as a heretic. Nor was Luther quite convinced of Miltitz' honesty. When the Commissioner dismissed him with a kiss, he could not help asking himself, he tells us, whether it was a Judas-kiss. He had been re-examining his convictions about the faith which justifies, and trying to see their consequences; and he had been studying the Papal Decretals, and discovering to his amazement and indignation the frauds that many of them contained and the slender foundation which they really gave for the pretensions of the Papacy. He had been driven to these studies. The papal theologians had confronted him with the absolute authority of the Pope. Luther was forced to investigate the evidence for this authority. His conclusion was that the papal supremacy had been forced on Germany on the strength of a collection of decretals; and that many of these decretals would not bear investigation. It is hard to say, judging from his correspondence, whether this discovery brought joy or sorrow to Luther. He had accepted the Pope's supremacy; it was one of the strongest of his inherited beliefs, and now under the combined influence of historical study, of the opinions of the early Fathers, and of Scripture, it was slowly dissolving. He hardly knew where he stood. He was half-terrified, half-exultant at the results of his studias, and the ebb and flow of his own feelings were answered by the anxieties of his immediate circle of friends. A public disputation might clear the air, and he almost feverishly welcomed Eck's challenge to dispute publicly with him at Leipzig on the primacy and supremacy of the Pope.
Contemporary witnesses describe the common country carts which conveyed the Wittenberg theologians to the capital of Ducal Saxony, the two hundred students with their halberts and helmets who escorted their honoured professors into what was an enemy's country, the crowded inns and lodging-houses where the master of the house kept a man with a halbert standing beside every table to prevent disputes becoming bloody quarrels, the densely packed hall in Duke George's palace, the citizens' guard, the platform with its two chairs for the disputants and seats for academic and secular dignitaries, and the two theologians, both sons of peasants, met to protect the old or to cleave a way for the new. Eck's intention was to force Luther to make such a declaration as would justify him in denouncing his opponent as a partisan of the Bohemian heresy. The audience swayed with a wave of excitement, and Duke George placed his arms akimbo, wagged his long beard, and said aloud, "God help us! the plague!" when Luther was forced, in spite of protestations, to acknowledge that not all the opinions of Wiclif and Hus were wrong.
So far as the fight in dialectic had gone Eck was victorious; he had compelled Luther, as he thought, to declare himself, and there remained only the Bull of Excommunication, and to rid Germany of a pestilent heretic. He was triumphant. Luther was correspondingly
