The Dominican monk whose sales of indulgences—tasked by Prince-Archbishop Albrecht of Brandenburg—in Germany provoked the ire of Martin Luther who responded with his Ninety-Five Theses that eventually sparked the Reformation.
Nearly twenty years older than Martin Luther, Johann Tetzel was educated at Leipzig University and not particularly bright as a theologian. Before his involvement in the Albrecht of Brandenburg's commission to peddle indulgences he was a member of the Inquisition. But he had a flare for commercialism and his method of promoting the indulgences in the regions of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, straying beyond the guidelines set for him by the Archbiship, caused a scandal. He gave the impression that the purchase of an indulgence alone would suffice to deliver a person from purgatory. Famous among his sales catchphrases is "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory will spring," and "Place your penny on the drum, the Pearly Gates opens and out strolls mum." It was even reported that he claimed that an indulgence can deliver a man from purgatory even if he has raped the Virgin Mary. With Luther at this point in his own spiritual journey having already discovered the liberty of salvation by faith and grace alone, Tetzel's preaching about the indulgences was the antithesis of his own convictions; it was only natural that Luther should react so strongly to this. Additionally Tetzel presented Luther with a very real pastoral problem: even though the indulgences had been prohibited for sale in Saxony where Luther resided, Tetzel was peddling his wares in Jüterborg, just 25 miles from Wittenberg, and many of Luther's sheep were making the journey to the city to procure them. Luther's Ninety-Five Theses was one of his responses. When the Ninety-Five Theses broke into a controversy, and Luther was being interrogated and commanded to recant, Tetzel became a scapegoat. In 1519, the papal envoy Miltitz publicly accused Tetzel of immorality and corruption, and was summarily disgraced. Broken-hearted, he retreated to a monastery in Leipzig and died in August that year.
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