Early April 1520. Newly translated from Latin.
Alveld announces that he will attack Luther, using only the Holy Scriptures.
JEsus.
Brother Augustin von Alveld, Franciscan, Lector of the Holy Doctrine of God at Leipzig, sends his greetings to Brother Martin Luther.
Since you, dear Martin, have not yet observed the modesty due to any doctor, I have resolved to repay you in kind. But it is not fitting for a servant of God and for a divine scholar to start a shouting match and to revile. For with such weapons foolish women protect themselves. Receive me now, as is right, more modestly; but if it pleases thee otherwise, and if thou attackest me like a hound of hell, then thou shalt experience in me, as God liveth, a barking and biting dog.
For what you claim for yourself as permissible, I believe, is also permissible for me. Moreover, you deny almost all teachers, except where they come to the aid of your teaching. Therefore you will not hear me cite any teacher; so I do not want to hear you cite any either. But this you shall know, that you will find no faith with me, unless you will answer (resoneris) as a theologian - not as a teacher of language - from the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. I will attack you, not with learned words of human wisdom, but with the spirit and with the truth, so that the catholic and apostolic church may recognize how learnedly, how correctly and godly you handle the holy scripture, miss yourself of it and explain it. Farewell.