United States or Guam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I go to be sacrificed for them and for you, if God so will. For I will rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me to say. On October 11 Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the next day he appeared before Caietan.
He had a report of his conference with Caietan printed, with a justification of himself to the readers. And in this he advanced propositions against the Papacy which entirely shook its whole foundation.
Caietan, or hunter of souls, for Philip preferred, as he expressed it, tranquilly to cast in his net to gain them; he preferred to yield to the stream, and direct the current, which he could not stop, of science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and to sanctify what God had made very good and man had spoilt.
As to any argument, however, about the theses to be retracted, Caietan refused from the first to engage in it, and undoubtedly he went further in that direction than he originally desired or intended. His sole wish was, as he said, to give fatherly correction, and with fatherly friendliness to arrange the matter. But in reality, says Luther, it was a blunt, naked, unyielding display of power.
These briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was tolerated laid under the interdict. So unheard of seemed this conduct of the Pope, that Protestant historians would not believe in the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how Caietan himself refers to the one in his possession.
Miltitz, after having crossed the Alps, sought an interview first with Caietan in Southern Germany, and, as the latter had gone to the Emperor in Austria, he paid a visit to his old friend Pfeffinger, at his home in Bavaria. Continuing his journey with him, he arrived on December 25 at the town of Gera, and from there announced his arrival to Spalatin, who was at Altenburg.
But he repeated that he could do nothing against his conscience: one must obey God rather than man, and he had the fullest confidence that he had Scripture on his side. Caietan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried to persuade him.
They fell into a lively and vehement argument; but Caietan cut it short with the exclamation 'Revoke. In the event of Luther not revoking or submitting to judgment at Rome, he threatened him and all his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he might go to with an interdict; he had a mandate from the Pope to that effect already in his hands.
He had heard on the way of the Pope's brief to Caietan, but he refused to think it could be genuine. His appeal, meanwhile, was delivered to the Cardinal at Augsburg, who had it posted by his notary on the doors of the cathedral. From Augsburg Luther was followed by a letter from Caietan to the Elector, full of bitter complaints against him.
The Papal decrees might err, and be at variance with Holy Writ. Every faithful believer in Christ was superior to the Pope, if he could show better proofs and grounds of his belief. Still he entreated Caietan to intercede with Leo X., that the latter might not harshly thrust out into darkness his soul, which was seeking for the light.
Word Of The Day