German Quote

[R ed Bug]

27.Menschenlehre verkndigen die, die sagen, da die Seele (aus dem
Fegefeuer) emporfliege, sobald das Geld im Kasten klingt.

is #27 of Martin Luther's 95 Theses against the Catholic Church's
practice of selling indulgences, which Theses he supposedly (the story  
may be apocryphal) nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg
on October 31, 1517. Indulgence was a church imposed confession of sin
which took many different forms over the years. At first, you could obtain
one by fighting in a Crusade (or sending a servant to fight), but as the
Church got strapped financially, you could just "donate" money to a
Crusade and have your sins "indulged," i.e., forgiven.

The translation is:

27. They preach vanity who say that the soul flies out of Pugatory as soon
as the money thrown into the chest rattles.

Check out:

http://www.wittenberg.de/e/seiten/thesentu.html

for more on this.


Tim Ware
HyperArts
www.hyperarts.com