ON THE FOURTH OF JULY the discussion between Eck and Luther commenced. Everything seemed to promise that it would be more violent, more decisive, and more interesting than that which had just concluded, and which had gradually thinned the hall. The two combatants entered the arena resolved not to lay down their arms until victory declared in favor of one or the other. The general expectation was aroused, for the papal primacy was to be the subject of discussion. Christianity has two great adversaries: hierarchism and rationalism. Rationalism, in its application to the doctrine of man's ability, had been attacked by the reformers in the previous part of the Leipzig disputation. Hierarchism, considered in what is at once its summit and its base – the doctrine of papal authority – was to be contested in the second.

On the one side appeared Eck, the champion of the established religion, vaunting of the discussions he had maintained, as a general boasts of his campaigns. On the other side advanced Luther, who seemed destined to reap persecution and ignominy from this struggle, but who still presented himself with a good conscience, a firm resolution to sacrifice everything in the cause of truth, and an assurance grounded in faith in God and in the deliverance He grants to all who trust in Him. New convictions had sunk deep into his soul; they were not as yet arranged into a system; but in the heat of the combat they flashed forth like lightning. Serious and daring, he showed a resolution that made light of every obstacle. On his features might be seen the traces of the storms his soul had encountered, and the courage with which he was prepared to meet fresh tempests. These combatants, both sons of peasants and the representatives of the two tendencies that still divide Christendom, were about to enter upon a contest on which depended, in great measure, the future prospects of the State and of the Church. At seven in the morning the two disputants were in their pulpits, surrounded by a numerous and attentive assembly.

Luther stood up, and with a necessary precaution, he said modestly:

"In the name of the Lord, Amen! I declare that the respect I bear to the sovereign pontiff would have prevented my entering upon this discussion, if the excellent Dr. Eck had not dragged me into it."

Eck – "In Thy name, gentle Jesus! before descending into the lists, I protest before you, most noble lords, that all that I may say is in submission to the judgment of the first of all sees, and of him who is its possessor."

After a brief silence, Eck continued:

"There is in the Church of God a primacy that cometh from Christ Himself. The Church militant was formed in the image of the Church triumphant. Now the latter is a monarchy in which the hierarchy ascends step by step up to God, its sole Chief. For this reason Christ has established a similar order upon earth. What a monster the Church would be if it were without a head!"

Luther, turning towards the assembly – "When Dr. Eck declares that the universal Church must have a head, he says well. If there is any one among us who maintains the contrary, let him stand up! As for me, it is no concern of mine."

Eck – "If the Church militant has never been without a head, I should like to know who it can be, if not the Roman pontiff?"

Luther – "The Head of the Church militant is Christ Himself, and not a man. I believe this on the testimony of God’s Word. He must reign, says Scripture, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. Let us not listen to those who banish Christ to the Church triumphant in heaven. His kingdom is a kingdom of faith. We cannot see our Head, and yet we have one."

Eck, who did not consider himself beaten, had recourse to other arguments, and resumed:

"It is from Rome, according to Saint Cyprian, that sacerdotal unity has proceeded."

Luther – "For the Western Church, I grant it. But is not this same Roman Church the offspring of that of Jerusalem? It is the latter, properly speaking, that is the nursing mother of all the churches."

Eck – "Saint Jerome declares that if an extraordinary power, superior to all others, were not given to the pope, there would be in the churches as many sects as there were pontiffs."

Luther – "Given: that is to say, if all the rest of believers consent to it, this power might be conceded to the chief pontiff by human right. And I will not deny that if all the believers in the world agree in recognizing as first and supreme pontiff either the Bishop of Rome, or of Paris, or of Magdeburg, we should acknowledge him as such from the respect due to this general agreement of the Church; but that has never been seen yet, and never will be seen. Even in our own day, does not the Greek Church refuse its assent to Rome?"

Luther was at that time prepared to acknowledge the pope as chief magistrate of the Church, freely elected by it; but he denied that he was pope of divine right. It was not till much later that he denied that submission was in any way due to him: and this step he was led to take by the Leipzig disputation. But Eck had ventured on ground better known to Luther than to himself. The latter could not, indeed, maintain his thesis that the papacy had existed during the preceding four centuries only. Eck quoted authorities of an earlier date, to which Luther could not reply. Criticism had not yet attacked the False Decretals. But the nearer the discussion approached the primitive ages of the Church, the greater was Luther’s strength. Eck appealed to the Fathers; Luther replied to him from the Fathers, and all the bystanders were struck with his superiority over his rival.

