Ninety-five Theses

Ninety-five Theses, propositions for debate concerned with the question of indulgences, written (in Latin) and possibly posted by Martin Luther on the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church), Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517. This event came to be considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. (See Researcher’s Note.)

Luther originally had no intention of breaking from the Catholic church, assuming that his call for theological and ecclesiastical reform would be heard, and ordinarily his theses would have been of interest only to professional theologians. However, various political and religious situations of the time, and the fact that printing had been invented, combined to make the theses known throughout Germany within a few weeks. Luther did not give them to the people, although he did send copies to the archbishop of Mainz and to the bishop of Brandenburg. Others, however, translated them into German and had them printed and circulated. Thus, they became a manifesto that turned a protest about an indulgence scandal into the greatest crisis in the history of the Western Christian church, and ultimately Luther and his followers were excommunicated.

The doctrine concerning indulgences was uncertain in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Council of Trent (1545–63), which defined the doctrine and eliminated abuses. Indulgences were the commutation for money of part of the temporal penalty due for sin—i.e., the practical satisfaction that was a part of the sacrament of penance. They were granted on papal authority and made available through accredited agents. Not at any time did they imply that divine forgiveness could be bought or sold or that they availed for those who were impenitent or unconfessed. But during the Middle Ages, as papal financial difficulties grew more complicated, they were resorted to very often, and abuses grew common. Further misunderstanding developed after Pope Sixtus IV extended indulgences to souls in purgatory. The often outrageous statements of indulgence sellers were a matter of protest among theologians.

The immediate cause of scandal in Germany in 1517 was the issue of an indulgence that was to pay for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s in Rome. But by secret agreement, of which most Germans, probably including Luther, were unaware, half the proceeds of the German sales were to be diverted to meet the huge debt owed to the financial house of Fugger by the archbishop and elector Albert of Mainz, who had incurred the debt in order to pay the pope for appointing him to high offices. Such a prince could not afford to be squeamish about the methods and language used by his agents, and the agent in Germany, the Dominican Johann Tetzel, made extravagant claims for the indulgence he was selling. The sale of this indulgence was forbidden in Wittenberg by the elector Frederick III the Wise, who preferred that the faithful should make their offerings at his own great collection of relics, exhibited in the Church of All Saints. Nevertheless, Wittenberg church members went to Tetzel, who was preaching nearby, and they showed the pardons for their sins received from him to Luther. Outraged at what he considered grave theological error, Luther wrote the Ninety-five Theses.

The theses were tentative opinions, about some of which Luther had not decided. In the theses the papal prerogative in this matter was not denied, though by implication papal policy was criticized. The spiritual, inward character of the Christian faith was stressed. The fact was emphasized that money was being collected from poor people and sent to the rich papacy in Rome, a point popular with the Germans, who had long resented the money they were forced to contribute to Rome.

Subsequently, the archbishop of Mainz, alarmed and annoyed, forwarded the documents to Rome in December 1517, with the request that Luther be inhibited. A counterthesis was prepared by a Dominican theologian and defended before a Dominican audience at Frankfurt in January 1518. When Luther realized the extensive interest his tentative theses had aroused, he prepared a long Latin manuscript with explanations of his Ninety-five Theses, published in the autumn of 1518.

The practice of dating the beginning of the Reformation from the date that the Ninety-five Theses were supposedly posted did not develop until after the mid-17th century.