The pamphlets turned out by him were part of a great flood that was upending Europe’s religious and social life. Usually eight or sixteen pages long, these Flugschriften used little paper and so were cheap, and they were highly effective at transmitting new ideas to a broad audience. In addition to homilies and sermons that offered spiritual solace and moral advice, the fly sheets included satires, dialogues, polemics, and manifestos seeking to promote an opinion, vilify an opponent, or decry an abuse. Common, too, were one-page broadsheets featuring a crude illustration along with a few inflammatory lines of text. Together, these ephemera were helping create a mass public opinion that had never previously existed and that was thoroughly antipapal and anti-Italian.
As printing grew less elitist, traditional publishing centers like Basel, Antwerp, and Paris were challenged by scrappy upstarts. Leading the way was Wittenberg. Despite its modest size and remote location, it would in a few short years become one of Europe’s top book producers, with six hundred titles (most of them pamphlets) appearing from 1518 to 1523. Works published first in Wittenberg would often appear in unauthorized editions elsewhere—a subversion of the normal hierarchies of the book trade.
Overall, in the first decade after the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses, an estimated six million to seven million pamphlets would be printed, the vast majority of them supporting Luther and his cause. Luther himself accounted for about a quarter of them. As his sales rose, those of Erasmus declined, and before long the ardent friar would eclipse the cultivated scholar as Europe’s bestselling author. Froben’s fortunes receded accordingly.
Had he wanted, Luther could have gotten rich off his writing, but he never asked for compensation of any kind, and this made him a favorite of publishers. The warmth was rarely reciprocated. In Luther’s view, most printing houses were driven by one thing only—greed—and he fumed over the low standards of accuracy that had become the norm in Germany as houses sought to undercut and pirate one another. Nonetheless, those printers, by taking financial as well as political risks to bring controversial works before the public, were instrumental in spreading dissident ideas. Thanks to the printing press, a lonely friar on a far edge of Germany was able to challenge the vicar of Christ in Rome. Printing, Luther declared, was “an unquenchable flame”—the “last and highest gift of God for the Gospel.”
Despite his ultimatum to Froben regarding Luther, Erasmus remained favorably disposed toward his fellow Augustinian. For all their differences in theology and temperament, both seemed to be working toward the same goal—revitalizing the Church and replacing its calcified rites and ceremonies with more heartfelt forms of repentance and reflection. It was time to offer some support. Two years earlier, Erasmus had sent Frederick the Wise a new edition of Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars along with a dedicatory preface. He had never heard back. On the pretext of checking to see if he had received it, Erasmus in mid-April 1519 decided to write to the elector again and while he was at it to set down his thoughts on Luther. (The letter from Luther had not yet arrived.) Since the letter was intended for Frederick’s eyes only, Erasmus felt he could be frank.
After saluting the elector for his support of liberal studies, Erasmus warned that those studies would continue to flourish only if sovereigns used their authority to defend them against the “enemies of the Muses,” who were agitating to restore the reign of ignorance. Luther was among their chief targets. Though he had read only snatches of Luther’s work, Erasmus observed, all who knew him spoke highly of his life. He was free of any suggestion of greed or ambition, and his integrity was approved by all. His detractors were thus unjustified in raging so fiercely against his character. Their agitation was all the more objectionable in that Luther had simply proposed points for discussion. No one had sought to correct or disprove him; instead, cries of “Heresy!” and “Antichrist!” had rung from pulpits and lecture halls. Luther’s adversaries in the Church seemed to thirst more for human blood than the salvation of souls.
The accusation of heresy, Erasmus added, should not be too readily cast at men who lead a life worthy of Christ. Those who insist on hurling such charges should themselves behave in a Christian manner, showing mildness in finding fault and charity in offering correction. Why did the theologians prefer to conquer rather than cure, to suppress a man rather than put him right? Christ, who alone of all men was free from error, did not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax. (This image, from Isaiah by way of Matthew, was a favorite of Erasmus’s.) As a wise ruler dedicated to protecting the Christian faith, Frederick should not allow an innocent man “to be delivered under the pretext of religion into the hands of the irreligious.”
