The invention that brought reformation

The Reformation was a movement that was bound to happen sooner or later. For many years churchmen had been trying to address the Catholic Church’s abuses. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the castle church door, he was only the latest to protest (i.e., Protestant). Although 1517 is marked as the beginning of this movement, there is another significant date that made the Protestant Reformation possible. That is the year 1440, when another German, Johannes Gutenberg, invented the printing press. This blacksmith by trade is credited with first using movable type. Mass book printing now made publishing affordable and available to all. On October 22, 1454, the Gutenberg Bible rolled off the press. It was a copy of the Latin Vulgate, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. Little did the Catholic Church realize what eventual affect Bible printing would have on her hold on the people.

Before all those Bibles to come, the printing press played an invaluable role in reforming the church. When Luther posted his 95 points of debate, he did so in Latin. He had no intention of reaching the masses, only the church leadership. He wanted to open a dialogue concerning the selling of indulgences. An unknown follower of Luther took these 95 theses and copied them into German and gave them to the local printer. These massed produced pamphlets were distributed far and wide. The Reformation had begun. A few years later, Luther would translate the Bible into German. It would also be printed and widely distributed. Luther would famously say, “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word; otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer…the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage. I did nothing: the Word did it all.”