Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/431

 there, and under the presidency of Cardinal Matthew Lang and in the presence of many bishops and councillors gave, in an oration of an hour and a half, a summary of the grossest errors of this rascal, taken from all his writings, which, in order to be able to give an answer to them, I have, in spite of their voluminousness, read through and through so often that I remember every part of them. First I touched on the points which would particularly offend the laymen, the mar- ried doctors in the council. Then to refute him I cited many sayings of the oecumenical councils, and of the Greek and Latin Fathers, without daring to take a word from the the- ologians of the last seven centuries, for Luther will have nothing to do with them. So I, poor man, have wasted the good time which otherwise I would have devoted to the study of Peter Lombard or St. Thomas Aquinas or the Nomi- nalists, in testing the doctrines of this wretch. I must con- sider this time as good as lost. Thus we see how baneful is this assassin to everyone.

As in support of their opinions on the papal power, purga- tory and invocation of saints, the Lutherans appeal to the doctrines of the Greek Church, which, in their opinion, often differ from those of the Roman, I laid before them many citations from Greek Fathers and the bull of the Florentine Council in Greek and Latin. This bull, the original of which I discovered in the archives of the church at Worms, testi- fies the complete union of the Eastern and Western Churches, achieved through the adherence of the Emperor John Palae- ologus. The German court was completely dumfounded at sight of it, and felt lively satisfaction at this confutation of that rascal's assertions. Not content with that, I spent every day of rest looking through old libraries in German cities, and thereby I found many histories of the time of Charlemagne and the Ottos, in which the title "Papa Romanae et Universalis Ecclesiae Pontifex" was frequently used. As I held these documents from their own libraries with the title in letters an inch high under their eyes, my opponents became helpless and numb with fright, and my friends were satisfied and strengthened in their opinions. As the whole quarrel is about the authority of the Pope, I made thorough

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