You ask, I deliver, guys. That’s how this works.
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter.
Man loves the truth, wants to talk about it with dudes who can’t be in Wittenberg at the time. Got it. Solid.
In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
1. Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said Poenitentiam agite, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance. (Mt 4:17)
“When Christ said repent, he meant we should repent.” Unassailable. I bet that is what he meant when he said repent! I’m tracking so far.
2. This word cannot be understood to mean sacramental penance, i.e., confession and satisfaction, which is administered by the priests.
He’s got you there, priest dudes! At the time there were not priests, so Jesus could not have meant priests. He’s just pointing out the truth!
3. Yet it means not inward repentance only; nay, there is no inward repentance which does not outwardly work divers mortifications of the flesh.
You feel a certain way, you’re gonna act a certain way. YEP. I also like how old-timey guys used to spell “divers” with just one “e.” I don’t know why. I just like it.
4. The penalty of sin, therefore, continues so long as hatred of self continues; for this is the true inward repentance, and continues until our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
Can’t repent before you’ve repented! That is just straight-up how time works. Catholic church, things are NOT looking good for you at the moment.
5. The pope does not intend to remit, and cannot remit any penalties other than those which he has imposed either by his own authority or by that of the Canons.
checks out
6. The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring that it has been remitted by God and by assenting to God’s remission; though, to be sure, he may grant remission in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in such cases were despised, the guilt would remain entirely unforgiven.
sounds solid
7. God remits guilt to no one whom He does not, at the same time, humble in all things and bring into subjection to His vicar, the priest.
honestly can’t argue with this one
8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
I forget what a penitential canon is
9. Therefore the Holy Spirit in the pope is kind to us, because in his decrees he always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.
This sounds like it might be sarcastic, I honestly can’t tell
10. Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory.
Honestly I too am anti-indulgence, gonna take a bold stance in 20 and 16 and say I’m against ’em, quit selling ’em!
11. This changing of the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory is quite evidently one of the tares that were sown while the bishops slept. (Mt 13:25)
OOOOOH
12. In former times the canonical penalties were imposed not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.
lost me again, sorry
13. The dying are freed by death from all penalties; they are already dead to canonical rules, and have a right to be released from them.
Death is like declaring church-based bankruptcy, I’m into it
14. The imperfect health, that is to say, the imperfect love, of the dying brings with it, of necessity, great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.
“EVERYTHING IS TERRIFYING” I GET YOU MARTIN
15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.
“If you are scared enough you go straight to Heaven” THIS IS AN ESCHATOLOGY I CAN GET BEHIND
Heaven: A Home for Scared People
MALLORYohmygosh
Good on him standing up for the dead, not that they care. At least he acknowledges that dying sucks enough that you don’t need to deal with Purgatory as well.
I’m pretty sure #9 is sarcastic. Martin Luther was mocking the Pope for his alleged “kindness” when he was really a super corrupt guy.
Petition to make this part of the A-level History curriculum for those studying the Reformation?
I initially read this headline to mean Malory reviews the 95 Theses, meaning our Mallory was to review the 95 Theses in character as Sir Thomas Malory, and I thought there were going to be a lot of sick burns on Martin Luther because I was conflating Sir Thomas Malory with Sir Thomas More. In the midst of sorting out this confusion I discovered Thomas Malory might have been a rapist and now I’m kind of depressed because I’m a big Le Morte d’Arthur fan so this has been a real roller coaster for me. Anyway, thank you Mallory for continuing to deliver the type of quality eccentric and esoteric content that makes me breathe a deep sigh and feel at home whenever I pull up The Toast. Cheers.
If it’s any consolation, there’s scholarly debate over whether the charges against him were based on actual non-consensual sex, or if he simply had an affair with a married woman, whose husband then charged Malory with the “property crime against my woman-property” kind of rape. This was a time period where the law vacillated wildly between defining consent as a thing that women could give, and a thing that only husbands and fathers could give on behalf of their wives and unmarried daughters.
Specifically, there were two separate statutes on rape, one of them designed to allow a male relative to bring a prosecution when the alleged victim refused to (because they didn’t see any irony in overriding her consent again). Its main use was reputedly by outraged fathers and jealous husbands seeking to punish actually-consensual liaisons. Malory was prosecuted twice under this statute _by the same husband_.
Martin Luther was a hottie. There, I said it.
You ever see the movie where he was played by Joe Fiennes?
Unf.
My entire youth group got dragged to that movie. Afterwards, my friend and I had a long discussion about how he got hotter and hotter as the movie dragged longer and longer. Good times.
