At the time of the Crusades the popes had granted to all who took part in them remission from church penalties.  At a later date the same indulgence was granted to penitents who aided the holy wars with money instead of in person.  At a still later date remission from the penalties of sin might be obtained by pious work, such as building churches, etc.  When the Turks threatened Europe, those who fought against them obtained indulgence.  In the instance of the issue of indulgences by Leo X. the pious work required was the giving of alms in aid of the completion of the great cathedral of St. Peter’s at Rome.

This purpose did not differ in character from others for which indulgences had previously been granted, and there is nothing to show that any disregard of the requisite conditions was authorized by the pope; but there is reason to believe that some of the agents for the disposal of these indulgences went much beyond the intention of the decree.  This was especially the case in the instance of a Dominican monk named Tetzel, who is charged with openly asserting what few or no other Catholics appear to have ever claimed, that the indulgences not only released the purchasers from the necessity of penance, but absolved them from all the consequences of sin in this world or the next.

We shall not go into the details of the venalities charged against Tetzel, whose field of labor was in Saxony, but they seem to have been sufficient to cause a strong feeling of dissatisfaction, which at length found a voice in Martin Luther, who preached vigorously against Tetzel and his methods and wrote to the princes and bishops begging them to refuse this irreligious dealer in indulgences a passage through their dominions.

The near approach of Tetzel to Wittenberg roused Luther to more decided action.  He now wrote out ninety-five propositions in which he set forth in the strongest language his reasons for opposing and his view of the pernicious effects of Tetzel’s doctrine of indulgences.  These he nailed to the door of the Castle church of Wittenberg.  The effect produced by them was extraordinary.  The news of the protest spread with the greatest rapidity and within a fortnight copies of it had been distributed throughout Germany.  Within five or six weeks it was being read over a great part of Europe.  On all sides it aroused a deep public interest and excitement and became the great sensation of the day.

We cannot go into the details of what followed.  Luther’s propositions were like a thunderbolt flung into the mind of Germany.  Everywhere deep thought was aroused and a host of those who had been displeased with Tetzel’s methods sustained him in his act.  Other papers from his pen followed in which his revolt from the Church of Rome grew wider and deeper.  His energetic assault aroused a number of opponents and an active controversy ensued; ending in Luther’s being cited to appear before Cajetan, the pope’s legate, at Augsburg.  From this meeting no definite result came.  After a heated argument Cajetan ended the controversy with the following words: