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spina1953
Guest
Hi FatheknowsBest: I’m with you as I just read that document you are asking about and did not see anything that Per Crucem is talking about.
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FathersKnowBest
Guest
strike 2 …
Nothing at all about dead peoples’ mortal sins being forgiven …
Maybe you could post the actual quote you think refers to this?
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Per_Crucem
Guest
“By the teaching he laid himself open to just censure and reproach. To condition a plenary indulgence for the dead on the mere gift of money, without contrition on the part of the giver, was as repugnant to the teaching of the Church, as it violated every principle of elementary justice.”
I wonder what the without contrition on the part of the giver referred to…? Not confessing mortal sins, perhaps?
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FathersKnowBest
Guest
This is the entire paragraph:
But the granting of indulgences in connection with almsgiving also led to deplorable abuses.
To quote Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
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FathersKnowBest
Guest
Ahhh, an interpolation (eisegesis) and a misunderstanding on your part. I see.
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Per_Crucem
Guest
After an indulgence was announced for making a contribution to a certain project, quaestores were sent to collect the related alms. Unfortunately, in many cases the preaching of these quaestores, out of ignorance or shrewdness, went far beyond dogmatic truth; some of them even dared to promise that the damned would be released from hell.
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FathersKnowBest
Guest
How does this relate to your statement:
Note that Tetzel himself was in line with church teaching as to what indulgences did for the living. However, he did apply them to the dead, over and above (and some would say against) official church teaching.
Who do you think the quaestores were?
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spina1953
Guest
First of all, we do not know if any or all those who asked for indulgences for the dead wanted them for mortal sins, ISTM, that any good Christian knew that anyone who died in mortal sin would not be given any indulgence. So I am thinking, that most Christians of the day asked indulgences for the dead were those they knew did not die in a state of mortal sin. Of course one can surmise that it was the case since it happened a long time ago. We know that there those who abused indulgences, but I rather doubt that it was so for everyone granted the authority to grant an indulgence whether for the living or the dead.
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Denise1957
Guest
I read the article, and can’t find anything at all about Tetzels’ views, or doctrine, regarding mortal sins or guilt. Can you please point out where this is mentioned in the article? Maybe I missed it.
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Topper17
Guest
Hi guano,
“**I advise the temporal authorities, however, to take over the possessions of such monasteries, …**In doing this, no permission of pope or bishop is to be sought beforehand, nor are their ban and curse to be feared; for I am writing this for those only who understand the Gospel and who have the right to take such action in their own lands, cities and jurisdiction. In the second place: such possessions of monasteries as are taken over by the authorities” AN ORDINANCE OF A COMMON CHEST, MARTIN Luther, 1523
This is actually rather comical. Luther here recommends that prior to the stealing of property, the owner of that property is not to be “consulted”. Better to just steal it without notice.
In a letter to Count Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg, a Lutheran secular authority, Luther wrote that Luther replied that **"but if witnesses could testify that they did not preach the true Gospel (of Luther), but papistical heresies, the count would have the right, nay, the duty, to oust them from their parishes… there is need of great care, lest the possessions of such vacated foundations become common plunder and everyone make off with what he can get **. . . **the blame is laid at my door whenever monasteries and foundations are vacated . **. . This makes me unwilling to take the additional blame if some greedy bellies should grab these spiritual possessions and claim, in excuse of their conduct, that I was the cause of it . . . **In the first place: it would indeed be well if no rural monasteries, such as those of the Benedictines, Cistercians, Celestines, and the like, had ever appeared upon earth. **But now that they are here, the best thing is to suffer them to pass away or to assist them, wherever one properly can, to disappear altogether. (as for the material possessions of the Church) **Let everyone examine himself to see what he should take for his own needs and what he should leave for the common chest.”, **Martin Luther, Dec 12, 1523
So…under Luther’s “criteria”, what exactly and specifically is “required” in order to “relieve” a Church of it’s physical property? Luther tells us that it ONLY requires that “but if witnesses could testify that they did not preach the true Gospel” ML. Of course the witnesses only have to believe that the Gospel that a certain Church (or church) was teaching was in error. And of course, according to Luther, the owner of that property need not be consulted.
