Original subtitles

Germany 1483 a time of desolation and

disease

where the plague could wipe out entire

towns in days and a quarter of all

children died before they were 5 in this

world there was one great consolation

the church and its promise of heaven

this promise had made the church the

most powerful institution on earth rich

beyond counting mightier than Kings but

also corrupt and tyrannical an empire

that would be overturned by one man

Martin Luther

this is the story of a man swept from

devotion to Lebanon

of a quest that would set old Europe a

fire spread revolution across nations

and unleash a voice of freedom that

still resounds through the modern world

I get impossible to write the history of

modern Western culture without talking

about movement the idea that we should

stand up for things that we believe him

the idea every person is precious in the

sight of God these are things that we

take for granted but they were things

that Luther had to fight for

Luther has to be ranked with the great

immense of agents of human history

through the emphasis on the individual

the courage of the individual and the

willingness of the individual to undergo

death for his beliefs

he took on the Catholic Church this

immense an enduring institution and said

you are wrong let us now come to the

right

there are very few cases where you have

one individual standing literally before

the arrayed mite of the world and saying

nope I won't back down

I hold that there has been nobody in a

thousand years whom the world hated as

much as me

hey our Lord God consumed and quickly

take me away I shall gladly stretch out

my neck so he can strike me to the

ground with a thunderclap our men Martin

Luther the man who would one day

challenge the supremacy of the Catholic

Church came from the most humble of

origins

he grew up in a tiny town called

Mansfield in northern Germany a

hard-working community for the church

reigns supreme

the most important thing to remember

about late medieval religion is

Christianity that in weights the only

game in town it's the only major story

that is allowed to be told and that is

told systematically and it's embedded in

institutions everywhere you go the chart

stood at the center of Luther's

childhood world

it's churches monasteries and convents

they scattered across an empire that

stretched from the far west of Ireland

to the southern tip of Sicily the

church's power lay in the one great

comfort it promised if you followed its

rules and performed its rituals you

would escape the horrors of this world

and find eternal happiness in heaven

but the church exerted as much control

of her life on earth as a did in heaven

its rules and laws permeated every

aspect of daily life the church declared

whose birth was legitimate it declared

whose marriages were lawful it declared

whose wills were valid and in that way

it actually inserted itself and its

legal system into the lives of ordinary

people at every point not just its own

members but all the rest of the

community like so many around him the

young luther embraced the church he

served as an altar boy sang in the choir

for he was a vision of harmony and peace

while life at home seems to have caused

only pain and anguish

Luthor's father hams was a copper

smelter one of a new and growing class

of businessman who had broken free from

the old feudal system and set up on

their own hands held fierce ambitions

for his son he was determined for him to

climb even higher up the social ladder

and become a lawyer but Luthor's was not

a happier Luthor provides us with many

memories of his childhood and those

memories are not entirely positive there

are memories of failure memories of

being punished by his father for his

failures or for his disobedience and I

think the impression we get is that of

someone with a sense of low self esteem

someone who believes that he will not

live up to the expectations that others

have concerning

Anse Luthor was a fierce judge of his

son

my father once whipped me so hard I ran

away I hated him until he finally

managed to win me back

Luthor's mother seems to have been

little more sympathetic for the sake of

stealing a nut my mother once beat me

until the blood flowed the fear of

punishment and a failing would resound

in Luther for the rest of his life

although it would drive him not to

fulfill his father's ambitions but to

spectacular rebellion

but first Luther followed the path laid

out for him he was sent to the best

schools in the area and then at the age

of 18 he enrolled at the University of

Erfurt compared to Luther's hometown

Hereford was a bustling metropolis it

offered everything that might appeal to

a young student countless taverns and

bars in a time without clean drinking

water beer and wine were a stable drink

the city even had its own municipal

brothel run by the City Council

but effort was also unique more elevated

ways it wasn't a great center of

manufacturing or politics but it was a

great center of the church and the

church's activities they reckoned that

there were 14 different religious orders

