Luther wishes Agricola's wife a happy delivery and exhorts him to be faithful in his office,
Handwritten in dock. llen. L. 24. n, 1.151; Ooä. üatLenderser; Ooä. OotUan. 1048, 1. 58 d. Printed in Aurifaber, vol. I, p. 325 b; in De Wette, vol. II, p. 4 and in Erlanger Briefwechsel, vol. Ill, p. 151.
To Johann Agricola, the married theologian and freedman of Christ at Wittenberg, his friend.
JEsus.
Hail! Although I believe that everything I have addressed to Philip and others is also addressed to you, my dear John (unless through my departure the fellowship among friends has also departed, which God forbid), it has nevertheless seemed good to me to greet you with my hand as well. Be therefore greeted, and be mindful of this word: "The servant is not greater than his lord" (John 13:16). Salute your flesh and your rib; may the Lord grant that it may be happily delivered, amen.
1) Otto Braunfels, son of a cooper from Braunfels, born in Mainz in 1488, entered the Carthusian Order there and lived in the Carthusian House in Strasbourg, which he left at Hutten's instigation. He was also a physician and went to Basel in 1530, from there he was called "ach Bern, where he died in 1534, - "Uringer" (so written by Gerbel) is called "Urniger" after Aurifaber, "Winger" after l'tzebtius. - "Bathodius" is Lucas Hackfurt, priest at Strasbourg, later the almoner of the city.
I am a strange prisoner, who sits here with my will and not with my will; with my will, because the Lord wills it so; not with my will, because I wish to stand in the public for the word, but I have not yet been worthy of it. Wittenberg is hated by his neighbors, but the Lord sees to it that his time will come; then he will laugh at them [Ps. 2, 4], if we only believe in him. Write, how it stands with the sermons, which were handed over to everyone, so that either my hope or my concern of the word may be increased.
Give one guilder to the newborn child and the other to the mother in childbirth, so that she may drink wine and have plenty of milk. For if I had been present, I would have become godfather in any case.