Roman historians, in denouncing his polemics, are apt to forget the fearful severity of thepapal bull, the edict of Worms, and the condemnatory decisions of the universities.^396
His pen was powerfully aided by the pencil of his friend Lucas Cranach, the court-painter
of Frederick the Wise.
Melanchthon had no popular talent, but he employed his scholarly pen in a Latin apology
for Luther, against the furious decree of the Parisian theologasters."^397 The Sorbonne, hitherto the
most famous theological faculty, which in the days of the reformatory Councils had stood up for
the cause of reform, followed the example of the universities of Louvain and Cologne, and denounced
Luther during the sessions of the Diet of Worms, April 15, 1521, as an arch-heretic who had renewed
and intensified the blasphemous errors of the Manichaeans, Hussites, Beghards, Cathari, Waldenses,
Ebionites, Arians, etc., and who should be destroyed by fire rather than refuted by arguments.^398
Eck translated the decision at once into German. Melanchthon dared to charge the faculty of Paris
with apostasy from Christ to Aristotle, and from biblical theology to scholastic sophistry. Luther
translated the Apology into German at the Wartburg, and, finding it too mild, he added to it some
strokes of his "peasant’s axe."^399
Ulrich von Hutten was almost equal to Luther in literary power, eloquence, wit, and sarcasm,
as well as in courage, and aided him with all his might from the Ebernburg during his trial at Worms;
but he weakened his cause by want of principle. He had previously republished and ridiculed the
Pope’s bull of excommunication. He now attacked the edict of Worms, and wrote invectives against
its authors, the papal legates, and its supporters, the bishops.^400 He told the former how foolish it
was to proceed with such impudence and violence against Luther, in opposition to the spirit of the
age, that the time of revenge would soon come; that the Germans were by no means so blind and
indifferent as they imagined; that the young Emperor would soon come to a better knowledge. He
indignantly reminded Aleander of his shameful private utterance (which was also reported to Luther
by Spalatin), that, if the Germans should shake off the papal yoke, Rome would take care to sow
so much seed of discord among them that they would eat each other up. He reproached the
archbishops and higher clergy for using force instead of persuasion, the secular magistrate instead
of the word of Christ against Luther. He told them that they were no real priests; that they had
bought their dignities; that they violated common morality; that they were carnal, worldly, avaricious;
that they were unable or ashamed to preach the gospel which condemned their conduct, and that if
God raised a preacher like Luther, they sought to oppress him. But the measure is full. "Away with
(^396) Janssen says (II. 181 and 193): "Den Ton für die ganze damalige polemische Literatur gabLuther an, wie durch seine früheren
Schriften, so auch durch die neuen, welche er von der Wartburg aus in die Welt schickte." Then he quotes a number of the coarsest
outbursts of Luther’s wrath, and his disparaging remarks on some books of the New Testament (the Eusebian Antilegomena), all of which,
however, are disowned by the Lutheran Church, and more than counterbalanced by his profound reverence for, and submission to, the
undoubted writings (the Homologumena). See § 6, pp. 16 sqq.
(^397) "Adversus furiosum Parisiensium theologastrorum Decretum pro Luthero Apologia," 1521. In the "Corpus Reformat.," vol. I.
398-416. A copy of the original edition is in the Royal Library at Berlin. An extract, in Carl Schmidt’s Philipp Melanchthon, pp. 55 sqq.
(^398) Determinatio Theologorum Parisiensium super Doctrina Lutheriana. "Corp. Reform." I. 366-388.
(^399) "Mein lieber Philipp," he says, "hat ihnen [den groben Pariser Eseln] wohl meisterlich geantwortet, hat sie aber doch zu sanft
angerührt und mit dem leichten Hobel überlaufen; ich sehe wohl, ich muss mit der Bauernaxt über die groben Blöcke kommen." At the
same time there appeared an anonymous satire against the Paris theologians, in the style of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum. See
Schmidt, l.c. p. 58.
(^400) In Hieron. Aleandrum, et Marinum Caracciolum Oratores Leonis X. apud Vormaciam Invectivae singulae.—In Cardinales, episcopos
et Sacerdotes, Lutherum Vormaciae oppugnantes, Invectiva.—Ad Carolum Imp. pro Luthero exhortatoria. See Strauss, Ulrich v. Hutten,
pp. 397 sqq.