Probably the end of January 1521.
My greetings to the Bock in Leipzig!
If I had called you a goat, my Emser, you would certainly have written a book or two about it, and showered me with all kinds of lies, blasphemies and words of shame, as is your way. Now you yourself, with coarse letters, so that everyone knows, call yourself a goat, and threaten no more than to push, and say: "Beware, the goat pushes you"; so I may well, I hope, also receive you with your favor and grace [as] a goat; although it would have been unnecessary for you to write [it] on paper; it is well seen in your whole being that you are a goat; to the fact that you could not push more than that, your little books and speech point superfluously. But do you not think that I would like to answer your frivolous threat and say: Dear donkey, do not lick! God forbid the goats that wear their horns braided in silk; with me, God willing, there is no need.
Have you never heard the fables, when the donkey cried out with the lion, and some animals fled from his cry, so that the
The lion turned to him and said, "If I did not know that you were an ass, I would have been afraid of you myself. You see daily that I am not afraid of those who have more skill and understanding in one haav than you in body and soul; nor do you dare to defy me and frighten me, so that you may prove strongly that you have confused reason with unreason and have become a goat out of a man.
What would you do in the holy scripture, you unreasonable goat, not to interpret it according to the letter that kills, 2 Cor. 3:6, but according to the spirit that makes alive, as you boast in this little book of yours? You are almost unable to say in German what you have in mind; your words are so clumsy, disheveled and desolate. And as far as I can see, you do not know and will not learn for a long time what letter, spirit, death and life mean in the Scriptures. Thy spiritual rights shall not teach thee; so shall not thy goat's head itself know. This is the other sign, that thou hast put off the man, and put on the goat; thou art a Licentiat sacrorum Canonum,
*) Under this title the writing first appeared in Wittenberg, 1521. In the collections it is found: in the Wittenberg edition (1554), vol. 7, lol. 142; in the Jena edition (1564), vol. I, lol. 360; in the Altenburger, vol. I, p. 556; in the Leipziger, vol. XVII, p. 60S; in the Erlanger, vol. 27, p. 200.
and a prohibitut sacrus scripturus; 1) you will remain so.
But methinks I see thy just cause to write, and regard not that thou doest it out of presumptuous art and understanding, which thy conscience denies thee without doubt, and which I will show thee in all honesty, when thou hast now cast out, and the time shall be for me to scrape the goat's horns; But from the beginning of my name, through no fault of my own, you have received such hatred toward me that I have often wondered how a man could bear and live with such hatred; although it appears to your body not a little that you are also almost a land-ruining proverb because of this hatred, and an example to all haters.
This same evil will forced you to write the first book against me in Bohemia, in which you condemn me as you know; to which I answered you and truly unknowingly met your grief and grind; for at that time I was not aware of your Bohemian nature; God knows that. Then you became angry at first and wrote the other book, 2) because of which all scholars have become hostile to you, as you know, you poured out so many public lies and whole loads of abusive words, 3) that I had mercy on you and did not want to answer.
Since that time, your unspeakable hatred cannot be satisfied, cannot stand still, cannot stop taking revenge; you have written the third book against me of Thomas Rhadinus, in addition to many evil letters; 4) and that your poisonous heart
1) This is a play on words that Luther allows himself with Emser's title of office: one who is allowed to teach the holy canons (lüeSutmtus), but one who is forbidden to teach the holy scriptures (kro1iiditatu8).
gabe (1564), vol. I, fol. 360 d, the marginal gloss here is: "Diese Antwort D. M. L. ist nicht fürhanden" ("This answer of D. M. L. is not available"), which the Altenburg and Leipzig editions have reprinted. But it is obvious that Luther is not talking about his answer here, but about Emser's answer. Luther did not answer the same.
3) In the original: you pour out.
- ack Mustriss. 6t inviotiss. prinoipss 6t populos derumniae in Llartinuua I^ntsrum - natiouis xloriaua vlolantsra oratio. L-oraas. ÄlaLoeUius. ua. !
I am afraid that your hatred, and nothing else, will kill you before you see that you do not create and are despised by me. How could anyone believe, you wretched man, that with such inhuman, unruly hatred you could understand the pure, good Scriptures, which you neither read nor studied? Help God from heaven, how deeply you are blinded. Won't you even think that God is your Lord and Judge, and change your bitter, hateful heart?
Now, because I have hitherto remained silent to your lies and vituperations, you let yourself think that you have won, and that I could not answer you. Perhaps you are also encouraged by the fact that the bull is your hope that I should never write, and that you alone could shield and overcome on the plan with the larvae without conflict and without danger; and yet you boast that you want to suffer as a priest of God, my Holhippellen, 5) which is the reason why I am not able to answer you.