represented within it that there are 25

parish churches in fact Erfurt had the

name at the time of being the Rome of

during gia the Rome of that region of

Saxony because it had such a

concentration of ecclesiastical talented

at Alfred Luthor blossomed he became a

keen musician and he forged a number of

close friendships with his fellow

student Luther and really moved at

around the age of 1415 to this context

of learning away from family amongst

peers very very demanding so the

connections between the young men there

could be very very strong a terrific

sort of bonding they became family to

each other so friends were at that stage

a knife I think for everything you had

Luther stuck firmly to his studies he

gained his Bachelor of Arts and then his

master's degrees all that remained was

to take his final course in law and he

would be everything his father wished

but suddenly all the certainties of

Luther's life were shattered in the year

1505 plague struck effort

disease ran amok through the city's

narrow street leaving death and anguish

in its wake the thing about the Black

Death most frightened people was that it

came upon people without warning some

people were struck down others were

spared some towns were devastated by it

while others quite close might be left

alone

so it was impossible to explain nobody

knew how you caught it at the time and

nobody knew why you caught it except

that they had a general sense that God

was punishing them for their sins it was

a terrible visible sign of punishment

a black death had killed almost a half

of Europe's population in the previous

hundred years

but the epidemic will now touch Luther

directly

three of his friends were killed by the

disease

you

and this limps of man's mortality and

the fear of God's wrath would lead to

the first great turning point in

Luthor's life

Luther now 23 was returning to Erfurt

after a visit to his family why suddenly

he was caught in the mass of the

thunderstorm

no one knows exactly what happened to

loofah though right

but it struck him to his very soul

suddenly surrounded by the terror and

agony of death I felt constrained to vow

myself to God with three friends already

lost to the plague now faced with death

himself Luther struck a bargain with God

we vowed to become a monk the close

experienced death itself really makes

you think what state is my soul and you

know what is the balance here you know

we're talking almost a sort of spiritual

accountancy where am i situated what is

the balance had I died just now had my

invocation not worked where would I have

ended up in sin

the Thunderbolt in effect marked our two

pounds he could go down the path his

father wanted him to go down or he'd go

down a path which in his own unconscious

reflections he was beginning to feel

that he ought to go down

it was a moment when he took charge of

his own life he stopped doing what his

father wanted him to do and from that

moment on he was free to devote himself

to the life of the Spirit to search the

universe for the answers that he

urgently required he was obviously a

person of spiritual sensibilities

ah how my father raged when he found his

son would be no lawyer he went insane

acted like a fool I was he to know that

one monk in the family would bring him

more Fame and shame than a thousand

earning clad advocates

we thought monasteries and confidence of

Europe were a society in themselves for

the faithful they offered a life devoted

to prayer meditation and a search for

salvation the monastic life was

dominated by the rhythm of the seven

hours of the liturgical day which meant

that seven times in the day monks had to

be there in choir singing and saying

parts of the service and that included

getting up in the middle of the night

when you weren't taking part in

liturgical services your life was also

rigorously regulated in many monasteries

speaking was only allowed in certain

places and at certain times all privacy

was removed from them their food was

supposed to be very simple

monks clothing was also very hard harsh

and uncomfortable

why wear these clothes that made you so

uncomfortable why go to all these

services why each suits poor food the

answer seems to be that it was by the

renunciation of everything at the world

regardless comfortable valuable and so

on that salvation was to be achieved and

Luther clearly believed that the only

way of achieving salvation was by

completely renouncing the world and

immersing himself in a community which

cut him off from it two weeks after the

night in the forest

Luther joined one of the most severe

monastic orders in Germany the era might

Augustinians of strict observance his

hair was cut he was clothed in the white

robes of the novice monk

and he prostrated himself before the

abbot

he had been welcomed into the very heart

of the Catholic Church

it was not the kind of order that you

choose if you wanted a comfortable or

easy life it wasn't that kind of

religious house at all it was however I

think a good order for someone to join

who was also quite spiritually and

mentally gifted but Luther's new home

