As an eminent professor of theology as well as a canon of the cathedral, Eck was the natural choice when, in early 1518, the Bishop of Eichstätt, Gabriel von Eyb, wanted someone to provide informed comment on the Ninety-Five Theses, by then the talk of all Germany. The result was Eck’s first recorded judgment on Luther, a file of rough notes that were to become known as the “Obelisks.” The symbol of the obelisk (or dagger, †) was commonly used by medieval scholars to cross-reference notes to a text, usually critical notes, and in this case Eck’s notes were presumably related to a printed copy of the Ninety-Five Theses marked up in this way. The Obelisks were never intended for publication: they were simply a briefing paper. Nevertheless they leaked out, and a copy made its way to Wittenberg by way of Bernhard Adelmann, a canon of Augsburg Cathedral who was already a keen supporter of Luther’s. By March Luther was fuming at what he saw as Eck’s betrayal of their friendship. Whether their polite exchange of letters really amounted to a friendship is questionable, but the thought that it did helped Luther nurture a satisfying sense of grievance.
In reply Luther dashed off his “Asterisks,” giving at least as good as he had got. The Obelisks, which survive only in Luther’s Asterisks, are frank criticisms, identifying various of the Ninety-Five Theses as erroneous, false, frivolous, illogical, confused, irreverent, or self-contradictory. At one point Eck suggests that there is a sting in the tail, at another that Luther’s thinking seems to point towards Hussite conclusions. His tone does rise through the notes, as he reads with evidently mounting incredulity. By the end, one thesis is “a proposition full of poison,” another “ridiculous.” But Eck confined himself strictly to the text, casting no personal aspersions. To that extent, at least, he scrupulously observed the canons of academic courtesy.
—Richard Rex, The Making of Martin Luther, chapter 8 (pp. 110–111)
ASTERISKS OF LUTHER AGAINST THE OBELISKS OF ECK.
MARTIN LUTHER TO WENCESLAUS LINK, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH AT NUREMBERG, A TRUE THEOLOGIAN, HIS BROTHER IN THE LORD.
The obelisks of our Eck, which you sent me, directed against my disputations, I have thought it appropriate to go through each one individually and to add clearer asterisks to my disputations, which may be a bit obscure. If they shine clearly with these asterisks, you can share them if you wish, and he himself will easily understand how rash it is to condemn others' works, especially when not understood. Additionally, it is utterly malicious and unjust to embitter everything with such bitterness when a friend, not warned beforehand, presumes all the better intentions from the friend. But Scripture is true: “Every man is a liar.” [Romans 3:4] We are human, and we remain human. So, he says:
ECK:
I do not want to pursue trifles or those things that can be attacked scholastically in the matter of the present disputation on indulgences, since I would thereby attack the first conclusion.
LUTHER:
As a nobleman (for I will not say a proud man), he approaches the matter with a preface, except that he says he modestly attacks rather than conquers trifles and scholastic things. For perhaps he will conquer greater things. Who would not fear the creaking of this mouth? But I, remembering the line from Horace, “What will he bring forth worthy of such great promises?” could hardly contain my laughter. He does not want to dispute and fight scholastically, from which word I sufficiently understand that our Eck fabricated these obelisks in the days they call “Carnival,” wearing a mask. For throughout the whole work of the obelisks, there is nothing of sacred scripture, nothing of ecclesiastical fathers, nothing of canons, but all the most scholastic, opinionated, and mere dreams are concocted and entirely those things against which I dispute. So that, if I wanted to peripateticize, I would disperse all his trifles with one breath and say that his master’s decree was this: Begging the question is a vice of disputation or argumentation. For I hoped he would fight against me from the Bible or ecclesiastical fathers or canons. But he opposes me with the bran and husks of Scotus, Gabriel, and other scholastics (with which he is full of). But let us hear how the rhetorical man, pretending to attack the first conclusion, nonetheless attacks it. For he says:
ECK:
For when the Kingdom of Heaven seems to signify the present Church in the words of Christ and the time of the fullness of the gospel then coming, it does not seem how repentance expresses the entire life of the faithful.
LUTHER:
This is scholastic, that is, a playful and self-deceiving argument. I do not know whether he learned this consequence from the logic of reason or the logic of faith. Namely, because now is the kingdom of heaven, therefore not all the life of the faithful is repentance, as if there is any man in this kingdom who does not continually sin and therefore does not continually need repentance. For I speak of this repentance, as the following conclusion teaches. But Eck perhaps babbles about sacramental or solemn repentance. To say that there is ever a man without sin and thus does not need repentance (although blessed Bonaventure once wrote this in error) belongs to the part of the Donatist heretic, as blessed Augustine says in many places. Moreover, only the faithful repent. But I omit those things. More broadly below:
ECK:
But we do not want to pursue similar things. We will only note a few things hastily, without the aid of books, and mark them with an obelisk, as is customary.
LUTHER:
What an arrogant display of wit! But when he is equipped with a supply of books and meditates slowly, then he will not institute obelisks but phalaricas, battering rams, and even cannons, perhaps omitting no apparatus of war. What is left for me, I ask, but fear and horror? But in the meantime, I am well off, for he writes obelisks not of iron, not of wood, but of paper and pictures. I also wonder why he did not prefer asterisks unless perhaps the light and brightness of asterisks displeased him, but the livid and rusty color of obelisks pleased him. For indeed, he did not care about fraternal piety, so that he would want to warn and enlighten his brother’s error and add better things with candor. But envy entered, so that he wanted to calumniate his brother’s studies, obscure good things, and detract from the good things assumed about the friend.
ECK: First Obelisk.
Interior repentance is great, as Christ and all Christians have taught. For Christ looks at the heart and will. The widow teaches this, who placed two small coins in the treasury, and Jesus testified that she put in more than all. [Mark 12:42] For the will is in the soul like a king in a kingdom.
LUTHER:
This is an obelisk, a stinger of my third proposition, which I do not understand either what it wants or how it is against me. But I will divine (though unwillingly), for I fear to give occasion for new obelisks.
Perhaps it displeased him that I said there is no interior repentance unless it works outwardly, etc. To this, the obelisk contradicts: “Nay,” he says, “not only some, but all have taught that it is great.” Here I add and say that it is the greatest, and they have taught it the greatest. But if Eck wants it to be alone and without external work, I hope it will be sufficiently hated by his scholastic masters. For it is neither great nor true unless it effectively wills to work outwardly, as all say. But Eck, not wanting to be silent, though he had nothing to say, said at least this.
Then that “For the will is in the soul like a king in a kingdom” I think should be understood “like a brothel keeper in a brothel.” Christ is in the soul through faith as a king, the will as a servant. The will alone is always a harlot and has all the powers of a harlot. And even if his fiction were so, I do not see what it has to do with the matter, that interior repentance is great because the will is the greatest and queen of powers.
ECK: Second Obelisk.
The proposition appears erroneous. For if the penalties of the canons only accumulate with the penalties imposed by God, it would be a snare, not a salvation in the canonical penitential. Or if he wants them to be declaratory (as in truth they are, which Martin Luther did not attend to), then in remitting the penalty of the canons, some penalties are remitted.
LUTHER:
First, our Eck says nothing scholastically (as he promised above): Therefore, it is a great wonder to me that so great an ingenuity and so great a study can find such things (which are for me, trifles) in sacred literature, in ecclesiastical fathers, and canons, which no man in the whole world has yet found there. Second, though these words of our babbler sound as if he understood me to deny that any penalties are remitted when he says “in remitting the penalties of the canons, some penalties are remitted,” yet I want to believe that he does not falsely impose this on me. But his meaning is that in remitting the penalties of the canons, some penalties imposed by God are remitted, since he declares each penalty imposed by God (which Martin Luther did not attend to, but Eck attended to more than is true), and by this he does not remit accumulated penalties imposed by God, that is, he remits simple and not double penalties.
Third, indeed in this conclusion, as in all others, I establish nothing but dispute. Although I believe many things to be true, yet I am human and have no power in this matter except the faculty of disputing. Therefore, to this obelisk, I say I do not want the penalties of the canons to be cumulative but only those imposed for sins. But I deny that God imposes penalties on a confident sinner, nor can it be proven by our obeliskographer nor by all his scholastic theologians. Rather, God remitting sin simultaneously remits guilt and penalty, knowing that there are enough penalties for the sinner if he lives well and fights with vices and evil habits, especially ingrained ones. Hence Ezek. 18[:21]: If the wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he shall live and not die, I will not remember his sins. Here no penalty is required except the work of justice and righteousness. It is impious to impose more than God ever does. Indeed, in Joel [2:13], he says: Rend your hearts and not your garments. And that Psalm 51[:5]: My sin is always before me. These words prove that God is content with the hatred of sin and the love of righteousness. And such a faithful person seems to be in every respect. Therefore, that scholastic comment that the canons declare the penalties of the divine sentence is not sufficiently scholarly. I do not want to accept it until it is taught not scholastically but ecclesiastically (as he promised).
