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conversations.value: What is a plot for a book about Luther, Luther\'s, Elector entitled Martin Luther?
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conversations.value: Martin Luther (1953 film): Narrator John Wiggin begins the film with a scholarly overview of the place and time of the life of Martin Luther.\nHe points out that power is divided between the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.\nTo set the stage for the presentation of Luther\'s conflict with the church of his day he states, "the church had largely forgotten the mercies of God and, instead, it emphasized God\'s implacable judgments".\nSince he will soon be entering the Augustinian cloister Martin Luther holds a "going away" party at a local public house with his fellow law students.\nConspicuous among his guests is George Spalatin, who provides an inquiring interest into Luther\'s motivation to leave the study of law.\nLuther\'s entrance into monastic life is then portrayed.\nHe does not find the spiritual peace he sought even though he follows a strict regimen of ascetic piety to the point of flagellating himself half to death.\nHe is shown in sheer terror at the celebration of his first Mass as a newly ordained priest.\nAfter he struggles through his first Mass he confesses to his mentor, Vicar General Johann von Staupitz that he cannot love God.\nSubsequently, the dour-faced prior proposes expelling Luther from the order because of his restless mind, but Staupitz believes that rigorous theological study and a pilgrimage embassy to Rome will help the troubled young monk.\nAfter he had returned from Rome, just after completing a prayer office, Luther expresses his opinion to his fellow monks that the common people could more easily find God to be merciful if they had the Holy Scriptures in their vernacular language.\nHe is then confronted and scolded by his stern prior.\nThen while studying in the Erfurt university library Luther is met by George Spalatin, who had also left the study of the law for a vocation in the church: in his case to serve Frederick III, Elector of Saxony.\nSpalatin renews his interest in Luther\'s quest, "Have you found what you were looking for.\n" Luther responds, "Not yet".\nSpalatin then recommends Luther to the Elector as a preacher at the castle church and professor of Biblical studies at the newly founded University of Wittenberg.\nLuther is then shown baptizing an infant in the castle church.\nAt Wittenberg, Luther receives his degree of Doctor of Theology when he promises to be a faithful teacher in the church; however, he has difficulty in accepting the practice even there in Wittenberg of collecting and showcasing relics.\nThe film presents Luther as having undergone his "reformatory discovery" through his study of the Epistle to the Romans for his lectures on this biblical book.\nHe tells his mentor Staupitz that one only need have faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.\nStaupitz leaves unpersuaded, but Luther writes the word "sola" (alone) in the margin of his Latin Bible to show his firm persuasion in the doctrine of justification by faith alone.\nA few years go by.\nIt is now 1517, and in Rome Pope Leo X arranges with Archbishop Albert to promulgate in Germany a special jubilee indulgence.\nJohann Tetzel is the main preacher of this indulgence, and his pitch is presented in public with the beating of drums.\nThat same evening Martin Luther comes across one of his parishioners in a drunken stupor with the conviction that he does not need to go to confession anymore because he has bought one of Tetzel\'s indulgences.\nLuther then preaches against what he believes to be the abuse of indulgences with the appeal, "Beloved, you cannot buy God\'s mercy".\nHe then also posts his The Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the castle church, which does not seem to arouse any attention until his theses are copied down, translated, and printed for all of Germany to read, hear, and comment about.\nTetzel finds that his sales of indulgences have fallen off, which moves Archbishop Albert of Mainz to send a copy of Luther\'s theses to the pope.\nIn 1519 Andreas Karlstadt tells Luther and newly installed professor Philipp Melanchthon of his being invited to Leipzig to debate what he calls "our theses".\nTo Karlstadt\'s disappointment Luther invites himself and Melanchthon along.\nWhen they arrive in Lepzig, they see that there is a movement afoot to link Luther with Jan Hus in order to brand him as a heretic.\nLuther debates Johann Eck, who shouts, "Heresy, dr Luther, Heresy.\n" with Luther responding, "So be it.\nIt is still the truth.\n" After the debate at which he was present Staupitz releases Luther from his vows as an Augustinian monk when Luther refuses to stop promoting his doctrine.\nThe pope is furious with Luther\'s publications of 1520 (On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, and On the Freedom of a Christian), so he issues his bull Exsurge Domine threatening Luther with excommunication.\nIt too is disseminated in as public a manner as Luther\'s Ninety-five Theses, but Luther responds by burning it on the deadline demanded for his retraction.\nCardinal Aleander goes to Elector Frederick to demand that he hand Luther over to the pope.\nIt is there that the film has him meet Desiderius Erasmus, who seems to trivialize the matter.