July 16, 1517.
He recommends Ulrich Norlingen and reports that he is preparing a number of candidates for the Master's degree, to Aristotle's disgrace and to make him many enemies.
To Johann Lang, his brother dear in Christ, hermit prior at Erfurt.
JEsus.
Hail. I beg you, best father, to let this man, Ulrich Norlingen, 1) be diligently commanded to your loyalty and love. For he writes a common handwriting, has a brilliant lecture; possesses an unusual intellect, and at the same time has the adornment of an informal, amiable demeanor. He has sought services with our prince; but you are well aware of the desperate barrenness and the almost more than bourgeois nature at the court of our duke. Everything is occupied. Moreover, he has secret temptations in his soul, such as no one in your convent knows except you, as I believe. If he will discover them to you of his own free will, then you may speak comfort to him, as the Lord will give it to you.
2 I say this so that you may more easily have compassion on the man who, through the weather of temptations, has even fallen into beggary. He came to us
1) Häulrieus AortinAM is Ulrich Pinder from Nuremberg. His father, of the same name, came from Nördlingen.
and brought with him good testimonies from honest men, namely letters and letters of support. And what can I say, his respectable behavior and honest mind will soon move you to do what I ask: I mean that you should ask Provost Henning for him, whether he can obtain some kind of work from the prelate that suits his skills, until he regains his strength a little, because he is completely impoverished. If you would also accommodate him in the monastery for a while, I believe you would be accommodating Christ. Farewell.
I have been waiting for the venerable Father Vicarius for three weeks now and have never hoped more surely that he would arrive from Herzberg than today. Commend me to the fathers and brothers, so that they may pray for me, the poor, because among the beloved brothers, who are increasing wonderfully from day to day, I am now growing weak, so that it may be fulfilled: they must increase, but I must decrease. I am preparing six or seven candidates (magi- strandos) for the forthcoming examination, among whom Hadrianus will be one, if the Lord wills, to the shame of Aristotle, whom I would like to make enemies of as many as possible quite soon. Farewell and greet both the fathers and the masters. From our monastery, July 16, 1517.
Brother Martin Luther, Augustinian.
*This letter is found in Latin in Aurifaber, vol. 1,1c "I. 35 d, in Löscher's Reformation Acta, vol. I p. 835; in De Wette, vol. I, p. 58 and in Erlanger Briefwechsel, vol. I, p. 101, which takes it from the manuscript of the 6oä. Ootüau. 399, toi. 124. After that we have translated.