Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

The appearance of Luther at this disputation has given occasion for the first description of his person which we possess from the pen of a contemporary. Mosellanus, already mentioned, says of him in a letter: 'He is of middle stature, his body thin, and so wasted by care and study, that nearly all his bones may be counted. He is in the prime of life. His voice is clear and melodious. His learning and his knowledge of Scripture are extraordinary; he has nearly everything at his fingers' ends. Greek and Hebrew he understands sufficiently well to give his judgment on the interpretation of the Scriptures. In speaking, he has a vast store of subjects and words at his command; he is moreover refined and sociable in his life and manners; he has no rough Stoicism or pride about him, and he understands how to adapt himself to different persons and times. In society he is lively and witty. He is always fresh, cheerful, and at his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard his enemies may threaten him, so that one cannot but believe that Heaven is with him in his great undertaking. Most people however reproach him with wanting moderation in polemics, and with being more cutting than befits a theologian and one who propounds something new in sacred matters.' His ability as a disputant was afterwards acknowledged by Eck, who in referring to this tourney, quoted Aristotle's remark that when two men dispute together, each of whom has learned the art, there is sure to be a good disputation.

Eck is described by Mosellanus as a man of a tall, square figure, with a voice fit for a public crier, but more coarse than distinct, and with nothing pleasant about it; with the mouth, the eyes, and the whole appearance of a butcher or soldier, but with a most remarkable memory. In power of memory and elocution he surpassed even Luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial men like Pistoris gave the palm to Luther. Eck is said to have imitated the Italians in his great animation of speech, his declamation, and gesticulations with his arms and his whole body. Melancthon even said in a letter after the disputation, 'Most of us must admire Eck for his manifold and distinguished intellectual gifts.' Later on he calls him, 'Eckeckeck, the daws'-voice.' At any rate Eck displayed a rare power and endurance in those Leipzig days, and understood above all how to pursue with cleverness the real object he had in view in his contest with Luther.

The two began at once with that point which Eck had singled out as the chief object of debate, and about which Luther had advanced his boldest proposition, namely, the question of the Papal power.

[Illustration: Fig 16.—DR. JOHN ECK. (From an old woodcut.)]

After lengthy discussions on the evidence of texts of Scripture; on the old Fathers of the Church, to whom the Papal supremacy was unknown; on the Western Church of middle ages, by whom that supremacy was acknowledged at an earlier period than Luther would admit; on the non-subjection to Rome of Eastern Christendom, to whom Luther referred, and whom Eck with a light heart put outside the pale of salvation, Eck on the second day of the disputation passed, after due premeditation, from the ecclesiastical authorities he had quoted in favour of the Divine right of the Papal primacy, to the statements of the English heretic Wicliffe, and the Bohemian Huss, who had denied this right, and had therefore been justly condemned. He was bound to notice them, he said, since, in his own frail and humble judgment, Luther's thesis favoured in the highest degree the errors of the Bohemians, who, it was reported, wished him well for his opinions. Luther answered him as he had done in each case before. He condemned the separation of the Bohemians from the Catholic Church, on the ground that the highest right derived from God was that of love and the Spirit, and he repudiated the reproach which Eck sought to cast upon him. But he declared at the same time that the Bohemians on that point had never yet been refuted. And with perfect self-conviction and calm reflection he proceeded to assert that among the articles of Huss some were fundamentally Christian and Evangelical, such as, for example, his statements that there was only one Universal Church (to which even Greek Christendom had always and still belonged), and that the belief in the supremacy of the Church of Rome was not necessary to salvation. No man, he added, durst impose upon a Christian an article of belief which was antiscriptural; the judgment of an individual Christian must be worth more than that of the Pope or even of a Council, provided he has a better ground for it.

That moment, when Luther spoke thus of the doctrines of Huss, a heretic already condemned by a Council and proscribed in Germany, was the most impressive and important in the whole disputation. An eye-witness, who sat below Duke George and Barnim, relates that the Duke, on hearing the words, shouted out in a voice heard by all the assembly, 'A plague upon it!' and shook his head, and put both hands to his sides. The whole audience, variously as they thought of the assertion, must have been fairly astounded. Luther, it was true, had already stated in writing that a Council could err. But now he declared himself for principles which a Council, namely that of Constance, solemnly appointed and unanimously recognised by the whole of Western Christendom, had condemned, and thus openly accused that Council of error in a decision of the most momentous importance. Nay more, that decision had been concurred in by the very men who, while recognising the Papal primacy, strenuously defended against Papal despotism the rights of General Councils, and of the nations and states which they represented. The Western Catholic Church entertained, as we have seen, a diversity of views as to the relative authority of the Popedom, as an institution of Christ, and that which appertained to Councils. Luther now, by denying the Divine institution and authority of the Papacy, seemed to have broken with all authority whatsoever existing in the Church, and with every possible exercise of the same.

Luther himself does not appear to have considered at the moment this extent of his acknowledgment of the 'Christian' character of some of Huss's articles, nor to have adequately reflected on the attitude of direct opposition in which it placed him to the Council of Constance. When Eck declared it 'horrible' that the 'reverend father' had not shrunk from contradicting that holy Council, assembled by consent of all Christendom, Luther interrupted him with the words, 'It is not true that I have spoken against the Council of Constance.' He then went on to draw the inference that the authority of the Council, if it erred in respect of those articles, was consequently fallible altogether.

Some days later, and after further consideration, Luther produced four propositions of Huss, which were perfectly Christian, although they had been formally rejected by the Council. He sought means, nevertheless, to preserve for the Council its dignity. As for these rejected articles, he said, it had declared only some to be heretical, and others to be simply mistaken, and the latter, at all events, must not be counted as heresies—nay, he took the liberty of supposing that the former were interpolations in the text of the Council's resolutions. He would grant, further, that the decisions of a Council in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. And in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and misconstruction, he once broke off from the Latin, in which the whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in German that he in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the Romish Church, but that the only question in dispute was whether its supremacy rested on Divine right—that is to say, on direct Divine institution in the New Testament, or whether its origin and character were simply such as the Imperial Crown, for example, possessed in relation to the German nation. He was well aware how charges of heresy and apostasy were raised against him, and how industriously Eck had promoted them. It was only with pain and inward struggles that he stood out, Bible in hand, against the Council of Constance and such a general gathering of Western Christendom. But not a step would he go towards any recognition of the Papacy as an institution resting on Scripture. He insisted that even a Council could not compel him to do this, or make an essential article of Christian belief out of anything not found in the Bible. Again and again he declared that even a Council could err.

For five whole days they contested this main point of the disputation, without arriving at any further result.

The other subjects of discussion, relating to purgatory, indulgences, and penance, were after this of very little importance. With regard to indulgences even Eck now displayed striking moderation. The dispute on the correct conception of purgatory led to a new and important declaration by Luther as to the power of the Church in relation to Scripture. Eck quoted as Biblical proof a passage from the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, which although not originally included in the records of the Old Covenant, had been accepted by the middle ages as of equal authority with the other Biblical writings. For the first time Luther now protested against the equal value thus assigned to them, and especially against the Church conferring upon them an authority they did not possess.