Finally, the bull ordered that all of Luther's writings be burned.

Having expressed his newly developing views in writing and having spread them throughout Germany and beyond, Luther expected a strong response from the Roman Church. He wrote to a friend the following words of encouragement, which we need to repeat to ourselves time after time:

Our warfare is not with flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places, against the world rulers of this darkness. Let us then stand firm and heed the trumpet of the Lord. Satan is fighting, not against us, but against Christ in us. We fight the battles of the Lord. Be strong therefore. If God is for us, who can be against us? [30]

Meanwhile, Eck was composing a bull to condemn Luther. The document was published in Rome in June 1520. It begins pathetically:

Arise, O Lord, plead Thine own cause; remember how the foolish man reproacheth Thee daily; the foxes are wasting Thy vineyard which Thou hast given to Thy Vicar Peter; the boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. [31]

The bull went on to condemn forty-one propositions which it attributed to Luther. It was not his evangelical principles which were attacked but only his

Seldom has the pope overcome anyone with Scripture and with reason.

oppositions to the practices of the Roman Church. Finally, the bull ordered that all of Luther's writings be burned. One of the propositions of Luther which it condemned was that “certain articles of John Hus condemned at the Council of Constance are most Christian, true, and evangelical, which the universal Church cannot condemn.” Luther replied:

I was wrong. I retract the statement that certain articles of John Hus are evangelical. I say now, “Not some but all the articles of John Hus were condemned by Antichrist and his apostles in the synagogue of Satan.” And to your face, most holy Vicar of God, I say freely that all the condemned articles of John Hus are evangelical and Christian, and yours are downright impious and diabolical. [32]

In December of 1520 Luther publicly burned the bull of condemnation as well as the canon law and some writings of his opposers. He commented:

Since they have burned my books, I burn theirs. The canon law was included because it makes the pope a god on earth. So far I have merely fooled with this business of the pope. All my articles condemned by Antichrist are Christian. Seldom has the pope overcome anyone with Scripture and with reason. [33]

The opposition to Luther's speaking drove more and more people not to condemn him, as the papacy had hoped, but to listen carefully to what he was

The meeting places could scarcely contain the crowds who attended Luther's preaching.

saying. Over 400 students enrolled in Luther's classes and nearly 600 in his co-worker Melanchthon's. The meeting places could scarcely contain the crowds who attended Luther's preaching. The pope wrote to Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, demanding that the bull of excommunication be published in Germany, that Luther's writings be burned, and that Luther be delivered up to the pope as a heretic. He threatened to cast Germany out of the Holy Roman Empire and to treat it as a pagan land. Frederick secretly consulted Erasmus, who told him “that Luther had sinned in two points; he had touched the crown of the pope and the bellies of the monks.” [34] Therefore the Elector protected Luther, allowing him to continue his preaching, teaching, and writing in peace.