Protestantism

Why the seven books were set apart: the Hebrew list, as St. Jerome gave it

“This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a “helmeted” introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is not found in our list must be placed amongst the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The full Catholic answer: The Old Testament canon

Three centuries before Luther: a council warns against the misuse of indulgences

“Let those who are sent to seek alms be modest and discreet, and let them not stay in taverns or other unsuitable places or incur useless or excessive expenses, being careful above all not to wear the garb of false religion. Moreover, because the keys of the church are brought into contempt and satisfaction through penance loses its force through indiscriminate and excessive indulgences, which certain prelates of churches do not fear to grant, we therefore decree that when a basilica is dedicated, the indulgence shall not be for more than one year”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

Before the Reformation: the Old Testament books a council named

“It accepts and venerates their books, whose titles are as follows. … Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, Psalms of David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel; … two books of the Maccabees”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The full Catholic answer: The Old Testament canon

Luther becomes an Augustinian friar and a priest

“As we have just heard, this is where Luther studied theology. This is where he celebrated his first Mass. Against his father's wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine. And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life's journey. "How do I receive the grace of God?": this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

A troubled conscience: Luther's own account of his struggle

“But I, blameless monk that I was, felt that before God I was a sinner with an extremely troubled conscience. I couldn't be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners. In silence, if I did not blaspheme, then certainly I grumbled vehemently and got angry at God.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

Before indulgences: Luther on disorder at home in the Church

“I often regret and deplore that we Christians have begun to be wise abroad and fools at home. A hundred times worse blasphemies than this exist in the very streets of Jerusalem, and the high places are filled with spiritual idols. We ought to show our excessive zeal in removing these offences which are our real, intestine enemies.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

Before indulgences: "Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness"

“Now I would like to know whether your soul, tired of her own righteousness, would learn to breathe and confide in the righteousness of Christ. … Therefore, my sweet brother, learn Christ and him crucified; learn to pray to him despairing Of Yourself, saying: Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin; thou has taken on thyself what thou wast not, and hast given to me what I was not. Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to seem to Yourself, or to be, a sinner. For Christ only dwells in sinners.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The indulgence for St. Peter's: what Luther says the people were led to believe

“Papal indulgences for the building of St. Peter's are circulating under your most distinguished name, and as regards them, I do not bring accusation against the outcries of the preachers, which I have not heard, so much as I grieve over the wholly false impressions which the people have conceived from them; to wit, -- the unhappy souls believe that if they have purchased letters of indulgence they are sure of their salvation; again, that so soon as they cast their contributions into the money-box, souls fly out of purgatory”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

Luther's complaint about the archbishop's instruction to the preachers

“it is the first and the sole duty of all bishops that the people should learn the Gospel and the love of Christ … it is said in the Instruction to the Commissaries which is issued under your name, Most Reverend Father (doubtless without your knowledge and consent), that one of the chief graces of indulgence is that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to God, and all the penalties of purgatory are destroyed. Again, it is said that contrition is not necessary in those who purchase souls … or buy confessionalia.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The Ninety-five Theses: repentance, and the limits of the pope's pardon

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance. … The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The Ninety-five Theses: against the indulgence preachers

“Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences. … They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory. … Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The Ninety-five Theses: what Christians are to be taught

“Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters. … Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences. … Let him who speaks against the truth concerning papal indulgences be anathema and accursed. … But let him who guards against the lust and license of the indulgence preachers be blessed.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The Ninety-five Theses: the questions of the laity

“This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity. … "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

Luther's account of how his struggle ended: "the just person lives by faith"

“I meditated night and day on those words until at last, by the mercy of God, I paid attention to their context: "The justice of God is revealed in it, as it is written: 'The just person lives by faith.'" I began to understand that in this verse the justice of God is that by which the just person lives by a gift of God, that is by faith. … All at once I felt that I had been born again and entered into paradise itself through open gates.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The Church's reply: Luther's propositions on indulgences

“17. The treasures of the Church, from which the pope grants indulgences, are not the merits of Christ and of the saints. 18. Indulgences are pious frauds of the faithful, and remissions of good works; and they are among the number of those things which are allowed, and not of the number of those which are advantageous. 19. Indulgences are of no avail to those who truly gain them, for the remission of the penalty due to actual sin in the sight of divine justice. 20. They are seduced who believe that indulgences are salutary and useful for the fruit of the spirit.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The Church's reply: the forty-one propositions condemned

