ABSTRACT
The debate among More, Erasmus and Luther about adiaphora and the means to achieve reform was only exacerbated by the new culture of printed religious polemic that emerged in the 1520s. The period beginning with the publication of Luther’s Babylonian Captivity in 1520 and ending with Thomas More’s last polemical work, the Apology, in 1533 is key in the development of English religious discourse. During this time it became clear that the church in England would be forced to define itself not only in response to the interiorization of belief encouraged by the Lutheran doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide but also in response to the textualization of belief brought about by the prominence of the printing press. English heretics exiled to the Continent wrote and exported their vernacular works back into England to an audience impatient for their arrival. Lutheran heresy and its various permutations were new, but they were also news.1
