and supreme authority of jurisdiction over the entire Church, not only in matters which relate to faith and morals, but also in matters that belong to the discipline and government of the Church scattered through the whole earth; or that he has only the more eminent part of such authority, but not the full plenitude of this supreme authority; or that this authority of his is not his ordinary authority which he holds from no intermediary, and that it does not extend over all churches and every single one of them, over all pastors and every single one of them, over all the faithful and every single one of them, —­let him be accursed!” Canon IV:  “With the approval of the Sacred Council we teach and declare it to be a dogma revealed from heaven that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in accordance with his supreme apostolic authority, be discharges his office as Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, and defines a doctrine relating to the faith or morals which is to be embraced by the entire Church, he is, by divine assistance promised to him in the blessed Peter, vested with that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer desired His Church to be endowed in defining the doctrine of faith and morals; and that for this reason such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are in their very nature, not, however, by reason of the consent of the Church, unchangeable.  If—­which God may avert!—­any one should presume to contradict this definition of ours,—­let him be accursed!” Amid flashes of lightning and peals of thunder this document was read to a council whose membership had shrunk during seven months of deliberation from 767 to 547 attendants,—­277 qualified members had never put in an appearance,—­and of these all but two had been cowed into abject submission.  When one recalls scenes like these, and remembers that Catholic teaching on justification attacks the very heart of Christianity, anything that Luther has said about the Popes appears mild.  Such heaven-storming and God-defying arrogance deserves to be dragged through the mire—­with apologies to the mire.

21.  Luther the Translator of the Bible.

A violent attack upon Luther by Catholic writers is caused by the admiration which Protestants manifest for Luther because he translated the Bible into German.  Catholics, of course, cannot deny that Luther did translate the Bible, and that his translation is still a cherished treasure of Protestants; but in order to belittle this achievement of Luther, which inflicted incalculable damage on Rome, they talk about Luther’s unfitness for the work of Bible-translation and about the unwarranted liberties Luther took with the Bible.