“With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The Church's reply to Luther: propositions on the pope, the Church and purgatory

“25. The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter. … 27. It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or the pope to decide upon the articles of faith, and much less concerning the laws for morals or for good works. … 37. Purgatory cannot be proved from Sacred Scripture which is in the canon.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The full Catholic answer: The office of Peter

No ordained priesthood apart from all believers

“…all Christians are truly of the Spiritual Estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. … Thus we are all consecrated as priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: "Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter ii. 9)”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Scripture judged by each believer, not by the pope

“Therefore it is a wickedly devised fable, and they cannot quote a single letter to confirm it, that it is for the Pope alone to interpret the Scriptures or to confirm the interpretation of them … we should boldly judge what they do and what they leave undone, by our own understanding of the Scriptures, and force them to follow the better understanding, and not their own.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Clergy free to marry

“Therefore, we teach clearly according to the Apostle, that every town should elect a pious learned citizen from the congregation and charge him with the office of minister; the congregation should support him and he should be left at liberty to marry or not. … My advice is, to restore liberty, and to leave every man free to marry or not to marry.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

No sacrifice in the Mass

“We must also get rid of another scandal, which is a much greater and a very specious one; that is, that the mass is universally believed to be a sacrifice offered to God. … Unless we hold the mass to be the promise or testament of Christ, according to the plain meaning of the words, we lose all the gospel and our whole comfort. Let us allow nothing to prevail against those words, even if an angel from heaven taught us otherwise. Now in these words there is nothing about a work or sacrifice.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Faith alone

“Hence it is clear that, as the soul needs the word alone for life and justification, so it is justified by faith alone and not by any works. For if it could be justified by any other means, it would have no need of the word, nor consequently of faith.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Luther is excommunicated

“Nevertheless Martin himself—and it gives us grievous sorrow and perplexity to say this—the slave of a depraved mind, has scorned to revoke his errors within the prescribed interval and to send us word of such revocation, or to come to us himself; nay, like a stone of stumbling, he has feared not to write and preach worse things than before against us and this Holy See and the Catholic faith, and to lead others on to do the same. He has now been declared a heretic”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

Luther at the Diet of Worms

“Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils alone; it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God: I can not and will not recant any thing, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do any thing against the conscience.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Mass as a memorial, not a sacrifice

“Christ, who offered himself once on the cross, is the sacrifice and victim that makes satisfaction for ever for the sins of all the faithful. From this it follows that the Mass is not a sacrifice, but a commemoration of the sacrifice offered once on the cross and, as it were, a seal of the redemption through Christ …”

Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:

“Christus qui sese semel in cruce obtulit hostia est et victima satisfaciens in æternum pro peccatis omnium fidelium. Ex quo colligitur, missam non esse sacrificium, sed sacrificii in cruce semel oblati commemorationem et quasi sigillum redemptionis per Christum …”

Read it in the source: CCEL

No prayer to the saints

“God gives us all things through Christ and in the name of Christ. From this it follows that outside this life we need no intercessor but Christ.”

Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:

“Omnia nobis per Christum et in nomine Christi præstat Deus. Hinc sequitur, nobis extra hanc vitam intercessore præter Christum nullo opus esse.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

No purgatory

“Holy Scripture knows of no purgatory after this life.”

Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:

“Scriptura sacra purgatorium post hanc vitam nullum novit.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Lord's Supper without a bodily presence

“That the body and blood of Christ are received essentially and bodily in the bread of the Eucharist cannot be shown from Holy Scripture.”

Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:

“Quod corpus et sanguis Christi essentialiter et corporaliter in pane Eucharistiæ percipiatur, ex Scriptura Sacra non potest demonstrari.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Images removed from churches

“To make images for worship is contrary to the Word of God contained in the books of the Old and New Testament. Therefore, where they are set up with danger of being adored, they are to be removed.”

