Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples fell under the suspicious attention of the Sorbonne in 1514 when he was implicated in the defense of Johannes Reuchlin before that body. Under the assiduous promotion of its Syndic, Natalis Beda, suspicion was soon transformed into an overt attack on Lefèvre's orthodoxy. In 1520 a turning point was reached. Whereas, before, he had been attacked because of deviations arising chiefly out of his own individual approach to the Bible, in this new stage he was to be charged with Lutheranism. It is the purpose of this article to examine these later charges, the grounds alleged in justifying them, and how they came to be preferred. It will be necessary at the same time to examine, or rather reexamine, the words of Lefèvre which evoked them.
