'Rome now-a-days is more unclean,
Than ought that in the world is seen?'"[432]
This was among the stanzas current in Rome before the election of one of the last popes. Nevertheless, Luther speaks of Leo with respect. "I know," says he, "that in him we have, as it were, a Daniel in Babylon; his integrity has repeatedly endangered his life." He concludes with a few words in reply to the menaces of Prierio: "In fine, you say that the pope is at once pontiff and emperor, and that he has power to constrain by the secular arm. Are you thirsting for murder? Take my word for it, your rhodomontades and your loud-sounding threats cannot terrify me. Though I be killed, Christ lives, Christ my Lord, and the Lord of all, blessed for ever and ever. Amen."[433]
Thus Luther with a strong arm assails the infidel altar of the papacy, opposing to it the altar of the word of God, alone holy, alone infallible, before which he would have every knee to bow, and on which he declares himself ready to sacrifice his life.
Prierio published a reply, and after it a third treatise on "the Irrefragable Truth of the Church and of the Roman Pontiff," in which, founding on ecclesiastical law, he says, that though the pope were to send the people and himself to the devil en masse, he could not for so doing be either judged or deposed.[434] The pope was at length obliged to impose silence on Prierio.
A new opponent soon entered the list. He too was a Dominican. James Hochstraten, inquisitor at Cologne, whom we have already seen assailing Reuchlin and the friends of letters, was furious when he saw Luther's boldness. It was indeed necessary that darkness and monkish fanaticism should engage in close fight with him who was to give them their death-blow. Monkism was formed after primitive truth had begun to decay, and from that period downward, errors and monks had gone hand in hand. The man who was to hasten their ruin had appeared; but these sturdy champions would not quit the field without a fierce combat. This combat they continued to wage with him throughout his whole life, though the proper personification of it is in Hochstraten; Hochstraten and Luther—the one, the free and intrepid Christian, and the other, the blustering slave of monkish superstition. Hochstraten unchains his rage, and, with loud cries, demands the death of the heretic.... His wish is to secure the triumph of Rome by means of the flames. "It is high treason against the Church," exclaims he, "to let so execrable a heretic live another single hour. Let a scaffold be instantly erected for him!" This sanguinary counsel was, alas! but too well followed in many countries; the voice of numerous martyrs, as in the first days of the Church, bore testimony to the truth in the midst of the flames. But in vain were fire and sword invoked against Luther. The angel of Jehovah constantly encamped around him and shielded him.
Luther replied to Hochstraten briefly, but very energetically. "Go," says he to him, when concluding; "go, delirious murderer, whose thirst can only be quenched by the blood of the brethren. My sincere desire is, that you guard against calling me a Christian and a believer, and that, on the contrary, you never cease to denounce me as a heretic. Understand these things well, you bloody man, you enemy of the truth; and if your furious rage impel you to devise mischief against me, do it with circumspection, and time your measures well. God knows what I purpose if he grants me life. My hope and expectation (God willing) will not deceive me."[435] Hochstraten was silent.
A more painful attack awaited the Reformer. Dr. Eck, the celebrated professor of Ingolstadt, who procured the liberty of Urban Regius, Luther's friend, had received the famous theses. Eck was not the man to defend the abuses of indulgences, but he was a doctor of the school, and not of the Bible, being well versant in scholastics, but not in the word of God. If Prierio had represented Rome, and Hochstraten had represented the monks, Eck represented the School. The School which, for about five centuries, had ruled Christendom, far from yielding to the first blows of the Reformer, proudly rose up to crush the man who dared to assail it with floods of contempt. Eck and Luther, the School and the Word, came to blows on more than one occasion; but the present was the occasion on which the combat commenced.
Eck must have regarded several of Luther's assertions as erroneous; for nothing obliges us to question the sincerity of his convictions. He defended the scholastic opinions with enthusiasm, just as Luther defended the declarations of the word of God. We may even suppose that he was somewhat pained at seeing himself obliged to oppose his old friend, and yet it would seem, from the mode of attack, that passion and jealousy had some share in his determination.
He gave the name of Obelisks to his remarks on the theses of Luther. Wishing at first to save appearances, he did not publish his work, but contented himself with communicating it confidentially to his ordinary, the Bishop of Eichstädt. Soon, however, whether through the indiscretion of the bishop, or of Eck himself, the Obelisks were circulated in all quarters. A copy having fallen into the hands of a friend of Luther, Link, preacher at Nuremberg, he lost no time in sending it to the Reformer. Eck was a much more formidable opponent than Tezel, Prierio, and Hochstraten; his work was the more dangerous the more it surpassed theirs in knowledge and subtlety. He affected pity for his "feeble opponent," (knowing well that pity injures more effectually than anger,) and insinuated that the propositions of Luther contained Bohemian poison, and savoured of Bohemia. By these malicious insinuations he threw upon Luther the obloquy and hatred which in Germany attached to the name of Huss and the schismatics of his country.
The malice which shone through this treatise roused Luther's indignation, while the thought that the blow was given by an old friend, was still more distressing. However, he must sacrifice his affections in defending the truth. Luther unbosomed his heart and its sadness, in a letter to Egranus, pastor at Zwickau—"I am called in the Obelisks a venomous man, a Bohemian, a heretic, seditious, insolent, and presumptuous.... I say nothing of milder epithets, such as sleepy, imbecile, ignorant, contemner of the sovereign pontiff, etc. This book is full of the grossest insults, and yet the author is a distinguished man, alike remarkable for learning and talent; and (it is this that grieves me most) a man with whom I had recently contracted a close friendship,[436] viz., John Eck, doctor in theology, and chancellor of Ingolstadt, a celebrated and illustrious author. Did I not know the thoughts of Satan, I would be astonished at the furious manner in which this man has broken off a friendship at once so pleasant and so recent;[437] and this without giving me any warning—without writing or saying a single word."