“Triumphant, lauded by his friends, and recompensed with favor and honor by Duke George, Eck departed from the debate.” He had done what he had meant to do. He had made Luther declare himself. In his estimation, all that was needed was a papal bull against Luther, and the world would be rid of another pestilent heretic. He had made him the central figure around which all the smoldering discontent could gather. As for Luther, he returned to Wittenberg, disgusted and full of melancholy foreboding. This did not prevent him preparing and publishing for his people an account of the discussion, which was eagerly read and gained for him great favor. In some respects the Leipzig debate was the most important point in the career of Luther. It made him see for the first time what lay in his opposition to indulgences. It made the people see it, too. His attack was no criticism, as he had at first thought, of a mere excrescence on the medieval ecclestiastical system. He had struck at its center: at its ideas of priestly mediation which denied the right of every believer to immediate entrance into the very presence of God. Great men now came to the support of Luther, including Philip Melanchthon, one of the greatest scholars of the age. The conflict between Rome and Luther became one of life and death. In September, 1520, Eck again appeared in Germany with a papal bull against Luther, dated June 15th. It condemned as heresies forty-one propositions extracted from his writings, ordered his works to be burned wherever they were found, and summoned him on pain of excommunication, to confess and retract his errors within sixty days, and to throw himself upon the mercy of the pope. This bull fight brought Luther to a step decisive beyond recall. He met this threat of violence with unshakable courage. He at once “carried the war into the heart of the enemy’s territory. In the presence of a vast multitude of all ranks and orders, he burned the papal bull, and with it the decree, the decretals, the Clementines, and extravagants, the entire code of Romish canon law, as the root of all the evil, December 10, 1520.” When the news spread that a poor monk had burnt the pope’s bull, a thrill went through Germany, and, indeed, throughout all Europe. Papal bulls had been burnt before Luther’s day, but the actors had for the most part been powerful monarchs. This time it was done by a monk with nothing but his faith and courage to back him. Rome had now done its utmost to get rid of Luther by ecclesiastical measures, and had failed. If he was to be overthrown, if the new religious movement and the national uprising which indorsed it were to be stifled, this could only be done by the aid of the supreme secular authority. The Roman court now turned attention to the emperor.