Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

men, it is nevertheless the infelicity of our age that even they...

cannot succor the Church.... Now at last we have a most excellent

Pontiff, Leo X, whose integrity and learning are a delight to all good

men's ears. But what can that most benign of men do alone, in so great

a confusion of affairs, worthy as he is to reign in better times?...

In this age we are worthy only of such popes as Julius II and

Alexander VI.... Rome herself, yea, Rome most of all, now laughs at

good men; in what part of the Christian world do men more freely

make a mock of the best bishops than in Rome, the true Babylon?

-

To Leo directly he professed an unwonted humility:

-

Most blessed Father, I offer myself prostrate at the feet of your

Holiness, with all that I am and have. Quicken, slay, call, recall,

approve, reprove, as may seem to you good. I will acknowledge your

voice as the voice of Christ, residing and speaking in you. If I

have deserved death I will not refuse to die. `061621

-

However, as Leo's advisers noted, the Resolutiones affirmed the

superiority of an ecumenical council to the pope, spoke slightingly of

relics and pilgrimages, denied the surplus merits of the saints, and

rejected all additions made by the popes in the last three centuries

to the theory and practice of indulgences. As these were a prime

source of papal revenue, and Leo was at his wits' end to finance his

philanthropies, amusements, and wars, as well as the administration

and building program of the Church, the harassed Pontiff, who had at

first brushed the dispute aside as a passing fracas among monks, now

took the matter in hand, and summoned Luther to Rome (July 7, 1518).

Luther faced a critical decision. Even if the most genial of popes

should treat him leniently, he might find himself politely silenced

and buried in a Roman monastery, to be soon forgotten by those who now

applauded him. He wrote to Georg Spalatin, chaplain to Elector

Frederick, suggesting that German princes should protect their

citizens from compulsory extradition to Italy. The Elector agreed.

He had a high regard for Luther, who had made the University of

Wittenberg prosper; and besides, Emperor Max, seeing in Luther a

possible card to play in diplomatic contests with Rome, advised the

Elector to "take good care of that monk." `061622

At this very time the Emperor had summoned an Imperial Diet to

meet at Augsburg to consider the Pope's request that it should tax

Germany to help finance a new crusade against the Turks. The clergy

(Leo proposed) should pay a tenth, the laity a twelfth, of their

income, and every fifty householders should furnish one man. The

Diet refused; on the contrary, it firmly restated the grievances

that were providing the background of Luther's success. It pointed out

to the papal legate that Germany had often taxed herself for crusades,

only to see the funds used for other papal purposes; that the people

would vigorously oppose any further remission of money to Italy;

that the annates, confirmation fees, and costs of canonical litigation

referred to Rome were already an intolerable burden; and that German

benefices were given as plums to Italian priests. So bold a

rejection of papal requests, said one delegate, had never been known

in German history. `061623 Noting the spirit of rebellion among the

princes, Maximilian wrote to Rome advising caution in the treatment of

Luther, but promising cooperation in suppressing heresy.

Leo was disposed or compelled to lenience; indeed, a Protestant

historian has ascribed the triumph of the Reformation to the

moderation of the Pope. `061624 He put aside the order for Luther's

appearance in Rome; instead he bade him present himself at Augsburg

before Cardinal Cajetan, and answer charges of indiscipline and

heresy. He instructed his legate to offer Luther full pardon, and

future dignities, if he would recant and submit; otherwise the secular

authorities should be asked to send him to Rome. `061625 About the

same time Leo announced his intention of presenting to Frederick an

honor that the pious Elector had long coveted- that "Golden Rose"

which the popes bestowed upon secular rulers whom they wished to

signalize with their highest favor. Probably Leo now offered to

support Frederick as successor to the Imperial crown. `061626

Armed with an Imperial safe-conduct, Luther met Cajetan at

Augsburg (October 12-14, 1518). The Cardinal was a man of great

theological learning and exemplary life, but he misread his function

to be that of judge, not diplomat. As he saw the matter, it was

primarily a question of ecclesiastical discipline and order: should

a monk be allowed to criticize publicly his superiors- to whom he

had vowed obedience- and to advocate views condemned by the Church?

