History of the Catholic Church, vol 1 - J. MacCaffrey (epub ebook reader .TXT) 📗

diplomacy of Miltitz, Luther was gaining ground with marvellous rapidity. His success was due partly to his own great personal gifts as a popular demagogue, and partly also to the fact that no man knew better than he how to make capital out of the ecclesiastical abuses of the time, and to win to his side all who had any reason to be discontented with the existing order. He was strengthened very much by the inactivity of the German bishops, who seemed unwilling to take any severe measures against him, by the help and encouragement of Frederick of Saxony, who, during the interregnum and for some time after the election of Charles V. was the real administrator of Germany, by his union with the leading Humanist scholars and professors, especially Erasmus, all of whom regarded Luther merely as the champion of liberty against the obscurantism of the Scholastics, and by his secret alliances with discontented nobles, such as Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen, whose sole hope of improving their fortunes lay in the creation of public disorder.

 

Johann Eck, Luther’s chief opponent, realising that there was no hope of stirring up the German authorities to take action, hastened to Rome to impress upon the Pope and his advisers the extreme gravity of the situation, and to urge them to proceed against the revolt with all possible energy and despatch. Luther himself recognised clearly enough that the crisis he had long foreseen was at hand, and he began to prepare men’s minds for complete rupture with the Church by his sermon on excommunication in which he bade defiance to the ecclesiastical authorities. He threw himself with renewed energy into the fray, turning out volume after volume with feverish rapidity, each more violent and abusive than its predecessor, and nearly all couched in language that was as intelligible to the peasant as it was to the professor. In his Address to the Nobles of Germany, in his works On the Mass, On the Improvement of Christian Morality, and On the Babylonian Captivity, he proclaimed himself a political as well as a religious revolutionary. There was no longer any concealment or equivocation. The veil was lifted at last, and Luther stood forth to the world as the declared enemy of the Church and the Pope, the champion of the Bible as the sole rule of faith, and the defender of individual judgment as its only interpreter. In these works he rejected the Mass, Transubstantiation, vows of chastity, pilgrimages, fasts, the Sacraments, the powers of the priesthood, and the jurisdiction and supremacy of the Pope. With such a man there could be no longer any question of leniency or of compromise. The issues at stake, namely, whether the wild and impassioned assertions of a rebel monk should be accepted in preference to the teaching of Christ’s Church, ought to have been apparent to every thinking man; and yet so blinded were some of his contemporaries by their sympathy with the Humanists as against the Theologians, that even still they forced themselves to believe Luther sought only for reform.

 

At Rome the trouble in Germany was one of the main subjects that engaged the attention of the Curia. It was felt that the time had come when decisive measures must be taken. After long and anxious deliberations Leo X. published the Bull, Exsurge Domine (June 1520), in which forty propositions taken from Luther’s writings were condemned, his works were ordered to be burned, the full penalties of excommunication were proclaimed against him unless he withdrew his errors and made his submission within sixty days, while his aiders and abettors were besought in the most touching terms to abandon the dangerous path into which they had been betrayed. Had such a pronouncement been issued at the beginning of the movement it might have done much to restore peace to the Church, but, coming as it did at a time when Luther’s movement, backed by all the revolutionary forces of Germany, had already acquired considerable dimensions, it failed to put an end to the tumult. Besides, the papal decision was deprived of much of its force by the fact that Eck, Caraccioli, and Aleandro were appointed as a commission to superintend its execution.

The appointment of Eck was a great tactical blunder, as it afforded Luther and his friends an opportunity of proclaiming that the sentence of excommunication was procured by the intrigues and misrepresentations of their personal enemies; while the fact that the German bishops were disregarded in the execution of the Bull as if they were not above suspicion themselves, was looked upon by many as a studied insult to the entire German hierarchy. Even though Luther had entertained any thoughts of submission, the triumph of Eck would have created very serious obstacles; but, knowing as he did, that even at the worst he could reckon upon the support of a certain number of the discontented nobles who had pledged themselves to put their swords at his disposal, he had no intention of making his submission.

 

The reception accorded to the papal document varied according to the views of the local authorities and the state of public feeling in the different cities and provinces. Thus, while its publication was welcomed in Cologne, Mainz, Halberstadt, and Freising, it was received with very mixed feelings at Leipzig and at Erfurt. Frederick of Saxony, to whom Leo X. had addressed a personal appeal, refused to abandon Luther’s cause unless it were proved from the Scriptures that he was wrong. He did, indeed, suggest that Luther should write a respectful letter to the Pope, but his suggestion passed unheeded. At first Luther pretended that the Bull was a forgery brought forward by Eck to discredit him, but when this line of defence proved useless, he boldly attacked the papal pronouncement in his pamphlet, Against the Bull of Anti-Christ, in which he denounced Leo X. as a heretic and apostate, an enemy of the Holy Scriptures, a tyrant, and a calumniator. Lest, however, the courage of his supporters might be overcome by the terrors of excommunication, he issued an appeal from the sentence of the Pope to the judgment of a future General Council.