Augusti. 1520. quarto; reprinted in the same year in November at Cologne and in October at Leipzig. Luther also expressed this assumption several times in letters. Emser, however, denied that he was the author. Later it was learned that there really had been a Dominican Rhadinus in Rome, who came from a count's family. Cf. ^adrieii Oentikollum I^uttier. p. 697, and Waldau, "Nachricht von Hieronymus Emsers Leben", p. 42 f. The proof that there had been a Rhadinus in Rom, however, does not yet exonerate "Emser" from the suspicion. Luther held on to it very tenaciously. For the first time he voiced it on October 20, 1520 in a letter to Michael Marx (De Wette, I, 517): "That the Italian booklet of Thomas Rhadinus is by Emser, that proves both the spelling and the slobber." And still on February 27, 1521, he writes to Spalatin: "You cannot yet talk me out of the fact that Rhadinus is Emser, dear Spalatin, we also have our reasons." The only evidence we know for the statement made by Walch in his introduction to the 18th volume, p. 90, that Luther later doubted it, is the fact that Luther, in the enumeration of his opponents, separates Rhadinus from Emser in about October 1521, assuming that the two paper abusers at Leipzig are to be Alveld (or Murner) and Emser. Cf. De Wette, II, 85.
5) holhippellen - common scolding of a scoundrel. This meaning is derived from the passage in Emser's writing to which Luther refers here: "Regardless of whether the opposite party will be angry about it and again judge me like the holhuppen, because I can well bear frivolous people's scolding for God's sake. We also encounter the expression "holhypler" (Wittenb. Ausg., Vol. 7, col. 185) in No. 40 in this volume, in the first paragraph of the "Folgerede Martin Luthers" zu dem Urtheil der Theologen zu Paris, Col. 955.
I have suffered and kept silent from you three times now, and you do not see that in all your books there is one abusive word after another, so that everyone says there is no more blasphemous writing than yours. And you also want to be famous for it. Since with you, too, such raging, senseless raving is called patience and suffering, and you can reverse all things and give them new names, it is no wonder that you also make of the holy Scriptures what you will. But behold, I will not be silent from now on, nor will I allow you to defile the holy scriptures with your goat's trunk, as you have begun; perhaps one day you will be paid what you have long borrowed.
There is only one thing I wish you would stop lying and write the truth. For it is not strange to me whether you know nothing in the Scriptures; but that you like to lie so much is unpleasant for you, God's priest, and makes me reluctant to answer you. I will allow you to blaspheme and rebuke, but I know that your kind and hatred are not lascivious.
This first sixth 1) you shall not hear, my goat, as if I had not been able to expect the end of your booklet; but because you write that I have put myself to flight before you, and thus you drive here exceedingly confidently, as if I would do nothing to it, but let you triumph, that you know it shall be otherwise, if God wills. For if you had taken care of my answer, you would undoubtedly not have presented such a shabby rag. Therefore, because your certainty makes you too careless and industrious, that you do not see for yourself what you are slurring and spouting, and because I have the intention not only to answer you, of which you are not worthy, but also to take cause to give Christian instruction from the spirit and the letter, since you do not understand a jot of it; I will admonish and awaken you, so that you wake up and do not take the sword by the edge, as you are doing now with great certainty, but by the
1) Sheet of six leaves.
Take the booklet with both hands fastest, and take your fellow spirits to you, to write something at the end of the booklet, which is serious and worthy to answer for, and your best comes out, that it is not necessary to write many useless books and endure the people. You are still far from where you want to go, dear Bock.
If you should tell me that what the Scriptures teach hangs on goose feathers, and what you spin out of the teachers who have erred many times and out of your horny head should hang on chains; this I will also represent, if God wills, and answer your blasphemous mouth, which so lightly reviles and desecrates God's word. Be fresh, take small and great swords. You have three books and several letters to answer for, especially several unchristian lies, which should make you tired of your thrusting, or you must lie even more. I also want to take a vacation and let my mind run free to you. Therefore, dear Bock, do not think that you are alone on the plan.
I know well that it is not good to deal with an insolent blasphemer and liar according to the proverb:
Hoc scio pro certo, quod si cum stercore certo, Vinco vel vincor, semper ego maculor. 2)
For the sake of truth, I still have to wait for your intemperate, unending vituperation and blasphemy. If you could write something else, you might write it. Therefore I must bear patience and let it slag and snow what your restless hatred will teach you. I have also rumbled many times; but besides that, I have written several good things without rumbles; but you can do nothing but scold and blaspheme. But let's go here, dear goat, it doesn't help to look for good with you.
Fiat voluntas Domini, 3) Amen.
3) I.e.: "This I know for certain, that when I fight with evil, whether I am victorious or defeated, I am always defiled."
3) I.e., "Let the will of the Lord be done."