Читать книгу The Reformation: History in an Hour - Edward Gosselin A - Страница 12

Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was born of peasant stock, and lived among the untutored folk of the remote woods and mines around the East German town of Eisleben in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. His mother and father were both devout and prayerful but also superstitious, believing in spirits that inhabited the forests, winds and water. Devils, witches and ill-tempered spirits roamed this world among the church spires and bell towers in towns where Luther learned his Psalms and marched in religious processions. His father, Hans Luther, owned a copper mine and was, therefore, wealthy enough to send Martin to school and university to become a lawyer. This would ensure that Martin would be prosperous enough to look after his parents in their old age. But after Martin was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1505, he was caught on the outskirts of a Saxon village in a terrible thunderstorm (2 July 1505). He prayed to St Anne, the patron saint of his father’s occupation as a miner, and promised to become a monk if he survived the storm. Having duly survived, Luther kept his promise and joined the Augustinian Order on 17 July.

As a monk, Luther should not have had to worry about his afterlife, for he diligently obeyed his monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. But he nonetheless feared an angry God who condemned any and all sinners to Hell. Seeing himself as nothing but a weak and sinful man, he could only imagine that God would most certainly condemn him to Hell. Urged by his senior monks to study and teach the Psalms, Luther transferred north from the University of Erfurt in Saxony to Wittenberg in 1511, and was made Professor of Theology at Wittenberg’s new university. Here he immersed himself in studying the Psalms and the Letters of St Paul, both of which dealt with sin and salvation.