\nThe Elector says that Luther will appear at the upcoming Diet of Worms.\nAt Worms Luther is surprised by the procedure instigated by Aleander of simply asking him if he acknowledges his printed writings and whether he is willing to retract any of his assertions in those writings.\nLuther asks for time and is given until the next day.\nThen he gives his answer that he will not recant, ending with, "Here I stand.\nI can do no other.\nGod help me.\nAmen".\nEmperor Charles V angrily promulgates his Edict of Worms outlawing Luther and giving him twenty-one days to return to Wittenberg.\nElector Frederick, spurned by the emperor, has Luther quietly abducted to his stronghold of the Wartburg near Eisenach where for almost a year Luther stays in hiding.\nIt is here that he translates the New Testament into German.\nHe has a retainer of the Elector read a portion of John 6 to show that "a German lark can sing as sweetly as any Greek or Latin nightingale".\nLuther\'s exile is brought to a close with Karlstadt\'s revolutionary uprising in Wittenberg and the Electorate of Saxony, which causes churches to be desecrated.\nLuther preaches his "how dare you" (Invocavit) sermons to restore order to his troubled congregation.\nIn the course of the film, Luther is shown marrying a former nun Katharina von Bora to the delight of his father, who is shown attending the wedding.\nLuther and Kathie\'s family room is the scene of Luther holding instructions from his catechism.\nHe is dismayed that he cannot join his fellow reformers in Augsburg as they appear before the diet there in 1530.\nThere the Augsburg Confession is courageously presented to the emperor followed in the film by the pealing of bells, and Luther offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God for his faithfulness to his generation.\nThe film ends with the people of his congregation, young and old, rich and poor alike, singing to him his hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God in its isometric tune.
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conversations.value: What is the first three paragraphs for this book?
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conversations.value: Martin Luther
  Some assert that the universal body of the Church has been contracted into a single Roman pontiff, who cannot err on faith and morals, thus ascribing to the pope more than he claims for himself, though they do not hesitate to dispute his judgment if he interferes with their purses or their prospects. Is not this to open the door to tyranny in case such power were wielded by an impious and pestilent man? The same may be said of vows, tithes, restitutions, remissions, and confessions by which the simple and superstitious are beguiled.
  The similarities here with Luther are certainly astounding. But Erasmus was clever in how he went about this business and was therefore canny in how his support of Luther came across. Luther thought him positively slippery, quipping, "Erasmus is an eel. Only Christ can grab him." For example, Erasmus always argued that Luther should get an open hearing, but he was careful never to endorse the man himself. There were differences between them, after all, and Erasmus was not about to let himself and his views get swallowed up like Korah into the widening rift of the Lutheran Reformation.* For example, Luther's incipient nationalism—or at least the Reformation's flirting with nationalism—posed a danger to Erasmus's hopes for a unified Europe. In fact, Erasmus had pointedly dedicated his commentary on the four Gospels to the four sovereigns of the new national states: Henry VIII of England, Ferdinand of Austria, Francis of France, and Charles of Spain. A pan-Europeanism under the unifying aegis of the Roman church was not a small cause for him.
  Although I know full well and hear every day that many people think little of me and say that I only write little pamphlets and sermons in German for the uneducated laity, I do not let that stop me. Would to God that in my lifetime I had, to my fullest ability, helped one layman to be better!
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conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
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conversations.value: It was not until June 15 that the emperor finally arrived at the diet he had called. The procession with which he traveled was like a small city unto itself, flaunting no fewer than one thousand infantry and a phalanx of personal bodyguards. In the rear marched a retinue of "cooks, apothecaries, falconers," and finally—befitting a Spaniard—a monstrous pack of two hundred Spanish dogs. The emperor himself sat astride a milk-white horse under a golden canopy and was arrayed all in gold and carrying a golden sword. It was transfixing and sobering to witness the majesty—and both the implicit and the explicit might—of the empire in this grandest of grand displays. Those in the small group of Protestants attending who saw it understood what it was they dared to defy. If God was not with them, they were certainly in trouble. A few days hence, Jonas would write, "The emperor is surrounded by cardinals... they are in his palace every day, and there is a swarm of priests like bees around him, who burn with hatred against us." But now that Charles and his thousands had at last arrived at Augsburg, the real business of the diet would be attended to with all alacrity.
