He framed a list of propositions on the points in question. They were
in Latin, for his appeal was to theologians, and not yet to the common
heart and mind of Germany. To make them public, he took advantage of a
great festival at Wittenberg, when the town was full of visitors and
strangers, and nailed them to the door of the new castle church,
October 31, 1517.
These were the famous _Ninety-five Theses_. They were plainly-worded
statements of the same points he had made in the confessional and in
his sermon. They contained no assault upon the Church, no arraignment
of the pope, no personal attack on any one. Neither were they given as
necessarily true, but as what Luther believed to be true, and the real
truth or falsity of which he desired to have decided in the only way
questions of faith and salvation can be rightly decided.
The whole matter was fairly, humbly, and legitimately put. "I, Martin
Luther, Augustinian at Wittenberg," he added at the end, "hereby
declare that I have written these propositions against indulgences. I
understand that some, not knowing what they affirm, are of opinion
that I am a heretic, though our renowned university has not condemned
me, nor any temporal or spiritual authority. Therefore, now again, as
often heretofore, I beg of one and all, for the sake of the true
Christian faith, to show me the better way, if peradventure they have
learned it from above, or at least to submit their opinion to the
decision of God and the Church; for I am not so insane as to set up my
views above everything and everybody, nor so silly as to accept the
fables invented by men in preference to the Word of God."
It is from the nailing up of these _Theses_ that the history of the
Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that
parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of
Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for a
thousand years.