Erasmus’s letter shows how solidly he supported Luther at this point. In the current climate, however, he was not willing to say so publicly. Rather, he hoped to prod a powerful prince into using his influence to defend Luther and the broader cause of reform. But the fact that the most celebrated literary figure in Europe had written in support of Luther ensured that his letter would not remain private for long. As soon as it arrived at the electoral court, Spalatin began circulating it. A copy quickly reached Wittenberg and Luther. “The letter of Erasmus pleases me and our friends very much,” Luther wrote. Soon afterward, Spalatin translated it into German, and before long the letter was known all over Germany, becoming a powerful piece of propaganda for the reform movement.
Erasmus was mortified. He had placed in the hands of his enemies a ready-made weapon that they could use against him. From now on, he realized, he would have to be far more circumspect.
As the climate in Louvain darkened, Erasmus could take some comfort from one of the high points of his career: the arrival in Louvain (shortly before May 1, 1519) of the second edition of his New Testament. Physically, the Novum Testamentum was a true monument: two thick folios totaling more than 1,250 pages, with one containing his new Latin translation (with the Greek alongside) and the other his annotations. In all, about two thousand copies were printed—a remarkable number for so complex and scholarly a work. Prominently displayed at the front was a letter from Leo X endorsing the project. Erasmus hoped that the pope’s imprimatur, along with the greatly expanded and revised text, would help quiet the squalls of obloquy raised by his first edition.
Around the same time as the Novum Testamentum arrived in Louvain, Luther’s letter reached Erasmus. Erasmus’s reply, written at the end of May 1519, reflected his new caution. “No words of mine could describe the storm raised here by your books,” he wrote. Many suspected that those books had been written with Erasmus’s assistance and that he was “a standard-bearer of this new movement.” The Louvain theologians were using Luther’s work as a pretext for suppressing not only humane studies but also Erasmus’s own work. “In the whole business their weapons are clamor, audacity, subterfuge, misinterpretation, innuendo; if I had not seen it with my own eyes—felt it, rather—I would never have believed theologians could be such maniacs.” This “poisonous virus,” starting in a small circle, had spread to a larger number, creating a contagion of “epidemic paranoia.” Erasmus had assured them that Luther was quite unknown to him—that he had not yet read his books and so could not form an opinion of them. He had also urged his critics not to place before the public a distorted account of the affair, “especially since all with one voice speak highly of the author’s manner of life.”
As for himself, he remained “uncommitted, so far as I can, in hopes of being able to do more for the revival of good literature.” One could accomplish more through courtesy and moderation than through tumult and insult. “That was how Christ brought the world under his sway; that was how Paul did away with the Jewish law.” Things that are so widely accepted that they cannot be torn from men’s minds all at once should be met with close-reasoned argument “rather than bare assertion.” In closing, Erasmus observed that he had dipped into Luther’s commentary on the Psalms (which had recently been published) and been impressed. It would, he hoped, prove “of
great service.”
That final grace note, however, could not conceal the letter’s chilliness. Far from providing the lifeline Luther had sought, Erasmus was urging him to be more reasonable and careful. Having already heard many such pleas, Luther was annoyed to get yet another. Even more exasperating was Erasmus’s determination to sit on the sidelines in the great contest that loomed ahead. From that moment, Luther’s personal disillusionment with the acclaimed humanist set in.
20
The Great Debate
Luther had little time to sulk, however, for he faced a far more pressing matter: a rendezvous in Leipzig with Johann Eck, the Ingolstadt professor who had attacked his Ninety-Five Theses (and Erasmus’s annotations). The Leipzig disputation would be a pivotal event in Luther’s life, accelerating his theological development, hastening his break with Rome, and deepening the divisions within Christendom.
Ironically, Luther was not even on the original program. Eck was instead due to debate Andreas von Karlstadt, the dean of the Wittenberg faculty. A restless and headstrong theologian who seemed unable to avoid controversy, Karlstadt would become a major figure in the Reformation—and a source of endless exasperation for Luther. When Eck attacked Luther in his Obelisks, Karlstadt decided, without informing Luther (who was away in Heidelberg), to defend him with his own set of 405 theses.