Luther was still rationalizing this outrageous and unjust criminal theft in 1541:
**“If they are not the church but the devil’s whore that has not remained faithful to Christ, then it is irrefutably and thoroughly established that they should not possess church property.” **(Wider Hans Wurst, or Against Jack Sausage, 1541, LW, vol. 41, 179-256, translated by Eric W. Gritsch; citation from p. 220)
He “recommended” that the Church’s property be plundered (meaning stolen from it), but of course advised against greed, AS IF once he made the property of the Church “available” to be “appropriated”, it was going to be used for “good”. Melanchthon suggests that Luther’s “plan” did not go as intended, which by the way is a common element of Luther’s “career”:
“They do not care in the least about religion; they are only anxious to get dominion into their own hands, to be free from the control of the bishops…Under the cover of the Gospel, the princes were only intent on the plunder of the Churches.” Melanchthon
**“Right from the beginning, Luther’s spiritual revolt had let loose material greed. **The German rulers, the Scandanavian monarchs and Henry VIII of England had taken all advantage of the break from papal tutelage to appropriate both the wealth and the control of the respective Churches.” Henri Daniel-Ropps, “The Protestant Reformation, pg. 309-10
And Luther unwittingly (at least initially), helped them to do it.
As we will see shortly, Luther’s goal was to damage the Church. This included among other things, damaging the monastic tradition. As for your comment about the ‘resources’, let’s call it what it really was – the THEFT of Church property, which Luther very much advocated.
“**I advise the temporal authorities, however, to take over the possessions of such monasteries, …**In doing this, no permission of pope or bishop is to be sought beforehand, nor are their ban and curse to be feared; for I am writing this for those only who understand the Gospel and who have the right to take such action in their own lands, cities and jurisdiction. In the second place: such possessions of monasteries as are taken over by the authorities” AN ORDINANCE OF A COMMON CHEST, MARTIN Luther, 1523
This is actually rather comical. Luther here recommends that prior to the stealing of property, the owner of that property is not to be “consulted”. Better to just steal it without notice.
In a letter to Count Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg, a Lutheran secular authority, Luther wrote that Luther replied that **"but if witnesses could testify that they did not preach the true Gospel (of Luther), but papistical heresies, the count would have the right, nay, the duty, to oust them from their parishes… there is need of great care, lest the possessions of such vacated foundations become common plunder and everyone make off with what he can get **. . . **the blame is laid at my door whenever monasteries and foundations are vacated . **. . This makes me unwilling to take the additional blame if some greedy bellies should grab these spiritual possessions and claim, in excuse of their conduct, that I was the cause of it . . . **In the first place: it would indeed be well if no rural monasteries, such as those of the Benedictines, Cistercians, Celestines, and the like, had ever appeared upon earth. **But now that they are here, the best thing is to suffer them to pass away or to assist them, wherever one properly can, to disappear altogether. (as for the material possessions of the Church) **Let everyone examine himself to see what he should take for his own needs and what he should leave for the common chest.”, **Martin Luther, Dec 12, 1523
So…under Luther’s “criteria”, what exactly and specifically is “required” in order to “relieve” a Church of it’s physical property? Luther tells us that it ONLY requires that “but if witnesses could testify that they did not preach the true Gospel” ML. Of course the witnesses only have to believe that the Gospel that a certain Church (or church) was teaching was in error. And of course, according to Luther, the owner of that property need not be consulted.