was as much a business as a spiritual

retreat the abbot was running a thriving

trade and dyeing cloth the monks had a

brewery distilling a rather popular beer

while the monastery owned land across

the neighborhood making a tidy income

from rent and tithe

all diligently accounted for and the

monasteries extensive business records

the church wouldn't have pleaded for

support from its people it would have

demanded it and required it it had the

power to levy tithes which were not a

voluntary contribution they were a form

of tax which if you did not pay you

could be hauled up in court and made to

pay and people in the Hall were willing

to pay those fees because they were

taught so firmly right from their

earliest childhood that if they did not

have the services of the church their

souls would be in peril

this profiteering of the church would

ultimately outraged and disgust Luther

but for now he was concerned only with

his soul he threw himself into the

isolated ascetic life of the churches

devoted followers

he soon graduated from the white robe of

the novitiate to the black of the

confirmed monk the only piece of

clothing he now

he tells us that he wasn't in there for

fun or to muck about or to have a good

time that for example means um well just

to pick up one feature it means fasting

it means recurrent fasting means a

really bodily physical self to know the

monks trick routine of prayer and study

was accompanied by a regime of

persecution of the flesh initiates were

encouraged to sleep without coverings or

blankets even to put themselves

one of the things they're trying to do

is to imitate the sufferings of Christ

to be what is called an ascetic to

believe that by dominating your fleshly

desires by no longer needing food sexual

companionship the comforts of life you

are identifying yourself with Christ in

the wilderness that you are battling

with the forces of evil in yourself by

battling with your own lower nature

Luther threw himself into this regime

with fervor sleeping out in the snow

with our blankets until his fellow monks

dragged him in half-dead

in later years he would complain that

these years in the monastery had

permanently ruined his health

if ever a monk should have got to heaven

by his monkey that it was high if I kept

on any longer then I would have killed

myself with vigils prayers reading

another word

everything that Luther did throughout

his life Luther did to the brim look I

did everything 100 percent 110 percent

and when Luther was in the mood to be a

monk you know he gives it his all he

gives it his every shot good monk

but Luther's devotion now began to

exceed anything expected by his fellow

monks

he was increasingly concerned that he

might never please God that he would

never make it to heaven

that he had swapped one unforgiving

father for one even more impossible to

satisfy

Luther talked vividly of a mounting

feeling of hopelessness calling it an

facto

a sense that he would never achieve

salvation

God's Word is too high and too hard for

anyone to fulfill it and this is proved

not merely by our Lord's word but by my

own experience and feeling

the greater his sense of despair the

more Luther threw himself into the

rituals of the church

Luther was different from other monks in

that he dearly cared about being

reconciled to the Heavenly Father and

doing what God willed him to do and we

can see his quest his agonizing his deep

seriousness we hope that he's going to

find some resolution otherwise he's

going to lead a tormented life

for five years Luther labored without

relief

then in 1510 he was offered an escape

from us cloistered life he was sent by

his order on a mission to Rome one of

the church's greatest pilgrimages

going to Rome was a very special

pilgrimage because this was the capital

of the Roman Catholic Church and indeed

from the Western perspective it is the

capital of Christendom period Luther

immediately decided he would make the

best spiritual use of this trip that he

could

Rome was a treasure trove of holiness

the home of st. Peter's the Pope and the

remains of countless saints and martyrs

tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked to

Rome every year all hoping the journey

would bring them closer to God

you dress differently you take a stick

you walk you live very modestly there

are little hostels along the routes for

pilgrims so that when you get to the

place of pilgrimage in a way you're in a

state of such penance and deserve it and

as that encountering the saints - which

is at the end of the pilgrimage you'll

be worthy to partake in the grace of

encountering it it took a full two

months for Luther and his companion to

make the long journey south and then in

October of 1510 they finally arrived at

the Eternal City

Luther arrived in Rahm just as the

Renaissance was reaching his height

Michelangelo was painting the ceilings

of the Sistine Chapel Raphael was hard

at work decorating the Pope's private

apartments

to the young monk the city was a

revelation Luther was a very northern

provincial boy he had lived him by then

