The motto of the Reformation was, Paz Tenebras Lux. And so the meaning basically is that after darkness, light. And it is my hope and my prayer, and I can speak for Tim as well, that in the series as we go into the Reformation, that we will shed light on the people and the events of that Reformation, that we'll learn from their mistakes, we'll learn from their successes, There is a saying that is attributed to George Santayana. Those, and you probably heard it many times before, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. And I think that that's nowhere as important as when it comes to the Christian faith, obviously. because the reformers certainly made a lot of mistakes, but they did a lot of things right. And I think that we have a responsibility to learn both of those things, their mistakes as well as their successes, to make sure that we don't repeat those mistakes. But to ensure that those things that they did do right, we also Following those footsteps because they open a lot of doors and a lot of paths for us to follow You've no doubt have heard how many people talk and on the shoulders of Giants and that is no more true than it is in the Reformation Because a lot of those individuals in the Reformation gave us what we have today and a lot of them have to go have to go through a lot of difficulties and We just heard about Hus last week, for example, who was burned at the stake and he wasn't the only one. There were a lot of individuals who were either executed or who had to go through a myriad of difficulties and being deprived of a lot of their livelihood and a lot of other things in their lives because they wanted to be faithful to the word of God. This year, in the summer of this year, it will mark the 500th anniversary of the Diet of Herbs. And beginning in 2017, and continuing to about the 60s, long after I'm gone, I'm sure, some of you will be around, no doubt, and hopefully you'll remember, This, but that period of time there will mark 500th anniversary of some event, whether it's the birth of some of the reformers, whether it's their death, whether it's councils, whether it's colloquies and so on and so forth. And so this period of about 50 years or so is a period of history that was replete with all kinds of changes, all kinds of events. that have a tremendous influence on who we are today as a church. I know a lot of folks in the church like to talk about how, well, we just read the Bible, we just follow the Bible and so on. But a lot of times unbeknownst to them, unconsciously, they are following a lot of the things that the reformers did because they were right, because they were in keeping with the scripture. And so if we acknowledge those things, I think we're the better for it. I mentioned how those who do not study history are bound to repeat it. And I think that a couple of examples of that will serve to illustrate what I mean. Last week, Tim was talking about Wycliffe and Huth. One was martyred for his faith, the other one was not. And you have to ask yourself, why not? And one of the answers of many of them is the political issues that were affecting the church at the time. The church was going through its Babylonian captivity. That is going to form the basis for a treatise that Luther is going to write later on. That really doesn't have anything to do with that particular event, but he calls it the Babylonian captivity of the church nonetheless, and we'll talk about that later on. But you remember how Tim was talking about the competing popes. There was one in Avignon, France, then there was the one in Rome, and at some point, at one point, there were even three popes. competing with one another. And so for about 70 years, there's either two popes, three popes, they're competing with one another, they're excommunicating each other. And so there's all kinds of problems there. And so what happens with Wycliffe? He sort of falls through the cracks, right? Because the church is just in such turmoil that it doesn't really have time to dedicate itself to persecuting Wycliffe and his followers. And so what happens? Eventually, the schism is mended. It comes to the Council of Constance, which Tim also mentioned, seeking to mend fences and to bring about the healing of the church. One pope resigned. He repented of what he had done. A second pope was exiled. And then the third pope was imprisoned. And Martin V becomes the pope. Martin V is an interesting individual. We're not going to get into him here because, you know, it doesn't really serve our purposes, but he was an iconoclast of sorts. He was not a docile individual. And so the church placed him as a pope, hoping to be able to sort of control him And after all the problems that the church had been going through, maybe here's one guy whom we can control and we can basically have him do our bidding. It didn't turn out that way. And so problems continued. But what happens? Council of Constance does mend those fences, does bring peace to the church, and Hus now comes to the attention of the church. And his teachings come to the attention of the church. And because of that, he ends up being executed. And so you can see how the political events taking place at the time had such an influence on what took place within the church. Fast