WorkMartin Luther

Sermon on Indulgences and Grace

Twenty numbered points tell the buyer of an indulgence that God forgives for nothing and that the poor need the money more.

by Martin Luther9 passages held

German, the original language

Original title: Ein Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade
First published: 1518(aged 35)
Original language: German

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Overview

Within three years of its appearance in the second half of March 1518, at least twenty-four editions of this short German pamphlet had come off presses in Germany and Switzerland. Martin Luther wrote it five months after his Latin theses on indulgences, for people who read no Latin. Its twenty numbered points make one argument. An indulgence — a remission, granted by the church and often paid for, of the penalties owed for sin — cancels only the penances the church itself imposes, such as prayer, fasting and alms. It does nothing about the punishment God sends, which a sinner should accept as the way to real repentance. God's forgiveness costs nothing at all. Luther adds that the division of penance into contrition, confession and satisfaction, taught by Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, has little basis in Scripture. He tells his readers to give to a poor neighbour before giving to the rebuilding of St Peter's in Rome, leaves indulgences to lazy and sleepy Christians, and says he does not know whether they release anyone from purgatory. His opponents were already moving. In January 1518 Johann Tetzel, the Dominican indulgence preacher whose campaign had provoked the theses, had defended 106 counter-theses at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. In April Tetzel answered the sermon as well, with a German rebuttal printed in Leipzig by Melchior Lotter that called its twenty articles errors.

Key concepts

What is satisfaction, and why does it matter for indulgences?

Satisfaction is the part of penance in which a sinner makes amends through works the church sets: prayer, fasting and alms. The scholastic teachers divided penance into sorrow, confession and satisfaction, and everyone agreed an indulgence remits only the third. Luther builds the sermon on that agreement. If an indulgence lifts only those set works, it does nothing for the sorrow God actually asks for.

How does the church's penalty differ from God's punishment?

The church's penalty is a work it imposes, such as seven years of penance for a grave sin. God's punishment is suffering he sends, like the rod in the psalm Luther quotes, which disciplines his children without withdrawing his mercy. An indulgence can cancel the first. The second is meant to drive a sinner to repentance, so Luther says it should be accepted, not escaped.

Why is an indulgence 'permitted' but not a good work?

Luther sorts Christian practices into what God commands, what he counsels, and what is merely allowed. An indulgence is only allowed. It is therefore no act of obedience and earns no merit; it is an exemption from obedience. A good deed done is better than many penalties remitted, which is why the sermon puts helping the poor ahead of buying a pardon.

What does the sermon mean by true sorrow?

True sorrow is a heartfelt turning from sin together with the resolve to live better. Luther says no Scripture shows God requiring any other payment, and that God forgives freely, out of grace, asking nothing but that new life. The word he uses, Reue, names an inner change, not a feeling one performs for a confessor or a work one counts.

Themes of the book

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

What a Pardon Cannot Buy

If a paid indulgence removes only what the church itself demanded, what is left over that no money can reach? Lay readers needed to know before they spent anything.

Taking the scholastic scheme of penance as his opponents taught it, Luther shows that an indulgence lifts only the third part, satisfaction: the prayers, fasts and alms the church sets. Scripture, he says, knows no price God demands beyond true sorrow and a changed life, and the suffering God sends is meant to drive a sinner to repentance, not to be bought off. So the sermon ranks the choices plainly: a gift to a needy neighbour first, St Peter's afterwards, and indulgences left to lazy Christians.

indulgences
penance
repentance
good works
charity
religious giving
poverty
forgiveness
divine grace
divine punishment
purgatory
scholastic theology

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Within this work

passages held: 9
distinct concepts: 27
by passages held, corpus-wide: #821

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)
Where the quarrel began: an academic exercise in Latin, followed within months by the German sermon that carried its argument to lay readers.
LA
1518 Sermon on Indulgences and Grace (Ein Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade) you are here 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

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