Description
The publication of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 immediately elicited responses from dozens of Roman Catholics in Germany and beyond. While Luther’s works and those of his leading supporters have been available in English translation for many years, those of most of his Catholic opponents have not. In order to address this imbalance, win a fairer hearing for the Catholic opposition, and make it possible for students to understand both sides of the sixteenth-century religious debates, translators have drawn on the rich resources of the Kessler Reformation Collection at the Pitts Theology Library to present here introductions to and translations of ten Catholic pamphlets.
Luther as Heretic begins with an essay sketching the larger background for these publications. The editors’ goal is that this book will prove useful for teaching and research and will foster a deeper understanding of the sixteenth-century theological discussions by allowing today’s readers to hear voices that have been mostly silent in the English-speaking world for centuries.
About the Author
M. Patrick Graham is the Margaret A. Pitts Professor Emeritus of Theological Bibliography at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and co-editor of The Hebrew Bible Today (1998), Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) and the Commentary (1997).
David Bagchi is the Senior Lecturer in Early Modern and Ecclesiastical History and Co-Director of the Andrew Marvell Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Hull. He is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology (2004) and author of Luther’s Earliest Opponents (1991).
Contents
Contributors
Preface
Abbreviations
Timeline of Key Dates
1. Introduction / David Bagchi
2. Johann Tetzel: Rebuttal Made by Brother Johann Tetzel / Dewey Weiss Kramer
3. Johann Eck: Response on Behalf of Hieronymus Emser / David Bagchi
4. Hieronymus Emser: To the Bull in Wittenberg / Armin Siedlecki
5. Augustin Alveldt: A Sermon in which Brother Augustin of Alveldt Expresses His Complaint / Kurt K. Hendel
6. Wolfgang Wulffer: Against the Unholy Rebellion of Martin Luder / Martin Lohrmann
7. Augustin Alveldt: Against the Wittenberg Idol Martin Luther / Geoffrey Dipple
8. Johannes Cochlaeus: The Seven-Headed Luther / Ralph Keen
9. Konrad Wimpina and Others: Against Martin Luther’s Confession / Dewey Weiss Kramer
10. Paul Bachmann: Response to Luther’s Open Letter to Albert of Mainz / William R. Russell
11. Johann Eck: Address at Regensburg / David Ryan Stevenson
Index of Topics
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Names
Scripture Index
Endorsements and Reviews
Ten Catholic critics of Luther and the Reformation come to brilliant light and life in this excellent collection of texts, newly translated into English and crisply introduced. Scholars and students alike of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation will learn from these striking examples of rhetorical and theological hardball played at a furious pace.
John Witte Jr, Emory University
