May 25, 1541.
To the Serene, Highborn Prince and Lord, Lord Georgen, Prince of Anhalt, Provost of Magdeburg, Count of Ascanien, Lord of Bernburg, my gracious Lord.
G[nade] and F[riede]. Sublime, highborn prince, gracious lord! It is too much that E. F. G. gave me the silver jug, because such splendor does not look good on me as a poor beggar, but because it pleases E. F. G. so much, I thank E. F. G. most graciously for his will towards me.
Also, E. F. G. servant Jakob has indicated to me the article half, so acted at Regensburg, de transsubstantiatione, my opinion E. F. G. to indicate.
I am well aware that the devil's game goes where we concede a piece to the pope that he wants to have everything after that. Now the transubstantiation is his, as it is written in his decree, but up to now, because the Wiklef first poked at it, I have paid no attention to it, whether it is or not. But if they wanted to insist on making an article of faith out of it, it is in no way to suffer, because what does not stand in the Scripture clearly, to this also not need to hold, but
are nothing but philosophiae ratio and human conceit, which one must not leave as necessary and put equal to Scripture for articles; for that is called God tempted.
Eadem dicenda sunt de circumlatione et re- servatione in cibario. Nam adoratio in sumendo per sese accidit, dum genibus flexis verum corpus et verus sanguis sumitur, etiam sine disputatione. [The same must be said of carrying around and keeping in the ciborium. For adoration happens by itself in the taking, in that the true body and the true blood are taken with bended knees, even without disputation]. But, as I said, with the article they hope to denigrate us, or to force us under the pope. Deus autem, qui coepit opus suum, perficiet et confundet consilia [that is, GOD but who has begun his work, he will also accomplish it, and put to shame the counsels].
Hiemit dem lieben GOtte befohlen, Amen. The Urbani, 1541.
E. F. G.
Mart. Luther.
*This letter is merged with the one we bring in No. 155 of this volume into one letter and included in the old editions under the title: "Schrift D. M. L. an eine Person hohes Standes" and has gone from there in this form through all editions. Thus it is found in the Wittenberger, vol. XII, p. 309; in the Jenaer (1568), vol. VII, p. 441 b; in the Altenburger, vol. VII, p. 482; in the Leipziger, vol. XXI, p. 405; in the Erlanger, vol. 55, p. 310 and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 361. Then our letter alone is printed in Joh. Christ. Beckmann's Anhaltische Historie, vol. VI, p. 89; from it in the Leipzig Supplement, p. 94; in Walch, vol. XIX, 1592; in the Erlanger Ausgabe, vol. 55, p. 311 and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 362. Recently, Lindner, in his "Mittheilungen", p. 64, reprinted the letter, which was very inaccurately reproduced in the prints just given, from which the Erlanger Ausgabe, vol. 56, p. 228 reproduced it. Seidemann in De Wette, Vol. VI, p. 458 has also given the corrections from the original. We communicate the letter according to the Erlangen edition. Our edition is the first to remove the above-mentioned combination of this letter with the letter of June 26, 1542 from the collection of Luther's writings, although this could have already been done by the Leipzig edition, after letter No. 155 was found in this volume.
1308 Trl. L8, 3ss f. 153. Of Worshiping the Sacred Body of Christ. Christ. W. xix, 1593-1595. 1309
d. About the elevation and worship of the sacrament.