End of September 1519.
Translated from Latin.
Martin Luther sends his greetings to Hieronymus Emser!
And who would ever have believed of you, my Emser, that you would be such an erudite and astute theologian, indeed, that everyone would be surprised, such an honest and faithful defender of Martin, whose name you so zealously and admirably save from the disgrace of the Bohemian heresy, unbidden, and yet not to your credit (opportunus)? O of the new wonders! I, who was shouted out (delirabar) as a Bohemian by Eck in his nonsense, am justified by Emser, who is much more hostile to me than many people like Eck: he
denies that I am a Bohemian! Who has caused this whirlwind, this striving for disunity between Eck and Emser? Who gave Emser this gracious disposition against Luther, especially so quickly, and that after such a great or even worse spitefulness than a Timon could have, since Martin did not think of it at all and disliked Emser more and more from day to day?
Be sure, my good artist (Daedale)! Martin has a heavy cold and a desert head, he does not understand this prank; in simplicity he recognizes Emsern as an equally simple man, so that he heartily
*) The original of this writing is a print published by Johann Grunenberg in Wittenberg, end of September 1519: ^d aoZoeerowin Lmsorianurn Llartioi I^ntüori additiv. 12 leaves in quarto, last page tar. In another old edition, without indication of printer, place and time, Emser's letter to Zack sammt dem Sapphischen Gedichte Emsers mitgetheilte in the previous number is prefixed, which is then followed by "Luthers Zusatz" without separate title, beginning with the address to Emser. The title of this edition is: ve disputationo Inpsl66N8i, Quantum ad Lo6ino8 oditor deüexa 68t. Lpistola Hioronvrni Drn86r. ^d aoZoeorowru üoasorianurn Martini I^utüori additiv. - Roaster the ^oZoeeron sino ko6no, poeeat in uno, Huod non 68t Imeao linea dueta nianu. 16 leaves in quarto (last leaf blank), of which our writing fills 11H leaves. Below, the coat of arms of Emser, the forepart of an ibex, in the shield and on the helmet. Above right in a plate: Arraa HioronMd Lrnsor. This edition is in our hands. From the first edition, the writing is printed in Löscher's Reformation Acta, vol. Ill, p. 668. It is also found in the Wittenberg edition of 1545, Dorn. I, tol. 345 a. This is followed by the Jena edition of 1556, Dorn. I, toi 370 a. In the Erlangen edition, opx. var. ars., vol. IV, p. 13 is a mixture of the texts of the first edition and the Jena edition, as the Weimar edition says: "With unbiased inclusion of obvious errors in the latter." Finally, this writing is found in the Weimar edition, vol. II, 658 ff. We have translated according to this. - In the offprints, the superscription is missing. The Wittenberg edition adds underneath:
Wider den Bock Emsers Martin Luther:.
Behold, here lies the goat without hay, without horns and claw, leg, hair, nerves, blood, flesh, hide he has no more.
believes that he wrote the letter for this purpose, so that Martin would be praised by everyone by the Catholic name in the best possible way, namely as a patron of heretics, and who was overcome by Eck at Leipzig as the most shameful coward.
What shall I repay for this grace? In the meantime, out of gratitude, I compare with you the extremely brave and famous prince in David's army, Joab [2 Sam. 3, 27. 20, 8. ff.Your tongue is so much like his sword, and your manner like his robe, and this beautiful service you render me is so much like his work, which he gloriously accomplished on Abner and Amasa with great glory, even though he is not counted among the heroes of Israel [2 Sam. 23] because of a certain sleepiness of the writer, for the sake of this glorious deed. Or if this comparison is too far sought to please you, who are a licentiate, not of the sacred Scriptures, but of the sacred Canons, you will not disdain the comparison (analogiam) with him whom all men know [Judas Iscarioth], whom many consider the first among the apostles, yet without prejudice to the veneration for your goat, who fights so valiantly for the bravest corner, and this to your honor, who may also be compared to the prince of the apostles, that as he delivered up Christ to the Jews with the sign of peace, so also you betrayed Martin under the sign of praise to the whole world as a heretic and shamefully conquered.
Does not your unhappy conscience realize how futile your not too cunning envy is after me? What have you achieved with your letter but to reveal to everyone the sickness of your feminine mind? that, since you think the worst of me and make moves, there is not a vein of paternal blood, 1) or so much manliness and masculinity in you that you would like to go to battle against me in open combat and with flying colors.
I knew well that your enmity, of which you were completely on fire in Leipzig, was much too ordinary.
1) Nothing of the buck nature. (Weim. ed.)
I know that she would be more powerful than to restrain herself and not give birth to what she conceived, but also much too ignorant and cowardly to weigh anything freely and publicly. Therefore, if the fear of Christ, who teaches me not to grieve so much because you wanted to harm me and could not, as because you harmed yourself, which you certainly did not want to do, did not keep me from grieving, I could repay you abundantly in kind, and make a good hunter for your goat. And since you are looking for a Tiburtius 2) I must see to it that Tiburtius also finds a Torquatus; whether you, if you are thus caught in the work of your hands, may suffer for the damage to your poor soul, which you have quite shamefully handed over to the devil for the sake of hatred against me, although you are a priest of the Lord (as you boast) and a witness of the truth.
So I have read your ibex, or billy goat, or stag (for there is nothing in the word with which you name this quite unfortunate monster), of which you write poetry:
Here is our buck without hay (it is quite gentle) but in one it is missing:
Lucas Cranach's hand did not paint it for us.
Do not despair, my Emser, it is a venial fault (peccatum), which is not committed against the divine, but perhaps only against the rules of language3 ) and art of speech: which also, because poets and painters always have the same freedom to take out everything, 4) will easily be held to your credit, where they are not too angry about the fact that you have added the neck of a horse to a human head.
2) Didurtius, A6H. VII, 670 an adjective formed by Didur, Dipur is called Asnsis, lii). VII, v. 630 the proud one, because the inhabitants still dared to wage war with Rome around the year 400 after the building of Rome, since this was already powerful. - Manlius Torquatus received this nickname because he slew a Gaul in a duel and took his necklace.
1) and instead of a barrel, which you wanted to form, you brought out a little jug, 2) since even to me, who am neither a teacher of language nor of oratory, nor a painter, this especially seems to be something that cannot be justified by anyone, not even by Roman and the highest indulgence, that you rather took away his hay 3) than his horns, and at the same time hid this your Hecuba 4) so unhappily. For although your goat is both hayed (that I say so) and horned for Martin, it would be fitting for one who praises honestly to present a hayed one without horns rather than a horned one without hay. In addition, there is this misfortune, so that he depicts your mind rightly and the Emser rightly, that the goat is not whole; but, as the poet 5) calls Priam, whose head was cut off, a torso and body without a name: so also I, who see the hideous picture of my not whole Emser, with cut off body, could say: It is a trunk, and a name without body, that is, an appearance without truth, which indeed seems something at the head and beginning, but is nothing at the body and end. And so that nothing should be missing from the horrible monster, that buck, which is worth seeing, is not only emblazoned on a single, but on a double field. Thus everything comes out by a fate and undeniable (certa) providence in such a way that Emser had to be painted by his own coat of arms at the same time.
What shall I poor man do now? If I tacitly accept the praise, it seems as if I had revoked my whole doctrine and was so inferior to Eck, the defender of error and enemy of truth, that he alone would have remained on the plan, but I will be completely proclaimed a Bohemian heretic, especially by the nose-wise and foreigners. But if I reject it, I will be accused not only as a Bohemian, but even as a patron of Bohemia among the people and my people, and at the same time of a very big
1) Horace, Lrs xoattau, v. 1. 2.
2) Horace, xoätioa, v. 21. 22.
3) Pushy oxen had hay tied on their horns. "Without hay" therefore means gentle, not bumpy.
4) Here as much as dog-like rage (Weim. ed.).
5) Virgil, 11k. II, 557.
