Brother Martin of Erfurt

The Morning Prayer Commemoration from the Mission of St. Clare included this wonderful biographical sketch of Martin Luther by James Kiefer.

Brother Martin

I once heard a priest say: “Sometimes in a sermon, I have occasion to quote some comment by Martin Luther which bears on the point I want to make. But there are those in my congregation who would wonder what I was doing quoting a notorious Protestant. So I simply refer to him as Brother Martin of Erfurt, and they smile and nod. He said a lot of remarkably good things.”

German Peasant Stock…

Brother Martin of Erfurt, born in 1483 of German peasant stock, was a monk (more exactly, a regular canon) of the Order of Saint Augustine, and a Doctor of Theology. In his day, the Church was at a spiritual low. Church offices were openly sold to the highest bidder, and not nearly enough was being done to combat the notion that forgiveness of sins was likewise for sale. Indeed, many Christians, both clergy and laity, were most inadequately instructed in Christian doctrine. Startling as it seems to us today, there were then no seminaries for the education of the clergy. There were monastic schools, but they concentrated on the education of their own monks. Parish priests, ordinarily having no monastic background, were in need of instruction themselves, and in no way prepared to instruct their congregations. Brother Martin set out to remedy this. He wrote a simple catechism for the instruction of the laity which is still in use today, as is his translation of the Scriptures into the common tongue. His energy as a writer was prodigious. From 1517, when he first began to write for the public, until his death, he wrote on the average one book a fortnight.

Criticisms and Conflict

Today, his criticisms of the laxness and frequent abuses of his day are generally recognized on all sides as a response to very real problems. It was perhaps inevitable, however, that they should arouse resentment in his own day (Brother Martin, and for that matter many of his opponents, had controversial manners that my high school speech teacher and debate coach would never have tolerated!), and he spent much of his life in conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. The disputes were complicated by extraneous political considerations on both sides, and, as one of his admirers has observed, each side was at its best when proclaiming what the other side, well considered and in a cool hour, did not really deny.

Salvation as a free gift

Brother Martin, for example, was most ardent in maintaining that salvation was a free gift of God, and that all attempts to earn or deserve it are worse than useless. But he was not alone in holding this. When his followers met in 1540 with Cardinal Contarini, the Papal delegate, in an effort to arrive at an understanding, there was complete agreement on this point. The Cardinal, by a study of the Epistle to the Romans, had arrived in 1511 at the same position as Brother Martin in 1517. So had Cardinal Pole, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who had, ironically, been appointed to combat Brother Martin’s influence). So had the Archbishop of Cologne, and so had many other highly placed Church officials.

Rudiments of the Faith

In Brother Martin’s own judgement, his greatest achievement was his catechism, by the use of which all Christians without exception might be instructed in at least the rudiments of the Faith. Some of his admirers, however, would insist that his greatest achievement was the Council of Trent, which he did not live to see, but which he was arguably the greatest single factor in bringing about. While the Council’s doctrinal pronouncements were not all that Brother Martin would have wished, it did take very much to heart his strictures on financial abuses, and undertook considerable reforms in those areas It banned the sale of indulgences and of church offices, and took steps to provide for the systematic education of the clergy. Putting it another way, if I were arguing with an adherent of the Pope, and I wanted to point out to him that many Popes have been, even by ordinary grading-on-a-curve standards, wicked men, cynically exploiting their office for personal gain, I would have no difficulty in finding examples from the three centuries immediately preceding Brother Martin and the Council of Trent. If I were restricted to the centuries afterward, I should have more of a problem. And this is, under God, due in some measure to Brother Martin’s making himself a nuisance. Thanks be to God for an occasional nuisance at the right time and place.

Behold, Lord
An empty vessel that needs
To be filled.

My Lord, fill it
I am weak in the faith;
Strengthen me.
I am cold in love;
Warm me and make me fervent,
That my love may go out

To my neighbor…
O Lord, help me.
Strengthen my faith and

Trust in you…
With me, there is an

Abundance of sin;
In You is the fullness of

Righteousness.
Therefore I will remain

With You,
O whom I can receive,
But to Whom I may not give.

–Brother Martin Luther of Erfurt (1483-1546)

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Martin Luther, prayer