230 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
of God and the blood of Christ, to repent and recant within sixty days after the publication of the bull in the Brandenburg, Meissen, and Merseburg dioceses, and promises to re ceive him graciously like the prodigal son. But failing to repent, he and his adherents will be cut off, as withered branches, from the vine of Christ, and be punished as obstinate heretics. This means that they shall be burned; for the bull expressly condemns the proposition of Luther which denounces the burning of heretics as “‘contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit.” All princes, magistrates, and citizens are exhorted, on threat of excommunication and promise of reward, to seize Luther and his followers, and to hand him over to the apostolic chair. Places which harbor him or his followers are threatened with the interdict. Christians are forbidden to read, print, or publish any of his books, and are commanded to burn them.
_ We may infer from this document in what a state of intellectual slavery Christendom would be at the present time if the papal power had succeeded in crushing the Reformation. It is difficult to estimate the debt we owe to Martin Luther for freedom and progress.
The promulgation and execution of the bull were intrusted to two Italian prelates, Aleander and Caraccioli, and to Dr. Eck. The personal enemy of Luther, who had been especially active in procuring the bull, was now sent back in triumph with the dignity of a papal nuncio, and even with the extraordinary power of including by name several followers of Luther, among whom he singled out Carlstadt and Dolzig of Wittenberg, Adelmann of Augsburg, Egranus of Zwickau, and the humanists Pirkheimer and Spengler of Nurnberg. The selection of Eck, the most unpopular man in Germany, was a great mistake of the Pope, as Roman historians admit, and it helped the cause of the Reformation.’
1 Pallavicini and Muratori censure Leo for commissioning Eck. Janssen says (II. 109): ‘‘ Es war ein trauriger Missgriff, dass mit der Verkiindigung
§ 47. THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION. 231
The bull was published and carried out without much difficulty in Mayence, Cologne, and Louvain; and Luther’s books were committed to the flames, with the sanction of the new Emperor. But in Northern Germany, which was the proper seat of the conflict, it met with determined resistance, and was defeated. Eck printed and placarded the bull at Ingolstadt, at Meissen (Sept. 21), at Merseburg (Sept. 25), and at Brandenburg (Sept. 29). But in Leipzig, where a year before he had achieved his boasted victory over Luther in public debate, he was insulted by the students (one hundred and fifty had come over from Wittenberg), and took flight in a convent; the bull was bespattered, and torn to pieces.’ He fared still worse in Erfurt, where he had been ridiculed and held up to scorn as a second Hochstraten in the satire Hecius dedolatus (printed at Erfurt in March, 1520): the theological faculty refused to publish the bull; and the students threw the printed copies into the water, saying, “It is only a waterbubble (bulla), let it float on the water.” ?
und Vollstreckung der Bulle in mehreren deutschen Didcesen Luther’s Gegner Johann Eck beauftragt wurde.’’ The same view was previously expressed by Kampschulte (Die Universitat Erfurt in ihrem Verh. zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation, Trier, 1858-60, Th. II., p. 36), although he fully justified the papal bull as a necessity for the Roman Church, and characterized its tone as comparatively mild in view of Luther’s radicale Umsturzgedanken and his violence of language. Audin and Archbishop Spalding defend the Pope.
1 Letter of Miltitz to Fabian von Feilitzsch, Oct. 2, 1520. In Walch, XV. 1872. Luther wrote to Spalatin, Oct. 3, 1520 (De Wette, I. 492), that he had just heard of the bad reception and danger of Eck at Leipzig, and hoped that he might escape with his life, but that his devices might come to naught.
2 * Bulla est, in aqua natet.’? So Luther reports in a letter to Greffendorf, Oct. 20 (De Wette, I. 520), and in a letter to Spalatin, Nov. 4 (I. 522 sq.). Kampschulte (l.c. 11. 37 sqq.) gives a full account of Eck’s troubles at Erfurt, from a rare printed placard, Intimatio Erphurdiana pro Martino Luthero (preserved by Riederer, and quoted also by Gieseler, III. I. 81, Germ. ed., or IV. 53, Anglo-Am. ed.), to the effect that the whole theological faculty stirred up all the students, calling upon them to resist ‘*‘ with hand and foot’’ the furious Pharisees and slanderers of Luther, who wished to cast him out of the Church and into hell. Luther makes no mention of sucha strange action of the faculty, which is scarcely credible as it included strict Catholics.