what three towns in his whole life he

hadn't seen very much and to come to the

city and see the retinues of the

Cardinals and the great palaces and all

this basking in a totally different

weather and different foods and smells

must have been a terrific shock to the

system

when Luther first approached Frome

entered into the city he seems to have

been absolutely overwhelmed by the idea

that here he was in the holy city here

he was in the presence of so many

martyrs and they at the center of the

church and it probably took a little

while for the gloss to to wear off all

the wear off it did among the palaces

and great churches Luther but now

discover a very earthly institution

for this city was as much about money as

religion

the papacy as an institution for

gathering in cash is really a kind of

huge sink for sucking in money from

throughout Europe the church may have

taught that money is at the root of all

evil and to lend it at interest for

example is a mortal sin but in reality

that of course the church dealt in

millions of ducats Luther had entered

the headquarters of a europe-wide

corporation supported on the profits of

monasteries such as his own on the

donations of the faithful and fees that

were charged for everything from a

wedding license to a cardinal

most important thing to remember about

the papacy in the early sixteenth

century that it has been for a few

hundreds of years already it has been

basically a state a state with all the

characteristics of a state it has a

bureaucracy it has but palaces it has

magnificent buildings it has everything

that a great Renaissance prince has the

papacy even wielded military power

towering of the city stood the Castel

Sant'Angelo the Pope's private fort

bristling with cannons

although pope julius ii was rarely there

preferring to spend his time campaigning

across europe at the head of the people

army

the kind of people who floated to the

top in the church tended to be people

who would be pretty rough cut

businessman and the need to have these

sort of powerful managers and

politicians explains why Rome was a

spiritual place full of a lot of

unspiritual people

in Rome Luther discovered a cynicism

that shocked them to the core

he reported that when he timidly tried

to preach a mass in one of the city's

magnificent churches the priests next to

him said just get on with it

and that is he held up the bread he

believed had been transformed into the

body of Christ another priest muttered

bread thou art and bread thou wilt

remain

I think the disappointment aromas have

been just absolutely devastating here

was something which I think he was still

open to find as a sort of elevating

experience to go to the pinnacle of the

institution that in different ways he

has become servant of and yet finding

that in a way nobody speaks his language

and in more ways than one

Luther also discovered that the church

was happy to profit from its pilgrims

for a fee he was allowed to enter the

crypt of the Church of Santa Kalista

here he could view the remains of 46,000

Christian martyrs this would earn him

what was called an indulgence releasing

him from time and purgatory after death

purgatory was what Christians would have

their sins burned out of them for what

could be thousands of years before they

were finally allowed to enter Heaven the

chance to buy time off from purgatory

was an extremely attractive offer for

the faithful and very profitable for the

church

but as Luther trekked from one

pilgrimage site to another desperate to

find salvation he was overtaken by a

steadily mounting fear could all this

really bring him closer to God

until finally it is said that Luther

collapsed question for the first time

the teachings of the church to which he

had vowed his life

who knows if it is really so

Luther was clearly very disillusioned by

Rome not simply by the spiritual

superficiality but also by the the way

in which he felt that Rome simply did

not reflect Christianity as he

understood

Luther had a sense of the answer having

eluded him he did not have a feeling of

God's loving him any better thus he had

to find an answer in some other way

Luther's trip to Rome had brought only

disillusion and doubt and life in the

monastery now offered even less

consolation number four still desperate

to ensure his salvation Luther spent his

life in endless confession laying bare

his soul up to four times a day for as

long as six hours at a time spending the

rest of his days in penance

there is something about Luthor who

feels that he never can quite do it and

yet he has to do it he would confess and

would be absolved and that's the way the

church was supposed to deal with that

issue and most monks that would be none

enough you said you're forgiven

but that little voice back there said

you're not really sorry and so he had to

go and confess again and be absolved

again and a little voice said no you

didn't really mean that

and so monasticism was a hell for him

Harry was doing the most important the

best thing you can do that his society

said and it gave him no relief

