At Rome there was great dissatisfaction with Cajetan. The chagrin which they felt at the failure of the affair at first turned upon him. The Roman courtiers thought themselves entitled to reproach him with a want of that prudence and finesse which, if they are to be believed, constitute the first quality of a legate, and with having failed on so important an occasion, to give pliancy to his scholastic theology. He is wholly to blame, said they. His lumbering pedantry has spoiled all. Of what use was it to irritate Luther by insults and menaces, instead of gaining him over by the promise of a good bishopric, or even of a Cardinal's hat.615 These hirelings judged the Reformer by themselves. However, it was necessary to repair this blunder. On the one hand, Rome must give her decision, and, on the other, due court must be paid to the Elector, who might be of great use in the election of an emperor, an event which must shortly take place.
As it was impossible for Roman ecclesiastics to suspect what constituted the strength and courage of Luther, they imagined that the Elector was much more implicated in the affair than he really was. The pope, therefore, resolved to follow another line of conduct. He caused his legate in Germany to publish a bull, confirming the doctrine of indulgences in the very points in which they were attacked, but without mentioning either the Elector or Luther. As the Reformer had always expressed his readiness to submit to the decision of the Roman Church, the pope thought that he must now either keep his word, or stand openly convicted as a disturber of the peace of the Church, and a contemner of the holy Apostolic See. In either case it seemed that the pope must gain. But nothing is gained by obstinately opposing the truth. In vain had the pope threatened to excommunicate every man who should teach otherwise than he ordered; the light was not arrested by such orders. The wise plan would have been to curb the pretensions of the venders of indulgences. This decree of Rome was therefore a new blunder. By legalising clamant errors, it irritated all the wise, and made it impossible for Luther to return. "It was thought," says a Roman Catholic historian, a great enemy of the Reformation,616 "that this bull had been made solely for the interest of the pope and the mendicants, who began to find that nobody would give anything for their indulgences."
The Cardinal de Vio published the bull at Lintz, in Austria, on the 13th December, 1518, but Luther had already placed himself beyond its reach. On the 28th November, in the chapel of Corpus Christi at Wittemberg, he had appealed from the pope to a general council of the Church. He foresaw the storm which was gathering around him, and he knew that God alone could avert it. Still he did as duty called him. He must, no doubt, quit Wittemberg (were it only for the sake of the Elector) as soon as the Roman anathema should arrive; but he was unwilling to quit Saxony and Germany without a strong protestation. This he accordingly drew up; and, in order that it might be ready for circulation the moment the furies of Rome, as he expresses it, should reach him, he caused it to be printed, under the express condition that the bookseller Should deposit all the copies in his custody. But the bookseller, in his eagerness for gain, sold almost the whole, while Luther was quietly waiting to receive them. He felt annoyed, but the thing was done. This bold protestation spread every where. In it Luther declared anew that he had no intention to say any thing against the Holy Church, or the authority of the Apostolic See, or the pope well advised. "But," continues he, "considering that the pope, who is the vicar of God upon earth, may, like any other vicar, err, sin, or lie, and that the appeal to a general council is the only safeguard against unjust proceedings which it is impossible to resist, I feel myself obliged to have recourse to it."617
Here, then, we see the Reformation launched on a new course. It is no longer made to depend on the pope and his decisions, but on an universal council. Luther addresses the whole Church, and the voice which proceeds from the chapel of Corpus Christi, must reach the whole members of Christ's flock. There is no want of courage in the Reformer, and here he gives a new proof of it. Will God fail him? The answer will be found in the different phases of the Reformation which are still to be exhibited to our view.
FOOTNOTES:
1. From ζαω, I live.
2. Letter to Charles Bonnet.
3. Discours sur l'Etude de l'Histoire du Christianisme, et son utilité pour l'époque actuelle. Paris, 1832, chez J. J. Risler.
4. Οια τις ηλιου βολη. (Hist. Eccl., ii, 3.)
5. "Suburbicaria loca," suburban places. See the Sixth Canon of the Council of Nice, which Rufinus (Hist. Eccl., x, 6) quotes thus: "Et ut apud Alexandriam et in urbe Roma, vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Egypti, vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerat," etc. And as at Alexandria, and in the city of Rome, an ancient custom is observed; viz., That the bishop of the former has charge of the churches in Egypt, and the latter of those in the suburbs.
6. Julian., Or. 1.
7. Claud. in Paneg. Stilic., lib. 3.
8. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 1. v, c. 24. Socrat. Hist. Eccl. c. 21. Cyprian, Ep. 59, 72, 75.
9. 1 Cor. xv, 9. 1 Tim. iii, 15.
10. 1 Cor. xvi, i. 2 Cor. viii, 1. Gal. i, 22. 1 Cor. xiv, 33.
11. "Ubi ecclesia, ibi et Spiritus Dei. Ubi Spiritus Dei, illic ecclesia." (Irenæus.) Where the Church, there too the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit of God, there the Church.
12. See Canon, Sardic. VI; and also the Council of Chalcedon, Canons 8 and 18, οεξαρχος της διοικησεωςοεξαρχος της διοικησεως, the exarch of the diocese.
13. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, says of St. Stephen, Bishop of Rome:—"Magis ac magis ejus errorem denotabis, qui hæreticorum causam contra Christianos et contra Ecclesiam Dei asserere conatur ... qui unitatem et veritatem de divina lege venientem non tenens.... Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est." (Epist. 74.) "You will more and more observe the error of him who is trying to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God ... who not holding the unity and truth which come by the Divine law.... Custom without truth is the antiquity of error."... Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, also says after the middle of the third century: "Eos autem qui Romæ sunt, non ea in omnibus observare quæ sunt ab origine tradita, et frustra auctoritatem apostolorum prætendere.... Cæterum nos veritati et consuetudinem jungimus, et consuetudini Romanorum, consuetudinem sed veritatis opponimus; ab initio hoc tenentes quod a Christo et ab apostolo traditum est." (Cypr. Ep. 75.) "But they do not in all things observe what was originally