In a benign manner the cardinal offered to help Luther out of all his difficulty if he would simply submit to the pope’s authority and retract his errors. Luther of course refused and tried to defend his positions. A fruitless and oft-times heated controversy ensued and at the end of three days Cajetan told Luther to leave his presence and not return until he was ready to recant. The cardinal was quite upset by the Augsburg incident and wrote Elector Frederick a letter calling upon him to turn the heretical monk over to the Roman authorities. Frederick’s reply indicated his increasing resistance to papal dictatorship. He asked for a free trial and a statement of Luther’s errors in writing. The pope’s chamberlain, Carl von Miltitz, was dispatched to Germany in an attempt to rectify Cajetan’s blundering. He correctly estimated that much of the populace was on Luther’s side and the time for forcibly suppressing him was past. Resorting to diplomacy he persuaded Luther to have his case submitted to a German bishop and to refrain from further attack in the meantime. Luther agreed, but only on the condition that his opponents would remain silent too. [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] THE BREACH WIDENS Pushed into the Arena Even while Luther was meeting with Miltitz circumstances were shaping up which drove him to break silence. He had stated his willingness to recant if someone proved his error. An ambitious professor at the University of Ingolstadt, John Eck, with an enviable reputation as a disputant, saw in this his opportunity to win renown and also favor with Rome. Andrew Carlstadt of the Wittenberg faculty had espoused the cause of Luther publicly and had been engaged in an extended debate with Eck through the medium of pamphlets. Now a public debate between the two was arranged for Leipzig. In preparation Eck drew up a series of twelve theses, directed not so much at his differences with Carlstadt as with the theology of Luther. The champion of Roman orthodoxy clearly was baiting Luther into the arena. After months of wrangling about procedures and proper invitations, and with much pomp and pageantry, the debate got under way on June 27, 1519. Several hundred Wittenberg students were there—a sixteenth-century sort of college cheering section. During the ensuing eighteen days of debate they frequently became embroiled with the Leipzig University students who sided with Eck. Carlstadt and Eck matched wits for four days over the relation between grace and free will. The erudition and cleverness of Eck gave him a decided advantage over the Wittenberg scholar, but spectator interest was being reserved for July 4 when Luther would take the field.