But if the canons are snares and not salvation if they impose accumulated (as he calls them) penalties, again, I do not know what he says, and I believe he does not know what he says. For if a priest imposes more than God requires, it certainly must be borne and is salutary for the one bearing it for the sake of the reverence and obedience of the keys. But if he wants to say that remitting the canonical penalties deceives the absolved if the penalties imposed by God are not simultaneously remitted and thus he is ensnared by divine penalties while he is loosed from human ones, this is certainly true as far as it is true that penalties are imposed by God, that is, it is utterly false. Therefore, it is not the canons that are snares but ignorant and foolish theologians who dream that penalties are imposed by God or declared by the canons to be imposed by God.
And if our obelisk philosopher were as much a theologian as he is (I almost said philosopher) a sophist, he should not marvel that the canons are snares of death when even the law of God is the minister of death, wrath, and sin and plainly that net by which God has concluded all under sin. [Galatians 3:22] And to reveal my opinion, in this proposition, I meant that since God always afflicts his own to humble them to repentance, as he says in Jeremiah [30:11]: I will chastise you in judgment, lest you seem innocent to yourself. And that Psalm 89[:31]: If his children forsake my law, I will visit them with a rod, etc. This preceding penalty I said cannot be remitted by the Pope, but the subsequent and satisfactitory one, that is, imposed by the Church. For God never imposes the subsequent one, being content that he has brought a man to judge himself so that he is not judged by God, according to Paul in 1 Cor. 11[:31] and says: You are righteous, Lord, and your judgment is right. [Psalm 119:137] Indeed, to say what Eck’s Aristotelian may marvel at, neither does the Church require any subsequent and satisfactitory penalty after absolution, as our twelfth proposition says. For although it is now customary to bear penalties after absolution, yet formerly it was not so customary. The only remaining vestige of this is that no one is absolved unless the penalty is imposed and accepted beforehand, a clear argument that the remission of sins by the Church, like God, is granted after the penalty, that is, even if not in reality, yet in wish, it is already loosed. Whether this custom of our age is salutary, others may judge. My part is only to say disputatively that it is the worst, and it is better if someone even omits communion on Easter day until he has satisfied in every way in reality and effect, as it was formerly done.
He adds to this obelisk:
ECK:
But if you close this door, now no penalty would be remitted by the power of the keys, which contradicts the dignity of the sacrament of penance.
LUTHER:
What this means, again, I do not understand. Nor is it a wonder. I deserve pardon for being compelled to read not clear and lucid asterisks, but rusty, black, and shadowy obelisks. Therefore, it must be divined here too, that it seems to our Eck that no penalty is remitted unless I concede that the divine justice (as they call it) imposed it. Since the canons have been abolished with their penalties, here I say that penalties are remitted either as arbitrarily imposed, as it happens today, or that the canons have not yet been abrogated by precept. If that seems too base, I answer: It is better in a matter not necessary for salvation to be base than to lie, and I await either the contrary to be proven or the Church to determine. Meanwhile, I wish to use and abuse the opinions of men for my liberty. For I am not compelled to believe Eck either unless he speaks ecclesiastically and not scholastically.
As for that, it contradicts the dignity of the sacrament of penance that no penalties are remitted, I say: Although neither canonists nor theologians (except Eck alone) are certain what the keys remit in the usual form, yet the primary cause of this position was that the dignity of the keys is too base if they remit only temporal penalties. For they are given not for temporal health or peace, but for acquiring eternal salvation. For a temporal penalty is a very base thing, far inferior to be worthy of being remitted by the keys, at least in my judgment, as I will say below. Therefore, the word of this obelisk seems utterly vain to me, that it is an indignity of the sacrament not to remit penalties, while it is rather its indignity if it remits penalties, at least primary ones. But let us hear how he proves that indignity, disputing not scholastically but theologically.
ECK:
For the sacraments of the new law effect what they signify, in which they are separated from the sacraments of the old testament.
LUTHER:
See, these are not scholastic. Who says these except those who are dead in scholastic trifles? Who says that the sacraments of the new law effect what they signify except the master of the sentences in book 4 with the definition of Hugo and those who follow them? This matter is broader than the narrowness of time allows to pursue. I only complain that Eck did not keep silent at first when he promised not to act scholastically.
However, I briefly say: The sacraments of the new law do not effect grace, which they signify, but faith is required before every sacrament. But faith is grace. Therefore, grace always precedes the sacrament according to that most common saying: Not the sacrament, but faith in the sacrament justifies. And blessed Augustine: Not because it is done, but because it is believed.
However, Eck, the obelistic theologian, proceeds from that Scotian dream that the sacraments effect grace without the work of the recipient, provided he does not put up an obstacle. Which opinion is the most horrible heresy and now is not Bohemian poison but infernal aconite, mocking and subverting all the sacraments of the Church, as we will show in due time.
As for what he says, that the sacraments of the new law are separated from the sacraments of the old law because the latter did not effect grace, this is as scholastic as it is almost heretical. Rather, they differed in that ours are fewer and easier, while those were many and burdensome. Or certainly, they only were baptisms of the flesh and justifications in food, drink, clothing, festivals, sacrifices, and purifications of leprosy, etc., which signified one baptism and one justification of faith, which is now fulfilled. For so speaks not scholastics but ecclesiastics, indeed heavenly Paul.
ECK:
And since penance cannot apply to guilt in your sixth conclusion, you must therefore admit that it can apply to penalty and guilt.
LUTHER:
Here he understands penance as the sacrament of penance and the office of the keys (so he speaks, so that his opinion must always be divined), otherwise penance can apply neither to guilt nor penalty. But what I think of this matter, I will declare in my proofs. For I did not propose this sixth position from the heart but for the use of others. For as I said, it seems too base to me if the keys remit only penalties. Therefore, just as it is doubtful to all how they remit guilt, so I will also pose my doubt in the proofs.
Meanwhile, I ask this from our obelisk: If it contradicts the dignity of the sacrament not to remit any penalty, but the remission of penalties is most appropriate for this cause, because the sacraments of the new law effect what they signify, therefore they signify the remission of penalties only, which is heretical not only to ecclesiastical but also to scholastic doctors and simultaneously the subversion of all the sacraments of the Church. Which again is not only Bohemian poison (as he imposes on me) but the pestilence of all heretics who ever were or will be. For they signify the remission of guilt, not penalties. But if they signify the remission of guilt and the priest does not do this by declaring, I ask my Eck to deign to be a disciple and disputant with me meanwhile until we both find a master and declarer in this matter. Do you finally see what it is to damn others' opinions without understanding and without envy?
ECK: Third Obelisk.
Priests and bishops are falsely accused because, just as in the sixth conclusion he wanted the Pope to remit guilt by declaring it remitted by God and approving (although it seems frivolous to approve the act of a superior by an inferior), so a priest can declare to the dying that the canonical penalties conforming to divine sentence are reserved in purgatory, not by satisfying but by making satisfaction. If bishops knew this, they should not be said to sleep but to have watched more than Luther.
LUTHER:
It is frivolous, he says, for an inferior to approve the acts of a superior. But in the prior obelisk, nay basilisk, it was not frivolous but most religious (so that even Martin Luther did not attend to it, evidently impious and rude) for the Pope to declare the penalties imposed by God through the canons. And in this, a priest can declare that the penalties conforming to divine justice are reserved in purgatory. Unless perhaps the obelisk writer has this liberty that, when he speaks for himself, God is inferior to the Pope and priest without any suspicion of heresy, but when he speaks against me, then God is superior first and does not suffer the declaration of his sentence by an inferior, and thus iniquity lies to itself, but truth speaks to me.
Here I omit that it is the universal opinion of the apostles that even at the final judgment they are said to approve the judgment of Christ, unless Eck denies Christ to be their superior or says that they are frivolous.
First, I ask (because he speaks nothing scholastically), from which ecclesiastics it is proven that a priest can declare penalties reserved in purgatory? Is this not what I impugned, and he plainly returns it by begging the question from such a dialectician, and more than a stoic but a peripatetic dialectician? I already said above that there are no penalties of the divine sentence, much less conforming to it. For he did not say: “Whatever or how much I bind in heaven will be bound on earth,” but on the contrary: “Whatever you bind, etc.,” [Matthew 16:19] which words more signify God approving the acts of the inferior. And therefore, I said that I did not propose the sixth conclusion from the heart but to hear others.
Second, I ask, how it is true that every priest is a Pope in the article of death if he does not remit or cannot remit every penalty? But if he can and does not, how does charity remain in him? Divine justice, you say, does not permit. Why then does it permit in the Pope whenever he wills, whose full vicar the priest then wholly is?
Now that most excellent (because Scotist) subtlety which says that souls do not expiate by suffering but by making satisfaction for penalties in purgatory. Thanks to Scotus, who although is most scholastic and savors nothing ecclesiastical, yet made Eck (wonderful to say) most ecclesiastical. As if there could be any rustic so rude who does not know that penalties are not borne except by the willing (provided they are not infernal and of the impious), and thus they could be said to expiate not only by making satisfaction but by willing to satisfy.
