ABSTRACT
The German Reformation was the resultant of at least four components: religion; foreign sovereign; economy; and scientific circles. There was a common focus and crucible of all these different elements in the appeal to the Gospel. This chapter discusses the religious aspect. Erasmus merely taught the Reformation, whereas Martin Luther lived it. He discloses the enormous difference between Luther and his predecessors. To understand Luther — which is a harder task for the twentieth century than is generally assumed — the fundamental need is to realize that he was very definitely a man of the transition, in whom old and new intermingled in a rare and strange fashion. In the fundamentals of his character Luther was still purely mediæval. His figure imposes itself on us with its unity, its almost hieratic fixity and rigour — like the hard and harsh profile of a Gothic statue.