Inflamed, Eck challenged Karlstadt to a public disputation. Karlstadt accepted, and Leipzig was agreed on as the site. Seeking permission, they approached Duke George, in whose territory Leipzig sat, and he expressed his willingness to host the event. The duke was unhappy with the growing prominence of the University of Wittenberg and the prestige it was bringing to his cousin Frederick, and he hoped that the debate would deliver a blow to the upstarts. Wary of widening the conflict and offending Frederick, Leipzig’s theologians resisted, but George eventually prevailed, and the disputation was scheduled for June 27, 1519.
Eck had no real interest in debating Karlstadt, however; Luther was the real prize. Though nearly as prolific a writer as Luther, Eck had an arid and didactic style that won him little notice, but as a debater, he had few equals. Eck had won acclaim for his performance in earlier disputations at which he had vigorously defended the right of Christians to charge interest on loans despite biblical strictures on usury. A victory over Luther would further boost his reputation while earning the gratitude of the Holy See.
As the negotiations over the shape of the disputation continued, Eck and Karlstadt issued dueling theses and countertheses. In his, Eck sought to draw out Luther on a subject on which he seemed highly vulnerable: the primacy of the Roman Church. In his Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses, Luther had asserted that the superiority of Rome over all other churches had not been proclaimed until the pontificate of Sylvester I (314 to 335). This contradicted Rome’s insistence that its authority extended back to Christ as affirmed in the New Testament. Pouncing on Luther’s assertion, Eck reiterated Roman supremacy. Duly provoked, Luther, issuing his own set of theses, went even further than he had in the Explanations, arguing that the claims by the Roman Church to be superior to all others rested on “the very feeble decrees of the Roman pontiffs” and were contradicted by Scripture. This position was so radical that Luther’s own colleagues in Wittenberg shrank from discussing it.
Eager to take on “that little glory-hungry beast,” as he called Eck, Luther sought Duke George’s permission to participate in the debate. The duke was willing, but the Leipzig theologians—reluctant to provide a forum to a man censured by Rome—again resisted. Luther was nonetheless determined to debate, and in the weeks leading up to the event he methodically worked his way through the canon law, the decretals, conciliar resolutions, and patristic commentaries. With the help of Erasmus’s annotations, he scrutinized the New Testament passages on which papal authority rested, including Matthew 16:18 (“Thou art Peter”) and John 21:15–17 (“Feed my sheep”). In a massive tract on papal power that he somehow managed to complete in this period, Luther contended that the papacy is a human institution similar to a political government and could claim no special sacred status, since it has no foundation in Scripture.
Late at night, he was visited by disturbing thoughts. The pope, he wrote to Spalatin, might be the “Antichrist himself,” so terribly had the truth been “corrupted and crucified” by him in the decretals. “I am extremely distressed that under the semblance of laws and the Christian name, the people of Christ should be so deluded.” A figure from the book of Revelation, the Antichrist was an enemy of Christ’s who—inspired and controlled by Satan—was to visit unprecedented calamities on earth in the period before Christ’s return. Luther now believed that he might be sitting on the papal throne itself.
As the start of the disputation approached, Wittenberg was afire with anticipation. Leipzig was a hated rival, and the event was being treated like an intramural championship match. A few days before the scheduled start, two carts pulled up to the Black Cloister. Karlstadt filled one with his books and then climbed in, while into the other stepped Luther, Melanchthon, and a group of theologians and lawyers. Joining them were two hundred students, many armed with spears, daggers, and halberds. Amid shouts and cheers, the Wittenbergers set off on the forty-five-mile journey to Leipzig, ready for battle.
For showmanship, drama, and sheer weirdness, few events in early modern Europe could match the Leipzig disputation. Lasting seventeen days, it was attended by princes, counts, councilors, priests, professors, citizens both privileged and common, and theologians both orthodox and reformist. In addition to the detailed records kept by several secretaries, more than thirty other eyewitnesses produced reports, making the disputation one of the most richly documented events of the period. It would be followed by a flood of pamphlets and letters, which, with more acrimony than accuracy, sought to shape public perceptions of the outcome and which would heighten tensions within Christendom. This sober academic affair thus held the seeds of world conflict.