Refusing to discuss the right or wrong of Luther's statements, he

demanded a retraction and a pledge never again to disturb the peace of

the Church. Each lost patience with the other. Luther returned

impenitent to Wittenberg; Cajetan asked Frederick to send him to Rome;

Frederick refused. Luther wrote a spirited account of the

interviews, which was circulated throughout Germany. In forwarding

it to his friend Wenzel Link, he added: "I send you my trifling work

that you may see whether I am not right in supposing that, according

to Paul, the real Antichrist holds sway over the Roman court. I

think he is worse than any Turk." `061627 In a milder letter to Duke

George he asked that "a common reformation should be undertaken of

the spiritual and temporal estates"- `061628 his first known use of

the word that was to give his rebellion its historic name.

Leo continued his efforts for conciliation. By a bull of November 9,

1518, he repudiated many of the extreme claims for indulgences;

these forgave neither sins nor guilt, but only those earthly penalties

that the Church- not secular rulers- had imposed; as to releasing

souls from purgatory, the power of the pope was limited to his

prayers, beseeching God to apply to a dead soul the surplus merits

of Christ and the saints. On November 28 Luther issued an appeal

from the judgment of the pope to that of a general council. In that

same month Leo commissioned Karl von Miltitz, a young Saxon nobleman

in minor orders in Rome, to take the Golden Rose to Frederick, and

also to make a quiet effort to bring Luther, that "child of Satan,"

back to obedience. `061629

On reaching Germany, Miltitz was astonished to find half the country

openly hostile to the Roman See. Among his own friends in Augsburg and

Nuremberg three out of five were for Luther. In Saxony anti-papal

feeling ran so strong that he divested himself of all indications that

he was a papal commissioner. When he met Luther at Altenburg

(January 3, 1519), he found him more open to reason than to fear.

Probably at this stage Luther was sincerely anxious to preserve the

unity of Western Christendom. He made generous concessions: to observe

silence if his opponents would do likewise; to write a letter of

submission to the Pope; to acknowledge publicly the propriety of

prayers to the saints, the reality of purgatory, and the usefulness of

indulgences in remitting canonical penances; and to recommend to the

people a peaceful allegiance to the Church; meanwhile the details of

the controversy were to be submitted for adjudication to some German

bishop acceptable to both parties. `061630 Well pleased, Miltitz

went to Leipzig, summoned Tetzel, reproved him for excesses, accused

him of mendacity and embezzlement, and dismissed him. Tetzel retired

to his monastery, and died soon afterward (August 11, 1519). On his

deathbed he received a kindly letter from Luther, assuring him that

the indulgence sale was only an occasion, not a cause, of the

disturbance, "that the affair had not been begun on that account,

but that the child had quite another father." `061631 On March 3

Luther wrote to the Pope a letter of complete submission. Leo

replied in a friendly spirit (March 29), inviting him to come to

Rome to make his confession, and offering him money for the

journey. `061632 However, with consistent inconsistency, Luther had

written to Spalatin on March 13: "I am at a loss to know whether the

Pope is Antichrist or his apostle." `061633 Under the circumstances he

thought it safer to stay in Wittenberg.

There the faculty, students, and citizens were predominantly

friendly to his cause. He was especially happy to receive the

support of a brilliant young humanist and theologian whom the

Elector had appointed in 1518, at the age of twenty-one, to teach

Greek at the university. Philipp Schwarzert (Black Earth) had had

his name Hellenized as Melanchthon by his great-uncle Reuchlin. A

man of small stature, frail physique, halting gait, homely features,

lofty brow, and timid eyes, this intellectual of the Reformation

became so loved in Wittenberg that five or six hundred students

crowded his lecture room, and Luther himself, who described him as

having "almost every virtue known to man," `061634 humbly sat among

his pupils. "Melanchthon," said Erasmus, "is a man of gentle nature;

even his enemies speak well of him." `061635 Luther enjoyed combat;

Melanchthon longed for peace and conciliation. Luther sometimes chided

him as immoderately moderate; but Luther's noblest and mildest side

showed in his uninterrupted affection for one so opposed to him in

temperament and policy.

