Did Luther originally submit to papal authority?

Seven months after the 95 Theses, Martin Luther wrote to Pope Leo X accompanying his Explanations of the Theses. The tone of the letter — preserved in Luther’s Works, Volume 48 — is one of complete submission to papal authority.

The 1518 Submission

Letter to Pope Leo X, 30 May 1518 · LW 48:65–66
“Wherefore, Most Blessed Father, I cast myself at the feet of your Holiness, with all that I have and all that I am. Quicken, kill, call, recall, approve, reprove, as you will. In your voice I shall recognize the voice of Christ directing you and speaking in you.”

The Turn

After Cardinal Cajetan’s examination at Augsburg (October 1518) ended without resolution, Luther began privately questioning whether the Pope might be the Antichrist. By March 1519 he wrote to Spalatin: “I am in such a passion that I scarcely doubt that the Pope is the Antichrist expected by the world” (LW 48:114).

The Break: August 1520

Sermon, 18 August 1520
“We here are of the conviction that the papacy is the seat of the true and real Antichrist. Personally I declare that I owe the Pope no other obedience than that to Antichrist.”

On the Babylonian Captivity (October 1520) · LW 36:133
“The bull condemns Christ himself. I feel much freer now that I am certain the pope is Antichrist.”

The Apologetic Point

The arc from prostrate submission to “Antichrist” takes 27 months. The doctrine of the Pope as Antichrist was not discovered through dispassionate exegesis. It was produced through a sequence of personal confrontations — with Cajetan, with Eck at Leipzig, and ultimately with the excommunication threat. The Catholic Church’s response: doctrinal truth is not determined by the outcome of personal disputes.