Johann Eck

A fellow academic, a man Luther respected and even called a friend, had received the ninety-five thesis and taken strongly against them.

That man was Johannes Eck.

Luther was seriously taken aback by Eck's reaction, having thought he would be in his corner or at least neutral.

But as most of you probably know, Eck was to become Luther's nemesis.

Erasmus of Rotterdam, the most respected public intellectual in Europe, had read them and sent them on to Thomas More, another leading light of humanism.

Luther's sermon on indulgences was spreading like wildfire amongst the common people.

Meanwhile, the Dominicans were publicly calling for him to be burned, and Johannes Eck was writing against his thesis.

So practically overnight, Luther had become a celebrity.

Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, helped protect him from being sent to Rome.

In 1519, a debate with Johann Eck at Leipzig pushed the argument further.

Luther acknowledged that popes and councils could make mistakes.

The controversy was moving beyond one fundraising practice towards the question of who possessed final authority over Christian belief.

Not everybody's happy with them.

The opposition, led by someone called Johann Eck, who's a big smarty pants guy in the Roman Catholic Church, puts together some pre-documents that is already going at the fledgling Lutherans.

They work these all over again.

If you do more reading on this, you'll hear things like Marbach, Schwabach, Torgau articles.

Not everybody's happy with them.

The opposition, led by someone called Johann Eck, who's a big smarty pants guy in the Roman Catholic Church, puts together some pre-documents that is already going at the fledgling Lutherans.

They work these all over again.

If you do more reading on this, you'll hear things like Marbach, Schwabach, Torgau articles.

Someone said we should name them after... uh reformed theologians so i was thinking yeah we could have luther we could have calvin we could have well they're not we say reformed theologians of the reformation we have luther we could have calvin we could have swingley and jennifer said well what if one of them is like you know a little off, you know, act a little weird, well, we can name them after a Roman Catholic apologist.

Maybe he could be John Eck, right? Like if we have one really weird cat, we'll call that cat John Eck.

And if you don't know who John Eck, that's the one who debated Luther regarding his early Reformation ideas.

All right, guys, it's good to see everyone this evening.

We have a lot to get to, and I have a lot to say.

William Miller is an American Martin Luther.

The Protestant Reformation only went so far in Europe because John Eck and the Archbishop of Ruggio pointed out that the Protestants weren't keeping the Sabbath.

And so on the point of the Sabbath, the church only were able to reform on certain doctrines.

God says, I'm not done yet.