Indeed yesterday, like every Sunday, preaching from the pulpit on the gospel of the day (the text was John 16, 2: ‘They shall put you out of the synagogues’), he linked the ‘scandal’ of the market in indulgences with another thesis, one which is to my mind even more dangerous.
Such sudden fame has made Luther pompous and overbearing he feels as though he has been entrusted with a supernatural task, and that leads him to risk even more, to go even further. What was until yesterday something perfectly ordinary and undisputed, the remission of sins in return for a pious donation to the Church, seems today to be criticised by everyone as though it were an unmentionable scandal. In particular, his sermons against the buying and selling of indulgences seem to have enjoyed the greatest success among young minds open to novelty. Young students from bordering states are flowing into this town to listen to the preacher’s incredible theories from his own mouth. Since the Augustinian monk Martin Luther nailed his notorious theses to the portal of the Cathedral eight months ago, the name of Wittenberg has travelled far and wide, on everyone’s lips. My most respected, illustrious and reverend lord and master,Here is Your Lordship’s most faithful servant’s report on what is happening in these remote marshlands, which for a year now appears to have become a focus for all manner of diatribes. To the most illustrious and reverend lord and honourable master Giovanni Pietro Carafa, at the theological meeting held by His Holiness Leo X, in Rome.
Letter sent to Rome from the Saxon city of Wittenberg, addressed to Gianpietro Carafa, member of the theological meeting held by His Holiness Leo X, dated 17th May 1518. The novel Q was written by four Bologna-based members of the LBP, now known as Wu Ming, You may also like to read the Cold War novel, 54, and Manituana by Wu Ming, both of which are available free on Obooko. A European bestseller, Q has been compared to Name of the Rose. Someone described the book as "a theological western". An epic from the bowels of history, set in central Europe and Northern Italy. Q is the spy, in the pay of Father Carafa, an ultra conservative figure, rapidly rising up the hierarchy of the Catholic church. The other is a spy in the service of the forces who want to maintain it.
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