But I would rather abstain from disputing with Scottish subtleties and indeed Scottish formalities lest they elude me with some new formality. However, Eck’s obelisk says that bishops did not ignore these things. Therefore, they should not be said to sleep but to have watched more than Luther. Indeed, the church is fortunate whose bishops are all Scotists or (which more fits the matter) Eckianists, by whose shadow they defend themselves from ever being said to sleep, perhaps because Eck always wanted to sleep for them.
ECK:
I add that a dead person cannot be absolved from excommunication, as the well-known laws state.
LUTHER:
How soberly and vigorously Eck watches here! I confess, the well-known laws state this. But the new apparatus of Eck is missing. Therefore, we believe in the received and common ones for the time being until he makes better ones. It is in book 5 of the sentence of excommunication, chapter “From us,” where the Pope decrees that the excommunicated, even the dead, should be absolved. Which Panormitanus and others understand as “as far as it concerns us,” that is, in the face of the Church, since by fact through death he is absolved without the absolution of the Church. Nor does anything of the excommunication left after death harm him, except that he is not publicly prayed for in the Church, but privately anyone can pray for him if they wish. Hence it is understood that all binding of the Church ceases at death and only has force in this life. Wherefore, I also said that the penalties of the canons are also penalties of this life.
But see the syllogism of our dialecticians. Unless the priest could declare the penalties reserved in purgatory to the dying, neither could the excommunicated be absolved after death. Who, I do not say among the doctors of the scholastics but the first-year students of the scholastics, would not laugh at this consequence? As if it were the same to be absolved from the opinion of men in the Church and to relegate penalties to purgatory. When there the remission of guilt and penalty is declared to the Church, but he himself is not properly absolved, here he is truly and properly bound to penalties. Finally, as if indulgence and absolution from excommunication were the same.
ECK: Fourth Obelisk.
That the canons of the laws are relaxed by death does not appear from the cause of the former.
LUTHER:
Whether he speaks of the cause of his former obelisk or of my position is uncertain. But since he pronounces as if from the tripod without reasons given, I also leave him sufficiently refuted by the preceding until he proves it from the ecclesiastics according to his promise.
ECK: Fifth Obelisk.
That proposition appears frivolous. For a baptized infant (although he rejoices in another’s merit) has less charity than an adult capable of reason, and yet the imperfect charity of the child does not inflict on him the horror that would make purgatory for him. For who in his right mind would say that Saint Severinus has less grace than a two-year-old child? Hence perfect or imperfect grace does not make purgatory but the penalty due for sins not yet paid.
LUTHER:
Here at last he speaks not scholastically nor tumultuously but perhaps as an oracle from heaven. First, it was very fitting for Eck to leave this proposition of mine with six subsequent ones untouched. For they are deeper than to be understood in any way from scholastic opinions. For they savor the experience of that word, “He brings down to Sheol and raises up.” [1 Samuel 2:6] About which more broadly in the proofs.
Meanwhile, let us see the tales of this obelisk.
An infant rejoices in another’s merit. Very well. But who rejoices in his own? An adult, he says, in grace. But why does he say: “Do not enter into judgment with your servant, Lord, for no living being will be justified in your sight?” [Psalm 143:2] But these are ecclesiastical matters and far removed from Eck’s mind. Then, because “rejoice” here (as it is elegant) may seem to have been said for “possess,” I pass over it.
The more important thing is that the child has less charity and yet does not have the horror of purgatory. I admit it. But what shall we say here, I ask? An adult is urged by greater temptation and is more violently disturbed by the fear of death and judgment than a little child who feels nothing and is not capable. But the adult, having added knowledge, has also added sorrow. Therefore, it is not surprising that an adult, clothed with great charity, can sooner and more easily fall into sin and suffer more than a little child with little charity. Therefore, Eck could also say that just as a little child with less charity does not fear nor dread fire, water, iron, finally death, so much less does an adult with great charity fear such things. Who does not see the contrary of this? And would that an adult would reach the point where, like a little child, he neither knows nor fears penalties, then I would also say that he would immediately fly away like a little child. But now, when he knows and dreads, he needs not that small but perfect charity [1 John 4:18] which casts out fear and triumphs and does not offend God by his rebellion when he fears death more than God, indeed loves life more than God.
Then it is very uncertain whether a little child has less charity than an adult unless the adult is of perfect charity who, converted, has become like a little child [Matthew 18:3] according to the gospel. He also should not fear death.
Finally, he says that the perfection or imperfection of charity does not make purgatory but the penalty not yet paid. This he says from the above dreams that a satisfaction penalty is required by God according to the scholastics. Yet they assert that any priest can do and do everything the Pope can and does for the dying. Furthermore, if he cannot have a priest, they say the vow of having one suffices. What, therefore, remains to be paid for such a one when he is absolved from all?
I will say more broadly that the common opinion is that purgatory is due for sins, not penalties, namely venial sins, as the canon expressly has it in Distinction 35, chapter “Qualis.” And many similar examples are found. Such a sin I also say is that imperfect charity by which they die unwillingly, uncleansed by an excessive love of life and thereby not loving God above all things. About these things in the proofs.
ECK: Sixth Obelisk.
Arrogant Proposition. For friends of God, having been freed from their bodies, they certainly know they are saved, but as if by fire.
LUTHER:
How do they know for certain? Because Eck says so. And the consequence follows as per my Master, from affirmative authority. He is so ignorant of the theology of the cross that he believes they are certain of being saved because they are friends of God and freed from their bodies. Even though I have read distinguished men (not Scotus or Thomas, nor Eck) who assert that some souls are suspended until the day of judgment, not knowing whether they will be saved or damned. And because in this matter more faith should be placed in experiences and examples than in all the obelisks of all the craftsmen, it matters little what Eckian recklessness babbles or names as arrogance. We read of many who appeared as if led to judgment and long suspended. And whatever it may be, at least it is free to dispute because of one example and one statement and to contradict the naked and unarmed opinions of theologians. I add that the natural horror of the soul makes a man uncertain, which I said is present in souls due to the lack of charity, and I will say more soon.
ECK:
Since it is probable that they have commerce with angels, how can they be placed near despair (which is for the faithless)?
LUTHER:
Again, it reeks of his goat, Aristotle, or rather a goat-deer, and he spews nothing but the probable, that is, requests of the principle. I knew and had read all these things, and knowingly and prudently set against them what my best Polydoxus now teaches me. Eck is entirely opinion, and yet he sets it everywhere like the curtain of Phoebus.
The reason for my position was this: since all doctors say that the punishment of purgatory is the same as that of hell except for despair, and since horror is one of the greatest punishments of hell, horror is ultimately either a brother or similar and close to despair, as experience shows. He who fears begins to doubt. It seemed likely that purgatory, because of excessive horror, is close to and adjacent to despair. And I see nothing but empty words that Eck vomits against this. Therefore, it is not for the faithless to be near despair; otherwise, those who are tempted in faith and hope (about whom the Scholastic knows nothing, rightfully called the obelisk writer) would be faithless when they seem to themselves utterly desperate, which would be nothing other than committing and teaching spiritual suicide (if I may say so).
ECK: Seventh Obelisk.
It is not unlike the previous one. Where the tree falls, there it will be, [Ecclesiastes 11:3] concerning merit and demerit. And this is death in men as it is the fall in angels.
ECK:
I ask you, my Eck, if you wish to write against me henceforth, to gather as much prudence so that it suffices for you three or four times in one work, but not to make yourself ridiculous in almost every speech, as you do here. And you will achieve this if you believe with certain faith that I have read those examinations of questions and opinions with which you fight in vain and with phantoms. I do not want to hear Scholastic theology unless it is backed by ecclesiastical authority and not Scholastic anymore. Do you want me to do nothing but laugh at you while you bring nothing except what I doubted to be true while reading and now dispute?
Now your festive gloss is about merit and demerit, that is, lest the ecclesiastical authority with the Picards and Bohemians forces you to deny purgatory, you invent or rather distill from your fabrications the fall of the tree so that it neither merits nor demerits.
Indeed, I omit here the matter of merit and demerit, which I strongly doubt the Scholastics understand since they cannot deny that a wicked man immediately after death falls into hatred and blasphemy against God, thus becoming worse than he was. But I omit this, because with Sophists and cunning and old litigators, this matter cannot be dealt with, as the fool receives no words unless you say what is in his heart. [Proverbs 18:2] And again: It is better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool confident in his folly. [Proverbs 17:12]
In the meantime, I say and ask to be instructed (for this reason I have questioned and disputed), since Blessed Gregory, distinction 35, asserts that venial sins are purged in purgatory, how to understand that one is not made better by being purged? And if better, how not to progress and merit? Unless venial sins are to be regarded as nothing, as the Scholastics think, but God esteems them so much that He inflicts such intolerable punishment for their purgation.
Therefore, if that ecclesiastical authority does not abolish purgatory, which it vehemently opposes, how much less does it abolish the increase of good or evil in purgatory? It may be that where they fall, there they are, so that they do not sin mortally anymore, or it is done in a way unknown to us.
But when John of Damascus says, “What is death in men is the fall in angels,” I hope he does not speak of the death of all men, since many have died and were recalled again. Where then were their souls? They fell, but not like the angels, nor did they remain where they fell. Who then knows whether it is so with souls in purgatory? But we proclaim as oracles whatever we dream through fever, being so bold as the most reckless judges, nor do we allow any contradiction.
