Christopher Hilber Milligan European History 19 August 2024 A Life of Martin Luther Roland H. Bainton’s biography, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, uncovers Luther’s motives for reforming the Catholic Church. It begins Luther’s early life with a remarkable story about his vocation. He was traveling from his home to his college, the University of Erfurt in Germany, when suddenly he was struck by a bolt of lightning. After being thrown into a panic, a young Luther shouted, “Help! Saint Anne, I will become a monk!”(Bainton 5). Luther stuck to his promise and entered the monastery. Through his studies not only was Luther able to study the Scriptures and Gospels, but also theology and philosophy. He kept his inner thoughts and burning questions …show more content…
In this debate, Luther discredits the holiness of the establishment, stating “that the papacy was of recent and therefore human origin” (Bainton 97). The Catholic belief that the Church is the bride of Christ is completely undermined here, and Luther very loudly voices his separation from the ideals of the Church. And with the papacy being “of human origin”, he comes to the conclusion that the pope himself is the Antichrist. He holds this belief because the pope shepherds the papacy, “a system which” he believes, “corrupts the truth of Christ” (Bainton 99). Eck points out that the pope’s main purpose is to interpret the Scriptures so other Christians can understand, Luther sees the pope as having the power to adulterate and thus rule supreme over it. A member of the pope’s holy Council, in an attempt to explain that the pope’s job is to explicitly interpret the Scriptures, argues, “Scripture has to be interpreted” and that, “the pope is the interpreter” (Bainton 84). Ultimately, while the Church holds that the pope’s goal is to explain Scripture, Martin Luther views the pope as holding the authority to become