The original of this letter is in the Anhaltisches Gesammt-Archiv. Printed in Aurifaber, vol. I, p. 219 b; in Löscher's Ref.-Acta, vol. Ill, p. 994; in De Wette, vol. I, p. 371 and in Erlanger Briefwechsel, vol. II, p. 268.
To the learned and proven man, Georg Spalatin, Christ's servant and his most trusted (friend).
JEsus.
1st Hail! I am glad, my dear Spalatin, that you got to know Eck in Eck's letter. He was such a one when he disputed at Leipzig, as he is (now) when he writes. For there is nothing but rage in him, and as I had printed in the letter 1) addressed to you, he is only powerful in this one thing, namely, to arouse spite; to this he also always directs all his energies. Furthermore, it is a nice trick that he proves by the original of my letter 2) that we offered him Leipzig or Erfurt. Who doubts that we gave him our consent to Leipzig or Erfurt, as my letter indicates? How could we have admitted that we wanted to dispute there, if we had not written that the place was up to us, because another could not be granted?
Why does the intriguer conceal that he wrote again on my request that he would like to come to Wittenberg, that he does not want to, because that (as he says) belongs to a Sejan horse 3)? But since he again offered Cologne and even more distant places, but we refused, we were finally forced to agree to one of the two cities already mentioned, although we preferred neither of them.
1) No. 380 in this volume.
2) Namely in § 70 of No. 419 in this volume, where Eck refers to Luther's letter to him (No. 359).
3) "The Sejan horse" is literally the horse that a certain Cn. Sejus had, but who, like all those who had the horse after him, became unhappy.
that is, what I wrote afterwards, that we would have recognized only from the disputation why he had preferred Leipzig. Therefore, we did not offer it, but, since it was offered, we accepted it, albeit unwillingly, only so that the arrogant person would not want to boast that we did not want to stand by our theology.
3 Therefore, you will now understand the copy of my letter, which states that we did not offer [the place], but agreed to it, forced by necessity. But with such tricks the exceedingly spiteful sophist is wont to deal. And therefore I await with pain his threats in print, in which he (I know) will not act with other reasons, and then I will, with Christ's help, paint all his intrigues before all the world and bring them to light.
I am sending the letter from Lang, from which you can see what is to be hoped for in Erfurt with regard to the verdict. But if they do not judge, I do not care about the Parisians, because it has been agreed that they should judge me as one who has been convicted. 4) Be well and pray for me. Wittenberg, the day before St. Barbara [December 3] 1519.
Martin Luther, Augustinian.
At this hour, two magistrates with equal votes have been appointed for the parish of Schmiedeberg; finally, it has been agreed that the older of them should have the preference. One is Magister Johann Herzberg, the other Johann Schurf, the brother of Doctor Jerome. But I have not yet found out which is the older one, since I left.