In this picture he looks a little like John Darnielle.
Seen Katerina von Bora? No wonder he ditched the whole celibacy thing. The pair of them should have done a ” Babes of the Protestant Reformation ” calendar!
This kind of makes me feel like I did when I saw the “you can only get out of this in the case of DEATH” clause on my student loans. The fear and horror was intense, like the fear of Purgatory.
But you can’t even then, because that debt gets passed on to your children! Sin stops at death, but student loans do not.
could we thus argue that in a capitalist society student loans are the one true sin
They’re certainly the most glaring outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual corruption.
No! Really? I am so sorry, that is horrible.
Yup, student debt isn’t subject to bankruptcy laws, either. You can declare bankruptcy and/or die, and your estate is still responsible for the terrifying amount of debt you accrued when you were under the mistaken impression that it would get you a comfortable job.
I always thought they should make student loans some of the easiest to pay back, not the hardest. Like, why does the government need to make interest? Just let people get some education!
The government doesn’t need the interest. However, many loans are not, in fact, held or serviced by the government. They look like federal loans, they’re advertised like federal loans, but they are in fact held and serviced by private corporations. It’s an incredibly broken and fucked-up system, and is actually a significant part of the exponential increase of the cost of a college education over the last few decades.
Hmm, sounds terrible. (I’m not American, so I’m not 100% on your system. I will maintain that MY government doesn’t need interest on student loans. Even though they do it anyway.)
Yup, it’s pretty terrible. I owe thousands more now than I did when I graduated, and I don’t actually foresee a time when I won’t owe somebody money for my education.
I JUST finished paying mine off years later, and I didn’t even have very many. It’s a terrible thing to expect people to start off their life in debt, especially in such an uncertain job market.
I remember my mom telling me that she was able to make enough money at her summer job (in the 80’s) to pay all of her school expenses for the year. The system just isn’t designed for the current economic realities and at the same time, the biggest (and growing!) wage and employment gap is between those who have bachelor degrees and those who don’t. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t I guess!
8. The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to them, nothing should be imposed on the dying.
I forget what a penitential canon is
You put in a second “n” to make it louder. Penitential canons for the living, penitential cannons for the dying.
Ye gods, this made me howl.
When I die, I want my ashes shot out of a penitential cannon.
A++, would pay for this.
I just spent three minutes comparing your two versions of “penitential” and wondering where the second N was.
ME TOO
Glad it’s not just me! It’s been a long, long week.
Oops. I should have spelled them both “Penitential,” rather than using a lowercase “p” for the second one. There’s no point in using a Penitential cannon for anything less than a capital offense.
“Canonical penalty” and “penitential canons” sound to me like Martin Luther did that thing where you mix up the syllables of two words and then decided to just go with it.
I am a devout Lutheran and a devout Mallory-ite and always enjoy when the things I care about sync up (like when Paul Reiser had a cameo on friends) so this entry is really big for me, personally, is my comment
ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m a former Lutheran (current nothing-an) but still think Martin Luther was a pretty amazing dude so yeah I’m REAL into this
I’m a former Lutheran too but really enjoying this.
Yep! This is entirely my jam, as it could be said.
I’m still a devout-ish Lutheran, despite now being Episcopalian (I don’t think you can grow up Lutheran in the upper Midwest and ever *not* be Lutheran, somewhere deep down in your heart).
Me too, sort of, despite now actually being Catholic. The funny thing is that the Catholics now love Martin Luther. When I went to ask about converting the priest went on and on about how much the Catholic Church loves the Lutherans. Did not see that one coming.
This is also true of Anabaptism.
I think there’s just something about coming from a long line of Renaissance heretics that gets into your blood.
Well they do say that when the Anabaptists were being persecuted in Germany the streets ran knee deep with blood. And blood features heavily in Campbellite hymns.
Yes! Lutherans for Mallory!!
The sheer pleasure of reading this post’s title just caused me to get pregnant with and birth a little orb of joy. I haven’t even read the actual thing yet. God damnit, Mallory.
isn’t the divers’ mortification of the flesh the bends? I take this to be a lyrical double meaning implying both that prayer can lead to painful and potentially lethal decompression sickness and, with typical Lutheran iconoclasm, that Radiohead’s sophomore work in 500some years would be overrated
I also suspected and discovered in researching this well-researched comment that Google will autocomplete several different numbers in the 90s when followed by the word “theses” sooner rather than later. 91 seems indisputable, where 92 is quite reluctant. 98 is autocompleted with “thesis” rather than “theses.” while this leaves me concerned for the state of the human race in general, at least abortion is legal.
apparently I can’t delete duplicate comments I made while not logged in umm oops
1. this is the best reader request ever
2. so, I always pictured that he had 95 DIFFERENT theses, but these say pretty much the same thing, spelled out in bullet points?