-

I have been born to war, and fight with factions and devils;

therefore my books are stormy and warlike. I must root out the

stumps and stocks, cut away the thorns and hedges, fill up the

ditches, and am the rough forester to break a path and make things

ready. But Master Philip walks softly and silently, tills and

plants, sows and waters with pleasure, as God has gifted him

richly. `061636

-

Another Wittenberg professor shone with a fiercer light than

Melanchthon's. Andreas Bodenstein, known from his birthplace as

Carlstadt, had joined the university staff at the age of twenty-four

(1504); at thirty he received the chair of Thomistic philosophy and

theology. On April 13, 1517, he anticipated Luther's historic

protest by publishing 152 theses against indulgences. At first opposed

to Luther, he soon turned into an ardent supporter, "hotter in the

matter than I," said the great rebel. `061637 When Eck's Obelisci

challenged Luther's theses Carlstadt defended them in 406

propositions; one of these contained the first definite declaration,

in the German Reformation, of the Bible's paramount authority over the

decretals and traditions of the Church. Eck replied with a challenge

to a public debate; Carlstadt readily agreed, and Luther made the

arrangements. Eck then published a prospectus listing thirteen

theses which he offered to prove in the debate. One ran: "We deny that

the Roman Church was not superior to other churches before the time of

Sylvester; we have always recognized the possessor of Peter's chair as

his successor and as the vicar of Christ." But it was not Carlstadt,

it was Luther who, in the Resolutiones, had raised the point that in

the first centuries of Christianity the Roman See had no more

authority than several other bishops of the Church. Luther felt

himself challenged, and claimed that Eck's thesis freed him from his

vow of silence. He determined to join Carlstadt in the theological

tournament.

In June 1519, the two warriors rode off to Leipzig, accompanied by

Melanchthon and six other professors, and escorted in country carts by

200 Wittenberg students armed and armored as if for battle; and in

truth they were entering territory hostile to Luther. In the great

tapestried hall of Pleissenburg Castle, packed with excited

spectators, and under the presidency of the orthodox Duke George of

Albertine Saxony, Eck and Carlstadt began the joust between the old

and the new (June 27). Hardly anyone in Leipzig cared that on the

morrow a new emperor was to be elected at Frankfurt-am-Main. After

Carlstadt had for days suffered under Eck's superior argumentative

skill, Luther took the stand for Wittenberg. He was brilliant and

powerful in debate, but recklessly candid. He denied emphatically

the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the early days of Christianity,

and reminded his mostly antipathetic audience that the widespread

Greek Orthodox Church still rejected the supremacy of Rome. When Eck

charged that Luther's view echoed that of Huss, which the Council of

Constance had condemned, Luther replied that even ecumenical

councils could err, and that many doctrines of Huss were sound. When

this debate ended (July 8), Eck had accomplished his real purpose-

to have Luther commit himself to a definite heresy. The Reformation

now advanced from a minor dispute about indulgences to a major

challenge of papal authority over Christendom.

Eck passed on to Rome, presented to the Curia a report of the

disputation, and recommended the excommunication of Luther. Leo was

not so precipitate; he still hoped for some peaceable solution, and he

was too distant from Germany to realize how far the revolt had gone.

Prominent and respected citizens like Johan Holzschuher, Lazarus

Spengler, and Willibald Pirkheimer spoke up for Luther; Durer prayed

for his success; the humanists were sending forth a cloud of pamphlets

satirizing the papacy with all the exuberant vituperation

characteristic of the age. Ulrich von Hutten, on reaching Augsburg

in 1518, turned his rhymes against Leo's call for crusading funds, and

expressed the hope that the collectors would go home with empty

bags. When news came of the Leipzig debate he hailed Luther as the

liberator of Germany, and from that time his pen was a sword for the

Reform. He enlisted among Franz von Sickingen's knights- who were

itching for revolution- and induced him to offer Luther all the

support and protection that his armed band could provide. Luther

replied in warm appreciation, but was not ready to use force in

defense of his person.

