Charles Beard: "Martin Luther & the German Reformation," 7:344ff-1520: L...

1520. Brace for heavy rolls, Shipmates. Stow for heavy seas! Officer-of-the-Deck: "Put a 005 degree angle on the bow!"

A lot of back-channel politicking was going on in 1520. What do we do with this Luther-fella? His support is near nation-wide. The Bohemia-card is played. The Hussite-card, an ace, was finally played. As for Luther in 1520, he is near a fever-pitch. Luther, in short, this may entail other measures, noted: “Indeed, it seems to me that if the fury of the Romanists thus goes on there will be no remedy left, except that emperor, kings, and princes, girt about with force and arms, should attack these pests of the world, and settle the matter, no longer by words, but by the sword…If we strike thieves with the gallows, robbers with the sword, heretics with the fire, why do we not much more attack in arms these Masters of perdition, these Cardinals, these Popes, and all this sink of the Roman Sodom which has without end corrupted the Church of God, and wash our hands in their blood ?” I do not think that these strong words ought to be taken metaphorically. Probably Luther only meant them for a moment. There are others, written in a calmer and more deliberate mood, and of diametrically opposite tendency, to be set against them. But they were the wild cry of a passion that undoubtedly moved him” (352). Eck was back in Rome trying to get another condemnation of Luther and German leaders were also casting about on the issues. Even the lawyers and theologians within the Curia were split, the lawyers calling for a trial in Rome. Luther pens his “Address to the German Nobles.” 

Brace for heavy rolls, Shipmates. Stow for heavy seas! Officer-of-the-Deck: "Put a 005 degree angle on the bow!"