Finally, on the 10th December, 1520, in the presence of an immense concourse of the citizens and students of Wittenberg, he burned publicly the papal Bull and the writings of his political opponents.

On this occasion he proclaimed his intention of overthrowing the ecclesiastical organisation, and of introducing a new theological system. For the future it was to be war to the knife against the Pope and the Church, and he called upon German patriots and all true friends of personal liberty to take their stand by his side in the conflict that had been begun.

 

Charles V. was apparently in a very strong position. Not since the days of Charlemagne had any ruler claimed jurisdiction over so wide a territory as his, comprising, as it did, Germany and Austria, the kingdom of the two Sicilies, Spain, and the Netherlands. But in reality the very extent of his dominions made him much less powerful than he might have been as the sovereign of a smaller but more compact region. It served to awaken the suspicions of his subjects, who feared that he might abolish their distinctive national constitutions and weld his scattered territories into one great empire, and to excite the jealousy of the other rulers of Europe, who imagined that he might declare himself dictator of the western world. The German princes, having resisted successfully all the efforts made by his grandfather, Maximilian I., to convert the loose confederation of the German States into a united and centralised nation, were on their guard lest his successor should attempt a similar policy with the aid of Spanish troops and Spanish gold; the Spaniards resented the absence of the king from Spain, where many of the lower classes were in a state bordering on rebellion; Francis I. of France, trembling for the very existence of his country, was willing to do all things, even to agree to an alliance with the sons of Mohammed, if he could only lessen the influence of his powerful rival. The Turks under Soliman I. were determined to realise the dreams of their race by extending their territories from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic; while even the Pope had good reason to suspect that Charles V., unmindful of the example of his great namesake, might seek to become the master rather than the protector of the Church.[19]

 

On account of the troubles in Spain it was only late in the year 1520

that Charles V. could come to Germany to meet the electors, and to take over formally the administration of the Empire (23 Oct.). Less than two weeks had elapsed when the papal representative, Aleandro, himself a distinguished Humanist, sought an interview with the new ruler, and besought him to enforce the papal Bull against Luther with the full weight of his imperial authority. But the wavering attitude of many of the princes and the determined opposition of Frederick of Saxony made the Emperor hesitate to condemn Luther without giving him an opportunity for explanation and defence. The Diet was soon to open at Worms, and Charles V. issued an invitation to Luther to attend, guaranteeing at the same time his personal safety on the way to and from Worms and during his sojourn in the city.

 

The Diet met in January 1521, but despite the efforts of Aleandro the majority of the princes still failed to realise the gravity of the situation. Feeling against Rome was running very high in Germany at the time. Many of the princes insisted on presenting a document embodying the grievances of Germany (/Centum Gravamina/)[20] to the papal ambassador, while even such an orthodox supporter of the Church as Duke George of Saxony, brought forward very serious complaints against the clergy, accompanied by a demand that a General Council should be summoned to restore peace to the Church. Luther, strengthened by the safe conduct of the Emperor and by a secret understanding with some of the princes and knights, set out from Wittenberg for Worms, where he arrived in April 1521. On presenting himself before the Diet he was invited to state if he were really the author of the works published under his name, copies of which were presented to him, and, if so, was he willing to retract the doctrines contained in them. In reply to the former of these questions he admitted the authorship of the volumes, but asked for time to consider what answer he should make in regard to the latter. A day was allowed him for consideration. When he appeared again, all traces of the hesitation and nervousness that marked his attitude at the previous session had disappeared. He refused to retract his opinions, and made it clear that he no longer acknowledged the authority of the Pope or of General Councils as a safe guide in matters religious.

 

Thereupon the Emperor intimated to the princes that he was determined to take vigorous action against such a heretic and disturber of the public peace, though at the request of some of the princes he allowed time for private conferences between Luther and representative Catholic theologians, notably Eck and Cochlaeus.[21] These conferences having failed to produce any result the Emperor issued an order (25th April) commanding Luther to depart from Worms without delay, and forbidding him to preach to the people on his journey under pain of forfeiting his safe conduct. A month later Charles V. published a decree placing Luther under the ban of the Empire. He was denounced as a public heretic whom no one should receive or support; he was to be seized by any one who could do so, and delivered to the Emperor; his writings were to be burned, and