ECK: Eighth Obelisk.
The same recklessness, as is clear from the previous ones, since to say so would be to confuse the end of the journey, of penance, and of all else. For they are in the state of being loosed, not of meriting. Therefore, charity, which is given to each according to what he did in the body, [2 Corinthians 5:10] is not to be merited in purgatory. Otherwise, the Apostle would need to be supplemented, each one receiving according to what he did in the body or purgatory.
LUTHER:
To always drink wine is at last wearisome, and all pleasure by its frequent enjoyment brings about its own aversion. How much more wearisome it is to always hear these foul-smelling and reckless opinions of men, which they nonetheless chatter so that they pronounce everything not of the same faith as reckless. I must say so often to my Eck that he does not speak ecclesiastically but scholastically, that is, he chatters futilely and uselessly.
I have disputed and said it is possible to hold that souls are in the state of meriting, although I have established nothing anywhere on this, as I have said. He solves this dispute by saying: They are not in the state of meriting. Plainly repeating the same defenseless figment which I have impugned. Such is the dispute, indeed the contention of women and children, “It is, it is not. Yes, no. Yes, no,” and yet these are the sharpest theologians in these matters. But enough on this and in the proofs. How aptly he applies the Apostle’s saying to the matter! The Apostle speaks there of the tribunal of the last judgment, where death and purgatory will cease. But he applies it to purgatory and the death of man in time, so that what the Apostle says they will receive in judgment, he understands as receiving at death. This is indeed the celebrated and most praised manner of interpreting sacred scripture among the Scholastics (I almost said mockers), if such evident madness could be called a manner. Psalm 1[:1] describes them: “And he has not sat in the seat of pestilence.” In Hebrew, the word for pestilence is lezim, which means mockers, scoffing interpreters, that is, those who teach and interpret the words of scripture in such a way as to mock souls thirsting for the truth. Therefore, their name is as close to their nature as they are not far from the reality. For what is a Scholastic but one who is called a mocker?
He says it confuses the end of the journey. If only I could confuse the beginning, middle, end, and all things of both the journey and error of the Scholastics! I would hope to please even Eck, who promised not to treat Scholastic theology, except that, carried away by some spirit, he has painted these digressions in reality, delaying a little.
ECK: Ninth Obelisk.
The falsity of this is evident from the previous ones. For they know not fewer, but more things than we in the body, which aggravates the soul. Therefore, they know they are dead and do not despair nor enjoy God. Therefore, they know they are in purgatory, knowing this, they know they are among the saved.
LUTHER:
Sweet Jesus, my Eck, have mercy on you, lest sometime in envy of me you go mad or perish for the sake of your studies! What shall I say at last, poor man? I am indignant at the matter and pity the man.
In the nineteenth position, I said it could be that not all are certain in purgatory of their beatitude, and for this, I have an example, as I said above, then the opinion of some. And therefore, I only intended to show that my position was not certain
, but that it was not necessary to hold the Scholastics' opinion as certain either. I only argue the recklessness of those who claim certain things that are most doubtful. Therefore, I do not deny some are certain, but not all. Just as in the temptation of faith, the tempted one is uncertain whether he believes, but he who consults him is certain that he believes if indeed there is the discernment of spirits in him. For if he did not believe, he would not grieve, not complain, not weep over his unbelief. But that sense of unbelief and grief is clear evidence of living faith in him. The dead in faith do not grieve over not believing. So it is in despair and in all temptation. Thus I said, some souls could be uncertain (as there are many examples), while we are most certain that they are to be saved. Thus I, as I said, disputed and doubted.
But our obelisk, bringing nothing new except what I have impugned, does not dispute but pronounces the half-baked opinions of peripatetic theologians, saying they know more than we do. Then he adds what they know: They know they are dead, do not despair, etc. Here I infer: Therefore we do not know they are dead, we do not know they do not despair, we do not know they do not enjoy God, we do not know they are in purgatory, we do not know they are to be saved. We do not know these things, indeed being burdened by the body. This is nothing but to say, “We are all heretics, according to our Eck.” Not that I am ignorant of his meaning, but sometimes, how easy it is to distort another’s words, let alone openly note faults, and how difficult it is to confuse others without greater disgrace to oneself. As envy is always imprudent and foolish, so while trying to impose lies, it shows itself rather the most deceitful with disgrace. Therefore, learn, my Eck, that it is one thing to judge written things and another to write things to be judged. The former even fools can do, but not even Socrates could adequately do the latter. I ask you, do not be a fool.
ECK: Tenth Obelisk.
The conclusion of the proposition is null. Yet we do not admit what is inferred since by the power of the keys given, the priest remits the punishment even owed to God, lest the noble sacrament of the evangelical law be made of no effect.
LUTHER:
He denied the antecedent and did not disprove it. Therefore, with the same prudence, he denies the consequence: this is the authority of this scholastic tripod. They deny, so it must be denied. They affirm, so it must be affirmed. Likewise, if they deny again, it must be denied. Do not believe, Reader, that they are some Terentian Gnathoes: they are theologians, that is, speaking of God, the one who inspires great fury in poets, as you know from Virgil.
So, this splendid obelisk does not admit my inferred conclusion lest the sacrament be of no effect. We give thanks. Then it is not of no effect, then it is a noble sacrament, then plainly evangelical when it does not remit guilt and conscience but punishment, that is, the most worthless and contemptible thing to all Christians. Oh, theologians who so magnify punishments that they make Christians timid. Happier nations, who used to encourage their own to death. We, through the horror of punishments, bring our own to childish fear. But it has been said enough above that it is not true that the punishment owed to God is remitted by the sacrament.
I grieve, however, that the sacraments of the new law have come to be ministries of temporal things, that is, punishments, when they were given for the acquisition of eternal things. But just as the theologians are nothing but airy and swollen with the winds of opinions like sewn-up bladders, so the noble sacrament of the Gospel is turned not from the wind but into the wind. For by the judgment of all of them, even they call the sacraments vessels of grace, except for one Eck, who calls them vessels of punishments not to be poured out but taken away. I believe he does this and merits dissenting from them because he did not want to include anything scholastic in these obelisks.
ECK: Eleventh Obelisk.
Frivolous proposition, confusing the whole order of ecclesiastical hierarchy, which could be rejected on many grounds.
LUTHER:
So, however, that the grounds are Eckian, that is, not scholastic. But who can bear such persistent and frequent recklessness of such notable laziness and ignorance? Long insolence and presumption overcome patience. He judges all, understands none. I, with the whole church, deny that the keys have power in purgatory, as is clear from the preceding and clearly from the next following proposition. This the obelisk should have noticed. How then could it be possible that I contradicted myself in such close, indeed proximate conclusions, especially in a matter so carefully thought out by me? Unless I were, according to Cratylus' philosophy, that horse unable to enter the same river twice, so that now not only to the Pope but also to the lowest curate, I would attribute the power everywhere denied by all my conclusions before and after.
But Eck, with a furious mind thinking ill of me, would want to incite the whole church to hatred against me, and this not without false and self-conceived lies. Who would believe there is such virulence in a theologian? Therefore, I said that the power is similar, not as great to the bishop and curate as to the Pope in purgatory, not that they have the jurisdiction of the keys or the power of rights there, but rather the power of virtues, not of commanding but of working. That is, what the Pope can do by the general suffrage and prayer of the whole church, the bishop can do by the special suffrage of his diocese, and the curate by that of his parish, as is done on All Souls' Day, on common days, and in parental masses. And it was not my intention that they would play with this word “power” in this proposition of mine. However, it has pleased reckless judges that they have mocked themselves so that they may learn to treat others' matters with fear and without arrogance, and to learn before teaching, to listen before judging.
ECK: Twelfth Obelisk.
This proposition seems to declare that the proposer does not understand what this phrase in apostolic bulls “by way of suffrage” means, since it does not diminish (as the proposer wishes) but rather adds and explains the manner of communication, as these can be beautifully declared and the apostolic interpreters have explained.
LUTHER:
I confess frankly that I do not understand that manner of suffrage, and therefore I disputed to be taught. I also know how to recite those words which Eck recites, namely “it does not diminish but adds.” However, I do not understand.
But what he says is declared by the apostolic interpreters, I have read none besides Gabriel Biel, and now I hear this Eck can beautifully declare the same. But I do not care a straw for the declaration of both, for Eck himself is my authority, who said above in a certain obelisk that it is frivolous for the work of a superior to be declared and approved by an inferior. Since Gabriel and Eck are inferior to the Pope, they must be despised as frivolous declarers.
I add that all jurists say it is the same to declare as it is to establish. But I await the beautiful declaration of Eck, who understands everything: perhaps he will teach me to understand the manner of suffrage, provided he does not speak to me scholastically. But more on this in the proofs.
ECK: Thirteenth Obelisk.
Arrogant proposition, capable of causing tumult, sedition, and schisms in the Church of God, not increasing charity.