I am guilty of ingratitude against Emser, because he wanted to free me from such suspicions through his magnificent ibex. Since Emser is playing a nice game in such a way to my shame and to the detriment of Christian truth, the otherwise so excellent preacher of Christian love, I am in the greatest danger, and have ruin before me on both sides, and sing with Micah [3, 5.]: "Those who bite their teeth, and yet preach peace;" and with the Psalter [28, 3.]: "Who speak kindly to their neighbor, and have evil in their heart." But my Christ liveth and reigneth! my Lord and God, praised for ever, who knoweth how [Marc. 12, 13. ff.] to refute with One Word the disciples of the Pharisees, and the sendlings of Herod, who attacked Him with a like goat. There is no science nor counsel against the Lord; as long as I boast of him, what can men do to me?
Therefore, my reader, whoever you are, give a spectator, because we want to hunt this buck. Perhaps Christ will give our bow this noble game.
First of all, my Emser, I pass over your flattery, that you praise me as a man of peculiar learning: I say nothing of the kisses of Iscariot, 'with which you bite among the Bohemians, that I am the only one who meets the Scriptures, and that alone, who can effectively meet the fiercest opponents. 6) For I acknowledge the jibes of your brave theologian, who is quite learned; who, since he could neither adduce the words of Scripture during the whole disputation, nor, when he had put them on, treat them rightly, covered himself like an ostrich with the same shrubbery, and quite cleverly pretended that I did not accept the testimonies of the fathers, which he himself neither understood nor wanted to understand. For there was no other way open to him to cover up his ignorance of the Scriptures, especially before the common people, than to say, since the Scriptures were abandoned and despised: I peck out the eyes of the crows (as you say, dainty speaker). But keep this way of learning theology to yourselves, that
6) Literally: "He who can peck out the eyes of the crows. Luther refers to this immediately in what follows.
you guide the words of God according to the judgment of the words of men. I, with Paul and Augustine, treat the words of men according to the judgment of the words of God. I would rather be accused by you of being too cautious (cunctator) in the words of men than be praised for despising the words of God.
Here listen to me: According to what new religion do you praise the tree, and yet rebuke the fruit of it? Or do you not peck out the eyes of the crows, or rather, contradicting Christ, the leader of all men, do you not read thorns and thistles from the vine and the fig tree [Matt. 7:16]? Do you not understand what I mean? You call Martin a Catholic and say that he does not want to be the defender of the Bohemians; and you are right in this: but why are you so exceedingly displeased that my teachings are approved by the Bohemians? as if, according to the new art of conclusion of your corner (for he also uses the same method when he expounds something), he who said something that would be approved by the Bohemians must necessarily be a defender of the Bohemians, or the speeches of him who refuses to be their protector must please the Bohemians enough. You are a master of arts and worldly wisdom. Do you not remember "that from things which stand alone (pg-rtibus 6X puris) nothing follows"? What else do you seek with these illusory conclusions, by mixing the general into a particular, and this again into that, than that I am either a Bohemian, or must have revoked everything that is mine? Do you speak so ambiguously 1) and slippery that you leave it to the reader to understand everything possible, but reserve to yourself to answer for everything? Have you learned this from your canons, to speak thus against your neighbor? Do you not think that I too, speaking in such a way, could praise you in such a way that one could consider you stingy, the other generous: one chaste, the other a fornicator? If to praise coldly is as much as to blame among scholars, how much more must I blame your
1) iL66äi8 8uper aristas - you walk on the tips of the ears.
Do you consider the doubtful and deceptive appearance (üZurutu larva) of an ungodly praise as more than a triple rebuke? And by making no distinction between my teachings, you certainly seek to defile everything at the same time by your exceedingly impure tongue. Do you see now that I understand by what very crude trick you are setting traps for me, you priest of the Lord and witness of the truth? My ship has experienced all kinds of winds so far, now I also have to sail against the northeast wind 2) which drives away the clouds by deceptive blowing.
But since you consider this to be your proving ground and, as they say, your Lydian principle: what pleases the Bohemians is heretical; I wonder in what way you too could escape this, that you do not feist the Bohemians' patron, who holds, teaches and defends so much that pleases them. Yes, dear, make us conclude, according to this Eck's inference, that the sacraments of the church, the whole Scripture, the holy fathers, everything is heretical; because that pleases the Bohemians. Yes, the Bohemians like much more, Christ himself, the saints and all good creatures of God, therefore they are heretical according to the very firm conclusion of Emser's inference.
If what pleases the Bohemians is heretical, then those who like the Bohemians will be heretics. But here I would swear that Emser would be a heretic who could easily please either gold or a pretty woman 3) of the Bohemian mob: yes, even the popes would not want to free themselves from this case of heretical wickedness, not even the bull that is read on Green Thursday. With such ridiculous reasons in such a serious matter you excellent theologians infect our common people, so that according to your opinion, as soon as you mention the name of a Bohemian, he must immediately be a heretic whom you make a heretic.
2) Caecias, the northeast wind draws the clouds to itself; hence the proverb: It draws evil to itself, as Caecias draws the clouds.
3) For the explanation of the passage Köstlin I, 792 refers to I-ntkeri oollo^nia, sä. Linä86i1 I, 152, where it says: Lrns6ru8 86onrn Nadnit LoNsnaiourn 8oortnra. (Weim. ed.)
yet you are not fratricides and blasphemers.
But since these monstrous proofs of your darkness have once come to my attention, let us go further into the spitefulness of your ignorance. Why do you not also accuse me of being a Jew or a Jew-defender, that is, excuse me, since I deny that I stand with them, but they themselves confess that much is theirs which I constantly defend? Is it because you leave this task to the brethren of your luminary, who can find the books heretical and disreputable to heresy (haereticaIes) as they please? For what would they not find who search so diligently? Since now also the Jews please us again in many things: so we must be declared Jews according to Magister Emser.
One more thing. If everything that pleases the Bohemians is heretical, then by virtue of the conclusion from the opposite everything that displeases them will be Catholic. But they detest the priests' lechery, splendor, avarice, and courtliness beyond measure. From this it follows that the Roman church today is fundamentally Catholic, in which all this reigns in a heaven-sent way. Ah! my Emser, how many Catholics of this kind will you find? I believe that you yourself would be quite arch-Catholic and would persecute the heretics most severely if you could show that these teachings of the Bohemians were false and heretical.
Finally, letters from the most learned people come to me daily from various parts of the world, wishing the truth happiness, and fearing only one thing, that I, tormented by the persecution of you and your like, would desist from what has been happily begun, and make a retraction. What do you want to make of such people? Ask Eck's conclusion: they, too, will be patrons of the Bohemians, for they, too, read no other books of mine than the Bohemians.
O wretched and worthless theologians, and idols of the world! who are ignorant of the Holy Scriptures, and cannot protect the ecclesiastical opinions with other weapons than that you fear, indignantly
and childishly and womanishly suspect that the teachings will please the heretics. Do you think that one should fight against heresies with fear, suspicion and displeasure? Thus you make a mockery of the knighthood of Christian truth, which is like the tower of David, on which hang a thousand shields and all kinds of weapons of the mighty, as terrible as the spires of armies. And we also see that this way of overcoming the heretics has become very widespread, that is, that the truth has almost been destroyed, because they have prevented it from contending and conquering out of suspicion that it would please the heretics.
Therefore you and your theologians have invented two new doctrines (looos), which neither Aristotle nor Cicero, the most glorious authors of the doctrine of the sources of evidence (loxieorum), could have found, which [doctrines] are of such a nature and so great that they can take place of all others in all kinds of speech; these are: the liking and the disliking of the heretics. For trusting in these, Emser and Eck accuse me of being a heretic, according to their unbelievable experience in their oratory: and it is not at all necessary here to investigate whether what they like is heretical? It is enough, if one suspects that it pleases them, then one must immediately stir up the mob: so the heretics are overcome, the church is defended, and the truth of the faith is preserved; so that what is written in Isa. 3, 4. is fulfilled: "I will give them boys as princes, and women shall rule over them. So you see, my Emser, that you have learned these monstrosities from Eck. For even he, as he knows nothing in the Scriptures, had no stronger reason for Leipzig than that from these doctrines, in which he has pleased you.
