believed that the disputation might be the means of removing many
doubts and misunderstandings. The acts of the disputation were to be
drawn up and forwarded to the Universities of Paris and Erfurt for
their decision. When it became known throughout Germany that a meeting
had been arranged between Eck and his two principal opponents, the
excitement, especially in the learned circles, became intense, and so
great was the rush of scholars from all parts of the country to
witness the encounter, that the immense hall was packed with an eager
and attentive audience when Eck and Carlstadt entered the pulpits that
had been prepared for them.

Few men in Germany, or outside it, were more fitted to hold their own
in such a disputation than the distinguished Vice-Chancellor of
Ingolstadt. He was a man of imposing appearance, gifted with a clear
and pleasing voice and good memory, even tempered and ready, quick to
detect the weak points of his adversaries, and keenly alert to their
damaging concessions and admissions. The first point to be debated
between him and Carlstadt was the question of Grace and Free Will.
Carlstadt was at last obliged to concede that the human will was
active at least to the extent of co-operating or of not co-operating
with divine Grace, a concession that was opposed entirely to the
thesis he had undertaken to sustain. Luther, alarmed by the
discomfiture of his colleague, determined to enter the lists at once
on the question of the primacy of the Roman See. He was not, however,
more successful than Carlstadt. Eck, taking advantage of Luther's
irascible temperament and his exaggerations of speech, forced him step
by step to put aside as worthless interpretations given by the early
Fathers to certain passages of Scripture, and to reject the authority
and infallibility of General Councils. Such a line of arguments,
opposed as it was to the teaching and beliefs of the Church, roused