The theses of Tezel and Wimpina, though little esteemed, produced a certain effect. They heightened the dispute, widened the rent which had been made in the mantle of the Church, and brought questions of the highest interest into the field. Accordingly, the heads of the Church began to look more narrowly at the matter, and to declare decidedly against the Reformer. "Verily, I know not in whom Luther confides," said the Bishop of Brandenburg, "when he dares thus attack the power of bishops." Perceiving that this new circumstance called for new proceedings, the bishop came in person to Wittemberg; but he found Luther animated with the inward joy which a good conscience imparts, and determined to give battle. The bishop felt that the Augustin monk was obeying an authority superior to his, and returned to Brandenburg in a rage. One day, in the winter of 1518, when sitting at his fireside, he turned to those who were about him and said, "I will not lay down my head in peace till I have thrown Martin into the fire, as I do this brand," throwing one into the grate. The revolution of the sixteenth century was not to be accomplished by the heads of the Church any more than that of the first century had been by the Sanhedrim and the synagogue. In the sixteenth century, the heads of the Church were opposed to Luther, the Reformation, and its ministers, in the same way as they were opposed to Jesus Christ, the gospel, and his apostles, and as they too often are at all times to the truth. "The bishops," says Luther, in speaking of the visit which the Bishop of Brandenburg had paid him, "begin to perceive that they ought to have done what I am doing, and they are consequently ashamed. They call me proud and audacious, and I deny not that I am so. But they are not the people to know either what God is, or what we are."[422]
CHAP. IX.
Prierio—System of Rome—The Dialogue—System of Reform—Reply to Prierio—The Word—The Pope and the Church—Hochstraten—The Monks—Luther replies—Eck—The School—The Obelisks—Luther's Sentiments—The Asterisks—Rupture.
A more serious resistance than that of Tezel was already opposed to Luther. Rome had answered. A reply had issued from the walls of the sacred palace. It was not Leo X who had taken it into his head to speak theology. "A quarrel of monks," he had one day said. "The best thing is not to meddle with it." And on another occasion, "It is a drunken German who has written these theses; when he recovers from his wine he will speak differently."[423] A Dominican of Rome, Sylvester Mazolini de Prierio or Prierias, master of the sacred palace, exercised the functions of censor, and in this character was the first man in Italy who knew of the Saxon monk's theses.
A Roman censor and the theses of Luther! What a rencounter! Liberty of speech, liberty of investigation, liberty of faith, come into collision in Rome, with that power which pretends to have in its hands a monopoly of intelligence, and to open and shut the mouth of Christendom at its pleasure. The struggle between Christian liberty, which begets children of God, and pontifical despotism, which begets slaves of Rome, is, as it were, personified during the first days of the Reformation, in the encounter between Luther and Prierio.
The Roman censor, prior-general of the Dominicans, employed to determine what Christendom must say, or not say, and know or not know, hastened to reply, and published a tract, which he dedicated to Leo X. He spoke contemptuously of the German monk, and declared, with a self-sufficiency altogether Roman, "that he was anxious to know whether this Martin had a nose of iron, or a head of brass, which could not be broken."[424] Then, in the form of a dialogue, he attacked the theses of Luther, employing alternately, ridicule, insult, and threatening.
The combat between the Augustin of Wittemberg and the Dominican of Rome took place on the very question which lies at the foundation of the Reformation; viz., "What is the sole infallible authority to Christians?" The following is the system of the Church, as expounded by its most independent organs.[425]
The letter of the written Word is dead without the spirit of interpretation, which alone unfolds its hidden meaning. Now this spirit is not granted to every Christian, but to the Church; in other words, to the priests. It is great presumption to maintain, that he who promised to be with his Church always to the end of the world, could abandon it to the power of error. It will be said, perhaps, that the doctrine and constitution of the Church are not the same as we find them in the sacred oracles. This is true; but the change is only apparent, relating to the form, and not to the substance. Moreover, the change is an advance. The living power of the Spirit has given reality to what exists in Scripture only in idea; it has embodied the sketches of the Word, put a finishing hand to these sketches, and completed the work of which the Bible had furnished only the first outlines. Scripture ought, therefore, to be understood in the sense determined by the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Here the Catholic doctors are divided. General councils, say some, and Gerson among the number, are the representatives of the Church. The pope, says others, is the depositary of the Spirit of interpretation; and no man is entitled to understand Scripture in a sense differing from that of the Roman pontiff. This was the opinion of Prierio.