Martin+Luther+Reformation

 // Biography of Martin Luther before the Reformation // ** 
 * Birth of Saint Martin Luther at Eisleben, Germany

Famous Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483 into a Roman Catholic family in Eisleben, Germany. He was born on a feast day called St. Martin and his family named him after the Saint. Luther was the eldest sibling out of his seven siblings. He had always had an interest in religion and had a religious childhood. He had graduated from the University of Erfurt in 1505 and entered in law school as his father wished him to, only he had given up on the studies to go in a monastery dedicated to St. Augustine. He was ordered to be in priesthood in 1507 and then by 1512 he had a doctor’s degree in theology. He also was a Bible professor at University of Wittenberg in the German state of Saxony. Luther took his life as a monk very seriously. He had confessed sin about twenty times a day and punished himself by sleeping on the cold floor. He was a great preacher, only his teachings started to come into conflict with the Catholic Church. He wrote about salvation and how it came by not doing great works, but by absolute faith in the God’s promise of forgiveness. He made a doctrine based on his beliefs and called it justification by faith. This doctrine was a factor in Luther’s beliefs of wrong and right in the church, which had caused to the start of the Protestant Reformation, which was a European religious change that had separated Christianity into two groups, Catholic and Protestant.

**__Justification By Faith__**  The Catholic Church taught that in order to gain personal salvation, both faith and good works were necessary. Martin Luther did not believe this. He believed that only faith was necessary, because humans were too weak to do enough good works worthy of salvation. This is called justification by grace through faith and he got this idea from the Bible. This was a major doctrine in the Protestant Reformation, and because it was from the Bible, the Bible became very important to all Protestants. They saw it as their guide to religious truth. Justification by faith is the actual act that makes a person worthy of salvation. ** __Johann Tetzel__ **   Johann Tetzel, a German monk who sold indulgences, especially offended Martin Luther with his method of selling indulgences by slogan. His selling by the slogan **“As soon as the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs”** is seen by some as the inspiration to Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. In 1517, Martin Luther issued his 95 Theses because he was so greatly angered by the Catholic Church’s abuse of selling indulgences, especially by Johann Tetzel. 