In the book which is called the Decrees of Gratian, many splendid things are brought together from the Fathers, from which one can see to some extent how exceedingly great the difference was between the state of the ancient or original church and that of the following ones, especially the Roman church, which afterwards, through the Iscariothic popes, usurped the name of the universal church, if one may otherwise call it a church, which dared to erect this blasphemous idol with the most insolent brow. But Gratianus was against the popes, who even then claimed tyranny in the Church of Christ.
more flattering or servile than he should have been, and declares the best sayings and decrees of the fathers either invalid, or falsifies them according to the will of the Roman popes (as it seems) in godly opinion, but to an exceedingly harmful example. For from then on, the pope became so proud that he denied that the rights were given to him, and he presumed everything to his completely null and void ray of banishment; yes, at last his pomposity grew so immeasurably that at this time he has broken in two, like his predecessor Judas, and his entrails are poured out with all his shameful deeds and abominations, so that the whole earth is his
*) In 1538, in Wittenberg, the Epistola S. Hieronymi ad Evagrium de potestate Papae was printed again, and Luther wrote a preface to it. In Latin, the preface is found in the Jena edition (1570), tom. IV, lol. 408 and thereafter in the Erlanger, oxx. var. arA., tom. VII, p. 541. German in the Leipziger, vol. XXII, appendix, p. 128 and in Walch. We have retranslated according to the Jenaer.
Stank can no longer bear. So also this epistle of St. Jerome, although included among his other works and preserved until now, has also been declared invalid, but not falsified. For it is too clear and distinct to give occasion for any falsification. Although Jerome's reputation may not be great in this work, and it may not be of any value to the servants of the Roman tyranny, it seemed good to us to publish it at this time and to present it for special consideration, so that the young people, who have no knowledge of past things, have a testimony about the condition of the old church against the other cold and lame miserable defenders and protectors of the Roman whore, who is in no small danger because of her cause.
For here you see that in the time of Jerome (as also in that of Ambrose and Augustine) there was no archbishop in the Church, no patriarch, no primate, no metropolitan, much less a pope or ecumenical bishop, but all the bishops were equal among themselves, then the bishops the same as the presbyters, and again; indeed, he says that the bishop of Eugubium, a little town not far from Rome, is equal to the Roman bishop. O what a great heretic the holy man would become if he lived nowadays, and it is to be wondered that they do not condemn him a thousand times to the deepest hell with all his writings. It was also the word a common name for the bishops. Thus St. Jerome calls St. Augustine the most holy papa, and Cyprian they called the papa in the church at Carthage. Therefore it is obvious that the whole papal hierarchy is man's doctrine, or more correctly devil's doctrine, introduced by those who are liars in glibness. All (says St. Jerome) are equal in merit and priesthood; the power of wealth and the lowliness of poverty make a bishop either higher or lower.
And what is surprising, at that time the diversity of gifts and spiritual graces (to which, after all, the dignity of preference or higher position is most often given) made it difficult for the people to understand.
The bishops were not higher bishops. For St. Martin was undoubtedly the holiest among the bishops of Gaul, famous for his power of the spirit and miracles: yet he kept his position among the other bishops, and would not heal a sick person unless he was asked and almost forced to do so by others. And St. Augustine, who was the most learned and eloquent among the bishops of Africa, kept his subordinate position, as a younger one, and yet he was compelled to teach or speak publicly in synods, which would have been granted either to the bishop of Carthage, if the dignity of the place had mattered, or to some older bishop. These extremely holy bishops were indeed what they were called, that is, true bishops, who sought not their honor or dignity, but the salvation of souls and the benefit of the Church. What are our bishops today? Dead larvae and images; and yet God wanted them to be only such, and not also vessels of God's wrath and anger, to the ruin of the Churches.
What do you think St. Jerome would have said if he had seen today's bishops, archbishops, cardinals? What if he had seen the Pope, who not only does not tolerate any bishop equal to him, but forces all to submit to him as the Lord, who with more than Sicilian tyranny oppresses the Church by his pernicious doctrines, who robs, steals, extorts the goods of all churches and countries with lift, fraud and every kind of lie, who tramples on the necks of kings (and Christian kings at that), who offers them his feet to kiss, who arrogates to himself the twofold sword in the whole world, in pomp and splendor surpassing all kings, plaguing the whole Christian world with war and turmoil, not only disrespecting the word of God, but not knowing anything about it, persecuting it, exterminating it, blaspheming everything that is Christ, slaughters Christ's sheep, in short, who with frightening cruelty and satanic malice plays his game with the goods, honors, bodies and souls of the faithful, deceives them, ridicules them, mocks them and is still insatiably greedy for greater and worse things: surely he would have believed,
It is not a man who lives naturally, but Satan who rages in the form of a man, and amazed, he would have kept silent and wept until death. For he who does not like that the bishop of Rome is higher than the bishop of Eugubium, dear, what should he find in the pope that he did not curse to death?
And we poor people have been forced to worship all these blasphemous and abominable abominations as decrees established by divine right, otherwise we would incur the wrath of Almighty God and His holy apostles Peter and Paul. And it was a more tolerable sin to deny, blaspheme and ridicule all the articles of faith (as they do at Rome) than to entertain the slightest doubt about the divine right of the pope.
To even think of the Pope as anything other than the Most Holy One was a sin of eternal damnation. My conscience and that of many good people are witnesses to this, which was horribly trapped by these heinous abominations. But thanks be to Christ, the most sweet Redeemer, who has raised us anew with Himself out of your death, and has shown us Iscarioth with his bowels spilled out, broken, stinking and cursing, despised and forsaken for His sake, and offered to all for laughter, mockery and hissing. Amen. O Lord, just and true are thy judgments; therefore, O Lord, preserve and keep us from this generation for ever. For it is full of the wicked everywhere, where such loose people rule among men, Ps. 12:8, 9, Amen.