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An adviser to sixteenth-century tourists remarked that people who return from their travels without having seen Martin Luther and the pope “have seen nothing.” This man later became a bishop of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and one of Luther’s opponents.

Another person read Luther’s works and declared, “The church has never seen a greater heretic!” But upon reflection he exclaimed, “He alone is right!” This man became a reformer, and Luther regularly made private confession to him.

How could one friar and professor evoke such conflicting reactions?

The answer is simplicity itself. This man, who continues to speak after half a millennium, either taught the core of the Christian faith correctly or is still leading souls astray. As he himself put it, “Others before me have contested practice. But to contest doctrine, that is to grab the goose by the neck!”

Contrary to some romantic speculations, Luther’s childhood had almost nothing to do with his becoming a revolutionary theologian. He was born almost in transit on November 10, 1483, at Eisleben (about 120 miles southwest of modern Berlin), where both parents may have worked as domestic servants.

Within the year, the family moved to Mansfeld, where his father, Hans Luder (as it was locally pronounced), found work in the local copper mines. Hans quickly climbed, perhaps with the help of relatives, to ownership or part-ownership of several mines and smelters. He even became a member of the city council. Cranach’s painting of the elderly Luder shows him in a fine woven coat with a fur collar.

Luther remembered his childhood in part for (in today’s terms) its physical abuse. He was beaten by both his mother and father in truly frightening ways. He became so estranged from his father on one occasion that Hans sought his forgiveness. But Hans did come to his son. As Luther also remembered, “He meant well by me.” Perhaps the strict discipline reflected no more than a family that willed to be successful, and was so. There was certainly nothing unusual about it.

There is also no evidence of anything unusual or rebellious about the family’s piety. Margaretha, Luther’s mother, shared the common superstitions of the time. For example, she blamed the death of one of her sons on a neighbor, whom she regarded as a witch. Hans joined in seeking a special indulgence for the local parish church. As a youngster, Luther imbibed a religion in which one had to strive for future salvation just as one had to work for material survival.

In this setting, two unspectacular matters set Luther apart.

First, Hans (who could have satisfied himself with having the lad learn to read, write, and cipher, and then go into the family business) sent the boy to Latin school and finally on to the University of Erfurt. In making this farsighted decision, Hans was ambitious not just for his son, but also for the entire family. If he succeeded, young Luther would become a lawyer, who, whether in the church or at court, could then provide handsomely for both parents and siblings.

Second, the youth who left home before his fourteenth birthday proved to be extraordinarily intelligent. He earned both his baccalaureate and master’s degrees in the shortest time allowed by the statutes of the University of Erfurt. He proceeded directly to the faculty of law. He proved so adept at disputations (public debates that were the principal means of learning and teaching) that he earned the nickname “The Philosopher.” Hans was so pleased that he gave his son the costly gift of the central text for legal studies at the time, the Corpus Juris Civilis.

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