Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546), German religious reformer and theologian began the Protestant Reformation and founded the Lutheran Church as a branch of Christianity dominant in Germany and Scandinavia, and later also strong among their immigrants to the United States. There had been reform movements in the Roman Catholic church before him, as well as various sects and heresies, but they were not on a sufficient scale to disrupt the medieval Church. Luther was the first to definitively break the unity of Roman Catholic Christendom.

Life

Luther was born on Nov. 10, 1483, in the central German town of Eisleben in Thuringia. His father, Hans Luther, originally a peasant learned mining and was a businessman who owned several small foundries; his mother, Margaretta, also came from peasant stock. Martin was strictly brought up and strictly educated in church schools. He entered the University of Erfurt in 1501, took master of arts degree in 1505 and studied law.

Young Luther was tormented by the current picture of man's destiny. His Germany was obsessed by a cult of death, which had arisen after the Black Death more than a century before his time; however, not even death was as appalling as the judgment thereafter and the prospect of everlasting damnation. In July 1505, when Luther was returning to the university after a visit with his parents, a thunderstorm overtook him. Struck to the ground by a bolt of lightning, he cried in terror to his father's patron saint, "St. Anne, help me! I will become a monk." True to his promise, he entered the strict Augustinian order shortly thereafter.

Bibliography

• Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (1995) excerpt and text search
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation (2005), influential recent survey excerpt and text search

Primary sources

• Luther, Martin. Martin Luther: Selections From His Writings, edited by John Dillenberger (1958) excerpt and text search
• Luther, Martin. Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings (with CD-ROM), edited by Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Timothy F. Lull, and William R. Russell (2005) excerpt and text search