"That the opinions I set forth are those of Saint Jerome," said he, "I prove by the Epistle of St. Jerome himself to Evagrius: ‘Every bishop,’ says he, ‘whether at Rome, Eugubium, Constantinople, Rhegium, Tanis, or Alexandria, is partaker of the same merit and of the same priesthood. The power of riches, the humiliation of poverty, are the only things that make a difference in the rank of the bishops.’ "

From the writings of the Fathers, Luther passed to the decisions of the councils, which consider the Bishop of Rome as only the first among his peers.

"We read," said he, "in the decree of the Council of Africa, ‘The bishop of the first see shall neither be called prince of the pontiffs, nor sovereign pontiff, nor by any other name of that kind; but only bishop of the first see.’ If the monarchy of the Bishop of Rome was of divine right," continued Luther, "would not this be an heretical injunction?"

Eck replied by one of those subtle distinctions that were so familiar to him:

"The bishop of Rome, if you will have it so, is not universal bishop, but bishop of the universal Church."

Luther – "I shall make no reply to this: let our hearers form their own opinion of it." – "Certainly," added he directly, "this is an explanation very worthy of a theologian, and calculated to satisfy a disputant who thirsts for glory. It is not for nothing, it seems, that I have remained at great expense at Leipzig, since I have learned that the pope is not, in truth, the universal bishop, but the bishop of the universal Church!"

Eck – "Well then, I will come to the point. The worthy doctor calls upon me to prove that the primacy of the Church of Rome is of divine right. I will prove it by this expression of Christ: "Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church." Saint Augustine, in one of his epistles, has thus explained the meaning of this passage: ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock (that is to say, on Peter) I will build my church.’ It is true that in another place the same father has explained that by this rock we should understand Christ Himself, but he has not retracted his Former exposition."

Luther – "If the reverend doctor desires to attack me, let him first reconcile these contradictions in Saint Augustine. For it is most certain that Augustine has said many times that the rock was Christ, and perhaps not more than once that it was Peter himself. But even should Saint Augustine and all the Fathers say that the apostle is the rock of which Christ speaks, I would resist them, single-handed, in reliance upon the Holy Scriptures, that is, on divine right; for it is written: ‘Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.’ Peter himself terms Christ the chief cornerstone, and a living stone on which we are built up a spiritual house."

Eck – "I am surprised at the humility and modesty with which the reverend doctor undertakes to oppose, alone, so many illustrious Fathers, and pretends to know more than the sovereign pontiffs, the councils, the doctors, and the universities! . . . It would be surprising, no doubt, if God had hidden the truth from so many saints and martyrs – until the advent of the reverend father!"

Luther – "T'he Fathers are not against me. Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose, both most excellent doctors, teach as I teach. Super isto articulo fidei, fundata est Ecclesia (The Church is founded on that article of faith), says Saint Ambrose, when explaining what is meant by the rock on which the Church is built. Let my opponent then set a curb upon his tongue. To express himself as he does will only serve to excite contention, and not be to discuss like a true doctor."

Eck had no idea that his opponent’s learning was so extensive, and that he would be able to extricate himself from the toils that were drawn around him. "The reverend doctor," said he, "has come well armed into the lists. I beg your lordships to excuse me if I do not exhibit such accuracy of research. I came here to discuss, and not to make a book."

Eck was surprised but not beaten. As he had no more arguments to adduce, he had recourse to a wretched and spiteful trick, which, though it did not vanquish his antagonist, would at least embarrass him greatly. If the accusation of being Bohemian, a heretic, a Hussite, could be fixed upon Luther, he would be vanquished; for the Bohemians were objects of abhorrence in the Church. The scene of combat was not far from the frontiers of Bohemia; Saxony, after the sentence pronounced on John Huss by the Council of Constance, had been exposed to all the horrors of a long and ruinous war; it was its boast to have resisted the Hussites at that time; the University of Leipzig had been founded in opposition to the tendencies of John Huss; and this discussion was going on in the presence of princes, nobles, and citizens, whose fathers had fallen in that celebrated contest. To insinuate that Luther and Huss were of one mind would be to inflict a most terrible blow on the former.

