strainedly, and have goaded the otherwise gentle heart of the Pope into dealing with Luther more severely than is perhaps expedient for the peace and quiet of the Republic of Christ. The character of Luther’s writings I am not at present considering, but only suggesting that we take into account not only what befits Luther but what makes for the peace of the Church. For often and openly have offences been ignored, that greater disturbance might not arise. In the first place it is distinctly enough admitted that the thing started from bad beginnings. It sprang, no doubt, from hostility to the good literature now springing up even among the Germans, and hostility to the languages now showing new life everywhere. For those who thus far, without being fortified by these things, have been held to be teachers of consummate learning, think their own influence is being overshadowed by the brilliancy of them. Certain persons, therefore, have left no stone unturned to crush them, differing greatly in this from the Roman Pontiff, who has the highest respect for these studies. Furthermore, as to Luther, the largest part of this evil must be laid at the door of those who have preached and written about indulgences and the power of the Roman Pontiff things which no educated and religious ear could bear, so that as far as the beginning of this disturbance is concerned Luther may fairly seem to have been influenced by devotion and zeal in the cause of the Christian Religion. Moreover, those who do not excuse his beginning afterwards to write more bitterly, yet make allowance for it, saying that he was not altogether without reason angered by the exceedingly bitter hectoring and taunts of certain persons. Without having yet read his books, they raised among the people the cry of “Heretic, Antichrist, Schismatic,” before the Pope had made any public interposition of his authority in the matter at all. Nobody admonished or confuted him, though he declared himself, as he even now declares himself, ready for discussion with any one—they only damned him. For 1Leo X. (1513-21).
the answer of Prierias the Augustinian even those who obtained the Bull against Luther do not countenance.
When the proposition of Eck had been entrusted to the decision of the School of Paris, the Schools of Cologne and Louvain, though nothing had been entrusted to them, came forward and simply damned Luther. And though they did this by common consent, they do not agree on certain points, and those vital ones. Furthermore, the personages by whom the matter has been managed so far are such as may fairly be looked on with suspicion, for their own interests were involved. Nor 15 their life or teaching such that their judgment ought to have any great weight, especially in so important a matter.
The method of procedure against Luther is, therefore, rightly discountenanced by all the best and most learned, even though Luther had written things clearly heretical. Nor does one, if he discountenances the course and the method of the proceeding, on that account side with Luther, any more, by heaven, than if one suggests that a murderer ought not to be punished unless he has been convicted and condemned by due process of law. And, in fact, the Bull which is promulgated rather mercilessly against Luther displeases even those who are devoted to the dignity of the Roman Pontiff, because it savours more of the impotent hate of certain monks than of the mildness of him who represents the gentleness of Christ, or than of the spirit of the Holy Father, Pope Leo, than which until now nothing has seemed more merciful and kindly. Hence a great suspicion arises that there are people who abuse his natural gentleness and kindliness to serve their own individual passions.
And yet, by as much as the authority of the Roman Pontiff is more sacred than all other, by so much should the more watchful care be taken to prevent anything ema-
[This is a mistake. He was a Dominican. Issued June 15, 1520. A translation is given by H. E. Jacobs in his life]
[of Luther (N. Y., in ” Heroes of the Reformation ” series, pp. 413-435).]
nating from him which may seem unworthy of him to those unspoken judgments of good men that no potentate, however great, can afford to disregard. Besides, the more widely this matter extends and the more dangerous it is, the more carefully should one avoid setting forth any decision without due consideration.
Every one knows that the Christian life, through the tendency of things gradually to deteriorate, has fallen off sadly from the pure gospel teaching of Christ, so that everybody admits there is need of some marked official renovation of regulations and customs. Therefore, while nothing ought to be attempted wantonly, neither should those be wantonly snarled at who offer suggestions with honest purpose, even if they seem to do it too freely. And even though it were beyond all controversy that Luther had quite wandered from the truth, yet it were the part of theological comity, first to give the man brotherly admonition, then to refute him by sound reasoning and by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, and, if when thus refuted he would not return to wisdom, to treat him as we are wont to treat a lost member. Those who advise this course are not advocates of Luther, but of theological propriety and of the Papal dignity, if, peradventure, Luther might in this way be utterly done away with, cast out first from the minds of men and afterwards also from the libraries. As it is, by the burning of his books he is, perhaps, to a certain extent, plucked from the libraries, but meanwhile his opinions become fixed in the minds of a greater number of people, since they see that these are not refuted.