But because thou art a goat, thou shalt easily go out of this yarn unto me, saying, I do not condemn thy doctrines, neither am I unwilling that they should please the Bohemians, but that they should like erroneous doctrines, which they falsely think to be of thy origin.
First. Did you then so completely despair of all men's reason that you hoped that you could win them all over with this insipid and
1222 L. v.". iv, W-22. IX. Luther's dispute with Emser. W. xviii, iiss-isoi. 1223
What is the consequence of this, if they have approved of my teachings, and you now prate that they have approved of them unjustly because I have refused to be the administrator of Bohemia? If they have now approved my teachings, and you now prate that they have approved them unjustly, because I have refused to be the administrator of the Bohemians: what else follows from this but that you either lie impudently, or that I have revoked my teachings?
Furthermore: Did I say to your idol, the Eck, in Leipzig, as you write with an insolent brow, that I do not care what the Bohemians think of me? Did I not say so often and many times that I could not defend the division and the errors of the Bohemians, which your Eck reproached me with the same insolence? But does it follow from this that I have rejected the agreement of the Bohemians with my teachings (which can be no other than those printed in my books)?
And so that you know that I am not at all afraid of your not at all cunning reenactments, then take this to heart, and mock or destroy it, if you can: I desire, wish, pray, give thanks, rejoice that my teachings please the Bohemians, and would to God they pleased also the Jews and Turks, yes, would to God that they pleased also you and Eck, and you discard your godless errors! What do you want to do here! Do you want to excuse me as a Jewish, Turkish, Emserian and Eckian patron, because I absolutely refuse to defend your and their things? What do I care about that? If the Bohemians are of my opinion, then they have the right opinion: but I have not approved of their division or errors, nor have I needed your intercession to be cleansed of this suspicion, that is, to be soiled with it. For I hope you will be glad that the Bohemians hold with you in the confession of the Trinity, of Christ and in all other articles of faith. Why, then, are you not first concerned for yourself, send out a letter of protection for yourself by clearing yourself of the suspicion that you are not the protector of the Bohemians? If you do that
If you consider it foolish and unnecessary, out of what love did it seem necessary to you to do this for me without being asked?
So you see that your malicious envy is recognized. For since you knew that the Bohemians praise and approve nothing of me but my teachings, you, as a happy orator, put down their praise in such a way that you say that I do not want to be the patron of their errors; as if they had ever praised that. It is a splendid adornment of an orator (says Cicero) to speak appropriately: but you, by wanting to refute the boasting of the Bohemians about my teachings, which is very good, refute the boasting of their errors, which you invent under my name. Wouldn't that mean making a speech at a sea-butt 1) where the animal would lie on your right, and you, turned to the left, would praise the sea-butt excellently? Rather, if you want to praise a cross-eyed person in the future, don't praise a pigeon, so that it doesn't seem as if you had lost effort and expense in learning the art of oratory, or rather borrow something from Eck's memory, so that at least at the beginning of the speech you can remember what it is about. Rufinus once used the same artifice against Jerome. For since the latter liked Origen in many pieces, that ludicrous example of Emser's art of conclusion made him, through ungodly praise, a defender of all Origen's errors. Thus also you, my Rufinus ("Hieronymus" I wanted to say: the sameness of the work misleads me more than the sameness of the name is useful to me2) ), in such a way excellently demonstrate: "You [Luther] do not defend the Rotterian Bohemians, therefore they falsely boast that you have written true things." Therefore, my Emser, use another reason to refute the Bohemians: for with this lame refutation you make a mockery of the Catholics among the Bohemians.
1) uä riiomduM; from a satire of Juvenal. Cf. the note after the middle of the third paragraph in the text No. 68 of this volume.
2) Sense. You. have the same name with the church father Jerome, of whom I have just spoken, but because your work is so similar to that of Rufinus, I could easily make a mistake in the name and address you "Rufinus".
You escape me again through another nook. "I do not say," you say, "that your teachings are praised, but, strange things and their own errors under your name."
First. Who told you about it? Are you so completely free to invent crimes of any man, and only for the purpose of violating the innocence of others with the invented guilt of some innocent people? Shouldn't a historical writer, especially a priest of God and a witness of truth, investigate all this and not make up stories from his brain? How? If they now deny that they have ever praised anything other than my teachings, which are spreading through the countries, of which many very good Christians in France, Italy, England, Germany and Spain also boast? Did you think they would be silent to your so bold lie?
But if it were true what you dream, that they praise other doctrines in my name, how is it that I have not heard of it, who is most concerned? Or, if we are the last to know the evil that concerns us, then you, who care so much for my name, should have reported it to me and made it known what kind of doctrines they falsely boasted of under my name, so that I myself (which would have made a much greater impression) could have written against them and defended my name. But you, good Rufinus, child of darkness, who do not know this, or pretend not to know it, have not only not taken care to make it known to me, but rather have given me a double wound, each of which is quite painful, since you both suspect me of heresy and portray me as a man who would bear such exceedingly evil suspicions with all patience, by coming out in my defense without in any way welcoming me for it and wanting to argue against what you do not know.
But even after such wounds I ask: show me at least now what false doctrines those boast in my name, so that I may know for which you are expelling me.
and for which I have to give thanks. Why are you silent on this? Bring them forward! Don't you bring anything? Well, then, we will beat them out against your will.
I ask you: whether you believe that your words are true, since you write: the Bohemians have prayed for me publicly and held daily (although unholy) services, while I was recently in Leipzig in battle? For I am silent about why you wanted to bring this to the people: because you cannot play on my nafe, you red (call1) ) Rufinus, rather black. Is, I say, this true or not true? There is no need to be silent here, because you are a priest of the Lord and a witness of the truth. So it must be true! So it follows without doubt that the Bohemians, according to Emser's opinion, believe the same with me in the sentences that were disputed at Leipzig, as far as you write publicly that they want to keep me unharmed in it by their public worship. These then are the false doctrines which the Bohemians boast in my name and in which they boast me as their patron. Have I caught our goat here, or not? Where is now your mouth 2) - it would soon have driven out of me - which claimed that I am a Catholic? Do you see how careless hatred is? Since you wanted to write, you should have thought of the proverb: A liar must have a good memory, and you cannot escape me here, that one does not clearly see that in your heart you consider Martin to be nothing but a heretic, and yet you call him Catholic with your mouth, whose teachings you in turn condemn as heretical with the same mouth. So you are the man who in Jacobus [3, 11.] makes bitter and sweet spring from one well. For it is not likely that the Bohemians are so mad that they would have wanted to pray publicly for me for the sake of a cause other than the one I was defending at that time; you also speak of no
1) rutus, used of persons, always means a redhead. MZor, on the other hand, means here, like horat." 8ut. IV, v. 84, a godless, insincere person.
2) Luther omits a stronger expression than "thy mouth" which he had wanted to use. (Weim. edition.)
Nor were my sentences so obscure that one might think they had not seen and recognized their meaning, because even your Rubeus 1) was able to understand them.
Therefore, my Rufinus, you should have written clearly how you thought and wanted it to be understood, namely that Martinus was a heretic: so you should have done as an honest and truthful man. For what is the point of accusing only those of heresy who boast of the patron whom you praise? Do you not think that the Bohemians are men and not cattle, and will say to your goat: "What does this stinking goat refute? What does he contradict himself? Is he chasing a deer buck, or one of his figments, and the bohemians he formed in his sleep? He catches the clouds and trifling things. We praise Martinus, whom you make out to be Catholic. What do we have to do with errors? We approve of Luther's teachings, which he defended at Leipzig and made known in the books he issued. But you argue with ghosts and are a ridiculous monk. What do you want to say here, my Rufinus? Will you, because you are a priest of God, go and rejoice that you are worthy to suffer disgrace for your Lord, namely for him who is the father of lies, whose witness you are to speak the truth in the office?
