As regards the beginnings of the controversy, both series of Theses advanced by Johann Tetzel in 1517 against Luther’s attack on the system of indulgences, are exclusively of a technical nature and never even mention by name the originator of the controversy.
Luther, on the other hand, after the publication of the ninety-five Theses, in his German sermon on Indulgences and Grace, addressed himself directly to the populace. He poured out his scorn on the school-opinions of the theologians and the “bawling” of the envious; they seek, he says, your “pennies,” not your souls, and preach for the sake of their “money-box.” He appealed very cleverly to their more sordid instincts, hinting that the money might be better spent on the poor in their own neighbourhood than on the building of St. Peter’s; at the end, sure of his success with the multitude, he abused those who called him a heretic, as “darkened intellects who had never even sniffed a Bible ... and had never grasped their own teaching.”
What was the nature of Tetzel’s reply? His “Vorlegung” of the Sermon, being intended for the people, was naturally written in German, but in the wearisome style of the Latin theology of the Schools. In point of matter and logical accuracy it was indeed far superior to Luther’s superficialities, but the clumsy German in which it was couched and the number of quotations it borrowed from the Fathers could only make it distasteful to the reader. It is hardly possible to recognise in its language the popular orator who was such a favourite with the people. The seriousness of his tone contrasts strangely with Luther’s airy style. It is easy to believe his honest assurance, that he was ready to submit his views to the judgment of the learned and to the ecclesiastical authorities, and to risk even life itself for the holy Faith of the Catholic past. Only towards the end of the short work, when refuting Luther’s twentieth proposition, does Tetzel, not very skilfully, retaliate upon his opponent — though even here he does not name him — for the coarse and abusive language he had used in this thesis. Tetzel says, it would be seen from a consideration of their reasons which of the two it was who had “never sniffed a Bible,” never grasped his own teaching and applied to the study of theology “a brain like a sieve”; which of the two was the schismatic, heretic, etc.
In his reply to the “Vorlegung,” which he published in his own name under the title “Eyn Freiheyt dess Sermons Bebstlichen Ablass,” Luther spared no venom: Sun and moon might well wonder at the light of wisdom displayed by such a poetaster; evidently he had a superabundance of paper and leisure; but his artificial flowers and withered leaves must be scattered to the winds; he had dared to treat “the scriptural text, which is our comfort (Rom. xv. 4), as a sow would treat a sack of oats.” His opponent’s offer to risk a trial by fire or water for the Faith, he treats with the utmost scorn and derision: “My honest advice to him would be, modestly to restrict himself to the juice of the grape and to the steam that arises from the roast goose to which he is so partial.” — Some Protestants have urged that Luther’s rudeness of tone, here displayed for the first time, may be explained by his opponent’s example. How little this defence of Luther accords with the true state of the case is plain from the above.
As regards Silvester Prierias the matter stands somewhat differently. The “Dialogus,” composed by the Master of the Palace in hot haste in reply to Luther’s “arrogant Theses on the power of the Pope” (the ninety-five Indulgence Theses he had nailed to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg), a work written with all the weighty scholarship of the Schoolmen and criticising each thesis in detail, contained in its thirty-three octavo pages a number of exaggerations and words calculated to offend.
The lively Southerner was not content with proving that much in Luther’s Theses was provocative, contrary to dogma, criminal, seductive, sarcastic, etc., but, even in the Dedication to Leo X, he starts off by saying that: Luther had dared to rise up against the truth and the Holy See, but that he, the writer, would see whether “his iron nose and brazen neck were really unbreakable.” Luther preferred to “snap secretly” rather than to put forward plain doctrines. “If it is in the nature of dogs to snap, then I feel sure you must have had a dog for your father, for you are ever ready to bite.” Luther having in one passage put forward a statement that was true, Prierias tells him: “You mix a little truth with much that is false, and thus you are a spiritual leper, for you have a spotted skin that shines partly with true, partly with false colours.” Referring to the building of St. Peter’s at Rome, he says to Luther rather maliciously: “You blame in the case of the first church of Christendom what was extolled when other churches were being built. Had you received a fat bishopric from the Pope with a plenary indulgence for the erection of your church, then, perhaps, you would have found friendly words in plenty and have belauded the Indulgences on which now you pour contempt.”