Luther was still rationalizing this outrageous and unjust criminal theft in 1541:
**“If they are not the church but the devil’s whore that has not remained faithful to Christ, then it is irrefutably and thoroughly established that they should not possess church property.” **(Wider Hans Wurst, or Against Jack Sausage, 1541, LW, vol. 41, 179-256, translated by Eric W. Gritsch; citation from p. 220)
He “recommended” that the Church’s property be plundered (meaning stolen from it), but of course advised against greed, AS IF once he made the property of the Church “available” to be “appropriated”, it was going to be used for “good”. Melanchthon suggests that Luther’s “plan” did not go as intended, which by the way is a common element of Luther’s “career”:
“They do not care in the least about religion; they are only anxious to get dominion into their own hands, to be free from the control of the bishops…Under the cover of the Gospel, the princes were only intent on the plunder of the Churches.” Melanchthon
**“Right from the beginning, Luther’s spiritual revolt had let loose material greed. **The German rulers, the Scandanavian monarchs and Henry VIII of England had taken all advantage of the break from papal tutelage to appropriate both the wealth and the control of the respective Churches.” Henri Daniel-Ropps, “The Protestant Reformation, pg. 309-10
And Luther unwittingly (at least initially), helped them to do it.
Please correct me if I have gotten this wrong. You say that Luther did not have a goal of ‘damaging the Church’, but JUST ‘toppling the Pope’. Is that correct? If all that needed toppling was the corruption, then what in the world did that have to do with refuting 50 established doctrines?
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Topper17
Guest
That’s what all of the historic heretics of Christian history have believed and claimed. I guess the way that you put this forces me to ask if you think that the Lutheran church is the “pure one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”.
His choice of the strictest monastery available is consistent with his extreme scrupulosity, which by the way does NOT recommend him as a well-balanced Theologian or Scriptural Exegete.
Agreed, or follow him for that matter. Much has been written about how Luther’s vulgar violent language appealed to the uneducated and disaffected.
You seem to presume that because Luther preached on something he must have known the issue correctly. If the history of Protestantism is proof of anything it is proof that a lot of people have preached about a lot of things without knowing much about them.
As we have seen, Tetzel’s claims about indulgences were in line with the teachings of the Church. Luther went off half-cocked and made a mountain out of a non-issue. I don’t hold Tetzel completely harmless, but it was Luther who escalated the matter FAR past where it needed to go. If there was a lack of sincerity of repentance, then how did Luther’s challenging of so many doctrines address that problem? Exactly – not at all.
I wasn’t claiming that my comment could be tied to the McGiffert quote, but it is to the comments of many other Scholars. The fact is that the driving force behind virtually everything Luther did was his terror over his everlasting Salvation.
So, whether Tetzel was misrepresenting the teachings of the Church is not the issue, but rather it is Luther’s ‘perception’? Luther was excessively sensitive to anything that impacted his terrors over his everlasting Salvation. For the rest of his life his hatred spewed out upon all of those who caused him to doubt. You cannot believe that Luther was justified in turning Christianity on its ear because his parishioners had some false impression.
This is exactly the issue – ‘Luther had figured out for himself’ about Salvation. He had used his Private Interpretation to arrive at a means to Salvation which was entirely different than anything anybody prior had taught. In fact, indulgences and a whole host of other established doctrines DID ‘overshadow’ that ‘version’ of Salvation. It would seem that you are sympathetic to Luther because of what he ‘thought’ without mentioning the possibility that he ‘might’ have been wrong.
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Topper17
Guest
It is not erroneous not is it speculation. As for the JDDJ, what authority does it have to pronounce doctrine on anything?
“Some time during the **early spring of 1518 **Luther had received a letter from his former professor of philosophy at the University of Erfurt, Jodocus Trutfetter, a man whom he deeply respected and who had expected great service to the Church from so able a mind and so strong a personality as Luther. Now Professor Trutfetter solemnly warned his former student against the path he was taking, urging him to turn back before it was too late. On May 9 Luther replied: ‘To speak plainly, my firm belief is that the reform of the Church is impossible unless the ecclesiastical laws, the papal regulations, scholastic theology, philosophy and logic as the at present exist, are thoroughly uprooted.’ Such uprooting, he said, had now become his fixed purpose, ‘a resolution from which neither your authority, although it is certainly of the greatest weight for me, much less than that of any others, can turn me aside.’ Martin Luther, (Carrol quoting Fife, ‘Revolt of Martin Luther’, pg. 267
What this letter shows is that even after only slight (compared to later) opposition, Luther was ready to bring down the Church as it was known in his day.
