§ 122.3. Prierias, Cajetan, and Miltitz, A.D. 1518, 1519.—Leo X. at first regarded the matter as an insignificant monkish squabble, and praised Brother Martin as a real genius. He gave no heed to Hoogstraten’s outcry of heresy, nor did he encourage the Dominican Prierias in his attack on Luther. The book of Prierias was a harmless affair. Luther gave it a short and crushing reply. Prierias answered in a second and third tract, which Luther simply republished with sarcastic and overwhelming prefaces. The pope then enjoined silence upon his luckless steward. In May, A.D. 1518, Luther wrote a humble epistle to the pope, and added a series of Resolutiones in vindication of his theses. Staupitz is said to have revised both. Meanwhile it had been determined in Rome to deal with the Wittenberg business in earnest. The papal procurator made a complaint against Luther. A court was commissioned, which summoned him to appear in person at Rome to answer for himself. But, on the representations of the University of Wittenberg and the Elector Frederick the Wise, the pope charged Cardinal Cajetan, his legate at the Diet of Augsburg, to take up the consideration of the matter. Luther appeared, and made his appeal to the Bible. The legate however wished him to argue from the schoolmen, demanded an unconditional recantation, and at last haughtily dismissed “the beast with deep eyes and wonderful speculations in his head.” Luther made a formal appeal a sanctissimo Domino Leone male informato ad melius informandum, and quitted Augsburg in good spirits. The cardinal now sought to rouse Frederick against the refractory monk, but Luther’s buoyant and humble confidence won the noble elector’s heart. Cajetan continued a vigorous opponent of the reformed doctrine. But Luther’s superiority in Scripture knowledge had so impressed the cardinal, that he now applied himself closely to the study of the Bible in the original tongues; and thus, while firmly attached to the Romish system, he was led on many points, e.g. on Scripture and tradition, divorce, injunctions about meats, the use of the vernacular in public worship, the objectionableness of the allegorical interpretation, etc., to adopt more liberal views, so that he was denounced by some Roman Catholic controversialists as guilty of various heresies.—Luther had no reason in any case to look for any good from Rome. Hence he prepared beforehand an appeal for an œcumenical council, which the publisher, against Luther’s will, at once spread abroad. In Rome the cardinal’s pride was wounded by the failure of his undertaking. A papal bull defined the doctrine of indulgences, in order more exactly to guard against misrepresentations, and an accomplished courtier, the papal chamberlain, Carl von Miltitz, a Saxon, was sent to Saxony, in A.D. 1519, as papal nuncio, to convey to the elector the consecrated golden rose, and to secure a happy conclusion to the controversy. The envoy began by addressing a sharp admonition to Tetzel, and met Luther with hypocritical graciousness. Luther acknowledged that he had acted rashly, wrote a humble, submissive letter to the pope, and published “An Instruction on some Articles ascribed to him by his Traducers.” But after all the retractations which he made at the diet he still firmly maintained justification by faith, without merit of works. He promised the nuncio to abstain from all further polemic, on condition that his opponents also should be silent. But silent these would not be.
§ 122.4. The Leipzig Disputation, A.D. 1519.—John Eck of Ingolstadt had engaged in controversy with a zealous supporter and colleague of Luther, Andrew Bodenstein of Carlstadt, professor and preacher at Wittenberg, and Luther himself took part in the discussion between the two. This disputation came off at Leipzig, and lasted from June 27th to July 16th. But Eck’s vanity led him not only to seek the greatest possible fame from his present disputation, but also to drag in Luther by challenging his theses. Eck disputed for eight days with Carlstadt about grace and free will, and with abundant eloquence, boldness, and learning vindicated Romish semi-Pelagianism. Then he disputed for fourteen days with Luther about the primacy of the pope, about repentance, indulgences, and purgatory, and pressed him hard about the Hussite heresy. But Luther sturdily opposed him on the grounds of Scripture, and confirmed himself in the conviction that even œcumenical councils might err, and that not all Hussite doctrines are heretical. Both parties claimed the victory. Luther continued the discussion in various controversial treatises, and Eck, too, was not silent. New combatants also, for and against, from all sides appeared upon the scene. The liberal humanists (§ [120, 2]) had at first taken little notice of Luther’s contention. But the Leipzig Disputation led them to change their attitude. Luther seemed to them now a new Reuchlin, Eck another specimen of Ortuinus Gratius. A biting satire of Pirkheimer (§ [120, 3]), “Der abgehobelte Eck,” appeared in the beginning of A.D. 1520, exceeding in Aristophanic wit any of the epistles of the Obscurantists. It was followed by several satires by Ulrich von Hutten, who received new inspiration from Luther’s appearance at Leipzig. Hutten and Sickingen, with their whole party, undertook to protect Luther with body and soul, with sword and pen. This was a covenant of some advantage to the Reformation in its early years; but had it not been again abrogated, it might have diverted the movement into an altogether wrong direction. From this time forth Duke George of Saxony, at whose castle and in whose presence the disputation had been conducted, became the irreconcilable enemy of Luther and his Reformation.