forward to today, and what happens today? Today, there's an effort to erase history, and there's an insistence on judging historical figures by our current standards rather than the standards in which they live. We seem to forget historical context. which is so important. They didn't know all the things we know today, just like people hundreds of years before them didn't know the things that they knew then. It's interesting that in a society that puts such a premium on, thank you, on evolution, that true evolution, and what I mean by true evolution is the evolution that takes place in people's thinking, in the values that they espouse, etc., etc., each society does, it seems to escape their notice. They don't seem to pay attention to the fact that there is evolution within the mind. Today, we don't know everything that generations in the future will know. If we had the opportunity to fast forward in a time machine and go a hundred years, even a hundred years from now, Some of the things that they're going to be doing, some of the things that they're going to hold as true would amaze us. And they'll look back upon us probably and we will be ridiculed because of how retrograde we were. In some ways we are. You know, but we don't know it. That's why we keep doing it, right? And so, but when it comes to the word of God, the word of God stands forever. Even there again, because the reformers wanted to go back to the word of God, they had a much greater understanding than the people in the Middle Ages did. So wise people understand that everyone has lived in a particular historical context. And in doing so, we're able to understand better their challenges, why they did the things they did, why they didn't do some of the things that they did or didn't do, rather. Luther and other reformers took certain actions that to us today are not actions that we would condone. I'll give you an example. The Reformation was a magisterial reformation. Luther, Calvin, the other first generation reformers especially, still believe in the sacralist idea. The idea that the church and the state should be united as one. Of course, their idea was basically, okay, the state should follow the church, not the other way around. But still, they thought that it was pretty much one big entity. And so again, we look at that today and say, wow, with horror, right? And we understand the drawbacks that such thinking has but to them it was the world they lived in. So what was the political setting of the Reformation and especially for Luther as he begins this track through Reformation history. There were very large personalities coming into view at the time. There were lots of changes. One interesting thing to note is that for centuries, the world had been pretty much the same. There hadn't been a whole lot of change for probably a thousand years at this point, after the Roman Empire had fallen in the West and until Now the Renaissance comes into view. It has been reported by some that hardly anyone traveled more than seven miles from their home during their lifetime. And so you compare to today and you say, we travel more than that in one day just to come to church. We travel more than that, three times that in my case, right? So you can imagine the literal world that most people lived in. If you look at a lot of the art of that period, for example, you see David, the king, is portrayed as wearing an armor. And in the background, you see these medieval castles. And it's because, again, people imagine that the world had always been the way that it was at the time. And so, you know, the world was a lot different than it is today and that it was when it began to change. from the Reformation onward. Many had attempted Reformation before. Again, as Tim mentioned last week, only two of the more salient individuals in Wycliffe and Huss, but there were many others. Even the church itself, internally, saw the need for Reformation. But, The problem was that externalism was what became popular. And what I mean by externalism was basically the outward aspects of religion rather than inward change. And so you had a lot of mystics, a lot of folks that put a lot of emphasis on charitable works, things of that nature. Nothing wrong within itself, right? But putting too much emphasis on the externals rather than on the internal. And then, of course, you had penance. which is going to be central to Luther's thinking and to his eventual break with the church. Now penance, however, contrary to what many people seem to believe, you had to have genuine contrition. You had to orally confess to a priest and then you had to do works of penance. And so it wasn't just simply, okay, I'm gonna confess and then I'm going to be excused or forgiven and I don't have to do anything else. There was more to Penance than what most people believe. And I think what a lot of times our thinking is shaped by movies. And in the movies, when you talk about Penance and Luther, it seems like the idea is that I have This confession, I make this confession to the priest, and then I can go my merry way and go right back to what I was doing. That wasn't how it was supposed to work. It may have worked that way in practice, but it wasn't the way it was supposed to work. And of course, Penance eventually