Question 3

What was the significance of the Three Great Pamphlets of 1520? 

• Each one was directed at a particular part of German society
• They were a blunt and uncompromising call to arms against the corruption and usurped powers of the Church of Rome
• Their appeal was enormous

‘The Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation’

• This pamphlet showed Luther at his most nationalistic. Luther went on to question the actual doctrines of the Church
• Since one was saved, as Luther believed, by faith alone, then clearly Salvation was a personal matter between Man and God.  What need was there for a priesthood to act as God's representatives on earth?
• Luther similarly rejected monasticism as worthless. The Pope was also dismissed as a usurper whose claim to supremacy in the Church had no basis at all in the New Testament
• Clerical celibacy was also ridiculed as having absolutely no basis in Scripture
• Luther made clear the duty of the princes of Germany to act as the guardians of the Church
• It was they who should organise the Church in their lands and encourage their people to holy living and a good knowledge of the Bible

‘On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church’

• In this work Luther wrote in Latin and aimed himself at a more academic audience
• It was a reasoned and systematic destruction of all Catholic thought that was not firmly rooted in the Bible
• Thus the number of sacraments was reduced from seven to three
• Luther also attacked the key Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation
• He also condemned the Catholic practice of only giving the bread to the people at the Eucharist (communion in one kind)
• Luther also ridiculed the idea that somehow priests were different to ordinary lay folk
• Since all were saved by faith priests could have no special role in helping you to achieve Salvation

‘On the Liberty of a Christian Man’

• This was the least angry of all Luther's writings and in it he tried to win converts to justification by faith by conciliation and rational argument based on the New Testament
• What mattered was your Faith
• This alone saved you and guaranteed pure Christian living, rather than a desperate observance of meaningless rites and observances