The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520: The Annotated Luther Study Edition

In his The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther set forth a reconsideration of the sacramental Christian life that centered on the word. His thesis is that the papacy had distorted the sacraments with its own traditions and regulations, transforming them into a system of control and coercion. The evangelical liberty of the sacramental promises had been replaced by a papal absolutism which, like a feudal lordship, claimed its own jurisdictional liberties and privileges over the ...