February 20, 1523.
Translated from Latin.
To the most illustrious and excellent princes, seemingly lords, and to my dearest grandparents, pure and complete bliss, and constant increase of blissful welfare.
If something should happen in which it would be good that I should be reminded and warned, I have, however, a certain hope that, according to the experienced piety of your mind, I would never lack your good warning.
(2) And after I have gauged your disposition toward me from my good opinion of you, and have imagined it to be undoubted, therefore I would consider myself a very ungrateful man if I failed to remind and warn you again in the matter that concerns not only your honor but also your goods. For what can affect you, so mighty, Christian and God-fearing princes, either more closely or more deeply than the diligence to curb the Lutheran sect? which is so evil that the devil has never brought a more harmful one on earth, or which will soon bring greater ruin if all the pious and God-fearing do not oppose it?
and before the princes who are most capable and obliged to do so.
(3) Not because I consider Luther to be one who could deceive pious and wise men, or that I should not know that his writings are so ungodly that all pious ears are horrified by them, but that I know that there will never be a lack of the impure bunch of the wicked, who have every unskillful one as their most skillful teacher. And as something grows in the most unskilful and unruly way, so they take it by great chance and spread it with the highest diligence and ability.
4 For as far as Luther is concerned, it was thought that Luther wrote neither too well for the unlearned nor too well for the wicked, just as many things were not almost well, thus some things were not quite bad; but he has accidentally increased things so much in anger that many have soon seen that everything he has ever written, either pleasant or unpleasant, has been done solely in the opinion that he has found a way and a way out with the presentation and indication of better things.
S) This letter was published by Hieronymus Emser under the title: Kertznissirm so potsnti8sirni rtzKis XnAÜao, obriMunus üäoi dstsu8ori8 invwtissimi, uä i1Iii8tri88imo8 uo o1uri88irno8 Kuxouius priueip68 äs oosrosuäa LviASucluHNL I,iitÜ6ruu tuotious 6t I-utüsro ip8O opistolu: itom, illnstrissirai priuoipm ciu6i8 Osor^ii ad sondern r[Mrn reseriptio, 1823, with an attribution to the Bishop of Meissen, Johann von Schleinitz. From the original, Cyprian had it reprinted in olurornrn virorum spistoli" sx vivliotü. Ootüun. untoArapüis 9, Darauf" the letter is translated into German and included in the "Gesammtausgabe": Wittenberger, vol. IX, toi. 170; Jenaer (1888), vol. II, toi. 189; Altenburger, vol. II, p. 282 and Leipziger, vol. XVIII, p. 210. We have followed the Jena edition.
He made room for anger and evil things, and that by pre-painting the honey he made the poison all the more worth buying.
(5) Which he, with constant success of always harmful doctrine, has made so completely evident that I consider it that there is no one in any place who has a little spark, either of the brain in the head, or of godliness in the heart, who has not completely thrown him out of his mind with his nonsense.
For first he began to argue, then to rage, then to be inflamed, finally to rage and finally, in the booklet in which he rages against me, to overcome the nonsense itself with raving and raging. And if he had written in the same book in some place nothing 1) that one would respect to serve the cause; if he had mixed some reason with nonsense; if nothing clever had escaped and escaped from him, as it then also tends to escape from the nonsensical: 2) although I do not consider it almost polite and decent that I should hold myself thus, that I should publicly step against such a man and dispute.
7 But because the king and prophet David did not consider it impolite that he danced naked before the ark of the covenant with everyone, 2 Sam. 6:14: after that I would not have thought anyone too low and unworthy to deal with him for the sake of the divine service, for the truth of the faith.
(8) Because he does not answer the matter, but instead of the causes he brings up a vain tale, I will not remind the others to meet and argue with him, nor will I keep them from doing so. Truly, I will not go there, that I should rage with the nonsensical. For every equal, 3) unsuspicious and reasonable reader, who will read my booklet next to his, will easily judge that Luther's tandreden are already more than sufficiently justified.
9 And if someone would be favorable to Luther with such inequity that he could not look at my words, or is so dumb and without all senses that when he holds the oerter against each other, he does not feel that there is no need for an answer, I will not satisfy him with an answer. For how could I answer to please those who do not want to either read or understand anything, but the mischievous words of Luther, who, because he handles the matter in this way, has
1) i. e. something.
2) According to "right constructive" should be continued like this: so I don't think it is very polite, and so on.
3) d. i. cheaper.
very much. For I was certain at the beginning that the cause I had presumed to defend was insurmountable by nature, and thus that even the gates of hell would not be able to overcome it.
(10) But because I knew my weakness, I doubted my weapons. But the enemy has now made it known throughout the world that either he is quite weak, or else my causes have been very strong, as against which he has been able to find and raise nothing but rude, naughty subtlety and quite nonsensical insults. And if he thinks that I am moved by this, he is far wrong. For however much he calls me nonsensical, now he calls me nonsensical more often than I mean, for a thousand times nonsensical, yet I never want to become so nonsensical that I should be annoyed that I am called nonsensical by a nonsensical man.
