Luther in this pamphlet, insists that none are to be regarded as heretics simply because they are not under the Pope; and that the Pope's decrees, to stand, must endure the test of Scripture. Luther wrote in May. In June he told Spalatin that if the Pope did not reform, he would appeal to the Emperor and German nobility. Within another month that appeal appeared.
The men of Leipzig feared the work of Luther, and the rector of the University had pled for mercy. Luther replied that Leipzig deserved to be placed in the pillory[31], that he had no desire to make sport of the city and its university, but was pressed into it by the bombast of the Romanist, who boasted that he was a "public teacher of the Holy Scripture at Leipzig"; and by the fact that Alveld had dedicated his work to the city and its Council. Alveld answered Lonicer and Luther bitterly, but Luther replied no more.
Theodore E. Smauk.
Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Still earlier, in his Resolutions to the 95 Theses (Resolut. Disputat., etc. Erl. Fr. Ed. II, 122 sqq., 137 sqq.) Luther had in an historical and objective way spoken of a time when the Roman Church had not been exalted over the other churches, at least not above those of Greece; that it was thus yet in the time of Pope Gregory I.
[2] Luther's Thirteen Theses against Eck's Thirteen Theses. Frater Mar. Luth. Dsupt. etc., Erl.-Fr. Ed. III, 4 sqq., 11 sqq. "Bruder Martin Luther's Disputation und Entschuldigung wider die Anschuldigungen des D. Johann Eck." St. Louis Ed. XVIII, 718. The oldest print is doubtless one in possession of the University at Halle.
[3] January 10, 1520, to Spalatin; January 26, to John Lang; February 5, to Spalatin; February 18, to Spalatin; April, Alved to Luther; Ma 5, May 17, May 31, June 8, and June 20, to Spalatin, with a letter of July or August to Peter Mosellanus, rector of the University at Leipzig.
[4] He alluded to the subject in his Sermon on the Ban.
[5] Köstlin, Theology of Luther, translated by Hay, I, 363.