Erasmus understood Luther’s attack on indulgences, but disliked his attack upon the church. He felt that Luther should restraint his actions and verbal abuses, by lowering his voice and listeni

Erasmus wrote the scriptures in language that everyone would understand, they were simple enough to understand, he assured availability of the scriptures to all, and formulated and popularized the reform program of Christian humanists. Erasmus’ original intent was to only reach the elite, though he spread his basic beliefs to people in many social classes. He stressed that knowledge of the scriptures would enlighten inner piety, where external forms of religion such as indulgences were abusive to the believer.

Martin Luther, born in 1486 to a Saxon mining family, took his religious vocation very serious. Luther’s cause for reformation of the 16th century European religion came from his unnatural paranoia that he was dammed. He had problems convincing himself that his soul was pure, and that he would go to heaven. His personal problem would not yield to the existing manners of assuring people that they would go to heaven with things like sacraments, alms, prayer attendance at Mass, and assorted “good works.

In 1517, Luther wrote the Ninety-Five Theses. These Ninety-Five Theses denied the right of the Pope to sell indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, among other challenges. Luther went to the Pope to discuss these problems, of discrepancies of scripture. In 1520, the church refused to discuss any conflict that Luther found in the scriptures. Luther left the church by excommunication. Luther told the church that the Pope did not have, nor would it ever have the power to remit penalties on him or anyone else (pg 362 World History). The Pope forced Luther to appear before the Cardinal in Augsburg. Here Luther was asked to take back everything that he said in his Ninety-five Theses. Luther agreed to take back everything if his Theses could be proven wrong by use of the Bible.

Luther did not intend to cause the church to separate, but because of

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