From February 8, 1517.
Translated from Latin.
Luther sends a letter to Lang, Wider die aristotelische Philosophie der Schultheologen (Against the Aristotelian Philosophy of the School Theologians), with the request that it be sent to Trutfetter and that his judgment on it be reported to him.
To the venerable Father Johann Lang, Baccalaureus of Theology, Prior of the [Augustinian] Hermits at Erfurt, his beloved friend in the Lord.
JEsus.
Hail. I send, my father, this letter to the excellent Mr. Jodocus [Trutfet
ter] of Eisenach 2), full of questions against logic, philosophy and theology, that is, full of curses lind blasphemies against Aristotle, Porphyrius and the school teachers (sen-
2) Trutfetter died in December 1519, as Luther thinks, out of grief over the decline of scholasticism. Cf. Luther's letter to Spalatin of December 7, 1519.
*) This piece is found in Löscher I, 339; after him in Walch vol. XVIII, 56, klrl. var. "rx-. Vol. I, 254 and Weim. Ausgabe Bd. I, 150 attached to the previous disputation, therefore we too have left it here. **) This letter is found in Auris. I, p. 10; Löscher's Reformation Acta, I, p. 805 and De Wette, I, p. 15. All of these have the date of February 8, 1516 according to the manuscript t'oä. (iotlmn. X. 3W; but that the letter belongs to the year 1517 is proved by Erl. Ausg., Briefwechsel I, 85, from the circumstance that Joh. Lang became prior at Erfurt only in May 1516, as well as that Luther in the letter to Joh. Lang of March I, 1517, inquires whether Jodocus Trutsetter does not want to answer him to the sent quaestions, "which" inquiry would hardly be "teschehrn" only a year later.
tentiarios), namely the corrupt study of our time. For this is how those will interpret it who have decided that one must not observe silence for five years, like the Pythagoreans, but always and forever, with the dead, believe everything, always listen, and never attack Aristotle or the sentences with even a small reproach and murmur against them. For what should those not believe who have believed Aristotle that it is true what this arch-slander accuses others of, whether it is so inconsistent that an ass and a stone could not be silent about it?
Therefore, I want you to see to it that this letter is faithfully delivered to the very good man, and then find out what he or everyone else thinks of me in this matter and let me know. I wish nothing more than to make this juggler, who has so much fooled the church with the Greek mask, obvious to many and to show his shame to all, if only I had time. I have under hands short explanations about his first book of physics 1) with which I want to renew the story of Aristaeus 2) against this mei-
1) Of this commentary by Luther on the first book of Aristotle's Physics, nothing is left, but the disputation given in the next number is, as the Weimar edition says, "to be regarded as an outflow of the studies on it".
2) Aristaeus, son of the god Apollo and Cyrene, bound the sorcerer Proteus while the latter was engaged in all kinds of
new Proteus, the most cunning seducer of highly gifted people, so that if Aristotle had not been flesh, I would not be afraid to claim that he was truly a devil. Part of my cross, and indeed the greatest, is that I have to see how the most gifted brothers, who were born for good studies, spend their lives with this outward pretense and lose their work; and in addition, the universities do not cease to burn and condemn good books, to produce bad ones again, even to dream them up.
I would like Magister Usingen as well as Eisenach to refrain from this work; indeed, to abstain from it completely for once. 3) I have all cupboards full against their expenses, which, as I see, are completely useless; all others would see this, too, if they were not (as I said) bound by an eternal right of silence 4). Be well and pray for me.
From Wittenberg on February 8, 1517.
Brother Martinus Luther, Augustinian.
Figures turned i into wild beasts, fire, water 2c.); alone Aristaeus held him undaunted ever more firmly, until he declared himself defeated. Virgil, Ooorzzion I V, 317 sf.
3) However, both died as true scholastics and enemies of the Reformation, and Luther's efforts to win them to the truth were unsuccessful.
4) This refers to what is said above about the Pythagoreans.