remarkable rapidity developed his new
and scriptural teaching on the nature of the Church, on the
duties of the state, on the essence of the sacraments, and on the
inner life of the individual Christian.

The tractates of 1520, to which that on "The Papacy at Rome"
belongs, like most of Luther's writings, were drawn forth from
him in large part defensively, under provocation from the other
side, or by the exigencies of the occasion. His correspondence[3]
during the first half of 1520 reveals them as a result (with
fresh causes arising) of the stir at Leipzig.

Said Luther (February, 1520), "You cannot make a pen out of a
sword: the Word of God is a sword. I was unwilling to be forced
to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am, the more
I am drawn into the contest." Widely and eagerly read, these
piquant publications made Luther the awakener, the developer, and
as Harnack declares, the spiritual center of the reformatory
thought that was now rising to a crisis.

Fortunate it was, that the infancy of modern and the birth of
Luther were contemporary, and that Luther turned to the printing
press to such an extent in that critical period, that in the
single year under discussion the number of printed German works
was doubled.

Our little book of June 26, 1520, is the earliest of his writings
to present a full outline of his teaching on the nature of the
Christian Church. Driven by an antagonist, to whom his work is a
reply, to write[4] in German for the laity, Luther gives them a
clear and fundamental insight into this burning subject. His
teachings "which he had just one year before maintained at the
Leipzig Disputation are here unfolded, following to their logical
conclusions and clearly presented."[5] This flying counter-attack
against the "famous Romanist at Leipzig" thus becomes, in the
judgment of Kostlin,[6] "one of the most important of his general
doctrinal treatise of that period."

Luther's reply was written in short order during the last two
weeks in May.[7] It came about in this wise: Eck at the
Disputation had driven Luther to declare that belief in the
divine supremacy of Rome was not necessary to salvation.
Following this, in fall, a Franciscan friar, Augustine von
Avleld, had risen to attack Luther and glorify the papacy, having
received an appointment from Adolph, the Bishop of Merseburg (who
had posted the inhibition on the Leipzig churches against the
Disputation,[8] to write against