Pope Leo X's Bull against the errors of Martin Luther, 1521, commonly known as Exsurge Domine. his tenure of more than one bishopric. As Luther later noted, "the pope had a finger in the pie as well, because one half was to go to the building of St Peter's Church in Pope Leo X was used to reformers and heretics,[52] and he responded slowly, "with great care as is proper."[53]
Over the next three years he deployed a series of papal theologians and envoys against Luther, which served only to harden the reformer's anti-papal theology. First, the Dominican theologian Sylvester Mazzolini drafted a heresy case against Luther, whom Leo then summoned to Rome. The Elector Frederick persuaded the pope to have Luther examined at Augsburg, where the Imperial
Diet was held.[54] There, over a three-day period in October 1518, Luther defended himself under questioning by papal legate Cardinal Cajetan. The Pope's right to issue indulgences was at the centre of the dispute between the two men.[55][56] The hearings degenerated into a shouting match. More than writing his theses, Luther's confrontation with the church cast him as an enemy of the pope.[57] Cajetan's original instructions had been to arrest Luther if he failed to recant, but the legate desisted from doing so.[58] Luther slipped out of the city at night, unbeknownst to Cajetan.[59]
In January 1519, at Altenburg in Saxony, the papal nuncio Karl von Miltitz adopted a more conciliatory approach. Luther made certain concessions to the Saxon, who was a relative of the Elector, and promised to remain silent if his opponents did.[60] The theologian Johann Eck,
The meeting of Martin Luther (right) and Cardinal Cajetan (left, before the book). however, was determined to expose Luther's doctrine in a public forum.
In June and July 1519, he staged a disputation with Luther's colleague Andreas Karlstadt at Leipzig and invited Luther to speak.[61] Luther's boldest assertion in the debate was that Matthew 16:18 does not confer on popes the exclusive right to interpret scripture, and that therefore neither popes nor church councils were infallible.[62] For this, Eck branded Luther a new Jan Hus, referring to the Czech reformer and heretic burned at the stake in 1415. From that moment, he devoted himself to On 15 June 1520, the Pope warned Luther with the papal bull (edict) Exsurge Domine that he risked excommunication unless he recanted 41 sentences drawn from his writings, including the Ninety-five Theses, within 60 days. That autumn, Johann Eck proclaimed the bull in Meissen and other towns. Karl von Miltitz, a papal nuncio, attempted to broker a solution, but Luther, who had sent the Pope a copy of On the Freedom of a Christian in October, publicly set fire to the bull and decretals at Wittenberg on 10 December 1520,[64] an act he defended in Why the Pope and his Recent Book are Burned and Assertions Concerning All Articles. As a consequence,
Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X on 3 January 1521, in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.[65] Main article: Diet of Worms
The enforcement of the ban on the Ninety-five Theses fell to the secular authorities. On 18 April 1521, Luther appeared as ordered before the Diet of Worms. This was a general assembly of the estates of the Holy Roman Empire that took place in Worms, a town on the Rhine. It was conducted from 28 January to 25 May 1521, with Emperor Charles V presiding. Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, obtained a safe conduct for Luther to and