If now you also consider my teachings to be true, then the Bohemians may rejoice that they are proven to be catholic and very good Christians by their patron Hieronymus Emser, the priest of God and witness of truth, because they have held public services for the truth. So may Rome mourn, so may Eck, the exceedingly brave theologian, the unfortunate defender of the Roman Church and the apostolic see, this buck's teacher, rage, because they are invented as such people, who, in a lying and unreasonable way, have declared the Bohemians to be heretics.
1) Johann Rubeus, a miserable scribbler from Eck's party, whom even Emser denies judgment and necessary knowledge of the language; the writing to which Luther points, without the dedication to Bishop Conrad von Thüngen, see Löscher, III, p. 252 (Weim. ed.) - Cf. our note on Rubeus in the previous writing, Col. 1208, note 2.
have held. Yes, the Bohemians may be sorry that they have been praised by a lying and two-faced man, and they may be glad that they have been rebuked by the same. Have you not now yourself become a defender of the Bohemians, which, as you so loudly proclaim, I have so strongly rejected? Learn, my Rufinus, the word of the wise man [Weish. 1, 7. ff.]: He who speaks unrighteous things cannot be hidden, and the justice that is to punish him will not be lacking, for the ear of heaven hears all things, and he who hears all things knows such speech. For the world is full of the Spirit of the Lord. Likewise Ecclesiastes 10:20: "Curse not the king in thine heart, neither curse the rich man in thy bedchamber: for the fowls of the air carry the voice, and they that have fittest do repeat it." Know this by your example as true words. For who do you think has revealed your heart to me and given it to be revealed, but he who has given us to know even the thoughts of Satan, the difference of spirits, even the mind of Christ and the depths of God?
How? what do you do with the testimony of Beda, since you do not deny that John Hus mixed falsehood and truth? Do you not show either Beda or yourself as a patron of the Bohemians? by admitting, not only against the Concilium at Constance (on which alone your miserable, exceedingly brave theologian relied), but also yourself against the same, exceedingly brave one (which is intolerable), that some true articles were unjustly condemned: by which you throw all the power and victory of Eck to the ground, and in everything are like-minded with me.
Therefore, if you are wise, write to the administrator of the Catholic Church in Bohemia, 2) that he should bring the erring ones back to the fold of the Church: so that he may do this to his, your and all our ridicule: nevertheless, admit to the heretics (as you do) that John Hus mixed true and false things together, that is,
2) Johann Zack, to whom the preceding writing is addressed.
that the Concilium at Constance has condemned some of its articles in an ungodly way, according to Beda's testimony. For then you will be a true disciple of your master, who, in order to make me a Bohemian heretic, also first despised the Nicene Concilium, and in it, as he received great testimony, was considered by you to be fundamentally Catholic, then also declared the one at Constance, by becoming a master of the Holy Spirit, anew and completely differently. This is how you use to refute the heretics, that you become worse heretics, and make us all their proverb, by swallowing cameos to cow gnats; this is how thoughtful you are! so much do you care to deny and condemn many and great things of the Catholics, lest you seem to approve a few things of heretics, and proclaim as heretics those who approve them, and all this not out of hatred against any man, but out of zeal for the truth, for the glory of God, and for the glory of the holy Roman Church.
But also you scribes seem to me to be a little originator of the Bohemian obstinacy by writing such cold and inconstant things: for to refute coldly and carelessly (pigrs), what is that but to confirm twice? One must, according to Paul [Tit. 1, 11.], shut and shut the mouths of the adversaries with all diligence. Furthermore, I do not know what kind of sleepiness and weariness is evident in the writings of ours, because of the confidence and certainty that is based on the opinion of the mob, which clings to our words, and on the authority of the Roman Pontiff, who approves of ours. We write in such a way that even though what we write does not promote anything, it is enough that it pleases our people and the Roman Pontiff. And this is the purpose of our writing: we fear nothing so much as that something might slip out that might offend the Roman Pontiff. For this reason it happens that, as we do not write frankly, so we do not write anything.
1) In Latin: corvi tul ovum Isgitimum - the true egg of your raven.
Now look at the words that are true testimonies of your unwise spitefulness, even though they are lies themselves. You claim that I am a Catholic, therefore you must at the same time also claim my teachings as Catholic; and what is this fury of your godlessness that you are not only indignant that services are held for Catholic teachings, but even call them unholy, detestable and curse-worthy? Do you realize what a confusion, yes, what a sea of monstrosities follows from this statement, so that I could easily claim for its sake that you are worse than all heretics and devils? For what should he not do who declares unholy the worship that is held to be true? Granted that the Bohemians are heretics, but if they pray for the truth, may you call their worship unholy? Or do you think that the worship which is done for lies is holy? What do you think of my prayer, which I do very fervently for you and for corners, since I seem to be a heretic to you and to him? For I do not know (you may believe it or not) whom I have to thank more, and for whom I would like to pray more devoutly, than for Johann Tetzel, the originator of this play, whose soul be in peace! and for you and Eck, and all my adversaries; because I see that the adversaries are of so much use to me. So then, unhappy envy, let worship be held for my teachings, even by a Turk. Resist him not [Luc. 9, 50.]: he that is not against you is for you, Christ hath said. Or first prove that I am a heretic and that my teachings are heretical, lest you in mad fury put the devil above God and lies above truth.
I mean, O reader! I have caught this buck, although I have not let loose on him all the bull biters, 2) indeed, not even all the greyhounds. It is the first hunt. He is still tender, so I also had to drive neatly with him; but at another time, when he continues-
2) M0I0881 bull biter; V6ltr68 greyhounds (Weim. Ausg ). - In Horace, Lxoä. VI, 5. 6. the molos8U8 is called a shepherd dog; in LaÄ! Vadsr, ll?ti68suru8 krud. 80U0I. 8. V. ouni8 as: large male sheep. Virgil, OkorZ. Ill, 405, praises them as excellent domestic dogs; but they were also excellent for hunting.
drives, he is to be chased with Albanian dogs. 1)
But that he is a prisoner, thou mayest prove by this sign, that thereupon, as befits a prisoner and a man torn to pieces, he voluntarily confesses what he has concealed in the whole chase, for he disputes my sentence as a heretical one, and refutes my reasons; for this abomination he has secretly nourished within himself until he was hunted down and captured. Let us then sweep out his bowels and destroy (concidamus) all his dung, and after flaying his skin, offer him as a burnt offering to the Lord, where he desires his other.
By his conclusion (coronidem), which is in a frightening way completely Maccabean 2), how gloriously he triumphs over the heretic Martinus! But he concludes thus: Misery would be the lot of the Christians, if it were worse than that of the pagans and Jews, of whom it is known that they have attributed their priests to the gods. Who can stand before the face of this quite indolent cold? How creeps so exceedingly lazy both the sense and the speech! But I do not yet understand sufficiently what you intend with this exceedingly eloquent conclusion, unless you wanted to bring me into the suspicion as if I denied that the priests of the church had to be thanked to GOtte. However, I believe that you will not find one, even among the pagans, in all your poets, who pretends that someone was once the sole ruler over all the pagan priests of the whole world by divine right: for you mean that, and you show it by saying that they acknowledged that they had received their priests from the gods, as much as I learn from the new art of speech; especially since so many religions everywhere also dispute among themselves, according to the testimony of the holy Scriptures.
But it is good that you yourself do not do anything about it.
In ancient times they were considered to be particularly strong and wild, so that they were capable of overcoming lions and elephants. I, 8, eap. 40 tells that the Albanians gave Alexander the Great two such dogs as a gift.
2) Maccabean, that is, he seeks to reopen his old source of money to the pope from 2 Macc. 12, 43.
ask if your conclusion in this piece should not hold (corruet). So you go to the old forest and to the highest adornment of the dispute, namely to Aaron, of whom you boast, almost as a victor: one cannot deny that he was appointed by GOD . To this assumption the inference is attached: "Since so great honor has been done to the lower millstone of the old institution," you say, "which was completely idle and was finally abolished (so beautifully and learnedly do you also do theology under the rhetorisir, playing with wonderfully appropriate mysteries), so also the cause of the upper [millstone], namely the New Testament, will be in no way worse." So he speaks!
