Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/163

 laid on him who hated publicity, who loved to keep quiet and teach his students and preach to his people, to stand forth as he had felt compelled to do. The patriot, the prophet of a new era, the humble, almost shrinking Christian monk-all these characters appear in his correspondence with his intimates in the autumn of 1518.

The Diet, which had just closed when Luther reached Augsburg, had witnessed some brilliant scenes. A Cardinal's hat had been bestowed on the Archbishop of Mainz with all gorgeous solemnities; the aged Emperor Maximilian had been solemnly presented with the pilgrimage symbols of a hat and a dagger, both blessed by the Pope. His Holiness invited Germany to unite in a crusade against the Turks, and the Emperor would have willingly appeared as the champion of Christendom. But the German Princes, spiritual and secular, were in no mood to fulfil any demands made from Rome. The spirit of revolt had not yet taken active shape, but it could be expressed in a somewhat sullen refusal to agree to the Pope's proposals. The Emperor recognised the symptoms, and wrote to Rome advising the Pope to be cautious how he dealt with Luther His advice was thrown away. When, after wearying delays, the monk had his first interview with the Cardinal-Legate, he was told that no discussion could be permitted, private or public, until Luther had recanted his heresies, had promised not to repeat them, and had given assurance that he would not trouble the peace of the Church in the future. Being pressed to name the heresies, the adroit theologian named two opinions which had wide-reaching consequences-the 58th conclusion of the Theses and the statement in the Resolutlones that the sacraments were not efficacious apart from faith in the recipient. There was some discussion notwithstanding the Cardinal's declaration; but in the end Luther was ordered to recant or depart. He departed; and, after an appeal from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope to be well-informed, and also an appeal to a General Council, he returned to Wittenberg. There he wrote out an account of his interview with the Legate-the À eta Augustana-which was published and read all over Germany.

The interview between the Cardinal-Legate and Luther at Augsburg almost dates the union between the new religious movement, the growing national restlessness under Roman domination, and the humanist intellectual revolt. A well-known and pious monk, an esteemed teacher in a University which he was making famous throughout Germany, an' earnest moralist who had proposed to discuss the efficacy of a system of Indulgences which manifestly had some detrimental sides, had been told, in the most peremptory way, that he must recant, and that without explanation or discussion. German patriots saw in the proceeding another instance of the contemptuous way in which Rome always treated Germany; humanists believed it to be tyrannical stifling of the truth even worse than the dealings with Reuchlin; and both humanist and patriot believed it to be another