Tiêu đề Reformation in Germany.docx ✅

Q: Critically examine the principle features of German reformation. Ans: The concept of Reformation as a significant and self-contained period, with characteristics and central event and perhaps a particular ethos of its own, has had a long life as historical categories go. It marks the beginning of modern times. The age marked the breakup of western Christendom. In the early sixteenth century a genuine Christian community stood embodied under the hegemony of Rome. The addition of the religious controversy changed the whole character of ancient troubles. Secularization, princely ascendancy over the church, religious diversity may all have been present before 1517, but thereafter they became effective, general and predominant. The character of European politics, thought, society and religion was made over by the great outburst against the powers of the papal monarchy and priesthood. Protestant reformation made a lasting division into the church that had looked to Rome. The age of Reformation should be defined as the period during which the new churches were on the offensive. It therefore begins precisely with the date of Luther’s “Ninety Five thesis” (1517) and extends over to the 1550’s. About midday on 31 October 1517 Martin Luther walked the length of the town and fixed the large placard to the door on the castle church. They were not revolutionary and at points expressed, in the manner of disputations, only tentative opinions. The invention of printing coupled with the growth of awareness came of use at this point of time. Luther’s thesis to his consternation was printed and circulated everywhere. Though he wrote apologia for them and sent his copy to the Bishop of Brandenburg, but Albert of Mainz had forwarded the documents to Rome with a letter requesting Luther’s inhibition. The entire event had a distinct backdrop. Christian repentance involves an ancient and difficult theological problem. Much depended on the inward motive and outward act, between theory and practice, between the theory of the church and the practice of the laity. By 16 th century in Germany these delicate adjustments had been upset in relation to the system of indulgences, which were originally commutation to the act of satisfaction which belonged to the sacrament of penance. In the early middle ages German penitentials had
introduced secular notions which exaggerated the possibilities of commuting moral offences by monetary payments. The system found its rationale in the communion of the saints, in the thought of a treasure of merits. By the beginning of the 16 th century indulgences had become an important part of papal finances, under the care of the great banking house of Fugger, involving so many middlemen in all ecclesiastical level that the possibility of unsavoury scandal was never remote. In 1513 Prince Albert of Brandenburg became archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the see of Halberstadt at the age of 23, and the following years the archbishop of Mainz and the primate of Germany. There was a financial crisis which he solved upon taking charge of the office Albert solved, which had transactions with the house of Fugger. The arrangement was not revealed until the Church struggle had well begun. The immediate controversy was the preaching in the neighbourhood of Wittenburg of the Dominican commissary, John Tetzel. Frederick the Wise had in his last years lavished money on the buildings in Wittenburg. In forbidding Tetzel access to the lands, Frederick’s motive was to keep Saxon money at home and to cut competition with his local shrine. It was an undoubted fact that Tetzel’s teachings must have been offensive to pious ears. Luther on the other hand himself had long been exercised about indulgences, and was now exasperated when some of his parishioners returned with pardons which they brandished in his face, and the real meaning of which they had entirely misconceived. With Luther this touched on convictions about which he was hypersensitive- an awful cost of redemption and the catastrophic inward character of true repentance. Therefore, he chose the All- Saints Day to make his protest, when Wittenburg was thronged with prospective pilgrims. In the next months Luther’s situation became perilous. In October 1518 Luther was summoned to Augsburg, to a memorable interview with the cardinal legate and the general of the Dominicans, Cajetan. As instructed he demanded from Luther present and instant revocation and future silence. The interviews terminated angrily and there followed a lull so ominous that Luther’s friends had to bring him back, pursued by an angry and contemptuous demand by Cajetan that this Fraterculus be surrendered. In the
following days Frederick backed Luther and refused to hand him over without a fair hearing. The political turmoil in Germany at that point of time led to confused reactions from the pope and the monarch, and by the time they decided to act, they were faced with not only a single cleric but an ugly, swelling tide of national grievance against Rome. Gradually the University moved behind him. Andrew Bodenstein von Carlstadt (1477-1541) was Luther’s academic senior, and professor in the ‘via antiqua’. He got entangled in a debate with John von Eck, 1489-1543, the redoubtable theologian from Ingolstadt. It led to the famous Leipzig deputation of July 1519. Primary skirmishing had again raised the question of papal power. Eck emerged victorious apparently having single handedly handled Carlstadt and Luther. The disputation had drawn attention to wider issues than indulgences and had accelerated the pamphlet war. Luther now embarked on an immense literary activity. Thus in an inaccessible corner of the Christian world, protected by a powerful prince, his university enthusiastically behind him, the more learned opinion in Germany sympathetic, with powerful allies articulate on his side amongst princes, knights, merchants and peasants, Luther was no longer alone and was fast becoming the symbol of national anti-clerical resentment against Rome. The German humanists were at first cordial towards Luther. The Leipzig debate, Luther’s impeachment and the Papal bull and Luther’s violent replies cause them to draw back. The changing temperature is discerned in the writings of Erasmus. In the summer of 1520 he composed three revolutionary manifestoes. The first, ‘An Appeal to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation’, had simple intensity and forthright boldness. Papal tyranny was entrenched between three buttressing walls of paper claims, the claim that spiritual power is superior than temporal power, the claim to have sole authority to interpret scripture, and the claim that only pope can call a general council. The second tract, ‘A Prelude concerning the Babylonish Captivity of the Church’ was written in Latin, addressed to the clergy and the general world. He attacked the liturgical and sacramental sources of the authority and the prestige of the clergy. The third writing ‘Of the Liberty of the Christian Man’,
was entirely a different work of edification. These were great events in 120. The solemn burning in December by the Elster Gate of the works of the canon of law, and the adding to the flames by Luther of the Papal bull, were gestures symbolizing defiance more potently expressed already in the printed word. The pope published the final bull of excommunication, Decet, on 3 January 1521. Intricate constitutional and financial problems faced by Charles V at the first imperial diet failed to prevent the appearance of Luther at the Diet of Worms. In front of Charles V he accepted and declined to revoke all his works thus far. Luther sharply answered and retorted all that was thrown against him and eventually emerged safely to the company of his German friends. Luther was then outlawed by the temporal and the spiritual powers. For a substantial period he went into exile. The achievements had to be set in motion while he was in exile. For Luther’s followers there were a number of practical problems like the question about Church abuses, religious, votive shrines and images, fasting, clerical celibacy and so on. A failed attempt of reformation in Denmark led Carlstadt to return home and try it in Wittenburg. To a certain extent, the moderate and radical programmes overlapped and the differences were of method and timing. A university commission began to study reform in October, but the leaders, the dean of the castle church had little gift for leadership. Carlstadt dominated the town council. Early in December there were iconoclastic riots and for 36 hours the students had the town in an uproar. They seriously alarmed the court and gave Duke George an excuse to enforce the Edict of Worms on Saxon lands. ‘The worthy Ordinance for the princely city of Wittenburg’ which now appeared was a joint act of town and gown. It attempted a moderate programme for the removal of the images. More importantly, it was the beginning of poor-law regulation, measures for the handling of sturdy beggars, the establishment of a common chest from which cheap loans can be available for the artisans. The hostilities of the universities and the momentous return of Luther in 1522 ended Carlstadt campaign in Wittenburg. On his return, Luther started preaching in a parish Church decisive series of sermons. He won back the townsfolk from lay Puritanism to conservative reformation, and he did this by