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This sentence has repeatedly been taken as a testimony against himself on Luther’s part, as though by it he had intended to say: My new opinions and the desire to change the ecclesiastical order of things were the cause of my coming forward, the Indulgence was only an idle pretext. Luther’s defenders, on the other hand, took it to mean: “The child has, it is true, another father, viz. God Himself Who took pity on His Church, and forced Luther to come forward.” Both interpretations are wrong, and the following is the meaning as determined by the context: The attack which Luther made upon Tetzel was really directed against the authorities of the Church, against the Pope and Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg; these, not Tetzel, were the “father of the child,” and responsible for what afterwards happened.[898]

Tetzel died August 11, 1519, broken down by the weight of the accusations brought against him and by the sight of the mischief which had been wrought, and was buried before the High Altar of the Dominican Church at Leipzig.

To describe the unfortunate monk as the “cause” of the whole movement which began 1517 is, in view of what has been stated in the preceding chapters, the merest legend. Notwithstanding the efforts which Luther made to represent the matter in this or a similar light, it has been clearly[899] proved that his own spiritual development was the “cause,” or at least the principal cause, though other factors may have co-operated more or less.

If we turn our attention to the external circumstances and the reasons which led to Tetzel’s Indulgence-preaching, we shall find that recent research has brought to light numerous facts to supplement those already known, and also various elements which dispose of the legends hitherto current.