Martin Luther and Katherine

One of the most significant developments which came out of the Reformation in the 1520s was the approval and re-affirmation of marriage; that it was, and it is, a good thing, for all men unless they have the gift of celibacy, the gift of remaining single. You will recall that monasticism was a tremendous movement which had begun a thousand years before, and was still strong in the days of Luther. It was as a monk, in the convent at Erfurth, that Luther had found the Bible, and in finding the Christ of the Bible, after long asceticism, a long course of being monkish, that he finally in 1525 came to better views of marriage. I believe that this was an integral part of his helping to pour out God’s wrath on the system of Roman Catholicism.