Luther's early years

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Luther said to Melanchthon in after years: "I am a peasant's son. My father, my grandfather, all my ancestors, were thorough peasants. My father was a poor miner."1 Miner he may have been and poor, but John Luther was a man of strong character, and had an honest ambition for his own and his children's advancement. To this end he and his wife cheerfully worked together, toiling and saving as best they could, and as the years went on they prospered. They were decidedly, almost sternly, pious; the home discipline was very severe; and, what is rather unusual, the mother was more ready with the rod than the father.
Letter to  Melanchthon, de Wette,  4: 33.  Luther always spoke of both his parents with respect and affection, but especially of his father. On the day that he heard of the latter's death he declared to  Melanchthon that everything that he was or had he had received from his Creator through his beloved father.

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It was John Luther's ambition to fit his son for the practice of law, one of the most lucrative callings of the age, and to see him the trusted adviser of the Counts of Mansfeld. As the miner increased in wealth, and rose in the esteem of his fellow townsmen until he became burgomaster of Mansfeld, his desires for the advancement of his son were quickened, He then saw, as many a poor man has seen since, that for a youth of strong natural abilities the shortest way to influence and power is through halls of learning. In the lecture room, in the sharp contact of mind with mind, the accidental distinctions of wealth and birth count for little, and the young men are esteemed or despised according to their scholastic attainments. The German peasant might not hope easily to pass the line that separated him from the feudal nobility, but the way was open to him into the ranks of the aristocracy of letters. Distinction in learning was therefore hardly less coveted than distinction in arms.

Becoming a monk…

The most accurate information that we have about his decision to become a monk is given in a letter written to his father, in 1521, on the renunciation of his vows. He says: "It is almost sixteen years since I took the monastic vows, without your knowledge or consent .... I well remember telling you that I was called through a terrible apparition from heaven, so that, when face to face with death, I made the vow; and you exclaimed, 'God grant it was not an apparition of the Evil One that startled you.'"2 This is more satisfactory than the stories that have gathered about this turning-point in his life, most of which have their legendary character stamped plainly upon them, especially the tale of the youthful companion stricken down at his side by a bolt of lightning, and his vowing in his terror, "Help , beloved St. Anna, I will become a monk!" What is certain is, that on July 17, 1505, Luther

1
Da ich zwanzig jahre alt war, hatte ich noch keine Bibel gesehen; ich meinte, es wären keine Evangelien und Epistolen mehr, denn die in den Postellen sind.-- Tischreden, No. 1743; Mathesius, first sermon, p. 3.
2
Currie, p. 87. Letter dated November 21, 1521, and sent to John Luther with a copy of the reformer's treatise ( De Votis Monasticis, Wittenberg, 1521).-- De Wette, 2: 100; 6: 25.

Not only did John Luther question the genuineness of this call, but he had a right to feel aggrieved.2 He had a strong sense of parental authority, and of the obligation of the fifth commandment. He saw the cherished plans of years shattered in a moment, the sacrifices and toils of both parents made valueless by the wilfulness of him for whom they had been cheerfully given. He felt that whoever else might despise and flout him, his son owed him affection, confidence and obedience. And in later years at least, perhaps even at this time, Luther felt that his father was right, that he himself had sinned. The fact that he went to the convent so secretly and suddenly argues an uneasy conscience; but the Church taught that in such case God must be obeyed rather than father and mother. Many and subtle are the causes that go to the molding of a human life; it is more than probable that this secret sense of having done an unworthy act, as well as the remembrance of his father's grief and indignation, made the monk's frock sit uneasily on Luther from the first. Nevertheless he supposed his decision to be irrevocable: "I never thought to come out of the convent; I was clean dead to the world, until God deemed that the time had come, and Tetzel with his indulgences drove me."