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.
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.