CH1-05 Martin Luther and the German Reformation

Who was Johan Tetzel, and why did his actions anger Martin Luther?

Johan Tetzel was a Dominican friar who was one of the most important and significant preachers that the Roman Catholic Church had in this period. He was, like other Dominicans, known as almost a kind of revivalist. The power of his preaching was quite significant. So, when the pope needed additional revenue in order to complete St. Peter’s Basilica, he knew what kind of person he needed to recruit in order to raise funds. It was a preacher like Tetzel. And so, Tetzel was tasked with both preaching but also fundraising. And part of the means in which Tetzel raised funds was the sale of indulgences… Luther’s opposition to Tetzel was not only on the fact that he was a bit of a fundraising scam artist; his real problem with Tetzel was a pastoral one — the idea that someone could buy salvation and, particularly, prey upon the weak consciences of God’s people in order to save their loved ones who, perhaps, are in purgatory. And so, when Luther objected to Tetzel and the sale of indulgences, both in the September 1517 disputations and in the October 1517 95 Theses, he was objecting pastorally to a major problem that the indulgences created, something that bound the consciences of God’s people in ways that were utterly illegitimate.

Indulgences were payments that one could make to the church in lieu of suffering either in this life or, ostensibly, in purgatory after this life. And what’s not always understood is that it wasn’t strictly the buying of salvation, but it was the buying of time out of purgatory. And at various times through the late medieval period, the church had issued indulgences, as she still does. Now she does so on a more restricted basis and, specifically, only the pope issues them today, but the pope still issues plenary indulgences so that someone could pay for their entire time in purgatory and not spend any, and that’s, of course, what Tetzel was doing. And the point of purgatory was to stimulate people to godliness, to obedience, to piety. And what frustrated Luther, and other people at the time, was that you could simply buy your way out of having to be pious, holy, and struggling with sin and against sin, toward godliness. So, there was that, and then there was another aspect, and that was that you didn’t even have to be in a state of grace, whereas ideally, at that point anyway, Luther was saying, you know, one ought to be at least in a state of grace.