It was to this stittagem that the Ingolstadt doctor now had recourse: "From the earliest times, all good Christians have acknowledged that the Church of Rome derives its primacy direct from Christ Himself, and not from human right. I must confess, however, that the Bohemians, while they obstinately defended their errors, attacked this doctrine. I beg the worthy father’s pardon, if I am an enemy of the Bohemians, because they are enemies of the Church, and if the present discussion has called these heretics to my recollection; for, in my humble opinion, the doctor’s conclusions are in every way favorable to these errors. It is even asserted that the Hussites are loudly boasting of it."

Eck had calculated well: his partisans received this perfidious insinuation with the greatest favor. There was a movement of joy among the audience. "These insults," said the reformer afterwards, "tickled them much more agreeably than the discussion itself."

Luther – "I do not like and I never shall like a schism. Since on their own authority the Bohemians have separated from our unity, they have done wrong, even if the divine right had pronounced in favor of their doctrines; for the supreme, divine right is charity and oneness of mind."

It was during the morning sitting of the fifth of July that Luther had made use of this language. The meeting broke up shortly after, as it was the hour of dinner. Luther felt ill at ease. Had he not gone too far in thus condemning the Christians of Bohemia? Did they not hold the doctrines that Luther was now maintaining? He saw all the difficulties of his position. Should he rise up against a council that condemned John Huss, or should he deny that sublime idea of a universal Christian Church which had taken full possession of his mind? The unshaken Luther did not hesitate. He would do his duty, whatever might be the consequences. Accordingly when the assembly met again at two in the afternoon, he was the first to speak. He said with firmness:

"Among the articles of faith held by John Huss and the Bohemians, there are some that are most Christian. This is a positive certainty. Here, for instance, is one: ‘That there is but one universal Church’; and here is another: ‘It is not necessary for salvation to believe the Roman Church superior to all others.' It is of little consequence to me whether these things were said by Wycliffe or by Huss . . . they are truth."

Luther’s declaration produced a great sensation among his hearers. Huss—Wycliffe—those odious names, pronounced with approbation by a monk in the midst of a Catholic assembly! An almost general murmur ran round the hall. Duke George himself felt alarmed. He fancied he saw that banner of civil war upraised in Saxony which had for so many years desolated the states of his maternal ancestors. Unable to suppress his emotion, be placed his hands on his hips, shook his head, and exclaimed aloud, so that all the assembly heard him, "He is carried away by rage!" The whole meeting was agitated: they rose up, each man speaking to his neighbor. Those who had given way to drowsiness awoke. Luther’s friends were in great perplexity, while his enemies exulted. Many who had thus far listened to him with pleasure began to entertain doubts of his orthodoxy. The impression produced on Duke George’s mind by these words was never effaced; from this moment he looked upon the reformer with an evil eye, and became his enemy.

Luther did not suffer himself to be intimidated by these murmurs. One of his principal arguments was that the Greeks had never recognized the pope, and yet they had never been declared heretics; that the Greek Church had existed, still existed, and would exist, without the pope, and that it as much belonged to Christ as the Church of Rome did. Eck, on the contrary, impudently maintained that the Christian and the Roman Church were one and the same; that the Greeks and Orientals, in abandoning the pope, had also abandoned the Christian faith, and were indisputably heretics. "What!" exclaimed Luther, "are not Gregory of Nazianzum, Basil the Great, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, and an immense number besides of Greek bishops – are they not saved? and yet they did not believe that the Church of Rome was above the other Churches! . . . It is not in the power of the Roman pontiffs to make new articles of faith. The Christian believer acknowledges no other authority than Holy Scripture. This alone is the right divine. I beg the worthy doctor to concede that the Roman pontiffs were men, and that he will not make them gods."

Eck then resorted to one of those jests which give a specious air of triumph to him who employs them.

"The reverend father is a very poor cook," said he; "he has made a terrible hodgepodge of Greek saints and heretics; so that the odor of sanctity in the one prevents us from smelling the poison of the others."

Luther, interrupting Eck with warmth – "The worthy doctor is becoming abusive. In my opinion, there is no communion between Christ and Belial."

Luther made a great advance. In 1516 and 1517, he had only attacked the sermons of the indulgence-hawkers and the scholastic doctrines, but had respected the papal degrees. Somewhat later he rejected those degrees, and appealed to a council.