In March 1520, Hutten published an old German manuscript written

in the time of the Emperor Henry IV (r. 1056-1106), and supporting

Henry in his struggle against Pope Gregory VII. He dedicated the

book to the young Emperor Charles V, as a hint that Germany expected

him to avenge Henry's humiliation and defeat. To free Germany from

Rome, said Hutten, was of greater urgency than to repel the Turks.

"While our forefathers thought it unworthy of them to submit to the

Romans when these were the most martial nation in the world, we not

only submit to these effeminate slaves of lust and luxury, but

suffer ourselves to be plundered to minister to their

sensuality." `061638 In April 1520 Hutten issued the first of two

series of Gesprache, verse dialogues that played a role second

only to Luther's works in voicing and stimulating the national

desire for independence from Rome. He described Rome as a "gigantic

bloodsucking worm," and declared that "the Pope is a bandit chief, and

his gang bears the name of the Church.... Rome is a sea of impurity, a

mire of filth, a bottomless sink of iniquity. Should we not flock from

all quarters to compass the destruction of this common curse of

humanity?" `061639 Erasmus pleaded with Hutten to temper his style,

and gave him a friendly warning that he was in danger of arrest.

Hutten hid himself in one after another of Sickingen's castles, but

continued his campaign. To Elector Frederick he recommended the

secular appropriation of all monastic wealth, and described the

excellent uses to which Germany could put the money that was

annually sent to Rome. `061640

But the center of the war remained in little Wittenberg. In the

spring of 1520 Luther published, with furious notes, an Epitome in

which he quoted the most recent and still uncompromising claims made

by orthodox theologians for the primacy and powers of the popes.

Luther met extremes with extremes:

-

If Rome thus believes and teaches with the knowledge of popes and

cardinals (which I hope is not the case), then in these writings I

freely declare that the true Antichrist is sitting in the temple of

God and is reigning in Rome- that empurpled Babylon- and that the

Roman Curia is the Synagogue of Satan.... If the fury of the Romanists

thus goes on, there will be no remedy left except that the emperors,

kings, and princes, girt about with force and arms, should attack

these pests of the world, and settle the matter no longer by words but

by the sword.... If we strike thieves with the gallows, robbers with

the sword, heretics with fire, why do we not much more attack in

arms these masters of perdition, these cardinals, these popes, and all

this sink of the Roman Sodom which has without end corrupted the

Church of God, and wash our hands in their blood? `061641

Later in the same year Carlstadt issued a "little book"- De

canonicis scripturis libellus - exalting the Bible over popes,

councils, and traditions, and the Gospels over the Epistles; if Luther

had followed this last line, Protestantism might have been less

Pauline, Augustinian, and predestinarian. The libellus was ahead

of its time in doubting the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and

the full authenticity of the Gospels. But it was weak in its central

argument: it decided the authenticity of Biblical books by the

traditions of the early centuries, and then rejected tradition in

favor of the books so certified.

Heartened by the support of Melanchthon and Carlstadt, Hutten and

Sickingen, Luther wrote to Spalatin (June 11, 1520):

-

I have cast the die. I now despise the rage of the Romans as much as

I do their favor. I will not reconcile myself to them for all

eternity.... Let them condemn and burn all that belongs to me; in

return I will do as much for them.... Now I no longer fear, and I am

publishing a book in the German tongue about Christian reform,

directed against the pope, in language as violent as if I were

addressing Antichrist. `061642

IV. BULLS AND BLASTS

-

On June 15, 1520, Leo X issued a bull, Exsurge Domine, which

condemned forty-one statements by Luther, ordered the public burning

of the writings in which these had appeared, and exhorted Luther to

abjure his errors and return to the fold. After sixty days of

further refusal to come to Rome and make a public recantation, he

was to be cut off from Christendom by excommunication, he was to be

shunned as a heretic by all the faithful, all places where he stayed

were to suspend religious services, and all secular authorities were

to banish him from their dominions or deliver him to Rome.