These are lapses in style which a high official of the Pope should have known better than to commit.
Yet it is clear from Luther’s reply that they did not exasperate him nearly so much as did Prierias’s energetic repudiation of his teaching and his calm exposure of the untenable nature of his assertions. What alarmed him was the fact that a highly placed Papal dignitary should have shown the contrast between his innovations and the theology and practice of the Church; he now perceived clearly the practical consequences of his undertaking and the direct entanglement it would involve with Rome. Hence the frame of mind in which he composed his “Responsio ad Dialogum,” etc. (1518), was not due so much to his opponent’s personalities as to the whole aspect of affairs, to the shakiness of his own position and to his fierce determination to win respect for and to further at the expense of Rome the new doctrine which he now had ready-made in his mind. Whoever recalls the spirit which breathes in his Commentary on Romans and the violent language found in his sermons and letters even before 1518, will readily estimate at its true worth the statement, that what drove him onwards was the insolence of Prierias. Unfortunately, Prierias’s “Dialogue” shares the fate of the Latin works which appeared in Germany in defence of Catholicism in the early days of the struggle with Luther: Save by a few theologians, they are never read, and, indeed, even were they read, it is doubtful whether they would be rightly understood except by those familiar with Scholasticism; hence discretion in passing judgment is doubly necessary.
In the Reply of 1518 now under consideration, Luther, in view of the person and position of his opponent, and of the possible consequences, is more restrained in his abuse than in other writings soon to follow. Yet, anxious as he was to furnish a real answer to the criticisms of an author so weighty, we find irony, rudeness and attempts to render ridiculous the “senile” objections of the “Thomaster,” the “sophist” and all his “taratantara,” intermingled with unwarrantable attacks on “Thomistic” theology, that storehouse whence his opponent purloined “his phrases and his shouting.” The reply opens with the words: “Your Dialogue, Reverend Father, has reached me; it is a rather high-flown writing, quite Italian and Thomistic.” It also ends in the same vein. “If for the future you don’t bring into the arena a Thomas armed with better weapons, then don’t expect to find again such consideration as I have just shown you. I have bridled myself so as not to return evil for evil. Good-bye.”
When, in 1519, the Dominican whom he had thus insulted published, first a “Replica” in the form of a short letter addressed to Luther, and then the “Epitome” (an abstract of his investigations into the theological questions then under discussion), it was impossible for Luther to complain of any too harsh treatment; the tone of the “Replica,” although dealing with Luther’s attacks on the person of the Roman scholar, falls immeasurably short of his assailant’s in point of bitterness. It is conciliatory, indeed proffers an olive-branch, should the Wittenberg professor retract the new doctrines which Rome was determined to condemn. As for the “Epitome,” it is merely a theological review of the doctrines involved, which it clearly states and establishes whilst vigorously refuting all opinions to the contrary. It
is accompanied by a grave warning to Luther not to impugn the authority of the Roman Church.
This was, however, sufficient to let loose the anger of the German Reformer, who meanwhile had advanced considerably, and whose wrath now manifested itself in his rejoinders. Such was his presumption that he actually reprinted in Germany both works of Prierias as soon as they had been published; the “Replica” he introduced with the derisive remark, that, as the author had threatened to give birth to more, they must pray that he might suffer no abortions. His reprint of the “Epitome” in 1520 was accompanied by contemptuous and satirical annotations, and by a preface and postscript where he breaks out into the language already described, about Antichrist seated in the Temple of God in the Roman Babylon, about the happiness of the separated Greeks and Bohemians and about the washing of hands in the blood of the Popish Sodom. It was the seething ferment in Luther’s own mind, not anything that Prierias had said, that was really responsible for such outbursts. The flood-gates had now been thrown open, and even from the Catholic side came many a wave of indignation to lend acrimony to the contest.
