Pushed into the Arena
Even while Luther was meeting with Miltitz circumstances were shaping up which drove him to break silence. He had stated his willingness to recant if someone proved his error. An ambitious professor at the University of Ingolstadt, John Eck, with an enviable reputation as a disputant, saw in this his opportunity to win renown and also favor with Rome.
Andrew Carlstadt of the Wittenberg faculty had espoused the cause of Luther publicly and had been engaged in an extended debate with Eck through the medium of pamphlets. Now a public debate between the two was arranged for Leipzig. In preparation Eck drew up a series of twelve theses, directed not so much at his differences with Carlstadt as with the theology of Luther. The champion of Roman orthodoxy clearly was baiting Luther into the arena.
After months of wrangling about procedures and proper invitations, and with much pomp and pageantry, the debate got under way on June 27, 1519. Several hundred Wittenberg students were there—a sixteenth-century sort of college cheering section. During the ensuing eighteen days of debate they frequently became embroiled with the Leipzig University students who sided with Eck. Carlstadt and Eck matched wits for four days over the relation between grace and free will. The erudition and cleverness of Eck gave him a decided advantage over the Wittenberg scholar, but spectator interest was being reserved for July 4 when Luther would take the field.
For another four days Eck and Luther discussed the divine right of the pope with the Ingolstadter insisting that the divine plan of government was a monarchy with the pope at its head. Luther agreed that the church was a monarchy but that Christ was its head. The passage in St. Matthew concerning the rock upon which Christ would build his church was quoted by Eck with the interpretation that Peter was the “rock” and since he also was the first pope it was clear that papal supremacy had been established by Christ.
Luther declared the passage should be considered along with Peter’s previous statement, “Thou art the Christ....” This confession, he said, is the “rock” on which Christ built his church.