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penitential pilgrim, the Scripture came to him, “The just shall live by faith.”49 He
descended the steps, left Rome, and returned to Germany.50
Though appalled at the corruption and vice of the papal court, Luther still accepted the authority of the Roman Church. The impiety of Italian churchmen, the
scandalous stories about Popes Alexander VI and Julius II, and the evidence of immorality against the popes all probably helped Luther later conclude that the head of
that system was the chief enemy of religion.
Nearly a century after the invention of printing, when men were beginning to
think for themselves, the public sales of indulgences—authorized by the pope in this
instance to raise money for the completion of St. Peter’s Cathedral at Rome—
aroused general indignation.51 The sale of indulgences by John Tetzel, a Dominican
monk of notorious character and shameless effrontery, was particularly offensive.
Papal indulgences had originated with Popes Pascal (817–824) and John VIII
(872–882). Found to be exceedingly profitable, papal indulgences soon gained
widespread use. They were offered as an inducement to go on Crusades, to wage
wars against heretics, to oppose kings the pope wished to punish, to encourage Inquisitors, to foster pilgrimages to Rome, or to gain support for any public or private
enterprise of the pope; or they were sold for money. Pope Sixtus IV in 1476 was the
first to apply them to souls already purported to be in purgatory. Indulgences were
farmed out to be retailed. Thus the selling of what in practice amounted to license to
sin became one of the most lucrative sources of papal revenue.
In 1517 John Tetzel traveled through Germany selling certificates signed by the
pope, offering pardon of all sins to buyers and their friends . . . without confession,
repentance, penance, or absolution by the priest. “At the very instant,” Tetzel told
the people, “when the piece of money chinks on the bottom of the strong box, the
soul comes out of purgatory, and, set free, flies upward into heaven.”52,53 Martin
Luther was horrified to hear such things.
On October 31, 1517, Luther posted ninety-five theses on the church door in
Wittenberg. Re lating primarily to indul gences but in sub stance striking at the
49. The stairway, purported to be the one Jesus had climbed to reach Pilate’s judgment hall, was
claimed by the Roman Church to have been miraculously transported to the Eternal City from
Jerusalem.
50. D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 54, 57.
51. An indulgence was a lightening of the pains of purgatory, that is, a remission of the punishment
for sin. According to Romanist teaching, the pope claimed to have the exclusive prerogative and
power to lessen, or altogether remit, these sufferings.
52. D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, p. 71.
53. “The theory of indulgences as preached by Tetzel is shown in a pattern sermon to be used by the
priests in his district around Leipzig: ‘With these confessional letters you will be able at any time
in life to obtain full indulgence for all penalties imposed upon you, in all cases except in the four
reserved to the Apostolic See. Throughout your whole life, whenever you wish to make confession, you may receive the same remission, except in cases reserved to the pope, and afterwards,
at the hour of death, a full indulgence as to all penalties and sins, and your share of all spiritual
blessings that exist in the Church militant and all its members. . . . Are you not willing, then, for
the fourth part of a florin, to obtain these letters, by virtue of which you may bring, not your
money, but your divine and immortal soul, safe and sound into the land of Paradise?’” (Francois
Pierre Guillaume Guizot, General History of Civilization in Europe, ed. George Wells Knight
[New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1928], p. 324.)