(11) Therefore, either my opinion deceives me, or his scornful and shameful impurity, against me and my royal name and honor, moves you, most eminent men, a little more than me. For it is the custom of the noble minds of the nobles to unite and befriend each other, so that even in the enemy, if they hate and persecute the man, they still honor the rank and hold the office in dignity.
12. There is hardly a noble person so rude, wild and unkind, who may be moved by some enmity, to sweat a noble person with the impudence of the tongue in a mischievous way: so do not doubt me that someone of nobility and the noble kind of virtue, which is each of you, of my respect and discretion, should be pleased that a prince's and friend's honor and reputation should be reviled by the most insolent boys. Which my respect and confidence to you also confirms this my good opinion, so I feel in myself.
For although all that Luther has said against me has not moved me in the least, nevertheless I have been very annoyed by the blasphemies with which he has reviled the emperor and other German princes with his most venomous tongue, all of which he has blasphemed in the first leaf of the same booklet, which he has spat out against my honor and name, with the most vituperative slur. For he speaks there thus: I went to Worms, even though I knew that the emperor had broken my escort; for the princes of the German nation, who at that time were 4) praised and praised for their honor and their name, were not in a position to do so.
4) d. i. once.
that no nation has kept faith better than the Germans, have learned, now for the service and favor of the Roman idol, nothing more than to despise faith and loyalty, to the eternal disgrace of their nation.
(14) How the insolent mouth and fountain of lies lies so falsely and maliciously against the emperor and the German princes, indicates that if he did not lie, he would not be alive today who could tell these lies. 1) For who doubts how easily he could have brought off his deserved punishment, if the emperor and the princes had been willing to do so? But which, I will not say emperor or some prince and lord, but also some Christian well-born man, could have put this into his mind and take it, that he would break the escort and that he should kill Luther, although an open and common enemy of the faith, by breaking the faith, out of hatred of the guilty, as one says, to destroy innocence.
15. Because not the emperor, who most diligently keeps his promise, not the lords and princes, to whom nothing is dearer than honor, not a Christian man of honorable birth, as the one who puts faith in all things, would ever have thought of this and would have intended it; Where does any right and true German live who could suffer that a knave, a monk, should reproach and interpret so impudently, in the most lying way, not a German like himself, but all German princes, yes, even the prince and supreme of all German princes, the emperor, with such an eternal dishonor and disgrace of the German nation.
16 I am very surprised if the Germans suffer all this from him. Truly, the more we are moved that on and against such and such great princes a monk should use so much force, the less we are moved by his lies, which he smelled partly in Latin, which I read, and partly in German, of which I hear, this nonsensical man against me. 2) For if he has mixed something among the same blasphemous words, about the truth of which anyone who has no knowledge of these things might have doubted, it will now occur to the readers that one should not believe his blasphemy, whose eternal habit he sees to be to lie everywhere about all princes, yes, even about the emperor.
1) Meaning: If Luther had not lied about the fact that his escort had been broken by the emperor, he would no longer be alive and would not be able to insist on this.
2) i.e., expels.
For this is not new to Luther, to think up and invent all these things, so that he might maliciously arouse and incite the common people to dislike the prince; which things he has long before gathered a bunch of malicious people to promote and made dependent on him.
Therefore, there has never been a more seditious, poisonous, evil sect, which has thus abolished all worship, subdued all laws, disturbed all good customs, and reversed all communions, than this Lutheran sect, which defiles all holy things and contaminates all worldly things, which preaches Christ in such a way that it tramples His sacraments, which praises God's grace in such a way that it destroys the freedom of the will. It preaches Christ in such a way that it tramples on His sacraments, praises God's grace in such a way that it destroys the freedom of the will, exalts faith in such a way that it reduces good works and introduces the freedom to sin, exalts mercy in such a way that it suppresses justice and attributes the inevitable cause of all evils not to a devil, as the Manichaeans imagined, but to the one truly good.
19. And because he acts with the divine things in such a way, he pours out, like a snake thrown from heaven onto the earth, the poison, arouses indignation in the Christian church, abolishes all laws, weakens all authorities, incites the laity against the clergy and both of them against the pope, the peoples against the princes, and has no other intention than, since God is in favor, that the Germans first of all, on account of freedom, fight the lords, then that the Christians fight against the Christians, in the presence and with laughter of the enemies of Christ, on account of the faith and service of Christ.
20 And if anyone would not believe that such a great danger could always arise from a petty man, just think of the Turks' nonsense, which is now spreading on land and water, having taken over the greatest and most beautiful part of the whole world, and which in the past began with two boys.
21 However, let us not mention the Bohemian sect, which has also grown up in a hurry from a small worm into a sore-grave and great dragon, not without great damage to German lands. The evil fruit grows so easily if no one cuts it off. No one has ever lacked a companion to do harm, nor is anyone so weak that he could not inflict a murderous wound on one who does not respect and perceive his own, but is entitled to it as a game. And that this should not happen in this matter, all princes should take all possible care.
