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death of the emperor Maxi milian on Jan. i 1, 1519, and the long negotiations relative to the election of his successor, brought a lengthy pause in the further consideration of his case as far as the Roman Curia was concerned. Meanwhile the condition of the truce between him and his opponents was broken by the intervention of Eck, who challenged him to a debate at Leipzig on the subject of the papal power. Luther accepted the challenge and in preparation for the disputation made an intensive study of the constitution of the ancient Church and the later claims of the bishop of Rome to its headship, as expressed in the papal decretals. Thus carefully prepared, he encountered his formidable antagonist in the famous disputation which took place in July 1519 and forms another landmark in the development of his reforming teaching. In the course of it he controverted the divine right of the papacy, as serted the supreme authority of Scripture, maintained that John Hus had been unjustly condemned by the council of Constance, and questioned the infallibility of a general council. Eck, who was a practised debater, had skilfully led him into these com promising admissions and claimed the victory. He had at all events shown that he was at variance with the received teaching of the Church, not merely in the comparatively minor subject of indulgences, but on fundamental doctrines. Though both parties had at the outset agreed to refer the contest to the judg ment of the universities of Paris and Erfurt, both continued it in a number of controversial writings, to which new adversaries Alveld, Emser, Dungersheim, Hoogstraten--contributed on the side of Eck, and Melanchthon, Occolampadius, Bucer, Hutten and others on the side of Luther. Luther himself, as well as Eck, added an important quota in the Resolutiones Lutherianae, a sermon on the sacrament of the altar, and a treatise on good works, which only widened the breach between him and his opponents.
Ultimately Eck betook himself to Rome to prosecute the suit against Luther which the Curia had determined to resume and bring to a final issue. As the result of the re-examination of his case by a series of commissions ap pointed by the pope in the spring of 152o, the bull Exsurge Do mine, condemning 41 errors in his teaching, was formulated, and after discussion in the consistory, was issued in June. It granted to the heretic an interval of 6o days after its publication in Ger many for the purpose of retracting and returning to the Church. Failing compliance, he and his adherents were to be excommuni cated, arrested and punished as notorious and pertinacious heretics. Excommunication was also denounced against all, of whatever rank, who should refuse to comply with the provisions of the bull, which Eck and Aleander were commissioned, as papal nuncios, to publish throughout the empire.
The Bull of Condemnation only fanned the pugnacious spirit of the reformer. At first he professed to see in it a fabrication of Eck, and denounced it in two defiant philippics, Eck's New Bulls and Lies, and Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist. Then, recognizing its authenticity, he renewed his appeal to a general council, and finally, on Dec. Io, 152o, publicly consigned it, with a copy of the canon law and other documents, to the flames. Dur ing the previous summer and early autumn he had sent forth his three great reform treatises—the Address to the German Nobility, The Babylonic Captivity of the Church and The Freedom of a Christian Man. In the first he arraigned in passionate language the abuses rampant in the Church, and appealed to the secular power to undertake the work of reformation on the ground of its divine institution, its Christian character, and its ethical func tions which entitle it to summon a general council to rectify what is amiss in the Church, and even to undertake this clamant duty in case the Church refuses to reform itself. In the second he attacked the mediaeval sacramental system, reduced the num ber of the sacraments from seven to three, and asserted the right of the individual Christian to emancipate himself from priestly bondage. In the third he expounded anew in simple, non-con troversial terms his fundamental doctrine of justification, which involves alike the freedom of the individual from the work-right eousness of mediaeval religion and the obligation of self-discipline and service for others as the indispensable fruit of justifying faith.
In Jan. 1521, the pope, in consequence of Luther's refusal to retract and submit to the authority of the Church, launched a Bull of Excommunication against him (Decet Romanum), and called on the emperor Charles V., the successor of Maximilian, to execute it forthwith. Instead of complying, the emperor, in deference to the intervention of the Saxon elector and the will of the majority of the diet, which met at Worms at the end of January and continued its sittings till May, decided to summon him to appear for examination before the diet under the imperial safe conduct, whilst promulgating an edict against his writings at the instigation of the papal nuncio Aleander. On April 16, Luther entered Worms. On his appearance before the assembly on the following day he acknowledged the authorship of the books on the table, the titles of which were recited by a secretary. But, in answer to the question whether he was pre pared to recant any part of them, he asked for time for consid eration on the ground of the importance of the issue involved. He was granted an interval of 24 hours. Late on the morrow, the
he was asked by the official of the archbishop of Treves, Dr. John von der Ecken, who acted as interrogator, whether he was now prepared to defend all the books which he had recog nized as his. In reply he proceeded to show why he should not be asked straight away. to recant, and requested to be convinced of his errors from Scripture. If thus convinced he would forth with revoke and be the first to throw his books into the fire. In a long harangue the official rebuked his audacity in arrogating a knowledge of the Scriptures against all the doctors of the Church, and concluded by demanding a definite and straightforward an swer to the question whether he would retract his errors or not. Then came the fateful words uttered in firm and clear tones: "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by an evident reason (ratione evidente)—for I confide neither in the pope nor in a council alone, since it is certain that they have often erred and contradicted themselves—I am held fast by the Scriptures adduced by me, and my conscience is taken cap tive by God's Word, and I neither can nor will revoke anything, seeing that it is not safe or right to act against conscience. God help me. Amen." On retiring from the excited assembly he was greeted by the emperor's Spanish guards with the cry "To the fire with him!" whilst he and his adherents passed on with up lifted hands after the old German fashion of celebrating a vic tory. "I am through," he cried joyfully on reaching his lodging and receiving the congratulation of his friends. He persisted in his refusal before a committee appointed by the diet to bring about a feasible accommodation, and was commanded by the emperor to leave Worms on April 26. On May 4 he was inter cepted by a party of horsemen in the Thuringian forest, in ac cordance with a previous arrangement of the elector of Saxony and two of his trusty councillors, and was furtively lodged in the electoral castle of the Wartburg, overlooking Eisenach. On May 26, after the close of the diet on the previous day, the em peror, having received the assurance of the papal support in his war against Francis I. of France, formally signed the Edict of Worms placing him and his adherents under the ban of the empire and instituting a rigorous censorship of the press. It professed to be issued "with the unanimous consent and will" of the estates of the empire. In reality it had been submitted on the previous evening to only a fraction of the members after the formal closing of the diet, and did not represent the mind of the German people. As the result of these four years of strenuous conflict, the breach between Rome and Luther was complete and irretrievable, and the indomitable, heroic monk had won the sympathy and support of a large proportion of his countrymen on material and economic as well as religious grounds.