§ 122.5. Philip Melanchthon.—At the Leipzig Disputation there also appeared a man fated to become of supreme importance in the carrying out of the Reformation. Born on February 16th, A.D. 1497, at Bretten in the Palatinate, Philip Melanchthon entered the University of Heidelberg in his thirteenth year, and at the age of sixteen published a Greek grammar. He took the degree of master at seventeen, and at twenty-one, in A.D. 1518, on the recommendation of his grand-uncle Reuchlin, he was made Professor of Greek in Wittenberg. His fame soon spread over all Europe, and attracted to him thousands of hearers from all parts. Luther and Erasmus vied with one another in lauding his talents, his fine culture and learning, and his contemporaries have given him the honourable title of Præceptor Germaniæ. He was an Erasmus of nobler form and higher power, a thorough contrast to Luther. His whole being breathed modesty, mildness, and grace. With childlike simplicity he received the recognised truths of the gospel. He bowed humbly before the powerful, practical spirit of Luther, who also, on his part, acknowledged with profound thankfulness the priceless treasure God had sent to him and to his work in this fellow labourer. Melanchthon wrote to his friend Œcolampadius at Basel an account of the Leipzig Disputation, which by chance fell into Eck’s hands. This occasioned a literary controversy, in which Eck’s vain over-estimation of himself appears in very striking contrast to the noble modesty of Melanchthon.He took part in the Reformation first in February, A.D. 1521, by a pseudonymous apology for Luther.[361]
§ 122.6. George Spalatin.—In consequence of his influential position at the court of the elector, which he obtained on Mutian’s (§ [120, 2]) recommendation, after completing his philosophical, legal, and theological studies at Erfurt, George Burkhardt, born in A.D. 1484 at Spalt, in the diocese of Eichstadt, and hence called Spalatinus, played an important part in the German Reformation. Frederick the Wise, who had, in A.D. 1509, entrusted him with the education of his nephew John Frederick, appointed him, in A.D. 1514, his court chaplain, librarian, and private secretary, in which capacity he accompanied the elector to all the diets, and was almost exclusively the channel for communicating to him tidings about Luther. John the Constant, in A.D. 1525, made him superintendent of Altenburg, and took him with him to the diets of Spires, in A.D. 1526, 1529, and of Augsburg in A.D. 1530. John Frederick the Magnanimous, his former pupil, employed him in A.D. 1537 on important negotiations at the conference of the princes at Schmalkald [Schmalcald] (§ [134, 1]). From A.D. 1527 Spalatin was specially busy with the visitation and organization of the Saxon church (§ [127, 1]), conducted, in the interests of the Reformation, an extensive correspondence, and composed several works on the history of his times and the history of the Reformation.
§ 123. Luther’s Period of Conflict, A.D. 1520, 1521.
The Leipzig Disputation had carried Luther to a more advanced standpoint. He came to see that he could not remain standing half way, that the carrying out of the Reformation principle, justification by faith, was incompatible with the hierarchical system of the papacy and its dogmatic foundation. But amid all the violence and subjective one-sidedness which he showed at the beginning of this period of conflict, he had sufficient control of himself to make clear the spiritual character of his reforming endeavours, and firmly to reject the carnal weapons which Ulrich von Hutten and his revolutionary companions wished him to take up, thankful as he was for their warm sympathy. His standpoint as a reformer is shown in the writings which he published during this period. The Romish bull of excommunication provoked him to strong words and extreme measures, and with heroic boldness he entered Worms to present to the emperor and diet an account of his doings. The papal ban was followed by the imperial decree of outlawry. But the Wartburg exile saved him from the hands of his enemies and—of his friends.
