The first had been the epoch of martyrs, in which Christians were persecuted and killed for their faith; the second had been the era of heretics, in which Christians perverted church teaching; and the third and most terrible would be the third epoch, the Last Days, in which the church itself would be so corrupt that the Antichrist himself would arise from within it. Luther believed the church had entered this third and final stage. He had been sickened by the sales of indulgences and even spoke about it to his students. He was convinced that this abuse was a clear sign of having entered the
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