Luther's view of the Pope

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I looked (briefly) at the theses, but did not find reference to this.
 
OR you could do an act of charity and google it and share the info here. 🤔😉
 
Found this, so far.

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)​

“nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and of very Antichrist. For who is the man of sin and the son of perdition, but he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church; while he yet sits in the church as if he were God? All these conditions have now for many ages been fulfilled by the papal tyranny.” (Martin Luther, First Principles, pp. 196-197)
 
Here is one quick article that gives some background. I didn’t spend time checking out this guy’s sources. Someone else can do that if they wish.

Pope is the Antichrist Myth
 
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He mentions it in letters and such. I don’t have any specific references. However, there is this informative passage from Roland Bainton’s Luther biography, Here I Stand:
The theme became very popular in the late Middle Ages among the Fraticelli, Wycliffites, and Hussites, who identified the popes with the Antichrist soon to be overthrown. Luther was unwittingly in line with these sectaries, with one significant difference, however. Whereas they identified particular popes, because of their evil lives, with Antichrist, Luther held that every pope was Antichrist even though personally exemplary, because Antichrist is collective: an institution, the papacy, a system which corrupts the truth of Christ. That was why Luther could repeatedly address Leo X in terms of personal respect only a week or so after blasting him as Antichrist. But all this was yet to come. On the eve of the Leipzig debate Luther was frightened by his own thoughts. To one who had been so devoted to the Holy Father as the vicar of Christ the very suggestion that he might be, after all, the great opponent of Christ was ghastly. At the same time the thought was comforting, for the doom of Antichrist was sure. If Luther should fall like the two witnesses, his assailant would early be demolished by the hand of God. It was no longer a fight merely with men, but against the principalities and the powers and the world ruler of this darkness in the heavenly places.
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In Martin Luther’s 1520 work, Babylonian Captivity of the Church, in the part entitled, Concerning the Sacrament of Baptism, on pages 196-197 of this online English translation of some of his works. (A search of the webpage for the word “antichrist” should get you to relevant paragraphs.)
 
So, not part of the original 95 theses? Was this “afterthought” of theological or political nature?
 
ontheway1 said:
So, not part of the original 95 theses? Was this “afterthought” of theological or political nature?
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In the 95 theses, Luther was really only questioning abuses of the doctrine of indulgences, and really only for university debate. He still believed in purgatory and the papacy. It was only later as his beliefs became more clarified and the papacy proved to be unwilling to have debate on Luther’s challenges that Luther came to see the Pope as part of the problem and purgatory as redundant.

If you read the 95 theses, you’ll see they don’t question the pope’s legitimacy–only that he does not posses power over purgatory (i.e. he cannot release soul’s from purgatory) and that papal indulgences did not remove guilt.
 
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Hence my original question. I am not familiar with Lutheranism, but found reference to his anti-Christ remark about the pope and was surprised not to see it among the 95 theses.
So the next question in my mind has to do with Luther’s work and which part of his writing constitutes the dogma of the Lutheran church.
 
Comparing the publication dates mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Martin Luther, his treatise On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, published in October 1520, appears to me to have been his response to the papal bull Exsurge Domine, issued in June 1520, giving Luther 90 days to recant some of the things he had previously written or face excommunication. Instead of recanting, Luther wrote his treatise, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, in which he accused the pope of being an antichrist and the papacy of being the kingdom of the Antichrist.
 
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ontheway1 said:
Hence my original question. I am not familiar with Lutheranism, but found reference to his anti-Christ remark about the pope and was surprised not to see it among the 95 theses.
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Yeah, Luther was a monk and a priest. He no doubt only thought highly of the Pope, and no doubt assumed that Pope Leo was ignorant of the abuses over indulgences going on in Germany (he wasn’t, though. He needed the money from indulgences to build St. Peter’s).
ontheway1 said:
So the next question in my mind has to do with Luther’s work and which part of his writing constitutes the dogma of the Lutheran church.
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Official teaching would be the Augsburg Confession and stuff in the Book of Concord.
 
ontheway1 said:
So, not part of the original 95 theses? Was this “afterthought” of theological or political nature?
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No, it was already brewing at that time, but flowered fully later.

Luther’s influence is also found in the Augsburg Confession, adhered to by all good Lutherans today.

[39]](http://bookofconcord.org/treatise.php#para39) Now, it is manifest that the Roman pontiffs, with their adherents, defend [and practice] godless doctrines and godless services. And the marks [all the vices] of Antichrist plainly agree with the kingdom of the Pope and his adherents. For Paul, in describing Antichrist to the Thessalonians, calls him 2 Thess. 2:3-4: an adversary of Christ, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God. He speaks therefore of one ruling in the Church, not of heathen kings, and he calls this one the adversary of Christ, because he will devise doctrine conflicting with the Gospel, and will assume to himself divine authority.
 
Ouch!
I can’t help but wonder if any of this attitude was a reflection of the struggle between Rome and the Empire, with independently minded princes of the German provinces on the side. Plus, the papacy was in a very weak position at the time.
 
ontheway1 said:
I can’t help but wonder if any of this attitude was a reflection of the struggle between Rome and the Empire, with independently minded princes of the German provinces on the side. Plus, the papacy was in a very weak position at the time.
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Well, there are objections in the 95 Theses about German money being used to build a Roman church. However, for Luther, this was about doctrine and about human souls. Luther truly believed that his parishioners were given false hope by being told that their sins were forgiven and their loved ones released from the torments of purgatory all for money. (Archbishop Albert of Mainz had even dispensed with the requirement for contrition on the part of those who purchased indulgences for the dead.)

Of course, there were princes within Germany who saw Lutheranism as an opportunity to gain power from the Church and the Emperor. But this was not the motivation for Luther himself.
 
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ontheway1 said:
I can’t help but wonder if any of this attitude was a reflection of the struggle between Rome and the Empire, with independently minded princes of the German provinces on the side. Plus, the papacy was in a very weak position at the time.
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Not just the “Empire” but everywhere in Europe the royalty was suffering from resources flowing out of their countries into Papal control. It was as much economic and political as it was theological. Fredrick the Wise of Saxony saw quite clearly that backing the rebellious ideas of Luther would open the possibility of regaining assets controlled by the Church.

It was not unlike Hitler using Luther’s writing on _The Jews and Their Lies_ for his policies on the Final Solution. The antisemitism in Germany had a firm foundation in Luther’s writings/attitude.
 
Encyclopedia Britannica (not a Catholic source) says this about Leo and Luther.

Leo X had not viewed the Lutheran movement with the seriousness that history later indicated was warranted. He could recall that the church, after all, had withstood the teachings of an English reformer, John Wycliffe, and a Bohemian reformer, Jan Hus. Leo believed Luther was another hereticwhose teachings would lead some of the faithful astray but, as had happened in the past, the true religion would triumph in time. In December 1521 Leo X died suddenly, leaving behind him political turmoil in Italy and religious turmoil spreading across northern Europe.
 
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