LUTHER:
See, I ask you, how the theologian pants for my ruin. Only his opinions increase charity. It seems to me that Eck is one of those who do not want their vices even to be touched and want to reign over the people of Christ with sheer tyranny. Everything is allowed except to abstain from touching this ulcer, that is, the avarice of pontiffs, priests, and monks.
However, I am amazed, since not only Eck but all the Scholastics, not only bite avarice but even simony in their propositions sometimes. Then all the decrees and books are full of the vices of the pontiffs. And yet so many books biting so many vices have not caused seditions and schisms; will my single and small note of one vice mix these tragedies? Either Eck is a mercenary and the envoy of certain black ones, as we once remember happening against Johann Reuchlin, or he has entirely gone into the Pythagorean palingenesis. Is it so fitting for a theologian to speak so incautiously and imprudently (not to say maliciously)?
ECK:
But yet the tail is mixed with poison. For if the suffrage of the Church were solely in the discretion of God, so that it would want to neglect or disapprove the priestly application, then no priest could particularly apply the Mass to one more than another. No anniversary could be funded, no special Mass procured, since it would equally or more benefit another according to God’s discretion, and there would be no need to make mention of the living or the dead in the Canon.
LUTHER:
I confess the whole tail is poisoned, not by its nature but by Eckian art, and now it is not mine but of the Eckian obelisk, or rather basilisk. For whatever he looks at is immediately death.
I omit to speak here of priestly application: let others see how correctly it is done. For I have not spoken of it in my propositions anywhere. But Eck, who understands everything in everything, that is, nothing, even wanted to poison my pure and harmless sentences thus. Yet I say this one thing: if Eck were sincere in saying that priestly applications are not in the discretion of God alone, as Blessed Augustine teaches about the dead, then it is not only his tail but his head, feet, and whole body, whatever it is, that is poison. I shudder to hear, not from a Jew, not from a Turk, not from a Bohemian heretic, but from a Catholic theologian, that the suffrages of the Church are not in the discretion of God alone. If you teach this to the people, you are not a preacher but a devastator of the Church. I freely shout against such an impure heretic and say: Cursed be every application of any priest if he does not first purely and reverently place it in the discretion of God alone and prefers the application of God long before his own and adds his conditionally. Thus, at last, theologians will render God captive, so that He does not do what He wills?
But I omit these things. For I did not speak of application but of acceptance, which Eck could have smelled from the preceding if he had any nose. For I set against those who say that by that manner of suffrage a soul flies away, whereas suffrage is intercession. The value of intercession does not lie in the offerer but in the acceptor’s discretion. Therefore, since an indulgence is not offered as an indulgence by the key but as a suffrage for them, I denied that the soul is redeemed by it unless it pleases God so. This matter is indeed disputed by me, not asserted. I await a declaration, but not a frivolous one, that is, an inferior one. But what I will say about the saying of Sixtus IV will be seen in the proofs.
ECK: Fourteenth Obelisk.
We know through scripture, with souls crying out to us: Have mercy on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord has touched me. [Job 19:21] And since they have the love and charity of God, they would want to be united and joined to God as soon as possible, their ultimate end, in an orderly manner. This is not done unless the punishment is paid off or compensated.
LUTHER:
If I had not read it here, I would not have known that souls cry out to us and desire to come to God: such new and unheard-of doctrines the sacred Doctor Eck brings forth. And therefore, it is a wonder to me against whom I have placed these things. Let irony depart; rather, there is need for pity.
I ask, therefore, how Eck understands his words. What does it mean to desire to be united to God in an orderly manner? Is it not so that they do not seek their own things and want to be united to God not for their own sake but for God’s glory and will? What if now God wills them not to be united to Him quickly? Would they not also want the same? But why do I speak ecclesiastically with a Scholastic? Therefore, my reason for disputing was this, that it did not seem impossible that some souls would not want to be redeemed from punishments, as we read in the sermons of Tauler about a certain notable example of a virgin who even offered herself to the punishments of hell for God’s will. And Moses [Exodus 32:32] and the Apostle [Romans 9:3] wanted to be without God forever for His will. As the bride in the Song of Songs [8:6] rejoices and says: Love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. And 1 Samuel 2[:6]: The Lord brings down to the grave and brings up. But the Scholastic doctors do not speak of strong love but of soft love, which does not bear evils but seeks only good, that is, the desire for its own benefit. Therefore, they babble thus.
ECK:
Regarding Severinus in this last point, I do not recall the story, but as a boy of eleven years, I remember reading that Severinus appeared to his father and revealed his purgation and its cause, and implored the prayers of his chaplain. Which contradicts Luther’s conclusion. But if so, a good man ought to know that the deeds of the saints, beyond common law, should not be drawn into consequence.
LUTHER:
I omit the affectations of this rhetorician and his supposed secure game of insulting me. I only pursue lies. I never said that all souls do not want to be redeemed, nor did I make a law and consequence from one example. But I have done enough to reduce their universal to a particular, to show their bold recklessness.
Then the example of Severinus, which he falsely rebukes, deriving an argument from his childhood to perhaps show everyone his foolishness. However, I did not place it as it is read, but as I heard from some learned men narrating. Their discourse was that St. Paschal was in purgatory, and yet miracles occurred at his tomb, and he could have liberated himself by his merits but did not want to lessen his rewards. Therefore, he preferred to burn. They recited something similar about Severinus. But these discourses, while I do not disapprove, I do not follow as authority, but I brought them forward for the sake of disputation and hearing others. Therefore, I said notably, “It is narrated.” Such books have less faith with me than the discourses of such men, and more so, what I said above about Paul and Moses.
ECK:
Augustine prayed otherwise: Lord, burn here, cut here, that you may spare me in eternity.
LUTHER:
As if I had prohibited anyone from praying for the redemption of punishments or that one cannot desire punishment while another prays for deliverance. But let the contentious sophist prevail.
ECK: Fifteenth Obelisk.
Since the common opinion holds that one can satisfy in mortal sin, for example, a priest imposes penance during Lent until Pentecost, to pray five times daily and fast on Fridays. The priest likely knows he will not remain in grace for so long. If he does not complete the imposed penance, he sins. If he completes it, why would he not satisfy in something? So, indulgences are only satisfactory, etc. Therefore, it is not improbable to attain in sins, as I hold and have held in fact.
LUTHER:
Eck forgot this obelisk and placed it at the end of all, thinking it necessary for me to recognize the dark shadows in which he wanders.
In many ways, I dislike this gnawed and useless obelisk. I would briefly refute it by denying everything it babbles. From the dregs of Scholastic opinions, he brings forth these clouds.
Therefore, I say that if one prays the Lord’s Prayer while in mortal sin, he does not pray but curses himself because such a person in mind is opposed to everything he asks. Indeed, he contradicts all that is asked. Therefore, he does not satisfy God but becomes more guilty.
If Eck had read even a single book by Blessed Augustine on the Spirit and the Letter, I would firmly persuade myself that not only this but all obelisks, indeed his entire Scholastic study, he would condemn and deplore.
Certainly, I admit that such a one satisfies the Church, which imposed it, but not God. Indeed, I firmly believe it is not the intention of the Church that the imposed penance should last longer than the person is capable of fulfilling, namely until he is in grace. For it cannot be presumed of a pious Mother that she would command useless things or impose non-salutary ones. Indeed, she presupposes that the first act exists before imposing the second. Therefore, I consider nothing against whatever the Scholastics think, against whatever practices, indeed abuses of the unlearned prevail. If I err in this, I wish to be taught. And I will treat these things more broadly sometime. For infinite snares of consciences have been introduced into the Church by unlearned opinionators and weighers of human laws. Therefore, if one relapses into sin, all imposed penances should be remitted and not imposed for longer than he is in grace. For if you cannot impose bodily labor except as long as the body can bear it, how much more is the labor of the soul understood to be imposed only as long as the health of the soul lasts? Nothing should be imposed on the dead.
Moreover, I do not disagree that indulgences can be given even to the uncontrite, not on the necessary foundation of Eck, but because the remission of punishment, being the least gift of the Church, can be granted even to the unworthy. For the worthy are more likely to have it imposed by God. All of this I say on the foundation that there are no satisfactory penalties except those freely instituted by the Church and formerly imposed before the absolution of the wicked. Now why they are imposed after absolution, I do not know.
ECK: Sixteenth Obelisk.
We do not accept the appendix of the conclusion; otherwise, the absolver after imposing penance should say, “What I have left undone, let the will of the Pope supply,” since he says, “What I have left undone, let the bitter passion of Christ supply.” Nor should any priest be called a vicar of God, but of the Pope and Bishop.
LUTHER:
And this is the same fable as he said above, that through the sacrament, the penalties imposed by God are remitted. Which I denied and deny, and he cannot prove. Then he retracts again that the passion of Christ or the sacrament alone remits penalties. Thus, he is wont to dignify the sacrament and the passion of Christ in the sacrament by saying that it remits not sins but penalties, and these only temporal. Truly great glory of the passion of Christ that it remits temporal penalties, which even the Gentiles despise!
