Notes

History

Nehmet und trinket alle daraus: Das ist der Kelch des neuen und ewigen Bundes, mein Blut, das für euch und für alle vergossen wurde zur Vergebung der Sünden. Tut dies zu meinem Gedächtnis.

These words were spoken by Karlstadt on Christmas Day in 1521. Now, I know that we are presently in a German Lutheran church, but we are also in the US, so I expect that most people here are monolingual. However, I’m not going to translate what I just said, not until nearer the end of this presentation, anyway. The reason I’m not going to translate that German is that I’m about to tell you why it matters, and then, once you understand why, I’ll translate what it means.

On 02 July 1505, a young man, while returning to university on horseback, was nearly struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Being, at the time, a good Roman Catholic, this young man cried out to St. Anna to save him (engaging, more or less, in the kind of paganistic quid-pro-quo that Rome had imported into Christianity [and which is arguably endemic to human nature]), and promised, should be be delivered from the storm, that he would become a monk. Surviving the storm, Martin Luther entered St. Augustine’s Monastery in Erfurt on 17 July 1505 — he was twenty-one at the time. Despite living a life of contemplation, devotion, (constant) confession, prayer, fasting, and all the other outward signs that were considered the hallmarks of a ‘good’ Christian (and some of these works are, in fact, good — after a fashion [we’ll return to this point later]), Luther could never see himself as right before God. This despite confessing so frequently and so thoroughly that Luther’s father confession, Johann von Staupitz, essentially told him to stop:

If you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something to forgive — parricide blasphemy, adultery — instead of all these peccadilloes.

But Luther could not find peace, because Roman theology taught that sins must be individually confessed to be forgiven, and to be confessed, naturally, a sin must be not only remembered but also recognized as sin, and all sin separates man from God. Skipping ahead a bit (as Luther’s monastic and academic career do not immediately concern us, here), Luther, on a visit to Rome in 1510 — and it is worth noting that Luther walked from Wittenberg to Rome, a journey of some five hundred or so miles —Luther found himself exposed to both the widespread veneration of relics and the rampant corruption in Rome. While in Rome, Luther followed the standard pilgrimage customers. One such, was (and still is) the climbing of the steps of St. John Lateran Basilica; the climb is traditionally made on one’s knees, with a pause on each step to recite the Lord’s Prayer. There are twenty-eight steps in the Scala Sancta — the Holy Stairs — and tradition holds that these are the steps leading to Pilate’s praesidium, which is to say that they are, or at least the marble ones under the wooden ones climbed by modern pilgrims are, the steps Christ would have climbed during the Passion. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Luther stood and exclaimed: “Who knows whether it is true?” HIs exclamation was in relation to the Roman tradition that holds this work to be penance that can free a soul from purgatory (or at least shorten the sentence). During this trip to Rome, the words of ROM 1:17 came to Luther:

“The righteous shall live by faith.”

Which is, of course, a quote from Habakkuk, ch 2, v 4 (which says the same, but, naturally, in Hebrew, as opposed to the Koine Greek of Romans). This was the true beginning of Luther’s breakthrough — of the rescue of the Gospel. However, it would still be some years before the Reformation would begin in earnest. Skipping forward to 1516, we must take a quick look at some political intrigue to better understand our context. Now, simony — which is to say the selling of religious offices — has a long and storied history in the Roman church,