WorkMartin Luther

Ninety-five Theses

Propositions for a university debate in Latin, sent to an archbishop with a covering letter, which reached Rome within months.

by Martin Luther92 passages held

Latin, the original language

Original title: Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum
First published: 1517(aged 34)
Original language: Latin

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Overview

On 31 October 1517 Martin Luther, a friar who taught the Bible at the University of Wittenberg, wrote to Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz, and enclosed a set of Latin propositions on indulgences — remissions of the penalties for sin that the church granted and, in Albrecht's lands that year, sold. Half the money from that campaign was to go to rebuilding St Peter's in Rome and half to repaying Albrecht's debts. The theses open by inviting anyone who cannot attend the debate in Wittenberg to dispute them by letter. Their first claim sets the terms for the rest: when Christ told people to repent, he meant the whole of a believer's life to be repentance, not a sacrament performed before a priest. From there they question what the preachers of indulgences were promising. A Christian who is truly sorry already has full remission without any letter of indulgence. The pope, if he knew what those preachers extracted from the poor, would rather see St Peter's burn. Near the end the theses voice the questions they say ordinary laymen ask, among them why a pope richer than Crassus, the proverbially wealthy Roman, does not build the basilica with his own money. By the end of 1517 three printers in Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel had issued them, and Albrecht had sent them to Rome. Pope Leo X ordered Sylvester Prierias, a Dominican theologian at the papal court, to answer them, and in August 1518 Luther received Prierias's reply together with a summons to appear in Rome within sixty days. Whether Luther also nailed them to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, as later tradition holds, historians still dispute.

Key concepts

What exactly was an indulgence?

An indulgence was a release, granted by the church, from the penalties still owed for sins already forgiven. In 1517 letters of indulgence were sold to raise money for St Peter's in Rome. The theses do not deny that the pope may grant them. They limit what one can do: it remits only penalties the pope or church law imposed, and it cannot touch guilt, which God alone forgives.

How is repentance different from the sacrament of penance?

Penance was the sacrament of confession to a priest and the satisfaction he set. Repentance, in the theses, is the inner turning away from sin, and it lasts a whole life. The first theses insist that Christ's call to repent cannot mean the sacrament alone, and that inner sorrow is empty unless it also disciplines the body. An indulgence touches only the sacramental part.

Why can't the pope's penalties reach souls in purgatory?

Purgatory was believed to be a state after death in which souls are cleansed before heaven. The theses argue that the church's penalties, its penitential canons, bind only the living and are dissolved by death. A pope can help the dead only by praying for them, and the result lies in God's hands. Preachers who promise an instant release when the coin drops are, the theses say, preaching human inventions.

What is the treasury of the church in the Ninety-five Theses?

The treasury was the store of merit, from Christ and the saints, that indulgences were said to draw on. The theses deny that it is the saints' merits and declare the true treasure of the church to be the gospel of God's glory and grace. They note why it is unpopular: the gospel makes the first last, while indulgences make the last first.

Why do the theses end with the cross instead of peace?

The final theses turn the argument into a way of life. Preachers who cry peace where there is no peace should go, and those who cry cross should be welcomed. Christians are to follow Christ, their head, through penalties, death and hell, and trust to enter heaven through many tribulations rather than through the false security a letter of pardon offers.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Repentance for a Whole Life

Can sorrow for sin be settled by a payment, or is it a turn that has to last as long as life itself? Everything the indulgence preachers promised hangs on the answer.

Luther's first thesis moves repentance out of the confessional: when Christ said repent, he meant a believer's entire life. From there the sale looks small. The pope can remit only the penalties he or church law imposed, those penalties bind only the living, and a Christian who is truly sorry already has full remission without any letter. Real sorrow even seeks out the penalties of sin, so a cheap release teaches people to hate them. The theses end by praising the preachers who cry cross, not peace.

repentance
penance
indulgences
forgiveness
absolution
purgatory
death
penalties
grace
salvation

Enter a dialogue

The Pope, the Poor and St Peter's

Whose money was rebuilding the basilica in Rome, and what did the preaching that raised it cost the church's real treasure?

Money for St Peter's was being collected from people who could not spare it, and Luther writes as if defending the pope against his own preachers: if he knew, he would rather the basilica burned. Giving to a needy neighbour, the theses argue, is better than buying pardon, and passing the poor by to buy one earns God's anger. The true treasure of the church is the gospel, which is unpopular because it makes the first last. Near the end the theses voice laymen's sharp questions and ask that they be answered with reasons, not silenced.

papal authority
church wealth
poverty
charity
preaching
gospel
ecclesiastical authority
canon law
merit
church governance

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 92
distinct concepts: 123
by passages held, corpus-wide: #517

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “indulgences” and “papal authority”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 74 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
indulgences	papal authority	11
charity	indulgences	9
indulgences	preaching	8
indulgences	religious authority	7
indulgences	repentance	5
charity	purgatory	3
indulgences	penance	3
indulgences	purgatory	3
charity	papal authority	2
papal authority	preaching	2
penance	purgatory	2
penance	repentance	2
preaching	religious authority	2
charity	preaching	1
papal authority	penance	1
preaching	repentance	1
purgatory	religious authority	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1517 Ninety-five Theses (Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum) you are here LA
1518 Sermon on Indulgences and Grace (Ein Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade)
The German companion to the Latin Ninety-five Theses: the same quarrel over indulgences, taken out of the lecture hall and put to lay readers a few months later.
DE
1520 A Treatise on Good Works (Von den guten Werken)
Published in the spring of 1520 just ahead of the three manifestos of that year, it lays out in plain German the teaching on faith and works that they take for granted.
DE
1520 Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung)
The first of the three books of 1520 that made the break with Rome public; The Babylonian Captivity of the Church followed in October and The Freedom of a Christian in November.
DE
1520 The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium)
Of Luther's three treatises of 1520, the one written in Latin for the learned: the appeal to the nobility before it was in German, and The Freedom of a Christian, after it, appeared in both languages.
DE
1520 The Freedom of a Christian (Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen)
Meant as a peace offering to the pope, the third of Luther's treatises of 1520 turns from the institutions of the church to the life of a single believer.
DE
1522 A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion (Eine treue Vermahnung zu allen Christen, sich zu hüten vor Aufruhr und Empörung)
Written in hiding between the Diet of Worms and Luther's return to Wittenberg, in the same winter that he began translating the New Testament into German.
DE
1522 Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Vorrede auf die Epistel S. Paul an die Römer)
A companion to The Freedom of a Christian: the same teaching on faith and works, given this time as a way into the book of the Bible it came from.
DE
1523 Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei)
A sequel that corrects its predecessor: three years after asking princes to reform the church, Luther marks the line beyond which their power over Christians stops.
DE
1529 The Large Catechism (Der Große Katechismus)
Sermons turned into a book: the catechism sermons Luther preached at Wittenberg in 1528, reworked into the fuller of his two catechisms.
DE
1529 The Small Catechism (Kleiner Katechismus)
Published a month after the Large Catechism, it gives the household the words to learn by heart, where the larger book explains them to the preacher.
DE
1530 An Open Letter on Translating (Ein Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen)
Eight years after the September Testament, and four before the complete German Bible, Luther explains how the translation was made and why he would not undo it.
DE

— or open another of their works