As for what Johann Eck is stated to have said, viz. that he could refute Melanchthon’s Confession from the Fathers but not from the Bible, no proof whatever of the statement is forthcoming. The oldest mention of it merely retails a piece of vague gossip, which may well have gone the rounds in Lutheran circles. It is met with in Spalatin’s Notes and runs: “It is said” that Eck, referring to the whole doctrine of Melanchthon and Luther, told Duke William: “I would not mind undertaking to refute it from the Fathers, but not from Scripture.”[1031] It is true these notes go back as far as the Diet of Augsburg, but they notoriously contain much that is false or uncertain, and often record mere unauthenticated rumours. Neither Melanchthon nor Luther ever dared to appeal to such an admission on the part of their opponent, though it would certainly have been of the utmost advantage to them to have done so.
Not only is no proof alleged in support of the saying, but it is in utter contradiction with Eck’s whole mode of procedure, which was always to attack the statements of his opponents, first with Scripture and then with the tradition of the Fathers. This is the case with the “Confutatio confessionis,” etc., aimed at Melanchthon’s Confession, in the preparation of which Eck had the largest share and which he presented at the Diet of Augsburg.
According to his own striking account of what happened at the religious conference of Ratisbon in 1541, it was to his habitual and triumphant use of biblical arguments against Melanchthon’s theses that Eck appealed in the words he addressed to Bucer his chief opponent: “Hearken, you apostate, does not Eck use the language of the Bible and the Fathers? Why don’t you reply to his writings on the primacy of Peter, on penance, on the Sacrifice of the Mass, and on Purgatory?” etc.[1032]
What also weighs strongly against the tale is the fact that a charge of a quite similar nature had been brought against Eck ten years before the Diet of Augsburg by an opponent, who assailed him with false and malicious accusations. What Protestant fable came wantonly to connect with Melanchthon’s “Confession” had already, in 1520, been charged against the Ingolstadt theologian by the author of “Eccius dedolatus.” There he is told, that, in his view, one had perforce (on account of the Bible) to agree with Luther secretly, though, publicly, he had to be opposed.[1033]
Theodore Wiedemann, who wrote a Life of Eck and who at least hints at the objection just made, was justified in concluding with the query: “Is it not high time to say good-bye to this historic lie?”[1034] When, as late as 1906, the story was once more burnished up by a writer of note, N. Paulus, writing in the “Historisches Jahrbuch,” could well say: “Eck’s alleged utterance was long ago proved to be quite unhistorical.”[1035]
[4. Demonology and Demonomania]
“Come O Lord Jesus, Amen! The breath of Thy mouth dismays the diabolical gainsayer.” “Satan’s hate is all too Satanic.”[1036]
Oh, that the devil’s gaping jaws were crushed by the blessed seed of the woman![1037] How little is left for God.[1038] “The remainder is swallowed by Satan who is the Prince of this world, surely an inscrutable decree of Eternal Wisdom.”[1039] “Prodigies everywhere daily manifest the power of the devil!”[1040]
Against such a devil’s world, as Luther descried, what can help save the approaching “end of all”?
“The kingdom of God is being laid waste by Turk and Jew and Pope,” the chosen tools of Satan; but “greater is He Who reigns in us than he who rules the world; the devil shall be under Christ to all eternity.”[1041] “The present rage of the devil only reveals God’s future wrath against mankind, who are so ungrateful for the Evangel.”[1042] “We cannot but live in this devil’s kingdom which surrounds us”;[1043] “but even with our last breath we must fight against the monsters of Satan.”[1044] Let the Papists, whose glory is mere “devil’s filth,” rejoice in their successes.[1045] As little heed is to be paid to them as to the preachers of the Evangel who have gone astray in doctrine, like Agricola and Schwenckfeld; they calmly “go their way to Satan to whom indeed they belong”;[1046] “they are senseless fools, possessed of the devil.” The devil “spues and ructates” his writings through them; this is the devil of heresy against whom solemnly launch the malediction: “God’s curse be upon thee, Satan! The spirit that summoned thee be with thee unto destruction!”[1047]