What I’m learning here is that Martin Luther invented the listicle. And also clickbait banners, come to think of it, because what’s more attention-catching than nailing your listicle to the church door?
“95 Things You Won’t Believe Are Not In the Bible, by Martin Luther. Number 11 Blew My Mind!”
Perfect. Just perfect.
[history nerd comment]
Most people, including most practicing Christians, totally have the same picture of the Theses, that it was all Lutheran doctrine kind of laid out systematically, when in reality it was a guide to an eventual debate purely on indulgences. The repentance and purgatory theses are just laying groundwork for the overall point which is, “IT’S REAL GROSS TO SCARE ILLITERATE PEASANTS INTO GIVING YOU THEIR FOOD MONEY TO BUY THEIR RELATIVES OUT OF PURGATORY, BRO (subpoint actually I’m not so sure purgatory is even a thing? But anyway.)”
[/history nerd comment]
“Point the first: you guys are dicks”
“Point the second: your justifications for dickishiness are feeble and insulting.”
“Point three: Jesus said NOT to be dicks so what are you even doing here?”
“Point four: do you even go here?”
“Point five: You really aren’t even allowed to be a dick unless God’s being a dick first. And God, by definition, is never a dick sooo”
See, this right here is a religion I could follow.
I totally get it now, so thanks!
I always thought of the Theses as sort of the religious version of a geometric proof. It’s not so much 95 distinct theses as it is a debate-path built of pedant bricks.
I just have to point out (Lutheran with way too many confirmation classes in my past) that the church doors were actually like a community center bulletin board, so nailing a listicle to the church door was the sensible decision!
This comment makes me want to write a listicle on “10 Writers in the Western Canon who Wrote in Listicles.” Nietzsche and Wittgenstein come to mind immediately, though as a clickbait headline, “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” leaves something to be desired.
“I feel afraid and terrible all the time, so I better get some heaven out of this deal” is probably the crux of Western Christianity from Medieval times to the present.
ugh, the grimness. I know the black death had just happened, but did medieval/post-medieval theology HAVE to be so bleak??
isn’t the divers’ mortification of the flesh the bends? I take this to be a lyrical double meaning implying both that prayer can lead to painful and potentially lethal decompression sickness and, with typical Lutheran iconoclasm, that Radiohead’s sophomore work in 500some years would be overrated
in researching this well-researched comment I discovered that Google will autocomplete any number in the 90s with “theses” in fairly short order. 92 autocompletes on the t, where 91 waits for a more respectable the. 98 autocompletes to “98 thesis,” which raises more questions than it answers
I like this just as much the second time as I did the first.
I was on another computer and apparently not logged in! posted it twice! one of my best comments ever sadly shamed
For this double-post shame you should be penitentially forgiven, unless you wanna just table it and pay off the shame in purgatory by having your body fired into the heavens with a penitential cannon.
(that’s when I intend to pay off my debt… after I’m dead, and via a loud raucous bang and clatter!)!
As a history teacher whose favorite period is that weird transition riiiiight at the end of the middle ages, I am Here For This. Can we just chit-chat for a sec about Luther the Insult Comic? The man called the works of Erasmus piles of crap on a beautiful gold platter. He is my fave (except for the anti-semitism) and I love him (again not the anti-semitism).
He was also really into farting. It was a Thing for him.
Ah yes, the comic generator, where I can be called an ass and a devil possibly at the same time.
Yes! YES. Or just listen while he calls the devil an ass! And I mean he was such a dude in so many ways — so aggressively ordinary (favorite topics: beer, music, his bro Phil Melancthon, playing with his kids, having sexytimes with his wife). Also speaking of his wife, HOW ABOUT THAT KATE LUTHER?
Luther can crank out a great insult. “I would not smell the foul odor of your name” is one of my personal favorites (and one of the tamer ones, tbh).
Oooooh snap I love that and am stealing it posthaste.
Later, Lutherans would add the 96th thesis, which is that coffee is a gift from God himself. Until 5 om, when transconsubstantiation into Sanka occurs
I am HERE for Lutheran in-jokes.
I am HERE for coffee, wherever Lutheran in-jokes may be.
I thought this was only for Swedish Lutherans.
Pope Mallory NOW
I’m a Discordian Pope & half want to send Mallory a Pope card and name her Chief Episkopos of Trolling.