§ 123.1. Luther’s Three Chief Reformation Writings, A.D. 1520.—In the powerful treatise, “To His Imperial Majesty and the Christian Nobility of the German Nation on the Improvement of the Christian Condition,” which appeared in the beginning of August, A.D. 1520, Luther bombards first of all the three walls behind which the Romanists entrenched themselves, the superiority of the spiritual to the civil power, the sole right of the pope to interpret Scripture and to summon œcumenical councils. Then he commends to the laity, as consecrated by baptism to a spiritual priesthood, especially civil rulers ordained of God, the task of carrying out the reformation which God’s word requires, but the pope and clergy hinder; and then finally he makes a powerful appeal for carrying out this work in a practical way. He exposes the false pretensions of the papal curia, demands renunciation of annats and papal confirmation of newly elected bishops, complete abandonment of the interdict and the abuse of excommunication, the prohibition of pilgrimages and the begging of the monks, a limitation of holy days, reform of the universities, permission to the clergy to marry, reunion with the Bohemian Picards (§ [119, 8]), etc.—The second work, “On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church,” is a dogmatic treatise, and is directed mainly against the misuse of the sacraments and the reckoning of them as seven, which have been made in the hands of the pope an instrument of tyranny over the church. Only three are recognised as founded on Scripture: baptism, penance, and the Lord’s Supper, with the remark that, strictly speaking, even penance, as wanting an outward sign, cannot be styled a sacrament. The doctrine of transubstantiation, the withholding of the cup from the laity, and the idea of a sacrifice in the mass are decidedly rejected. The third treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” enters the ethical domain. It represents the life of the Christian, rooted in justifying faith, as complete oneness with Christ.His relation therefore to the world around is set forth in two propositions: A Christian man is a free lord over all things, and subject to no one; and a Christian man is a ministering servant of all things, and subject to every one. On the one hand, he has the perfect freedom of a king and priest set over all outward things; but, on the other hand, he yields complete submission in love to his neighbour, which, as consideration of the weak, his very freedom demands.[362]
§ 123.2. The Papal Bull of Excommunication, A.D. 1520.—In order to reap the fruits of his pretended victory at Leipzig, Eck had gone to Rome, and was sent back triumphant as papal nuncio with the bull Exsurge Domini of June 16th. It charged Luther with forty-one heresies, recommended the burning of his works, and threatened to put him and his followers, if they did not retract in sixty days, under the ban. Miltitz renewed his attempts at conciliation, which, however, led to no result, although Luther, to show at least his good will, attended the conference, and, as a basis for a mutual understanding, published his treatise, “On the Freedom of a Christian Man,” in Oct., A.D. 1520. He accompanied this with a letter to the pope, in which he treated him with personal respect, as a sheep among wolves and as a Daniel sitting among lions; but there was in it no word of repentance or of any desire to retract. It could easily have been foreseen that these two documents would prove thoroughly distasteful to the Romish court. Meanwhile Eck had issued the bull. Luther published a scathing polemic against it, and renewed his appeal, made two years before, to an œcumenical council. In Saxony Eck gained only scorn and reproach with his bull; but in Lyons, Mainz, Cologne, etc., Luther’s works were actually burnt. It was then that Luther took the boldest step in his whole career. With a numerous retinue of doctors and students, whom he had invited by a notice posted up on the blackboard, on the 10th Dec., A.D. 1520, at the Elster gate of Wittenberg, he cast into the blazing pile the bull and the papal decretals with the words, “Because thou hast troubled the saints of the Lord, let eternal fire consume thee.” It was the utter renunciation of the pope and his church, and with it he cut away every possibility of a return.
§ 123.3. Erasmus, A.D. 1520.—Erasmus (§ [120, 6]) had been hitherto on good terms with Luther. They entertained for one another a genuine regard. Diverse as their positive tendencies were, they were at one in contending against scholasticism and monkery. Erasmus was not sorry to see such heavy blows dealt to the detested monks, and constantly refused to write against Luther; he had also, he confessed, no wish to learn from his own experience the sharpness of Luther’s teeth. When the papal bull appeared, without hesitation he disapproved it, and indeed refused to believe in its genuineness. He, as the oracle of his age, was applied to by many for his opinion of the matter. His judgment was that not the papal decision in itself but its style and form should be disapproved. He desired a tribunal of learned, pious men and three princes (the emperor and the kings of England and Hungary), to whose verdict Luther would have to submit. When Frederick the Wise consulted him, he expressed the opinion that Luther had made two mistakes, in touching the crown of the pope and the belly of the monks; he regretted in Luther’s proceedings a want of moderation and discretion. Not without profit did the elector hear the oracle thus discourse.—Continuation § [125, 3].
§ 123.4. Luther’s Controversy with Emser, A.D. 1519-1521.—Emser, secretary and orator in the service of Duke George, after the Leipzig Disputation, which he had attended, sought by letter-writing to alienate the Bohemians (§ [139, 19]) from Luther, representing him as having there spoken bitterly against them. This roused Luther to make a passionate reply. After several pamphlets of a violent character had been issued by both combatants, Emser issued his charge in a full and comprehensive treatise, to which Luther replied in his work, “The Answer of Martin Luther to the Unchristian, Ultra-ecclesiastical, and Over-ingenious Book of Emser at Leipzig.” They had also a sharp passage at arms with one another, in A.D. 1524, over the canonization of Bishop Benno of Meissen, in which Emser, by his duke’s order, took a zealous part (§ [129, 1]). But all the later writings in this controversy Luther left unanswered. Emser, with great bitterness, assailed Luther’s translation of the Bible, in which he professed to have found 1,400 heretical falsifications and more than 1,000 lexical blunders. Luther was candid enough to acknowledge that several of his animadversions were not unfounded. On Emser’s own translation, which appeared shortly before his death in A.D. 1527, see § [149, 14].