clearly his mind was racing and with his

sensibility and he was not getting the

answers and then the extraordinary guilt

why Gnosticism has worked for tens and

hundreds of thousands of men throughout

Christian centuries what's wrong with me

however irreproachably I lived as a monk

I could feel myself only as a sinner

with a conscience full of guilt nor

could I believe that I please God with

my labor indeed

I hated this God and so I raged against

myself with a fierce and troubled

conscience

it would take the labor and insight of

another to help Luther escape this

prison of his own anguish and

unwittingly set him on the path to

revolution in 1511 his order sent him to

a smaller monastery in the town of

Wittenberg compared with effort

Wittenberg was tiny home to little more

than a couple of churches and a newly

founded University but here the monk

johann von Tirpitz took Luther under his

wing

stupids was a leading member of Luthor's

order and he was determined to release

the younger monk from his cycle of

despair stop it's announced to Luther

that he had decided to make him

professor of Bible studies and fitten

Berg's new University forcing him to

look after the spiritual needs of others

rather than simply raging against

himself

Luther stammered out 15 reasons why he

could not possibly take the job not

least that so much work would kill him

Stout pizzas response still survives

quite alright

God has plenty of work for clever men in

heaven I think stop it's knew very well

how to handle Luther with a combination

of sympathy gentle mockery gentle

mockery and above all I think by um

seeing his gifts seeing his brilliance

and his capacity for an academic career

star pitch I think is saying we've got

to get him to that state where at night

instead of going through the dark night

of the soul

he's so shattered from preparing

lectures that he just collapses and

sleeps soundly like a baby for a doze

Stout pizzas instincts would prove

astonishingly accurate faced with a

class of students to whom he had to

explain the Bible Luther now had to

engage with the world rather than just

blame himself for his failings he has to

get up in a classroom and say what's

what it's no longer thinking in the cell

it's no longer discussion with brother

monks it is actually pronouncing with

authority

he threw himself into his work studying

not only the standard Latin texts of the

church but also reading them in new

Greek and Hebrew editions

and as he pondered noted and reasoned

his way through his faith Luther was

struck by a building revelation a

revelation that questioned everything he

had been taught about his church Ruth

had been brought up to believe that the

person who was saved is a person who

went out and achieved salvation he now

began to realize that to receive

salvation who simply put out your empty

open hands and received this gift which

God wanted you to receive so what Luther

is saying is that you don't need the

institution of the church you don't need

the intercession of priests you don't

need these great papal ceremonies to get

to heaven this whole thing is not about

you and the church it's about you and

God

it was a revolutionary moment for his

whole life Luther had believed that it

was through the rituals of the church

that he would achieve salvation

but now he realized that salvation could

only take place directly between God and

the individual no earthly institution

could believe for you

atone for you or stand between you and

your God

at this I felt myself to have been born

again and who have entered through open

gates into heaven already

but no one least of all Luther himself

could have anticipated the blaze of

turmoil and revolt he was about to

ignite

seven years had passed since Luther's

visit to Rome in that time pope julius

ii had died he was succeeded by Leo the

tenth and Leo was a man devoted to the

pleasures of the flesh

at his dinner parties he would regularly

serve a great cake from which would leap

little naked boys

within two years of sumptuous festivals

and wild boar hunts Leo had emptied the

papal Treasuries he was forced to halt

work on the church's greatest

extravagance yet the glorious Basilica

of st. Peter's one of the graced

building schemes in European history and

all the great artists and sculptors and

architects of the Italian Renaissance

without exception took part in this

scheme it is sucked in money as building

projects do suck in money

leo was unconcerned

to refill his Treasuries he turned to

one of the church's most proven methods

for raising money selling indulgences

charging the faithful for entry into

heaven this indulgence was basically a

piece of paper sold for a very

appropriate sum of money incidentally

adjusted your means which promised to

pay the bearer on demand forgiveness of

sins

Leo's indulgences had a number of unique

benefits you could buy one not just for

yourself but also for your dead

relatives and had pardoned an

astonishing array of sins it was said

that would even forgive sexual integrals

for the Virgin Mary had that been