These theological disputes, to which the men of the world would be unwilling to consecrate a few brief moments, had been followed and listened to for twenty successive days with great attention; laymen, knights, and princes had manifested a constant interest. But, on the contrary, some of the Leipzig theologians, friends of Doctor Eck, slept soundly, as an eye witness informed the historian. It was necessary to wake them up at the close of the disputation, for fear they would lose their dinners.

Luther quitted Leipzig first; Carlstadt followed him; but Eck remained several days after their departure.

No decision had been reached on the discussion. Everyone commented on it according to his own feelings. "At Leipzig," said Luther, "there was great loss of time, but no seeking after truth. We have been examining the doctrines of our adversaries these two years past, so that we have counted all their bones. Eck, on the contrary, has hardly grazed the surface; but he has made more noise in one hour than we have in two long years."

The Leipzig disputation was not destined, however, to pass away in smoke. Every work performed with devotion bears fruit. Luther’s words sunk with irresistible power into the minds of his hearers. Many of those who daily thronged the hall of the castle were subdued by the truth. It was especially in the midst of its most determined adversaries that its victories were gained. Doctor Eck’s secretary, familiar friend, and disciple, Poliander, was won to the Reformation; and in the year 1522, he publicly preached the gospel at Leipzig. John Cellarius, professor of Hebrew, a man violently opposed to the reformed doctrines, was touched by the words of the eloquent doctor, and began to search the Scriptures more deeply. Erelong he gave up his station, and went to Wittenberg to study at Luther’s feet. Some time after he was pastor at Frankfurt and at Dresden.

Among those who had taken their seats on the benches reserved for the court and who surrounded Duke George, was George of Anhalt, a young prince, twelve years old, descended from a family celebrated for their combats against the Saracens. He was then studying at Leipzig under a private tutor. An eager desire for learning and an ardent thirst for truth already distinguished this illustrious youth. He was frequently heard repeating these words of Solomon: "Lying lips become not a prince." The discussion at Leipzig awakened serious reflections in this boy, and excited a decided partiality for Luther. Some time after, he was offered a bishopric. His brothers and all his relations entreated him to accept it, wishing to push him to the highest dignities in the Church.

But he was determined in his refusal. On the death of his pious mother, who was secretly well disposed towards Luther, he became possessed of all the reformer’s writings. He offered up constant and fervent prayers to God beseeching Him to turn his heart to the truth, and often, in the solitude of his closet, he exclaimed with tears: "Deal with Thy servant according to Thy mercy, and teach me Thy statutes." His prayers were heard. Convinced and carried away, he fearlessly ranged himself on the side of the gospel. In vain did his guardians, and particularly Duke George, besiege him with entreaties and remonstrances. He was inflexible, and George exclaimed, half convinced by the reasoning of his ward: "I cannot answer him; but I will still remain in my own Church, for it is a hard matter to break in an old dog." We shall meet again with this amiable prince, one of the noblest characters of the Reformation, who preached in person to his subjects the words of everlasting life, and to whom has been applied the saying of Dion on the Emperor Marcus Antoninus: "He was consistent during the whole of his life; he was a good man, one in whom there was no guile."

But it was the students in particular who received Luther’s words with enthusiasm. They felt the difference between the spirit and energy of the Wittenberg doctor and the sophistical distinctions, the empty speculations of the Chancellor of Ingolstadt. They saw that Luther relied upon the Word of God, and that Eck’s opinions were grounded on human tradition. The effect was instantaneous. The lecture rooms of the University of Leipzig were speedily deserted after the disputation. One circumstance, indeed, contributed to this result: the plague seemed on the point of breaking out in that city. But there were other universities (Erfurt, Ingolstadt, etc.) to which the students might have gone. The power of truth drew them to Wittenberg, where the number of students was soon doubled.

Among those who removed from the one university to the other was observed a youth of sixteen years, of melancholy disposition, speaking seldom, and who, in the midst of the conversations and sports of his fellow students, often appeared absorbed in his own reflections. His parents had at first thought him of weak intellect; but they soon found him so quick in learning and so constantly occupied with his studies that they formed the greatest expectations of him. His uprightness and candor, his modesty and piety, won him the affection of all, and Mosellanus pointed him out as a model to the whole university. His name was Gaspard Cruciger, a native of Leipzig. The new student of Wittenberg was afterwards the friend of Melancthon, and Luther’s assistant in the translation of the Bible.

