THE problem of truth, absolute or relative, was not one that vexed the soul of Leo X. Freedom of opinion he favoured, provided the revenues of the Papacy or its government did not suffer. He occupied a great position, but he did not fill it. Bankrupt he left the papacy at his death in bankrupt was his policy two years before this event. Instead of the Medici Pope, the Church required another Hildebrand.
The crisis in the eleventh century had been as grave as that of the sixteenth. Catholicism then saved itself, and in turn saved Europe. The solution of authority was the one that Leo X offered. The delay in the trial had been due to political causes, the unwillingness of the Pope to break with the Elector of Saxony, the approaching Imperial election and the procrastinations of the German bishops.
The first proposal of the Commission had been to condemn all the propositions, as had been done in the case of the Propositions of Wyclif and Hus at the Council of Constance. The only penalty directly imposed on Luther was the prohibition to preach. The Bull declared that legally, as his case then stood, he might have been excommunicated without further question, particularly on account of his appeal to a General Council, to which the Constitutions of Pius II and Julius II had attached the penalties of heresy.
The errors mentioned as occurring in his writings are designated in the body of the Bull, and with much circumlocution. Within sixty days he was to make his submission in writing before ecclesiastical witnesses, or to come to Rome under the safe conduct guaranteed by the Bull.
On June 1, , Alexander VI had issued the first papal edict ordering the burning of heretical books. In virtue of it Luther was also to commit his books to the flames. In default of complying with this censorship, by the papal declaration he would ipso facto incur the penalties of open heresy as a notorious heretic, that is, he would be cut off from the communion of the faithful.
