believers were priests. In harmony with his theory on justification,
and its dependence on faith, he denounced Purgatory, Prayers for the
Dead, Indulgences, and Invocation of the Saints as being in themselves
derogatory to the merits of Christ.

On the other hand, he laid it down as the leading principle that the
Bible was the sole rule of faith, and that individual judgment was its
only interpreter. Consequently he rejected the idea of a visible
authority set up by Christ as an infallible guide in religious
affairs. In this way he sought to undermine the authority of the
Church, to depreciate the value of the decrees of the Popes and
General Councils, and to re-assure his less daring followers by
stripping ecclesiastical censures of more than half their terrors.[22]

The results of Luther's literary activity were soon apparent at
Wittenberg and other centres in Germany. The Augustinians in Luther's
own convent set aside their vows as worthless, and rejected the Mass.
Carlstadt made common cause with the most radical element in the city,
celebrated Mass on Christmas morning in the German language (1521),
and administered Holy Communion to every one who came forward to
receive, without any inquiry about their spiritual condition. Putting
himself at the head of a body of students and roughs he went round the
churches destroying the pictures, statues, confessionals, and altars.
To increase the confusion a party of men at Zwickau led by a
shoemaker, Nicholas Storch, and a preacher, Thomas Munzer, following
the principle of private judgment advocated by Luther, insisted on
faith as a condition for baptism and rejected infant baptism as
worthless. They were called Anabaptists. They claimed to be special
messengers from God, gifted with the power of working miracles, and
favoured with visions from on high. In vain did Luther attack them as