I pass over the inconsistency, yes, the impiety of the lower and upper millstone, by which you new theologian narrest, as if the old and holy synagogue had been idle and had been thrown down; not to mention that even the natural (corporalis) lower millstone cannot be called idle, because it does more than the upper one, whose power and impetuosity it must endure. Furthermore, God has also prevented that not one of the millstones is taken away and becomes idle. For this is how Eck's theologians tend to play with the Scriptures, no matter how seriously they treat them.
Let us proceed to the matter itself. This seems to you a worthy honor for the New Testament, if it also had its Aaron, a mere man, adorned with the same splendor of clothes, days and ceremonies. For this I thank the astute interpreter of the words of God. For, shall the truth in nothing be distinguished from the model, the spirit from the letter, the fullness from the sign, the new priest from the old? But O of the exceeding shameful honor of the New Testament, if it shall be like the old in such honor! Whose ears, I pray thee, can bear this? Didst thou not think, poorest Ems, when thou beganst this work, that thou wert sewing forward a subject which exceeded thy powers? Did you not think of your Horace's rule 3): To consider long what the shoulders could or could not bear?
3) Horace, ^rs xostiea, v. 38. 39.
I ask you, unfortunate Canonist, have you not read the Apostle to the Hebrews [Cap. 9.]? And if you have read it, why have you despised it? But if thou hast not read it, what doth the sow want in the sanctuary? The apostle, I say, who treats of the honor and glory of the New Testament by the strongest and most glorious reasons, proves most beautifully that Christ, the Son of God, is the supreme priest instead of the old high priest, and a better testament mediator, and that he has entered into the holy place, having invented an eternal redemption by his own blood. The old things were only patterns, shadows, images and models of the future priest of Christ, but Emser wants them to be brought out again and taken for the truth itself.
So it is not the splendor of the clothes, or the greatness of the power, that has been the glory of the New Testament, but only an example, and now a disgrace. The spirit reigns now, which does not need such shadows, nor is adorned with them. This glory our Emser does not want, but brings again the honor of the flesh and the shadows from the old testament, so that the church may not be without honor, that is, without shadow, since the Spirit foretold in regard to the priests of Christ as distinguished from those [Ps. 132, 9.]: "Let his priests be clothed with righteousness, and his saints rejoice." And again [Ps. 132:16], "I will clothe his priests with salvation. "2c (By this the Spirit declared that the adornment and honor of the priests of old were merely figurative); and Christ says [Luc. 22:26], "He that will be greatest among you, let him be least. But Emser, who is full of a better spirit, wants us to understand by righteousness and salvation gold, purple, precious stones, honor, power, dominion, principality, which in the Old Testament and the lower millstone would be idle and abandoned, that is, accepted in the New Testament. Why, then, is the autocrat so active and splendid in such things, if they are, according to your words, idle and forsaken? But why should he not be busy and splendid in them, since Emser teaches him not to abandon what is to be abandoned, and to use what is idle for his business?
to hold, that he may be at once the old abandoned and not abandoned, the idle and yet not idle millstone?
So you see how Paul and Emser agree so beautifully. You think that it is worse for the New Testament if it is not equal to the old one in splendor and outward holiness; but Paul considers it a disgrace if it is equal to it. Furthermore, since the apostle is speaking expressly of the New Testament, and describes the high priest of it as the sole ruler, he has certainly deceived us, and has not done enough for the matter before him, that he has not also recommended to us Peter or the Roman pope as the second sole ruler, especially since this article is considered so important that faith and the New Testament cannot exist without it, since the whole faith falls away if one article of it is overthrown. But let them go! They are blind men and leaders of the blind, ventral servants (animalia ventris).
Therefore, as in the Old Testament there was only one, not two high priests, nor any governor of the high priest: so it must also be in the New Testament, so that the truth would correspond to the model, and so it would be seen that the high priest of the Old Testament not only contributes nothing to the supreme rule of the Roman pope, but of all things proves most contrary to it, and furthermore that all mysteries, which are depicted in the old high priest, cannot fit to anyone else than to Christ. So we have the lovely part (gratitudinem) with the new theologians that it disgusts them to have the Son of God as a holy autocrat and priest for the honor of the New Testament, and they rather choose the honor of the Old Testament in a human child, a sinful autocrat, which, since it serves nothing to the spirit, is certainly not instituted by divine but by human right, since, according to Emser's teaching, the one who was instituted by divine right nevertheless lies idle and abandoned according to the same right.
Not even this do you consider, that it is quite impossible that the peoples of the whole world should
should only ask Rome to confirm the bishops, as they now consider a custom according to divine right. But let him be accursed who says that Christ has bound us to impossible things; for here the long way and the greatness of the cost hinder. But a divine right does not have to be prevented by anything, not even by death.
The other piece of your conclusion (corouiäis) was this: the sole rule [of the pope] was proven by the interpretation of the concilia, and probably already by this word alone [Joh. 21, 17.]: "feed my sheep." Who, you? Emser? Surely you do not dare to say that something becomes a divine right through the interpretation of a conciliar? Where did you learn that? Who has ever spoken so nonsensically? Everything that men order is human. But what do I argue against a brain that does not yet understand what is divine or human right?
Then, now that I have such a good teacher of the art of language, I know that: "feed my sheep" means as much as "be the sole ruler and master over all". Perhaps later one must hope for a new Emser's Kabbalah 1). Dear! Was not Peter already an apostle, and all that he could be, when he heard the word: "feed"? he heard a word of service and work, not of dignity or power. Rather tell your autocrats that the word "feed" concerns them and no one else, and that he is a heretic who feeds apart from them. For this must be so, if therein lies the autocracy, and none shall feed but the Roman Pontiff: and then, if he feed not himself also, he shall be a heretic. But see, if thou sayest this, whether they do not call thee the greatest heretic.
1) A Jewish secret doctrine full of superstition, which was widely spread from the eighth to the fourteenth century, first in Palestine and Persia from the eighth century, then also in Italy, northern Spain, southern France and southern Germany from the eleventh century. The main Kabbalistic books are: the Sepher Jezira, Hechalot and the most famous: the Sohar. Earlier we have had in our hands the "Sepher Jezira", in which it is taught to "create" by using the different names of God, as well as God, as Rabbi Meir is said to have created a three-year-old calf by using it.
of all, that you would so burden the autocrats with the pasture, that is, with the autocracy of the New Testament, with a quite unbearable burden, which they would rather leave to any enemy, even to the Turk.
But this is how you deal with the scripture, as with the elements of Anaxagoras, that everything becomes everything and everything comes out of everything. Therefore it is not to be surprised if "graze" means for you violence and dignity, without any co-meaning of graze: so sharp-sighted observers are you in your linguistic art and theology. And it does not help you here the ungodly mind of your interpretation, through which some chatter, "We are considered to have done that which we have done through others." For if by this word an idleness is prepared for those to whom something is commanded, we destroy the force of all Scripture: for so, after this example, any one may say to the one who is in the field, "I will go idle, and do it through another." So also one may say to God, "I will not feed, but will commit adultery, kill, steal; but will cause another to feed, not commit adultery, not kill, not steal. Who could not keep this? So why do we mock the word of God?
So the mind must be this: if the popes themselves do not feed, pray, govern, then they are not popes, but idols, both before God and before men, and the word "feed" does not concern them at all. If this is said to you, and you cannot answer it, you pass it over with deaf ears; meanwhile you fill the ears of the people with a mishmash of foreign words, so that it does not appear as if you had been overcome, and nevertheless do not take pity on your poor conscience, which you force to lick against the prick, and against its will to bark against itself, that is, against the truth.