The unruly tenor of the proceedings was set on June 24, 1519, when the two wagons bearing the Wittenberg principals, along with the bands of boisterous students, rolled into town. When the procession reached Grimma, Leipzig’s main artery, a wheel of the lead wagon broke, pitching Karlstadt ignobly into the mud. He and Luther then rode on to Hay Street, where the printer Melchior Lotther had prepared quarters for them.
Eck, who had arrived a short time earlier with a single servant, stayed in lodgings provided by the city. Several days were spent wrangling over judges, secretaries, and the structure of the event. The participants, it was agreed, would use the German method of debate, with each side presenting for a half hour without interruption. The most pressing matter—Luther’s participation—remained unresolved. Interest in the event nonetheless ran so high that it was moved from the university, which did not have a chamber large enough, to a spacious hall in the Pleissenburg, Duke George’s imposing castle. To help keep the peace, an armed detachment every morning marched with fife and drum to station itself at the castle’s gate.
On the opening day of the disputation, June 27, 1519, a magnificent Mass was held at six in the morning at St. Thomas’s church, followed by a grand procession to the castle. Petrus Mosellanus, a professor of poetics, delivered an address in rolling Ciceronian periods on the art and method of debate, in which he invoked some of the great theological clashes of the past—between Peter and Paul, Jerome and Augustine, Gregory and Basil, Erasmus and Lefèvre. A promising young humanist and acquaintance of Erasmus’s, Mosellanus praised Erasmus’s Christian spirit, but he was so nervous and spoke in so low a voice that hardly anyone could hear him, and when after two hours he finally finished there was a sigh of relief. After a musical ensemble performed the hymn “Come, Holy Spirit” three times, the assembly adjourned for a lavish meal at which the usual copious amounts of wine were consumed. At a trumpet’s blare, everyone returned to the hall, and finally, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the disputation got under way.
&nb
sp; Eck and Karlstadt each took a place at a Katheder, the elevated chair used by university lecturers. The subject: how much free will does man have in attaining salvation? From the start, it was a mismatch. Eck, tall and solidly built, had (as one observer put it) the meaty face of a butcher and the lungs of a town crier. Known for his quick wit, overbearing manner, and prodigious memory, he could quote with equal facility from the Bible and the Church Fathers, the Sentences and the decretals. Eck’s chief asset was his win-at-any-cost mentality. He would create diversions, twist his opponents’ arguments, even adopt their positions as his own when it suited him. Earlier, he had shown humanist learnings, but as his critical comments on Erasmus’s New Testament suggested, he had become an increasingly vocal defender of both Rome and the hierarchical order it represented, and in Leipzig he hoped to put down the Wittenberg insurgency.
Karlstadt was short and sun-darkened and ponderous in presentation. He relied heavily on his books, which were piled so high at his Katheder that he sometimes seemed to disappear behind them. He read from them very deliberately so that the secretaries could record his every word. He was excitable and quick to anger but also so hesitant and long-winded that he often sent the audience into a stupor and caused some Leipzig professors to doze off. Eck grew so impatient that at one point he proposed adopting the Italian style of debating, by which everything was allowed except the use of books, and the judges agreed. Enraged at their decision, the Wittenberg students gathered with drawn daggers in front of Eck’s quarters, leading the town council to station thirty-four armed guards in the area. The Leipzig students were just as rowdy, and the brawling in the taverns grew so violent that some innkeepers posted guards with halberds. Every morning, Eck, refreshed by a horseback ride in the surrounding countryside, entered the hall clutching his whip, and with orotund flair he presented his intricate arguments while belittling the bantam-size Karlstadt and driving him into fits of befuddlement. Eck, observed one eyewitness, regularly attacked “with nine or ten arguments by which he does not seek to establish the truth but only his own honor.”
Fatal Discord Page 43
