By RAY CAVANAUGH
It was the Church’s first formal pronouncement on Martin Luther and the fulfillment of a two-year investigation. On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which condemned 41 of Luther’s written propositions as “either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.”
Earlier in 1520, a papal consistory had assembled to formally assess Luther’s possible infidelity to Church doctrine. In the wake of this assessment, however, Church officials decided that a more comprehensive analysis was needed.
At this juncture, a Catholic prelate by the name of John Eck (Johann Maier von Eck) began to take an assertive role in the proceedings against Luther. Eck, a counter-reformer and one of Luther’s main theological adversaries, was the most strident voice of a 40-member committee deliberating over whether or not to officially condemn Luther and his writing.
Roland Bainton’s book Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther describes how the theologians wanted to condemn Luther immediately. The canon lawyers, however, were less ardent and contended that Luther deserved a hearing so that he could try to defend his arguments. Between these two positions, the committee reached a compromise of sorts: Luther would get sixty days to present himself and renounce his rebellious statements, or face excommunication.
Having identified Luther’s 41 problematic propositions, the committee submitted a written draft to Pope Leo X. The Pontiff added a preface and conclusion before issuing the work as a papal bull.
The committee then disseminated printed copies bearing the title Bulla contra errores Martini Lutheri et sequacium (Bull against the errors of Martin Luther and his followers). This bull, however, would eventually receive the more congenial title of Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord).
The bull’s opening paragraph sets a strong tone: “Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar has invaded thy vineyard.” Aside from describing Luther in such a striking way, this mention of a “wild boar” is interesting in that Pope Leo X himself was an avid hunter of wild boars.
In fact, Leo X was out hunting when John Eck, the ardent counter-reformer, personally delivered the bull’s final draft to him, as related by the online resource Reformation500 (reformation500.csl.edu).
As Eck had played such a huge role in the creation of Exsurge Domine, the Pope thought it was only proper to assign him the task of distributing it. Such distribution was not an easy job, though. The Protestant Reformation was already underway in some parts of what is now Germany. Amid the rising pro-Luther sentiment, Catholic bishops were reluctant to post copies of the bull. In Leipzig, the animosity was so palpable that Eck, fearing for his safety, fled into a cloister.
Busy with his reformationist writing in Wittenberg, Luther was aware that some document condemning him was circulating (though he suspected the “bull” did not actually come from the Pope but was instead part of some elaborate scheme perpetrated by his rival, Eck). Not until October 1520 did Luther receive an official copy of Exsurge Domine.
On December 10, 1520, which marked the 60-day deadline after he received the bull, Luther — accompanied by various students and instructors from the University of Wittenberg — appeared with his official Exsurge Domine copy, along with several volumes of canon law and some of Eck’s books. He then cast these materials into a bonfire.
Luther’s defiance was so strong that the Church could have given him 6,000 days to recant, and it would have made no difference. Never a particularly subtle man, he composed a written response to Exsurge Domine, which he titled Against the Execrable Bull of the Antichrist. Pope Leo X formally excommunicated him on January 3, 1521.
Ensuing centuries have seen scholars, be they Catholic or otherwise, criticize Exsurge Domine for the ambiguity of its language. “The indecision and the haste of Rome are both reflected in the document,” says William R. Estep, author of Renaissance and Reformation.
Harry J. McSorley, author of Luther: Right Or Wrong?, points out how Exsurge Domine “made use of an ‘in globo’ condemnation, that is, all of the propositions were condemned either as heretical, or as scandalous, or false, or as offensive to pious ears….But there is no indication as to which of these censures applies to which proposition.”
Whatever the bull’s textual shortcomings, its significance is undeniable. The History of the Christian Church (volume 7) relates that Exsurge Domine is “the papal counter-manifesto to Luther’s Theses, and condemns in him the whole cause of the Protestant Reformation….It was the last bull addressed to Latin Christendom as an undivided whole, and the first which was disobeyed by a large part of it.”
One can view a copy of Exsurge Domine online at papalencyclicals.net.
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