Found Documents: The Great Duel of Quills, 1517-1521In
Disputatio pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum,nailed to the doors of Wittenberg Cathedral, Luther wrote,
“Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light:
Preachers of indulgences are in error
who say that by purchasing the Pope’s pardon
a man is freed from every penalty, and saved.
Every truly repentant Christian has a right
to full remission of penalty and guilt,
even without letters of pardon;
every Christian, whether living or dead,
has part in all the blessings of Christ and the Church;
and this is granted him by God even without letters of pardon!
He who gives to the poor or lends to the needy
does a better work than buying pardons!
To think that papal pardons could absolve a man
even if he had committed the impossible sin
of violating the Mother of God—is madness!”
Pope Leo X responded in
Exsurge Domine:“Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause.
Remember your reproaches to those
who are filled with foolishness!
Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen
seeking to destroy the vineyard
whose winepress you alone have trod.
When you were about to ascend to your Father,
you committed the care, rule, and administration
of the vineyard, to Peter your vicar and his successors;
but the wild boar from the forest seeks to destroy it
and every wild beast to feed upon it. Rise, Peter!
Fulfill the pastoral office divinely entrusted to you:
give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church,
whom you consecrated by your blood,
against which, as you warned,
lying teachers are arising,
introducing ruinous sects
and drawing upon themselves speedy doom.
Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison!
They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts,
and boast and lie against the truth.
We beseech you also, Paul: arise!
For there rises against you a new Porphyry who,
as the old once wrongfully assailed the holy apostles,
today assails the holy pontiffs,
rebuking them, tearing at them;
and then when he despairs of his cause,
stooping to insults—a heretic, as Jerome wrote,
whose last defense is to start spewing out serpent's venom.For though you have said there must be heresies
to test the faithful, still they must be destroyed
at their very birth
so they do not wax strong like wolves.
Let all of the saints arise!
The misguided, putting aside the true interpretation
of Sacred Scripture, blinded in mind
by the father of lies, wise in their own eyes,
according to the ancient practice of heretics—
they interpret Scripture otherwise than the Holy Spirit demands,
inspired only by their own sense of ambition,
for the sake of popular acclaim, twisting
and adulterating the Scriptures until,
as Jerome wrote,
it is no longer the Gospel of Christ,
but a man's, or what is worse, the Devil's. Let all this holy Church of God, I say, arise!
Arise with almighty God to purge the errors of His sheep,
to banish all heresies from the lands of the faithful,
and be pleased to maintain the peace of His holy Church!
We can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind,
what has reached our ears for some time
by the report of reliable men and general rumor;
alas, we have even seen with our eyes
and read the many diverse errors!
Some of these are already condemned
by the councils of our predecessors,
some expressly contain even the heresy of the Greeks and Bohemians;
heretical, false, scandalous, offensive to pious ears,
seductive of simple minds,
originating with false exponents of the faith
who in their proud curiosity
yearn for the world's glory,
and wish to be wiser than they should be,
their talkativeness unsupported
by the authority of Scripture,
reviving and recently propagating errors
among the frivolous
in the illustrious German nation,
for which we grieve the more
because we have always held that nation
in the bosom of our affection;
for after the empire was transferred by the Roman Church
from the Greeks to these same Germans,
our predecessors and we always chose the Church's defenders
from among them. Indeed it is certain that Germans
have always been the bitterest opponents of heresies,
as witnessed by the expulsion and extermination
of all heretics from Germany,
issued under the greatest penalties,
even loss of lands and dominions,
against anyone sheltering or not expelling them.
Witness the condemnation and punishment
in the Council of Konstanz of the infidelity
of the Hussites, the Wyclifites, and Jerome of Prague.
Witness to this is the blood of Germans
shed so often in wars against the Bohemians.
Witness is the refutation, rejection, and condemnation
of the above errors, or many of them,
by the universities of Cologne and Louvain,
most devoted and religious cultivators of the Lord's field.
By virtue of the pastoral office committed to us
by divine favor,
we can under no circumstances
tolerate or overlook
the pernicious poison of Luther's errors:
that indulgences are pious frauds of the faithful,
that indulgences are of no avail to those who truly gain them,
that the Roman Pontiff is not the vicar of Christ
over all the churches of the entire world
instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter,
that it is not in the power of the Church or the pope
to decide upon the articles of faith,
that heretics being burned is against the will of the Spirit.
No one of sound mind is ignorant of how destructive,
pernicious, scandalous, and seductive
to pious and simple minds
these errors are,
how opposed to all charity and reverence,
how destructive of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline,
namely obedience, which is the font of all virtues.
Therefore we wish to proceed with great care
to cut off the advance of this plague and cancerous disease
so it will not spread any further in the Lord's field
as harmful thornbushes.
These errors or theses are not Catholic,
are not to be taught; but are against the doctrine
of the Catholic Church and of the sacred Scriptures
received from the Church.
Augustine maintained that her authority
had to be accepted so completely
that he would not have believed
the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church
vouched for it.
Failure to comply with the Church's canons,
according to the testimony of Cyprian,
is the fuel and cause of all heresy and schism.
Because the preceding errors and others,
we likewise condemn, reprobate, and reject completely
all the writings and sermons of the said Martin,
whether in Latin or any other language;
and we wish them
to be regarded as utterly
condemned, reprobated, and rejected.
We forbid each and every one of the faithful of either sex,
in virtue of holy obedience and under penalties
to be incurred automatically,
to read, assert, preach, praise, print, publish, or defend them.