22 Now they will have all kinds of diligence.
if they do not consider these things to be insignificant, and do not regard it merely as a matter for the school, but, because it concerns God and man, esteem it worthy and worthy that the princes do so. Which, as it is due to all men, is most of all due to your office, dearest overseers, as you are the closest to this danger and, as it is said, can most easily dampen it, if the growing evil is met in haste, before the wicked through malice and the simple through error grow in number and strength, so that they cannot easily be kept. And do not doubt, you will be for it according to your wisdom and reverence for the holy Christian faith. For since no heresy can grow up that will not be very contrary to you Christian princes, it cannot be otherwise, you must be wonderfully repugnant to the Lutheran.
(23) For although the useless talkative man writes in more than one place that he was chosen by God to spread and preach this doctrine, which he alone calls evangelical, in the world, as he has begun, your wisdom easily notes that Luther does not impose anything, why it should be considered that he understood the evangelical words better than the old holy teachers of the Christian church, all of whose interpretation he rejects and despises. So you know well that many things, exposed by the apostles, have been kept without interruption until now, which the blasphemer mocks everything.
24. Moreover, notice how far the arrogant, lying and blasphemous spirit of man is from the Holy Spirit of God, who instills in his elect truth, meekness, humility, and with his own contempt, love and reverence for all men.
(25) Finally, you see that his doctrine, under the appearance and name of evangelical preaching, is nothing but vain Viklefian doctrine, which you, my dearest hosts, are wholeheartedly opposed to, as which the German princes, and before that, as I hear, your forefathers worked to exterminate. But because they were too slow to do so, they did not even like to expel it: so they brought the matter so far that they decided, blocked and pushed it, like a pernicious wild beast, into some regions 1) in Bohemia, like into a hole and pit.
026 And because it is so, I cannot doubt that ye shall be diligent to do it, lest
1) In the old editions: Gegenheit.
The wild beast, which your forefathers have blocked, would like to get rid of it through your carelessness, so that it creeps through Saxony and conquers the whole of Germany, also sprays out the infernal fire through its harmful blowing and scatters the fire, which the Germans so often want to extinguish with their blood.
27 In this matter, although I do not doubt that you are so willing and inclined in your piety that you need neither admonisher nor admonisher, nevertheless, out of goodwill toward you, I cannot refrain from adding my admonition and admonition to the goodwill of your will.
Because I do not respect any prince so strangely, to whom I am not obliged by this good opinion and fee to save his honor and the good reputation of my fortune, I am compelled, O most worthy men, to show you this with such greater diligence, the innate relationship of blood, which we have among each other, because I realize that your most noble ancestors were born from the most phenomenal tribe of the kings of England, my ancestors. What community of the tribe and society of the blood makes my mind so inclined to you, that nothing neither useful nor harmful may happen to you, that I do not think of it as happening to myself.
(29) And the more and more I am sure of this, the more and more I am urged to exhort and remind you, even to implore you, by all holy things, as much as it is always possible for you, to be temporal about it, that the accursed Lutheran sect be subdued, without murdering anyone, if it is possible, or even with bloodshed, if it would prevent with kindness the stiff-necked obstinacy that it should be subdued in all ways.
(30) Neither will you impose in any way that the laws, authorities, princes, communions, and all things divine and human, may in time become so contemptible, so represented, and so maligned, that the wicked may prevail, the pious may be silenced, and things may at last come to such a pass that some will have God as a revenger and judge of their perverse wickedness, and some of their untimely and disordered patience.
(31) Therefore, if your wisdom will meet this peril, you will obtain a special fame among men and an eternal prize with God, because you have brought your homeland back into good peace, you have broken the schism, and you have brought your country back to peace.
2) In the old editions: Leumbden.
and rejected division, reestablished unity, built and purified the divine service.
Farewell, O most glorious men.
As I was about to seal this letter, I remembered that in his speeches against me he apologizes for not answering the other articles as well, because he is prevented from interpreting the biblia. For this reason, I have considered it good that I remind you that you should be above all things concerned that he not be permitted to do so. For just as I do not deny that it is good for the Scriptures to be read in all languages, so it is truly dangerous to be read in Luther's translation, because bad faith makes all men delude themselves that he is able to transpose good Scripture with a wrong interpretation, so that the common people 1) may think that they are reading what is written in the Holy Bible.
1) In the Wittenberg: does not want etc. w.
Scripture, which this cursed man drew from the cursed heretics. Be well again, most noble men, and most beloved to my mind.
The date in the written letter thus reads: Given in our royal court camp at Grenwick [Greenwich], on the twentieth day of Februarii Anno Domini 1523.
2) Your sincere grandfather and friend, Henry, King.
The Most Serene Lords, Frederick, by the Grace of God, Duke of Saxony, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of Meissen; as well as Johannsen and Georgen, by the same Grace, Dukes of Saxony, Landgraves of Thuringia and Margraves of Meissen. To our very dear grandparents and friends.
2) The following signature and the inscription of the letter are not found in the Jena, nor in the Wittenberg edition, but are taken by us from the old edition of Walch.