Referring to Luther’s words on bloodshed, we hear, for instance, Thomas Murner speaking of “the furious bloodhound, Martin Luther of execrable memory, the blasphemous, runaway monk and murderous bloodhound, who wants to wash his hands in the blood of the priests!”
How far Hieronymus Emser allowed himself to go in his hostility to Luther is plain from his first tract, “A venatione Luteriana Ægocerotis assertio,” of Nov., 1519, in which he replies to an attack of Luther’s on an epistle he (Emser) had sent to Provost Johann Zack. Luther, in the title, had addressed him as the “he-goat” (“ad Ægocerotem”) on account of the goat’s head figuring in his coat of arms. Emser retorts: “It is plainly beyond your ability to send out into the world any writing of yours that is not replete with houndish fury and bristles, as it were, with canine fangs. Your father is Belial, the ancestor of all insolent monks.” He paints a frightful picture of Luther’s career and character the better to prove that such a man had no right to sit in judgment on him.
Luther’s “An den Bock zu Leyptzck,” dating from the beginning of 1520, was replied to by Emser in his “An den Stier zu Wittenberg,” whereupon Luther retorted with “Auff des Bocks zu Leypczick Antwort,” to which Emser replied in his pamphlet: “Auff des Stieres tzu Wiettenberg wiettende Replica,” and his larger work “Against the Unchristian book of M. Luther to the German Nobility”; this Luther countered by his “Auff das ubirchristlich ... Buch Bocks Emssers.”
During the years 1521-1522 Emser wrote no less than eight tracts against the Wittenberg Professor. The Humanist and clever man of letters has left therein many a witty page; a refreshing sincerity is one of his characteristics. On the whole, however, what F. A. Scharpff says applies to these and the later polemics of this zealous champion of the Church: They “are composed in a tone of violent personality, nor does either combatant seek any longer to restrain the ‘Old Adam,’ as both at the outset had pledged themselves to do.”
Another of Luther’s earliest literary opponents was Johann Eck, the author of the “Obelisks,” on the Indulgence Theses. Like the works of Tetzel and Prierias, this tract is chiefly concerned in a calm discussion of the matter in dispute, though it does not refrain from occasionally describing this or that opinion of Luther’s as a “rash, corrupt, impudent assertion,” as an insipid, unblushing error, a ridiculous mistake, etc. The severest remark, however, and that which incensed Luther beyond all the rest was, that certain passages in the Indulgence Theses, owing to a confusion of ideas, made admissions “containing Bohemian poison,” i.e. savouring of the errors of Hus. Subsequent to this Eck, however, wrote to Carlstadt a letter which was intended for Luther, where he says in a conciliatory tone: “To offend Martin was never my intention.” Nor did he at first print his “Obelisks,” but merely sent the tract to his bishop and his friends. Luther, on the other hand, had the work printed in August, 1518, together with his own “Asterisks,” and, after circulating them privately among his acquaintances, finally published them together. In the “Asterisci” he speaks of the behaviour of Eck, his quondam “friend,” as most insidious and iniquitous (“insidiossissimum iniquissimum”), and mocks at his “grand, not to say high-flown,” preface. He says: “Hardly was I able to refrain from laughter”; Eck must have written his “Obelisks” during the Carnival; wearing the mask of genius he had produced a chaos. His writing adduced nothing concerning the Bible, the Fathers and the Canons, but was all arch-scholastic; had he, Luther, wished to peripateticise he could, with one puff, have blown away all these musty cobwebs, etc.
Johann Eck, who was professor of theology at the University of Ingolstadt and at the same time parish-priest and preacher, enjoyed a great reputation among the Catholics on account of his works against Luther, particularly those on the Primacy, on Purgatory, the Mass and other Catholic doctrines and practices, no less than on account of his printed sermons and his general activity on behalf of the Church.
The indefatigable defender of the Church composed amongst other writings the “Enchiridion locorum communium adv. Lutherum et alios hostes ecclesiæ” (1525). The work was of great service and formed an excellent guide to many.
