at this period still acknowledges seven sacraments.
But see the _Babylonian Captivity_, written in October 1520.

[18] The receptacle in which the consecrated host is shown to the
people.

[19] The corporal-cloth spread over the altar during the
communion service.

[20] See p. 306.

[21] See pp. 308 f., 311 ff.

[22] It is the teaching of the Roman Church that a sacrament is
effective _ex opere operato_, i. e., simply as a sacrament
ordained of God. Intended to guard against the idea that the
validity of the sacrament depended on the character of the priest
or of the recipient, it gave rise to the notion that the
sacrament worked a sort of sacred magic.

[23] See p. 316.

[24] See p. 313.

[25] Cf. XCV Theses, pp. 19, 41.

[26] _Lasst uns des gewissen spielen_.

[27] See p. 316.

[28] Confessions of St. Augustine, Book IX, Chapter XI.

[29] This is the _votum sacramenti_, which, according to Roman
teaching, suffices for salvation if participation in the
sacrament is impossible.

[30] See p. 313.

[31] Paul of Thebes, an Egyptian hermit of the III. Century,
whose life was written by St. Jerome.

[32] The translators have followed the numbering of the text in
the _Weimar_ and _Erlangen Editions_, which omit No. 32 in
numbering the paragraphs.

[33] The mass held for the Blessed Virgin in Hildsheim on the
second Sunday after St. Michael's Day is, on account of its
magnificence, called "golden." Du Cange.

[34] The masses which are observed every day throughout the year.

[35] See p. 313 f.

[36] Bishop of Carthage, died 258.

[37] See above, pp. 187 ff.

THE PAPACY AT ROME

AN ANSWER TO THE CELEBRATED ROMANIST AT LEIPZIG

1520

INTRODUCTION

Luther's declaration of emancipation from the spiritual
pre-eminence of the Church of Rome, which, said he, "is proven
solely by the by the empty papal decretals of the last four
hundred years, and against which there stands the testimony of
the authentic history of eleven hundred years, the text of Holy
Scripture, and the decree of the Nicene Council," appeared in
print in spring 1519.[1] It was in the form of a
counter-thesis[2] to Eck's specious and celebrated "Thirteenth
Thesis." It culminated in the Leipzig Disputation in July.

Before another summer had passed, this Disputation bore marvelous
and unlooked-for fruits. In a series of epochal pamphlets,
written in part for the clergy, and in part for the newly
awakened laity, Luther with