possible here was salvation in exchange

for a son

the sums money trying to be raised in

the 1517 Indulgence are very very large

and we're talking tens of thousands of

guden we're talking in modern monies

many millions Leo made careful

preparations for the issuing of his new

indulgences he brought in a Dominican

friar called Johann Tetzel to handle the

sales and PR

he had chosen well Texans and marvelous

advertising executive who had a

wonderful line in in promotional jingles

and slogans he almost invented the

advertising jingle is he he would say

when the coin in his coffer rings then

the soul heaven would wings see you can

actually see the soul and escalating to

heaven from purgatory Leo waited for his

empty coffers to fill with the donations

of the faithful pet Souls main market

for selling the new indulgences was

Germany and the people of Wittenberg

quickly heard about the bargain deal

that the church was offering on

Redemption

Luther found that many of his

congregation had turned away from his

sermons and were rushing to spend their

hard-earned money on tehsils offer

but for Luther his moment of revelation

had left him with one simple message

salvation was a gift from God a gift

received through faith and that meant

the church had no right to sell

Redemption

this is a pastoral issue for him his own

parishioners are bringing to him letter

saying that because they purchase an

indulgence they do not have to confess

to him and that they are showing a

assurance that they're saved which

Luther thinks is totally an illusion and

that they're likely to be damned as a

result of this and so for him this is a

very serious matter he's angry because

this is this really count people's lives

are at stake if they get this wrong they

can go to hell this monk who had once

been the church's most devoted servant

now turned on the institution to which

he had vowed his life on the evening of

the 31st of October 1517 Luther sat down

and penned a furious litany of criticism

ninety-five stinging bullet points or

theses that lashed into the Pope and the

trade and indulgences

then he nailed them to the door of

Wittenberg scarcer Church

it was a blistering attack on the

greatest power of the day

God's blessing is freely available

without the keys of the Pope indulgences

are truly pernicious they induce

complacency and imperil salvation the

Pope is richer than Croesus he would do

better to sell some pitas and give the

money to the poor in somewhat the 95

theses are saying is where are the

limits of papal power the first one I

think opened the agenda very well indeed

because it says that the route to

repentance to forgiveness is much more

arduous than the one sketched out in

indulgences indulgences say easy peasy

lemon squeezy indulgences say that

forgiveness is faster what Christ says

and Luther codes him is that repentance

forgiveness lies in repentance

forgiveness lies in repentance it's more

difficult so they are really calling

into question

I think papal power

this is an issue at the heart of faith

it has to be brought out into the open

it is summoning other minds and those

who would dare defend these practices or

abuses to come out and to show their

proof of course for him scripture is the

basis for discussion scripture and clear

reason there is still much discussion of

how much trouble Luther actually wanted

to cause it was standard practice to pin

texts for academic discussion to the

church store they weren't intended to be

published there in Latin their technical

they're difficult to understand in

places but at the same time it's just a

little bit difficult reading the style

of the 95 theses and the fact that

Luther is thinking so hard and feeling

so strongly to imagine that he just

wanted this to be nothing more than a

private conversation with an

ecclesiastical high it's hard not to

think that he had thee at least the

threat of going public in his mind in

the end other people did it for him

Luther was about to become one of the

first top-selling authors in history

less than 70 years before another German

Guttenberg had perfected the world's

first printing press already printers

were running off countless books and

pamphlets even Leo's indulgences

and now Luther's outspoken work was

copied down and set for printing the

theses would spread like wildfire across

Germany setting Luther and all Europe on

a path no one could have anticipated not

very hidden within them is the potential

to undo the authority of the Pope the

Pope himself was a sponsor of

indulgences including their sale this

was not done without his approval and

what right had some upstart friar to

call them into question

Luther really didn't anticipate the

consternation that this would arouse at

the very highest level

but it was not for nothing that the

Catholic Church would help power for

over a thousand years

it had a name for people like Luther

they were heretics and the penalty for

heresy was death

the stage have been set for the church's

greatest conflict in its history

a battle between the most powerful

institution on earth and one solitary

monk