Pope Leo X issued a formal decree, dated June 15, 1520, condemning the errors of Martin Luther and his followers. Popularly known as Exsurge Domine (Arise, Lord), from the Latin words with which it began, the papal bull specifically listed forty-one errors to be found in the writings of Luther and his followers. Pope Leo characterized Luther as a “wild boar in the forest” whose teachings were “destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and seductive to pious minds.” He wanted everyone to regard those teachings as “utterly condemned, reprobated, and rejected” by the church. In addition, every one of Luther’s books and pamphlets were to be “burned publicly and solemnly in the presence of the clerics and the people,” as a testimony that Luther was “a true heretic.” To ensure that the burned pamphlets were not replaced by other writings, Pope Leo forbade Luther to write, preach, or teach. By this decree the pope intended both to “cut off the advance of this plague and cancerous disease” and to call Luther to repentance. If Luther agreed to offer a formal recantation of what he had written, within sixty days of receipt of the papal bull, he would find mercy with the pope. Failing to do so would result in his being excommunicated.[1]
Though Luther became aware of the general contents of the papal decree by the beginning of October, he first received a copy on October 10. That marked the beginning of the sixty days in which he could either travel to Rome to renounce what he had written (and promise to cease with that teaching) or to submit the same in writing. After reading the papal decree, Luther wrote to his friend George Spalatin, who served as the assistant to Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, expressing his disappointment. Since the bull condemned his teachings, all of which were aimed at pointing sinners to Christ alone for righteousness and life, Luther lamented: “Christ himself is condemned in it.”[2] Luther considered the bull unbecoming of the pope, who should have been doing everything in his power to preserve the preaching of the gospel of Christ, not silence it.[3] The leaders of the Roman church, Luther believed, had become “monsters,”[4] whose rule would seem to spell the demise of faith and the Church. Had Luther allowed his eyes to tell him what to think about the situation, he could only have despaired. Instead, empowered by the Holy Spirit, he tuned his ears to the Lord’s promises. The Reformer rejoiced in the Lord’s promise to preserve his people from the devil’s lies, even when spoken by the visible church. He also rejoiced that he had been considered worthy of suffering for so noble a cause.[5]
During the sixty days allotted for his recantation, Luther (unsurprisingly!) did what he had been forbidden to do. He wrote against the pope’s decree. He asked those who found fault with his teachings to demonstrate his errors from the writings of the prophets and apostles, not the councils of the church. In his Against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist,[6] Luther laments, “This bull condemns me from its own word without any proof from Scripture, whereas I back up all my assertions from the Bible.” His plea was simply this: “Let them show where I am a heretic, or dry up their spittle.”[7] On December 10, 1520, Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague on the university faculty, invited those in Wittenberg who supported the evangelical cause to gather for a book burning. Only it wouldn’t be Luther’s books, as the papal bull had commanded, but the books of canon law that had granted the pope authority over the Scriptures.
[1]. “Exsurge Domine: Condemning the Errors of Martin Luther, Pope Leo X–1520,” https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo10/l10exdom.htm.
[2]. Martin Luther, Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, Volume 1, translated and edited by Preserved Smith (Philadelphia: The Lutheran Publication Society, 1913), 365.
[3]. Timothy F. Lull and Derek R. Nelson, Resilient Reformer: The Life and Thought of Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 116–17. Lull and Nelson write, “For Luther, the bull was really the last straw, the confirmation that the pope was the antichrist. The one person who should have praised Luther for championing the gospel instead condemned him and was about to cast him out of the church.”
[4]. Luther’s Correspondence, 366.
[5]. Luther’s Correspondence, 366. “Yet I rejoice with my whole heart that for this best of causes I suffer evil, who am not worthy of being so tried.”
[6]. Already in his letter to Spalatin on October 11, 1520, the day after he received the papal bull, Luther indicated that he believed the pope to be the Antichrist: “I am certain at length that the Pope is Antichrist and that the seat of Satan has been openly found.” Luther’s Correspondence, 366.
[7]. As quoted in Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York: Abingdon–Cokesbury, 1950), 162.