becomes commercialized, and that, again, is what's going to lead to Luther doing what he did, sort of like the straw that breaks the camel back in his case. There were the Waldensians also, followers of Peter Waldo, who also wanted to go back to the true church, the truth of the scripture of the gospel. The followers of Wycliffe were Lollards, which means mumblers. The followers of Huss were Hussites, right, and so on and so forth. So there were all these forces that were trying to reform the church. But I think, in looking at it, one of the differences between them and Luther and subsequent generations is that these individuals were trying to reform the church from within, number one, and then they were attempting change rather than revolution. Now, to be clear, Luther did not initially intend a revolution. He also intended a reformation, but I think the difference between them is that one party was willing to go as far as he needed to, to bring about that reformation. The other party did not. It's like Luther's father confessor Staupitz. He never wanted to break with the church. Erasmus was another one who saw the need for that reformation, but just did not, could not bring himself to breaking with the church. And so that, I think, is what the difference between those two groups was. The political changes gave a new impetus to religious reformation as well. Centralization of political power is gaining strength. And what I mean by that is that now the nation, rather than particular nobilities, or particular cities is gaining strength, the idea of nationality. It creates a greater sense of national identity, which is going to be important, believe it or not, in the Reformation events, because some of the reason why Luther is protected is because of that nationalism, right? Because of that national idea that, you know, these people in Rome can't be telling me in Germany what to do. And so it becomes a very interesting and important factor in what's taking place religiously. There's less factionalism. You remember these nation states, or the states that were the city states. For example, in Greece, right? Where you would have Sparta and you'd had Athens and so on and so forth. Same thing happened in the Roman Empire where you had Rome and some of these cities that were states within themselves. Now that's beginning to break up. and national unity is becoming more prevalent. You have the divine rights of kings being exerted more than ever before. And so there's this nationalism that is going to become prevalent that is going to help some of these events take place. the economics of Europe begin to change. The plague brought tremendous impact on the economy of Europe. Labor diminished. Why? Because nearly half of Europe, by some reports, died because of the plague. If you had, just picking a number, 100 million workers before, now you have 50 million, what's going to happen? you're going to demand higher wages because either you pay them or you go and pick the cotton yourself. Not the cotton in this case, but you know what I'm saying. You have to go do the work yourself. As a noble, you're not going to do that. The middle class is becoming more prevalent, is becoming more assertive, supply and demand. They had a form of capitalism. Now, don't confuse it with American style capitalism. It wasn't anything of the sort. But I think that it's becoming a little more like that in less of the feudal system where you're basically at the mercy of your Lord. So we come to the 15th century, and at the end of the 15th century, 1492, right? Columbus sails the ocean blue. Everybody knows that. It's a momentous year in world history. The Spanish expelled the Moors from Spain as well. You remember El Cid, the movie with Charlton Heston. It didn't quite happen that way, but, you know, somewhat, right? Finally, Spain is able to expel the Moors, which since 714 have been pretty much dominating the Iberian Peninsula. Castile and Aragon unite as the Kingdom of Spain. It becomes a strong Catholic nation. the New World is discovered. And with the discovery of the New World, untold riches come to Spain. And because Spain becomes so rich, both in land, because as you know, what today is Latin America, really the Americas in general, except for the United States and Canada, are Latin of one kind or another. Either French, in a lot of the smaller Antilles, or Portuguese, in the case of Brazil, or Spanish, pretty much everywhere else. And so that, the Iberian, the Latin influence on the New World becomes tremendously strong, making Spain the most powerful nation on the continent. The Catholic regents, Ferdinand and Isabel, come to power. They conquer, and they want to conquer the new world, not just for the riches that may be there, but also in the name of Christ. They seek to convert the natives, and that is one of the charges that they give to Columbus. to convert the natives to the Catholic faith. Not just go discover lands, go discover a passage to the Eastern Indies, go get riches, if you can find them, right, but also make sure that you convert the natives there to the Catholic faith. There's a number of letters that are still preserved from Columbus to the king and queen. And if you, well, those of you know Spanish anyway, if you get