesus instituted upon the Apostles and held to the “authority of the scriptures only” to be his new faith which protested the divine offices of the Pope and the bishops.

To conclude here are a few contemporaries who know Luther which will give you an impression of Luther when he walked the earth;

St.Thomas More called Luther “an ape, ***, drunkard, a lousy little friar, a piece of scurf, a pestilence buffoon, a dishonest liar”.

G.K Chesterton called Luther “one of those great elemental barbarians”.

It isn’t a question if Luther dropped 7 books from the canon of scripture, Luther relabeled them as “not inspired of God” (apocryphal). Luther also wanted to remove new testament books and boasted that the book of James was a book of straw.

Luther did not help with the reformation of the Catholic church already begun before him, Luther added chaos and confusion with his new man made theologies, which freed up men to part ways from the Church while humanism took flight in “freedom of man’s will” to do what ever man willed to do, include interpret God’s scriptures for oneself, which did nothing for the reformation but confuse the many and gain individual wealth to his “princes” whom Luther also held to his secular authorities who also financed him to protest the Catholic Church, while they took properties from the Church to themselves as the many saw their princes “lawgivers” go over to Luther for the self delusion of freedom not reform.

Luther’s German’s translation of the bible was never the first either as some falsely claimed, nor did he ever nail his 95 theses on the door of the castle in Wittenberg, but posted them at the university of Wittenberg on a bulletin board.

Although they contained some good criticism, what drove his madness came from his own province of Germany where his own German priests were selling indulgences, not to mention Luther’s difficulties with Tetzel.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

All right, although I’m a Catholic I don’t have much trouble believing this because I don’t see too much issue with differentiating between the spiritual and human elelments of the Church in these cases, but let me see if I understand correctly: Luther TRIED to reform the Church from within and was excommunicated?

Now, I thought (and I acknowledge that I can easily be wrong) that Luther was, in essentials, angry at various Church abuses and wrote several letters to Rome asking them to check it out. When they didn’t, he got so mad he posted the 99 theses knowing he’d be excommunicated, essentially excommunicating himself.

Also, if Luther was positing such ideas such as justification by faith alone instead of faith and works, and promoting these ideas publicly, wouldn’t the Church have no choice but to excommunicate him?

BTW, I am quite skeptical of the joint agreement on justification since I talked to an educated Lutheran on the subject and he was EXTREMELY unhappy with the paper because apparently one of the Lutherans refused to sign it or signed under protest or something (I don’t know the details).

At any rate this Lutheran was very adamant that he disagreed in general with the conclusions reached in the agreement.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

To conclude here are a few contemporaries who know Luther which will give you an impression of Luther when he walked the earth;

St.Thomas More called Luther “an ape, ***, drunkard, a lousy little friar, a piece of scurf, a pestilence buffoon, a dishonest liar”.

G.K Chesterton called Luther “one of those great elemental barbarians”.

Wait, a few contemporaries? Chesterton was no contemporary of Luther’s, considering he was born in 1874 and Luther in 1478.

More was a contemporary but while I can’t really speak about the accuracy of your post in general, I frankly, and I don’t mean for this to sound rude and hope you don’t take it that way, don’t care what he thought of Luther personally. People have called Aquinas a dumb ox, and he’s a pretty smart guy. It’s an ad hom attack that doesn’t really tell me whether he did the right thing or not.