E. G. Schweibert, Professor of History at Wittenberg College puts it this way:
“He had begun to drift from the pale of the Roman Church as early as 1506, but he did not realize the full extent of his departure until the Leipzig Debate in 1519.” “Luther and His Times”, pg. 282
There is only one way that a Catholic Theologian could possibly be unaware for 13 years of the fact that he was drifting away from the teachings of His Church – and that would be that he didn’t know that teaching very well.
God Bless You guano, Topper
It would appear that you have bought into the false Legend of Luther at least in regards to the quality of his education and probably the quality of his Theology and Scriptural Exegesis. While what you say here is true, what is interesting is that, especially in the beginning ALL of the better educated Theologians and Scriptural Exegetes ALL told him that his beliefs were not in keeping with those of the Church. There is much in the literature which portray Luther as, at best, a mediocre Theologian. After all, how else would you account for all of those pronouncements against the Jews, peasants, Anabaptists (while furiously quoting Scripture) as coming from anything but a poor Christian Theologian.
Given the relatively poor education of the clergy of the day, hat is not exactly a very high (or low as the case may be) bar, but certainly is one which allows Luther to clear it. The circumstances surrounding his ‘assignment’ to Wittenberg do not exactly work in his favor.
While I appreciate your limited agreement, his rebellion actually WAS against against the Church. In an astonishing letter of May 1518, Luther makes it extremely clear that his goal was to uproot the ecclesiastical laws and papal regulations, in essence bringing down the Church by destroying the structure of authority. This was only a few short months after he supposedly posted his 95 Theses.
“Some time during the **early spring of 1518 **Luther had received a letter from his former professor of philosophy at the University of Erfurt, Jodocus Trutfetter, a man whom he deeply respected and who had expected great service to the Church from so able a mind and so strong a personality as Luther. Now Professor Trutfetter solemnly warned his former student against the path he was taking, urging him to turn back before it was too late. On May 9 Luther replied: ‘To speak plainly, my firm belief is that the reform of the Church is impossible unless the ecclesiastical laws, the papal regulations, scholastic theology, philosophy and logic as the at present exist, are thoroughly uprooted.’ Such uprooting, he said, had now become his fixed purpose, ‘a resolution from which neither your authority, although it is certainly of the greatest weight for me, much less than that of any others, can turn me aside.’ Martin Luther, (Carrol quoting Fife, ‘Revolt of Martin Luther’, pg. 267
What this letter shows is that even after only slight (compared to later) opposition, Luther was ready to bring down the Church as it was known in his day.
This is exactly the point. Luther did not see himself as going against the teachings of the Church. For the 16 or so months leading up to the Leipzig Debate, dozens of much better Theologians warned him that his beleifs were outside of Catholic teaching. He continued to claim that – no, HE was right and was correctly representing the teachings of the historic Church. THEY were the ones who were wrong. At Leipzig, Luther came to understand what all of those Theologians already knew, that HE was the one who was out of step with the Church. A ‘good’ Theologian would have known that he was out of step LONG before Luther was finally convinced of that fact.
E. G. Schweibert, Professor of History at Wittenberg College puts it this way:
“He had begun to drift from the pale of the Roman Church as early as 1506, but he did not realize the full extent of his departure until the Leipzig Debate in 1519.” “Luther and His Times”, pg. 282
There is only one way that a Catholic Theologian could possibly be unaware for 13 years of the fact that he was drifting away from the teachings of His Church – and that would be that he didn’t know that teaching very well.
God Bless You guano, Topper
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Denise1957
Guest
Per Crucem, I’m glad to you keep bringing up Tetzel, because it’s encouraged me to study more about him.