  On July 15, Luther wrote to Jonas, Spalatin, Melanchthon, and Agricola, counseling them to fold up their tents and return home to Wittenberg:
  I believe that by now you have the answer of the opponents, which, as you write, you were expecting; that is, you will have to hear "fathers, fathers, fathers, church, church, church, usage, custom."* Moreover you will hear nothing taken from Scripture. Based on these arbiters and witnesses, the Emperor will pronounce a verdict against you. Then will follow threats and boasting....
  I could not write any more now because of the hurry. Greet everyone and all! I have for Hansen Luther a big fine piece of sugar which Cyriac has brought from Nürnberg.
  This was another deadlock, so perhaps the can would once more be kicked down history's road to a church council. Still, there was a simple political question to be discussed. Would the emperor and all of the Catholic princes in the next year attempt to strike against the Lutheran princes and at last end the rebellion by force as promised in the Edict of Worms in 1521? Would they do this after April 15, when the Lutheran princes officially gave their answer to Charles's ultimatum? Again Philip of Hesse proposed an alliance of the Reformation factions so that they would be prepared for this eventuality, and Duke John agreed that something must be done.
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conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
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conversations.value: The procession with which he traveled was like a small city unto itself, flaunting no fewer than one thousand infantry and a phalanx of personal bodyguards. In the rear marched a retinue of "cooks, apothecaries, falconers," and finally—befitting a Spaniard—a monstrous pack of two hundred Spanish dogs. The emperor himself sat astride a milk-white horse under a golden canopy and was arrayed all in gold and carrying a golden sword. It was transfixing and sobering to witness the majesty—and both the implicit and the explicit might—of the empire in this grandest of grand displays. Those in the small group of Protestants attending who saw it understood what it was they dared to defy. If God was not with them, they were certainly in trouble. A few days hence, Jonas would write, "The emperor is surrounded by cardinals... they are in his palace every day, and there is a swarm of priests like bees around him, who burn with hatred against us." But now that Charles and his thousands had at last arrived at Augsburg, the real business of the diet would be attended to with all alacrity.
  On July 15, Luther wrote to Jonas, Spalatin, Melanchthon, and Agricola, counseling them to fold up their tents and return home to Wittenberg:
  I believe that by now you have the answer of the opponents, which, as you write, you were expecting; that is, you will have to hear "fathers, fathers, fathers, church, church, church, usage, custom."* Moreover you will hear nothing taken from Scripture. Based on these arbiters and witnesses, the Emperor will pronounce a verdict against you. Then will follow threats and boasting....
  I could not write any more now because of the hurry. Greet everyone and all! I have for Hansen Luther a big fine piece of sugar which Cyriac has brought from Nürnberg.
  This was another deadlock, so perhaps the can would once more be kicked down history's road to a church council. Still, there was a simple political question to be discussed. Would the emperor and all of the Catholic princes in the next year attempt to strike against the Lutheran princes and at last end the rebellion by force as promised in the Edict of Worms in 1521? Would they do this after April 15, when the Lutheran princes officially gave their answer to Charles's ultimatum? Again Philip of Hesse proposed an alliance of the Reformation factions so that they would be prepared for this eventuality, and Duke John agreed that something must be done.
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conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs? End with the sentence ' Via Wikimedia Commons'.
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conversations.value: CHANCELLOR: Your highness knows the common proverb, that the dreams of young girls, learned men, and great lords have usually some hidden meaning. The meaning of this dream, however, we shall not be able to know for some time—not till the things to which it relates have taken place. Wherefore, leave the accomplishment to God, and place it fully in his hand.
  DUKE JOHN: I am of your opinion, Chancellor; 'tis not fit for us to annoy ourselves in attempting to discover the meaning. God will overrule all for his glory.
  THE ELECTOR: May our faithful God do so; yet I shall never forget, this dream. I have, indeed, thought of an interpretation, but I keep it to myself. Time, perhaps, will show if I have been a good diviner.
  So passed the morning of the 31st October, 1517, in the royal castle of Schweinitz. The events of the evening at Wittenberg we have already detailed. The elector has hardly made an end of telling his dream when the monk comes with his hammer to interpret it.
  Here: Decoration from the Martinická Bible, ca. 1429. Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague. Via Wikimedia Commons