Luther summoned to the diet at Worms.
Upon arriving at Worms the case of Luther was at once forced upon Charles' attention by the assiduous papal representative, Aleander, who was indefatigable in urging him to outlaw the heretic without further delay. While Charles seemed convinced of Luther's guilt, he could not proceed against him without serious danger. The monk had become a national hero and had the support of the powerful elector of Saxony. Other princes, who had ordinarily no wish to protect a heretic, felt that Luther's denunciation of the evils in the Church and of the actions of the pope was very gratifying. After much discussion it was finally arranged, to the great disgust of the zealous Aleander, that Luther should be summoned to Worms and be given an opportunity to face the German nation and the emperor, and to declare plainly whether he was the author of the heretical books ascribed to him, and whether he still adhered to the doctrines which the pope had declared wrong.
The emperor accordingly wrote the "honorable and respected" Luther a very polite letter, ordering him to appear at Worms and granting him a safe-conduct thither. Luther said, on receiving the summons, that if he was going to Worms merely to retract, he might better stay in Wittenberg, where he could, if he would, abjure his errors quite as well as on the Rhine. If, on the other hand, the emperor wished him to come to Worms in order that he might be put to death, he was quite ready to go, "for, with Christ's help, I will not flee and leave the Word in the lurch. My revocation will be in this wise: 'Earlier I said that the pope was God's vicar; now I revoke and say, the pope is Christ's enemy and an envoy of the devil.'"
148. Luther accordingly set out for Worms accompanied by the imperial herald. He enjoyed a triumphal progress through the various places on his way and preached repeatedly, in spite of the fact that he was an excommunicated heretic. He found the diet in a great state of commotion. The papal representative was the object of daily insults, and Hutten and Sickingen talked of scattering Luther's enemies by a sally from the neighboring castle of Ebernburg.
Luther before the diet.
It was not proposed to give Luther an opportunity to defend his beliefs before the diet. When he appeared before "emperor and empire," he was simply asked if a pile of his Latin and German works were really his, and, if so, whether he revoked what he had said in them. To the first question the monk replied in a low voice that he had written these and more. As to the second question, which involved the welfare of the soul and the Word of God, he asked that he might have a little while to consider.
The following day, in a Latin address which he repeated in German, he admitted that he had been overviolent in his attacks upon his opponents; but he said that no one could deny that, through the popes' decrees, the consciences of faithful Christians had been miserably ensnared and tormented, and their goods and possessions, especially in Germany, devoured. Should he recant those things which he had said against the pope's conduct he would only strengthen the papal tyranny and give an opportunity for new usurpations. If, however, adequate arguments against his position could be found in the Scriptures, he would gladly and willingly recant. He could not, however, accept the decision either of pope or of council, since both, he believed, had made mistakes and contradicted themselves. "I must," he concluded, "allow my conscience to be controlled by God's Word. Recant I can not and will not, for it is hazardous and dishonorable to act against one's conscience."
The emperor forced by the law to outlaw Luther.
There was now nothing for the emperor to do but to outlaw Luther, who had denied the binding character of the commands of the head of the Church and of the highest Christian tribunal, a general council. His argument that the Scriptures sustained him in his revolt could not be considered by the diet.[282]
The Edict of Worms, 1521.