April 1524.
Translated from Latin.
Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ!
I have been silent long enough, my dear Erasmus, and although I expected that you, as the older and earlier one, would break the silence, I nevertheless believe, because I have waited so long in vain, that love demands of me to make a start. First of all, I do not want to talk about the fact that you have behaved too strangely toward us, so that your relationship with the papists, my enemies, would not be affected and would stand all the better. Furthermore, I have not been much hurt by the fact that in some books that you have published, in some places, in order to gain their favor or to appease their anger, you have bitten and pulled us through quite sharply. For since we see that you have not yet been given bravery by the Lord, or rather such a disposition that you might freely and confidently confront those monsters of ours with us, we are not such people as should presume to demand of you what is beyond your strength and measure. Yes, even your weakness and the measure of the gifts that God has given you, we have borne in you and would have honored the same in you. For indeed the whole world cannot deny that the sciences flourish and reign, by which one comes to read the Bible unadulterated.
This is also a glorious and excellent gift that God has given you, for which we have to give thanks. Therefore, I have never wished that you should pass over to our camp by setting aside or neglecting your gift. Although you could have been of much use to this cause by your keen mind and eloquence, it was safer because you lacked the heart to serve with your gift. The only thing we feared from you was that you might be induced by your opponents to lead us by publishing books about our teachings, and that then necessity would force us to resist you in the face. We have indeed held back some who wanted to draw you into the battlefield with books that were already ready, and that is also the reason why I would have wished that Hutten's "challenge" (expostulationem) had not appeared either, much less your "refusal" (spongiam), in which, if I am not mistaken, you yourself already realize how easy it is to write about modesty and to rebuke Luther's immodesty, but how extremely difficult, indeed impossible, it is to accomplish this, except by special gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, believe it or not, Christ is my witness that I bear a heartfelt pity for you that so many and so great people hate, or rather are zealous about, Luther.
*) This letter is found in Latin in Aurifaber's collection of letters, Dora. II, toi. 194; in the Leyden edition of the works of Erasmus, vol. II, 2. x. 846; in De Wette, vol. II, p. 498. According to the latter we have translated.
against you, by which I think you must be put into turmoil (because your human strength is not up to such a great burden). Although they, too, may be driven by a righteous zeal and think that you have challenged them in an unworthy way. And (that I say it freely) since they are such people who cannot tolerate your bitterness and dissimulation (which you want to have regarded as prudence and modesty) even after their weakness, they certainly have something about which they are justly indignant; if they were stronger in spirit, they would consider it nothing. However, even though I, who am irritable, have often been provoked to write more bitingly, I have done so only against the stubborn and obstinate. By the way, I believe that my kindness and gentleness towards sinners and the wicked, however senseless and unjust they may have been, is not only witnessed by my own conscience, but is also sufficiently attested by the experience of many people. So far I have kept my pen in check, no matter how much you have poked at me, and I have also kept my pen in check in. I have also written to friends in letters that you yourself have read, saying that I wanted to hold back until you came forward publicly against me. For although you do not keep it with us and either reject most of the main points of godliness in an ungodly manner or in a glib manner, or do not want to judge them, I cannot and will not ascribe stubbornness to you. But what shall I do now? The matter is very bitter on both sides. I wish (if I could be a mediator) that they would also stop attacking you with such heat and let you sleep as an old man with peace in the Lord. This they would certainly do, in my opinion, if they took into account your weakness and considered the importance of the matter, which already exceeds your strength, especially since it has already come to such a point that for us there is no need for a new life.
There is no danger to be feared, even if Erasmus fights against us with all his might, not to mention if he only occasionally throws in jibes and shows his teeth. Again, if you too, dear Erasmus, would consider their weakness, you would also refrain from the biting and bitter flowery words of your oratory; although you could neither confess nor dare to assert what is ours, you should nevertheless leave it untouched and wait for yours. For that they bear your biting all too unwillingly, they have (also according to your own judgment) some cause, namely, human weakness considers and fears the reputation and name of Erasmus very badly, and that it is much more to be bitten once by Erasmus than to be attacked by all papists at once. Let this be said by me, beloved Erasmus, as a testimony of my sincere feeling towards you, since I sincerely wish that the Lord would grant you a spirit worthy of your name, and if he forgives, then in the meantime I ask you (if you can do nothing else) to be only a spectator of our tragedy, only that you do not speak to our adversaries and make common cause with them; Above all, that you do not publish any writings against me, just as I do not want to publish anything against you. But of those who complain that they are being targeted under the Lutheran name, you should think that they are people like you and me, whose lives must be spared and credited to them, and, as Paul says, "one must bear another's burden. Enough is bitten, we must now see to it that we do not consume one another. That would be too miserable a spectacle, since it is quite certain that neither part is heartily hostile to godliness, and [that both] would like to please everyone without stubbornness on their part. Give me credit for my childish simplicity and be at ease in the Lord. 1524.