The New Advent article for the most part exonerates Tetzel on most of the usual charges against him except that of seeming to believe that one could gain a plenary indulgence (for the souls in Purgatory by a mere gift of money, and without contrition on the part of the giver).
But I’ve yet to find anywhere that Tetzel actually held this view. I read through Tetzel’s Vorlegung, and found it to be sound, as far as I can judge with my limited knowledge of the subject at hand. Tetzel aquired a Doctor of Sacred Theology degree from the University of Frankfort. He wasn’t a theological lightweight by any means. He was also grand commissioner for indulgences in Germany.
I’d like to point out Tetzels rebuttal to Luther’s #15 on his famous Theses:
Luther: XV. “Fifteenth, it would be far more positive and beneficial for a person to give to the building of St. Peter, or to whatever project is named, solely for the sake of God thann to get an indulgence for doing so. For it is dangerous to make such a gift and not for the sake of God.”
Tetzel’s rebuttal: “It is rebutted thusly in a Christian manner: First, it is totally bare and naked and fabricated without any proof based in Holy Scripture, when it implies in its conclusion that a person could give alms merely for the sake of an indulgence without also thereby also praising God! For just as surely as a person gives alms for an indulgence, so too he gives it for the sake of God. Thus, whoever gives alms for the sake of an indulgence unless he has true contrition and love of God. And whoever does good works for the love of God is dedicating them to God and his praise. Therefore, Christians should not believe this article in the least.
This offered in the acknowledgment of the holy Roman See and of all Christian universities and theologians.”
Link to Tetzels Vorlegung. The above quote is on page 25.
pitts.emory.edu/DigiTexts/Documents/Tetzel.pdf
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steido01
Guest
There are many constructive and good ways to respond to posts with which one disagrees. Subtly implying that one of the most measured and steadfast Catholics might actually be a crypto-Lutheran probably isn’t one of them. Sounds like something a feisty German monk might’ve done when in a bad temper, though.
Years later, polemecists still are fascinated by him. Curious. Makes one wonder what the “uneducated and disaffected” of yesteryear have in common with the polemicists of today.
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benhur
Guest
thank you
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benhur
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Are you sure ?
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Topper17
Guest
There are many constructive and good ways to respond to posts with which one disagrees. Subtly implying that one of the most measured and steadfast Catholics might actually be a crypto-Lutheran probably isn’t one of them. Sounds like something a feisty German monk might’ve done when in a bad temper, though.
Years later, polemecists still are fascinated by him. Curious. Makes one wonder what the “uneducated and disaffected” of yesteryear have in common with the polemicists of today.
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WingsOfEagles
Guest
It makes sense it’d be a nun though. They probably had a lot of daily contact and fell in love. I can’t totally blame him.
As for who he was…he was a Catholic priest who was bothered by the corruption in the Church at the time. For example, some of the “indulgences” were clergy taking advantage of laypeople. I think the irony is that the Catholic Church today is probably more liberal than what Luther would have envisioned. Unfortunately, Luther broke away from the Church rather than try to reconcile and keep her whole, which is a mistake that Christianity is still paying for.
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House_Harkonnen
Guest
I think it was a good thing. And I don’t think badly of him at all. The majority of nuns and monks in those days were essentially forced into the monastic life. This was the case with Katherine. Being forced to take a vow is no vow at all. And Luther was a devoted husband and father, and Katherine a devoted wife and mother.
Also, why in reading about Luther did your husband choose to leave Lutheranism? Lutherans don’t follow Luther.
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Topper17
Guest
Hi Ben,
Its good to see you here.
I take it that you disagree. If so, please be specific so that we can see how, and then we can discuss it.
God Bless You Ben, Topper
Its good to see you here.
Yes I am sure. If people were insincere about repentance, that was between themselves and God. Changing more than 4 dozen doctrines was going to have any impact on that particular problem.
I take it that you disagree. If so, please be specific so that we can see how, and then we can discuss it.
God Bless You Ben, Topper
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