Our translation. The words as written, in Latin:

“Imagines fabricare cultus gratia, Dei Verbo, Veteris et Novi Testamenti libris comprehenso repugnat. Idcirco si sub periculo adorationis proponantur, abolendæ.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Reformers divided on the Lord's Supper

“…the sacrament of the altar is the sacrament of the very body and very blood of Jesus Christ; and that the spiritual manducation of this body and blood is specially necessary to every true Christian. … And although at present we are not agreed on the question whether the real body and blood of Christ are corporally present in the bread and wine, yet both parties shall cherish Christian charity for one another, so far as the conscience of each will permit”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Lutheran confession rejects the denial of the presence

“Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the [true] body and blood of Christ are truly present [under the form of bread and wine], and are [there] communicated to those that eat in the Lord's Supper [and receive]. And they disapprove of those that teach otherwise [wherefore also the opposite doctrine is rejected].”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Baptism for believers only, as the Lutherans recorded it

“They condemn the Anabaptists who allow not the Baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without Baptism.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The seven books: Luther's German Bible prints them apart as "Apocrypha"

“books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Why the seven books were set apart: Luther's own judgments on them

“The author of the book of Ecclesiasticus preaches the law well, but he is no prophet. … The book of Judith is not a history. It accords not with geography. I believe it is a poem, like the legends of the saints … I take the book of Tobit to be a comedy concerning women, an example for house-government. I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Scripture alone

“For it will not do to frame articles of faith from the works or words of the holy Fathers … The rule is: The Word of God shall establish articles of faith, and no one else, not even an angel.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Council of Trent opens

“Doth it please you,–unto the praise and glory of the holy and undivided Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost ; for the increase and exaltation of the Christian faith and religion; for the extirpation of heresies; for the peace and union of the Church; for the reformation of the Clergy and Christian people; for the depression and extinction of the enemies of the Christian name,–to decree and declare that the sacred and general council of Trent do begin, and hath begun?”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The Church's reply on the seven books

“And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one’s mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below: of the Old Testament: … Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; … two books of the Machabees, the first and the second.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The full Catholic answer: The Old Testament canon

Reform at Trent: bishops must preach the Gospel, and alms-collectors may not preach

“But seeing that the preaching of the Gospel is no less necessary to the Christian commonwealth than the reading thereof; and whereas this is the principal duty of bishops; the same holy Synod hath resolved and decreed, that all bishops, archbishops, primates, and all other prelates of the churches be bound personally–if they be not lawfully hindered–to preach the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ. … Those who quest for alms–who are also commonly called Questors-of whatsoever condition they may be, shall not in any way presume, either personally, or by another, to preach”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The Church's reply on faith alone

“If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The full Catholic answer: Faith and works

The Church's reply on the words "This is my body"

“…He testified, in express and clear words, that He gave them His own very Body, and His own Blood; words which,-recorded by the holy Evangelists, and afterwards repeated by Saint Paul, whereas they carry with them that proper and most manifest meaning in which they were understood by the Fathers,-it is indeed a crime the most unworthy that they should be wrested, by certain contentions and wicked men, to fictitious and imaginary tropes, whereby the verity of the flesh and blood of Christ is denied, contrary to the universal sense of the Church”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The full Catholic answer: The Real Presence

The rock as Peter's confession, used against the papal office

“…how futilely those argue who, out of the mere name of Peter, would rear up a governing power over the whole Church. … Peter had confessed in his own name, and that of his brethren, that Christ was the Son of God (Mt. 16:16). On this rock Christ builds his Church, because it is the only foundation; as Paul says, "Other foundation than this can no man lay" (1 Cor. 3:11).”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The elect cannot lose salvation ("once saved, always saved")

“But Christ has freed us from anxiety on this head; for the following promises undoubtedly have respect to the future … Again, when he declares, "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up," (Mt. 15:13), he intimates conversely that those who have their root in God can never be deprived of their salvation.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The seven books: a Reformed confession lists them as apocryphal

“We distinguish between these holy books and the apocryphal ones, which are the third and fourth books of Esdras; the books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Jesus Sirach, Baruch … and the two books of Maccabees. The church may certainly read these books and learn from them as far as they agree with the canonical books. But they do not have such power and virtue that one could confirm from their testimony any point of faith or of the Christian religion.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

