Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/697

 The Revolt of Germany against the Papacy 591 Luther had long expected to be excommunicated. But it was Luther not until late in 1520 that John Eck, a personal enemy of his, cated"'"""^' arrived in Germany with a papal bull (Fig. 212) condemning many of Luther's assertions as heretical and giving him sixty days in which to recant. Should he fail to return to his senses within that time, he and all who adhered to or favored him were to be excommunicated, and any place which harbored him should fall under the interdict. Now, since the highest power in Christendom had pronounced Luther a heretic, he should un- hesitatingly have been delivered up by the German authorities. But no one thought of arresting him. The bull irritated the German princes ; whether they liked The German Luther or not, they decidedly disliked to have the Pope issuing reluctant to commands to them. Then it appeared to them very unfair that buii^a^aJnS; Luther's personal enemy should have been intrusted with the Luther publication of the bull. Even the princes and universities that were most friendly to the Pope published the bull with great reluctance. In many cases the bull was ignored altogether. Luther's own sovereign, the elector of Saxony, while no con- vert to the new views, was anxious that Luther's case should be fairly considered, and continued to protect him. One mighty prince, however,' the young Emperor Charles V, promptly and willingly published the bull ; not, however, as Emperor, but as ruler of the Austrian dominions and of the Netherlands. Luther's works were publicly burned at Louvain, Mayence, and Cologne, the strongholds of the old theology. The Wittenberg professor felt himself forced to oppose him- Luther defies self to both Pope and EmperorA " Hard-it-is," he exclaimed, Ernperor, "to be forced to contradict all the prelates and princeSjJ)ut p^^^^b^U there is no other way to escape hell and God's anger." tate 1520 which he sought to overthrow the whole system of the sacraments, as it had been taught by the theologians. Four of the seven sacraments — ordination, marriage, confirmation, and extreme unction — he rejected altogether. He re- vised the conception of the Mass, or the Lord's Supper. The priest was, in his eyes, only a minister^ in the Protestant sense of the word, one of whose chief functions was preaching.