But how could I pass over the very loveliest piece or balm of Emser? since you have not heard my little reason (rLiiunouIam), by which I obtained at Leipzig that the Church of God for twenty years, before the Roman Church
1236 L. v.". iv, 32 f. 49. Luther's addition to Emser's Bock. W. xvin, isis-rsis. 1237
The fact that the power of Peter or his successors was not turned to Rome until after twenty years or more does not harm the power of Peter or his successors, any more than it harmed the blessedness of the Shepherd that he ascended to heaven with Christ only after forty days. For human things go along slowly."
See, my Emser, if you have not said this under the carousing; or you punish yourself, like Balaam [4 Mos. 22. ff.], with your own speech. Thou sayest, Human things go slow, and this thou sayest of the monarchical power of Peter. Is then the autocracy human? Dear one, stop striving against the truth that speaks through your mouth. You are already affected by so many examples, as one who does violence to the truth in his heart, and yet you do not improve: and do not allow yourself to be moved, so that it so often comes out against your will. Beware lest, when you so often do violence to the truth, it should not even depart from you, so that you can never again obtain it; it seems that you want to be blinded by courage. If Caiphas and Balaam had not withstood the truth they themselves spoke, who would be more blessed than they? These are terrible examples for you, I testify.
And is then the divine right of your autocracy something so small to you that you compare it with the postponed blessedness of the One Shechard? Why then do your autocrats, Peter's successors, not only not suffer to be compared with the situation of a man, but not even with the church in the whole world, defending the rights and liberties (privilegia) of the Roman church so valiantly and godly that they also prefer all Greece, and Bohemia, and France, and other countries, and are even more ready to destroy them with their own thunderbolts (I am speaking with the canonist) and to put them under ban, than to suffer that their will ("the power" I said) should only be postponed for a moment, or be subjected to someone else.
or be changed? See, then, that thou thyself be not ungodly against such zealous advocates of divine right, who spare neither the temporal life nor the eternal blessedness of the whole world, that only divine right be not postponed or entered into for one hour, to which thou dost concede a standstill and postponement of twenty years, by comparison with the blessedness of a very wretched butcher, as thou couldst have compared it with the postponed glory of Christ.
It is therefore no wonder if Peter and Paul become heretics in our time, since Peter, with a very evil example, made the sole rule, rights and liberties of his church, and the whole upper millstone, which is truly busy today to crush the nations, completely idle and abandoned, since he had Apost. 8, 14. with John as an inferior, since he sent Apost. 11, 2. ff. he let himself be forced to give an account also as a subordinate, since he let Apost. 15, 7. ff. he had his opinion changed and confirmed by the reputation of Jacobus, who should have defended himself with his own blood and rather have thrown heaven and earth together 1), than to leave such an exceedingly evil example and heretical deed to his successors. But Paul also lets himself be sent by the Macedonians and Corinthians to deliver a collection to the saints at Jerusalem: and is therefore certainly and rightly a heretic, for a divine right must be defended to the death, even with the loss of the whole world, just as you would rather lose everything than kill and commit adultery. They are quite right: but you and Peter are acting most wickedly and heretically; you by granting a respite, but he by doing what is contrary to divine right, the word of God and the gospel, which must not be interrupted or postponed even in a single point.
But if your zeal is so burning to instruct me and the Bohemians, you must not only tell me your things, but also refute ours. So put your hand to it, teach us your wisdom. My thesis from
1) Cf. Virgil, Aen6i8, lid. I, v. 133.
of the supremacy of the pope is not mine, but that of the Nicene Concilium, which the Roman popes esteem equal to the Gospel. You must therefore reject this conclusion: "Martin is a heretic in the opinion of this thesis, therefore the Nicene Concilium is also heretical." And if you do not repel this, I will make you heretics with your corner, patrons of the Arians, and blasphemers of the Roman Church: and not by slippery, ambiguous, and dissimulated words, but by a clear saying. You know how your extremely brave theologian, when he heard this, wanted to pass it over with silence, how he fled, how he searched, how he sneaked, and yet he is still silent today; yes, even you, his extremely brave disciple, are silent, who nevertheless made the interpretation of the Conciliar a divine right for us. You have made the interpretation of the Conciliar a divine right, as if the whole matter did not rest on this; but you bring up many other things, but you want to pass over the one that you feel is driving you most into a corner.
I could hardly hold my laughter when I read your magniloquent exclamation: "O miserable Luther, if, trusting in their cursing and abominable services, and not rather in the constant contemplation of Scripture, he had engaged in a fight with the bravest of theologians, Eck!" Whom do you refute here? The Bohemians, perhaps? Who told you that they prayed because they thought I relied on their worship? But my Stesichorus 1) wavers so between vituperations and praises of Martin that he is not very unlike a drunkard in speech; and as much as I hear, you wanted me to argue in reliance on the well-regarded Scriptures.
Who, my Emser, has ever fought happily who relied on his learning or strength, except you alone in this letter? I know the saying [Ps. 46:10], "It is the LORD who controls wars." Likewise Judges. 5, 13. 20.: "The LORD himself hath contended; from heaven was contended against them." I have never argued either with the
1) A Greek excellent lyric poet.
Bravest still want to argue with the weakest, my whole purpose has been to remain hidden in the corner. But now that I have been seized by a single disputation note, as a rag, and forcibly dragged into the public, I believe that it has happened this way by God's will, and so, my Emser, I will not be afraid of your exceedingly brave and great screamer (vocalissimum) Eck, nor will I despise you completely powerless or any other completely unlearned adversary. Then I would be a poor Luther in truth, if I, according to your advice, argued in confidence on the contemplation of Scripture, and not rather and completely on faith in God, who alone works in me; although I cannot deny Christa his gift and confess without all hope that I am at least able to do something in Holy Scripture, which, however, as I confidently believe, your brave Eck cannot yet teach profitably in right order and in right understanding. For this is not taught in school theology. It is all God's free gift and grace, by which no one becomes more pleasant, just as little as by the [beautiful] form of the body.
I, too, am truly at home among the scholastic teachers. Therefore it is quite right that he is also praised by you as extremely brave and hearty. But believe me, he would appear much less praiseworthy to you in this respect, if he only understood a little of the initial principles of divine doctrine, or, as one says, the elements (principia) in the holy scriptures. He has shown this sufficiently in the Leipzig disputation; this can also be seen in his books "von der Gnadenwahl" 2) and "mystische Theologie" 3); he bravely tackles everything and first of all the highest, so that I fear that he will miserably make a big fall.
In short, you yourself know that empty barrels resound more than full ones. I do not desire to be called very brave, and as one who has
2) Eck's Chrysopaffus, published at Augsburg in November 1514. Cf. Wiedemann "v. Johann Eck," p. 453.
Aia IN). I. Ivan. Lolrius OonanEiNarios ackjeoN pro. NNeolvAia noZativa. Cf. Wiedemann "Eck", p.495.
I do not begrudge corners this praise, because each of us should be so constituted as to be praised by a better name than this, namely, by Christ's name, in which the strongest is the weakest, and the weakest the strongest, as it is said in Joel [3:15], "Let the weak say, I am strong."
You also write in my praise: I would have turned everything up and down, and would have put all the sharpness of my mind into it, and would have claimed that the supremacy of the Roman pope was not from God. Here I could treat you rightly, as you deserve, if I did not believe that you, afflicted by spite, do not know what you are saying. I believe, I say, that by the words, "is not of GOD," you mean, "it is not of divine right." For thus you explain the words of right as a canonist and orator with a very beautiful short saying (chria) and an interpretation. For what more blasphemous lie could you tell against me than that you say that Martin assumes that the supremacy of the pope is not from God, that is, from the devil? And indeed, when I consider your other things, since I see that you are always doing the nastiest things against me, I could almost come to believe that you wanted to pin this stain on me. For as careless as spite is in regard to itself, so cunning is it in regard to another's harm: meanwhile, according to Christ's teaching, I will take such speech in the mildest sense, until thou continue to show thyself.