Moreover, I admire that sharpness of acumen by which from the marketplace he finds an argument against me, namely that the absolving priest says, “What I have left undone, let the bitter passion of Christ supply.” Here it would not be safe for me to say that this usage of priests does not please me, lest he again says that I am sowing Bohemian poison. But I am so indignant that the passion of Christ is considered as if it were a supplement and like the tail of our operations. Finally, since it inflames rather than remits penalties, and the will of the Pope suffices for the remission of penalties. But this more broadly in its own time.
That it is ridiculous to say, “Let the will of the Pope supply.” He always dreams that it is necessary to supply and satisfy God through penalties and that remission cannot be done except through another compensation, so that there is no true remission but only legitimate exchange and satisfaction through another. Which even the Canonists condemn and the term “indulgence” contradicts. For if it is true remission, there is no need to compensate elsewhere. If it is compensation, it is not remission but satisfaction. Why then do they deceive us with simulated words and not call the thing by its name, so that they call indulgences not indulgences but compensations? Indeed, they are truer satisfactions if the passion of Christ supplies than if we ourselves pay satisfactions. Who would labor under such a horrendous heresy as not to prefer the passion of Christ to his own penalties and works? But this more extensively in the proofs.
ECK: Seventeenth Obelisk.
The proposition is entirely erroneous since it stands that many are truly contrite without plenary remission. I take a dying person to be purged. He is truly contrite; otherwise, he would not receive the grace of the sacrament and remission of sins, and yet he does not have plenary remission of penalties; otherwise, he would not need to be purged. Whence he rashly posited the universal, which, proved particularly, would have no difficulty.
LUTHER:
If Eck were as prompt to seek and listen as he is to judge and condemn, he would not be so foolish with so many deliria and trifles. Behold, one adverb, “truly,” made him fall into such a shameful error. I take “truly contrite” to mean fully contrite, which all say can fly away without the sacraments. And whoever denies it is a heretic and blasphemous against God. Therefore, my universal stands firmly.
Furthermore, I say that even the semi-contrite, and whom he takes similarly, has plenary remission from ecclesiastical penalties owed to him because the priest ought to remit when he sees contrition. No satisfactory penalty is required, from which all these Eckian arguments proceed.
ECK: Eighteenth Obelisk.
True proposition, and (as is clear from the following) since the communion of saints is various, the participation of goods and merits: Luther miraculously confuses them everywhere. Otherwise, if the participation were the same and only general of those existing in charity (as David says: I am a partaker with all those who fear you [Psalm 119:63]), then all fraternities and congregations would be in vain, which is nothing else than spreading Bohemian poison.
LUTHER:
These two notable insults, that he calls me both a heretic and virulent, I indeed think should be endured for the sake of the gospel, following only that example of Christ, saying: I do not have a demon. [John 8:49] However, since I am in a distinguished academy, in an approved religion, in the illustrious duchy of Saxony, in the vast bishopric, and with all these being Catholics, then I myself assert nothing but dispute and seek to be Catholic. Since pertinacity in error in faith alone makes one a heretic (this error, if it is an error, is only in Scholastic opinions, not in faith), it will be necessary to summon Eck for insults and bring his mouth filled with lies and blasphemies to prove that his lies are credible or to show that a simple error is a virulent heresy.
If to dispute is to think heretically, then Eck is the most heretical of all whom the Church has seen, as he has poisoned everything with disputes in four most illustrious academies. I wonder at the man, that he does not freeze to his toenails when he approaches the sacrament of the altar, if he remembers such great cruelty towards his brother. In everything, Eck does nothing as Satan did to Johann Reuchlin. Each strives so that if he could, he would bring all filth, all sewers, all pits of errors, heresies, and evils, then each would enjoy his pleasure.
But to the proposition, I omit that varied participation of goods, of which Eck boasts. Let others indicate what it is or does. It seems to me that it harbors much carnality. Indeed, I freely proclaim that it is harmful in many ways unless it prefers far more the general, true, genuine, ecclesiastical participation, commended by the Gospel and the Lord’s Prayer. Nor is he a heretic who despises them, and he does much better who confuses them than who distinguishes them. Thus, the apostles teach, however much the Scholastics of Morpheus may think otherwise.
However, however they may be, I speak of the general and true participation of the goods of the Church. This, I say, every Christian has without letters of indulgence, which alone suffices for him. About this, Blessed Augustine often speaks against the Donatists, attributing everything entirely to the unity of the Church. Nor do I believe that any other is conferred by letters of indulgence or is proven. Therefore, let this Heruba bark until it becomes a dog. I am not moved by human opinions.
ECK: Nineteenth Obelisk.
It does not seem so difficult since contrition regards guilt and indulgence the punishment due for guilt. And according to this, the following is amended, namely, since the truth of contrition seeks penalties to satisfy in itself or the equivalent concerning satisfaction.
LUTHER:
I admit all these things to be true if Scholastic things are true. What Eck asserts, I deny, and thus it is begging the question.
ECK: Twentieth Obelisk.
True proposition concerning meriting, false if understood concerning satisfying.
LUTHER:
Again, that figment emerges, that penalties are satisfactory only, not meritorious, while Paul says that all things work together for good to the elect. [Romans 8:28] And the Scholastics themselves admit that satisfactions are both satisfactory and meritorious. From which it equally follows that indulgences are cheaper than satisfactions. For it is better to satisfy and merit at the same time than to rejoice only in idle satisfaction. Furthermore, it follows that indulgences are harmful because they are remissions and omissions of merits. Thus, it follows from their own comment.
But as above, I deny this double penalty because John the Baptist, who certainly was sent to teach repentance, imposed no satisfaction but prescribed only precepts of life to soldiers and others. [Luke 3:14] But it is blasphemous to say that he did not teach full and complete repentance, so that it is necessary to add satisfaction as a third part by the Scholastics, which John did not know, and this according to the divine judgment for those who will it, not only by ecclesiastical power. Then indeed John the Baptist would have come into a snare and seduction, having taught none to satisfy.
But they say, “John taught: Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, therefore he willed satisfaction.” [Luke 3:8] I respond: It is a true gloss if it is allowed to contaminate scripture with our dreams. He himself explained those fruits of worthy repentance when he answered the crowd asking what they should do: He who has two tunics, etc., [Luke 3:11] that is, to live well. Thus, God is satisfied.
Yet I would advise the Scholastic doctors and Eck to abandon Christ and John the Baptist (for they are not Scholastics) and flee to their father Aristotle and trust in his teaching to bark at me that most sacred oracle: From authority, negatively, the consequence does not hold. But let us set aside those most trifling Scholastic matters; Eck does not speak scholastically.
ECK: Twenty-First Obelisk.
He does better meritoriously, not satisfactorily, as he declares in the following conclusion.
LUTHER:
Again, he dreams from the chaos of opinions that satisfaction is different from merit, which has been sufficiently refuted above.
ECK: Twenty-Second Obelisk.
We all know that we should help the needy in the extremities or nearly so. In the same way, it should be understood about one who has only the necessary things for giving.
LUTHER:
This is that happy Scholastic theology for which alone all the Scholastics would be worthy of the favor once decreed by the Roman philosophers and Plato for poets in the republic. Oh, non-theologians but plutologists, who interpret necessity for us as the extremity or almost. I ask you, which of the angels would be allowed to sow this gloss?
Therefore, one should not give to the needy, nor lend to the user, nor clothe the naked, nor visit the sick, and finally, no work of piety or charity should be done unless the neighbor reaches the point of being about to expire. Otherwise, when will there be the extremity of necessity? That is, as if the Holy Spirit is so unlearned that when He simply said “necessity,” He did not understand or forgot to add “extreme or almost,” which was left to our Scholastics so that they also would not have lived or taught in vain. Why, I ask, does natural humanity have such goodness that it offers itself freely, expecting no necessity? Indeed, it is solicitous lest there be necessity. And God’s charity incomparably kinder does none of these things? Do you see again that the Scholastic doctors are corrupting the scriptures?
ECK:
More could be said about the following propositions, many of which are unripe and tasteless unless you say they savor of Bohemia.
LUTHER:
Behold a reckless mouth full of cursing and bitterness. Those propositions, because they contain nothing but charity and fruitful piety toward the neighbor, therefore the lover of sterile indulgences, useful to none but himself, calls them Bohemian. And how else can envy give charity but the worst name? I, even if Eck were an angel among the Seraphim, still say he is the most impious enemy of charity and deceiver of the simple people, while he teaches that sterile indulgences are good for the people and that preaching charity is Bohemian in taste.
ECK:
But irreverence to the holiness of the supreme Pontiff is to be weighed in them.
LUTHER:
First, I was a heretic, Bohemian, virulent, and finally, what not? Now, lest I have done no evil, I am irreverent to the supreme Pontiff. Eck is sworn to overwhelm me with curses, made some Timon, or worthy to perform the highest priesthood of the Lydian Hercules. Good God! Does this man know nothing but to curse, insult, slander, and blaspheme? And meanwhile, he is most reverent to the supreme Pontiff and theologian, that is, speaking of God, if God is blasphemy and cursing.