Luther marked the end of his period of grace by publishing the first

of three little books that constituted a program of religious

revolution. Hitherto he had written in Latin for the intellectual

classes; now he wrote in German- and as a German patriot- An Open

Letter to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the

Reform of the Christian Estate. He included in his appeal the

"noble youth" who, a year before, had been chosen emperor as Charles

V, and whom "God has given us to be our head, thereby awakening

great hopes of good in many hearts." `061643 Luther attacked the

"three walls" that the papacy had built around itself: the distinction

between the clergy and the laity, the right of the pope to decide

the interpretation of Scripture, and his exclusive right to summon a

general council of the Church. All these defensive assumptions, said

Luther, must be overthrown.

First, there is no real difference between clergy and laity; every

Christian is made a priest by baptism. Secular rulers, therefore,

should exercise their powers "without let or hindrance, regardless

whether it be pope, bishop or priest whom they affect.... All that the

canon law has said to the contrary is sheer invention of Roman

presumption." `061644 Second, since every Christian is a priest, he

has the right to interpret the Scriptures according to his own

light. `061645 Third, Scripture should be our final authority for

doctrine or practice, and Scripture offers no warrant for the

exclusive right of the pope to call a council. If he seeks by

excommunication or interdict to prevent a council, "we should

despise his conduct as that of a madman, and, relying on God, hurl

back the ban on him, and coerce him as best we can." `061646 A council

should be called very soon; it should examine the "horrible" anomaly

that the head of Christendom lives in more worldly splendor than any

king; it should end the appropriation of German benefices by Italian

clergymen; it should reduce to a hundredth the "swarm of vermin"

holding ecclesiastical sinecures in Rome and living chiefly on money

from Germany.

-

Some have estimated that every year more than 300,000 gulden find

their way from Germany to Italy.... We here come to the heart of

the matter. ... How comes it that we Germans must put up with such

robbery and such extortion of our property at the hands of the

pope?... If we justly hang thieves and behead robbers, why should we

let Roman avarice go free? For he is the greatest thief and robber

that has come or can come into the world, and all in the holy name

of Christ and St. Peter! Who can longer endure it or keep

silence? `061647

-

Why should the German Church pay this perpetual tribute to a foreign

power? Let the German clergy throw off their subjection to Rome, and

establish a national church under the leadership of the Archbishop

of Mainz. Mendicant orders should be reduced, priests should be

allowed to marry, no binding monastic vows should be taken before

the age of thirty; interdicts, pilgrimages, Masses for the dead, and

holydays (except Sundays) should be abolished. The German Church

should be reconciled with the Hussites of Bohemia; Huss was burned

in flagrant violation of the safe-conduct given him by the emperor;

and in any case "we should vanquish heretics with books, not with

burning." `061648 All canon law should be discarded; there should be

only one law, for clergy and laity alike.

-

Above all, we should drive out from German lands the papal legates

with their "powers"- which they sell us for large sums of money- to

legalize unjust gains, dissolve oaths, vows, and agreements, saying

that the pope has authority to do this- though it is sheer knavery....

If there were no other evil wiles to prove that the pope is the true

Antichrist, this one thing would be enough to prove it. Hearest thou

this, O pope, not most holy of men but most sinful? Oh, that God

from heaven would soon destroy thy throne, and sink it in the abyss of

hell!... O Christ my Lord, look down, let the day of thy judgment

break, and destroy the Devil's nest at Rome! `061649

-

This headlong assault of one man against a power that pervaded all

Western Europe became the sensation of Germany. Cautious men

considered it intemperate and rash; many reckoned it among the most

heroic deeds in German history. The first edition of the Open Letter

was soon exhausted, and the presses of Wittenberg were kept busy

with new printings. Germany, like England, was ripe for an appeal to

nationalism; there was as yet no Germany on the map, but there were

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

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