Children of Fire: Martin

One might admire St.Elizabeth and like Balzac or, alternately, be completely indifferent to either or both of them. However, it's hard to imagine that anybody would passionately hate any of them - philanthropists and arts people rarely step on anybody's toes hard enough to evoke such strong negative emotions. As opposed, politicians do it all the time - in particular, if they are trying to peddle religion along with politics. Having founded a new religion only further exacerbates the problem, and it doesn't help much if the founder "didn't mean anything like that but simply wanted to engage in a theological dispute" - as was the case with Martin Luther. When disputes touch on financial matters, they often provoke violent reactions resulting in a "might makes right" situation. It is therefore hardly surprising that questioning the practice of selling indulgencies eventually got Luther excommunicated and as good as deprived of basic civil rights. The consequences for the rebellious monk could've been even more severe but for another "might" - Prince-Elector of Saxony Frederick III - that decided to back him up. Frederick didn't mind selling indulgences but he greatly disliked the idea of sending the sale proceeds to Rome rather than simply pocketing them - so he jumped at the opportunity to get under Emperor Charles' and the Pope's skin by kidnapping Luther from right under their noses and hiding him in Wartburg Castle.  

If Luther's complex personality were to be reduced to just one character trait, that trait would be changeableness. While St. Elizabeth was guided by the angelic Light of Love, and Balzac's path was lit by the Torch of Knowledge, Luther was being devoured by the raging Fire of Contradictions. An ardent defender of the purity of Faith, he became a monk by mere incident: a law student caught in a thunderstorm and terrified by seemingly imminent death, Luther took a vow of obedience - and was too scared to break it afterwards. A pastor preaching Love as one of most fundamental Christian values, his speeches and pamphlets provoked antisemitism so powerful that it kept fueling the national-socialist ideology of hatred 400 years later. A gravely ill person, he lived for 63 years - far beyond the average life expectancy for his contemporaries - and achieved so much no healthy but ordinary people could even dream of. The pinnacle of those achievements was translating the Bible into German vernacular - a deed that gave millions access to the sacred texts, thus ending their dependence on the official Church's interpretations. To translate a text, one needs to know both the source - so the fanatical monk learned about a dozen of ancient languages, each mastered within no more than a year - and the target languages. The right word for the latter might be "GermanS", because there were almost as many dialects as sovereign principalities. Luther visited all of them! Pressed for money, he couldn't use carriages - so he walked instead, thousands and thousands of kilometers. He conducted research in each principality, and any of those researches would qualify him for professorship in most prestigious modern universities. All that groundwork enabled him to translate the Holy Scripture in 10 months - just as long as he needed to wait out the storm in Wartburg Castle. 

Luther's lifestyle eventually secured him a personal meeting with the Devil who paid a visit to the monk's barely heated cell in Wartburg. The two seemingly didn't hit it off, and the host ended the meeting by hurling an inkpot at his guest. The latter dodged and left sulkily. An ink stain on a cell wall remained to remind Luther of the experience - and to attract numerous tourists centuries later.