a chance to read them. The Spanish is, of course, 15th, 16th century Spanish, so it's a lot different. It's sort of like Shakespeare in English for English. It's different, but you get the idea. And the idea is that Columbus is placing a lot of emphasis on that Christianization of the New World. And contrary to what many people will have you believe nowadays, Columbus was also very concerned about taking care of the natives and ensuring that they were not abused. Again, in the context of 15th, 16th century. Not like today, but nevertheless, for that time, quite enlightened. So, by all accounts, these individuals were sincere. They truly wanted to convert the nations to the Catholic religion. But, as what so often happens, and especially in a time when it took months for people and correspondence to go from one country to the next, from Spain to the New World, it would take months because they had to go by ship. Plan is one thing, execution is another. And so it went badly astray. There were way too many individuals who came to the New World and basically abused what they found here. They came for the riches, they didn't care about the people. And so unfortunately, as history tells us, Things didn't go all that well in many instances. The king that eventually comes to the throne and the king that is the king that Luther pretty much has to do with, for the most part, is Charles. Charles was the Charles I of Spain and Charles V of Europe. He was the grandson of the Catholic Regents and was also a staunch Catholic who, not only was he a staunch Catholic, he also hated Luther. And so you have that added spice there. His hatred for Luther was an important factor in subsequent events. If Charles had had his way, we wouldn't have had a lot of what Luther did, because he would have executed him on the spot, basically. But again, politics got in the way, and we'll see that as we go along. Because, you know, there's a lot of things going on. One of them is the feared Muslim invasion of Europe and so that has a tremendous impact on the distraction that a lot of the political forces had and even some of the religious forces had that allowed Luther to sort of go under the radar and do what he did. So Luther was born on November 10th, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany. He was nine years old when Columbus discovered the New World, right? And Europe is in the midst of the Renaissance. So Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Erasmus, among others, are coming to the fore. Erasmus is going to be a very important figure in the development of the Reformation. Erasmus was an individual who was a humanist, and not in the sense that we understand humanists today, where a humanist is somebody who basically does not believe in God, who thinks that humanity is at the center of the universe. Humanism at the time was a lot different. It was not atheistic in its outlook. It simply believed that humanity was worthy, and that they were special, that they were a special part of the creation of God. That's what humanism was about in the 16th century. Of course, we're coming through the Middle Ages that also have been called the Dark Ages, and Dark Ages because learning, education was so minimal. I mean, it was composed mainly, society was composed of peasants. You had peasants down here who were doing pretty much all the work, and then you had the nobility. and there wasn't anything in between. And so you had a very small percentage of the population who were actually educated, and then you had the masses, which were uneducated, did not know much about anything, and basically were just subjugated to the church. In many cases, voluntarily so. They didn't know any better. And so what they knew about Christianity, for the most part, was what the Catholic Church was teaching them. Luther has been called the pioneer of the Reformation. Calvin called him an apostle. Obviously not in the sense of the E12 apostles, 13 with Paul, but an apostle as one who was sent by God for such a moment. He discovered key doctrines, Let's say he rediscovered key doctrines which formed the basis for the Reformation, right? Those doctrines have always been there, but he sort of rediscovered them. It's sort of like Newton and gravity, right? He didn't, in essence, discover gravity because gravity's always been there, but he was the first one that sort of understood how it works and was able to explain it to the rest of us. Some have questioned, could there have been a Reformation without Luther? The answer to that has to be no. And I say no, not because God couldn't have used anybody else, obviously, but because that's how it happened. So that's how God wanted it, right? We know that. So if Luther was the one that started the Reformation, then God wanted him to start the Reformation. And that's why it took place the way it took place. And so it couldn't have taken place any other way. Luther was born to a fairly well-off family. His father's name was Hans Luther, by the way, Luther's name changed. in time, and he was a miner, and he made a fair good living from that profession. He wanted Luther to be a lawyer, and Luther was not thrilled with the idea. He wanted to study theology instead, and we'll see why here in a minute. His father