Am I irreverent to the supreme Pontiff, who asserts that for a man so miserable, the greater are the prayers of many more necessary than money? Or is he more contumelious to God and the Pontiff, who asserts falsely, preferring money as more necessary than prayers? If this is contumely and not rather most impious treachery. Indeed, flatterers consider no vice, no crime great, but they imagine Christ so absent from the Church and Pontiff that they trust to circumvent him most quickly with their pestiferous flatteries, and the more they flatter insidiously, the more they think they speak truly. Indeed, they do not realize that by God’s admirable wisdom, it is so arranged that even if the Pope with all Rome should consent to flatterers and dissent from the truth (which God forbid), it would still be deterred, partly by the multitude of learned men and geniuses (with Christ’s favor) acting prosperously, partly by the power of kings and princes intensely favoring them, partly certainly by many in the Curia among the nobles, supporting sincere piety more than all these. For what will even the devil dare, much less a wicked man with all flatterers, if he sees the Bible and ecclesiastical doctors contemptuously opposed to those sophistic opinions? Will that cruel presumption, that tyrannical flattery, even dare to oppose the words of God? Let Christ be with me and His word, and I will not fear what the whole world can do to me.
I say this lest those painted Neros and shadowy images think they have rightly spoken and conquered with their terrors, that is, flatteries, because they hope to corrupt the majesty of the supreme Pontiff with their lies. The supreme Pontiff is a man, he can be deceived, especially by such cunning and specious Gnathos. But truth is God, who cannot be deceived. Therefore, I ask my very friendly enemies to deign henceforth not to terrify me with the flattery of the Pope nor our distinguished masters, but to teach or conquer me with solid Scripture and decrees of the Fathers if they altogether please victory.
ECK: Twenty-Third Obelisk.
He confessed above that indulgences are satisfactory, and since the priest imposing penance says: What I have left undone, let the bitter passion of Christ supply, etc., why does he return to that treasury?
LUTHER:
Oh, not public vein and truly peripatetic mind! Namely: the priest says so, therefore it is so. The consequence holds from the logic of faith. But he will say to me: The usage of the Church is worthy of reverence. If it is the usage to believe the merit of Christ’s passion and the sacrament instituted only for the remission of penalties and not rather madness, I grant it. Then, if it can be proven ecclesiastically, I grant it again and more. And since I repeat ecclesiastically so often (though unwillingly), I hope Eck will be moved at last to understand and stop barking scholastically against the truth. Thus, whatever even the most barbarous and superstitious priest invents with (as they call it) a pious intention, is also considered by such learned theologians to be the usage of the Church.
However, we must have compassion for the sacrament of penance, which has come to such dignity under these distinguished masters that among all it is the only one that remits penalties and is not a vessel of grace or a sign except of penalties. While baptism remits not penalties but sins and confers grace. Thus, confirmation, the Eucharist, ordination, matrimony, and extreme unction, all these remit sins and confer grace. Only the sacrament of penance remits penalties and satisfies but does not merit or infuse grace: perhaps it is an adulterer among the seven and spurious, as is feigned among poets about the Pleiades. I speak according to Eck. For the others perhaps deny that indulgences pertain to the sacrament of penance.
ECK:
Furthermore, if a man endured all the evils, penalties, and crosses of the world, by the merit of Christ’s passion, it would be in vain to say that Christ conquered death, redeemed the human race, and nailed death to the cross.
LUTHER:
No one will persuade me that this speech was sincerely placed by Eck. God forbid that a theologian would speak against all sense. Even if his words sound as if he denies man will die because Christ conquered death, which exceeds all madness, I still want and believe that he wanted to say (if I may divine) that the merits of Christ do not cause death, that is, the death of Christ does not make man die but rather produces life. (I deserve pardon if I err: for this ferruginous obelisk speaks obscurely.) If this is Eck’s understanding, what does he show but his notable ignorance? Who, stuffed with Aristotelian verbiage, transfers the mode of apostolic speech to peripatetic trivial logomachy. But I will explain myself to be beneficent to the envious slanderer.
I mean that the merits of Christ are not remissions of death, cross, hell, but rather exhortations, that is, that a true lover of Christ does not seek remissions of such penalties but is moved by the example and love of his Lord to desire to follow Him through the same and despises indulgences. This I meant when I said the passion of Christ is operative of penalties, not indulgences, to which the Pope has no power.
ECK:
Nor does his declaration hold, as he moves from the universal participation of Christ’s merits to the particular, as we said above.
LUTHER:
He wisely refers to the previous dreams lest he commits greater ones here. See also there that excellent, that is, scholastic distribution of participation.
ECK:
Whence appears the most impudent error that the merits of Christ are not an infinite treasure, not even entrusted to the Pope for orderly dispensation.
LUTHER:
To even require grammar in a theologian, if it is an error, how is it impudent, let alone the most impudent? An error is a matter deserving pardon. For it is not impudently assumed but ignorantly incurred, not that I think it a great thing for a theologian to err in grammar, but to see that he is moved more by fury than reason.
I will try to say more aptly (if I can). It is a kind of impudence if someone teaches in Aristotle’s philosophy what is not thought to be proven by his authority. Do you concede? Therefore, the most impudent temerity of all is to assert anything in the Church and among Christians that Christ did not teach. But this is what our Eck babbles here, speaking scholastically and following the truth most pudentiously, namely, that the treasure of Christ’s merits is in the Pope’s hand. Where is this in the Bible? Where are the Fathers? Where are the Canons? (except our masters) Where in the whole world?
And to indulge my stomach a little, it is the fury and indignation of God, nothing else but to open the door and entrance to all heresies, errors, and gates of Tartarus, to assert such shameful things. Where the spirit leads: Test all things, hold fast to what is good. [1 Thessalonians 5:21] For if your unhappy Scholastic masters had refrained from this license to assert, distinguish, opine for their (as they say) pious intention, the Church would not now be teeming with errors and furies, nor would you have found such livid and dark obelisks.
I confess indeed in the Extravagant of Clement V a narrative is made of the treasure of Christ’s merits to be distributed through indulgences, but I never read it to be approved. It is one thing for the Pope to narrate, another to establish, indeed far another for the Pope to establish and for the Council to approve. Finally, I am not, nor Eck, nor our masters, the declarers of the apostolic see, unless we wish to be frivolous, as Eck said not frivolous.
ECK:
Whence every Christian ought to place his hope in that treasure rather than to seek remission from penalties, crosses, and torments as if due to his own merits, for when we have done all, it is fitting to say: We are unprofitable servants. [Luke 17:10] And this profoundly considered would destroy the entire foundation of that good man’s sayings.
LUTHER:
If Eck spoke of the remission of guilt in these words, he would be entirely ecclesiastical and have me wholly, who would kiss his feet, indeed his footsteps: so much do the words please me. Plainly cursed is he who does not trust with all his heart in the treasure of Christ’s merits. As Jeremiah 17[:5] says: Cursed is the man who trusts in man. This is what I teach, write, think, shout, and with all my might desire, and it would not destroy my profoundly considered foundation but would robustly establish it.
But since the miserable theologian understands these words about the remission of penalties and as the treasure is in the Pope’s hand, he not only does not profoundly consider the word of Christ but utterly crushes it. For he wants a man to trust in the remission of penalties and to apply Christ’s merits to such impious confidence. Therefore, to clarify myself, imagine, I ask, even for the sake of trifling, that the merits of Christ are the treasure of the remission of penalties so that I do not stubbornly deny it. I still say that the merit of Christ is incomparably more excellent while it produces crosses and passions than while it remits. And I am forced to distinguish or feign: The merit of Christ can benefit us in three ways.
First, to be the sum of our confidence and the head of righteousness, according to Paul’s saying: Who became for us righteousness from God, [1 Corinthians 1:30] that is, who made his righteousness to be ours, just as he made our sins to be his.
Second, that the same causes us to do similar things, so that we also do so both for ourselves and for others. These are the works of the merits of Christ. Of these two, Blessed Augustine in book 3 of On Christian Doctrine, chapter 4, says that the life of Christ is both a sacrament and an example. A sacrament in the first way, while it justifies us in spirit without us. An example in the second way, while it urges us to do similar things even in the flesh and works with us.
Third, to remit (as they call it) the satisfactions of sins. This third way, I say, has no canonical or ecclesiastical authority. But if it did, it would still be viler than the second, as the second is viler than the first. Indeed, I do not understand how this third way is possible: therefore I wanted to dispute.
ECK: Twenty-Fourth Obelisk.
Completely ridiculous proposition. For who can say that the same thing is both a treasure and a key, since the key is an instrument for opening the treasure? Rather, this is taken as an argument against Luther. If Christ gave the keys to the Church, ask Him: For what purpose? What is this treasure? How is it to be opened by the keys? Therefore, the proposition is the sword of Ajax, killing itself.
LUTHER:
See how cultivated and even Argus-eyed is this obelisk. Did I not rightly say at the beginning that Eck seemed to have fabricated these obelisks during the days of carnival amid cups? Or certainly, let one Eck be a document that madness and reason cannot dwell in the same brain.
