mercredi 9 juin 2010

A very bad article about Martin Luther - with some answers

Here it is

Bad quote I:

Saxon monk Martin Luther was 34 years old when he posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

The Theses were in medieval Latin—a language only understood by scholars and the clergy of the Latin Church.

Sympathetic friends translated his Theses into German, and thanks to the newly invented printing press, they were all over Europe in a month!!


Fact I:

Latin was understood by everyone with some non-commercial lettered education.

Bad Quote II:

in 1521, Emperor Charles V was the most powerful man in the world due to the discovery of the New World by John Cabot.

Luther appealed to him because he knew he would get no justice at Rome.


Fact II:

By Luther "getting no justice" (at Rome) is meant Luther having already gotten more justice than he bargained for. Leo X had condemned the thesis, according to which souls in Purgatory (!) who prefer to get out of it than serve their term (!) are in mortal sin and cannot enter Heaven. And some forty other theses as well, but not all of the 95 or Luther's earlier 97 (he had picked the condemnations from both lists).

Quote III:

The emperor did not immediately condemn Luther because many of the German Electors were favorable to the Reformation. However, the emperor did not lift the ban on Luther for fear of offending the Pope. Luther—a man of peace—would never allow his followers to fight for him. He was able to escape the wrath of the emperor and Pope by trusting his soul to Jesus—the Great ruler of the nations.


Fact III:

Back then one did not actually fight for Luther since he fled, or for Reformation, but pretty soon both Lutherans and Calvinists were fighting.

Bad Quote IV:

The printing press was God's gift to Saint Martin Luther!!
...
Wittenberg was the printing capital of the world for at least 50 years after the beginning of the Reformation.

Saint Martin's press threw OCEANS of ink at the devil.


Fact IV:

One thing left out from above quote: In 1450, Johannes Gutenberg invented printing from movable type.

Between that date and Reformation, the Catholic Church had used printers ink in a more appropriate way. That includes some near 20 correct translations of Holy Bible - Luther not only committed but knowingly defended translation mistakes, as Abraham being justified "by faith alone" which is neither there in the Latin, nor in the Greek text.

In Sweden the first printers were Carthusians, and first printed book in Swedish was an instruction about how to pray the Rosary.

However, Gustav Wasa, the King who ordered the Reformation, in order to spoil churches to pay mercenary allies, and who did so spilling eventually much Swedish blood, especially in Dahlcarlia, confiscated the Carthusian printing press and handed it over to the Protestant Reformers. Neat feat to convince a people if other side is unjustly deprived of printing press and if unconvinced are beheaded.

English Reformation and Danish Reformation were analogous, but monks were killed rather than just exiled, as from Sweden.

Genevan, Dutch and Scottish Reformation were about as violent as the Russian Revolution.

Bad Quote V:

Instead of Saint Martin going up in flames, the Papal Bull Exsurge Domine, the Decretals of Clement VI, the Summa Angelica, the Chrysposus of Dr. Eck etc., etc., went up in flames. ...Thus commenced the burning of Babylon which will continue to the end of the world.


Vth response, a principle or two more than a mere fact:

Thus Luther showed himself a barbarian, incapable of answering a detailed condemnation of selected theses by defending the condemned theses (indeed the one I cited above Luther left, when he left belief in Purgatory) rather than condemning the condemner and burning Christian books.

Thus Luther showed himself as putting himself above the Roman See.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibl. Audoux, Paris III
9/VI/2010

PS: "some near 20 correct translations of Holy Bible"=to diverse German dialects - add other languages, in which Catholic Church was also printing Bible and Bible Part Translations.

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