In this well-arranged and eminently practical book the questions then under debate are dealt with for the instruction of Catholics and the confutation of heretics; excerpts from Scripture and from the Fathers are in each instance quoted in support of the Catholic teaching, and then the objections of opponents are set forth and answered. Not only were the Church, the Papal Primacy, Holy Scripture, Faith and Works, the Sacraments, the Veneration of the Saints, Indulgences, Purgatory and other similar points of doctrine examined in this way, but even certain matters of discipline and the ecclesiastico-political questions of the day, such as payments to Rome, the ornaments of the churches and the ceremonies of Divine Worship, the use of Latin in the Mass, the disadvantage of holding disputations with heretics, and even the question of the Turkish war. Hence the work amounted to a small arsenal of weapons for use in the controversial field. The tone is, however, not always moderate and dispassionate. The author was clear-sighted enough to avoid the pitfall into which other writers lapsed who cherished undue hopes of a settlement by give and take. In much that he says he still speaks from the mediæval standpoint, for instance, concerning the death penalty due to heretics; this he defends on the strength of the identical passages from the Old Testament to which Luther and his followers appealed for the putting to death of blasphemers and apostates from the true faith.
Eck had the satisfaction of seeing his “Enchiridion,” within four years, reprinted four times in Bavaria, twice at Tübingen, and at Cologne, Paris and Lyons. Before 1576 it had been reimpressed forty-five times. In the midst of his other literary works and his fatiguing labours as preacher and professor at the University of Ingolstadt, the scholar never forgot his useful “Enchiridion,” but amended it and added to it as occasion demanded. In 1529, in a new edition which he dedicated to Conrad von Thuengen, bishop of Würzburg, he looks back in the dedicatory preface on the ten years that had passed since his disputation at Leipzig, and voices his grief at the immense advance the apostasy had made with the course of time.
“People have outgrown themselves,” Eck exclaims, “they exalt themselves against God just as Lucifer once did, but like him too they fall into the abyss and come to despise the teaching of God.” “Whoever does not hold fast to the tradition of the Church and to the unanimous consent of the Fathers and the Councils must fall into the cesspool of the worst errors.” These words are characteristic of Eck’s unwavering adherence to authority.
He goes on to apply this to Luther: “Luther and those who follow him prefer to rise up in their foolish daring rather than bow to the rule of faith; they open their offensive mouth against the holy Fathers and the whole Church; they exalt their own judgment with momentous and arrogant blindness above that of the most august representatives of the
teaching office.” True enough Luther had begun softly by merely publishing some theses against the system of indulgences with which many might still agree; but then he had gone on step by step and had increased his partisans by proclaiming a Christian freedom which in reality savoured more of Mohammed. It is our sins, Eck admits, that are the cause of the unhappy success of his work. “From the poisoned root new and corrupt shoots are constantly springing up, and of their new sects we see no end. In our unhappy days we have experienced the fury of the iconoclasts; Capharnaites have arisen to whom Christ’s presence in the Sacrament is a hard saying; Anabaptists, who refuse baptism to children but bestow it on adults, and, amongst these teachers, every day fresh divisions arise so that the heretics are even more prolific than rabbits. Yes, God is angry with us and allows this because we do not turn to Him with powerful and fervent prayer.”
He then goes on to encourage the Bishop of Würzburg to offer vigorous resistance and points modestly to his own self-sacrificing labours.
“However much heresy may gain the upper hand, the watchmen of Sion must not keep silence; their voice must ring out like a clarion against the Philistines who scoff at the hosts of the Lord. We must oppose them with all the powers of our mind and defend the Tower of David, guarded, as Scripture says, with a thousand shields. This, zealous men, equipped with holy learning, have already done. I myself, as the least of all, have also entered the arena and exposed myself to the teeth of the wild beasts. At Leipzig I stood up and disputed for twenty days with Luther, the Prince of Dragons, and with Carlstadt; at Baden [in Switzerland, in 1526] too, I had to sustain a combat for several days with Œcolampadius the Capharnaite, and his comrades. I have also wrestled with them from a distance in several little works which I published in Germany and Italy.”
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 755
