June 16, 1538.
Doctor Martinus Luther, to all brothers and sisters of our churches here in Wittenberg.
Grace and peace in Christ our dear Lord and Savior. There has now next on the past Pentecost day a dishonorable knave,
M. Simon Lemnius, has let some epigrams go out behind the knowledge and will of those who are commanded to judge it; a real book of archbishop's shame and lies, against many honest men and women, well known to this city and churches.
*Simon Lemchen, called Lemnius, published in June 1538 around Pentecost a book under the title: M. Simonis Lemnii.Epigrammaton libri III. This writing Luther calls an archchand- disgrace and lie book. Kawerau, "Agricola", says about it p. 126, note 2: "There are in the first two books of all-.
by all rights (where the fugitive jack would have gotten) he would have cheaply lost his head.
2 So that I, as the absentee of our dear Lord parish priest, D. Johann Pommers (for he would undoubtedly not suffer it either, as we all know well), who has to be a stopgap and sub-priest, do not let such blasphemous, malicious mischievousness remain on me; for I am too weighed down with my own sins that I cannot suffer to burden myself with many other people's sins (especially such shameful boys, who learn and see much better from us every day, but who show such shameful ingratitude as a reward): I beg and exhort all pious and true Christians, who have and love the same faith and doctrine with us, to put away such blasphemy and burn it in honor of our holy gospel, so that our adversaries may not have to boast, as they are inclined to write of us in foreign nations, that we do not punish vices, although they know well that we punish them more severely than they do in their regiment, especially in their spiritual one.
chaste holiness wanted to put on the calculation lines.
3. moreover, because the same Schaudpoetaster praises the tiresome town clerk of Halle (to speak with leave), bishop Albrecht, and makes a saint out of the devil, I do not suffer that this happens publicly and through the pressure in this church, school and city, because the same shit bishop is a false lying man, and yet uses to call us the Lutheran boys, although he will hear from St. Moritz and St. Stephan the right main jacks on that day. Moritz and St. Stephen, as he well knows, but consoles himself that he does not believe such things. And I, if God gives me life and time, will give such a beautiful example on that day. And ask all of us, and especially the poets or his hypocrites, not to publicly praise or extol the shameful shit-monkey in this church, school and city. If not, they may also wait together with their lord what I will do against it, and know that I do not want to suffer that one praises the hopeless priest condemned by himself (who would like to have us all dead) here in Wittenberg. More about this soon. 1538.
In the first book, Lemnius wrote some strongly erotic poems, including mocking poems about husbands who had been betrayed by their wives, or about withered beauties who still desired a lover, and epigrams of this kind, in which one or the other of the Wittenberg personalities might have felt affected; but it will be difficult to prove how far Lemnius had really aimed at particular individuals. The most repulsive thing about those epigrams were the flatteries against Archbishop Albrecht running through the two books." But Kawerau 1. e. p. 127 adds that Lemnius had proved by later, at the beginning of the year 1539, published books of shame, "that Luther had basically taxed him quite correctly". Melanchthon was at that time the Rector of the University, who was responsible for the censorship of the books to be published, but in this case he had not done his duty. The writing caused a great stir and Luther, because Bugenhagen was absent, publicly testified against it in the pulpit on Trinity Sunday, June 16, 1538. His "admonition" is found in excerpt in the Table Talks, Cap. 28, ยง 13, and the "printed mandate" mentioned at the end of this section, which he read out, is probably our writing (St. Louis edition, vol. XXII, 940 ff.). The title of the same in the Wittenberg edition is "Wider des Buben M. Simon Lemnii Epigrammata." It is found in the Wittenberg (1559), vol. XII, p. 290; in the Jena (1568), vol. VI, p. 532d; in the Altenburg, vol. VI, p. 1252; in the Leipzig, vol. XXII, p. 592; in De Wette, vol. VI, p. 198, and in the Erlangen, vol. 64, p. 322. We give the text of the Wittenberg edition. - One compares me still the table speech with Lauterbach of June 20, 1538, St. Louiser edition, vol. XXII, 1732, No. 200. We have put the title, which the writing has in the Jena edition, over it, the date is according to Seidemann with De Wette I. o.
766 Erl. 64, 324. 337 f. Luther's historical and philological writings. W. XIV, 1336. 1348 f. 767