Happy Birthday, Martin Luther, November 10, 1483

"On the tenth of November, in the one-thousand, four-hundred, and eighty-third year after the birth of Christ our Savior--Martin Luther, the great and worthy prophet of Germany, was born in the territory of the counts of Mansfeld, in Eisleben by the Harz Mountains, to Hans Luder, a miner, and Margaretha, Luder's wife. On [November 11], in St. Peter's Church, he received Christian Baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity and was named Martin. [Luther was baptized on St. Martin's Day (Martin of Tours)] . . . .

Since this day calls to our minds the great and extraordinary man through whom the Lord Christ rescued us from the Babylonian captivity, rekindled the blessed truth of the holy Gospel, and restored to the pulpit and homes the article[s] [of faith] concerning true repentance, acknowledgment of sins, faith in Jesus Christ, good works, and the proper use of the holy Sacraments and of marriage and government, therefore, the name of God, the supreme Head of Christendom, who sent us this prophet, and for His eternal glory and to render Him due thanks, we intend to preach for a time about how God inaugurated this reformation of the church. . . ."

Mathesius, "History, Sermon 1," in Luther's Works: Sixteenth Century Biographies of Martin Luther, ed. Christopher Boyd Brown (St. Louis: Concordia, 2018),114-115.