But who showed you, my Emser, all my armory? When did you rummage through all my storerooms? I would have nothing left to put on it? Did it seem to you, then, as if I had poured out everything at Leipzig [Prov. 29:11] and swept everything out, that I had been, as Solomon says, the fool who pours out his spirit altogether? But the wise man keeps to himself for the future. Did not rather your corner do this, who for four days drove the clouds of his bulls on me, which I was hardly able to oppose (oppugnator kui) for one day? How gladly would you build your corner a triumphal arch: and do you not consider that you are lacking in
Art and costs were missing! How, if I had hardly paid out half in Leipzig? Has anything been done there about the reputation of the conciliar? Has the Acts of the Apostles on this matter been examined as it should have been? What new thing has Eck brought forward that the first beginners of theology do not read everywhere in the Summists and Sententiaries 1)? For it was this trite and embarrassing stuff of his that made the disputation most annoying to me, above all others that I have seen. I was also displeased with Carlstadt that he presented such rich and stately refutations to his miserable and ludicrous reasons. In short, I did not attend any disputation from which I would have preferred to leave, for I had come with an exhausted spirit to taste new heavenly (coelestis numinis) juice of God and to see what miracles Eck would do with you. And why is it that to this day neither he, nor yours, who faithfully help him, can overthrow my certain reason from the Nicene Council? How often has he, wanting to make a mockery of such an insurmountable reason, talked about Greeks, heretics, and red spirits, but has never been able to do it? For it is certain, and will always be certain, that the Nicene Fathers must be heretics with the general church, if the supremacy of the pope is by divine right, which 2) established the opposite of the article of the Council of Constance, in which alone its strength consisted: but what it is good for, I have already sufficiently shown at that time, and can still sufficiently prove; for the Nicene Council has not yet been discussed in all the articles that belong here. For this was my Tydeus 3) against many soldiers of hay and straw, when I saw how, with the greatest astonishment of all men, the mountains that wanted to give birth produced only a ridiculous little mouse, and I disliked that so much time was wasted. For the whole matter should have been settled in his hour.
1) Summists, those who make excerpts; sententiarians, collectors of pronouncements of school theologians.
2) namely the fathers of the Council of Nicaea.
3) Tydeus, a strong hero who alone overcame fifty men who had ambushed him. Virgil, Ud. VI, 479.
if one had not had to listen to the mishmash and nonsense of almost all Summists of Eck, so that it would not have the appearance (and you have always been most careful about this appearance), as if we did not want to or could not dispute.
But that at least you believe that I am still capable of something and am not completely exhausted, I will also add a conclusion that is not unlike yours, and perhaps in a more probable way should deal with this glorious supremacy of the pope. So pay attention.
How if Matthias, the last among the apostles, had been and was the first among the apostles? For I will soon persuade you of this, if you will only allow me to interpret the Scriptures according to your and Eck's needs. For according to the Gospel [Matth. 20, 16.] the last are the first and the first the last, therefore your Peter, since he is the first, must become the last, and my Matthias, since he is the last, must become the first.
In addition, it is a strong confirmation that he was chosen to take the place of Judas, the betrayer [Acts 1:15 ff]. He was the father of the disciples and Christ's steward over them, who carried what was sent [Joh. 12, 6.], and had and administered the goods of the apostles and Christ's property (patrimonia, - inheritance) just as today the Roman pope administers that of the bishops, priests, monks, also of kings and princes, so that he seems to have been in truth the second (secundarius) high priest of the church and the predecessor of the Roman pope, with whose office he agrees better than any other apostle: so Matthias is really pope and governor of Christ, since according to Aristotle the same doing is as much as the same being, and the cause is recognized from the effect.
But this is also a strong reason that Christ calls him a leader in the Psalm and says [Ps. 55, 14. according to the Vulgate]: "But you, my comrade in spirit, my commander and my acquaintance"; which he says of no other apostle.
In addition to this, it is not written of any other apostle that he has the dignity of Bis
The first one is the one who has had the bishopric than Judas and Matthias, as Peter says, Apost. 1, 20: "And let another receive his bishopric!" but also the saying Joh. 6, 70: "One of you is a devil." According to the Hebrew, "one" means "the first," as Gen. 1:5: "And evening and morning became one day"; and Matth. 28:1: "On one of the Sabbaths," that is, the first. So if he is the only bishop, commander, first and steward, what else is left but that he is the governor of Christ?
Let us add the cause. Almost always those who fell were put in the first place, as Lucifer, Adam, Cain, Esau, Ishmael, Reuben, Onan, Saul, Ammon, and many of the like; which was done that God might scare the proud and lift up the humble: therefore Judas also seems to have fallen from the first place. Therefore the apostles were least afraid that he would betray Christ, because he was the first and foremost of the twelve.
You see, my Emser, that I still have enough stock, which you have not yet seen: and that this has as good an appearance as your best things. What do you think, would I be able to prove (facerem) [everything], if I, just as you, under "rock" wanted to understand the supremacy, and under "willows" the autocracy, and similar, what you want, to twist the scripture in such a way? How, if you had had such probable things?
But since we have had to deal with the envy and the machina of the common adversary, I ask you to listen to me patiently with regard to our common confession. We have the story of the Romans and the Bohemians before us. Dear! Let us deal with both of them for once without any partiality. I, too, want the Roman pope to be the first among all, and that all should honor him; I do not want the separation of the Bohemians. But that the Roman pope is supreme by divine right, that I do not want to believe in any way, nor will I ever confess it. If you want to know why, listen. The Roman popes and their flatterers have been seeking for many years that they might be the supreme authority from
divine right over a concilium and over all in the whole church, yes, even over the general church. What do you think they were seeking with this endeavor? This, of course, that, because one may not judge, correct and rebuke him who is supreme by divine right (as they think), a power to presume on every thing in all things would now prevail, as it is today, and that in the church of God the terrible thing, as Hosea [6, 10. and in the holy place of abomination [Dan. 9, 27. Matth. 24, 15.], that is, an unpunished wickedness and safe freedom to sin. But what would come of this but that the church would become desolate and perish? For by this power, which was given only for edification, they would seek nothing but destruction.
But since we all owe more to Christ, that is, to truth and righteousness, than to any man, it is certain that truth and righteousness must not be preferred to an erring and godless pope. And with whom therefore this truth, righteousness, and Christ are, he is higher than the priest, and must both resist the priest, and admonish and amend him; otherwise he is guilty of sin against Christ, to whom he hath preferred a man, and of ungodliness to the truth.
Do you see what this serves? First of all, it condemns the opinion of the most ungodly flatterers, who chatter away that one should not say to the priest who sins, "Why do you act like this? But what do they seek but that we conceal the word of God from wickedness, and esteem a man higher than Christ's commandment? Furthermore, this overturns the ungodly doctrine of those who say that one must not judge a superior; as some decrees of the popes fool. Dear! Why should he not be judged? Is it because he is the Supreme? But the word of God is over all; and if the lower has it, but not the superior, then the superior must give way to the lower; as 1 Cor. 14:30 says: "But where it is revealed to him that sitteth, let him that is first hold his peace".
so that he would not have to hear what Ps. 14:6 says: "You revile the counsel of the poor, but the Lord is his confidence. Were not the prophets inferior to the kings and priests? yet they judged, punished and corrected them, so that it is also written of Jeremiah [Cap. 1:10] that he was "set over nations and kingdoms to cut down and to plant, to break down and to build." Add to this that there is no other power in the church but to resist sin, with binding and loosing; therefore, wherever there is sin, there also is this power, according to Matt. 18:15, "If thy brother sin against thee." And here no pope can exempt himself from it 1): for if the violence does not bind or loose in the case of one man's sin, it will not apply to any other, and it is utterly nullified (evacuata), because there is no cause of difference.