If Dan Brown* is to be believed, all we have to do it shout that REALLY LOUD all at once and it WILL BE TRUE.
*I think I read something like this once in a novel, when I was at my grandparents’ house browsing their library? I think it was Dan Brown? Does his name have an e on the end or not? I am not googling. That would make me feel dumb.
A friend of mine turned me on to the absolute joy of reading the 95 Theses/39 Articles of faith (sometimes, the English are more efficient than the Germans), and appending “so there” to the end of each one.
As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.
“So there.”
The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.
“So there”
Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
*drops the mic, skateboards out*
Dirtbag Luther!
That one kind of writes itself.
Dirtbag Luther: [insert Luther’s actual words]
“For you are an excellent person, as skillful, clever, and versed in Holy Scripture as a cow in a walnut tree or a sow on a harp.”
Or, a personal favorite: “You say, “What comes out of our mouth must be kept!” I hear it – which mouth do you mean? The one from which the farts come? (You can keep that yourself!)”
https://churchpop.com/2014/08/10/29-of-martin-lut…
“May God punish you, I say, you shameless, barefaced liar, devil’s mouthpiece, who dares to spit out, before God, before all the angels, before the dear sun, before all the world, your devil’s filth.”
Fra. Savanorola, eat your heart out.
TBF, this was the Convention of the Episcopal Church, and not until 1801. So this is not Luther’s dirtbaggery (and he was way more hardcore about it, anyway).
*adds this to her curriculum*
“Transubstantiation: not even once.”
OK, I admit this comment isn’t really on point
but
when I was in high school, I accidentally ate three slices of pepperoni pizza on a friday in Lent and didn’t feel bad about it and dropped out of Catholicism as a result
BUT
if I had known then that I was entitled to call myself “Romish” I would probably still be in there.
Also a Papist.
Martin Luther, working out his own salvation with fear and trembling and also by changing the course of Western Christian history.
In keeping with The Witch, though, shouldn’t Mallory be reviewing the Westminster Catechism?
Also, in the weirdest way I would be into a Toast-themed Westminster Catechism. WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MALLORY? To glorify her dog, and enjoy him forever.
A+, would read.
#teamPope but I love this so much
(Penitential canons are, I’m pretty sure, your act of penance – i.e., take 2 Hail Marys and call me in the morning)
Also #teamPope. Getting rid of indulgences was totally righteous and awesome, but you can have my icons and saints when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. ETA: It is not a fully-formed faith if there is no bling!
The Quakers might disagree.
(Indulgences are still A Thing, however they can no longer be sold- JPII announced an indulgence in 2000 for people who quit smoking, for example. I’m not sure what logic went into that decision tbh.)
So far I am getting ,”The Pope has no authority over dead people.” Or am I remembering things from history class, and should have put up a spoiler warning on that.
You are enlightening all of Christendom. Great job! 80 more to come, right?
THERE HAD BETTER BE OR IMMA NAIL SOME 80 THESES TO THE TOAST’S DOORS, wherever those may be.
+75 further theses if those give me an excuse to hang out near Sansa.
“15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.
‘If you are scared enough you go straight to Heaven'”
Then my anxiety disorder pretty much guarantees me a spot. At last it comes in handy
I was saving this for Reformation Sunday,but this is also an appropriate time to share it.
I pretend to know a lot more about the Reformation than I do so if Mallory could please annotate all the important documents for me and also explain what the hell Christianity is on about most of the time I would probably be able to overthrow the Pope through theological debate more efficiently just saying
Dear nerds,
You should all read (or see) the play “Wittenberg,” by David Davalos. It features Matin Luther and Faust as Hamlet’s professors, on the eve of all of their stories, and it is a delight. The fictional characters are written in their original styles; Luther is written largely by quoting himself.
That makes me simultaneously SO EXCITED and SO MAD because I thought that was my idea! to mix up all those things that started there! but how lovely that I don’t have to write it, anymore, but can simply read.
I worked on it a few years ago, and the playwright came for our first week to explain so much dramaturgical stuff, AND IT WAS SO GREAT. Enjoy the read!
I got 95 theses cause the Church ain’t fun.
You have just encouraged me to look at Medicare and Medicaid law and do the exact same thing.
Was Luther saying that BDSM is fine, as long as there’s no money involved? Isn’t that what all that “divers mortification of the flesh” is, really?
I’m just here calling for Dirtbag Calvin.
I have no earthly idea how I missed this but THANK YOU, Mallory. I could never have imagined that my tweet could have prompted the creation of something so great. These reviews are delightful AND educational.