wanted him to make his way in the world, and he thought that being a lawyer at the time was the best way that he could ensure that. Even though his parents were indeed pious, they were by no means people who were not people of faith, they were not unfaithful or unbelieving, but what they wanted was for Luther to make his way in the world. Typical parents, right? They want the best for their children and they also wanted him to take care of them in their old age. And so there was a, a bit of a mercenary attitude there as well. But it was primarily because they wanted him to sort of become somebody. And so Luther is a dutiful son, obeys his parents. And in 1501, he enters the university. In 1502, he gains a bachelor degree. Pretty quick, right? Talking about a year. But intensive study, not like today where you have these semesters You only study for maybe a few hours a day. At the time, going to school was basically your job, and so you had to go to school every day, study every day, and so it was a lot more accelerated than it is today. In 1505, he gains a master's degree, and in May of that same year, he entered law school. What he learned, and this is important for the future of Luther, because what he learned in law school was important because he applied it later to his study of the law of God, biblical law. And so again, we see that his background is very important to what he became, what we know today as Luther. One thing that Luther was known for, even at this early stage, was that he was always troubled religiously. And he was excessively troubled religiously. He wondered about joining a monastery because at the time, joining a monastery was the way that an individual could assure himself of living the apostolic lifestyle. His parents, however, opposed it. They wanted him to be a lawyer, and so they opposed him joining a monastery and going into the priesthood. at the time. So in July of 1505, just a couple of months after he enters law school, what happens? He's caught in the thunderstorm. And you all know the story, right? There's a lightning bolt that hits nearby and he's completely terrified and he pledges that he's going to become a monk. Which is what he wanted to do anyway. Then he pledged to become something else. No, because that's what he wanted to do anyway. We humans are pretty interesting that way, right? A lot of times we really want to do something, we'll find a way, and that was Luther's excuse to become what he wanted to become. So he goes to Erfurt and joins the Augustinian hermits. in 1505, again, that same year. This was the most rigorous and demanding of the orders of the time. All right, that's why they were called the hermits. And it agreed very well with his personality because he was a very rigorous, demanding individual. And so he joined the order that he saw as being basically what he was. He was very serious of purpose. He was highly disciplined. He was ascetic. And he was committed to education. And so he took this very seriously. It wasn't something that, well, I just want to do just because I want to do. He really was committed to this way of life. And, but of course, he joins before he informs his parents. So he goes to his parents finally and tells them I've joined a convent, right? His parents are not all that happy, but he's joined the convent by making the vow, the vow that he made, he made to St. Anne. And St. Anne happened to be the mother of Mary and the patron saint of minors. And so being the patron saint of minors, and as we know, Hans, his father was a minor, what could his parents say? Nothing. And so they basically say, okay, well, Go ahead and do whatever you're going to do because, you know, we can't refute you. So he goes into theological study, preparing for ordination. And at the time, the way that studies were conducted were conducted in the tradition of William of Ockham. You've no doubt heard of Ockham's razor, which is the simplest explanation to any problem is likely the correct one. And so, up-to-date scholastic theology of the time was based on that principle, you know, the principle of simplicity. And so he's studying, he's a very able student, a very committed student, a student of the Bible in every respect, and his studies begin to become more and more proliferate more and more. He becomes more studious and more committed to his biblical studies. The Renaissance also had an influence here because the Renaissance had encouraged people to read the classics and the Bible was considered a classic. And so there was an added increased interest in reading the Bible, not just by Luther, but also by a lot of the individuals who And so he gave himself to his studies and to his writing, not just to his reading, but also to his writing. And of his writings, 110 large volumes. Tremendous amount of writing, especially when one considers that he died in his early 60s. There was one professor that in talking about the large number of writings of Luther, he said that in his, entire life, if he had to copy them, he wouldn't be able to do so. Much less, originally, think all these thoughts down on paper. And remember too, that they had to do it by hand. And so he's writing all these things by hand, 110 large volumes. I mean, imagine, when I look at that and I