Reform at Trent: the office of the alms-collectors abolished

“Whereas many remedies, heretofore applied by divers councils in their day, as well by that of Lateran, and of Lyons, as by that of Vienne, against the wicked abuses of questors of alms, have become in later times useless; yea, rather the depravity of such is, to the great scandal and complaint of all the faithful, found daily so to increase the more, as that there seems to be no longer any hope left of their amendment; (the Synod) ordains that, in all parts of Christendom soever, their name and use be henceforth utterly abolished”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The Council of Trent on indulgences: the power kept, the trade abolished

“Whereas the power of conferring Indulgences was granted by Christ to the Church; and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power, delivered unto her of God; the sacred holy Synod teaches, and enjoins, that the use of Indulgences, for the Christian people most salutary, and approved of … by the authority of sacred Councils, is to be retained in the Church; and It condemns with anathema those who either assert, that they are useless; or who deny that there is in the Church the power of granting them. … And being desirous that the abuses which have crept therein, and by occasion of which this honourable name of Indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, be amended and corrected, It ordains generally by this decree, that all evil gains for the obtaining thereof,–whence a most prolific cause of abuses amongst the Christian people has been derived,–be wholly abolished.”

Read it in the source: Papal Encyclicals Online

The seven books: the Church of England reads them but proves no doctrine from them

“And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following: … The Book of Tobias, The Book of Judith, The rest of the Book of Esther, The Book of Wisdom, Jesus the Son of Sirach, Baruch the Prophet, … The First Book of Maccabees, The Second Book of Maccabees.”

Read it in the source: Fordham Sourcebook

The seven books: the Westminster Confession gives them no authority in the church

“The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the Canon of the Scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

Baptism as a sign, for believers only

“Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death and resurrection; of his being engrafted into him; of remission of sins; and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to live and walk in newness of life. 2. Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus, are the only proper subjects of this ordinance.”

Read it in the source: CCEL

The Second Vatican Council on separated Christians

“But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions made their appearance and quite large communities came to be separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame. The children who are born into these Communities and who grow up believing in Christ cannot be accused of the sin involved in the separation, and the Catholic Church embraces upon them as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

Pope Paul VI on the misuse of indulgences

“Unfortunately, the practice of indulgences has at times been improperly used either through "untimely and superfluous indulgences" by which the power of the keys was humiliated and penitential satisfaction weakened, or through the collection of "illicit profits" by which indulgences were blasphemously defamed.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

What the Church teaches an indulgence is

“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

Pope John Paul II on the causes of the separation

“Luther's call for the reform of the Church was, in its original intention, a call to repentance and renewal, which have to begin in the life of each individual. That separation nevertheless came out of this beginning has many causes. Among them is that failure in the Catholic Church which Pope Adrian VI already lamented in moving words, as well as the intrusion of political and economic interests, but also Luther's own passion, which drove him far beyond what he first intended into a radical criticism of the Catholic Church, of her order of life and of her teaching. We have all taken guilt upon ourselves.”

Our translation. The words as written, in German:

“Luthers Ruf nach Reform der Kirche war in seiner ursprünglichen Absicht ein Aufruf zu Buße und Erneuerung, die im Leben eines jeden einzelnen zu beginnen haben. Daß dennoch Trennung aus diesem Anfang geworden ist, hat viele Gründe. Dazu gehört jenes Versagen in der katholischen Kirche, das bereits Papst Hadrian VI. mit bewegenden Worten beklagt hat sowie das Hereintreten politischer und wirtschaftlicher Interessen, aber auch Luthers eigene Leidenschaft, die ihn weit über das anfangs Gewollte hinaus in eine radikale Kritik der katholischen Kirche, ihrer Lebensordnung und ihrer Lehre hineingetrieben hat. Wir alle haben Schuld auf uns geladen.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

“Representatives of the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation are signing a Joint Declaration on one of the principal points which have divided Catholics and Lutherans: the doctrine of justification by faith. This is a milestone on the difficult path to re-establishing full unity among Christians, and it is highly significant that it is taking place in the exact city where in 1530 a decisive page in the Lutheran reform was written with the Augsburg Confession.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va

The full Catholic answer: Faith and works

Catholics and Lutherans mark five hundred years

“While we are profoundly thankful for the spiritual and theological gifts received through the Reformation, we also confess and lament before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church. Theological differences were accompanied by prejudice and conflicts, and religion was instrumentalized for political ends.”

Read it in the source: vatican.va