Christian History Home > Issue 34 > Legends About Luther
Legends About Luther
Which are true? Which are not?
Dr. Scott A. Hendrix, a family therapist, was formerly professor of Reformation history at Philadelphia Lutheran seminary. He is author of Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict (Fortress, 1981). | posted 4/01/1992 12:00AM
Martin Luther became a legend in his own time. Soon after 1517, as the 95 Theses made him famous, stories and pictures began to paint him larger than life.
One early woodcut portrayed Luther as a young monk holding an open Bible, while rays of light stream from a halo surrounding his head.
After the Diet of Worms in 1521, a popular pamphlet retold the story of Luther’s appearance before Emperor Charles V—with characters and scenes from the Passion of Christ.
While Luther’s followers were eager to make him a saint, his opponents were just as eager to discredit him. One of his earliest biographers, the Catholic critic John Cochlaeus, suggested that Luther seemed peculiar to his monastic brothers because he once suffered a fit during mass. When Luther heard the Gospel lesson (Mark 9:14–29) about the boy with the deaf and dumb spirit cast out by Jesus, he allegedly fell to the floor crying, “It is not me, not me!” This legend has continued to fuel suspicion that Luther suffered from a mental ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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