think, how I waste my time, right? Because, you know, these people did all these things and here I am almost 60 years old and I haven't written even one book. much less 110. So he's teaching in Wittenberg for one year. It's sort of a way of learning the craft a little bit. And I'll get into more of that in a bit here. He's finally ordained as a priest. And he's going to perform his first Mass. But what happens? He's unable to do so because he gets to the part of the Lord's Supper. And you know Catholicism and transubstantiation. And so he's thinking that he's got the body of Christ in one hand and the blood in the other. And that is filling him with terror. He's overwhelmed by the fact that he has the body of Christ in his hands. His father was in attendance. He had invited some of his associates to come and see his son being ordained. And of course, he's embarrassed. But nevertheless, Luther goes away. He cannot complete the mass. And his father forgives him eventually. But it's just the first taste of the person who was Luther here publicly, because it demonstrates how seriously he took his vocation and his calling. In 1510, he begins to study Greek and Hebrew, and this too is the influence of the Renaissance. Up to this point, if, for example, you were caught studying Hebrew by the church, you were condemned as a heretic. because anything Jewish was looked upon with suspicion. And so if you wanted to study Hebrew, well, then something must be wrong with you. You must be a heretic. This was one of the issues with Tyndale, for example, later in the 16th century. The fact that he studied Hebrew and he did so in order to be able to translate the Old Testament from the originals. And so he did so in hiding. He had a Hebrew tutor and he did it in hiding. But, you know, obviously, both he and the tutor were subject to and they had been caught. Obviously, as you become older, it's harder to study languages. But because of his dedication, he became quite good at it. And we'll see later how he translates. the Bible in it. He wanted to go back to the sources. Ad fontes was another of the models of the Reformation. Ad fontes is the Latin for to the source, to the fountain, right? And so the idea is let's go back to the source. Let's go back to the word which is the source of Christianity. He memorized large passages of scripture. It is said that he memorized the entire New Testament and great portions of the Old Testament as well. And so again, demonstrating the tremendous acumen, the memory that he had, the intellectual prowess that he had. I think that that sometimes does not emphasize him enough. We sort of look at Martin Luther as this bombastic personality who just kind of wanted to, as Pope Leo later on calls him, a bull in the vineyard. trampling the vineyard of the Lord, right? And so we look at him from that perspective, but we forget his tremendous intellectual prowess. And it was a tremendous intellectual prowess. He involved himself in the affairs of the convent. And so he wasn't just content with being another monk. He wanted to make a difference. And because he wanted to make a difference in 1511, he traveled to Rome. And he goes there, but instead of being filled with awe, he's sort of filled with ambivalence. And so he's looking at all these sites and all these things and whatever. Remember, St. Peter's is not there yet, so it doesn't quite look the same. But he looks at all these things and he's sort of like, well, you know, he climbs La Scala Santa, the holy steps, which we saw in person in 1987, by the way. If you want me to tell you about it, I can tell you the story. And so he goes to it, and because pilgrims, even to this day, they climb these steps on their knees. And the idea is, and it's pretty tall, it's a pretty tall set of steps. The idea is that by doing so, you get a plenary indulgence, okay? And so you see a lot of times the steps are basically full. You can't really go up or down unless you're one of the pilgrims who's doing this thing on their knees. And these steps were supposedly brought to Rome by the Crusaders from the Holy Land. They sort of took every brick out and then they transported it to Rome. I don't think that's true personally, but hey, if they want to believe that, that's fine. So, Luther is the same way. He gets to the top of the stairs, and he looks down and says, who knows, whether it's true or not, or could this just be another of the Pope's ideas to squeeze money from the people. There's no evidence, however, that he was appalled or surprised by Rome's corruption, because Germans had pretty much expected that those Romans were all corrupt, and that the Germans were. the real believers. They were the true believers, the pure believers, not those people over there in Rome. They were all corrupt. And so when Luther goes to Rome, he sort of finds what he expects to find. The next year in 1512, he gets the degree of Doctor of the Bible. And with this degree, he is allowed to defend and teach the scriptures. Ironic, because it is his study of the scriptures that will eventually lead to all the things that happen, right? And here he is studying the scriptures in depth with the approval and the sanction of the very church that he will eventually break with. This pledge to defend and teach the scriptures does not, however, contain a clause that he has to obey the Pope. And again, that's important because later on he will cite this to say, hey, I'm just going by what the scripture says And the scriptures don't say I have to defend the Pope, nor is there a pledge that I have to do so. And so, again, important for his subsequent career. So in October of 1512, he embarks upon his teaching career, goes back to Wittenberg, which is in Saxony. Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, had opened a university by this time, and he was seeking glory for the city by doing so, and wanted Luther to be one of his professors. because he had heard of Luther. He was impressed by Luther's acumen and by his teaching prowess, and so he brought him to Wittenberg to teach in his university. It was Frederick's political power, by the way, which eventually allowed him to protect Luther, and we'll get to that later as well. Luther was not a rebel by nature, like what we come to believe today. He was a professor of the Bible, And he was content with doing so within the bounds that the church had established. So the first four books that he teaches are Psalms, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. And the way that they did the teaching at the time was whatever the teacher was studying, that's why he would teach his students. And so the idea is, okay, the students will see the teacher teaching these things, going through his paces, the study that he needs to do for the teaching, and they themselves eventually will do the same thing, right? And so it was basically a learning by doing type of thing. So between 1513 and 1515, he teaches the Psalms. From 1515 to 16, Romans. 16 to 17 Galatians and then 17 to 18 Hebrews. The next year in 1516, he becomes a pastor and begins to preach at the church in Wittenberg, but continues his intellectual and spiritual investigation of scripture. Now, however, as a pastor, he has a concern for the souls of his people. And this is one of the reasons that will catapult him to opposing the abuses of the indulgence program, as we shall see. So again, all these events are falling into place, leading to 1517, when he finally does what he does with the indulgences. So at this time, of course, for about a thousand years, we've been living under the Holy Roman Empire. And the sacralist idea was continuing, right? But with the Reformation, it begins to sort of fade away little by little. It'll take a while, but eventually it will go away. You know, churches, although to a certain extent in some ways continue to be controlled by the state in some areas, but it's really a control that it's just a figurehead and not really in any practical The Pope at the dawn of the new century was Julius II. Julius II is called the culture Pope and the warring Pope as well. He commissioned Peter's Basilica and also asked Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, which we also have seen in person, quite impressive. When we were there, they were renovating it. And so they had sort of scaffolding all over the building and so on and so forth. So you couldn't see the images completely clearly because they were a little bit blocked off by the scaffolds. But you could still see enough to see the impressive work that this man did, right? I mean, obviously he was gifted by God to do something like that. And the way that he did it was on his back, painting the ceiling for years. And so tremendous work. So Leo X is the Pope that is the Pope of the Reformation, for the most part. And he took far more interest in the revival of heathen literature and art than in religion. And as a matter of fact, according to Philip Schaff, he is said to have even doubted the truth of the gospel history. And so you had a Pope who, you know, may not have even been a Christian. Not that the popes were necessarily Christian, but you know Tim mentioning the practice of simony, where a lot of folks were by their positions, right? And so they probably didn't believe the gospel, but they bought that position because it was a position of power at the time. was powerful. So he's the one that really indulges or engineers the sale of indulgences to fund the papacy and the work at St. Peter's. That is what eventually leads to the 9 to 5 thesis. And so we arrive at 1517, pivotal year for the Reformation. In 1517, Martin Luther writes two theses. This was a traditional activity and it was done because it was whoever was seeking debate. Particular issues that were going to, he wanted to discuss with the powers that be, right? And so it wasn't uncommon. There were a lot of these things. being written, it was not a rebelling against the church, okay? Again, we look at this, we look at the movie, and he goes and nails the thesis, and there's this, all the hurrah, and all the... ...stuff going... ...how he's breaking with the church, and whatever, no, it wasn't happening like that, right? The reality is that it didn't. And the reality is he probably went to the church door. You know, just some folks later on came and read it. And that's how it all continued with Martin Luther. Next week, this is what we'll pick up. Talked somewhat about his background. And now we're going to really get into the Reformation in earnest.