The Shadow of Hus
The crisis at Leipzig was reached when Eck backed into a dialectical corner and had to resort to foul tactics. How discredit Luther? Perhaps if he made him synonymous with heresy....
Craftily Eck pointed out the similarity between Luther’s arguments and those of the Bohemian reformer, John Hus, whom the Council of Constance had condemned to the stake a century before. Luther denounced the insinuation and declared the Bohemian heresy irrelevant to the debate.
It was inevitable in opposing the Roman Church’s contention to primacy that Luther would use arguments similar to those of previous reformers. The condemnation of Hus as a heretic did not necessarily make all of his views heretical. In fact, Luther insisted, some of Hus’s articles were genuinely Christian and evangelical.
The spectators and visiting theologians were stunned, and perhaps Luther shocked even himself. Clearly his remark would be interpreted to mean that the general councils—the highest earthly authority—were not beyond fault. This was heresy.
Luther had long been aware of the need for reform in the church. As his ideas developed it became apparent that the pope was not above human weakness. The church militant needed an earthly head, and for the sake of good order it was necessary that he be obeyed. But that didn’t make him infallible. After all, he was human.
Now this same reasoning had pushed from Luther’s lips the admission that councils could err also. Unwittingly Eck had contributed what probably was the greatest outcome of the debate—Luther’s growing conviction that even general councils could be unreliable. Henceforth he would take his stand on the unassailable Word of God as revealed in the Scriptures.
Results of the debate were weighed by judges at the University of Paris who condemned Luther and his views as heretical. When Philip Melanchthon, a Wittenberg associate and close friend of Luther, questioned the opinion on the basis of Scripture, the Parisians looked down their noses at the upstart, informing him they were chief among the few to whom interpretation of Scripture could be entrusted.