"Three things are banished from Rome: simplicity, temperance, and piety (or, in another
place: poverty, the ancient discipline, and the preaching of the truth).
"Three things the Romans trade in: Christ, ecclesiastical benefices, and women.
"Three things everybody desires in Rome: short masses, good gold, and a luxurious life.
"Three things are disliked in Rome: a general council, a reformation of the clergy, and the
fact that the Germans begin to open their eyes.
"Three things displease the Romans most: the unity of the Christian princes, the education
of the people, and the discovery of their frauds.
"Three things are most valued in Rome: handsome women, fine horses, and papal bulls.
"Three things are in general use in Rome: luxury of the flesh, splendor in dress, and pride
of the heart.
"Three things Rome can never get enough of: money for the episcopal pallium, monthly,
and annual incomes from vacant benefices.^230
"Three things are most praised and yet most rare in Rome. devotion, faith and innocence.
"Three things Rome brings to naught: a good conscience, devotion, and the oath.
"Three things are necessary in Rome to gain a lawsuit: money, letters of recommendation,
and lies.
"Three things pilgrims usually bring back from Rome: a soiled conscience, a sick stomach,
and an empty purse.
"Three things have kept Germany from getting wisdom: the stupidity of the princes, the
decay of learning, and the superstition of the people.
"Three things are feared most in Rome: that the princes get united, that the people begin to
open their eyes, and that Rome’s frauds are coming to light.
"Three things only could set Rome right: the determination of the princes, the impatience
of the people, and an army of Turks at her doors."
This epigrammatic and pithy form made the dialogue popular and effective. Even Luther
imitated it when, in his "Babylonian Captivity," he speaks of three walls, and three rods of the
Papists. Hutten calls the Roman court a sink of iniquity, and says that for centuries no genuine
successor of Peter had sat on his chair in Rome, but successors and imitators of Simon Magus,
Nero, Domitian, and Heliogabalus.
As a remedy for these evils, he advises, not indeed the abolition of the papacy, but the
withdrawal of all financial support from Germany, a reduction of the clerical force, and the
permission of clerical marriage; by these means, luxury and immorality would at least be checked.
It is characteristic of the church of that age, that Hutten was on terms of intimacy with the
first prelate of Germany, even while he wrote his violent attacks on Rome, and received a salary,
and afterwards a pension, from him. But he lauded Albrecht to the skies for his support of liberal
learning. He knew little of, and cared less for, doctrinal differences. His policy was to fight the big
Pope of Rome with the little Pope of Germany, and to make the German emperor, princes, and
nobles, his allies in shaking off the degrading yoke of foreign tyranny. Possibly Albrecht may have
indulged in the dream of becoming the primate of an independent Catholic Church of Germany.
(^230) Allusion to the papal claims to fill the ecclesiastical vacancies which occurred during the long months (January, March, etc.), and
to receive the annates,i.e, the first year’s income from every spiritual living worth more than twenty-four ducats per annum. Luther, in
his Address to the German Nobility, characterizes this papal avarice as downright robbery.