4. THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION. Soon hereafter Eck journeyed to Rome and persuaded the Pope to threaten Luther with excommunication. And indeed! in 1520 the papal bull appeared which began: "Arise, O Lord, judge Thy cause, for a boar has broken into Thy vineyard, a wild beast is destroying it." Luther's doctrine was condemned, and his books were to be burned that his memory might perish among Christians. He himself was commanded to recant within sixty days, on pain of excommunication as a heretic. As a dried limb is cut from the trunk of the tree they threatened to cut Luther from the body of Christ. Triumphantly Dr. Eck carried the bull about in Germany. In Erfurt the students tore it to pieces and threw it into the water, saying, "It is a _bulla_ (bubble), so let it swim upon the water." Luther wrote a pamphlet: "Against the Bull of the Antichrist," and had it distributed broadcast among the people. In it he said: "If the Pope does not retract and condemn this bull, and punish Dr. Eck besides, then no one is to doubt that the Pope is God's enemy, Christ's persecutor, Christendom's destroyer, and the true Antichrist." He wrote to a friend: "I am much more courageous now, since I know that the Pope has become manifest as the Antichrist and the chair of Satan." And now when Luther even learned that in accordance with this bull his writings had been burned in Louvaine, Cologne, and also in Mayence, his purpose was fixed. On the 10th of December he had the following announcement published on the blackboard in Wittenberg: "Let him who is filled with zeal for evangelical truth appear at nine o'clock before the Church of the Holy Cross without the walls of the city. There the ungodly books of the papal statutes will be burned, because the enemies of the Gospel have dared to burn the evangelical books of Dr. Martin Luther." When the students read this notice they gathered in crowds in the streets and marched out through the Elster Gate, followed by many citizens. At nine o'clock Luther appeared in company with many professors and scholars, who were carrying books and pamphlets. A pile of fagots was erected. Luther with his own hand laid upon it the papal books, and one of the masters set fire to the pile. When the flames leaped up Luther's firm hand threw in the papal bull, and he cried, "Since thou hast offended the Holy One of God, may everlasting fire consume thee!" On the next day he said to his audience: "If with your whole heart you do not renounce the kingdom of the Pope you cannot be saved." In a pamphlet he pointed out the reasons which induced him to take this step, and at the same time he called attention to the impious statutes contained in the popish jurisprudence. Some of these read: "The Pope and his associates are not bound to obey God's commandments. Even if the Pope were so wicked as to lead innumerable men to hell, yet no one would have the right to reprove him."--On the third of January,