822 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
standing his many physical infirmities, an astounding power of work. He could express the deepest thought in the clearest and strongest language, and had an abundant supply of juicy and forcible epithets.1_ His very opponents had to imitate his German speech if they wished to reach the masses, and to hit the nail on the head. He had a genial heart, but also a most violent temper, and used it as a weapon for popular effect. He felt himself called to the rough work of “removing stumps and stones, cutting away thistles and thorns, and clearing the wild forests.” He found aid and comfort in the severe language of the prophets. He had, as he says, the threefold spirit of Elijah, — the storm, the earthquake, and the fire, which subverts mountains and tears the rocks in pieces. He thoroughly understood the wants and tastes of his countrymen who preferred force to elegance, and the club to the dagger. Foreigners, who knew him only from his Latin writings, could not account for his influence. Roman _ historians, in denouncing his polemics, are apt to forget the fearful severity of the papal bull, the edict of Worms, and the condemnatory decisions of the universities.” His pen was powerfully aided by the pencil of his friend Lucas Cranach, the court-painter of Frederick the Wise. Melanchthon had no popular talent, but he employed his scholarly pen in a Latin apology for Luther “against the furious decree of the Parisian theologasters.”? The Sor-
1 Kraftworter, as the Germans call them.
2 Janssen says (II. 181 and 193): ‘‘ Den Ton fiir die ganze damalige polemische Literatur gab Luther an, wie durch seine friiheren Schriften, so auch durch die neuen, welche er von der Wartburg aus in die Welt schickte.’’ Then he quotes a number of the coarsest outbursts of Luther’s wrath, and his disparaging remarks on some books of the New Testament (the Eusebian Antilegomena), all of which, however, are disowned by the Lutheran Church, and more than counterbalanced by his profound reverence for, and submission to, the undoubted writings (the Homologumena). See § 6, pp. 16 sqq.
8 “ Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum Decretum pro Luthero Apologia,’’ 1521. In the ‘‘ Corpus Reformat.,’’ vol. I. 398-416. A copy of the original edition is in the Royal Library at Berlin. An extract, in Carl Schmidt’s Philipp Melanchthon, pp. 55 sqq.
§ 59. STATE OF PUBLIC ΟΡΙΝΙΟΝ. 323
bonne, hitherto the most famous theological faculty, which in the days of the reformatory councils had stood up for the cause of reform, followed the example of the universities of Louvain and Cologne, and denounced Luther during the sessions of the Diet of Worms, April 15, 1521, as an arch-heretic who had renewed and intensified the blasphemous errors of the Manicheans, Hussites, Beghards, Cathari, Waldenses, Ebionites, Arians, etc.,and who should be destroyed by fire rather than refuted by arguments! Eck translated the decision at once into German. Melanchthon dared to charge the faculty of Paris with apostasy from Christ to Aristotle, and from biblical theology to scholastic sophistry. Luther translated the Apology into German at the Wartburg, and, finding it too mild, he added to it some strokes of his “peasant’s axe.” ?
Ulrich von Hutten was almost equal to Luther in literary power, eloquence, wit, and sarcasm, as well as in courage, and aided him with all his might from the Ebernburg during his trial at Worms; but he weakened his cause by want of principle. He had previously republished and ridiculed the Pope’s bull of excommunication. He now attacked the edict of Worms, and wrote invectives against its authors, the papal legates, and its supporters, the bishops. He told the former how foolish it was to proceed with such impudence and violence against Luther, in opposition to the spirit of the age, that the time of revenge would soon come; that the
1 Determinatio Theologorum Parisiensium super Doctrina Lutheriana. **Corp. Reform.” I. 366-388.
2 “* Mein lieber Philipp,’’ he says, “ hat ihnen [den groben Pariser Eseln] wohl meisterlich geantwortet, hat sie aber doch zu sanft angerthrt und mit dem leichten Hobel iiberlaufen ; ich sehe wohl, ich muss mit der Bauernazt tiber die groben Blocke kommen.’’ At the same time there appeared an anoymous satire against the Paris theologians, in the style of the Epistole Obscurorum Virorum. See Schmidt, l.c. p. 58.
8 In Hieron. Aleandrum et Marinum Caracciolum Oratores Leonis X. apud Vormaciam Invective singule.—In Cardinales, episcopos et Sacer-
dotes, Lutherum Vormacie oppugnantes, Invectiva. — Ad Carolum Imp. pro Luthero exhortatoria. See Strauss, Ulrich υ. Hutten, pp. 397 sqq.