The Leipzig disputation bore still greater fruits. Here it was that the theologian of the Reformation received his call. Melancthon sat modest and silent listening to the discussion, in which he took very little part. Till that time literature had been his sole occupation. The conference gave him a new impulse, and launched the eloquent professor into the career of theology. From that hour his extensive learning bowed before the Word of God. He received the evangelical truths with the simplicity of a child; explained the doctrine of salvation with a grace and perspicuity that charmed all his hearers; and trod boldly in that path so new to him, for, said he, "Christ will never abandon His followers." The two friends walked together, contending for liberty and truth,-the one with the energy of St. Paul, the other with the meekness of St. John. Luther admirably expressed the difference of their callings. "I was born," said he, "to contend on the field of battle with factions and with wicked spirits. This is why my works abound with war and tempests. It is my task to uproot the stock and the stem, to clear away the briars and underwood, to fill up the pools and the marshes. I am the rough woodman who has to prepare the way and smooth the road. But Philip advances quietly and softly; he tills and plants the ground; sows and waters it joyfully, according to the gifts that God has given him with so liberal a hand."

If Melancthon, the tranquil sower, was called to the work by the disputation of Leipzig, Luther, the hardy woodman, felt his arm strengthened by it, and his courage reinvigorated. The greatest effect of this discussion was that wrought in Luther himself. "The scales of scholastic theology," said he, "fell then entirely from before my eyes, under the triumphant presidence of Doctor Eck." The veil which the School and the Church had conjointly drawn before the sanctuary was rent for the reformer from top to bottom. Driven to new inquiries, he arrived at unexpected discoveries. With as much indignation as astonishment, he saw the evil in all its magnitude. Searching into the annals of the Church, he discovered that the supremacy of Rome had no other origin than ambition on the one hand, and ignorant credulity on the other.

The narrow point of view under which he had hitherto looked upon the Church was succeeded by a deeper and more extended range. He recognized in the Christians of Greece and of the East true members of the Catholic Church; and instead of a visible chief, seated on the banks of the Tiber, he adored, as sole Chief of the people of God, an invisible and eternal Redeemer, who according to His promise, is daily in the midst of every nation upon earth, with all who believe in His name. The Latin Church was no longer in Luther’s estimation the universal Church; he saw the narrow barriers of Rome fall down, and exulted in discovering beyond them the glorious dominions of Christ. From that time he comprehended how a man might be a member of Christ’s Church, without belonging to the pope’s. But, above all, the writings of John Huss produced a deep impression upon him. He there found, to his great surprise, the doctrine of St. Paul and of St. Augustine – that doctrine at which he himself had arrived after so many struggles. "I believed and I taught all the doctrines of John Huss without being aware of it: and so did Staupitz. In short, although unconscious of it, we are all Hussites. Paul and Augustine were so themselves. I am confounded, and know not what to think. Oh! how terribly have men deserved the judgments of God, seeing that the gospel truth, which has been unveiled and published this century past, has been condemned, burned, and stifled. . . . Woe, woe to the world!"

Luther separated from the papacy, and then felt toward it a decided aversion and holy indignation. All the witnesses that in every age had risen up against Rome came in turns before him and testified against her, each revealing some abuse or error. "Oh! what thick darkness!" exclaimed he.

He was not allowed to be silent on this sad discovery. The insolence of his adversaries, their pretended triumph and the efforts they made to extinguish the light, decided his soul. He advanced along the path in which God conducted him, without anxiety as to the goal to which it would lead him. Luther pointed to this moment as that of his emancipation from the papal yoke. "Learn from me," said he, "how difficult a thing it is to throw off errors confirmed by the example of all the world, and which, through long habit, have become a second nature to us. I had then been seven years reading and publicly explaining the Holy Scriptures with great zeal, so that I knew them almost by heart. I had also all the firstfruits of knowledge and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. I knew that we are justified and saved not by our works, but by faith in Christ; and I even maintained openly that the pope is not the head of the Christian Church by divine right. And yet I could not see the consequences that flowed from this. What is not of God must needs be of the devil." Luther adds further on: "I no longer permit myself to be indignant against those who are still attached to the pope, since I, who had for so many years studied the Holy Scriptures so attentively, still clung with so much obstinacy to popery."

Such were the real results of the Leipzig disputation – results of more importance than the disputation itself. It was like those first successes which discipline an army and excite its courage.

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