And here I will speak boldly and, which you will be very surprised about with all the flatterers of the Roman pope, and perhaps declare it to be a heresy, I say that the popes are obliged before all (primo), with the guilt of a mortal sin and the punishment of eternal damnation, to resist such pernicious abominations of the Roman court, by which everything that is Christ's is sold everywhere, the nations are sucked dry, the bishoprics are devoured by the bishops' cloaks (palliis), the priesthoods by the annals, and it in no way excuses them that the pope is supreme, because they owe more to the supreme of all, Christ, that is, to the truth, than to him: and if they see that this [truth] is overthrown by the pope, and do not hasten to help, they are guilty of all the mischief which the pope causes, either by wanting such things, or by overlooking them.
The same belongs to all of us, for we are all bound with like obligation against Christ's honor, except that we must first heed Paul's word [1 Tim. 5:1.], "Rebuke not an old man, but admonish him as a father." But if he will not yield to him that beseeches him, what thinkest thou that he [Paul] shall otherwise counsel to do, but
1) full exvutere, actually: to pull out the neck.
Mt. 3, I0]: "Avoid a heretical man"? It is not the power of the Pope or any bishop that rules in the Church, but the Word of God, which is bound to no one, completely free, a King of kings and Lord over all lords. The power of the pope is a service and not a dominion.
Therefore the most Christian high school of Paris is to be praised in many respects, which, more concerned about the care for the prince, about everything the truth, and the word ruling in the church, than about the serving power established by the word, resists Leo the tithe, or rather the flatterers raging under the name of Leo X, by interposed appeal before all, as Paul did to Peter, Gal. 2, 11.
And would God that after this most Christian example all bishops, all elders, shepherds, princes, authorities, yes, all Christians would do the same, as often as they see something monstrous coming out of Rome under the name of the pope against the Gospel of Christ. For all men must stand by the gospel above all things, and not yield to anyone, not look through the fingers of anyone, not favor anyone who does anything against the gospel of Christ, whether father or mother, as he says Match. 10:37], "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." For when does the pope suffer that something is done against him for the sake of a bishop? Does he not want to be preferred as superior to all bishops? Why should he not also suffer that the gospel is preferred to him, and that he is judged according to it, whoever it may be? Will he want the gospel to depart, so that obedience may be rendered to him? Far be it from him, unless he no longer wants to be counted among the Christian shepherds, but among the pagan tyrants. For then that word of the apostle would have to be said [1 Cor. 5:12], "What business have I of them that are without, that I should judge them? Judge ye not them that are within?"
So the rule of the Christian life according to Peter is clear [1 Petr. 5, 5], that we should all be subject to one another. By saying "all" he excludes no one, and it is not enough to be humble,
But it must also be shown and proven in work and in truth. St. Gregory, too, says very well in the Decrees that we are all equal, and only guilt makes the inferior, as it is also said in Psalm [122:5]: "There sit the chairs of judgment."
Therefore, where there is guilt, there is already judgment, and he is the inferior with whom it is, against all who have no [guilt]. Did not the Roman popes also sometimes show this about themselves (exhibuerunt), who were accused, justified or condemned by the judgment of others? What then is this new frenzy, to establish this by divine right, that sin shall reign in the church with impunity under the title of higher rank (moritutis)? Or do they make the divine right the lid of impiety? Furthermore, the pope is not the lord of the church, but a servant and steward, but she is lord and queen, and Christ alone is the Lord. Neither is he the bridegroom, as some slander, but Christ is the bridegroom. Therefore the church, which is one body with her bridegroom, is mistress of all the other members, and subject to no member, but to her bridegroom alone; the others are all subject to her, as to the queen and bride.
Accordingly, attach as much serving power to the Roman popes as you want; only you may not set up such a one for me out of divine right, who is subject to no one, he may be good or evil. For that is what those godless, wanton blasphemers of divine right seek. Believe me, when they will see that they cannot claim this power by divine right, but will hear that they are subject to every Christian everywhere where they have acted against the gospel, it will happen that they will not want to be the sole ruler in the church, neither by divine nor by human right. For who in such a high position would want to be subject to so many lords? Doubt not also, there will then be many more people who deny it [and say]: the autocracy is not divine right, than there are now who champion it: then my opinion will be safe enough.
"But," you will say, "in this way no bishop will be the superior by divine right, and there will be no power or higher dignity in the church." I say, indeed, there is no higher position; for Christ forbade it, saying [Marc. 10, 44.], "He that will be chief, let him be your servant!" But the violence is a servitude and a service. Therefore the power of the church is far different from the power of the world: the former is a power to serve, the latter a power to rule. ' Thus saith the apostle [1 Tim. 3:1], "He that desireth a bishopric desireth a good work." "A good work" (saith he); but works come to servants and laborers. Now they call it "a good work," that is, "a good idleness." But it is enough for me now that I have shown that divine right does not attach to the pope that which they understand by divine right, namely, that he is subject to no one, not even to him who has the truth; and that he who before all Christians is subject to unpunished arbitrariness and willing desire to sin, yet who before all should be bound, subject, and a servant.
If you should now say: "Although one might improve man, the dignity itself is higher by divine right", then I come here to my [actual] field, that I show that it is such a higher position, which no man would ever want to have, and that it is something far different to be a superior, and to be a superior by divine right. But about that in due time!
Finally, my Emser, we see that this unfortunate disputation has such an end as is worthy of such a disputation, namely as described by the apostle 1 Tim. 6, 3. ff. and said, "If any man teach otherwise, and abide not in the saving words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the doctrine of godliness, he is darkened, and knoweth nothing, but is addicted to questions and wars of words, out of which proceed envies, strife, blasphemies, evil suspicions, scholastic quarrels of such men as have their senses disturbed, and are deprived of the truth, who think that godliness is a trade." You see, I say, that our disputation there is so painted that even an Apelles could not have written it in such a way.
could paint. We have done it only in one thing, that we did not know we were in the midst of wolves, and have made true the gospel of Christ [Matt. 7:6], "Ye shall not give the sanctuary to the dogs, neither shall ye cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and the dogs turn and rend you." This is what happened to us with you.
Now that we see this end, what more evil shall we add to the former evil? Rather, let us pray together to the Lord that what has been to the contempt and harm of truth through our fault may be turned again by His mercy to the destruction of the spite and vain honor that has been so brazenly sought there, so that I fear there will be a great wrath of God upon it.
Henceforth I will debate with them that love the truth more than their glory; or if I must be sent into the midst of wolves, the Lord will give grace that I may keep the simplicity of doves, and the prudence of serpents, that is, that I may neither hurt nor be hurt, and be wise in good, simple in evil: and if I had not wished to observe this even now, what names, thinkest thou, which thou hast well deserved, could I have put upon thee? You can hardly believe how many jokes, how many taunts, how many mockeries the old Adam has given me against you; but which my Christ has suppressed again, because he did not despair that you would finally let go of your spitefulness, and henceforth (where there is still something left) write a lamb rather than a capricorn, or at least undertake something in which a test of your understanding and your erudition would be perceived, and which, if not to the godly, could be useful to the diligent reader.
How long, I pray thee, shall I lose the time and trouble by the indulgences and the violence of the Roman Pontiff, things that are not at all 1) to the faith in GOD
1) In Latin: äis äia xason-two octaves away].
and belong to our bliss? namely, we live in such an unfortunate time. Johann Reuchlin has already lost many years uselessly through the same misfortune for the sake of a cause, which, the more I look at it, seems to be equally or even more paltry, so that in my cause this example causes me a great fright, that from such a useless cause (lana caprina), from which nothing at all comes out for the church or the salvation of souls, whether it loses or gains, so great lakes of sins, so much evil gossip, so many outbursts of jealousy have broken out, the expense
And to say nothing of the work. "Behold, what a small fire, what a great forest it kindles," says James [3:5]. But woe to those restless devils who cause such mischief and rage without cause against the blessedness of the brethren. Let us, I beseech you, also fear an equal or worse misfortune from this tragedy. I have often wished to be silent with the peacemakers, but against the shouters and raging people I still have a living confidence, which Christ gives me. I want to love everyone, but fear no one. Farewell!