Martin Luther

MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY
PROF. M. M. NINAN
He was made provincial vicar of Saxony and Thuringia by his religious order in 1515. This meant he
was to visit and oversee each of eleven monasteries in his province.
Having acquitted himself with evident success, and in a manner to please both parties, Luther
returned to Wittenberg in 1512, and received the appointment of sub-prior.
In 1512, he was appointed director of studies in his Augustinian cloister.
In 1515, was made district vicar in charge of eleven monasteries.
In 1511, he began preaching within the cloister and
in 1514, to the Wittenberg parish church.
His academic promotions followed in quick succession.
On October 19, 1512, Martin Luther became a doctor of theology, more specifically Doctor in Biblia,
and became university professor of Bible. He offered exegetical lectures on Psalms (1513-1515),
Romans (1515-1516), Galatians (1516-1517), and Hebrews (1517-1518).
21 October 1512, was received into the senate of the theological faculty of the University of
Wittenberg, having succeeded Staupitz as chair of theology. He spent the rest of his career in this
position at the University of Wittenberg
His further appointment as district vicar in 1515 made him the official representative of the
vicar-general in Saxony and Thuringia. His duties were manifold and his life busy. Little time was
left for intellectual pursuits, and the increasing irregularity in the performance of his religious duties
could only bode ill for his future. He himself tells us that he needed two secretaries or chancellors,
wrote letters all day, preached at table, also in the monastery and parochial churches, was
superintendent of studies, and as vicar of the order had as much to do as eleven priors; he lectured
on the psalms and St. Paul, besides the demand made on his economic resourcefulness in
managing a monastery of twenty-two priests, twelve young men, in all forty-one inmates. His official
letters breathe a deep solicitude for the wavering, gentle sympathy for the fallen; they show
profound touches of religious feeling and rare practical sense, though not unmarred with counsels
that have unorthodox tendencies. The plague which afflicted Wittenberg in 1516 found him
courageously at his post, which, in spite of the concern of his friends, he would not abandon.
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