As yet he was only seeking to combat those abuses which were outside the spirit and teaching of the Catholic Church, when the scandals of the traffic in indulgences called him to the field of battle. And it was only when in this battle the Pope and the hierarchy sought to rob him of his evangelical doctrine of salvation, and of the joy and comfort he derived from the knowledge of redemption by Christ, that, from his stand on the Bible, he laid his hands upon the strongholds of this Churchdom.

PART III.

THE BREACH WITH ROME, UP TO THE DIET OF WORMS. 1517-21.

CHAPTER I.

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.

The first occasion for the struggle which led to the great division in the Christian world was given by that magnificent edifice of ecclesiastical splendour intended by the popes as the creation of the new Italian art; by the building, in a word, of St. Peter's Church, which had already been commenced when Luther was at Rome. Indulgences were to furnish the necessary means. Julius II. had now been succeeded on the Papal chair by Leo X. So far as concerned the encouragement of the various arts, the revival of ancient learning, and the opening up, by that means, to the cultivated and upper classes of society of a spring of rich intellectual enjoyment, Leo would have been just the man for the new age. But whilst actively engaged in these pursuits and pleasures, he remained indifferent to the care and the spiritual welfare of his flock, whom as Christ's vicar he had undertaken to feed. The frivolous tone of morals that ruled at the Papal see was looked upon as an element of the new culture. As regards the Christian faith, a blasphemous saying is reported of Leo, how profitable had been the fable of Christ. He had no scruples in procuring money for the new church, which, as he said, was to protect and glorify the bones of the holy Apostles, by a dirty traffic, pernicious to the soul. Meanwhile, the popes were not ashamed to appropriate freely to their own needs that indulgence money, which was nominally for the Church and for other objects, such as the war against the Turks.

In order to appreciate the nature of these indulgences and of Luther's attack upon them, it is necessary first to realise more exactly the significance which the teachers of the Church ascribed to them. The simple statement that absolution or forgiveness of sins was sold for money, must in itself be offence enough to any moral Christian conscience; and we can only wonder that Luther proceeded so prudently and gradually towards his object of getting rid of indulgences altogether. But the arguments by which they were explained and justified did not sound so simple or concise.

[Illustration: Leo X. (From his Portrait by Raphael.)]