§ 32. THE NINETY-FIVE THESES. OCT. 81, 1517. 157
classes ; and Luther handled the highest themes in the most popular style.
The Theses bear the title, ““ Disputation to explain the Virtue of Indulgences.” They sound very strange to a modern ear, and are more Catholic than Protestant. They are no protest against the Pope and the Roman Church, or any of her doctrines, not even against indulgences, but only against their abuse. They expressly condemn those who speak against indulgences (Th. 71), and assume that the Pope himself would rather see St. Peter’s Church in ashes than have it built with the flesh and blood of his sheep (Th. 50). They imply belief in purgatory. They nowhere mention Tetzel. They are silent about faith and justification, which already formed the marrow of Luther’s theology and piety. He wished to be moderate, and had not the most dis- | tant idea of a separation from the mother church. When the ἡ Theses were republished in his collected works (1545), he wrote in the preface: “I allow them to stand, that by them it may appear how weak I was, and in what a fluctuating state of mind, when I began this business. I was then a monk and a mad papist (papista insanissimus), and so submersed in the dogmas of the Pope that I would have readily murdered any person who denied obedience to the Pope.”
but that irresponsible publishers soon seized and multiplied them against his will. Jiirgens says (III. 480) that two editions were printed in Wittenberg in 1517, on four quarto leaves, and that the Berlin Library possesses two copies of the second edition. The Theses were written on two columns, in four divisions; the first three divisions consisted of twenty-five theses each, the fourth of twenty. The German translation is from Justus Jonas. The Latin text is printed in all the editions of Luther’s works, in Loscher’s Acts, and in Ranke’s Deutsche Geschichte (6th ed., vol. VI. 83-89, literally copied from an original preserved in the Royal Library in Berlin). The semi-authoritative German translation by Justus Jonas is given in Loscher, Walch (vol. XVIII.), and O. v. Gerlach (vol. I.), and with a commentary by Jiirgens (Luther, III. 484 sqq.). An English translation in Wace and Buchheim, Principles of the Reformation, London, 1883, p. 6 sqq. I have compared this translation with the Latin original as given by Ranke, and in the Weimar edition, and added it at the end of this section with some alterations, insertions, and notes.
158 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
But after all, they contain the living germs of a new theology. The form only is Romish, the spirit and aim are Protestant. We must read between the lines, and supply the negations of the Theses by the affirmations from his preceding and succeeding books, especially his Sesolutiones, in which he answers objections, and has much to say about faith and justification. The Theses represent a state of transition from twilight to daylight. They reveal the mighty working of an earnest mind and conscience intensely occupied with the problem of sin, repentance, and forgiveness, and struggling for emancipation from the fetters of tradition. They might more properly be called “a disputation to diminish the virtue of papal indulgences, and to magnify the full and free grace of the gospel of Christ.” They bring the personal experience of justification by faith, and direct intercourse with Christ and the gospel, in opposition to an external system of churchly and priestly mediation and human merit. The papal opponents felt the logical drift of the Theses much better than Luther, and saw in them an attempt to undermine the whole fabric of popery. The irresistible progress of the Reformation soon swept the indulgences away as an unscriptural, medieval tradition of men.
The first Thesis strikes the keynote: “ Our Lord and Mas- _ter when he says, ‘ Repent,’? desires that the whole life of
1 Jiirgens (III. 481) compares the Theses to flashes of lightning, which suddenly issued from the thunder-clouds. Hundeshagen (in Piper’s ‘*‘ Evangel. Kalender’’ for 1859, p. 157), says: ‘‘ Notwithstanding the limits within which Luther kept himself at that time, the Theses express in many respects the whole Luther of later times: the frankness and honesty of his soul, his earnest zeal for practical Christianity, the sincere devotion to the truths of the Scriptures, the open sense for the religious wants of the people, the sound insight into the abuses and corruptions of the church, the profound yet liberal piety.”’ Ranke’s judgment of the Theses is brief, but pointed and weighty: “‘Wenn man diese Satze liest, sieht man, welch ein ktihner, grossartiger und fester Geist in Luther arbeitet. Die Gedanken sprtihen ihm hervor, wie unter dem Hammerschlag die Funken.’’ — Deutsche Gesch., vol. I. p. 210.
2 Luther gives the Vulgate rendering of μετανοεῖτε, peenitentiam agite, do penance, which favors the Roman Catholic conception that repentance con-