Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place, where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before that Papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was bound to condemn him, Caietan being a zealous Thomist like Prierias, and already notorious as a champion of indulgences and Papal absolutism. 'My thoughts on the way,' said Luther afterwards, 'were now I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my dear parents.'
He went thither in humble garb and manner. He made his way on foot till within a short distance of Augsburg, when illness and weakness overcame him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. Another younger monk of Wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil Leonard Baier. At Nüremberg he was joined by his friend Link, who held an appointment there as preacher. From him he borrowed a monk's frock, his own being too bad for Augsburg. He arrived here on October 7.
The surroundings he now entered, and the proceedings impending over him, were wholly novel and unaccustomed. But he met with men who received him with kindness and consideration; several of them were gentlemen of Augsburg favourable to him, especially the respected patrician, Dr. Conrad Peutinger, and two counsellors of the Elector. They advised him to behave with prudence, and to observe carefully all the necessary forms, to which as yet he was a stranger.
Luther at once announced his arrival to Caietan, who was anxious to receive him without delay. His friends, however, kept him back until they had obtained a written safe-conduct from the Emperor, who was then hunting in the environs. In the meantime, a distinguished friend of Caietan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant, and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters,—Revoco—I retract. Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. 'God forbid!' answered Luther. 'Where then do you mean to take refuge?' he went on to ask him. 'Under Heaven,' was Luther's reply.
To Melancthon Luther wrote as follows: 'There is no news here, except that the town is full of talk about me, and everybody wants to see the man who, like a second Herostratus, has kindled such a flame. Remain a man as you are, and instruct the youth aright. I go to be sacrificed for them and for you, if God so will. For I will rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me to say.'
On October 11 Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the next day he appeared before Caietan. Humbly, as he had been advised, he prostrated himself before the representative of the Pope, who received him graciously and bade him rise.
The Cardinal addressed him civilly, and with a courtesy Luther was not accustomed to meet with from his opponents; but he immediately demanded him, in the name and by command of the Pope, to retract his errors, and promise in future to abstain from them and from everything that might disturb the peace of the Church. He pointed out, in particular, two errors in his theses; namely, that the Church's treasure of indulgences did not consist of the merits of Christ, and that faith on the part of the recipient was necessary for the efficacy of the sacrament. With respect to the second point, the religious principles upon which Luther based his doctrine were altogether strange and unintelligible to the Scholastic standpoint of Caietan; mere tittering and laughter followed Luther's observations, and he was required to retract this thesis unconditionally. The first point settled the question of Papal authority. On this, the Cardinal-legate took his chief stand on the express declaration of Pope Clement: he could not believe that Luther would venture to resist a Papal bull, and thought he had probably not read it. He read him a vigorous lecture of his own on the paramount authority of the Pope over Council, Church, and Scripture. As to any argument, however, about the theses to be retracted, Caietan refused from the first to engage in it, and undoubtedly he went further in that direction than he originally desired or intended. His sole wish was, as he said, to give fatherly correction, and with fatherly friendliness to arrange the matter. But in reality, says Luther, it was a blunt, naked, unyielding display of power. Luther could only beg from him further time for consideration.
Luther's friends at Augsburg, and Staupitz, who had just arrived there, now attempted to divert the course of these proceedings, to collect other decisions of importance bearing on the subject, and to give him the opportunity of a public vindication. Accompanied therefore by several jurists friendly to his cause, and by a notary and Staupitz, he laid before the legate next day a short and formal statement of defence. He could not retract unless convicted of error, and to all that he had said he must hold as being Catholic truth. Nevertheless he was only human, and therefore fallible, and he was willing to submit to a legitimate decision of the Church. He offered, at the same time, publicly to justify his theses, and he was ready to hear the judgment of the learned doctors of Basle, Freiburg, Louvain, and even Paris upon them. Caietan with a smile dismissed Luther and his proposals, but consented to receive a more detailed reply in writing to the principal points discussed on the previous day.
On the morrow, October 14, Luther brought his reply to the legate. But in this document also he insisted clearly and resolutely from the commencement on those very principles which his opponents regarded as destructive of all ecclesiastical authority and of the foundations of Christian belief. He spoke with crucial emphasis of the trouble he had taken to interpret the words of Pope Clement in a Scriptural sense. The Papal decrees might err, and be at variance with Holy Writ. Even the Apostle Peter himself had once to be reproved (Galat. ii. 11 sqq.) for 'walking not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel;' surely then his successor was not infallible. Every faithful believer in Christ was superior to the Pope, if he could show better proofs and grounds of his belief. Still he entreated Caietan to intercede with Leo X., that the latter might not harshly thrust out into darkness his soul, which was seeking for the light. But he repeated that he could do nothing against his conscience: one must obey God rather than man, and he had the fullest confidence that he had Scripture on his side. Caietan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried to persuade him. They fell into a lively and vehement argument; but Caietan cut it short with the exclamation 'Revoke.' In the event of Luther not revoking or submitting to judgment at Rome, he threatened him and all his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he might go to with an interdict; he had a mandate from the Pope to that effect already in his hands. He then dismissed him with the words, 'Revoke, or do not come again into my presence.'
Nevertheless he spoke in quite a friendly manner after this to Staupitz, urging him to try his best to convert Luther, whom he wished well. Luther, however, wrote the same day to his friend Spalatin, who was with the Elector, and to his friends at Wittenberg, telling them that he had refused to yield. The legate, he said, had behaved with all friendliness of manner to Staupitz in his affair, but neither Staupitz nor himself trusted the Italian when out of sight. If Caietan should use force against him, he would publish the written reply he gave him. Caietan might call himself a Thomist, but he was a muddle-headed, ignorant theologian and Christian, and as clumsy in giving judgment in the matter as a donkey with a harp. Luther added further that an appeal would be drawn up for him in the form best fitted to the occasion. He further hinted to his Wittenberg friends at the possibility of his having to go elsewhere in exile; indeed, his friends already thought of taking him to Paris, where the university still rejected the doctrine of Papal absolutism. He concluded this letter by saying that he refused to become a heretic by denying that which had made him a Christian; sooner than do that, he would be burned, exiled, or cursed.