First, from Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, he fights, “The key is an instrument for opening the treasure.” I wonder he did not say, “For opening the chest of the treasure,” since it is necessary that the chest is something different from the treasure. Then also the lock. And if you pursue the allegory or metaphor entirely, it would perhaps be necessary to bring here the entire furniture of the city of Rome.
Then, perplexed by the same acutest syllogism, he asks: How does the key open and be opened simultaneously, being both key and treasure? The most foolish disputant who hears me deny that the treasure is what he posits. For I call the distributor (that is, Christ gave the keys) the treasure, but he posits it distributed through the keys by the Pope. I say distributed by Christ.
Lastly, he asserts this proposition as the sword of Ajax, etc. A new, by the faith of men, Aristarchus, indeed a new Homer. Who ever feigned that the sword of Ajax killed itself, and not rather with which Ajax killed himself? But something must be granted to the late drink. He wanted to say the proposition is the sword of Ajax, namely, with which I kill myself, not with which it killed itself, just as the sword of Ajax did not kill itself but killed Ajax. Perhaps dreaming of that beast which devoured itself and was carried away to the sword of Ajax.
ECK: Twenty-Fifth Obelisk.
The Gospel is a teaching and instructive treasure of what is to be believed, no one denies. But to say that indulgences are granted from that treasure is utterly ridiculous. For neither the Pope granting nor the priest executing the absolution has any memory of this. Nor has any doctor ever sown this in the matter of indulgences, except for that new prophet who goes beyond the boundaries established by our fathers.
LUTHER:
I believe he calls Aristotle, Porphyry, and their followers our fathers, who are not new prophets but are older than the patriarchs, apostles, and (not omitting any honor) the heavenly angels, whom Eck worships. For it is not that he notes ecclesiastical fathers here, even if he pretends, necessarily conceding.
Then, sunk in the same drunkenness, he foams that I assert indulgences are granted from the treasure of the Gospel, which he says no one granting intends. I forgive the carnival disputations. Unless they were such, he could have remembered from his above-mentioned words that I say indulgences are granted not from the Gospel but from the keys. These, as I said enough above, I posited as the treasure of indulgences, and that treasure distinct from the evangelical treasure, but more clearly below. But he wanted to have something ridiculous as a theologian for the festivity of those bacchanal days, which, since it was nowhere, he feigned in my propositions.
ECK: Twenty-Sixth Obelisk.
A proposition full of poison, which would be born to excite sedition, not to increase the charity of Christ. For if Luther was affected with pious love, he ought to propose such things not before the little ones, who otherwise are more easily scandalized, but before those whose interest it is, and perhaps, who knows, if God had given increase and progress?
LUTHER:
Thanks to a finally benevolent monitor but preceded by madness. I ask, why does the supreme pontiff in distinction 5, book 6, Clement, concerning the abuses of questors, very severely establishing with so many words, not excite sedition and fill everything with poison, while he asserts and commands what I touch on briefly and only disputing? Are there no questors who abuse their faculties? Or is it not allowed to dispute about those who do? Or is Eck alone now the patron of all crimes at last? Is this not filling everything with poison, resisting the pursuers of vices, indeed the pontifical decrees? The theologian teaches and does this, if he is to be called a theologian who speaks so madly and breathlessly daemonic things.
Then, he says one thing rightly, that I gave scandal to the little ones. For since I did not publish in the vernacular language nor emit more widely than around us, and offered only to doctors and learned friends, I find no little ones except our fathers, the old prophets, that is, our distinguished scholastic masters. I knew and deliberately and prudently contemned their scandal not only in this but in all my propositions. He rightly calls them little ones, fit for no other office than to be scandalized.
ECK: Twenty-Seventh Obelisk.
If these things are true (the Pope says that the treasure of indulgences is drawn from the merit of Christ), why then did Luther contradict above?
LUTHER:
Am I, my Eck, immediately seem to admit to you that the treasure of indulgences is the merits of Christ because I advise indulgences to be permitted with reverence? Is it the same to admit indulgences and to call indulgences the merits of Christ? Are not the decrees of excommunication and absolution, statutes, again revocations, declarations, dispensations of the Pope to be received with reverence? And yet no one calls these the merits of Christ. How then do you dream from your most logical logic that I contradicted myself, which above I denied indulgences to be the merits of Christ, and here I say they are to be admitted? Or should I then teach you Peter of Spain about propositions participating in both terms? In what bull do you find the Pope saying that indulgences are drawn from the merit of Christ, except in that Extravagant Clement V, about which I spoke above and will say more broadly in its own time?
ECK:
The Pope says all due penalties are to be relaxed. Why then does Luther invite to only those penalties imposed at the Pope’s discretion? So, continue with other previous conclusions.
LUTHER:
Not the Pope, but Eck says all penalties are to be relaxed. Why I say this, I said enough above, because I sought not scholastic but ecclesiastical, not frivolous superior declarers but approved church authorities.
ECK: Twenty-Eighth Obelisk.
The proposition sounds false and derogatory to the head of the church. But if it regards the private persons of Peter and the Pope, it is true. If it regards papal authority, it is not to be considered.
LUTHER:
What do I hear? Therefore, Peter, the Pope, has no greater graces than indulgences? Perhaps as Eck approaches the end, he rages more freely and speaks more venomously.
I defend this conclusion (so you know, Eck) in such a way that if you sincerely contradict, I will call and prove you not a Bohemian heretic (for he admits all sacraments) but the common enemy of the whole church. For who among Christians will bear that the Pope or St. Peter does not have greater graces than indulgences? Therefore, indulgences are more than baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, the Gospel, the power of judging, and all the greatest things? Truly it is blasphemy against St. Peter and the Pope to say that indulgences are the greatest of all graces.
But if Eck did not have this sense, he should have digested his recklessness first and defined not tumultuously but theologically, nor before he understood. For I set against those who so trumpet indulgences that they dare to state that the Pope cannot grant greater. Eck understood the opposite of my sentence by understanding nothing while understanding too much.
ECK: Twenty-Ninth Obelisk.
This disputation and reckless vilification of indulgences not only expose ecclesiastics to calumnies but scarcely defend them from the swords of astute laymen.
LUTHER:
Just as the preceding, so this obelisk is worth much, indeed everything from the flattery of the supreme pontiff. For unlearned asses (I do not say Scholastics) dispute in such a way that what they cannot overthrow with scriptures, authority, or reason, they attack with the flattery of the pontiff, not concerned with how truly but how pleasingly they speak, provided a hope of triumph, even false, smiles.
I hope, however, for the sake of his scholastic theology, our fabulist will grant me that indulgences are not meritorious nor necessary for salvation. If so, I hope it is allowed for me to omit them and not be forced to buy them, therefore it is not reckless vilification of them in me but Eck’s foolish and contumelious envy which interprets license as recklessness. Finally, I say (even if those Codri burst) that I wish there were no indulgences anywhere, and I await a non-frivolous declarer to see if I am a heretic for this.
Furthermore, what he says that ecclesiastics can scarcely be defended from the swords of laymen, this is the other nerve and common place of all scholastic arguments. Indeed, it is very easy to defend ecclesiastics: for Christ is present with them. But it is no wonder that Scholastics are in peril, since they follow only Aristotle. Then they aim at nothing else but tyranny, that is, that theology poured into new terms is not understood by the people. Then the matter of indulgences is so hidden that they do not even understand what they are worth, content that the people are not allowed to know these things or seek them lest perhaps their profit diminishes. The clear argument of which is that so much effort and labor is expended on a matter neither necessary nor meritorious, but nothing at all on what is necessary.
ECK: Thirtieth Obelisk.
It is very easy to answer these questions. But this brevity of sudden writing does not allow it. Yet all these questions can be sufficiently and truly solved by reason, not just by authority, as he divines.
ECK:
They can be solved by reason. Why then do the commissioners solve only by authority, brandishing nothing but thunderbolts and flames at the trembling people if anyone even mutters against such questions? I believe they can be solved sufficiently, that is, scholastically, and not frivolously, that is, words can be chattered and not understood. But more on this in the proofs.
ECK: Thirty-First Obelisk.
To imitate Christ through tribulations is perfection. But to pray for peace and tranquility, to seek and pursue it, the sacred scripture proclaims and teaches. Which Christ also taught, for we should pray: Deliver us from evil. Which I could show with a thousand scriptural authorities, if it were not most attested everywhere in the Old Testament.
LUTHER:
Eck is a tower of David, from which hang a thousand shields of authorities, not against war but for peace. Therefore, let the end of the cross come and no one suffer anything, and with peace and pleasure, that is, the remission of penalties, let us enter the kingdom of heaven securely. It would perhaps be better that God should lie when He said: I rebuke and discipline those I love, [Revelation 3:19] than that our Aristotelian fathers should not remain within the limits they have set for us.
I am ashamed of such a foolish and inept fable. Eck is a theologian and strives for a doctrine that Christian peace is the glory of conscience, which no indulgences can give, but only the remission of guilt through grace. But external peace, and that which indulgences confer, is death and the killing letter. Truly, our acutest obelisk-destroyer dreams only of external persecutions. But thus ends my discourse with a reckless, ignorant, inexperienced, that is, scholastic theologian.
Year 1518.
August 10.