They will incur these penalties
if they presume to uphold them
personally or through another or others,
directly or indirectly,
tacitly or explicitly,
publicly or occultly,
either in their own homes
or in other public or private places.
As far as Martin himself is concerned,
O good God,
what have we overlooked or not done?
What fatherly charity have we omitted
to call him back from such errors?
For wishing to deal more kindly with him,
we urged him through various conferences with our legate
and through our personal letters to abandon these errors.
We have even offered him safe conduct
and the money necessary for the journey,
urging him to come without fear or any misgivings,
which perfect charity should cast out,
and to talk not secretly but openly and face to face,
after the example of our Savior and the Apostle Paul.
If he had done this, we are certain
he would have changed in heart
and recognized his errors.
We would have shown him clearer than the light of day
that the Roman pontiffs, our predecessors,
whom he injuriously attacks beyond all decency,
never err in their canons or constitutions,
for according to the prophet,
neither is healing oil nor the doctor lacking in Galaad.
But he always refused to listen,
despising the previous citation
and each and every one of the above overtures—
he has disdained to come!
To the present day he has been contumacious!
With a hardened spirit he broke forth in a rash appeal
to a future council,
contrary to the constitution of Pius II and Julius II,
our predecessors,
that all those appealing in this way are to be punished
with the penalties of heretics.
Therefore we can, without any further delay,
proceed against him
with condemnation and damnation.
Still, if Martin himself or those adhering to him,
or those who shelter and support him,
through the merciful heart of our God
and the sprinkling of the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ—
if they yet will really obey,
and will certify to us by legal documents
that they have obeyed,
they shall find in us the affection of a father's love,
the opening of the font of paternal charity,
of the font of mercy and clemency.
Even though the love of righteousness and virtue
did not take him away from sin,
nor the hope of forgiveness lead him to penance,
perhaps the terror of the pain of punishment may yet move him.”
Johannn the Steadfast of Wettin, Elector of Saxony,
his chancellor Gregor Brück, chaplain Johann Agricola,
and theologians Philipp Melanchthon and Simon Grynaeus;
Philip I the Magnanimous, Landgrave of Hesse,
and his chaplain Erhard Schnepf;
Georg the Pious of Hohenzollern, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach;
Dukes Ernst and Franz of Braunschweig-Lüneburg
and their chancellor Johann Förster;
Wolfgang of Ascania, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen;
Bürgermeisters Christoph Tetzel, Christoph Kreß,
and Bernhard Buamgärtner, representing Nürnberg;
Councillor Jakob Sturm and Guildmeister Matthias, representing Straßburg;
Bürgermeister Bernhard Besserer, representing Ulm;
Bürgermeister Sebastian Hagelstein, representing Windesheim;
Bürgermeister Josef Weiß, representing Reutlingen;
and representatives from Augsburg, Konstanz, Lindau, Memmingen,
Kempten, Nördlingen, Heilbronn, Isny, St. Gallen, and Weißenburg;
these men lent the Reformation its name
when they signed and sent to the Holy Roman Emperor
the
Instrumentum Appellationis, or
Letter of Protest,
objecting to the Reichstag's squelching of Lutheranism:
“In matters which concern God's honour and the salvation
and eternal life of our souls, everyone must stand
and give account before God for himself; and no one can
excuse himself by the action or decision of another.”
Pope Leo responded with
Decet Romanum Pontificem:“It befits the Roman Pontiff,
lest the vessel of Peter appear to sail without pilot or oarsman,
and to protect the herd from one infectious animal,
lest its infection spread to the healthy ones,
to take severe measures against such men and their followers,
multiplying punitive measures, and by other suitable remedies,
against these same overbearing men,
devoted as they are to purposes of evil,
and their adherents.
Hence we lay the following injunction
on each and every patriarch, archbishop, bishop,
on the prelates of patriarchal, metropolitan,
cathedral and collegiate churches,
and on the religious of every Order—
even the mendicants—privileged or unprivileged,
wherever they may be stationed,
that in the strength of their vow of obedience
and on pain of the sentence of excommunication,
they shall publicly announce
and cause to be announced by others in their churches,
that this same Martin and the rest are
excommunicate, accursed, condemned, heretics,
hardened, interdicted, and deprived of possessions.
This shall take place on a Sunday
or some other festival,
when a large congregation assembles for worship;
the banner of the cross shall be raised,
the bells rung, the candles lit
and after a time extinguished,
cast on the ground and trampled under foot,
and the stones shall be cast forth three times,
and the other ceremonies observed
which are usual in such cases,
greatly confounding said Martin and other heretics we mention,
and their adherents, followers and partisans,
obliging each and every patriarch, archbishop and all other prelates,
even as they were appointed on the authority of Jerome
to allay schisms,
to now make themselves a wall of defence
for their Christian people.
They shall not keep silence like dumb dogs that cannot bark,
but incessantly cry and lift up their voice,
preaching and causing to be preached the word of God
and the truth of the Catholic faith
against the damnable articles and heretics aforesaid!
They are to be like clouds,
they shall sprinkle spiritual showers on the people of God,
as their office obliges them.
It is written that perfect love casteth out fear.
Let each and every one of you
show yourselves so punctilious, so zealous and so eager,
that from your labours, by the favour of divine grace,
the hoped-for harvest will come in!
No one whatsoever may infringe this,
our written decision, declaration, precept,
injunction, assignation, will, decree;
or rashly contravene it.
Should anyone dare to attempt such a thing,
let him know the wrath
of Almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
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